Never Kiss A Stranger

by Heather Grothaus

  He nodded.

  “Is that all?” she asked, praying it was, but fearing in her heart that he had saved the worst of the lot for last.

  “No. I will not hold you up before Edward in order to aid my cause. It is too dangerous for you, with the game Sybilla plays. When we reach London, I want you to use what coin you have left to send to Fallstowe for someone to come and fetch you home.”

  Alys nodded, relieved. “Alright.”

  Piers seemed to be about to say something else, but stopped mid-word. He closed his mouth and frowned. “Alright?”

  “You have been right all along, Piers,” Alys said, curling her fingers into his tunic, drawing the warmth from him. “The way I left Fallstowe was stupid and childish. Sybilla was only trying to do what was best for me, for the family. I know she must be very upset with me right now. I owe it to her—and to my parents, who left our family in Sybilla’s hands—to return, and do whatever I can to help right things.”

  Piers was very still. “Even if that means marrying Clement Cobb?”

  “Whatever I can, save that.” Alys smiled briefly, but then let it fall from her mouth as she looked up into Piers’s eyes. “I love you, Piers. I want to be with you for the rest of my life, whether that life is at Gillwick, or Fallstowe, or even here, in your grandfather’s woodland village. Once I’ve settled things with Sybilla, I will come to you, wherever you are.”

  Piers shook his head. “No. Alys, it might mean losing your family if I fail to gain my father’s title. Think of the children you might one day have—would you keep them in a tree, like this? Like Tiny? Stealing from travelers and digging in the dirt for roots when there is no food, no coin?”

  “I don’t think that will happen,” Alys insisted. “I believe in you, Piers! I know that whatever you will say to the king will make him see reason!”

  “You don’t know that!” Piers shook her. “I don’t know that! It is my word against Judith Angwedd’s.”

  “Take Ira!” Alys said, hope filling her. “He can be your witness.”

  But her optimism was dashed. “Oh, Alys—you are so used to being listened to, catered to! Think you the king would take the word of a commoner, living illegally in the wood with a band of peasant brigands, over a noble’s word? Even one as disgusting as Judith Angwedd? Ira would likely end up in the dungeon for his trouble. Ira is no one. And right at this moment, even in this fine suit of clothes, I am equal only to him in the king’s eyes. In the eyes of the law.”

  “Then reconsider telling Edward of the Foxe Ring!” Alys insisted. “It may not help, true, but what then could it harm?”

  “It could harm you. It could harm your sisters,” he said quietly, and Alys felt as though her heart was being squeezed.

  “Alright.” She licked her lips. “But what if you do succeed with the king? Will you come for me then? Make me your lady, in truth?”

  “Gillwick is no Fallstowe, Alys. Even if I gain my father’s place, I cannot offer you a crumb of the life that you are accustomed to.” He averted his eyes. “I cannot say what I will do.”

  “You cannot say?” Alys stepped away from him. “You mean no, don’t you? You don’t plan to come back for me, no matter the outcome in London. Piers, do you care for me at all?”

  His eyes flew back to hers and his anger was apparent. “Yes! If I did not, you would not be here with me now!” He turned with a terrible blasphemy on his lips, one hand on his hip, the other swiping across his face. “I could have left you alone in the wood long ago. Carried on without you.”

  “And you would have sickened and died! Never known your grandfather!” Alys tried not to shout, remembering the quiet of midnight that was all around the tree house, but tears filled her eyes. Why was he being so cruel? “You said yourself that you owe me a great deal—does that not include the truth of your feelings for me?”

  Piers nodded. “I do owe you a great deal. Which is why I cannot allow any misunderstandings between us.”

  “Misunderstandings?” Alys threw her arms out to her sides. “How can you misunderstand me? I love you! I want to be with you, no matter what happens! I care not that you are rich or poor, that you’re titled or common. We can live in a castle or a tree or a cave, what little it matters to me! The only misunderstanding is why you would readily throw that kind of love and loyalty aside as though it’s rubbish!”

  “I want,” Piers said slowly, looking at her, “what is best for you.”

