Patricia Ryan - [Fairfax Family 01]

by Falcons Fire

  Rainulf was a proponent of the controversial new movement called disputatio, in which argument between teacher and student replaced the traditional, dryly authoritative lectio. From his letters, Thorne knew that he had spent the past year tutoring Martine in this manner—just as he had once tutored Thorne—and Thorne speculated that perhaps this had been the origin of Martine’s contentious nature.

  In general, he admired people who liked to argue. Contentiousness he viewed as a sign of intellect and an unwillingness to accept things as they were, which was often all for the good. And it was the opposite of meekness, which he despised in either sex as a badge of servitude.

  This was the first time he had seen her smile since she had smiled timidly at him from the deck of the Lady’s Slipper. That was before she had withdrawn so inexplicably. Was it merely arrogant teasing on her part, or was there more to it? He couldn’t recall having said anything to offend her, but women of her class tended to be thin-skinned.

  That saffron veil enhanced her air of mystery. Unmarried women usually wore them only to hide some unattractive feature. Perhaps she had thin, patchy hair. More likely she had been afflicted with some form of pox as a child, and now hid the marks on her forehead with it. It was a common enough disfigurement. When Thorne undressed a woman for the first time, the question was not whether she would have pockmarks, but where and how many.

  Aye. It must have been the pox. What a shame for such a face to be so scarred. Perhaps Edmond would find the flaw so objectionable that he would want to call off the betrothal. Thorne felt a fleeting pleasure at the thought, and frowned in self-reproach. Was he mad? That should be the last thing he wanted.

  Apparently Lady Estrude, seated to his left, had noticed the frown. As Father Simon launched into a description of the burning of the two heretics, she leaned toward him and said, just loudly enough for his ears alone, “Why so melancholy, Sir Thorne?”

  Thorne realized she must have been watching him gaze across the table at Martine, lost in thought. He tore a crust off his trencher and dipped it in his ale. “Do I appear so, my lady?”

  “Indeed.” Quietly she added, “Or else under a spell of some sort.” She took a sip of wine, glancing at Martine and then back at Thorne. “Is that it? Are you bewitched?” She chuckled. “Curious. I thought your taste ran more to little Saxon goosegirls and Hastings whores.”

  Insufferable woman. Thorne calmly ate the ale-soaked bread.

  “I suggest you take care,” she murmured. From the corner of his eye, Thorne saw her painted lips curve into a sly smile. “That peach has been promised to Edmond. He might not take kindly to your tasting it before he’s had the chance.”

  Thorne automatically glanced across the table toward Lady Martine, only to find her looking directly at him. Her eyes widened slightly as he met her gaze, then she abruptly looked away, two spots of pink blossoming on her cheeks.

  Estrude smiled knowingly as she studied Martine’s discomfort. “‘Twould appear the lady is also under some spell of enchantment. Fascinating.” Leaning close to Thorne, she whispered, “Don’t you think so, Sir Thorne?”

  He did, indeed, but it wouldn’t do to let her know that. Feigning disinterest, he took his eating knife to the stag. One of the spaniels saw him lifting the piece of meat to his mouth with his fingers and dashed around the table, eager for a handout. They were stupid creatures, but still one would think they would have grown wary of Estrude’s dog stick by now. The spaniel jumped onto the bench and squeezed between them, panting in anticipation and slapping her with its tail. She raised the stick, but before she could lower it, Thorne grabbed the animal by the scruff of its neck and tossed it away from the table.

  Estrude looked disappointed. So did the spaniel, until Thorne issued a short whistle from between his teeth. The dog’s ears perked up and its mouth flew open, ready to catch the piece of meat the knight threw his way.

  Estrude glowered at him. “I didn’t know you cared for Bernard’s dogs. Or is that spaniel one of yours?”

  “I keep mine kenneled, where they belong,” Thorne answered. “As for Bernard’s, I’d like to feed them to the falcons. But I’d like to feed that stick of yours to the fire.”

  Estrude pushed her trencher back and folded her arms on the table, leaning toward Martine. “My lady, I can’t help asking just where in the name of God you got that cat.”

  Martine’s aloof expression revealed no hint of irritation at Estrude’s tone. Thorne admired her composure. “In the convent where I was brought up. Cats were the only pets the nuns were allowed to keep.”

