by Amber Scott
Breanne saw no way to explain she was not being prudish, but prudent. If Rose knew the devastating effect that man’s kiss had on Breanne’s sensibilities, she might understand. And that would not happen. That kiss would remain a secret buried away with all her others.
She’d rather expose her studies than reveal that kiss. A shiver tickled her neck at the memory.
“When will Ryan return?” Breanne asked, trying to change her mind’s course.
“Tomorrow mayhap.”
“Can you tear your eyes off of him long enough to eat then, Rose, or shall I find better company?”
“Ah, don’t be jealous, Bree. He’ll not replace my affection for you.” Rose poked her in the ribs, finally facing the food rather than Sinclair’s direction.
A round of deep laughter echoed from the king’s table. She should have known. Sinclair looked to be telling some splendid joke, by his animated gestures. She shouldn’t have looked.
He was something to behold. Tall, broad, masculine. She remembered the hard muscle under those ill-fitted clothes, likely lent him by Quinlan, as they’d become so disgustingly chummy of late. Everyone had taken to speaking in English, a sure sign he was in the vicinity, even Rose.
“He may stay, I’ve heard, to work and earn. I’d imagine he’d be able to meet Brehon law requirement sooner than most. Picture that blood joined with the clan’s.”
“Will you tell him?” Breanne told herself Rose’s moan of approval was for the sweet bread she chewed, rather than the fantasy of Sinclair.
“Of Sir Sinclair,” Rose said. “I don’t doubt he’ll already know. And of other things, not yet.”
“But the tonic helped, did it not?”
“Aye,” Rose said. “But two days is not enough to judge, Bree. Do not badger me of it. Rest you’ll know first as my progress goes.” She kept her voice low and warning.
Breanne knew better than to press the delicate affair further than the dangerous length she already had. A rumble of applause grabbed her attention back to Sinclair, saving her from finding a neutral topic.
“I wonder what he’s told them,” Rose said, audibly awestruck.
“I don’t.”
“Why do you dislike him so? I’d thought at first you’ve just been sour, and then that you wanted my attention, but now I wonder.”
“I don’t know what you mean. I do not even know the man to have chosen between like and dislike.” She filled her mouth and shrugged.
“I think you have.” Rose’s gaze narrowed. “I believe you’re quite decided and I mean to know every last detail, Breanne O’Donnell.”
“Have you gone mad?”
“You’re the only person in the room not reasonably taken with Ashlon Sinclair, the only one among four full tables that looks upon him with scorn. I’ll know why? Or shall I ask Sir Sinclair?”
“No,” Breanne said. “Don’t look at me that way, Rose. All right, I admit it, I know the man. Now, if you please, remove that gloat from your face or I will not tell you a single detail.” A fine sweat broke under Breanne’s bodice. Another lie. More than a lie, a full fabrication. She’d better start writing these things down else forget what was what.
“I met him the day he arrived. He—.”
“By night? Oh my,” Rose said.
“No, not night. By day, he—.”
“But he arrived well into the evening meal, remember, brought by Quin?”
“Aye. Well, I expect it was not the day he arrived then, but the following day.” She rolled her eyes, but was glad for the time she’d just earned to think up her web to weave. “I bumped into him, literally ran straight into him, turning a corner on my way to the kitchens. I was hungry for eggs and though it was past breaking my morning fast, I couldn’t give the idea up.”
“Does he smell good?”
“How should I know?” Breanne shifted. Her mind filled not with memory of his scent, but of the way he’d tasted. Sweet. She remembered the surprise of the taste after rinsing his gullet with bitter broth, wine, meat, where had his sweetness come from?
“You ran into him. Did he smell badly, clean, manly?”
“Clean,” she said. Spicy. Earthy. Her thighs tingled. “He smelled clean, and as I was saying, I had a taste for eggs, scrambled with a bit of cheese. I turned and ran straight into him.”
“And what happened then? Did you fall?” She leaned closer. “Did he catch you?”
