“I have danced in the courts of most of Arthur’s kings,” he informed her.
True, Caden spoke and acted more refined than most of the men who frequented the tavern. He even looked different from when she’d last seen him, though she was hard-pressed to say what was different.
“So you’re a prince, then?” Gemma spoke up.
Wistfulness graced the gaze he turned to her. “I was, milady, but today I’m a soldier. Nothing more.”
A prince? Now that intrigued Sorcha all the more.
“Courtly dance is nothing more than moving to the music as nature bids in a closer space than the outdoors. In it, man and woman are companions, one mirroring the other,” he declared, before she could frame her curiosity into a question. “Lady Sorcha,” he said, taking Sorcha’s hand.
“I’m not a thane’s wife yet,” she reminded him, although she allowed him to position her opposite him. He certainly exuded more charm than last night.
But charm could cloak wolf as well as lamb.
“The tune you were playing is perfect, Gemma. A fling is more suited to the freedom of meadow than the confines of a hall.”
Sorcha wasn’t certain exactly how Gemma would take to his compliment. She looked at Caden as though she were reading one of their song sheets, looking past the words to what lay behind them.
“Why?” she asked bluntly. “Why are you so interested in teaching Sorcha to dance?”
Caden gave a short laugh. “Milady, it is a lovely day beside the sea, and Sorcha is a lovely woman. Is it so odd that a man should want to while away the afternoon in her company, when yon Din Guardi fortress is so thick with people a man must walk sidewise through them?”
Lighthearted. Maybe that was it. Like Ebyn kicking away at an oyster shell on the beach, laughing at this fine dose of life.
Caden’s lips twisted wryly. “And I’ve no coin to pay for drink and conversation at a friendly tavern. Seems I was robbed last night while unconscious from our misunderstanding.”
Had his eyes narrowed at Gemma, or was guilt causing Sorcha to imagine it? Though if Caden did suspect them of the theft, his beguiling act was worthy of a master gleeman.
As Gemma put her pipe to her lips, Caden turned back to Sorcha. “Your blush shames the fairest rose, milady,” he said, smiling as he bowed low.
“A sunny day adds color to every woman’s complexion,” Sorcha managed during her curtsy. Though guilt probably had its hand in the mix as well. When she straightened, Caden’s hand was outstretched to meet her own.
“Dance is much like courtship,” he told her, smoothly leading her through half skips. “The touch”—his fingers closed on hers—“is as close as the lovers dare to get, for others are watching.”
Whether it was the word lovers or the touch that made her trip and kick sand over his feet, Sorcha couldn’t say. He caught her waist, steadying her, guiding her into a spin that went straight to her brain. “But their hearts are already entwining, beating drum to drum in a melody of love.”
Her blood hammered through her fingertips in answer to his. Pinpricks of awareness spread from the contact like nothing she’d felt before. She couldn’t stop it, save to break away and run.
“And sway, milady,” he told her, letting go just when Sorcha thought she could bear it no more.
As Sorcha swished her skirts to the right and left, he clapped hands. And then one hand hovered at her waist—not touching, though she could feel its heat as they circled in opposite directions. And then she was his mirror again, standing side by side, connected only by their thrumming fingertips.
“Undoubtedly, your betrothed will continue to offer compliments. You are light as a fairy on your feet.…”
He hadn’t noticed the sand on his boots.
“Ma chroi, you have put the twinkle in the eye of every man here this night,” Caden continued. “Any man with red blood in his veins.”
Ma chroi … my heart.
“Now twirl,” he said, lifting one of her hands over her head as she spun like a puppet on unseen strings from his fingertips.
“And …” He backed away to face her. “Mirror, milady.”
Sorcha mimicked him, dancing one hand on hip, the other in the air. Then his lower hand slipped to her waist and hers flew to his of its own accord. Lean muscle, devoid of excess flesh, awaited it. Indeed she could feel the battle-toughened sinew working in sync with its counterparts beneath his woolen tunic. Around and around they skipped.
