Wonderful (26 page)

“The moment you hit the target, lie low over the mount’s mane and urge him forward with your knees. The horse will do the rest.”

Thud nodded. He slipped the lance under his arm and took off, still bouncing like the leather football the squires used to play melee games.

He charged again, more daylight showing between his butt and the saddle than shone in the morning sky. He hit the dummy. Hard. The lance flew back again and the boy crouched low over the horse … just as the quintain spun by and swept him off.

But he didn’t fall.

Thud clung atop the spinning quintain, his legs clamped around it while he spun round and round like a traveling acrobat. His riderless horse trotted easily over to a clump of nearby grass and began to eat.

This time the squires were on the ground, holding their sides and rolling around with laughter.

“Keep at it, Thump!” Merrick shouted, figuring a little encouragement wouldn’t hurt the lad.

“Thud,” Sir Isambard said from the corner of his mouth. “His name is Thud.”

“Thud!” Merrick corrected, then looked at his man. “Where is the other one.” He paused and frowned for a moment. What was the other lad’s name? “Thwart? Where’s Thwart?”

“Thwack.”

“Aye.” Merrick nodded. “Thwart, Thump, Thwack. ’Tis enough to confuse a saint.”

“The last I saw of him he was trying to pick his mount from horses in the stable yard.”

“How long ago?”

The older knight shrugged. “An hour or so before None.”

Merrick glanced up at the angle of the sun in the sky. ’Twas well past None. Shaking his head, he took off toward the stables.

Clio strolled across the inner bailey, her guards, three of Merrick’s men-at-arms, trailing along behind her like overgrown ducklings. However they were not her concern at the moment.

She was secretly searching for the Earl of Lips, wonderful, wonderful lips, and trying not to be too obvious. Should he discover how she felt, the man would not be able to get his great swollen head through the castle doors.

She moved toward the stables. The familiar scent of freshly mown hay, mixed with the sharp tinge of manure, filled the warm air. She paused, then poked her head inside, where it was dark and dank, and it took a few moments for her vision to adjust.

The horses shifted in their stalls. One of them neighed and threw up his massive head. ’Twas Merrick’s warhorse. She scanned the inside but could not see Merrick, so she left.

Around back, more horses were in the stable yard, where new fences had been made to keep them safely penned inside. Merrick had explained during a meal conversation with Sir Roger that he had done so in case of an attack. The men could find and mount them quickly. As if she could not figure that one out on her own.

She strolled toward the fences, then stopped. Her keepers stopped a few feet behind her, as if they were actually attached by puppet strings to her slippers and had to move when she moved, stop when she stopped.

’Twas humiliating and made her feel a snatch of rebelliousness toward Merrick and his need to control her every motion. She scowled and kicked a rock away in frustration.

She kicked a few more rocks just for the pleasure of kicking something solid and thick and heavy. Rocks were after all not unlike a man’s head.

She paused and eyed the pen. After a moment’s thought, she climbed up on the lowest fence railing and rested her arms over the top, then just concentrated on watching the horses.

They played about the yard, nipping each other and trotting around the fencing with their tails up as if to say, “Yes, look at me, watch me prance.” They were stallions, the lot of them, she thought with no little surprise.

She turned to hop down from the fence, but stopped when she heard the quiet, distant sound of voices coming from the rear of the stable.

She smiled. ’Twas in truth not the arrogant male horses that had her attention, but a different arrogant male. Yes, she knew the distinct tone of Merrick’s voice, and felt something twitch inside her belly at the deep sound of it.

She did not get down and go into the back of the stable. She had her keepers with her and they would surely tell Merrick if she were to eavesdrop. Besides which, if she concentrated, she heard fine right here.

“Remember, lad. Move with him,” Merrick was saying. “Give him his head. Let the horse do the work.”

Before Clio had a chance to discover whom Merrick was instructing, the rear stable doors blasted open. Her keepers moved into a protective circle around her, their weapons raised. As if the doors were going to harm her.

But before she could speak, a rider shot out of the darkness into the clear sunshine, and Clio clung to the fence railing, unable to believe what she saw.

Thwack was atop a huge black horse, its mane flying as they rode past. The lad, who to the best of her knowledge had never been atop anything other than one of the miller’s oxen, was bent low, his hands on the reins. His knees were high and gripping the mount the same way she remembered Merrick’s were when he’d charged those outlaws in the forest.

Thwack, sweet and simple Thwack, moved with the horse as if he were born there.

“That’s the way, boy!” Merrick stepped from inside the stable. He was laughing. He cupped his hands to his mouth. “Lean low, lad, and ride!”

She jumped down from the fence and elbowed her way through her keepers, her skirts in her fists as she ran after the boy, half in awe and half afraid he was riding toward his death.

She did not care that his men ran behind her; she was afraid for Thwack. Her eyes had to be deceiving her. As she rounded the corner of the armory, with Thwack just ahead, someone ran past her, someone large, someone wearing a familiar brown leather jack. Someone with long muscled legs.

She gripped her skirts even tighter and higher, ran faster, trying feebly to match his long strides.

Her breath grew tight in her chest. Her throat burned. She could feel the sweat, the heat of exertion color her face.

He turned at the smithy’s, the same direction Thwack had gone. She churned her hands and feet faster and faster and whipped around the stone corner of the smithy’s and ran right into the Merrick’s open arms.

He lifted her as if she weighed no more than a feather. “I thought you’d never get here.”

She stared up at him, unable to speak because she was trying to catch her breath. He was grinning down at her. He was not even winded.

She felt as if her chest were on fire. Her mouth was open and panting.

