The shepherd is mine.
“Bess?” Thomas looked down in alarm at his hand, where my thorny nail had raised a bead of blood.
My cheeks grew warm, and the thorn retreated into an ordinary fingernail again.
For Thomas to leavemewas unheard of. Impossible. Worse. Unforgivable. I had claimed the shepherd king as my own.
Thomas owed me his life.
“I can help.” The words that pushed out of me were those of Mairi Grieve’s apprentice and heir.
Both Thomas and the baron’s man stared at me, blinking.
My cheeks grew warm, and I felt somehow naked, exposed. “My apologies if I am untoward,” I said, cringing at these backward Christian notions of propriety, “but I am a cunning woman. I could prepare a brew to help the baroness and the boy.”
Better that than let the shepherd out of my grasp.
“A cunning woman?” The herald tossed his head back and laughed. “Think you not the baron has summoned the most learned doctors in Selkirkshire?” A stony glance from Thomas silenced him. “Your pardon. I did not realize she was serious.” He ran his finger around the edge of his collar.
Thomas placed his hands on both my shoulders, pulling me gently aside. “Ido not even wish to return to the manor house. I would not subject you to that place as well.”
I smiled sweetly. “But I can do good there.”
Thomas shook his head. “For all I know, this is some whim of the baroness’s only. She does make much of every little sniffle and cough.” He threw a glance at Ivor, who remained stony-faced.
“Then it is better I come. For mayhap I can shorten the duration of her illness, and we will both be back here ere long.” In the small, cozy shepherd’s cottage, with Cullen barking at our heels.
“I do not wish to be parted from you, lass. You are my wood nymph, my heart, and my life.” Thomas tucked back my hair. “But the baron asked for me only, and should he take offense—”
“Do you not take offense?” I hissed, wearying of mortal protocol. “The baron dallied with your mother and left you to fend for yourself. Is what we have more shameful?” Such spirit rose within me, I dreaded what might come out if he said yes.
Thomas stroked my cheek, staring deeply into my eyes. “There is nothing shameful in what I feel for you. I would stand on the highest mountaintop and shout it out for all to hear.”
I would have commanded him to do so, had the moment presented itself. These were a lover’s words, the speech of a man devoted to me. Yet it was not enough.
I owe you my life,Thomas had said, and might have soldered us both into a cage of iron. I would not, could not accept anything less.
“Let me be sure of you, then.” I did not plead, I cajoled, reeling him in like a fisherman does a salmon, like the seductive wood nymph I had been named. My words snaked out to wrap around him, trapping him like a squirrel among the thorny briars. “Be brave enough to claim me. In front of your family, your blood.” For my feelings for him were drowning out Faery’s call, and it did not come without a price.
Thomas’s face stilled, his expression flat. I could not have said whether his will was yet his own. He took my hand in his, and we stood before the henchman of his father, Baron de Lyne. “I shall go to the manor house, and Bess shall come along.”
Ivor squirmed. “This is hardly regular—”
I had no time for his protests, but drew my gaze to him, snaking out tendrils of my power to bend his will. “You shall allow me to come.”
Ivor’s face softened; his eyes passed over me approvingly, as though he saw some great temptress and not a stumpy peasant girl. “Of course, she is welcome. I shall let the baron know to expect you both.”
Nineteen
And so, on Lammas Day,the shepherd and I did set out for his father’s home. The Veil between the worlds lay open; on the one side, all the splendors of Faery. On the other side, the human realm.
And me.
This time was different. I was not the girl who just lost the only mother she knew. Not the daughter expelled from her home with no way to provide for herself. I was a woman grown with useful skills. Valued. Respected. Dare I say it?
Loved.
Faery called, stronger than the Dark Fool’s piping, than the shore does a drowning man, but I was not yet done with the mortal realm.
