HEARTS AFLAME

by Nancy Morse

  His eyes were such an inviting brown when he smiled, when he was happy. “I suppose I could have done something more practical, like buy a goat, but you’re welcome.”

  As he walked away, she realized she meant what she said. But how could he be a good man? Could he have changed so much from the person he’d been two years ago, willing to ruin her happiness because of his jealousy? Rowan wouldn’t lie, yet he must be lying, or everything she’d believed had been false. Oh, how she wished she could journey back in time to look at everything from a different perspective. Victor and Papa were dead, and what they knew had died with them.

  Who else could she ask?

  Her head snapped up, and she searched the street in the direction Calandra had gone. Some families may weave cloth or bang on hot metal for their business. Mine tends to this town. I take my knowledge of it seriously. Victor had lived in her house, in training with Calandra’s father, the Lord of Metz, for three winters. She would certainly know something.

  Fia ran down the street much as she had when only a child. She couldn’t believe she was about to initiate a conversation with the impeccable aristocrat who was easy to catch since she moved at something akin to a stroll.

  “Lady Calandra?”

  The woman turned, startled. Her surprise changed to a confused frown.

  “My lady, this will seem very odd, but I wondered if I could ask you a question, about your cousin Victor.”

  Eyebrows the color of pale honey arched upward. “I can spare a moment, I suppose.”

  “Was he…” Fia licked her lips, afraid to ask the question. “Was he well liked in your household?”

  Calandra rocked back a bit on her heels. “What an odd inquiry.”

  Fia nodded. It was odd. She didn’t know why she was driven to ask, and when Calandra continued to silently stare at her, she began to regret the question.

  Then Calandra spoke. “No. He was not liked.” The pert nose lifted slightly. “In fact, Father forbade him return for another winter of fostering. Father isn’t one to overly coddle the serving girls, mind you, but he said Victor abused them beyond all reason. He’s the one who told Victor to go to the army for the summer and arranged for Rowan to mentor him. ‘See how that boy likes having someone cut on him for a change,’ Father said.”

  “The Lord of Metz is the reason Victor went to the army?”

  Calandra sniffed. “Well, no one could force him to go, but Father made it clear the boy needed discipline.”

  “He asked Rowan to…to look after him?”

  “Since they were friends already, he hoped it would soften the blow.”

  Fia rubbed a hand over her eyes. By the time Victor went to the army, Rowan was the worst possible choice to help him. Victor always felt his physical and social inferiority, and then had come the interference in the betrothal.

  “Rowan did his best, you know,” Calandra said. “Father said he trained Victor and stayed by him, though the two didn’t seem to enjoy one another’s company any longer.”

  “Did he tell you anything about Victor’s death?”

  Calandra had enough sensitivity to look sad about that part, at least. “He said Victor volunteered to go on a smaller raid, something he wasn’t really ready for, just to prove himself. Rowan tried to take his place, and Victor took it as such an insult that Rowan couldn’t even join the party without causing a greater uproar.” She shrugged. “The raid did not go well. Rowan is the one who brought Victor back to camp and did for him what little could be done before he died.”

  Fia pressed her hands to her stomach. Rowan had told her Victor died quickly and gallantly. Everything was upside-down. He hadn’t lied about Victor’s nature, but he had lied about Victor’s death, all to protect her?

  Lady Calandra touched her arm. “Are you well? You’ve gone quite pale.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Though the pall of Papa’s death never lifted, the task of making new clothes for Celine’s wedding brought a welcome distraction to the women of the house. While they stole moments between their chores to sew, Julius lingered near the forge, helping where he could, a witness to the futile attempts to join long seams of metal with the perfection and strength the Lord of Metz’s blade would require.

  Rowan found his own distraction, to Fia’s chagrin. He dined three different nights with Calandra and her mother, after washing at the well and donning a tunic finer than the one she would have for the wedding. She lay awake and listened for his late return, unable to imagine how he spent those hours. She’d never been in the huge house at the center of town, with its stable, courtyard, and gardens all enclosed behind a forbidding wall. What did they do there? And why did she care?

  She should be happy for him, able to socialize with his equals. Lady Calandra would be an excellent match for him. She obviously took her position seriously, and she knew things about the world and gathered the facts about a situation before jumping to wild conclusions.

  Fia longed to ask him what they did, and whether he was considering Calandra for his wife. She wanted to ask him about Victor. But she couldn’t exactly march into the forge to interrogate him.

  On the day of Celine’s wedding, he waited in the yard to walk with them, unbearably masculine and attractive with one hand on the hilt of the semi-spata. At first she felt honored, then realized Lady Calandra wouldn’t attend such a lowly event, and therefore, wouldn’t require his escort.

  He smiled broadly when they emerged, careful to share his attention among all of them. “What a handsome family,” he said, his voice a gruff, appreciative rumble.

  Abril demurred the arm he offered, instead reaching for Julius. “I must keep this youngster from scampering off to find trouble. Perhaps you will walk with Fia?”

  If he felt any of the hesitation she did, he hid it well.

  “Your friends will miss you tonight,” Fia said lightly, focusing her attention on the dust swirling at her mother’s feet instead of the sturdy arm under her hand.

