Dreams of Stardust

by Lynn Kurland

  And there was no time like the present to begin. Perhaps he would answer poorly and she would have reason enough to cast him out the gates and never give him another thought. Perhaps, but in the deepest place in her heart, she hoped not.

  "Shall we walk?" he asked, holding down his hand for her.

  She allowed him to pull her up, then she tucked part of her skirts into her belt so she could more easily cool her feet in the surf.

  Then she found herself with her hand in Jake's and somehow that didn't lend itself all that easily to her wading in the water, for then she would have had to let go.

  And somehow letting go was the last thing she wanted to do.

  "You said you had questions," Jake said suddenly. "There are some things I cannot answer, but—"

  "Cannot, or will not?" she asked.

  He paused, then smiled. "Will not."

  "You're a spy," she stated. "John thinks you're feigning ignorance of language, swordplay, and other knightly skills because you're here at the behest of some king or other."

  He shook his head. "I'm not a spy."

  "Montgomery thinks you're a fairy."

  He smiled. "Does he? Why is that?"

  "Because he thinks you have skills far beyond what a mere man would. That business with the ruffians a se'nnight ago has convinced him beyond all doubt."

  "Do fairies do that sort of thing?"

  "You tell me."

  He laughed. "Amanda, do I look like a fairy?"

  "I've never seen one, so I can hardly judge. They hide in the grass, so 'tis said. I've even heard that you can be staring at an unassuming field and have one appear before you, fully grown, where nothing but weeds grew but a moment before."

  Jake stopped. It wasn't a sudden thing, but it was as if time had ceased to be and he was stopping because of it.

  Then he turned quite slowly and looked at her.

  His face was very pale.

  "Oh?" he asked quietly. Very quietly.

  His stillness was almost frightening, as was his grip on her hand. "Aye, so 'tis said," she replied, trying to free her fingers from his. "I know nothing of it for myself. 'Tis merely a tale of the sort a father might tell to amuse his children at night. There is no truth to it."

  He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and looked at her with a smile.

  And the sun shone again, the waves resumed their ceaseless noises, and she found she could breathe again.

  By the saints, who was this man?

  He took her hand in both his, stroked it gently as if to apologize for crushing it before, then turned them both forward again to continue their walk.

  She walked with him for some time before she dared speak again. She stole a look at him to make certain he had regained his color before she spoke. "So," she said easily, "you aren't a fairy."

  "No, I'm not," he said, just as easily.

  "Then what are you?"

  He looked at her from under his eyelashes, the same way he'd looked at her in the chapel that morning, as if they had spent a lifetime together already and shared so many confidences that just a look might revive that camaraderie.

  "I am just a man."

  "You cannot wield a sword, you cannot ride a horse, and you couldn't speak two coherent words in my tongue a fortnight ago."

  "True."

  "And now you speak as easily as if you've known my language all your life. But you still cannot ride. I suppose you don't need a sword, but I still do not understand why you cannot use one."

  "It is a very long story," he began.

  "Then begin it," she said tartly. "Perhaps at the beginning. Perhaps by telling me where you are from."

  He walked in silence for a moment or two, then looked at her sideways. "London."

  "See," she said, "that was easily done."

  "But I wasn't born there," he added with that smile that just begged her to ensconce herself in his arms and stay there for days on end.

  She blew the hair out of her eyes. "You're making this difficult."

  "But you are so magnificent when you're annoyed."

  She was halfway to demonstrating a bit of that annoyance when she realized he was only teasing her. At least she thought he was teasing her. With the way he was watching her, with such frank admiration, she decided that she wasn't sure of anything at all.

  "This would be easier if you wouldn't look at me thusly," she said.

  "How am I looking at you?" he asked.

  "As if I amused you."

  "You do. But that's only part of it." He shook his head with a rueful smile. "Only the very smallest part of it. And to say more would be saying too much. Perhaps another question?"

