Once He Loves (Medieval 3)

She had blinked. “Aye. Now I remember it. My sister was your shadow for one whole summer. Does she know that yet?”

Her sister! Ivo had examined her more carefully and memory gave him his answer—a girl of ten, a vague remembrance of her kindness. The older sister, Jocelyn. “No,” he had said at last, “she does not know. I would ask you not to tell her, lady, not yet. I need time.”

Jocelyn had laughed. “Aye, I’m sure you do. I will not tell her, sir. I wish you well, truly I do. Now go to the market or you will miss her.”

A strange conversation, but as he rode to do her bidding, Ivo had felt as if he had a friend in Briar’s camp.

“You dress like a ragamuffin, but you are far from that.”

He spoke so abruptly that Mary jumped, but Briar just glared at him like an angry she-cat, her eyes more green than hazel.

“You are impertinent.”

He laughed out loud, for those words, more than anything else, had given her away. No simple songstress would say such a thing to a knight, even if he were a disgraced knight. Briar had more layers than an onion, and Ivo would enjoy unpeeling each one.

She was watching him suspiciously, as if she was aware she had betrayed herself but did not know how. “I do not like your look, de Vessey. You are altogether too pleased with yourself.”

“I am trying to work you out, demoiselle, ’tis all. Are you the Queen of Norway, in hiding here in York?”

Briar scowled at him. “You are being foolish, I am no queen!”

“Ah, then a Princess of Scotland, fleeing from your father and seeking love in England.”

Mary giggled, and earned herself a warning glare from her sister.

“Then you must be a noblewoman, wronged and seeking redress.”

It was too close to the mark, and both girls paled. Briar began to turn away, but Ivo’s gloved hand snaked out and caught her arm, holding her with ease. Anger colored Briar’s face red and her eyes shone with fury, but before she could utter the demand that he release her, a deep and friendly voice called from nearby.

“Ivo? I had thought you lost among the cabbages and cattle!”

It was Sweyn, his fair head bright in the gloom, sitting bestride his horse and leading Ivo’s. He edged closer to the small group, scattering onlookers. His blue gaze slid curiously over Briar and Ivo, and rested momentarily upon Mary. The girl was looking up at the Dane upon his horse, like a Norse god against the cloudy sky, and her dark eyes were wide and grave, her cheeks still flushed from feeling Briar’s displeasure. Ivo thought he saw something pass over Sweyn’s face, something he had never seen there before, but the next moment the Dane was smiling his usual lazy smile, ready to be amused.

“Sweyn, you are here just in time to make yourself useful. I would speak privately with this lady. Will you remain here with her sister, Mary?”

Sweyn glanced again at Mary, now with her head bowed, fingers nervously fiddling with her girdle, and raised a questioning eyebrow at his friend. But his voice was amiable enough. “Aye, if you wish it, Ivo. Lady, are you agreeable to that?”

Mary murmured something incomprehensible, which Ivo chose to take as consent.

He held out his hand to Briar. “Demoiselle?”

Briar hesitated. There had been a formality in his gesture, as if he meant to have more than a simple conversation with her, and she seemed to recognize it. One moment Ivo read refusal in her eyes, mixed with a flash of fear, but the next she had placed her hand reluctantly in his.

He wasted no time in leading her away through the busy market.

For a time they walked in silence. Briar pretended an interest in the passing stalls she no longer felt, and ignored the curious and sometimes nervous glances of their fellows. At some time during his absence, she had convinced herself that Ivo de Vessey was the one and only path to Radulf, and therefore she had no choice but to bind him to her. It was a sacrifice she must make if she still wanted vengeance.

If she still had the will and the courage to seek an end to this calamity that had befallen the Kenton family.

The fire that had possessed her before the night spent in Ivo’s arms had cooled. ’Twas true. No matter how she tried to fan it into life again, it did not seem to want to burn as brightly. But it could not have gone out, not completely. There was still a glow deep inside her—there must be!—and mayhap in time Briar could rekindle it.

Ivo would supply that spark.

That was why she was going with him. For the purposes of her dark plot. Not because she had missed him and yearned for him. No, no, never that. She had wanted to tell Mary these very things, but the girl had not looked at her, not once. Again, worry for Mary clouded her thoughts, before the memory of Jocelyn’s voice pushed it out.

You must make him crazy with lust for you.

Briar wriggled uncomfortably, feeling the warmth trickle through her body. She was prepared to do that. More than prepared, she was eager to do it. And wasn’t that a little worrying? That this particular part of her plot was of more interest to her than any other? Had Ivo worked some sort of spell on her? For she was having great difficulty keeping a clear and cold head…