by Lynn Kurland
He also couldn’t say he wanted to help her look for it, lest they find it too quickly, but good manners demanded that he at least offer his services. He left his solar and wandered up the stairs and down the passageway, considering the rumors Everard had started and wondering absently when the entire countryside would rise up against him. He supposed he wasn’t the first man to be accused of ridiculous things—
The sound of a chair falling abruptly against a wooden floor startled him into a run. He skidded to a halt at his bedchamber door, then threw himself forward and jerked Boydin away from Pippa. She dragged her sleeve across her mouth, her eyes flashing.
“Hold him for me so I can kill him.”
“You might hurt yourself,” Montgomery said, spinning his cousin around to face him. “Allow me the honor of seeing to that menial task for you, my lady.”
“You fey changling,” Boydin spat. “You haven’t the courage—”
The rest of Boydin’s comment was lost in the sound of his neck snapping back. Or that could have been his nose breaking. Montgomery wasn’t sure which it had been and he honestly didn’t care. He looked up to find Ranulf standing in his doorway with Phillip hovering behind him.
“Be so good as to take him to his mother,” Montgomery said calmly. “I think he requires further instruction in manners before I send him off to the afterlife.”
“I didn’t get to hit him yet,” Pippa said from behind him.
Montgomery exchanged a brief smile with Ranulf, then waited until his captain had hoisted Boydin over his shoulder and carried him away before he turned to Pippa. She was clutching the neck of his tunic together and looked very, very angry. He didn’t dare touch her in her current state, so he decided comfort would have to come from words alone.
“I have made a decision,” he announced.
She glared at him. He didn’t take it personally, for he imagined it was her way to keep from showing weakness. He had retreated into silence in his youth and into the lists during the years of his manhood. Now, he simply kept a tally of insults worthy of repayment and bided his time. But he imagined that for Pippa, anger was what served her best.
“I have decided,” he continued, “that you will not leave my side. Day, night, all hours in between, where I am, you will be. Is that understood?”
“I’ll think about it,” she said, her teeth chattering.
Montgomery studied her in silence for a bit. “Did he hurt you?” he asked finally, much more calmly than he felt.
She shook her head sharply. “I elbowed him in the throat, so I suppose you can say I hurt him.” She paused. “I don’t think he liked that.”
“You are quite the diva.”
“Damned skippy.”
He would have smiled, but he didn’t think she would appreciate it. Instead, he pulled her into his arms, then rubbed her back briskly before he stepped away. “Have you found your little stick?”
She shook her head. “I’ve only looked in this room, but I suppose that doesn’t mean anything. It could be anywhere, couldn’t it?”
Montgomery didn’t want to express any opinion yet, for her sake. Cinderella had been downstairs to supper, in his solar, and up in his bedchamber. She could have lost it anywhere, or put it any number of places out of spite—in the garderobe, for instance. He wasn’t sure he had the stomach to drain the cesspit and look for something no larger than his thumb.
He walked around Pippa to fish in his trunk for another tunic. He shut the lid, turned to look at her, then hesitated. “Pippa, are you—”
“Don’t,” she said sharply, lifting her chin. “Don’t ask. I’m fine. And he’ll be very sorry if he comes near me again.” She took the tunic from him and clutched it to her. “I can’t guarantee what I’ll do.”
He vowed there would never come a time again when Boydin was close enough to even look at her askance. He reached for Pippa’s hand and led her from his bedchamber. He couldn’t bring himself to let her go even as they descended the stairs and walked out into the great hall.
Gunnild stalked over to him, obviously intending to chastise him for his treatment of Boydin, but Montgomery held up his hand before she could begin to spew out her venom.
“Your son assaulted a guest in my home,” he said sharply. “Keep a tighter rein on the lad if you don’t want to be attending his burying.”
“You arrogant bastard,” Gunnild spat. “Who are you, coming from Artane to take over my hall?”
“I am no bastard, as both my parents will attest,” Montgomery said evenly, “and this is not nor was it ever your hall, as much as it pains me to remind you of that. My father was prepared to settle a very large sum upon you, but you refused. He offered you the choice between two of his own quite suitable properties, but you refused those as well. It falls to me to place you in other quarters, so I will offer you a choice of your son Arnulf’s hall or the nunnery at Seakirk.”
“Never,” Gunnild spat.
Montgomery shrugged. “I would, of course, be willing to listen to other alternatives, should you desire them. But rest assured, lady, that neither you nor your children will be under my roof as winter sets in. Not after today.”
If she’d dared, she would have plunged a knife into his chest, he was certain of that. As it was, she shot Pippa a look of pure hatred, turned, and shoved Ada toward the stairs.
Montgomery looked at Pippa and made her a small bow. “My solar, lady?”
“I’m not going to argue with you right now,” she said with a shiver.
“You will not argue with me later, either.”
She squeezed his hand. “You’re bossy.”
“You have no idea.”
She smiled faintly at him, then walked with him to his solar. He sent Fitzpiers’s son—a scrappy lad of ten-and-two named Maurice, who was apparently quite handy with a knife and relished the thought of taking on all sorts of dangerous tasks—to look for needle and thread, then gathered Phillip up and stood with his back to Pippa whilst she donned his other tunic. He took the first from her, saw her settled in a comfortable seat before the fire, then accepted what he’d asked for from Maurice. He didn’t look at Pippa as he threaded his needle.
