Till There Was You

by Lynn Kurland

  “Styrr’s not a completely unpleasant sort,” he offered, when he thought he could say the words without adding a curse or a snort.

  “He’s also not my betrothed,” she said sharply, “though ’tis difficult to deny that is his purpose.” She scowled. “He beats his horses.”

  “So I saw,” he agreed. He considered for a moment or two, then considered a bit longer.

  No footprint.

  That was somehow easier to do when the life in question didn’t belong to a woman who he could see would be crushed by a man who hated what she loved the most.

  “You won’t have a choice,” he said quietly, “will you?”

  She looked at him assessingly. “I haven’t given in to him yet.”

  “I suppose, then, being a servant might have its advantages. In allowing you to remain out of sight, perhaps.”

  “Unfortunately, I’m no servant.”

  “I know.”

  “And you’re no smith.”

  He smiled. “It’s a family name, not an occupation.”

  “Apparently.”

  He laughed and had the faintest of smiles as his reward.

  Oh, that was bad on so many levels.

  It was all he could do not to reach out and run his hand over her hair. She was particularly beautiful, true, but that wasn’t what intrigued him the most. It was the fact that she had faced down a monstrous black beast that afternoon yet conceded him not so much as an inch. If that stallion had reared on him, he would have backed away and been happy to do so. Yet she had stood firm.

  Astonishing.

  He wondered abruptly if Styrr had any redeeming qualities. If he’d had any sense, he would have looked for them, then pointed them out to Mary so she would be happy in what was no doubt going to be her life. The life he couldn’t get involved in. Her life that would end hundreds of years before his began.

  The thought of that left him feeling quite suddenly as if someone, many someones, had just punched him in the gut.

  Damn it anyway.

  “You should probably hurry upstairs,” he managed, grasping for the first thing that came to mind. “Just so you aren’t caught in the hall and forced to eat with someone you don’t want to.”

  She only regarded him steadily. “I’ve eaten in the stables before. And I have further business here this night.”

  At that moment, he knew he was taking the first step toward a piece of colossal foolishness. What he should have done was wished her a nice evening, then found a very cold place to go sleep until the wind blew some sense back into his increasingly fogged brain. She wasn’t an unremarkable, plain girl from down the road who probably wouldn’t mind his questionable reputation and car that smoked. She was the only daughter of one of the most powerful lords of medieval England. He didn’t want to think about how much her dowry was worth or how high the bar was for the guys who wanted to even consider walking through Artane’s massive front gates to apply to Robin for a chance to court her.

  And she had the most amazing pair of green eyes he’d ever seen.

  And freckles over her nose. Not many. Just enough that a man might happily kiss one a day for a week, have a laugh each of those days as his reward, then begin again the following week just as willingly.

  For all the weeks of his life.

  “Let’s go see what Rolf has on the fire,” he heard come out of his mouth before he could stop it.

  She looked at him in surprise. “In truth?”

  He could only nod. It was a terrible idea. Not only did he owe the past a very brief, unremarkable intrusion, he owed Robin de Piaget everything from his life to his boots. To take liberties with his daughter, even when those liberties only included dinner, was truly beyond the pale. Not only that, he knew firsthand how disastrous getting involved in the past could be. He knew it.

  But he made her a small bow just the same, then waited for her to walk ahead of him.

  She hesitated, then started toward the back of the stable.

  Zachary took a deep breath, then took a single step. The second step toward absolute madness was easier, but not by much. It was a mistake.

  It was also just dinner.

  Jamie would have disagreed, but Jamie wasn’t there to tell him what an absolute blockhead he was being.

  So he continued to take steps toward a place he knew he shouldn’t have gone.

  Chapter 8

  Mary sat on a pile of hay in her very favorite place in all of Artane and wondered if it were possible to be more content.

  Samuel and Theo were flanking her, as was their habit. They had been flanking her since they’d come to Artane at ten, before, as they liked to boast, their father hanged them by their toes on his front gates until they rotted as warning to the rest of their siblings not to imitate their doings. She had loved them from the time they’d been wee babes, of course, and they had grown into such impossibly charming terrors that her affection had only grown.

  Connor was there as well, lying in the hay with his hands behind his head, chewing on a piece of straw. He was watching the ceiling as he listened to his brothers tell impossible tales of mischief and glory. He periodically shook his head slowly, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing, though Mary was certain the tales were being recounted without exaggeration.

  Thaddeus was industriously applying himself to what they had left of supper. He’d arrived late, apparently having barely escaped the hall. Parsival sat apart from him, having already filled his belly whilst the filling was easily done. He wasn’t watching Thaddeus reducing supper to nothing, or Connor shaking his head, or the little twins tripping over themselves to use just the right word to describe a particularly captivating piece of mischief, or even her as she sat between the twins trying to be as unobtrusive as possible.

  He was watching Zachary.

  She understood. She was, too.

  The smith, who was not what his surname announced, was simply sitting with his back against a stall door, his legs stretched out in front of him, a mug of ale in his hands. He was listening to the twins and making noises of either appreciation or disbelief in all the right spots.

  The twins adored him.