  “Ah, yes,” Estrude said. “I forgot you’d gone to a convent school. St. Teresa’s, wasn’t it?”

  Martine nodded.

  “I myself didn’t go to school.” Estrude nodded toward the girl in pink. “Like Clare here, I spent several years in the household of a neighboring baron, serving the lady of the house. My parents wisely felt that such an education would serve me best when I became a baroness myself.”

  Thorne said, “Perhaps my lady Estrude will someday have a chance to test that theory, when her father-in-law’s time on earth is done and she actually becomes a baroness.” Martine smiled at his subtle rebuke, which he found absurdly pleasing. He said, “My lord Godfrey is a man of great health and vigor. God willing, that time won’t come for many more years.”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Estrude look grimly down the table toward Godfrey, asleep with his face on the tablecloth, his mouth open, snoring loudly.

  Returning her attention to Martine, she asked, “How long were you at Saint Teresa’s?”

  Martine hesitated. “For seven years, my lady. From the age of ten until I joined my brother in Paris last year.”

  “Did you see much of your family during those years?”

  She glanced warily toward her brother. What was this?

  Rainulf, looking uncomfortable himself, said, “Nay, my lady, she did not. ‘Twas too great a distance for easy travel.”

  Estrude’s eyes widened, and she made a show of gazing in astonishment around the table. “You mean to say she had no contact with her family for seven years? Didn’t she miss them?”

  Smoothly Rainulf said, “Much as I’m sure my lady Estrude misses her own family in Flanders. How long has it been since you came to England to live, my lady? Ten or fifteen years? It must be very hard on you being away from them like this.”

  No wonder Martine relied so on her brother. He was her rescuer, her protector. But why had he felt she needed protection from Estrude’s harmless prying? Perhaps his enigmatic sister was hiding more than pockmarks.

  Thorne sighed. He had never liked surprises, but they could be especially troublesome when one had a great deal at stake. And his stake in Lady Martine’s marriage to Edmond was great indeed, considering the land it would likely earn him. If the lady had secrets, he had best unearth them himself, before others had the chance, and soon, before the betrothal ceremony. Perhaps tomorrow he could contrive to get her alone for a while. Without Rainulf to protect her, she might be coaxed into revealing whatever it was the two of them seemed so intent on hiding.

  He rose and went to the head of the table. “I’m going to help his lordship to bed,” he said, hauling the inebriated baron to his feet and guiding him in the direction of his chamber at the far end of the great hall.

  Estrude rose as well. “I’ll go with you.”

  He was not in the mood for this. “Don’t trouble yourself, my lady. I’m fully capable of handling—”

  “I didn’t mean I’d help you put him to bed. You’ve had enough practice at that, God knows. I only meant I’d light the way.” She lifted a candelabra from the table and came to stand very close to him, out of earshot of the rest of the diners. Gazing up with half-closed eyes, she purred, “I would dearly love to show you the way, Sir Thorne. I wish you’d let me.”

  Her face looked unnaturally white in the flickering candlelight, her lips dark as plums. Her large brown eyes, encircled by b
lack powder, glittered seductively. She had applied her paint with a heavier hand than usual this evening—for him?—yet he could still make out, on her left jaw and cheek, the faint shadows of bruises almost healed, testament to her husband’s most recent rage.

  Was it to spite Bernard that she had embarked on her recent campaign to seduce him? Thorne knew better than to think she had suddenly taken a fancy to him after all these years of mutual animosity. Nay, she wanted something from him. He didn’t know what, nor did he care to find out. Let her play out her tiresome little intrigue on a more gullible victim.

  “If I wanted someone to show me the way,” he said slowly, his voice barely above a whisper, “I’d use a little Saxon goosegirl or Hastings whore, wouldn’t I?” Now it was her turn to blush, a mottled pink stain creeping up her throat and disappearing beneath her pale face powder.

  “As I said,” he added, turning away, “don’t trouble yourself.”

  * * *

  Martine watched the tall Saxon surreptitiously as he emerged from Lord Godfrey’s chamber and strode toward them across the great hall with his graceful, long-legged gait. He wore an unadorned knee-length tunic of a deep, warm red. The longer undertunic was black, like his chausses and shoes. Despite the simplicity of his garments and his humble origins, he was the noblest-looking man Martine had ever seen.