“Did he cut this cloth with a knife?” he asked casually.
“No.”
“Then he lives another day.” He held the tunic up and frowned at it, wondering where he might best begin. He was momentarily tempted to begin by carving warnings into Boydin’s flesh, but he supposed that was unnecessarily vengeful.
“You know,” Pippa remarked, “I could sew that. It is my business, after all.”
He looked at her briefly before he bent again to his work. “I promised to keep you safe. Since I failed in that today, allow me to at least keep you from untoward drafts.”
“I’d rather have you play the lute for me again tonight.”
“I’ll do that as well, if you like.”
“I like.”
He smiled to himself, then concentrated on the task at hand. He finished it as quickly as possible, then looked at Pippa. She was watching him with a bit of a smile, but her hands were trembling.
He suspected he was going to kill Boydin before the se’nnight was out.
He set the tunic aside, handed his tools to Maurice, then hooked a stool with his foot. He pulled it over in front of him, then rose and went to look for a blanket of some sort. He found one atop a trunk, then walked back over to the fire and pulled Pippa to her feet. Her hands were as cold as stone, which he supposed shouldn’t have come as a surprise. She’d just had a mild taste of the dangers of his world.
She wouldn’t have another, if he could prevent it.
He sat her down on the stool, wrapped the blanket around her, then sat down in the chair behind her. He pulled her hair free, then looked about him for some sort of brush. Phillip smiled a bit shyly as he held one out.
“My father does that often enough for my mother,” he admitted. “I suspected you might like to do the same for our lady Pippa.
”
Montgomery nodded his thanks, then pointed to another stool. “You sit there. I don’t want either you or Persephone out of my sight for the next few days. Understood?”
“Of course, my lord.”
Montgomery set to his labors with single-minded diligence. He worked the tangles from Pippa’s hair until there were none, then he merely brushed it until he thought she might have either gone to sleep or tired of his ministrations. He finally set the brush aside, then leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her. He rested his chin lightly on her shoulder.
“Better?” he asked very quietly.
She put her hand over his arms crossed at her shoulders. “You see too much. But yes, I’m better. Thank you.”
“Must I still play for you?” he asked.
“And sing. Both.”
“Saints, woman, you’re demanding.”
“Hmmm,” she said, sounding as if she were smiling.
He released her, only then realizing that he’d kissed her hair before he did so. To distract the entire bloody chamber from the sight of something he shouldn’t have done, he made a production of seeing Pippa seated in a proper chair and fetching his lute before he had to look at her again. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what her reaction would be, given that he was supposedly betrothed to another. The saints preserve him if he had to give a name for his betrothed.
If he managed to survive the next fortnight, he was never in his life going to tell another lie again.
“Fetch us something to eat, if you would,” he said to Phillip. “Take Maurice with you. You may as well guard each other’s backs in this nest of vipers.”
“Of course, my lord,” Phillip said, rising immediately. “Let’s be away, Maurice.”
“Aye, my lord Phillip,” Maurice said deferentially as they left the solar.
Montgomery smiled at Pippa. “And there I was worried that Phillip would fear Maurice was usurping his place.”
“Phillip loves you.”
“He should,” Montgomery said dryly. “I have spoiled him relentlessly from the moment of his birth.”
“Tell me about the rest of your family,” she said, pulling the blanket closer around her and pulling her feet up into the chair with her. “Are they as wonderful as Nicholas and his wife?”
Montgomery started to say he would tell her about his family if she would tell him more about hers, but he found he couldn’t. He plucked absently at the strings of his lute to purchase a bit of time. Aye, his family was as wonderful as Nicholas and Jennifer, and he was more grateful than he thought he might manage to say that he had them within a fairly easy distance. He knew that he could have, had he been so inclined, traveled to Artane or Ravensthorpe or Wyckham without undue effort. The journey to France to see his parents would have been more difficult, but he could have managed that with a minimum of fuss as well.
But if he asked Pippa to stay with him, she would never have that choice open to her.
The thought of that was so devastating, he could hardly bear to entertain it.
He frowned fiercely, because it was either that or weep. He didn’t consider himself overly sentimental, but he would freely admit that the loss of his brother John eight years earlier had been almost enough to do him in. Perhaps it was that they were mirrors of each other, or that he had never known a moment where John hadn’t been there to either provide cover or be his shadow. When John had disappeared, a hole had been left in his heart—
He cleared his throat roughly and forced his thoughts away. What was done was done and there was no remedying it. The point was, he understood perfectly what Pippa’s family would go through if they lost her.
And he wasn’t going to be the reason for that grief.
“Montgomery?”
“I am well,” he said hoarsely. “Truly.”
“You know, you don’t have to sing for me,” she said quietly. “I’m not my sister.”
He attempted a smile. “Aye, I know.” He decided on a song, then took a moment to tune his lute. He would play for her, perhaps exchange other tales of family with her, then he would see that she was kept safe—
Until the time he took her back to the faery ring and sent her home.