“No, I did not fall. I am not clumsy, Rose. What happened was Sir Sinclair looked at me stone-faced and said not a word.” She would burn in hell for certain, telling such a giant fib. But Breanne could not exactly speak the truth, that she’d felt as though she’d collided with him. Or that it had not hurt. It had felt good, familiar. Staggering.
“No.”
“Oh, aye, not a peep. I apologized for not seeing him there and curtsied and when I looked up, saw him completely unmoved.” Lies, lies.
“I can’t believe it.” Rose looked past Breanne to the king’s table. “Certainly, he’s English, but so friendly that I hardly held it as suspicious. Though I can see what you mean by stone-faced. I have caught a hardness about his expression. There is passion under that cool surface, mark my words.”
Breanne gave up. Even an insult Rose twisted into a romantic notion. Her only prayer was that Ryan would arrive early on the morrow and put his wife right with plenty of romping affection.
When laughter filled the room once more, she gritted her teeth. If he wouldn’t soon be leaving on his own, she might have to find a way to help him go.
Ashlon finished his most recent tale among the many nightly requests Niall made. Not that Ashlon minded. The shared stories and rapt audience reminded him of days long past, days he didn’t realize how much he’d missed in the last seven years. Only these men weren’t the polished, low-voiced, winking sort. They were bawdy and blunt and refreshingly real. No subterfuge here.
He drew attention aplenty, even hers. Lady Breanne certainly seemed to try not to look, not to notice him. But she failed and every instance she did, he caught. He was careful not to meet her eye or even her face, but every turn of her head in his direction felt a victory.
In the last two days, it became his personal challenge. He counted the number of looks he earned and wagered with himself how many more he’d get by the week’s end. Being so thoroughly hidden away in the Grianan as she’d been, and as she expeditiously retired each night, these looks were the closest contact he’d managed. Aside from one startling moment from which she’d fast escaped speaking to him.
But he had a plan. Quinlan began training with him in the morn and by day’s end, Ashlon vowed to have roped the man into unknowingly gaining a secret meeting with the object of his affection.
Ashlon sat after his deep bow as the next man stood to share. Shane MacSweeney took the focus. A few moments into MacSweeney’s hunting tale, as fellows in arms joined in during familiar parts, Ashlon watched her. She spoke with her friend, Quinlan’s sister, waved her knife about, the speared meat flopping at her gestures. Whatever she said had her flustered and her cheeks were deliciously pink from it.
She shrugged, looked heavenward and in a breath, looked directly at him. Her eyes widened when they met his. Her pink cheeks flushed to red and color spread down her neck. A slow, knowing smile formed across Ashlon’s face as he understood the true nature of her avoidance.
The kiss. His kiss.
Her stare went to his smile. Her mouth opened. Closed. Back to his eyes. Ashlon winked and when she visibly gasped and turned away, triumph surged through him.
His plan dictated patience. Gaining a meeting with her tomorrow might be too soon to hope for. But upon seeing the naked flash of heat in those eyes, tomorrow felt like an eon to wait.
Ashlon chuckled deeply and returned his attention to MacSweeney in time for his apparently hilarious conclusion. He laughed with the others and no one noticed the difference.
Once trenchers were cleared, most adjourned to the large hear
th to hear the five bards play. Ashlon waited. When Breanne soon retired, without a hint of expression his way, he chuckled again. But the room was colder without her in it.
In her room, Breanne rushed to the long, narrow trunk at the foot of her bed. Finn opened his eyes and stretched from his usual spot. She pulled out two candles, one scarlet and one black, her book and four carefully selected jars. The first three items she dumped, the last four she set delicately aside until the lid closed and she laid her spread.
“Where’s my wine?” Finn asked.
She dug the wineskin out of her cloak’s inner pocket, sewn in for this purpose, and laid it on the floor. He drank from the mouth, a paw pressed to the bag and she didn’t care if he spilt. Right now, she cared only about her altar.