  “I doubt it.”

  “I’ll admit some curiosity about how you spend all those hours.”

  “Have you been monitoring my comings and goings?”

  “Not on purpose. I have trouble sleeping.”

  The playfulness disappeared from his tone. “The nightmares are back?”

  “No. Now that I’m home I have trouble falling asleep at all. But you’re distracting me,” she said with squeeze to his arm. “What is the house like? What do you do?”

  As they walked and then settled onto uncomfortable benches in the tiny wood-framed church, he described the great hall where the family and guests gathered. “Four of these buildings put together, perhaps, with a stone floor and a high ceiling. There are standing oil lamps and an immense hearth at the center, though it has not been burning this week in the heat of summer.”

  She turned slightly toward him. “Where do they cook?”

  “There is a separate kitchen.”

  “Do you mean a whole separate building, just for cooking, like at the abbey?”

  “No, only a room at the back of the house.”

  “What other rooms do they have?” she asked.

  He described chambers for the mistress and master, large guest rooms, an office, even a treasury solely for the lord’s wealth. In other words, he described a world wholly separate from hers, the world of the nobility. His world.

  The priest’s entry on the altar stopped his account.

  As they waited for Celine to appear, Fia leaned over to whisper, “It sounds as if everyone in this church could live there.”

  “They would fit but would not feel as welcome as they do in their own snug homes,” he said with an indulgent smile.

  Fia tried to hold herself aloof from the proceedings but quickly realized she was sitting too close to Rowan. The warmth of his arm against hers only sharpened the awareness of her best friend’s wedding. Celine’s groom was flushed and bumbling and not someone Fia wou
ld desire in a thousand years, but the bride would have him. His house would be hers to manage. If Fia wanted to visit her best friend, she’d go to this man’s house instead of the home of Celine’s childhood.

  She closed her eyes, and in her worst indiscretion yet, imagined herself at the altar. Not with Victor, but with Rowan. Instead of pulling away in horror, mentally or in truth, she stayed, breathing in his smoky scent, subtle after he bathed but still apparent. He would stand half a head taller than her lover had been, auburn hair damp and pushed back from his forehead, his fine spata hanging from a thick leather belt on his lean hips.

  And there she would be, in her homespun undyed sack.

  “You look very pretty today, by the way,” he murmured. “The color is good on you.”

  So, not an undyed sack. Not today, at least.

  He was really here beside her, though they were not standing at the altar. She smoothed her thumb down her thigh to remind herself of the gold linen, knowing she did look pretty, the best she ever had. She was glad he had noticed and could not force herself to be sickened by the idea of staring up at him, her hands safely cradled in his larger ones….

  No, she really must stop such thoughts. Her gaze went every direction trying to avoid his. When she finally looked up, he was watching the happy couple finish their vows. Just as well.

  A celebration ensued in the street outside Celine’s family home with generous offerings of food and ale and the town musicians hired to play. Rowan escorted Fia out for the first dance. She had danced with him many times in the years they’d been friends, and it was better with age, or worse, depending on which side of her traitorous heart she considered it from. He was precise, never an awkward step. When they parted, then came together, his grip was sure but gentle.

  Her loyalties flew and scattered like fireflies, dark and light in patterns she couldn’t predict, much less control.

  “Do you dance at the lord’s house?” she asked, breathless but determined to place some distance between them. “You seem to be well-practiced.”

  “No, but it is not something one forgets. You are stepping admirably yourself.”

  “Well, if you don’t dance, what do you do to fill the time there?”

  He smiled, devastatingly handsome and boyish again, damn him. “The same thing we do on an evening at your house. We eat and talk. Drink wine.”

  “We never have wine.”

  The steps separated them then brought them together. When their palms met, whatever thread of the conversation they retained sizzled to nothing. She couldn’t stop from looking up at him as she’d imagined and found his gaze burning down on her. His nostrils flared in an entirely masculine, unmistakable response to her.

  A slight sheen of sweat made his thick neck gleam like bronze, and she watched as the pulse throbbed in a vein that disappeared beneath the embroidered neckline of his tunic.

  She looked away in a panic, knowing they treaded dangerous ground.

  Heaven help her, she wanted to press her hands to that skin again, wished those lips, now set in a determined line, would kiss her as they had at the abbey and whip her back into that storm of intimacy she’d never experienced before.

  The dance ended. Rowan’s hand tightened on hers as if he would lead her away, or perhaps dance with her again.

  You mustn’t do this, not with this man. She hardly remembered why any longer, only knew she must not go where her betraying imagination led.

  With a quiet cry she wrenched her hand away and rushed aimlessly into the crowd, nearly prostrating herself in gratitude when Leon, the son of the weaver whose cloth she wore, invited her to dance. He was lively and rambunctious on his feet. His exuberance helped her ignore the pull of a certain brooding nobleman as they danced, ate, drank ale, and danced again.

  Until the source of the pull was gone.

  Rowan stoked the fire, his mind made up. He not only knew how he would fix the spata, he knew when. Now. As soon as humanly possible. Because he would not stay here a minute beyond what was absolutely necessary.