“Alas, this is as close as you and your betrothed will come to the joys of your bower, but your pulse will quicken just the same. And the soft pine green in your gaze will deepen as it does now to the bright gloss of the holly.”
If Sorcha’s gaze had changed color, it was not the only one. What manner of magic was this, that the cool polish of silver gray could shimmer so bright as to draw her like a moth to its flame?
“And,” he said, backing away and breaking the contact that had shaken every sense she had to full wakefulness and more, “we bow.”
Sorcha curtsyed low and slow, giving herself time to catch her breath.
Gemma put down her pipe and clapped. “Well done, well done.”
Sorcha could not believe her ears. Had Gemma been enchanted as well?
“Well done, yourself, Gemma,” Caden replied. “You should share the gallery with Sorcha at the tavern.”
“I do at times,” the little woman replied, “though more are willing to toss a coin in a cup taken to them, than in one that stays in one place. But you two—” She clasped her hands in delight. “You dance as if you were one, instead of flailing all about the place like chickens with their heads cut off. It is almost poetry to watch.”
“Caden led me well,” Sorcha said. She pulled her cloak, fastened by a brass brooch at her neck, more tightly around her, as though she’d taken a sudden chill. She had. The distance between them robbed her of her partner’s warmth. “If Elford dances as well, I shall have no worries.”
“I had hoped, milady, to speak with you once more about your betrothal and my proposal. Then,” he emphasized, stopping Sorcha’s objection with a finger to her lips. Surely elfin magic forced her attention to his mouth, tempting her with more than words. “I will trouble you with it no more.”
“Then let’s hear it.” Gemma patted the log next to her for Sorcha to sit. “’Tis the least we can do for your generous help.”
Sorcha didn’t believe in magic, but she took a seat, obedient.
“Apparently,” Caden began, “your birth father did try to find you. He bribed a slave trader to ask about and discovered that a red-haired girl your age at the time had been adopted by a Din Guardi family. And then your father went straight to Din Guardi, just this time of year, and asked around, but no one would tell him anything more. He even thought he saw you once in the marketplace, but you were gone before he could catch you.”
Plausible, Sorcha thought. Her family and friends were a tightly knit group and not likely to tell a stranger anything about their own.
“Then he fell afoul of the likes who robbed me last night. But they left him to die on this very beach.”
Sorcha could almost see her father, distant and faded in her mind’s eyes. But his image kept merging with Wulfram’s until she wasn’t certain which she mourned. “He died here?” she whispered.
“Nay,” Caden answered. “He managed to make it back home to Trebold, where the chill from being abandoned for dead on a wet beach took him.” Caden dropped to his haunches, the thick muscle causing the woolen weave of his breeches to pull taut across fine thighs. “But even through her grief and hardship over the years, your mother never gave up hope of finding you. And that is why I am here,” Caden concluded matter-of-factly. “I’m the first to agree to come look for you. I was obliged to do so for her kindness.”
“I am certain the lady did face grief and hardship, losing a child and a husband as she did,” Gemma empathized. “What was her name?”
Myrna.
“Myrna.” Caden echoed Sorcha’s thought aloud to Gemma. The name gently cradled Sorcha’s heart. “A fine, honest woman who makes a living running a hostel at the river crossing. She provided for Arthur and his companions on this Leaf Fall’s campaign.”
“I wouldn’t say such things too loudly, were I you,” Sorcha warned him. “The king lost some of his good thanes on the borders.”
“I will take that advice to heart, milady. And now …” He rose, a golden giant against a blue sky. “I’d best be making my way to the fortress. I’ve made good my promise to Myrna. The rest”—he offered a hand each to Gemma and Sorcha to help them to their feet—“is up to you. Good day, ladies.”
With that and a short bow, the Cymri sauntered down the beach toward Ebyn and the boys. Language never posing much of a barrier for children—the friends were now batting seashells into the sea. Her mind awash with questions tossed by her unsettled heart, Sorcha watched Caden borrow one of their sticks to try his hand at the game. Once struck, his shell soared over the surf and landed far beyond. In an instant, he was a master, showing the other lads how to hit the shells just so.