  She had to struggle to bring another to mind. "You weren't born in London. Where were you born?"

  "Not in England."

  "Unsatisfactory."

  "It's the best I can do."

  Amanda tried a different tack. "Why were you senseless in the grass?"

  "Honestly? I'm not sure. I was traveling and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in your father's study."

  "Why were you here in the north?" she asked. "What is your business?"

  She realized, with a start, that she was starting to sound like one of her suitors, interrogating her sire about the exact contents of her dowry. She pursed her lips and vowed to remain silent.

  For a moment or two, at least.

  "I was in the north," he began, "because I was coming to Artane to deliver a… missive to Artane's lord."

  "My father?" she asked in surprise.

  "Mmmm," was all he answered.

  A lie, there. She scowled at him. "And your business?"

  "I am a…" he searched for the word, "a merchant. I buy and sell gems. I design things for very wealthy patrons."

  She blinked in surprise. "A merchant?"

  "A merchant," he repeated, sounding not in the least bit horrified by the fact. "I'm a very good one, if that matters."

  "A merchant," she said softly. "I see."

  And so she did. No wonder he had no sword skills.

  By the saints, she wished she hadn't asked.

  She pulled her hand away from his and clasped it together with her other—so hard that it pained her.

  "Amanda?"

  She looked up into his beautiful face and wondered why it was Fate seemed to despise her so. The man before her was so handsome, so pleasingly fashioned, so full of confidence and surety—all the things her father would have insisted upon. And not only that, he was amusing, he humored her brothers, and he could have kept her safe with his hands alone.

  A merchant.

  She could scarce believe it.

  "Is there something wrong?"

  "Nay," she croaked. "Nothing. Nothing at all."

  None of it made any sense to her. Even if he were a merchant he had to have some skill. Many of the merchants she saw coming through her father's gates had very large swords and they knew how to use them. They had horses pulling their carts, or they rode into her father's gates on the fine horses their industry had purchased them. They spoke her sire's language, and had fine manners that made most of them quite welcome at his table—especially the ones who had lovely things that pleased her mother.

  "Amanda?"

  She forced a smile to her lips. "Perhaps we should eat. I daresay Cook has sent lovely things."

  "Hmmm," was all he said.

  By the time they had returned the way they had come, John and Montgomery were already assaulting the supper basket. Amanda gave John a healthy shove with her foot.

  "You weren't invited here, and you certainly weren't invited to make free with our meal."

  "We were hungry," John said, continuing to eat even as he rolled to dodge another kick.

  "Besides," Montgomery said, helping himself to drink, "we wanted to know when Jake was ready for another lesson in swordplay."

  "Unless he doesn't need it," John said, looking knowingly at Jake. "Spies usually have great skill, but feign ignorance. It
keeps others in the dark about their true identities—"

  "Be silent," Amanda said, aiming another dig at him before she sat down in his place. "He isn't a spy. Didn't he tell you as much during all those long hours spent at table?"

  "He's a fairy," Montgomery breathed.

  "Nay, not that either, you foolish child," Amanda snapped. "He isn't a spy or a fairy. He's a bloody merchant."

  But even as the words were coming out of her mouth, she regretted them. Not only for herself, but for Jake and her brothers. John and Montgomery looked at Jake as if he'd just sprouted horns. She put her hand over her mouth and wished she could disappear.

  "A merchant?" Montgomery asked, sounding devastated.

  "A seller of goods," John said, shaking his head in disbelief.

  "Actually," Jake said, sitting down and helping himself to wine, "it's worse than that. I buy and sell gems."

  "Gems," John gasped. "For baubles?"

  "Very expensive baubles," Jake said. "And the finding of those gems for those pretty baubles takes me all over the world." He smiled pleasantly. "I enjoy it very much."

  John and Montgomery had fallen silent, seemingly too horrified by the tidings to do aught but stare at Jake and ignore the food they still held in their hands, food they had been previously stuffing into their mouths as quickly as good sense had allowed.

