If Wink died…
If Wink died, a part of Rose would die—her liberty, her fearlessness, her spirit.
Before, Rose had taken solace in the fact that, no matter which prison she chose—whether she must endure a loveless marriage or a monotonous convent—Wink would be with her as a winged symbol of her unbound soul. Every time the falcon sailed on high, a part of Rose would sail with her.
But while Wink hovered on the narrow brink between life and death, so, it seemed, hung the balance of Rose’s own survival.
She didn’t expect Blade to understand. Still, she sensed he somehow knew her distress. ‘Twas as if his heart beat in tandem with hers, as if they shared some kindred suffering.
Blade’s fingers curled under, gently stroking the tops of her hands, and ‘twas all she could do to keep from dissolving into grateful tears beneath his compassionate caress. Slowly, she unlocked her fingers, turning her wrist, palm up, and they clasped hands.
There was far more solace than seduction in his clandestine touch, and yet her heart fluttered at what he dared. After all, Tildy sat hip to hip with her. Blade’s man sat on his other side. One haphazard glance from either one would betray them. And yet Blade brazenly, fearlessly kept her hand in his, offering her comfort, lending her strength.
‘Twas a reckless gesture. Nothing good could come of her growing affection for Blade. Their shared experiences, which connected them now as intimately as their entwined fingers, would only serve to confuse her heart.
Rose
had
a betrothed, a man she intended to thwart by taking the veil. She knew her two crossroads well and the direction in which she meant to go. Blade? He was like a wild and wayward path branching off into a forbidden landscape, tempting her from those clear avenues.
Still, for all the sin of it, she couldn’t force her hand away, astonished by how natural his fingers felt surrounding hers, as if their two hands were halves of a broken vessel, now made whole. And if they only had this one bittersweet moment, while his fingers interlocked with hers…
Too soon, the palmer abruptly ended his tale. Everyone at the table applauded politely. Reluctantly, Rose withdrew her hand to join in the applause. Blade clapped as well, his chains rattling against his thigh, and she feared the moment of liaison was forever lost. But underneath the obscuring clatter as the pilgrims emptied the benches, he leaned near to speak the most dangerous words to her.
“Try to sleep,” he whispered. “If ye need me in the night, come.”
He meant Wink, if
Wink
needed him. Of course, he meant Wink. But later, as she lay awake upstairs among the slumbering females of the company, the echo of his words haunted her—
If ye need me, come
.
Across the room, one of the nuns was talking in her sleep again, her voice altered by dreams into a low purr, soft and playful. Rose sighed. She couldn’t sleep. ‘Twasn’t that she wasn’t tired. The strain of the day had left her exhausted. But she feared that if she ceased praying for one moment, if she let her heavy eyelids close in slumber, death might steal her falcon in the night.
She sat up, sweeping a tangle of hair back from her creased forehead.
Come
, he’d said,
if ye need me
. She shivered, pulling up the slipped shoulder of her linen underdress. Should she?
There was nothing more Blade could do for her falcon. ‘Twas simply a matter of watching, waiting, and praying. Nae, she’d not trouble his sleep.
But neither would she lie tossing in her bed till dawn. Better she should sleep in the mews than lie awake all night on a feather pallet.
Shoving the coverlet back, she located her surcoat and slipped it over her head. With a stealth she’d learned from midnight forays into the locked chambers and forbidden passages of ancient Fernie House, she crept between the sleepers, down the stairs, and out into the dark courtyard toward the mews.
The first thing she noticed when she eased open the door of the outbuilding and stepped through was the soft clink of chains.
“Wink?” she whispered.
“M’lady.”
“Holy sh—!” She nearly leaped from her slippers, despite the softness of his voice. “Blade?”
“Come in and close the door ere ye’re seen.”
She did as he asked, though the blinding darkness of the mews did little to ease her racing heart. The air was as dense and black as coal to her unaccustomed eyes, and though Rose was used to the close confines of a mews, the chamber was oddly devoid of the ubiquitous odors of moult and mutes.
“I thought ye might come.” Blade’s voice floated in the shadows.
“What are ye doin’ here?” Rose swept out her arm in an arc, trying to get her bearings, and backhanded something. “Oh. Sorry. Was that your—”
“Forehead,” he informed her.
“Oh.”
