The Knight's Scarred Maiden

by Nicole Locke

  Except the way Rhain was looking now paid no heed to what she knew was fact. His face had quickly turned from conciliatory to dark.

  ‘Those men at your village were fools. All of them not to have seen the gem they had in their very midst.’

  Gem? The warmth of his earlier words now hurt. ‘You jest.’

  His eyes searched hers and something flashed across his features. ‘Forgive me. Would you believe I once was glib of tongue?’

  He’d spent most of the time with her in silence.

  ‘No, of course not, but if I could... I would let you know.’ He took in every one of her features from her scars to the freckles on her nose until she grew warm from his amber gaze.

  ‘You are a gem, Helissent, and very rare. I’ve never seen your like before. I could say the color of your hair was brown, but that wouldn’t take in the red streaking throughout or the almost golden blond highlighting you like a halo. Your eyes aren’t only green, but grey, and the softest of browns. You bake cakes from the crudest of ingredients and they would make angels weep. You worked hard serving ale, and you are honest. How could any man not want you?’

  Every part of her insides frothed and bubbled. The way he talked, the way he looked and touched her. She almost felt like she was the finest of flours, or some rare ingredient she’d never experienced.

  Why would he say such words? Not for a moment did she believe he truly thought her a gem. It must have something to do with the castle and the steward’s perceptions of her role with the mercenaries. ‘That was a nice apology,’ she whispered past her heart vigorously kneading in her chest.

  ‘That wasn’t an apology, that was—’

  ‘Here we are.’ The steward beamed as the servants set down their trenchers, goblets and pewter knives. ‘I hope it all meets with your satisfaction.’

  Rhain looked at her until his frustrated expression shuttered closed and he abruptly turned his attention to Nicholas on his right.

  Leaving her shivering with something she couldn’t guess at. Forcing her to do or see something other than the words he laid out before her. She gave her thanks to the steward before he bowed and left.

  Her first meeting with a steward. Her first feast. Only a few days north of her home was this castle and whatever expansive kitchens that produced fare at a moment’s notice. Granted, the fruit and nuts and latticed bread was already ready. The soup could have been prepared this morning for tonight’s meal. The rest was cold cuts of meat and bits of leftover vegetables, but all was artfully arranged. She didn’t know that food could be arranged.

  Her eyes on the food, her thoughts on Rhain’s words. Had he meant them? If so, what did they mean coming from a man such as him? His beauty was as unreal now as it was when she first saw him. He rarely smiled, but when he did, it was like looking at the sun too long. He gave them with ease, but they never lasted long. As if he once had smiled freely and now no longer should. He was so full of shadows...

  Platters of fish were brought in, the steam wafting the soft scents of fresh herbs. The men ate this food as easily as they ate her dried meat and water soup over a campfire and cheap cuts at the inn. How did they stomach her cooking?

  Even Nicholas and Rhain, now deep in conversation, ate the food like it was commonplace. She listened while they discussed the weaponry and what had to be done at the blacksmith’s. There was a natural friendship between them she enjoyed listening to. A warmth she didn’t often see.

  It wasn’t that her village was full of Rudds, but it was small, mostly farming, herding and transient. She hadn’t made a friendship like they had. Her chest gave a tiny pang she could do nothing about, so she lifted her cup to take a drink.

  It was wine. Wine she’d never tasted before. The scent was heady, the tiny sip she allowed caressed divinely across her tongue. The elaborate fare simply waiting for her to taste as well, though she didn’t feel she’d get anything down her restricted throat.

  So strange how her life had changed from peril in the fire, to love with the innkeepers. From peril with Rudd to...this.

  And this after everything was almost more than she could bear. She dined in a castle. Though she could feel the servants stare at her, she didn’t sense any hostility, nor could she sense their disapproval.

  Then there was the travel with the men, who didn’t stare and asked for her help.

  And Rhain with his words that she was a gem. The way he looked at her in the lone candlelight with a wary defiance. As if something as broken and undeserving as she challenged him—

  ‘If the food is not to your liking, as the highest noble ranking here, I could simply order a beheading or two,’ Rhain whispered.

  Something flashed in his eyes. Something piercing before there was only a light-hearted amber reflection she didn’t know he was capable of. Over the last few days he’d shown only shadows, now he was showing some other facet of himself. Humor. Teasing, but almost like he couldn’t help himself. Like those smiles he felt he shouldn’t give.

  He said he was once glib of tongue. Had he also once been happy? If so, there were too many shadows for her to make sense of him.

  ‘Are you mocking me?’ she said.

  ‘I’m making you smile.’

  ‘I don’t understand you.’

  The corner of his lips quirked. ‘Neither do I. It’s the bane of my current existence.’

  He was teasing her as he did with Nicholas that time in the inn. Again, she wondered about this man she’d met only a few days before. He might be in shadows, but there was one certainty—he was a rich noble and the world was at his feet. ‘You have no banes of your existence.’

  ‘Well, of course I don’t and I can’t imagine anyone else would want to live with theirs.’

  Light and mockery in his eyes. She should laugh and she felt the curve to her lips. But there was always something she felt he was telling her, something underneath the words.