  Of the four, only Jake ate. And he ate with the gusto of a man who was not troubled in the slightest by what he had to do to earn his daily bread.

  Amanda felt shame stain her cheeks. By the saints, when would she learn to check her tongue?

  "You must be quite skilled," she offered, when she thought she could speak without weeping.

  He looked at her from clear green eyes that held no hint of anger or annoyance. "I am," he said simply.

  "What of your sire?" John asked glumly. "No title there, either?"

  "He can trace his fathers back to Scottish nobility," Jake said with a shrug. "But even though he has great wealth himself, he has no title."

  "Did your father give you part of his wealth?" Montgomery asked.

  "He did, but I've never used it. I haven't taken any of his money, outside of what he sent me for my studies here in England when I was too young to make my own way." He looked at Montgomery with a smile. "What I have, I've earned myself."

  "Are you rich?" John asked.

  "Very," Jake said, without so much as a hint of pride.

  Amanda wondered if it might be possible to dig herself a hole deep enough to crawl into and cover herself with sand. She would have been much more comfortable thusly.

  "As much as Amanda?" Montgomery asked. "Though you may not know how much she has, do you? Her dowry calls men from far and wide here to seek her out. Did it call you as well?"

  Jake began to tear bread into pieces. "I knew nothing of it," he said, "and I don't care now how much it is. Her beauty and sweetness are the true prize."

  Montgomery laughed and John snorted. Amanda wasn't sure if they had difficulty seeing her sweetness, or they couldn't fathom a man coming for her for any reason but her gold. Whatever the case, she wasn't even tempted to cuff them as they so richly deserved.

  What she was tempted to do was weep, and she never wept. By the saints, when would she learn to curb her tongue! Jake hadn't deserved what she'd said about him, to ruin his standing with her brothers. Was it his fault he was a merchant and not a fine lord? An accident of birth, and one that easily could have been hers.

  It was the ultimate of ironies. Here she spent countless days disdaining any and all who came to offer for her because they could see nothing but her title and the fatness of her purse, yet she was discounting a man for precisely the same reasons. Because of his lack.

  She rose and walked away. She came to stand at the edge of the sea and let the tears course down her cheeks unchecked. She had insulted a man who had been nothing but kind to her. She had belittled a man who apparently owed his riches to no one but himself—something she couldn't say for herself. If he never spoke to her again, she wouldn't be surprised and 'twould be nothing less than what she deserved.

  She, of all people. She, who disdained the men who came to seek her hand because they could not, or would not, see her and not her dowry. She was a fool.

  She turned and walked farther down the shore away from the keep, ignoring her guardsmen, not caring if they surrounded her or not—not that she would have noticed either way. Her own condemnations were ringing quite loudly in her ears and she found that she had a very long list of things to shout silently at herself as she walked.

  Facing one's flaws, she discovered, was a very loud business.

  She had to cease long enough to shed a few more tears and it was only then that she realized there was someone walking a pace or two behind her. She sighed, then turned, prepared to tell her guardsman that she wasn't going to go much farther—only it wasn't her guardsman.

  It was Jake.

  He smiled. "I wasn't sure you knew how far you'd walked."

  Amanda looked around her and realized that she was indeed quite far down the shore. She shook her head. "I hadn't realized."

  "Shall we go back?"

  She looked up at him. No one would call her a coward or accuse her of shrinking from what needed to be done. She cleared her throat. "I would ask pardon," she said, lifting her chin to give herself courage. "I insulted you, and I'm sorry for it."

  "You insulted me?"

  "I did."

  "How?"

  By the saints, could the man not recognize an apology when it broadsided him? Or was he so dense that he couldn't determine just where it was she had bludgeoned him with her cruel words? She felt her attitude of contrition begin to rapidly dissipate. "I insulted you when I called you a merchant."