  She had almost drawn him back in with her dreamy expression at the wedding, the warmth of her arm pressed against his. And then that dance.

  He was not an especially good dancer, usually remembering the steps by associating them with the fighting moves drilled into his head, but together he and Fia intertwined in a union perfect enough he wondered what sex might be like with her. Not his first intimate fantasy of her, of course, but his thoughts hadn’t strayed so stupidly far in at least a year.

  Today, in a brief hour of idiocy, he’d imagined a wedding for them, and a wedding night. Not only was he a fool, he was an aroused, angry fool. A dangerous combination.

  He stripped his tunic off and tossed it onto his pack. He tied Heric’s heavy apron over his short-sleeved undertunic, threw two more logs on the fire, and began to heat Heric’s largest crucible on one side of the forge and the largest piece of Metz’s blade on the other. Sparks popped while he waited for the glow and the beginning of the wilting destruction. When the metal became bendable he forced it into tight angles until it would fit in the crucible. He tossed the smallest shard in with it, then began to heat the medium section.

  What had been broken would be destroyed and then reformed — single, unscarred, and strong.

  Fia found her mother in the crowd. “Have you seen Rowan?”

  “Not for a time.”

  “Where would he have gone?”

  “There’s no telling. He’s a grown man.”

  “I know that.”

  “Do you?” she asked sharply, punctuating the question with a frown.

  Fia searched her face. “Have I displeased you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said on a sigh. “If you mean to wed Leon, then no, you have not displeased me. He is a worthy match for you.”

  “Leon? Why would you think of Leon?”

  “You’ve been dancing and drinking with him for the better part of two hours.”

  “Have I?”

  “Stop pretending to be a foolish, giddy girl,” Mam said sharply. “Just as Rowan is a grown man, and Leon too, for that matter, you are a grown woman who knows very well how to show favor, or disfavor.”

  Fia wanted to argue but heard the truth in her mother’s words. She hung her head.

  “I know these weeks have been difficult for you, but Rowan has been very kind. He didn’t deserve to be…set rudely aside for a weaver’s boy.”

  “I….” The denial died in her throat.

  Leon the weaver felt safe. Rowan had not. He’d never felt safe and less so with each passing day since Paris. Oh, she felt safe when she was with him, but her heart wasn’t. He would always ask her to be more than Victor had, leagues more than Leon would.

  Celine appeared at Mam’s shoulder, hands folded placidly, but with mischief twinkling in her eyes. “Do not bother giving advice to her. She will do the exact opposite.”

  Fia blurted, “No, please, tell me what to do.”

  Celine opened her mouth to speak, but Mam put a hand on Fia’s arm. “Close your eyes. Who do you see?”

  At Fia’s confused expression, she smiled sadly.

  “When I close mine, I see your father. I know that he is still first in my heart. Who do you see? Victor? Rowan? Leon?”

  Feeling a little foolish, Fia let her eyelids flutter down. Of course it was Rowan, big but with his boyish smile, intimidating but always safe — not the way Leon was safe, but safe in that he would always be devoted to her, always be there. Except if he died. She shivered and looked back and forth between the two women. “I am afraid.”

  Celine smiled with bemused sympathy. “You have always wanted a more exciting life than me. But you are going to have to be brave to claim it.”

  Mam kissed her cheek and whispered, “Yes, daughter, be brave.”

  Surprisingly, she felt a rising within her to answer that challenge. Even the tattered armor of fear she repaired da
ily couldn’t stop the swelling affection for Rowan, especially when he sat next to her at a wedding or guided her with masculine assurance through a dance.

  One thing was certain. She’d been unkind to him tonight. When removed from his spell, she could see the heartlessness of her actions toward not one, but two men. Even now, Leon lurked at the periphery of her vision with the hopeful trust of a puppy in his eyes while Rowan lurked nowhere.

  “I will apologize to Leon, then I will see if I can find Rowan at home,” she decided.

  Celine clapped her hands together with glee and all but shoved away Fia’s rushed wishes for her and her plump groom to share a life of happiness.

  After an awkward apology to Leon, which she sensed did not discourage him at all, she nearly ran to the house with no idea what she should say if she found Rowan.

  Chapter Twelve

  The familiar sound of a heavy hammer working metal drew her to the forge. Rowan bent over the fire wearing Papa’s apron over a sweat-soaked tunic and a pair of braies. His arms strained as he twisted something she could not see. Heat rolled out of the front of the shed, his awareness of her approach boiling out alongside. He knew she was there but he ignored her.

  “I like to hear the sounds you make in the forge,” she said breathlessly.

  He stilled for a moment then renewed his work.

  “It sounds so familiar, yet different, too. You have your own way with the metal, and you look quite a bit different than Papa, of course. His legs were so short and skinny….” She babbled on, her stream of words wandering aimlessly in the hopes of finding common ground.

  He turned abruptly with a contorted length of glowing iron clamped in the jaws of Heric’s heaviest tongs. He held it up for her inspection. “The third piece. In it goes.” The bend of metal thudded into the crucible.

  She tried to walk closer, but the heat stopped her before she could look in the vessel. “The third piece of what? You can’t mean the spata? Metz wants it repaired.”