  ‘You’re staring at me again,’ he said.

  She closed her eyes briefly in embarrassment. She wasn’t used to being talked to this way. Usually conversations were brief between serving ale and food. Sometimes she gathered the courage to ask questions. Mostly travelers liked to tell their tales and they never asked questions of her.

  But that’s what she felt with Rhain and his puzzling looks. With his silence and mockery, like his meanings underneath his words, it felt as though he was asking questions of her.

  ‘I meant what I said,’ he whispered. ‘Though I shouldn’t say a word and I have no right. Every one of them was true.’

  He was too perceptive, in such a brief period of time how could he know her this way? She didn’t delude herself that the awareness she felt for him he somehow mirrored. That would be something to laugh about.

  Except he said those words about her hair and her eyes. He told her he meant them. How could he?

  She was scarred, disfigured and ugly on the inside with her shame.

  Years of love and care from John and Anne, and never did she forgot her scars, nor did they. Even when she had to lift John because he’d become so frail and couldn’t relieve himself, he asked how her skin fared with his extra weight. No, she never forgot; she didn’t deserve to forget.

  Over the years, travelers and children mimicked her walk when her leg tightened, or pulled down one corner of their eye and mouth and giggled. Now this man spoke words, with a tone of sincerity that hurt her worse than the cruelest jibe she’d ever received.

  ‘That I’m a gem? I’m more like the coarsest of flours.’ She couldn’t hide the hurt lacing the words. ‘Unmilled, even, hacked wheat from the shaft. I know no man would want me. No man staring at me would forget. And this...’ she waved from her face down her arm ‘...isn’t the worst of it.’

  Her face was scarred, but at least she could feel the wind and sun. Along her to
rso and her right upper thigh she couldn’t feel anything at all. There the skin didn’t look like skin on any human, but grooves like streams of flat ale in rye flour.

  ‘You may have briefly felt my skin, but you cannot comprehend what is under this gown, Mercenary, and no doubt a husband wouldn’t either. Certainly no one in my village forgot.’

  Nor would they let her forget. As she intended.

  Brows drawn tight, Rhain’s expression became all shadow. ‘I do not presume to appreciate or comprehend what occurred to you, Helissent, but I’d listen if you’d ever honor me with the telling. However, just as I cannot know what is underneath that gown, you cannot know or question the veracity of my words. I meant it when I said I should not tell you things I have no right to.’

  Kindness again. Compassion, though she’d hurt him somehow by rejecting his opinion of her. How could she forget he was shadows and light?

  He carried them both. Utter beauty and wealth, and she realized with some pain lacing his words, he wasn’t impervious to Fate’s cruel whims.

  He said he would not presume what made her her. But she had presumed with him. Worse, she’d heaped her anguish on to him and he had done nothing except rescue her. How to set things right, when she had never been glib of tongue?

  Then she remembered when they last had an understanding.

  ‘You could be right, though.’ She lifted a shoulder and tried to appear as nonchalant as he had when he teased.

  His eyes trailed to her shoulder, then back to her lips and up to her eyes.

  ‘About the suitors for me,’ she continued, trying to keep her tone light. ‘I suppose I should let you know I’m waiting for the man who will equal my cakes.’

  His brows raised; his eyes lighting with the tone in her voice. ‘Then you’ll be waiting a very long time,’ he said. ‘In fact, I don’t think you’ll find a man to equal your cakes.’

  She pretended to muse about the comment. ‘That’s true, he’d have to be sweet.’

  Rhain’s lips curved in a true smile then. She had surprised him and for some reason it felt as good as an apology.

  ‘Oh, yes, most certainly sweet,’ he said. ‘But also light, rich...delicious.’

  Images of the mercenaries the first day she saw them. Rough and unclean from a long journey. How some patrons hacked phlegm to the floorboards that she skirted to avoid. How others, too drunk for manners, filled the inn with their belches and blurting gas from overfilled bellies, until she sought sanctuary outside if only for a moment. Images of Rudd with his blackened fingernails scratching his protuberant hairy belly, then sinking those fingers into a freshly baked roll.

  Men as something that could be rich, light and delicious? The first laugh escaped her before she meant it, then she couldn’t stop and she covered her mouth with her hand until tears formed in her eyes, but her laughter only increased. Rhain handed her a goblet when it seemed she would choke.

  Trying to control the images in her mind and her laughing, she glanced around at the other men, certain they would be grimacing at her since her scars were worse when she laughed. Or at least outraged at her lack of decorum, but they were looking at Rhain, not at her. Their dark countenances were gaping, which made her laugh again, her hand clapping on to the goblet he still held. Out of everyone around the table Rhain looked the most shocked.

  Over the rim, she giggled. ‘Rich, sweet, I’ll grant you that, but in what circumstances could men ever be delicious?’

  Absolute silence, while she watched both of Rhain’s brows raise.

  Nicholas’s chair thwacked forward. The clang echoed off the stone walls. His body flopped like he lost his famed balance and use of his limbs.

  In almost unison, the mercenaries bellowed, slapping their backs, spilling their wine, flinging food and the dogs yipped from the sudden treats and noise.