  She could tell that because they couldn’t seem to stop bad gering him with their talk. Perhaps Theo feared he would lose track of Zachary and not have the promised wrestle. Perhaps Samuel just admired a man who seemed the equal of his father and brothers but presumably had no reason to act that way. It could have been that they were simply happy to have a man of Zachary’s quality pay attention to them.

  She could understand that as well.

  For herself, all she could do was watch the way the torchlight flickered against Zachary’s dark hair, the way half his mouth quirked up wryly when the twins attempted to top each other’s boasts, the way he laughed when they had gone too far. He seemed perfectly at ease with lads that she loved as much as she did her own brothers, as if he too had grown to manhood in a house full of siblings who didn’t doubt their worth. She’d heard him tell Theo of his brother the earl and his brother-in-law the laird, which left her with even more questions. If his relations were all that, then what was he?

  And how willing would he be to aid her?

  She was more than willing to wait out her cousins so she might have the chance to ask him in private.

  “Impossible,” he was saying to Theo. “You’re one of ten?”

  “It came as a vast surprise to me as well,” Connor drawled. “Especially that my mother was willing to risk it twice more after these two imps were born. Perhaps my father hoped to balance out the little demons with an angel or two. My youngest sisters are that, to be sure.”

  “Your father, Nicholas?” Zachary asked mildly.

  “Aye.” Connor leaned up on his elbow and looked at Zachary in surprise. “Do you know him?”

  “Of him, only,” Zachary said. “And I understand your mother is a very fine musician. Where are you in line, Connor?”

  “Fourth,” Connor
said, sitting up and shaking the hay out of his hair. “And you?”

  “The baby,” Zachary admitted with a chagrined look. “I have three older brothers and a sister. All of them wed with children.”

  “Why not you?” Parsival asked. “You’re how old?”

  “A score and eleven,” Zachary said easily. “And I suppose the reason I’m not wed is likely the reason you’re not wed.”

  “I’m but a score and three,” Parsival said archly, “but aye, I haven’t found a lass to suit. At least I have time. Ask Jackson if you want reasons for avoiding the happiness of a wife whilst worrying that you’re sliding toward your dotage. He’s Mary’s age, but impossible to please.”

  “Mary isn’t impossible to please,” Theo said. “She isn’t wed because we won’t let her go.”

  Mary would have elbowed him very sharply in the ribs, but Zachary was looking at her and she didn’t dare. She thought she should have perhaps blushed that the shame of her situation should come to light, but Zachary only smiled at her.

  “I can see why you wouldn’t want to,” he said quietly. “What would you do with yourselves if you didn’t have her loveliness to look at each day?”

  “Go haunt her husband’s hall,” Samuel said firmly, “that we might make certain he didn’t mistreat her. We’ve rid her of all her suitors, you know.”

  “Have you, indeed?” Zachary asked, looking at him with an unwholesome amount of interest. “How?”

  Mary handed Samuel her cup of wine before he could begin. “You look thirsty,” she said shortly. “Don’t let your speaking distract you from attending to that.”

  Thaddeus took the cup away from Samuel and helped himself to its contents. “These sorts of conversations make Mary uncomfortable” he said helpfully. “I’ll speak for the lads and tell you that the suitors who came for her didn’t have the spine to face the horrors of Artane, namely my uncle in the lists and my wee cousins over there everywhere else.”

  Samuel leaned close. “Let me divulge but a few of our more noteworthy capers, Mary. They’re vastly amusing.”

  “To you, perhaps,” Parsival put in pointedly, “but perhaps not to your cousin.”

  “Oh, but she’ll enjoy it,” Theo said. “She’s a right proper lad.”

  Mary would have bid them all be silent, but she was too busy being humiliated. Could they not simply content themselves with filling their mouths with food instead of spewing out all her worst faults?

  “She might dress in boots and hose,” Zachary agreed, throwing a crust of bread at Theo along with a warning look, “but she is a woman, Theophilus. You might try treating her as such now and again.”

  Theo blinked. “Why?”

  Mary looked pointedly at Zachary. He only laughed and held up his hands in surrender.

  “I tried,” he said. “I don’t know how I can stop them from talking short of gagging them.”

  “I’ll survive it, I imagine.” She was appalled to find that she sounded as breathless as any of her father’s serving maids when Parsival gave them an especially sultry look.

  Thaddeus handed her back her cup, then refilled it. “You might need that,” he said solemnly.

  Mary drank, then wished desperately for more, but she didn’t dare help herself to any lest she choke on it thanks to something Samuel might say. She certainly didn’t dare look at Zachary. She did, however, make the mistake of looking at Parsival, once.

  He was watching her with an expression so thoughtful, she wanted to protest whatever was going on in that canny head of his. He smiled at her, then turned his attention to Zachary. She breathed a sigh of relief until she realized he was watching Zachary with that same sort of thoughtful look. She held on to her cup and looked for a distraction.

  She found it in the person of her father.

  He was standing just outside the circle of torchlight, leaning casually against a post with his arms folded over his chest, simply watching silently. She wouldn’t have even marked him if she hadn’t glanced his way. He didn’t have a stance that bespoke anger or irritation. He was simply standing there, apparently content to be unmarked so he could listen in peace.