  "But I am a merchant."

  She folded her arms over her chest. "But I made it seem that 'tis less than a knight. Which it is, but that was no reason to be vile about it."

  He looked at her with a frown of confusion. "And that is an insult?"

  "Aye," she said shortly. "Did you not notice?"

  He studied her for a moment and she could tell that he had noticed indeed. But he only smiled.

  "A man can only be insulted when he allows himself to be. You were telling the truth. It is what I do. I am sorry, though," he said slowly, "that I am not a knight. Or a lord, I suppose, which would be better."

  "And why is that?" she asked glumly.

  He looked at her in silence for a moment or two, then smiled. "Because I see you, Amanda." He nodded back toward her brothers. "They're worried about you. We should go back."

  Because I see you, Amanda.

  Not her purse. Not her father's purse. Not her father's title and his power and his skill with which they might tidy up their own reputations by virtue of wedding with his daughter.

  Just her.

  A man who saw past all that to just her. She could scarce believe it. Worse yet, she didn't deserve it. Even worse still, she suspected she couldn't have it to call her own.

  Jake held out his hand. "Shall we go?"

  She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them, nodded, and took his hand. She couldn't stop the tears that continued to leak from her eyes.

  She walked with him back down the beach, silently, unable to muster up a single thing to say. But she did do a bit of furious thinking and the conclusion she came to was easily reached.

  The man wasn't a spy, or a merchant, he was obviously a demon. He had shamed her, then paid her the highest compliment possible all within the space of moments.

  By the saints her father would have liked him a great deal.

  "I suppose," she said as they neared the place where her brothers were waiting, "that you will need to return to your business soon."

  "Tomorrow," he agreed.

  She looked up at him in surprise. "Tomorrow? But that is so soon. Surely you need… there are… you must—"

  He stopped and turned to look down at her. "I have to go. I hav
e things to see to. And so do you. There is someone out there—damn him—who will come for you, propose marriage, and you'll live happily ever after. Someone with a title and a few skills necessary to keep you safe."

  She bit her lip very hard. Damnation, where were all these bloody tears coming from? She never had any to hand when they might have rescued her from a horrible dinner with some vile suitor.

  Unfortunately there she was, stout of constitution and apparently leaky of eye, and all when it would have served her quite a bit better to be neither.

  "No doubt" she managed. "I'd best be getting back to the keep, then, to prepare for his arrival."

  He looked down at her hand in his for a moment or two in silence. Then he brought it slowly to his lips, kissed it, and deposited it gently by her side.

  "Let's go," he said.

  She didn't want him to touch her anymore. Aye, that was the truth of it. She was unaffected, uninterested, uncaring.

  Damnation. More reasons to frequent the chapel on the morrow.

  Without Jake.

  She would have said that that was a good thing, but that would have meant another falsehood and more time on her knees.

  She took all her pride in her hand, looked up at him, and did her damndest not to blubber like a mewling babe.

  "Must you go?" she whispered.

  For a moment, just the briefest of moments, she saw clearly in his face that he was no more unaffected than she.

  The longing, unreasonable though it was, mirrored her own perfectly.

  He reached out, tucked her hair behind her ear again, then briefly, very lightly touched her cheek. He dropped his hand to his side.

  "How can I stay?" he asked quietly.

  How indeed.

  She nodded, dragged her sleeve across her face, and nodded again.

  "We'll go back," she said firmly, with much more conviction than she felt.

  She gathered up her brothers, her guard, and her merchant, and made her way back to her father's keep.

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  Jake stood on the steps leading down into the courtyard from the great hall and surveyed his domain. Well, actually he surveyed Rhys de Piaget's domain, but who was going to quibble with a man eight centuries out of his element? Besides, given the fact that he was getting ready to get back into his element, who could blame him for entertaining delusions of grandeur? It beat the hell out of entertaining thoughts of marrying Amanda de Piaget.