Because he had no choice.
Chapter 18
Pippa walked down the passageway, wondering where Montgomery had gotten himself to. She had spent all afternoon and evening with him the day before, first trying to shake off what had been a very unpleasant attack from his cousin, then allowing him to lord over her as he pleased. Since that had been limited to having her hair brushed, being entertained with stories and song, and getting to talk as much as she liked about Tess and Peaches, she’d hadn’t objected. He had seemed a bit more serious than usual, but she chalked that up to medieval things on his mind. He had cause, to be sure.
She realized that morning that he’d been serious about keeping her within eyesight constantly. She had sat with him through breakfast, then on a log twenty feet from him as he worked through his garrison. It was then that she’d begun to wonder why it was his fiancée was stupid enough to let him out of arm’s reach. There were obviously things about medieval England she just didn’t understand, but that one she thought she could have.
His future wife was nuts.
Lunch had followed, then Montgomery had banished her to his solar so he could go off and take care of business where he might be more exposed to the slings and arrows of outraged cousins than he might otherwise be. She had put up with that for at least an hour before she’d ignored the protests and warnings of Fitzpiers, Phillip, and Maurice, and decided that her stick wasn’t going to be found if she didn’t do the looking. She’d promised to keep a good eye open for potential attackers, then headed out to carefully retrace Cindi’s steps everywhere she could remember her sister having gone.
She had wound up, in the end, in Montgomery’s bedroom. She’d bolted the door behind her, which had turned out to be a good thing, as it had saved the rest of the castle from hearing her unladylike exclamations when she’d found the note Cindi had left her under her pillow.
I’ve got your stupid little drive with me, so I win. Again.
Pippa could hardly read the words without shaking, so she left Montgomery’s bedroom to look for him, hoping the note would remain intact long enough for her to show it to him. She wasn’t sure where he was at the moment, but a bird’s-eye view from the roof couldn’t hurt her search.
She climbed the stairs to a guard tower, then walked out onto the parapet. She wasn’t a fan of heights, and she was even less a fan of heights that weren’t protected by sturdy guardrails. Montgomery’s battlements were protected by nothing more useful than crumbling rock. She began to wonder if she’d made a terrible mistake.
And when Montgomery, who had been talking to a guardsman, looked over his shoulder at her, his expression confirmed her fears.
“Oh, my,” said a voice from behind her with exaggerated concern. “I think, my lady, that he is highly displeased with you.”
Pippa wasn’t sure if the hands suddenly on her shoulders were there to keep her from falling down in fear or to keep her from escaping.
Or if they were there because their owner was about to heave her over the wall.
She had just realized that Door Number Three was the winner when she found Montgomery’s sword half an inch from her ear.
“Release her,” Montgomery said coldly.
Pippa was torn between bursting into tears or having a bladder malfunction, but stuck with option Number Three, which was freezing in place. She permitted herself a quick eyes-alone movement to see what Montgomery’s expression might reveal, then wished she’d hadn’t. She had never in her rather short acquaintance with him seen him so . . . well, he was about two seconds away from unleashing something Vesuvius-like. His face was a mask of calm, but his eyes were blazing with fury.
Martin, the dark horse she hadn’t suspected of evildoings, seemed to be considering, then he flinched sudden
ly. “Cease,” he squeaked. “I was thinking.”
“You won’t be alive to attempt that if you don’t release her now,” Montgomery said. “Unless you’d rather I continue to push my sword into your chest.”
Pippa felt Martin’s hands remove themselves from her shoulders. Montgomery took her by the arm and pulled her carefully behind him. His sword was still tickling Martin’s chest.
“I was just trying to help,” Martin complained, stepping backward and rubbing a spot under his collarbone. “I was just keeping her from stumbling.”
“My mistake, then,” Montgomery said coldly, “for it looked to me as if you were beginning a journey down that same unpleasant path your elder brother has been traversing. I daresay you should reconsider, lest you find the path to be not at all to your liking.”
“Your father won’t like how you’ve treated me,” Martin said, his tone coming very near to a whine. “I’ll make certain he learns of it.”
“Please give him all the details,” Montgomery said. “He’ll be vastly interested in them.”
Pippa hardly dared peek over Montgomery’s shoulder to see Martin’s expression, but when she did, she was unsurprised to see the naked resentment there. Martin might not have been as vocal as the others about wishing Montgomery gone, but he obviously wanted it just as badly.
“You’ll regret this,” Martin blustered.
“Somehow, I imagine not.”
Martin cursed him, then turned and stalked off the roof. Pippa opened her mouth to comment on his good sense only to find herself facing a no-less-furious-than-before lord of Sedgwick.
“What are you doing here?” Montgomery snarled, resheathing his sword with an angry thrust.
“Getting fresh air,” she stammered. She’d never seen him angry before—no, that wasn’t true. She’d never seen him angry before at her, but she had the feeling she was about to catch the full brunt of the storm. “You aren’t going to take me out in the lists and make me miserable like you do your guardsmen, are you?”
“For future consideration,” he said tightly, “there is healthful air on the ground, and nay, I don’t take women out to the lists.”