  As Thorne took his seat across from her, Rainulf rose, saying, “Excuse me. I want to check on our baggage, and those puppies.”

  “Puppies?” said Lady Estrude.

  “Aye. One of Lady Martine’s betrothal gifts to Sir Edmond is a litter of fine bloodhound pups.”

  Estrude daintily lifted a cheese-filled wafer to her mouth. “More dogs. How thoughtful.” She took a tiny bite and chewed it slowly as she watched Rainulf walk away and then said, “Tell me, Lady Martine, will your family be here for the wedding? I don’t suppose they’d want to make the crossing just for the betrothal ceremony, but surely they’ll want to see you married.”

  Martine looked toward the doorway in the corner, but Rainulf was gone. Summoning a casual tone, she replied, “I’m afraid not, my lady.”

  “Nay?” Estrude seemed perplexed.

  From the corner of her eye, Martine saw Sir Thorne watching her closely as he reached for his tankard.

  “I know your father is dead,” Estrude said, “but your mother is still alive, is she not?”

  “My—my mother?”

  “I understood there was a baroness,” Estrude persisted. “Lord Jourdain’s second wife. Isn’t she your mother?”

  Martine looked again toward the corner doorway. When she turned back, she saw the eyes of every person at the table fixed on her, waiting for her answer.

  Chapter 4

  Thorne rose and walked around the table toward her. “My lady,” he said, straddling the bench next to her, in the spot vacated by Rainulf, “I’ve been wondering. Does your cat have a name?” Loki hissed, and Estrude looked as if she wanted to.

  “Loki.”

  “Loki!” He grinned in delight. “That’s perfect. Loki that trickster, the sly one, the shape-changer.”

  “You know the legends of the North?”

  “My mother used to tell them to me.” He allowed Loki to sniff the back of his hand. To Martine’s surprise, the cat began licking him.

  She said, “My mother did, too.” Thorne seemed to make no effort to keep his distance from her. His left knee pressed her thigh, and when he leaned toward Loki and his arm brushed hers, she flinched at the feel of hard muscle beneath the soft woolen sleeve.

  “We’re cousins, then, you and I—both descended from the Northmen. They call me a Saxon, but there are none of pure blood left in England or North France.” His gaze traveled from her eyes to her lips, and then he leaned toward her. Martine gasped, thinking, My God, he’s going to kiss me!

  He paused, his face very close to hers. “What scent is that?”

  Martine realized she had stopped breathing. Swallowing hard, she said, “‘Tis a perfume I make from sweet woodruff and oil of lavender.”

  “It’s different,” he murmured, backing away slowly. “Lovely.”

  “I’m surprised you think so,” Estrude said. “I’ve always found those herbal concoctions a bit too tiresomely subtle. Rose oil is my scent of choice. No other flower is quite so sweet.”

  “Nor quite so cloying,” Thorne observed, “especially once it’s a bit past its prime.”

  Estrude stiffened, her face a mask of indignation. Thorne merely nodded toward Loki, who was still purposefully licking his fingers. “Is this animal’s tongue supposed to feel this way?”

  “‘Tis rather rough, I’ll grant you.”

  He grinned. “Lord Olivier could put Loki and some salt water to good use.”

  Gradually, so as not to alarm the cat, he moved his hand, trailing his fingers around to the animal’s back. Loki tensed as this stranger began gently stroking him, then settled happily into Martine’s lap, purring and nesting with his paws. Thorne caressed him firmly from head to tail. His purr deepened; his eyes closed. Martine could feel every caress through the cat’s warm, vibrating body. It felt exactly as if Thorne were caressing her.

  His hands were large, but well shaped, not the coarse, meaty hands of the villein. He wore a ring on his right hand, a cabochon ruby surrounded on all sides by golden talons that gripped it as a falcon grips its prey.

  “‘Tis a handsome ring,” Martine said.

  “I’m fond of it. Lord Godfrey gave it to me when he made me his master falconer. ‘Tis the thing I prize most in the world. Or it was until tonight.” He looked at Martin, and his blue eyes took her breath away. “A white gyrfalcon is an extraordinary gift, and a valuable one. Your brother is very good to his friends.”