Just as he’d taken over Sorcha’s dance. They’d danced as one, Gemma said.
“He’s a strange one,” Gemma remarked at Sorcha’s side. “I can’t make him out.”
“Aye.”
“But something tells me we haven’t seen the last of him.”
“Is that good or bad?” Sorcha wondered aloud.
“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
“Do you regret stealing his purse?”
Gemma looked at Sorcha as if she’d grown a third eye in the center of her brow. “Of course not! I did what I had to do. And speaking of which—” She glanced at the sun dipping toward the Cheviot Hills to the southwest. “We’d best get home. We’ve got the boy to feed and need to leave early to meet Wada at the tavern.”
Wada. Sorcha hesitated, stunned. Stunned that she’d forgotten about the moneylender’s man. Stunned that she’d even forgotten her anxiety over going to Hussa’s keep. Instead of fretting, she’d danced as one with a total stranger. And she had warmed not only to the man, but also to his mission.
“You go on ahead,” Gemma told her. “I’ll fetch the lad and catch up.”
Sorcha nodded without so much as a look toward her friend. She knew Gemma sensed her inner turbulence.
It was too much to take in all at once. One foot went before the other as though they marched to someone else’s command. Yet with each step, the resentment Sorcha had built toward her parents faded like footprints in the sand. The very sand where her father had nearly died, trying to find her.
And to this day her mother still tried.
Chapter Nine
Sorcha stared into the pot of peas she stirred, trying to sort her thoughts. But if anything, they swirled like the thick soup in the pot. She’d buried her parents in her seven-year-old mind. It had been the only reason she could think of for their not coming for her. That had given Sorcha a certain peace, a freedom to love her kind, adoptive parents.
Just the thought of her father lying cold and wounded on that beach, the image of Myrna sacrificing to hold on to his land for Sorcha’s sake …
Sorcha stood and squeezed her head between her palms as if that might stop the jumble of thought and emotion waging war in her head. She’d cried herself numb, hardly remembering Gemma’s catching up with her in the alley.
“I imagine Ebyn will be here soon,” the dwarf said from where she had taken one of the new dresses to examine it in the waning light from the window. “I guess we should count on feeding Caden as well before heading to the tavern.”
When Ebyn had begged to stay on the beach with the other boys, Caden had offered to see Ebyn home before dark.
“Do you think you’re up to the tavern?” Motherly concern infected Gemma’s voice.
“Of course.” She wasn’t, but Sorcha was committed to entertain, and she kept her commitments.
Including the one to Elford?
“You know, this shouldn’t take much work at all,” Gemma said, turning the dress to see its back. “This lacing takes care of the ample girth, though you’re taller than Elford’s late wife. I’ll need you to try it on, to see if I need to add some to the hem.”
“I suppose I could visit my mother as Lady Elford,” Sorcha thought aloud.
Of course she meant to keep her commitment to Cynric. To even think otherwise was an affront to her honor and his.
“When her land is in Saxon hands, aye.” Gemma rarely approached a hard truth with gloved words. “Good-natured as Cynric is, I don’t see him approving of a trip into Lothian, unless it’s a raid.”
Gemma was right. Sorcha wasn’t thinking clearly. “That’s more Tunwulf’s bent.”
The villain had more lives than a cat, if all the raids he boasted of were true. Cynric’s having no real sway with his son should alone be enough to make Sorcha reconsider marriage to his father.
Sorcha tamped down the rebellious thought. She would not shame her father’s friend and her father’s name in the court.
A knock on the door preempted the rest of her internal debate. Sure, it was Ebyn and Caden, who had dropped this awful dilemma in her lap. “You get the door, Gemma,” Sorcha suggested. “I’ll dip up our supper.”
Gemma tossed the dress over her shoulder as she walked to the door and opened it. “Wada!”