She set each candle to an upper corner on the gray wool. In the first fifty pages, she found what she wanted. It was a simple enough incantation, given to her by Heremon as a simple starting point. While she had never worked its magic, he hadn’t reproached her. Surely he’d held faith that she could, and this time, she would make it work.
Breanne lined up the four short jars and reread the instructions. Simple really. Combine, chant, combine, circle, scry. She’d forgotten her athame and mirror.
“What mischief are we about, love?” Finn purred at her feet.
“We are making magick, Finn.”
“Not tonight, love. I’m of no mood for it. Let us do something else.” The wine had warmed him to her.
“It is not for you, Finn. I have other intentions for this conjuration. And I’m sure you’ll find my practice as entertaining as ever since I am more determined than ever.” She retrieved her athame and drew a circle in the air around them and the altar.
Finn kept quiet for once. Breanne began. She chanted the words, combined the herbs and liquid, Finn giggled. “Sshhhh,” she said.
“What exactly are we attempting?” Finn whispered, his humor clinging to his words like honey.
“I am attempting to find a means to make Sinclair leave Tir Conaill.”
“I say let him stay. He seems a good fellow.”
Breanne stopped mixing to stare at the cat. “You canno’ be serious, Finn.”
“Pish-posh, Breanne. There’s no reason ‘tall to force the knight out. You did your part, now leave him be.” He swayed a bit.
Pish-posh? The difference was night to day when Finn imbibed, though either version adored disagreeing. She wasn’t sure she liked him better this way, the amicable protester. She refocused on the incantation.
“Why will you make him go?” Finn said. “And how? He’s done naught to you outside of needing a bit of tending and may I remind you that you are, in fact, a healer.”
“He’s done plenty to make me happier once gone. His remaining puts us at risk.” She traced the page with her finger.
“I cannot imagine him putting his own neck on the block by telling anyone about Heremon.” Finn squinted up at her. “What aren’t you telling me? It’s something important and I can nearly smell it on you, so you may as well tell me now and save a fit.”
“Will you let me work, please?”
“Not until you explain that phrase to me. What plenty has the good knight done, Breanne?” Finn said, his tone teasing.
“He’s put me at risk, is that not enough?”
“He did not put you at risk, you did. Aiding him, presaged or not, was your choice. And although you had to sneak about and heal him, you cannot convince me that is enough to rid yourself of his innocent presence in the clan.”
He was right. Even besotted, the cat made keen deductions and astute observations. Well, he’d have to guess the truth because she refused to speak the words. That smile, that damned smile, gave her such a start, such panic, what could more cause? Another dizzying kiss, or worse, more? She couldn’t risk it.
Breanne chanted the rhyme three times, cutting the air with her athame in the symbol of flight. She visualized Sinclair walking the road away from Tir Conaill, heading north and carrying a chest. She willed the image of him to walk onward, away, to journey elsewhere. She spoke the words and she wished him protection on his journey.
Back to the beginning, she replayed the sequence in her head, chanting, cutting in chains of three, until suddenly, the image took on life. Ashlon walked, arms loaded, sword sheathed. He paused, he turned, and looking right at her, he smiled.
Breanne opened her eyes, coughing to catch the breath that knocked out of her like a fist to her chest. The mixture toppled, spilling. His smile lingered in her mind, changing from thrilling to cloying, and she realized she’d had her first experience of second sight.
She had chosen the spell entitled safe travel in hopes of encouraging the man’s spirit to hunger for new adventures and doubly count him protected, in case her duty to him was not yet done.
Instead of completing a charmed concoction, she’d been hit with her first presage.
Until that moment, breath caught and sitting stunned with her hand to her beating heart, Breanne had denied the notion that her linkage to Ashlon might not have ended with his returned health.
A thrill of fear gripped her.
Chapter Eleven
“The man was beheaded by sword, the story went, for a minor crime such as theft, or something of the like,” Ashlon said above their trotting horses. “And the raconteur swore on his mother’s bones that upon the thief’s head being severed, a young and beautiful woman emerged from the uproarious crowd, placed a chalice under the neck and gathered the dripping blood.”
