“If it takes the dark of night, then so be it. They must be safe. At Rosskeene Manor they are not.”
Peyton turned to his horse, but Mordecai’s chuckle made him turn back. The older man only put a thick letter into Peyton’s hands and said, “We men think that just because we’ve worked to become the strongest, and bravest, and best we get to make the big, ugly, hairy decisions.”
Pausing to think about that, Peyton had to give Mordecai a sad, wry smile. As he mounted and turned his horse north, he knew Mordecai was right. He was going to have to convince Chantaya that staying at Rosskeene Manor wasn’t an option, because if her mind was made up, all the knights of the kingdom of Monciere wouldn’t be changing it, and he truly didn’t want to have to take her against her will.
The afternoon was far spent and evening was pulling the sun from the sky when Peyton pulled his charger to a stop in the same wood above the manor that Mordecai’s letter had described. Leaving the horse tied, he reread the details of what Mordecai had learned two days earlier as he’d watched from here and then he went back to the edge of the wood to watch for himself. If she did as she had when Mordecai was watching, then she would be leaving that door near the garden and going to the stable to the left with this groom Mordecai had spoken of.
Glancing down, Peyton realized he needed to take off his armor and his knight’s tunic. Whether she stayed or not, it truly was prudent that no one here know the Kincraigs had ties to the king’s army.
He had no sooner taken off his things, than he saw Chantaya come out the door, but instead of going to the stable, she walked into the nearby garden with a large basket over her arm. The sight of her made him instantly happy, in spite of the concerns that plagued him, and he tossed his tunic on top of his armor and headed for the thickest cover on the wooded hillside that led toward the garden. Mordecai was right. She was more beautiful than ever.
When he got close, he looked around and then decided he was going to surprise her and slipped into the corn that grew along side the garden. ‘Twas the only place a body as large as he could hope to stay out of sight.
She was humming as she worked among the plants and he had to laugh silently to himself when she struggled to harvest a huge green squash that had obviously been overlooked on previous days and had gotten so overgrown that she couldn’t pluck it even with the knife she carried to cut the thick stems. She eventually gave up cutting and finally just grabbed the giant thing and leaned back. Peyton was surprised she didn’t pull the whole vine up.
She’d quit humming and even pushed the sleeves of her dress up, but it was several moments before the stubborn thing gave way. Chantaya ended up flying backwards right into the corn he was hiding in at the moment. Still smiling to the point he worried his laughter would give him away, he decided the monstrous squash had been fate and as she landed against the corn, he reached out and pulled her into the corn patch with him. Who knew, but what a corn patch could be a truly romantic place?
SSSS
When strong arms came around Chantaya unexpectedly from the corn patch, she knew instantly that Master Damian Rosskeene had found yet another place to lie in wait for her. As the panic welled into her veins, she threw an elbow with every bit of strength she had and was just in the process of wondering whether to throw her paring knife so he couldn’t use it against her, or turn and try to stab him when she heard Peyton’s low, comforting voice in her ear.
Turning so fast that she almost knocked them both down among the stalks, she did indeed drop her knife as she lunged straight into his arms. He’d had his finger to his lips to encourage silence and so this time, instead of squealing his name, she simply lifted her face to his to kiss him. The corn was more than cover from prying eyes and she had missed him desperately.
She’d merely wanted to kiss him hello, but seeing him so suddenly, and then tasting him and being wrapped in his marvelous arms made all kinds of heady emotions rise up in her. She closed her eyes to hide her tears as much as to enjoy the feel of his kiss. My, he felt as if he’d grown both taller and more muscled in the weeks he’d been gone. She wrapped her arms around him even more tightly and stroked the muscles of his back as he literally picked her up in his embrace as he kissed her. It was instant bliss to let herself be lost in the feel of his warm, firm mouth over hers.
