A Rose in Winter

by Shana Abe

  Her future was uncertain, she knew. She had done a daring thing, a perilous thing, but she would not regret the consequences. She would never do that. Her eye­lids slowly closed.

  In one of her last conscious thoughts freedom be­came a sparrow, sailing up into the endless sky.

  Damon opened his eyes. She was finally asleep. He pondered her for a moment, then closed his eyes again.

  Chapter Six

  Over the course of the next few days Damon became convinced that he was traveling with more than one woman.

  In fact, he was discovering a plethora of Solanges, each as different from the last as could be.

  There was the countess, of course, the newest to him and most foreign part of her. The countess kept a stoic silence, a commanding look so reminiscent of her father, Damon sometimes had to marvel. Solange put on this mask whenever his casual questions probed too deeply for her comfort. No doubt she would not have been happy to learn the haughty flash of her eyes served to amuse rather than intimidate him.

  There was her bashful, girlish mask as well. This was much more recognizable to him as a leftover from their old days: the sideways looks, the way the tendrils of her hair fell forward to hide her face as she bent her head down, the hesitant pauses between sentences. Her words became simple and sparely descriptive, a prose of talk that lured him with its natural rhythm. The ease of his familiarity with her in this guise both amazed him and repelled him. She seemed to seek something from him with this show; he couldn't guess what.

  She could be bold too. Confident and at ease on her horse, sure of her catastrophically flawed plan to reach England, blind to the almost infinite dangers that faced them every minute, every second, as far as Damon was concerned. It was more than exasperating, it was ex­hausting, defending her from her own reckless path. He worried for them both constantly. His warrior's eye scanned the surroundings, always on the ready to defend them even as she would cajole her mare to a gallop ahead of him, laughing cheerfully as he made to catch up.

  Aye, and there was the most puzzling thing of all: her inexplicable joy, which could flash like summer lightning, there and gone before you could blink. Countless moments Damon would watch her covertly, following the moving shifts of shade and light across her profile. More than a few times he had seen a dim­pled smile given to the air ahead, or heard a quiet laugh that rang like chimes in his ears.

  She offered no explanation for her mirth. He de­manded none. Almost as soon as her happiness could be noted, it was gone, melted into the typically solemn look she wore. Indeed, sometimes she shifted so quickly from one mood to another, he was left with just the fleeting impression of what had gone before. It was a hollow feeling he didn't like.

  He wondered sometimes quite seriously if her mind had been touched. It had been a very long time, after all, since he had seen her last, and God knew her be­havior then had been anything but rational.

  But time itself took care of that concern for him. Careful and continuous observation revealed the final sadness beneath her outward appearance of serenity. Still, as the days went by, he thought he could see a lessening of the lines around her mouth. Even her eyes seemed to be opened a little wider, not as wary of what the day or night could hold for her.

  The many faces of Solange. She mystified him, en­tranced him, irritated him beyond reason. There could be no question of her continued hold over him in some deep way. Damon was eager to find a solution to his imprisonment by her.

  The sooner they could part company, the better.

  One of his worst fears came to pass only three days into their journey. They had been traveling mostly at night, since Damon was still suspicious of pursuit. He pushed them as hard as he dared, but as much as he wished to end the journey, he could not risk losing a horse to injury. The nights were mostly cloudy and light was dim at best. To go beyond a steady trot would be inviting trouble.

  Tucked away in a snug valley between tawny hills, they came upon a rural village neither could name. Da­mon vaguely remembered seeing it on his way out, but that time now seemed an eternity ago and he could not recall if the residents had been friendly or not.

  Most likely not. His encounters with the French had shown them to be a disagreeable people who tended toward suspicion of outsiders to an unpleasant degree.

  And unfortunately enough, they came upon the ring of squat houses without warning, cresting a ridge just after dawn to behold the community well only a few lengths away.

