Part 4 (2/2)
”Your strength and your courage add layers to beauty. They appeal to me. Your mind's sharp and cleaves clean. That's a challenge. And a woman who can plant potatoes like a farmwife and draw a dagger like an a.s.sa.s.sin is a fascinating creature.”
”I thought when a man wanted to pleasure himself with a woman, he softened her with pretty words and poetry and long looks full of pain and longing.” What a woman, Kylar mused. He'd never seen the like of her. ”Would you like that?”
She considered it, and was relaxed again. It was easier to discuss the whole business as a practical matter. ”I don't know.”
”You wouldn't trust them.”
She smiled before she could stop it. ”I wouldn't, no. Have you bedded many women?”
He cleared his throat and began to walk a bit faster. ”That, sweetheart, isn't a question I'm comfortable answering.”
”Why not?”
”Because it's... it's a delicate matter,” he decided.
”Would you be more comfortable telling me if you've killed many men?”
”I don't kill for sport, or for pleasure,” he said, and his voice turned as frigid as the air. ”Taking a man's life is no triumph, my lady. Battle is an ugly business.”
”I wondered. I meant no offense.”
”I would have let them go.” He spoke so softly that she had to lean forward to hear clearly.
”Who?”
”The three who set upon me after the battle had been won. When I was for home. I would have let them pa.s.s in peace. What purpose was there in more blood?”
She'd already seen this inside him, and knew it for truth. He had not killed in hate nor in some fever of dark excitement. He had killed to live.
”They wouldn't let you pa.s.s in peace.”
”They were tired, and one already wounded. If I'd had an escort as I should, they would have surrendered. In the end, it was their own fear and my carelessness that killed them. I'm sorry for it.”
More for the waste of their lives, she realized, than for his own wounds.
Understanding this, she felt something sigh inside her. ”Kylar.”
It was the first time she'd spoken his name, as she might to a friend. And she leaned down to touch his cheek with her fingertips, as she might touch a lover's.
”You'll rule well.” She invited him to sup with her that night. Another first. He dressed in the fresh doublet Cordelia brought him, one of soft linen that smelled lightly of lavender and rosemary. He wondered from what chest it had been unearthed for his use, but as it fit well enough, he had no cause to complain.
But when he followed the servant into the dining hall, he wished for his court clothes.
She wore green again, but no simple dress of homespun. The velvet gown poured down her body, dipping low at the creamy rise of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and sweeping out from her waist in soft, deep folds. Her hair was long and loose, but over it sparkled a crown glinting with jewels. More draped in s.h.i.+mmering ropes around her throat.
She stood in the glow of candlelight, beautiful as a vision, and every inch a queen.
When she offered a hand, he crossed to her, bowed deeply before touching his lips to her knuckles. ”Your Majesty.”
”Your Highness. The room,” she said with a gesture she hoped hid the nerves and pleasure she felt upon seeing the open approval on his face, ”is overlarge for two. I hope you'll be comfortable.”
”I see nothing but you.”
She t.i.tled her head. Curious, this flirting, she decided. And entertaining.
”Are these the pretty words and poetry?”
”They're the truth.”
”They fall pleasantly on the ear. It's an indulgence to have a fire in here,”
she began as she let him escort her to the table. ”But tonight there is wine, and venison, and a welcome guest.”
At the head of the long table were two settings. Silver and crystal and linen white as the snow outside the windows. Behind them, the mammoth fire roared.
Servants slipped in to serve wine and the soup course. If he'd been able to tear his gaze away from Deirdre, he might have seen the glint in their eyes, the exchanged winks and quick grins.
She missed them as well, as she concentrated on the experience of her first formal meal with someone from outside her world. ”The fare is simple,” she began. ”As good as a bounty. And the company feeds me.”
She studied him thoughtfully. ”I do think I like pretty words, but I have no skill in holding a conversation with them.”
He took her hand. ”Why don't we practice?”
Her laugh bubbled out, but she shook her head. ”Tell me of your home, your family. Your sister,” she remembered. ”Is she lovely?”
”She is. Her name is Gwenyth. She married two years ago.”
”Is there love?”
”Yes. He was friend and neighbor, and they had a sweetness for each other since childhood. When I last saw her she was great with her second babe.” The faintest cloud pa.s.sed over his face. ”I'd hoped to make my way home for the birthing.”
”And your brother?”
”Riddock is young, headstrong. He can ride like the devil.”
”You're proud of him.”
”I am. He'd give you poetry.” Kylar lifted his goblet. ”He has a knack for it, and loves nothing more than luring pretty maids out to the garden in the moonlight.”
She asked questions casually so he would talk. She was unsure of her conversational skills in this arena, and it was such a pleasure to just sit and listen to him speak so easily of things that were, to her, a miracle.
Summer and gardens, swimming in a pond, riding through a village where people went to market. Carts of glossy red apples-what would they taste like? Baskets of flowers whose scent she could only dream of.
She had a picture of his home now, as she had pictures in books.
She had a picture of him, and it was more than anything she'd ever found in a book.
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