At length, he gave an all but inaudible sigh and finally pulled back. For a long moment, he searched her eyes and then bent again, smoothed away the tendril of hair that had escaped from where it was pinned up and softly kissed her neck. For another few moments, he stayed there near the hollow below her ear and then finally moved his mouth up to her ear itself and whispered her name so softly that she felt it more than heard it.
He whispered it twice. Three times, and then brought his mouth back to hers and after another minute whispered again against her lips, “Oh, Chantaya, my love. I have missed you. Oh, how I have missed you.” He kissed her again, hungrily, almost desperately and she seemed to feed on it, taking his passion and drinking it in to store up for later when he was gone again and she would miss him like the very air she needed for life.
She could feel the tears welling uncontrollably again and he must have too because after another few minutes, he lifted his head and then gently wiped at her cheek with his thumb and said softly, “Don’t cry, Chani. When we’re together is the happy time.”
Closing her eyes, she nodded and leaned into him as he tenderly kissed both of her eyelids. That only made her even more emotional, and he pulled her head over against his chest and let out a contented breath and she said, “They’re happy tears, Peyton. I’m sorry. I’m overcome. I’ve missed you. So much. I’ve dreamed of seeing you again. Hoped for it, prayed for it. Even worried about it. What you’d do, when you found me here. I don’t want to get you in trouble, but I’ve so wanted to see you again. See you, touch you, kiss you. Have you hold me.” She raised her eyes to his. “I love you, Peyton. More than ever. And I’ve missed you.”
He looked into her eyes as if trying to memorize them and finally asked quietly, “Are you well?” She nodded without any hesitation, but he still searched her eyes as if trying to read that for himself. After another moment, he asked, “And your mother? Is she well? Does he harm her?”
Shaking her head, she said, “Lord Rosskeene has been surprisingly caught up in his plans for insurrection. It has protected us, if not the crown. Mother is well. As well as can be expected. Her smile has become more rare, and she worries. But I try to keep her from worrying as well as I am able. Conrad helps. He’s the groom here. He watches over her. Over both of us.”
He took her hand. “I spoke to Mordecai. Come and tell me. I need to hear of what is happening with you.”
For the first time, she glanced around and seemed to remember where they were and she hesitated. “I need to get these vegetables picked and then get back to the stables. Mother and Conrad will be wondering what’s become of me. And Cook. She’ll come to see if I’ve been . . . ”
She broke off and glanced up at him and he prodded, “If you’ve been what?”
Dropping her eyes, she looked down and then bent to look for her knife as she said casually, “She’ll just wonder what has happened to me.”
Upon finding the knife, she rose and looked up at him and he said, “You’re a terrible liar. Why are you not being honest with me? It’s me. Peyton. Tell me the truth.”
She glanced around again, although they could hardly see through the thickness of the corn, and then she shook her head. “I can’t tell you the truth, Peyton. I can’t. Not yet. You would be . . . I don’t want to get you into trouble.”
His eyes narrowed as he struggled to understand what she was saying and how to react to it, but then there was a sound that brought her head up fast. It was the door from the manor, and then there were footsteps coming their way. Leaning close, she whispered, “It’s Cook. I need to go. Meet me on the far side of the stable at full dark.”
She went to leave, but he caught
her arm and pulled her back. When she raised her face to see what he wanted, he pulled her back into his arms and kissed her once more. Fast, but incredibly thoroughly. Then he let her go again and she stepped out of the corn, working to smooth her hair back into its twist and still keep hold of the knife she held, while at the same time, slow her breathing.
She was all the way out of the corn and almost to her basket before she realized she’d forgotten to bring any cobs of corn with her. Or that it wasn’t Cook who had approached, but Master Damian Rosskeene.
Feeling that same panic well again, this time she was doubly worried, because Peyton was right there and if Damian tried to accost her again, Peyton would rain all over him and who knew what would become of that? Peyton could end up imprisoned or even hung. But yet, Damian couldn’t be allowed to do to her what he’d been trying to do from the very first day he’d seen her. And Peyton would be in the right to defend her safety and virtue.
