After the Storm (15 page)

Marj was sitting on her other side. Libby leaned close to her and whispered, "So, did you have a good time?"

Before Marj could answer, Henry put his hand on her shoulder, claiming her attention. "You are more lovely than I recalled," he declared. "I've missed you, sweet lady."

Libby glared at him. "I'm sure Matilda missed you, as well. You should look at her when you tell
her
how lovely she is."

"I was not speaking to—"

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

"Don't get started."

Henry jumped at her sharp tone. "Lady Isabeau?"

She looked past him to the girl seated on Henry's right. Matilda was wide-eyed and pale with misery, but she wasn't crying. That, at least, was an improvement.

"Remember what we've been talking about?" Libby asked her. Matilda nodded.

"Why don't you discuss it with Henry?"

Matilda made a small, faint, whimpering sound, but she did reach out to put her hand on Henry's sleeve. "My lord?"

Henry jumped again, like he'd been bitten. "You have a voice?"

"Be good," Libby directed him sternly.

Then she deliberately turned away, in hopes that the two would start working out their relationship on their own. What she saw when she looked elsewhere was Marj and Reynard with their heads together, deep in quiet conversation. Oh, hell, she thought, love was in bloom all around her. She bet even Bastien had gone home to one of the women at the outlaw encampment. She didn't like the thought.

Even though her interest in Bastien was supposed to be purely professional, she wasn't feeling at all objective about the man. It was an infatuation that would pass if she'd ever stop dreaming about the man and started remembering just who she'd once been involved with. She was convinced there was someone she had been involved with.

She glanced down the table to where Joe Lario sat. He was talking to Ed. She wondered how old he was, and if he was married. And, if so, was he married to her? She remembered being kissed, and she remembered Joe. She didn't know if the two went together at all. She concentrated on her feelings for Joe Lario, but all she could come up with was that she liked him.

All right, if it hadn't been Joe that had kissed her on that remembered day, who Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

had? She briefly considered Ed. No way. Maybe the only logical explanation was that her memory of being kissed during the Thanksgiving picnic wasn't a memory at all. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, a product of her overactive imagination. Like her hot dreams about the outlaw.

Maybe, she thought as she looked around the gathered household. The sight of the costumed diners under the pretty canopies and servants moving around the torchlit setting would have made her mother's medievalist heart sing. It was all so perfectly period. Somebody was even tuning a lute in preparation for entertaining the company. Libby didn't want to hear it. She didn't want these people here. If she was going to be anywhere in the Middle Ages she wanted it to be on the windswept, barren, vast,
empty
Asian steppes, not in the crowded English countryside.

She wanted desperately to be alone.

She stood up. And all the noise immediately stopped. Every gaze turned her way. She pushed back her chair and a servant hurried forward to offer her help.

Henry sprang up to offer his hand. Marj and Matilda moved to join her.

She was the bloody Lady of Lilydrake and these people were taking the Middle Ages too damn seriously. They believed in this aristocratic hierarchy. This was her fief and she was complete ruler of it. They lived to serve her.

"Like a bloody queen bee," she muttered.

"My lady," Marj said, warningly.

Libby gave her an annoyed look and waved her back to the table, back to the waiting Reynard. "I want to be alone." She motioned Matilda away as well.

"Entertain Henry," she ordered. "I'm going for a walk."

Before anyone could stop her she stomped away and headed for the castle gate.

The dogs bounded along at her heels. Maybe they served her because they loved Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

her, not because she was the highest ranking officer in the place.

There was one other possibility.

She didn't want to think about it, so she walked on along the moonlit path and just concentrated on finding her way. She didn't hear anyone but the dogs following her from the castle. All she wanted was to be left alone, and as long as she was left alone there wouldn't be any trouble.

She didn't want to think about that other possibility, but she did. She couldn't stop the progression of her troubled thoughts, as hard as she tried. She knew there had been five people involved in the time machine accident, but only three had gotten back to the future. No one knew what had happened to the other two.

Missing, presumed dead. Probably dead. She didn't know their names, hadn't yet remembered their faces. Nobody, not even her mother or father, had told her more than the bare facts of what had happened. If she'd had some romantic connection to one of the missing people the information certainly hadn't been included in her briefing for this mission.

Then again, maybe nobody back at Time Search knew she'd been involved with anyone. More importantly, maybe she hadn't been and her memory of being kissed during the picnic was false. Maybe she'd gotten her impulsive kissing of Bastien mixed into her recovering memories. She hoped and prayed that was the truth, because the thought of having to mourn a love she didn't yet know she'd lost was too hard to contemplate.

"The Bastien theory makes more sense," she said as she entered the ruins where Lilydrake village had once stood. Not only would it make more sense, but dealing with her impractical attraction to the outlaw would be far less painful than the alternative of coping with the loss that she feared. Bastien was here and now, something tangible she could cope with. She hated the thought of having had a part of her life ripped away. How did one cope with that kind of pain?

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

The track widened into a square, and Libby looked around, recognizing her surroundings even though they were moon-frosted and weather-damaged. There wasn't much left of the few village buildings. Much of what had been left had been scavenged by the workmen as material for repairing the castle. The only standing structure she could make out was the hulking stones of the Norman church. Of course, it was a Norman church, this was Norman England. It was just that she'd been to this church in her own time. In the twenty-first century it was a tiny restored gem of the period's religious architecture. In the present period it was a temporarily abandoned hulk, home to rats, bats, and outlaws if the sudden pulsing from her belt sensor was any indication.

"Well, well, well," she murmured, and reached down to scratch the head of one of the suddenly alert dogs. "It looks like he didn't go very far."