“Here. Give me your hand.”
More cautiously this time, she extended her arm. He caught her fingers, then tugged her forward.
“Ye couldn’t sleep?”
She shook her head, then realized he couldn’t see her. “Nae. Ye?”
She heard the shrug in his voice as he grunted. “My nights are oft troubled.”
He guided her carefully toward the least dim place in the mews, a spot illuminated by a crack in the door, where Wink was tucked into a nest of straw. Blade whispered, “Your falcon, at least, is sleepin’ peaceably.”
“Wink.” Just seeing her bird eased her fears. “Is she all right?”
“She’s…breathin’.”
So she was no worse, but no better. Rose swallowed hard. Of course, she couldn’t expect Wink to wake up in the morn, shake out her feathers, and fly to the top of the manor wall. Such expectations were foolish. Still, she’d half hoped for some sort of miracle.
She turned to Blade, whose profile she could just begin to make out. “How long have ye been here?”
“Since supper.”
She blinked. “Ye stayed with her all this time, watchin’ o’er her?”
He snorted. ‘Twas clear he thought it no great sacrifice, nor did he wish her to make much of it.
But for Rose, it meant the world. She tried to tell him so, but all she could manage was a broken, “Thank ye.” The more eloquent words lodged in her throat.
He shifted beside her, rattling his iron chains again. She realized he hadn’t let go of her hand. His fingers curved around hers as naturally as a vine clinging to a garden wall. She liked how it felt. She thought she might like to have him hold her hand forever. So she didn’t speak, scarcely breathed, afraid that if she did, she might break the fragile thread binding them. The silence stretched and thinned before them like wool on a spinning wheel.
“Ye can’t stay here,” Blade murmured at long last.
She hoped that was regret she detected in his voice and that he couldn’t sense the subtle desperation in hers. “‘Tis safe for the moment. ‘Tis hours yet before dawn.”
“‘Twill be here in the wink of an eye.” He gave her hand a final squeeze and released it. “Go. Your bird will be fine. Ye need to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep in the hall.”
“Ye needn’t worry. I’ll stay with your falcon,” he promised.
“Then I’ll stay as well,” she said, jutting out her stubborn chin.
There was a long silence while he probably pondered how best to argue with her.
“Lass,” he sighed, “if someone saw ye come hither—”
“No one saw me,” she assured him.
“—and ye’re discovered here with me…”
“No one saw me,” she insisted. “I swear it.” She was fairly sure she spoke the truth.
He let out a weighted breath. “Ye know what they’ll think. A lady’s virtue is—”
“I don’t care what they think.” ‘Twas a reckless thing to say, and Lady Anne would have scolded her soundly for such irresponsibility, but at the moment, ‘twas a heady feeling to speak the words. “My virtue is no one else’s affair.”
“‘Tis
my
affair,” he countered. “I’d rather not add seduction to my list o’ crimes.”
His comment caught her off guard. She hadn’t realized her presence here was just as great a threat to him. But she didn’t wish to leave. And she was so certain no one had seen her come this way.
“Please let me stay,” she whispered, snagging his fingers again.
She saw the muscles around his mouth tense as he battled with the decision.
“I won’t be any trouble,” she swore. “I’ll be as quiet as a shadow. And I’ll steal back before sunrise. I promise.”
Blade knew he was making a huge mistake.
No trouble? She was already trouble. And quiet? He’d never met a lass who didn’t talk endlessly. Not that he minded. He liked the soothing discourse of women. But he doubted she’d stay awake to find her way back to her chamber.
By all accounts, he should send the wayward young lass off to bed. A lady of her rank never trafficked with a man who wasn’t her betrothed, especially in a lowly mews at midnight, and most definitely not with a felon.
But the truth was he enjoyed her company. ‘Twas lonely in the dark in an empty mews in the middle of the night, no matter how much he was accustomed to solitude. And the lass had a singular charm about her that intrigued and entertained him. So when she peered up at him with her vulnerable, shining eyes and her sweet promises, her fingers twining with his and her womanly scent clouding his senses, ‘twas impossible to tell her nae.
He scowled. “I trust ye’ll bring me a crust now and then when I’m rottin’ away in your father’s dungeon,” he said dryly.
“We won’t be caught,” she insisted, catching his forearm. “And if we are, I’ll defend ye.”