  The sun was behind them, hiding their features to the cluster of women gathered beside the well, draw­ing water for the day's demands. Without a word Da­mon snatched the reins from Solange's hands and guided both horses back down the ridge as quickly and as quietly as he could manage.

  Even more unfortunately, Solange was in one of her daring moods.

  "What—" she began indignantly.

  He silenced her with a harsh look, willing her not to speak until they were well out of range of the women. Somewhat to his surprise, she fell back with a fitful frown but kept her peace until they had taken refuge behind a grove of wild crabapple trees.

  The trees edged a small stream. Both horses waded in to drink.

  "Why did you pull us away?" Solange asked in a hushed voice. "We might have had eggs, or milk from them. We could have had fresh bread."

  "Oh, yes," Damon replied scornfully, in part to quash the wistfulness he heard in her tone. "What a fine idea, to have the widowed Countess of Redmond ride up with her male companion to some peasant women and demand food. I'm certain it would go quite unremarked around here."

  "I wouldn't demand it, I would pay for it. I have coin. And there is no manner by which these people could suspect me to be the countess, as you say. I ap­pear to them to be a boy. I am your squire, my lord!"

  Damon shook his head helplessly. "Solange, no man on earth, nor woman either, could think you a boy."

  Her eyes sparkled with amber fire. "You are mistaken!"

  "No, you are. All it will take is one close look to reveal your gender. Very few boys, however young, have such womanly features. Your voice is too high. Your hair is too long. And," he added bluntly, "your chest is too round."

  She blushed, and shifted in the saddle. "I have taken measures to hide my figure, sir."

  "Not enough. Give it up, Countess. Our best plan is to stay hidden from the populace, at least until we are safely on your father's land again."

  She looked so pensive, so damned pretty in her rough tunic and stockings. How absurd to think she could ever be anything but a female. One look into her eyes was enough to give her away.

  Now she turned them to his, soft brown with golden depths, thickly lashed, utterly feminine.

  "Fresh bread," she sighed.

  "Try some crabapples," he suggested heartlessly. "They should be ripe enough."

  Instead of answering him, she stiffened, turning to the left of him at the exact moment the horses raised their heads and pricked up their ears. Now Damon heard them too, raised voices, coming closer, coming straight at them from across the dale.

  He dismounted and dragged her out of her saddle, holding on to her waist until she found her footing in the creek bed. Both horses walked docilely behind him as he led them deeper into the grove. The crabapple trees mingled with the drooping fronds of a willowleaf. Solange hurried ahead and pushed branches aside, clearing a path for them.

  The voices were clearer now, speaking French in high-pitched tones. It sounded like an argument.

  The heart of the grove was a mass of twisted branches of both trees; it was behind this that Damon thought they would have the best hope of remaining unde­tected. They hunched over amid the leaves, peering out where they could.

  He heard the hiss of Solange's indrawn breath. In a flash she was gone, around the thicket, in a running crouch over to the muddy banks of the creek. She kneeled and patted the mud flat with her hands, then scooped up a clump of leaves and scattered them over the bank.

  The people were now
just beyond the line of mul­berry bushes growing on the other side of the creek. He could see the colors of their clothing; he could al­most make out their features.

  Damon abandoned the horses and went after So­lange, but she was already coming back.

  "Are you deranged?" he uttered through clenched teeth. He grabbed her elbow and yanked her the rest of the way back to the thicket.

  "There were tracks," she panted as they dove for the cover.

  The crash of their bodies blended with the noise of the strangers walking through the foliage. Two women and a child approached the water. The women were busy quarreling, holding between them a heavy basket of clothing. The child stood apart, thumb in mouth.

  The nature of Damon and Solange's arrival into the thicket had left both of them sprawled on the spongy ground, tangled together and covered with de­bris. Chance had placed his right leg over both of hers, with her head pressed up against his chest. His right arm was pinned under her, her left arm under him. His body half covered hers.

