As soon as she had spoken she caught her breath, like a child who expects to be punished. But Ivo did not find her words insulting or painful—he admired courage, and it was clear his woman had plenty, no matter what had been done to her. Aye, she was brave, but someone, at some time, had hurt her. The flinch she gave betrayed her as he reached up to smooth back a long curl of her hair.
“Ah, demoiselle,” he said quietly, gazing deep into her eyes. “We both know that your prayers will keep me safe until I return to you.”
When he bent his head for another kiss, she tried to pull away from him, cursing him beneath her breath. But as soon as his mouth closed on hers, all fight was forgotten. She responded desperately, clinging and hot, her body pressed hard to his. All too soon, he had to set her away, his eyes sweeping one last time over her face and figure, planting her image firmly in his mind.
And then he was gone, his boots ringing out on the wooden floor. The door banged hollowly, the sound echoing down the hall to where Briar still stood in the entrance to the alcove, staring after him.
Alone.
“I did not mean it,” she whispered, her trembling fingers digging into her palms, her nails drawing blood. “I did not mean what I said. Jesu, do not let him die…do not let him die…”
Chapter 4
Several weeks later
York’s Sunday market was an organized muddle beneath a cloudswept sky. Vendors raucously called out their wares, children squealed, buyers bargained, and farmers’ animals lowed, squawked, and squealed. Stalls and tables, some sheltered by canvas, jostled for space with penned animals and pushing, gaping townsfolk. Two fellows, who had obviously overimbibed at the aleseller’s stall, were shouting insults at each other. An enterprising housewife was selling hot broth to keep out the cold, and the cabbagy smell of it mingled with that of bread baking and meat roasting, and the underlying earthy odor of livestock.
The market opened every Sunday, selling the necessaries of life to the townsfolk and those who had traveled in from the countryside. For a time after William’s harrowing of the north, the market had been a sorry place indeed, but gradually, like York itself, it was rebuilding.
When Briar and Mary first arrived in York, they were two of the many performers who came here every Sunday to sing and play, and hopefully be thrown enough coins to buy their supper.
Briar smiled now at the memory, and felt her spirits lift for the first time in weeks. She had been like a ghost, knowing she was worrying Mary and Jocelyn with her wane state, but refusing to discuss with them what ailed her. Her pride prevented her, as well as the knowledge that she was being foolish. And the niggling doubt that she may have imagined the whole thing.
He was in the north, fighting the Scots.
But at least he was alive!
Briar had overheard a conversation while performing in a York merchant’s home the night before.
“Radulf has put to flight the rebels who thought to make merry on his land,” one large and important-looking man announced, “and without the loss of even one of his own me
n!”
“The rebels were mainly Scots,” put in another, not willing to be thought less well informed.
“Then these Scots are either very brave or very foolish!”
Laughter erupted, but the merriment was soured by envy. Radulf was a great man, but not everyone liked a man who was greater than they.
Briar had not cared to dwell on the problems of being a great man. She was too elated by what she had heard. Ivo had told her he would return—she remembered his mouth on hers with an ache in her heart—but her experience with Filby had made her doubt him, and as time passed, she had doubted her memories of him more.
Besides, her hasty words as they parted had weighed heavily upon her. There were nights since, when she had woken from bloody, fearsome dreams, where Ivo de Vessey lay dead upon the ground, his wonderful eyes dulled, his smile gone, his voice silent. And then, her heart pounding, Briar would stare wide-eyed into the darkness, until dawn came to comfort her. How could he have gotten into her mind so quickly, and yet so completely?
You are mine.
Even while she fought against such an arrogant belief on his part, Briar wondered whether it was not, in some way, so. Perhaps the pleasure she had felt in the joining of their bodies, that hot, burning, bone-deep pleasure, had given him a special power over her? A power that no other man had ever had.
She wanted him back. It was an endless, aching yearning. And Briar knew she would do almost anything to see him again.
He had been right in that, too.
Her prayers since he left had been all for his safe return.
Briar and Mary wandered freely through the busy, noisy crowd, enjoying the fact that they had nothing to do and nowhere to go. Sometimes, thought Briar, ’twas a blessing to be poor. Because you didn’t matter, you became almost invisible, and being invisible certainly had its uses.
A nearby table was set out with leather goods, each carefully tooled. A villainous-looking woman fixed her eyes on them, and instinctively Briar moved closer to her sister and urged her on to a fruit vendor’s stall. Always a shy and timid girl, Mary had naturally leaned heavily upon Briar since their father’s death and their fall from grace. Briar had gotten used to the role of Mary’s protector, of standing between her youngest sister and a harsh world.
She never complained of the burden. She loved her sister, and she did not for a moment consider Mary should do more to lighten the load. Without Mary, and the need to care for her, Briar was not sure she would have survived, even with her dark dream of vengeance.