Sorcha nearly dropped the bowl in her hand at Gemma’s exclamation. Wada was supposed to come to the tavern tonight. Her nerves plucked mightily by yet another surprise, Sorcha hurried to where they’d stored the payment they’d barely put together.
“I should make you wait to be paid as agreed upon, but since you’re here—”
“Well, what is this?” Wada fingered the rich silk of Sorcha’s new dress.
Gemma clutched it all the more tightly. “It’s a dress. Have you taken an interest in dressing like a woman?”
Sorcha tossed the bag of coin and valuables at him. “It’s here—all of what I borrowed and the toll.”
“Ye must have had good collection last night,” he derided, “seein’ how you was so short this time yesterday. Whose purse did you lift?”
Sorcha inserted herself between Gemma and Wada. “The prince’s wedding put the patrons in a generous humor. You have your money, now off with you. I must get ready to go to the tavern soon.”
Wada stared greedily at the garment. “I might be tempted to leave sooner if I had somethin’ to make it worth me while. I’ve no use for such a fine dress, but I know a wench who’d warm me many a night for such as that ’un.”
“Then buy one from your extorted profit, but you’ll not have this one.” And even if Sorcha did give it up, no wench would see it unless she paid the oaf a sum only a noblewoman could afford. Nay, Sorcha would not line his ratty pockets with gold.
She stepped to the side, as though to lean wearily on the doorjamb. Just inside it hung Wulfram’s short sword, hidden beneath her hanging cloak. “This one is a gift from Thane Elford for his bride-to-be. He’d not take kindly to anyone taking it from me.”
Wada’s weasel-like gaze shifted from Sorcha to the dress. “Now, Sorcha …” he said, bullying her backward until his bulk filled the entrance. He reached for her cheek as though to caress it, but instead he clamped her face between his thumb and fingers, digging them into the knot of her jaw muscles.
The pain hurled Sorcha back to another time. A slaver twisted her face one way, then the other. Just a child, she couldn’t back away from him. His arm was like a bar of steel crushing her toward him. She couldn’t flee….
“I’m sure ye can come up with some story—”
Her fingers locked on the hilt of the sword.
“—as to how it was lost, to please his lordship,” Wada cajoled.
But this time she could fight. The old fear curdling in her throat gave way to a roaring rage. Sorcha pricked Wada’s thick neck with the point of her father�
�s blade before the bully even reacted to her outburst.
“’Tis not his lordship you need fear,” she growled between clenched teeth, “you foul-minded son of a slop bucket.”
“You crazy wench, I’ll have ye arrested—”
Wada backed out of the house and into the street, Sorcha ushering him with her blade.
This time of day, laborers and fishermen found their way home along Water Street. Sorcha made certain they all heard her. “Touch me again, Wada,” she shouted, “and you’ll find yourself food for the fish.”
“Ye’ve drawn blood!” In his haste to escape the press of the sword, one foot tangled with the other. Wada flailed backward, landing like a sack of grain flat on his back.
Sorcha pressed the sword against the fleshy part of the chest just below the heart. “I’ve a witness to what you’ve just tried with me”—let the folk think what they would—“and more now,” she bellowed for their sake. “People who have no love of you, you thieving bully.”
His face beetled a mix of anger and humiliation, Wada flung a curse at her and lowered his voice for her ears only. “Ye’ve not seen the last o’ me, wench. Yer father learned the hard way about pushin’ Wada about.”
The hard way. A vision of fire devouring the only home she knew flashed in Sorcha’s brain. “You!”
Sorcha had never dealt more than a scratch to dissuade any who threatened her or Gemma. But at that moment, she could already savor the plunge of her father’s sword through the heart of his murderer. All she had to do was lean into it. Just lean …
Her hesitation was a mistake.
Wada hurled himself to the side, knocking the sword away with his arm before she could put her weight behind it. As it thudded to the ground, both she and Wada scrambled to retrieve it—
When a heavy, booted foot pinned it to the dirt.
“I’ve heard and seen enough to put a rope around your neck, villain.” Caden of Lothian stood upon it, so not even Wada could wrench the weapon free.
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