  Neither could move without betraying their pres­ence amid the twigs and leaves. The squabbling women knelt by the water, pulling out the clothing piece by piece to pound against the rocks. As each one was done, it was wrung out thoroughly, then slapped up against the mulberry branches. The child spread the material out as evenly as possible to dry.

  Solange was lying with half her face pressed into the dirt. A fallen crabapple under her cheek was growing remarkably painful. Slowly, carefully, she eased her head up, but the unyielding pressure of Damon's chest would let her move only a little, no matter how she pushed at him. She could feel his heart thudding hard against her temple, his rapid inhalations betraying his anxiety. She decided to remain where she was, to calm him.

  It was agony. He couldn't move, he was paralyzed to the bone. She surrounded him, she was on top of him, below him, on all sides, inside his body. She was killing him and he could not stop her.

  With every breath he was forced to draw in the essence of her, that intimate magic that was as heady as spiced wine. The silkiness of her skin caressed him, the softness of her body followed the hard lines of his own relentlessly. He could feel every outline of her, every sweet curve. Her breasts were crushed against his arm beneath her.

  She stirred a little under him; fresh shivers of desire coursed through his veins. He held himself immobile, eyes squeezed shut above her, rigid as stone.

  This was his old nightmare, to be trapped with So­lange, to be tortured with desire for her and unable to act upon it. To have it come true now was almost laughable, but that it hurt so much. He tried desper­ately to think of something else, anything that would distract him, but even the old call of the thunder was too distant to save him now.

  Her hair stirred under his breath. His lips dropped down, as inevitable as the snowfall, to rest upon the chestnut strands. He lingered there, unable to think of doing anything else. It was hell, it was heaven. He hated the part of him that thought if he never moved again, he would be content, soaking up the fragrant heat of Solange. But that didn't change the truth of it.

  Damon was pressing down harder now on her head. Solange tried to bear it unflinchingly. She must have given him quite a fright, she mused, for he was clenched around her tightly and was showing no signs of let­ting go.

  If she moved her chin down just a fraction, she could make out through spaces between the vines the feet and skirts of the women, who had ended their ar­gument with much splashing and muttering. They now slapped the wet clothing around in mutual silence.

  But the child, a girl of perhaps four, was squatting in the mud across the creek, staring back at Solange with wide-eyed interest. She kept one grubby thumb in her mouth.

  All Solange could do was smile at her.

  After a thoughtful moment the thumb was re­moved. The child smiled back.

  Very slowly Solange raised her free hand to her face. She pressed her index finger against her mouth, mak­ing the universal sign of silence. The girl tilted her head and then mimicked the move, an action Solange hoped meant that she understood the meaning. To be extra sure, she winked.

  The little girl winked back. Then she placed her thumb in her mouth again. One of the women cuffed the child and scolded her loudly. She seemed to take the blow in stride, merely standing up and returning to spread the clothing over the mulberry branches. She did not look over at Solange again.

  Damon seemed not to notice any of what just took place. He remained frozen above her, a great portion of the weight of him, she noticed, placed squarely on her torso. Her legs were tingling, and the arm trapped under him had gone completely numb. How long were those women going to loiter over their wash? Solange was positive she could have finished up in a quarter of the time they were taking.

  Finally they were ready to leave. The last of the clothing had been cleaned and spread to dry. The women picked up the empty basket and clumped back though the bushes to the village. The child followed obediently, throwing Solange one last look and a little wave good-bye.

  Solange waved back with her free hand. The girl skipped ahead, catching up with the others. Solange waited until she could hear nothing more of them. "Damon."

  He lifted his head off hers.

  "Damon, it's safe now. We should go before they return."

  He didn't answer her, so she wiggled around to pull her arm from beneath his chest. He exhaled deeply, as if he had been holding his breath for a very long time.

  She had gotten her arm free and was trying to roll over to look at him, but he rose abruptly and walked away from her, over to the horses.