  Alys quieted and stepped to him once more. “You are what is best for me.” She clasped his face in her hands, forced him to continue to look at her. “You’ve taught me to take nothing and no one for granted. You’ve shown me what it feels like to want a man, to want him for a husband, to love him as if he is the only man on earth. The way you should feel before you enter into a marriage.”

  “I won’t let you throw away your life.”

  So there it was. There was his true reason.

  Alys felt her brows lower, and she welcomed the anger. Perhaps it would smother the heartbreak she felt at his professed self-loathing.

  “I am not a child,” she said shaking him once for emphasis. “And it is not your decision to make.” Then she brought her lips to his and kissed him with all the passion she felt, her anger, her fear, her love. She wrapped her arms around his neck, standing on tiptoe, and kissed him and kissed him, trying to erase his doubts. He did not deny her, although he did not encourage her.

  At last she leaned back, her hands coming to rest on either side of his neck. Her heart pounded in her breast, and she could feel the reverberations of its thumping against Piers’s solid chest.

  He stared down at her, his eyes black and starving for what was before him. If only he would reach out and take it, take her …

  “We should try to get some rest. We’ll leave as soon as it is light.”

  Alys felt tears press against her eyelids and she shook her head faintly as she stepped back from him.

  “You don’t love me at all, do you?”

  His throat worked as he swallowed. “I simply can make you no promises.”

  Alys rolled her lips inward and bit down on them to still their trembling. “Very well, Piers. Have your time in London to do what you feel you must do. No promises. I think we understand each other quite clearly now.”

  “I don’t mean to hurt you, Alys,” he said in a low voice.

  She walked around him and paused at the side of the cot to slip out of her shoes. She crawled beneath the covers, not bothering to take off her cloak. She turned on her side to face the skin wall, her body feeling stiff and sore, as if she had sustained a great fall. After a moment, she heard Piers sigh softly and then the light from the candle went out, draping the shelter in darkness. The cot dipped as Piers joined her.

  Alys didn’t know how they managed to not touch on such a narrow bedstead.

  Tiny knew that if she was caught down from the tree in the middle of the night, her Papa would switch her legs raw. But she thought there might be some pudding left from the feast, and she knew there would be mead, and any matter, Layla was restless. Lady Alys would take the monkey with her on the morrow when she and Piers left the town, and Tiny wanted to savor every moment she could steal with the marvelous little animal, and breathe the air that was scented with the presence of a real lady, for as long as possible.

  The bonfire was no grand flame now, but its coals were lively and licking in a wide bowl that radiated a welcome heat onto Tiny’s shins and face as she sat on a log, Layla on her shoulder. She was scraping the last cold, congealed dregs from a forgotten bowl with her fingers when Layla started, shrieked, and leapt away into the shadows. Tiny jumped to her feet, the bowl tumbling to the ground, and looked around for what could have startled the animal. She saw nothing.

  “Oh, bugger!” Tiny huffed. She bent at the waist and tried to peer into the darkness. “Layla! Layla, come here, you naughty monkey!” She would be switched for certain now, being down from the tree at night alone, and
having lost Lady Alys’s pet. She heard a rustle behind a nearby tree and crept toward it.

  “Layla! Oh mercy, you’re going to get me switched! Come out right now!”

  She was just about to peer around the wide gray trunk when a hand reached out and jerked her forward, spinning her around so that she could not see the face of the person who held her. One arm braced across Tiny’s chest and a hand gripped her upper arm, while another hand clapped over her mouth. Tiny could smell heady cologne and then a voice whispered in her ear.

  “I have no desire to harm you, child.” It was a woman’s voice, and finely accented. “But I cannot turn you loose for obvious reasons, and you do seem quite frail. So if you struggle, it is likely that I will break your arm. Do you agree?”

  Tiny nodded. The arm across her chest was draped in a rich, heavy cloak material, and Tiny could see part of the massive hood out of the corner of her right eye. The woman holding her was not large, but her captor was right—Tiny was frail. With one twist, her arm would separate from her shoulder with a familiar snap.