  When her eyes returned to Rhain’s there was a different look to his eyes than the men’s. Different than his surprise from before.

  There was...heat there. His brows had lowered, his chin dipped, his amber eyes, deeper, just a bit darker. His lips held a curve that had nothing to do with mere friendship. The flush across his cheeks had nothing to do with shared laughter.

  ‘Did I say something?’

  The men around her were talking animatedly, keeping the laughter going, causing new guffaws to echo in the Great Hall.

  ‘I said something, didn’t I?’ Then she thought, it hadn’t been her, it’d been him. He said it; she had simply repeated it. ‘You said it first.’

  ‘I did.’ A brighter smile, almost sharp with intent. ‘But I didn’t expect the...result.’

  Nicholas’s laugh bellowed out over everyone’s. ‘It’s the women who don’t expect the results!’

  Rhain’s grin flashed again, but it couldn’t survive the heat in his eyes, or the way his mouth softened and his eyes couldn’t stay away from hers.

  All her life she’d been surrounded by drunk travelers and jesting patrons. From the knowing suggestive expressions around her, Helissent knew she said something bawdy.

  Times like this she wished she could blush, or pretend some sort of modesty when she knew that was the correct response. Instead, Rhain’s expression made her curious.

  ‘You’re not laughing like the rest of them. Why?’

  There was humor in Rhain’s eyes, in the cant of his head, in the sensual curve of his lips. Certainly, his eyes flashed with great mirth at Nicholas’s comment, but there was something more to Rhain’s expression. Some knowing look that sent a flash of heat through her.

  ‘I don’t think I’m capable of it.’

  His words were slow, deep and deliberate. Each syllable sinking into her. Until by the end of the simple sentence, the easy delivery of the words, the Grand Hall, the sumptuous fare, the raucous laughter and revelry of the men disappeared and there seemed to be only Rhain, and his words.

  She was not so naive not to know what went on between a man and a woman. She lived and worked in an inn. She was more than aware of desire and lust.

  The villagers were circumspect, but those who travelled through from London to York had no such qualms. Well dressed, courtly even, but the more ale she served, the more heated glances and suggestive touching occurred. They didn’t care at all what they flaunted, or what they said.

  But never, in all those years, had any such flirting or flaunting been directed towards her. She wasn’t even sure it was happening now, except the way her body heated while he stared at her. Her body felt as though he was flirting with her.

  No, not flirting. There was nothing light in the way he looked at her now, his amber eyes darkening, his lids heavier, his mouth softening as he glanced at her lips, then back to her eyes.

  ‘No, not capable at all,’ he whispered low.

  Words only for himself, only for her.

  A frown, an adjustment in his seat as if he was suddenly uncomfortable. As if he realized what he’d said and it was too much.

  She felt as though it was too much. ‘I don’t understand you.’

  ‘I hardly understand myself right now.’

  They kept repeating the same words to each other, but she felt no closer to the truth. ‘The others laughed.’

  ‘The others aren’t imagining what I am, what I shouldn’t be. What I haven’t for years now. Not even a temptation.’

  He made her sound like she was a honeycomb just out of reach. ‘And you are now?’

  ‘Yes.’ He grabbed his goblet and his fingers flitted around the stem as they did with the dagger at his waist.

  If possible, those slight caresses wound her tighter to this moment with him. The fact she knew, somehow, he was aware of her, as a man is of a woman.

  It was an absurd thought, but there was something behind Rhain’s eyes as he then retrieved her goblet and s
et it down.

  Rhain, who seemed incapable of taking his eyes off her lips until she was sure she’d left wine there and darted her tongue to lick it.

  His chest expanded and he turned his attention to the table. His eyes darted as if looking for answers until they fixed on her empty trencher. ‘Should we eat?’ he said. ‘You’ve done nothing but eye the food. You’re torturing me with the wait. Don’t you wish to taste it?’

  She was certain she couldn’t get food past the constriction in her throat. She couldn’t even breathe properly now. ‘It’s almost too beautiful to destroy.’

  His eyes slid to hers, wary again before some tension eased and he said, ‘But I can tell you already want to make changes.’

  She did. She would be beyond fortunate to have the budget and kitchens that Tickhill seemed to possess. All she hoped for, was that wherever she landed in York, it would have better supplies than Rudd’s. If so, it would be prudent to take her experience here and add it to her cooking.

  For now, however, that thought was overwhelming. She was seated in a great hall of a king’s castle and realized she didn’t even know in what order to serve the food. She’d been too busy staring at Rhain. So she stalled.

  ‘Is it always like this? With servants pouring your wine and food too beautiful to eat?’

  His lips quirked at that. ‘Are you worried it’ll taste better than yours? Try the soup, Helissent.’

  She knew a challenge had been made, but it was the coaxing sound of his voice that held power over her, for she did try it and it was better than the wine.

  Then she didn’t care about the increased quirk to his lips, or that he might not be as interested in food as she was.

  She dunked her spoon in again and she simply had to know.

  ‘What’s in it? I know it’s chicken and mint, but what’s that other flavor?’

  The flavor was a revelation. She didn’t know food could taste like this.