  She sat up, and then stood, wincing at the rush of feeling that poured through her limbs. Twigs and leaves decorated her, and her hands were muddy. Rue­fully she examined her new leather boots, now soaked through and sure to shrink. She was brushing herself clean as best she could when he spoke.

  "Enough of this. It is unseemly."

  She paused, staring at his back.

  "What, pray, is unseemly? I admit I appear now to be more a straw figure than either man or woman, but—"

  "Hold your tongue," he ordered, swinging up on Tarrant. "Time enough for talking later."

  She flashed him her regal look to hide the hurt his words caused. "I am not the one who began the speech, my lord."

  He ignored her and rode past the thicket, away from the village, leaving her to follow or not. She shook her head at his retreating figure. A strong part of her actually considered continuing her journey alone, but soon she mounted and caught up with Damon without incident. They continued the ride in silence.

  But I thought you said we should avoid peo­ple," Solange said in a puzzled voice.

  She pointed to the battered wooden signpost mark­ing the fork in the road ahead. "Calais is close, true, but it is the largest port in the area. If you wish us to remain unseen, that is certainly not the place to do it."

  Damon shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. He had decided, upon reflection of yesterday's near encounter with the women at the creek, that perhaps more im­portant than anonymity was the need to finish this journey with all possible haste.

  It was not a smart thing to do, he knew. It was cer­tainly not the strategy he would have chosen in a battle, for instance. It shirked all of his instinctual warnings and would plunge them into an unpredictable situation with almost endless possibilities beyond his control.

  If this were a war, he would have laughed at the man who dared to suggest such a plan.

  Solange was looking at him, waiting for him to ex­plain his logic. But how could he explain to her that she was killing him, taking him apart piece by piece, a little more every day that passed?

  How could he tell her that he was sending them both into danger simply because if he didn't, he would surely lose control of his sanity?

  He kept thinking about that moment in the crab­apple grove with an almost crazed intensity, remember­ing the whole of it as if it were happening to him all over again. Even now the earl
y morning breeze danced up and tossed about the loose locks of hair surrounding her face, and it bedazzled him. It intoxicated him, watching the silky strands brush her cheeks, cling to the moisture on her lips. He could stare at her all day, forever, but for the fact that he wanted her so badly. He did not think he could continue indefinitely to convince himself that keeping his distance from her physically was a good idea.

  He was already living in a dangerous situation, it was clear. He didn't know how much longer he could just watch her and not touch her again. And once he touched her, he was grimly afraid he would not be able to stop. The need for her was overwhelming every­thing else, including his logic.

  Solange brushed back the hair from her cheeks and tucked it behind her ears. Her hands were graceful even in this spare movement.

  He wanted them on him, caressing him. She was making him insane.

  She spoke again. "I say we keep going, my lord, fol­low the path you originally laid out. It seems the wiser course."

  "No," he said, fighting his senses. He stared out at the signpost, at the fork in the road. "This way is bet­ter. We will go into the city and find passage from there."

  "But—"

  "Just follow me," he snarled, and pushed Tarrant into a gallop down the road to Calais.

  The city was filled with shadows and people, stink­ing of fish and refuse, just as he remembered from his journey over. He kept his focus on the surroundings, the tight buildings, the darkened alleyways, the strangers with curious glances.

  Solange rode with her head shielded by the hood of her cloak, yet to him she shouted out femininity de­spite the hose, despite the way she sat like a man in the saddle. Every now and then he could feel her glance to him, and even though it reflected his own mounting unease, he ignored her. He was taking them to the docks. The docks would lead them to England. In En­gland he would be free of her.

  The wharf was seething with people. They had ar­rived in the midst of the fishing boats returning with the morning's catch. Great mounds of dead fish, crabs, eels, anything the nets could snare, were piled up high under the cloudless sky, surrounded by the fishermen and the marketeers ready to buy the catch. Wheeling flocks of sea birds circled them all, shrieking and div­ing, perching and waddling and snapping up whatever they could. The noise of the surf and the birds and the people mingled in an almost steady boom.