  “Good. Now, listen to me, very carefully, and you need only nod yes or nay: Lady Alys Foxe, she is still here, yes?”

  Tiny hesitated, but then nodded.

  “But she is to leave soon? With a man?”

  Tiny was motionless. She didn’t know who this strange woman was, or in what kind of jeopardy Lady Alys would be placed if she answered the questions.

  As if the woman could hear her worried thoughts, she offered. “Had I ill intent, I could have acted any number of times she strayed to the fringe of the village.” She paused, letting the fact sink in that the woman had known Alys had been residing at the village, had possibly been watching her for nigh on a week. “Now, is she to leave?”

  Tiny nodded.

  “On the morrow?”

  She nodded again.

  “Good. Well done. Now, I will remove my hand so that you may speak aloud your next answer. If you betray me, everyone in this village shall pay for your mistake. Do you understand?”

  Tiny nodded.

  “To where do Lady Alys and the man hie?”

  The hand slowly eased away from Tiny’s mouth, just enough for her lips to move, and the hooded head leaned closer, pressing into the side of Tiny’s face.

  “L-London,” she whispered.

  The woman seemed to give Tiny a squeeze, and instead of the hand clamping back across her face, it disappeared for a moment.

  “Good girl,” the woman whispered. “The lady’s pet has scampered up the tree where she is sleeping. You are safe from your parents’ wrath as long as you don’t turn ‘round until I am gone, and then you scurry up to your own bed. Tell no one I was here, and you may keep this for yourself.”

  Tiny’s wrist was seized and a hard, flat object was forced beneath her fingers.

  With a rush of cold air and snow, Tiny was free. She closed her eyes and counted twenty before turning around, and even then, she only cracked one eyelid at first.

  She was alone.

  Her heart began beating so fast in her chest that she thought her ribs might break, and she began to cry quietly. She swiped at her face and then looked down at the object in her hand.

  She stared at it for a long time, the wind chilling her until she shivered. Then she began to walk slowly to her family’s tree, to go to bed as she’d been told.

  Chapter 19

  Piers was already dressed and moving about the frigid tree house when Alys awoke the next morning. She opened her eyes and he was the first thing she saw—folding his new clothes and placing them carefully in his pack, which he had set on the edge of the cot.

  She lay there for several moments, watching him silently. He was dressed in his old tunic once more, and as he put the fine costume away, Alys couldn’t help but feel a sharp stab of fear—it was as if he was already putting away the days and nights they had shared on their long journey together. But she would not yet give up. She was still to travel the remainder of the way to London with him. Perhaps it was only a matter of days before a brighter, easier future was laid out surely before them both.

  His eyes caught a glimpse of her watching him and he paused in his chores.

  She gave him a little smile. “Good morrow.”

  “Sleep well?” he asked lightly.

  “Not really,” she said and felt a strand of her hair being pulled.

  “I’d set out as soon as you are ready,” he said, cinching up the straps of his pack and then glancing beyond her shoulder. “Little wonder neither one of us slept—that cot is hardly big enough for two, let alone three.”

  Alys realized the pulling on her hair was Layla. She turned her head. “Hello, traitor,” she said in a cool voice.

  Layla reached out with lightning speed and tweaked her nose—hard.

  “Ouch! The thanks I get for saving your life. Ungrateful little beast.” She turned a smile to Piers, hoping he would be amused by her play, but he had already turned away, throwing the straps of his bag over one shoulder.

  “I’d seek Ira before we depart,” he said. “Come down when you’re ready.” He walked to the flap in the sidewall.

  Alys sat up, pulling the blanket around her shoulders and knocking Layla from her perch. She pushed the long strands of hair escaped from her plait from her eyes. “Piers?”

  He paused, turned his face halfway to her, his eyebrows raised in question.

  Alys swallowed, tried to keep her voice light. “We’re going to be alright. Aren’t we?”

  He nodded. “I’ll meet you below.”

  Then he sidled through the wall and was gone, leaving Alys alone with a monkey in her lap and the cold, cold wind in her ears.