She moved to the left, trying to keep a row of tomatoes between her and Damian as she calmly asked, “Master Damian, pray, what are you doing out here? Was there something you needed?”
He was watching her with that same frightening, hungry look in his eyes he always watched her with and the skin on the back of her neck began to crawl as he answered smoothly, “Of course, there’s something I need. The same thing I’ve needed since ever first I laid eyes upon you. But then, I think you know that, don’t you, fair Chantaya?”
Picking up the basket, she deftly kept another row of the garden between them as he stepped over the tomatoes and she said, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
Leaning, she picked up the tomatoes and squash she’d picked before realizing Peyton was there and put them into her basket and then abruptly turned to go back into the kitchen door. Damian turned just as abruptly, jumped over the plants between them, gripped her arm and said, “Oh, but I think you do. You needn’t continue to play the fool with me, Chantaya. It will get you nowhere. I’ll have what I want, no matter how you enjoy this game of cat and mouse you play. And this even, neither Cook, nor Conrad is here to chaperone us. Tonight I’ve got you all to myself. So, do stop this little game of yours and enjoy me. Because I’m certainly going to be enjoying you.”
He pulled her roughly against him and Chantaya shuddered, both at his touch, and because she knew what was coming.
At least she thought she knew what was coming. To be sure, she had no idea it would come in the form of a gigantic zucchini!
Surprisingly, she didn’t cry out when Damian crumpled to the ground in front of her as the result of having just been fairly smashed over the head from behind with the monstrous squash. She did gasp for a moment, but then when she realized upon looking around, that no one had seen anything, including Damian himself, she calmed somewhat before steeling herself to face Peyton again after what he’d just heard. She had no idea what to do in this situation and stupid tears refused to stay out of her eyes as she looked up at him.
He looked down at her with an emotion she didn’t recognize, but for some reason, he didn’t start right in with the lecture she’d been expecting. Instead, he simply stepped past the shattered pieces of zucchini and the pathetic Damian, pulled Chantaya back into his arms and almost began to rock her against him as she cried. For several minutes he held her to him almost reverently, and then he gently pushed her away and said, “Go quickly back to the kitchen and finish whatever your doing. I’ll toss the squash refuse far into the corn. He probably won’t remember anything when he comes to. Hurry and then I’ll meet you beyond the stables in a few minutes at full dark.” She nodded woodenly but didn’t move and he nudged her. “Go, Chani. Go now. Quickly, before someone comes.”
With one last look, she turned back for the kitchen, honestly worrying Peyton would do something to Damian while he was out cold. And Damian deserved it! He was a beast! Chantaya feared desperately for Peyton’s safety, but she also knew without a vestige of a doubt that Peyton couldn’t watch and listen to something like that and not take action. Not while there was a breath of life in his body, he couldn’t. He simply wasn’t made that way, and thank goodness! That had been a close one. For the thousandth time since she and her mother had stepped out their door to find Lord Rosskeene standing there, Chantaya wondered if they were going to survive this.
In the kitchen, she put away the vegetables, told Cook good night as calmly as she could and then hurried out to speak with her mother in private before going to meet Peyton. She trusted Cook and Conrad after these last weeks, but still felt it would be best for everyone involved if none but her mother knew Peyton was here. Especially after what had just happened in the garden with the humongous zucchini. She said a silent prayer as she walked that Damian hadn’t been killed by the gigantic thing. That would be the very worst if Peyton would hang because of an overgrown squash.
On further thought, she grinned to herself as she remembered Sir Mordecai drilling it into Peyton’s head that anything could be a weapon if you kept your wits about you. Peyton had certainly taken that admonition to heart. He’d fair knocked a man cold with a vegetable! She grinned again to herself, in spite of her still pounding heart. Peyton was definitely her hero, no matter his weapon.