So Bastien was still spying on Lilydrake. The thought brought on a rush of pleasure. Libby couldn't help but smile in the direction of the church. It was ridiculous, she knew it was, to have this tingling of anticipation just because Bastien was nearby. She smiled up at the moon. "Maybe the tingle's a sensor malfunction."

She doubted it. Unreasonably, stupidly, against all the rules, she was attracted to the man. It was dangerous not to admit it. Having admitted it, she could ignore it and get on with the job. All right, so she'd seen him naked, and he'd held her in his arms, and when she'd kissed him he'd kissed back.

Never mind what had happened, the context had been all wrong. He was interested in watching the sheriff. She was interested in studying outlaw behavior. Neither of them had any personal reason for being near each other.

Still, he hadn't gone far, and she was here, alone as she so rarely was. She should grab the chance to do some research while she had it.

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

"I think it's time Bastien of Bale and I had a little talk," she murmured as she moved toward the church door.

"I was married here." He spoke without turning around.

He knew she was standing behind him. It was as though he'd felt her approach.

He hated his almost tangible awareness of her presence. She was nothing to him.

She was the enemy. He turned toward where she stood framed in the doorway, beautiful as a ghost in moonlight.

"Married?"

Her voice held colors and shades of meaning. The one word held more questions than he was prepared to answer. She took a step forward, into shadow, out of light, closer to him. He could almost feel the warmth of her nearness in the cold emptiness of the church. He took a step back, toward the altar, the place where he'd spoken his wedding vows. Isabeau followed like a temptress from the devil.

He wondered if holy water would drive her away. He wondered if he'd use it if he had any to hand.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded, as if he didn't know why a woman would be alone in the dark with a man.

"I want to talk to you."

He laughed.

"You needn't take that tone," she said, voice as chill as a winter wind.

"I'm not the one who did the kissing."

She cleared her throat. "Point taken. But I'm here to talk, that's all."

"You're a fool."

Instead of reacting with indignation that a peasant should speak so to her, she laughed. A soft, self-mocking laugh. "'Possibly," she agreed.

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

"I'm a dangerous man," he reminded the Lady of Lilydrake. "You should run in terror at the sight of me."

"Well, if I could see you in this gloom maybe I would."

The dogs were with her. They padded forward silently to sniff him. It took some effort to push their heads away.

"I think they like you," she said. She didn't sound intimidated in the least. "But then, you've worked hard on gaining their trust."

So, she knew he'd been in her castle. "You should have told the sheriff."

"Yes, I should have."

Bastien sneered at the woman. She no doubt expected him to be grateful for keeping his presence at the castle secret. "What are you trying to purchase from me with your silence?"

"Purchase?" she sounded puzzled. "Why do you use that term? I thought this society worked mostly on a barter system, along with vows of obligation between lord and vassal."

"I'm neither lord nor vassal," he reminded her. "I live outside the law."

"I know. That's what I'd like to talk to you about. I'm going about this all wrong, I know, but I don't know when I'll get another chance to speak with you."

"You're insane," he told her. "Moon mad."

"I know. But I still want to talk to you."

"Why?"

"I want to know about your life. How you came to be outlawed, what you're doing in Blean."

"It's none of your business." Besides, he didn't know. Trying to think about it made his head hurt. "Cynric found me," he heard himself say, answering her Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

despite himself.

"When?"

"It doesn't matter."

He didn't know why he was listening to the woman. He should take her jewels and run. But this was a church, somehow it would be wrong to rob her in the church. He'd come here to pray for his wife's soul, not to commit another sin, no matter how much the woman deserved it.

"It matters tome."

"Go away," he told her. "Go while you can."

Libby heard the man's rough tone and thought that perhaps she was making a big mistake. He was right, she should go. This was no way to conduct research. She wasn't observing, she was interacting, and she couldn't help herself despite the stupid Time Search rules. The urgency, the pain, even the anger in the man's voice drew her to him. She had an almost overwhelming urge to take him in her arms and comfort him. Something he probably didn't need or want.

There was another, far more primal drive that urged her into his embrace. Desire for him had haunted her dreams, and as she confronted him it raced through all her senses, making her distrust all her reactions. She would not allow dreams to control her actions.

She did take another step closer. He flinched as she moved, his fingers going up to his temples. "Does your head hurt?" she asked.

Libby knew about headaches and had an intimate hatred of them. She sympathized with anyone who suffered from them, even bloodthirsty outlaws.

She wanted to stroke the pain away, but she carefully kept her hands at her sides instead. She was not going to touch the man. She couldn't trust herself to touch the man.

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

"Yes," he snarled eventually. "My head hurts. Go away."

Not tonight, I've got a headache
. She just barely stopped herself from muttering the words out loud. She didn't want the man to think she was mocking him. He wouldn't understand the joke, or that she used sarcasm to cope with her own mixed-up, pain-laden life.

"Do you get them often? The headaches?" she asked, relentless even though she knew it would be wiser to take his advice and leave.

He sank to sit cross-legged on the floor. "There's no getting away from you, is there?"

"Well, you could leave."

"I was here first."

"It's my property."

"You would remind me of that."

This bickering seemed familiar, and far more good-natured than the tense situation should warrant. Badgering Bastien of Bale came easily. She'd noticed that even while he was holding a knife to her throat.

She sat down in front of him. She could barely make out his features in the gloom, just a sketch of sharp cheekbones, a hint of his wide mouth and narrow eyes. Enough to know he was there. Enough to talk to. Enough to tantalize her imagination. "How long have you been an outlaw?"

"Will you leave me alone?"

"No. How long?"

"I thought you were sympathizing with my headache."

"I am. I get them too. Talking helps."

"Liar."

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

"It
might
help. Have you tried it?"

"Wine helps, and sleep. No. Not sleep."