One hand slid into her tangle of hair and held her head close to his. He kissed her then, before she could speak or gasp or breathe. His tongue filled her hot mouth and made it hotter.

He kissed her hard and possessively, as if he were branding her his own, as he had during the early morning when he drove her mad with his mouth and hands and gave a taste of what passion was.

Oh, she had wanted this, his mouth on her again. She could live her life like this, tasting him and having him taste her. She went limp in his arms and he groaned into her mouth. The kiss was over too quickly, almost as if someone had pulled them apart. He tilted her head back so he could look down at her, and he whispered, “Later, woman.”

She blinked up at him, but by the time she could think clearly, he was carrying her toward the practice field, where she could hear jeers and laughter from the pages and squires.

She wanted to curse him for the power his kisses had over her. She wanted to curse herself because it was something she could not control and at the same time wanted and yearned for so badly.

“You will want to see this.” He set her down and gripped her hand, pulling her along with him as he strode toward the field.

“What are you about, Merrick? Why is Thwack on the horse?” She tugged on her hand, but he gripped it even tighter. “Let me go. Who taught him to ride? How did he do that?”

“For someone who was speechless a few moments ago, you found your tongue quick enough.”

“What are you about?”

“You repeat yourself.”

“Only because you did not answer me.”

“Watch this.” He pointed toward the practice field.

She wanted to tell him to go soak his head in the water trough. She glared up at him.

“God, woman, but you are stubborn.” He gripped her shoulders and spun her so she was facing the field. “Now watch, damnit.”

Thwack rode toward the quintain, where the squires were taking turns trying to pluck a jeweled dagger from the head of the practice dummy without being unseated.

“He will kill himself,” she muttered, even though he looked as if he knew what he was doing. She just could not believe what she saw.

At that same moment, Tobin de Claire was riding hell-bent toward the prized dagger. Thwack flew down the field from the opposite direction. The ground shook with the sound of the pounding hooves of those two horses.

Soon all those on the field noticed there were two riders. She saw Sir Isambard raise his fist high, as if in encouragement, and she could hear Thud shouting and whistling, yelling Thwack’s name.

Tobin saw Thwack and kicked his horse harder.

Thwack leaned lower.

Tobin was closer. He reached out, grinning cockily and ready to grab the dagger.

Thwack’s mount burst forward. Thwack snatched up the dagger just a heartbeat before the proud Tobin.

Clio stood there stunned, knowing she was wearing a half smile. Sweet and slow Thwack on horseback was faster than the wind. To the sound of cheers, he rode around the field, the dagger held high above his head. He had one hand on the reins, but when you watched him ride, you knew he could do as well with no hands at all.

They all cheered and hollered, except Tobin, who looked as if he had taken a hard clout in the head.

Merrick turned back and looked at her, his face so arrogant and proud even she couldn’t fault him.

“You taught him to ride like that.”

He shook his head. “You cannot teach someone to ride like he does. And not in an hour. ’Tis a natural thing, between the boy and the horse.”

“But he could not do that alone. He could not even saddle a mount.”

“Aye, I did teach him that. Took forever, too.” He grinned.

She smiled up at Merrick, then, wanting so badly to tell him thank you. But the words seemed too weak for what she truly felt and for exactly what she wanted to say. He was a kind man and a different man from what she had imagined he could be. ’Twas almost too much for her, all the contrary things she had discovered about him in only the last day.

He seemed to know that she was confused by her feelings. She could tell because the softness in his eyes said so. For just a moment she thought he might pull her into his arms again. His gaze had shifted to her mouth. His look said he wanted to kiss her.

Then Thwack thundered past them. “My lord!” he called out.

Merrick spun around.

Thwack was riding back down the field away from them. Actually, he was riding in a wide circle. He came thundering back toward them, and Merrick stood in front of her as if to protect her from being run down.

“Stop, boy!” Merrick shouted. “Stop now!”

“I can’t stop! You forgot to show me how!” Thwack sped past them heading in the opposite direction.

Merrick cursed, then he ran after him.

Chapter 28

It was an old Druid custom to stuff herbs in a keyhole for good luck. Had Clio been blessed with second sight, like Old Gladdys, she might have stuffed an entire thyme bush into her door that night before the moon ever rose.

As it was, she sat by the fire, her foolish heart merry and her mind anxious and filled with thoughts of Merrick’s kisses and touches.

She sighed. That wonderful man she was fortunate enough to wed. ’Twas as if her youthful dreams had really come true. Here she was betrothed to a man who was sensitive to others. The kind of man sung about by troubadours. She had seen that gentle side of him, the kind lover and the fatherlike mentor who had cared about Thwack and given the lad back his pride.

Aye, Merrick de Beaucourt, the Red Lion, of late, the Earl of Glamorgan, was a true gallant, a chivalrous knight.

An hour or so past Compline, he finally opened the door to her bedchamber. ’Twas all she could do not to shout out a thank-you. He was finally here. Her beloved.

She sat very still by the fire. She was glad for the strong flames of an oak fire instead of the weak warmth of a brazier. Although, for some odd reason, she was not cold when he was in the room.

Her hair was damp from washing with a special soap concocted of daisies that Old Gladdys had made during the last of the winter’s new moon and swore would make her hair shine brighter than the sunlight and. moonlight combined.

Clio carefully pulled an ivory comb through her long, damp hair and tried to get out the rest of the tangles. Her hair was still knotted. She had been so nervous about waiting for Merrick that she had dismissed Dulcie. So now she was stuck with her wet, knotted hair and its tangled mass of ends.

She tried to ignore the sounds he made as he moved about the room. She tried and failed.