  Piers’s heart sank lower with every rung of the rope ladder he descended. Suddenly, he dreaded London, and all that it stood for: the uncertain as well as certain paths of his future. A future without Alys.

  Ira was waiting for him at the bottom of the tree, as Piers had known he would be. The old man had terrible disapproval in his eyes.

  “You’re a fool and an idiot,” was the old man’s greeting.

  “Good morning, Grandfather,” Piers said lightly, as he reached the ground and turned to face Ira. It was obvious Ira suspected that he and Alys had spent the night together in an intimate manner.

  Around them, the woodland village was alive with the chores of the day, and people tended their work as they must, but Piers caught their furtive glances of curiosity. They, too, suspected. Even Tiny, assisting her mother at the fire, stared at him, her small brow wrinkled with worry.

  “You didn’t tell her, did you?” Ira accused.

  Piers dropped his pack to the ground. “She will send for her sister once we reach London.”

  The old man’s hairy eyebrows shot up. “She agreed?”

  “It was her plan before I mentioned it. She acknowledges that she must answer the betrothal.”

  Ira’s eyes narrowed. “I cannot imagine it was that easy.”

  Piers sighed. “Let it be, Ira. What is done is done, and we will not know the outcome of it until I have my audience with Edward.”

  “Very well,” the old man acquiesced. “But I would speak my mind to her all the same. Is her ladyship dressed to receive visitors yet?” he mocked.

  Piers leveled a look at his grandfather. “Ira, I warn you now—nothing untoward happened between Alys and me last night, and you will say naught to upset her. I ken that the pair of you are not fast companions, but that is largely your own fault. Whether you believe it or not, Alys is a good woman, and this journey has not been an easy one for her. She deserves your respect. If not for her, the two of us may not ever have met.”

  “Until Edward dubs you a knight of the realm, you don’t command me, pup,” Ira said gruffly. “And even if he did, you still wouldn’t! I’ll speak my thoughts to whom and as I please.”

  “You heard me, Ira,” Piers said. “I do not jest.”

  “And neither do I,” Ira growled, leaning toward Pie
rs and squinting one eye at him. “You’re just like your mam—always making excuses for ‘em.”

  Piers stared at the old man, his expression set.

  Ira eased off. “It is a fair thing to have a bit of her returned to me.”

  Piers caught glimpse of the girl, Tiny, making her way ever closer to him, casting her mother furtive glances. It was as if she was trying to catch Piers’s attention, and he thought it strange that she did not simply walk to him and greet him as she normally would.

  Ira had already started climbing the ladder, like an ancient yet still nimble spider—all bony joints.

  When Piers looked around once more, the small village girl was nearly upon him.

  “Good morrow to you, sir,” she called out gaily, and rather loudly, Piers thought. “Are you readied for your journey?”

  “Good morrow to you, Tiny. I am all but,” he replied with a faint smile. It amazed him how this small, frail girl had managed to survive these many years in the hard wood, let alone thrive.

  “Is Lady Alys about yet?” she called, with a bit more put-on nonchalance than was necessary. Everyone in the village knew how the girl worshipped Alys.

  “Ira’s speaking to her now. I expect her shortly.”

  She came to stand before him, looking around her pointedly and swinging her arms at her sides. “Oh, that’s grand. Grand!” Tiny turned a wide smile to him, but Piers could see the purple shadows under the girl’s eyes. “Can you keep a secret?” she whispered, the smile falling from her mouth and her eyes darting side to side.

  Piers raised his eyebrows. “I suppose I can, yes.”

  “A deep secret,” Tiny emphasized, and her brow furrowed. “If you told anyone, I—I don’t know what would happen.”

  “Alright,” Piers said, growing serious at the girl’s desperate tone. “What is it?”

  “Swear to me,” Tiny insisted. “Swear you won’t tell. Papa would switch me to ribbons.”

  He crouched down. “I swear. What is it, child?”

  Piers saw the slight tremble in her chin—the girl was terrified. “A stranger came into the village last night, looking for Lady Alys.”