She was audacious, this Lady Rose, far too reckless for her own good. But ‘twas part of what he was beginning to admire in her, that untamed spirit and willful daring.
“‘Tis crude lodgin’s,” he warned.
“I won’t complain,” she vowed.
“Come find yourself a seat in the straw then.”
He guided her toward the nest he’d made of clean hay from the stables. He’d have to remember to pick every condemning piece of straw from her velvet surcoat before she returned to the hall.
When she was settled, he sat beside her, bracing his back against the wall and draping his arms over his bent knees. ‘Twould be a trial, sitting so close to her warm, womanly body and not vividly imagining the crime he swore not to commit, particularly when seduction was an insignificant sin beside that which already damned him. But for a woman bound for convent, her virtue was paramount. So he’d clench his jaw, steel his resolve, and think of other things.
“Ye’re very attached to your falcon.”
“Aye. We’re kindred spirits, Wink and I.”
Was that her shoulder touching his? He cleared his throat. “How long have ye had her?”
“Six years.” She was fidgeting now, trying to get comfortable. “She’d been abandoned in an eyrie on the ledge of a tower.” She shuffled about in the straw, bumping against his hip. “Sorry. Her eye was missin’ when I found her.”
Despite her apology, Rose’s hip remained planted firmly against his, and he wondered if she recalled the power of the beast she roused. His voice cracking, he attempted nonchalance. “Your falconer collected her for ye?”
“Nae. Our falconer thought I was a fool, that Wink was better left as carrion for the crows.” She moved to mimic his posture then, drawing her legs up and catching them in the circle of her arms. ‘Twas curiously endearing. “Nae, I climbed up myself and rescued her, kept her hidden in my chamber, and let another falcon hunt for her.”
He sent a sharp glance her way. “Ye climbed up yourself? As a child?”
She shrugged. “I climbed everythin’ when I was a child—trees, towers, walls. My foster mother told me ‘twas terribly indecent. But I couldn’t help myself. I’ve always been cursed with devilish curiosity.” She tipped her head back against the wall, gazing upward into some happy, faraway space. “Once ye climb up, ye can see everythin’—distant crofters harvestin’ their fields, knights tiltin’ in the yards, milkmaids dozin’ behind the stables.” She giggled. ‘Twas a delightful sound. Then she cocked her head at him. “Didn’t ye ever climb trees?”
“Aye,” he recalled. But for him, ‘twas not a pleasant memory. ‘Twas usually an escape from the constant tormenting of his older brother. He’d discovered that Morris was afraid of high places. So when his brother had a particularly violent day—swinging out at everything in sight, striking servant and beast and most especially his little brother Pierce—Pierce would seek refuge in one of the oaks surrounding Mirkhaugh until Morris’s rage passed. The only thing Blade remembered seeing from the top of a tree was Morris’s purpling face as he screamed up in frustrated fury.
Rose scratched at her knee. “I suppose ‘tis why I love Wink so. Those wonderful places—they’re her domain. She flies higher than I could ever climb.” She sighed. “Did ye ever own a pet?”
He frowned at another unpleasant memory. “None o’ my own. My brother kept hounds, vicious things.”
“Vicious?”
Blade sniffed. “He kept them half-starved so they’d be more aggressive on the hunt.”
He heard her quickly drawn breath. “‘Tis cruel.”
“He was a cruel man.” Blade gained grim satisfaction from the fact he could say, “was.” Shortly after Blade left Mirkhaugh, he received word that Morris had been murdered in a bloody fight at a tavern. Blade had been unable to summon any feelings of regret or sorrow. “A
very
cruel man.”
Rose’s voice touched him as softly as thistledown. “Then he’s not much like his brother.”
Blade stiffened. She had unwittingly stumbled upon his greatest fear, the fear he shared with no one, that he and Morris, born of the same father, might have similar natures.
He snorted. “Ye mean, his brother the mercenary? The felon? The one bound in chains o’ disgrace?”
She lay her arm gently along his, weaving tender fingers between his clenched knuckles. ‘Twas pacifying and terrifying all at once, for she tread perilously close to his heart.
“Ye’re not a bad man,” she murmured in earnest protest. “I won’t believe it. Ye’ve been nothin’ but gallant and generous and compassionate.”