  Unfortunately, that peace didn’t last as long as she would have liked.

  “By the saints, what in the hell is going on here?”

  Jackson would have stomped right into their supper if he hadn’t run into his uncle’s suddenly outstretched arm first.

  Mary watched her father give his nephew a slight nudge backward, then straighten and walk into the light himself. Her cousins were all on their feet as if they’d been jerked there. Even Zachary was standing. She started to rise to her feet, but found a hand suddenly extended in front of her.

  She put her hand in that hand only to realize it was Zachary’s. He pulled her to her feet, then took a step backward into the place where he’d been. She didn’t dare look at her father to see how he’d reacted. She suspected her guilt might show too clearly in her face.

  She wasn’t sure what she had to feel guilty about, yet still she did. Had her father watched her looking at Zachary the smith as if she’d been a woman dying of thirst and he a cool cup of water offered by some foul fiend that would require her soul in trade?

  She lifted her chin. She wasn’t betrothed. It was hardly her fault that Styrr was so enamored of her dowry that he was willing to take her ancient self in the bargain. And it wasn’t as if she’d been alone with Zachary. Well, she had been, but that had been in the dungeon and he had been nothing but perfectly chivalrous. And it wasn’t as if she had any reason to think Zachary might have wanted to do anything untoward with her even if he’d had the chance.

  The embarrassment of having thought that he might was enough to bring what she was certain was an appalling amount of color to her cheeks. She would have gladly retreated to an obliging stall until she felt more herself.

  Besides, romance—a word she could hardly believe she was even thinking at such a moment—had nothing to do with what she needed Zachary for. She had agreed to dinner because she’d been hungry, and she’d wanted to have him to herself so she could ask him if he might be willing to take her with him when he left. That was all.

  Robin tilted his head toward the stable entrance. “Go.”

  Her cousins deserted her without a backward glance. Jackson was less eager to go, which earned him the task of gathering up all the wooden trenchers and cups and carrying them to the kitchens. Mary simply stood and waited for her father to shout. She stole a look at Zachary. He looked no less guilty than she felt, which made her wonder mightily what secret it was that he strove to keep. A treacherous plot to steal Rex whilst she wasn’t looking?

  But her sire didn’t shout. He only studied Zachary for a bit longer before he nodded toward the doorway again. “We’ll settle our account tonight, Master Smith.”

  “Of course, my lord,” Zachary said, making Robin a small bow.

  Mary found herself in her father’s sights.

  “You’ll go upstairs, daughter.”

  She nodded because there was no point in arguing, though she had no intention of doing as he bid. If her father intended to settle anything with Zachary, it would no doubt involve a discussion of Zachary’s plans and those were plans in which she was very interested indeed.

  Her father turned and walked away. Mary waited for Zachary to go ahead, but he only indicated that she should go first. She did, though she was excruciatingly aware of him walking a pace or two behind her.

  Apparently her father noticed it as well. By the time they had reached the courtyard, her father was walking with Zachary, leaving her to go ahead. She frowned at her sire, had a half smile and a shrug in return, then decided the two of them were mad. She walked up the stairs in front of them, then made a production of heading toward the stairs. She waited until she saw that they were making for her father’s solar before she abandoned her direction and went to the kitchens.

  She wondered, as she walked, why it was her father had been out in the
stables. He had reportedly passed almost the entirety of the past four days in the lists. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought he was avoiding Styrr and his company.

  Then again, knowing her father, perhaps that was exactly what he’d been doing.

  She went to the kitchens, procured what she needed in the way of wine and sweet things, then carried the wooden trencher back to her father’s solar only to find a pair of fair-haired lads already there with their ears pressed to the wood. She nudged the twins aside with hip and foot, then balanced her tray on one hand and knocked.

  “Come!”

  She entered the solar before her father could rethink who might be knocking and send her away. She didn’t look at him as she entered, lest she see something she wouldn’t like. She merely shut the door behind her, then carried the tray over and set it down on her father’s table.

  “I thought you might be thirsty.”

  “You’re a good gel,” he said shortly. “Now, go up to bed.”

  She poured two cups of wine, then went to sit on a stool by the hearth. If he wanted her to leave, he would have to remove her bodily. “I’m cold.”

  “Warm yourself upstairs.”

  “Your fire is hotter.”

  “And my seats less comfortable. Go upstairs, Mary.”

  “In a minute, Father.”

  He shot her a disgruntled look, but she only returned that look steadily. He looked at her as if he’d never seen her before, then turned to Zachary.

  “I’ve lost control of her. I’m not sure when.”

  “Perhaps the first time you let her sit a horse?”

  Robin laughed uneasily. “My Anne has said the same thing often enough in the past, so I suppose you both have it aright. But now you see, Zachary, what I must endure. Disrespect and cheek at every turn. I thought my lads were what would put me in my grave overearly only to find ’tis my gel here instead who threatens the like.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I think my father would say the same thing,” Zachary said, accepting a cup of wine from Robin. “My sister gave him all his gray, or so he claimed. She is, though, the joy of his heart. As I’m sure your daughter is of yours.”