Living where a body had to go past Conrad’s lodgings to get to the Kincraigs’ had been a definite benefit to Chantaya and Isabella as far as the Rosskeene men were concerned, but getting back out to meet Peyton after telling her mother he was here was a different proposition. They didn’t want Conrad to know Peyton had been there in case Damian was more than just knocked cold in the garden. To that end, she was back to sneaking out the window, but this time, with Isabella’s assistance, and the window was all but too little to fit even Chantaya through. ‘Twould be that Peyton would indeed have to boost her back into the small opening when the time came.
She had to stand on the chair and then on her mother’s hands and it was such a tight squeeze that as they tried to fit her voluminous petticoats through, Chantaya sighed and then laughed and soon the two women were fighting the giggles. Then, on the outside, Chantaya fair plopped off the sill and landed on the grass and twigs below with an unceremonious groan and Isabella peeked her head out to inquire in a whisper, “Are you all right?”
With another groan, Chantaya stood and brushed off her dress as she whispered back, “Fine. Absolutely well. I’ve just become intimately acquainted with a number of pine cones is all. They make pitiful padding, I can tell you, Mum.”
Isabella chuckled quietly again. “I imagine so. Do be careful, daughter. And behave yourself, young lady. ‘Tis questionable enough that your own Mum is pushing you out a window in the dark of night to go and meet a man.”
“Ah, but of all the men in the whole of the world, Sir Peyton is truly the most honorable. ‘Tis certain. You needn’t worry.”
“If I was worried, I’d not help you out, silly. Give him my love and do hurry. ‘Tis far he must travel and tomorrow might be a long day at the manor if Master Damian was damaged by the mythical gourd of battle.”
Chantaya giggled again and slipped into the dark. Damaged. She ought to be praying that Master Damian hadn’t been truly harmed, but, in truth, having him out of commission, even for a time, would be such a blessed holiday.
She stepped quietly along the wall of the stable and then slipped through the rails of the paddock to move silently among the horses Conrad kept there. One spooked slightly as she appeared out of the darkness but quieted at her touch and she was incredibly grateful they had come to know and trust her in her time here. Speaking softly to them, she could move among them much as Conrad himself would have been able to.
At the far side of the stable, she slipped back through the rails and moved to the deepest shadow under the trees, wondering what had happened in the garden after she had gone back into the kitchen.
Peyton was suddenly there in front of her. He made no more sound than a ghost as he materialized out of the gloom and once again, she moved into h
is arms. She tried to tell herself it was because of the urgency to be quiet that she needed to be that close to him, but silence had little to do with the fact that it was heaven to be back within his strong arms after so many weeks without him. His gentle hug was the substance of dreams come true.
At length, even though she was the more familiar with the grounds, he took her hand and confidently led her through the moonless darkness into the thickest of the woods some distance from the outbuildings before turning to hold her to him once again. Reveling in both his strength and the incredibly comforting sense of safety his arms brought, she breathed in his scent and felt the tension melt from her bones as he kissed her hair. Goodness, but she had missed him.
Wishing she could simply bask in his arms without having to face the conversation she knew they needed to have, she resolutely looked up at him when he leaned back a measure. Knowing he was going to want her safely away, yet having no means to that end, and now, with the whisperings of insurrection, and believing she needed to stay regardless, made her hesitant to speak.
She would have dearly loved to be safely away and back in Navarre, or nearer him in Valais. He had to know that. And in truth, she sensed he did. Still, she knew in her heart he was going to do all in his power to see her safely away from Rosskeene Manor, even if that meant fleeing. But she also knew that, at the moment, leaving was a near impossibility, what with Peyton gone to serve the king.
Two women alone, one of whom was not physically strong, and with only minimal funds, was a recipe for misery, were they to try to escape Rosskeene’s grasp, and both she and Peyton knew it. Moreover, she now firmly believed she needed to stay here. Indeed, felt as if God himself had had a hand in them being here. But how to convey that conviction to Peyton in the face of what they both knew were the Rosskeene men’s intentions toward her and her mother? And how strangely incongruent with the basic need to seek protection against men of their ilk.
Warrior's Moon A Love Story Page 16