“Horrid,” Quinlan said.
“Worse, the woman drank the blood, all the while staring into the witness’s eyes.”
“Ashlon,” Quinlan scoffed. “You cannot have believed such a gruesome tale as all that.”
“I hadn’t reason not to believe its validity.”
“But you are a learned man, trained and schooled in such an esteemed and unique way. For you to believe the story and then use it as example for all of Ireland to be compared with, I find surprising.”
A spiky range of mountains broke through the rolling green landscape.
“It is a sad truth, I fear, that most of England and likely other areas, view your country and people as wild, and godless, capable of inhuman violence. Until you met me on the road that day, I considered the same idea. Had little reason not to.”
“Ludicrous,” Quinlan said. “A woman, or a man for that matter, drinking blood from a beheaded corpse. Who would say such a thing and be believed?”
“A monk swearing to have just come from travels there at the behest of the crown.” Ashlon’s pride only slightly stung. Thinking back and now knowing these peoples, ludicrous described the notion precisely. “I am glad to have been proven so wrong, Quinlan, on my word.”
“I’d say more than glad considering the state I came upon you in.” Quinlan chuckled. “Clothes muddied and tattered, face gaunt and wanton.”
“A sight, was I?”
“More. You looked like you’d tangled with the wrong giant.”
Ashlon laughed.
“You must have guts of iron to have come to us with such sordid expectations,” Quinlan said. “Obviously, it concerns me not, is business between Niall and you alone, but I must admit I am curious after your tale. What was it that sent you here, if I may be so bold as to inquire, worth facing blood drinking heathens?”
Quinlan slowed his horse to a walk. Ashlon followed suit. Their morning tour of the area could use a short rest.
He used their dismount near a sconce of birches as an opportunity to find his answer. Easily, he could offer none and Quinlan would leave the issue be. But Ashlon felt secrecy now could impinge on trust he might need later. He would need that trust intact if he were to gain contact with the Lady Breanne.
“You’ve likely heard some version of the truth by now,” Ashlon said. “A community as closely united as yours must have drawn conclusions.”
Quinlan shrugged.
“The truth of
it is that I am formerly of the Knights of Solomon and before his death, my mentor, the Grand Master bade me here. Any of us not directly captured, accused of heresy, and tortured to confess such, were given instruction on where to safely go. Mine brought me here.” Ashlon’s throat tightened and he swallowed.
“The Knights of Solomon. I knew it.” Quinlan stared openly at him.
“Aye.” Knights no more.
“But you are not surprised. No other has spoken of the supposition to me; in fact, I believe I am the only one to rightly suspect your origins. How are you not surprised?”
Ashlon tied his borrowed gelding to a low limb. “You betrayed your impression firstly, by asking for my help in courting the Lady O’Donnell and secondly, only now in reference to my unique schooling.”
“Aye, I can see I did.” Quinlan attached his lead near Ashlon’s on the branch. “I arrived in France a year after the inquisition began. Horrific tales I heard, and unlike the gory one you just shared, I don’t doubt the validity of these.”
Ashlon’s nightmares’ flames rekindled in his mind. His skin sweated and he had to shake his head to keep composed.
“Yes, I’m sure they were. What business had you in France?”
“I studied at the University of Paris, a wide variety of subjects, none of which held my interest long and few that will aid me in my current needs.”
Ashlon matched his polite smile with his own, grateful for the man’s smooth transition away from hell’s edge. “A matter we shall see to then,” he said.
The agreed upon exchange for Ashlon relating his most relevant knowledge on women would be Quinlan’s returned instruction on all subjects Irish. It wasn’t that Ashlon any longer felt out of his element. It was a way for him to learn Gaelic and better know his environment should it become dangerous.
“First, Master Blake, we must consider the subject. If you please, relay all you know of Breanne O’Donnell.” A surge went through his body when he spoke the words. Anticipation. Under the guise of servitude, he would gain insight to the mysterious woman who had saved, and now snubbed him.