  He held her gaze for a brief, searching moment, and then, almost shyly, looked back down at Loki. “I’ll need a name for my bird. Can you think of any goddess from the North who might like to be a falcon?”

  That was easy. “Freya.”

  “Of course!” His warm smile relaxed Martine. “Freya!”

  “She had that magic falcon skin, remember? So she could fly to the underworld and see the future.”

  “That’s right. Loki used to borrow it, in fact.”

  “She was the goddess of beauty and love,” Martine said.

  “And of death,” said Thorne. “Beauty, love, and death. Quite like a falcon.”

  Martine said, “I heard you say you were going to ‘wake’ Freya tonight. What does that mean?”

  “‘Tis how you get a new bird used to you. You stay awake with her all night, until she thinks of you as almost a part of her.”

  “I’ve never tried to stay awake that long,” Martine said. “Isn’t it difficult?”

  Estrude interrupted. “Our Thorne is reputed to be a man of unusual endurance. ‘Tis well known he prides himself on his self-control.” She leveled a peculiar, knowing look at him. “How nice for young Lady Martine to have made a friend so quickly. Edmond will be sure to appreciate your kindness.”

  Thorne bit back the urge to answer Estrude’s sly innuendo with some clever barb. ‘Twas best to let the matter lie, for, as usual, she had paired insolence with keen perception. In truth, he did find the lady Martine desirable, although he shouldn’t. She was ill humored and aristocratic, both characteristics he normally abhorred in women. She was also obliged by contract—a contract that Thorne himself had arranged, and upon which his future depended—to marry young Edmond.

  Then why was he so drawn to her? Why did he ache to touch her? Why did her scent stir him as it did? The answer, of course, was that it had been weeks since he had shared his bed, and his body craved the touch of a woman, any woman, without regard for good judgment or common sense. Chastity might be all right for men like Rainulf, men of the spirit, but it made him restless; worse, it made him susceptible to the charms of the wrong women.

  When Rainulf reentered the hall, Thorne quickly rose and returned his friend’s place to hi
m. The serving girls came back with dessert, and Thorne smiled at the plump redheaded woman in charge. “How goes it, Felda?”

  “Same as always, Sir Thorne.” She set before him a bowl of fragrant candied orange peel and one of sugar. “How was Hastings?”

  “Same as always.”

  Guy said, “Felda! What’s the new girl’s name?” Thorne followed the gaze of the others to a beautiful woman moving down the table, replacing pitchers of wine and ale with new ones of brandy and spiced beer. Felda grinned at Guy while the new girl acted as if she hadn’t heard.

  “Her name’s Zelma,” Felda said. “But she only speaks English, so save your breath.”

  “I don’t need words to tell her how I feel,” said Guy. “Zelma!” When the wench glanced in his direction, he blew her a kiss, whereupon she wheeled around and sauntered away from him, looking vaguely bored. She had dark, heavy-lidded eyes and arched black eyebrows, but her most striking feature was her great mass of thick, blue-black hair, which she wore in a linen snood. The loose hair that spilled from it in unruly tendrils gave her a disheveled air, enhanced by the fact that the cord lacing up the front of her low-cut brown kirtle had come loose. Her generous bosom swelled precariously above the gaping fabric. Should she stretch just so or lean over too far, her breasts would surely be revealed in their entirety.

  Thorne watched her discreetly over the top of his tankard as he took a drink, grinning to himself when he noticed Rainulf doing the same. Albin, Peter, and Guy, on the other hand, gaped at her much as the dogs gaped at Loki.

  Lady Martine looked from Zelma to Thorne and back again, then dropped her gaze to her lap and proceeded to pet her cat with studied—and almost certainly pretended—indifference. Could it be that she was jealous? Perhaps Estrude had been right when she hinted that Martine seemed to be under some spell of enchantment.

  It was a spell, then, that had been cast upon them both. Luckily, however, it was a spell with a simple cure, at least as it affected him. If abstinence made him lust unwisely, then all he really needed to set him straight was a friendly tumble—but not, God knew, with Estrude of Flanders. Her kind demanded tedious affairs, for which Thorne had little patience. Complicating matters in this case would be Estrude’s husband, Bernard, quite possibly the most dangerous man Thorne knew.