He was grinning at Lara as he said it,his blue eyes twinkling, and she found herself grinning back at hiseasy charm.Charm and good looks that had no doubt gotten him manyof those promised women.Taking another sip of wine, she glanced atthe captain, whose gray gaze had turned somber and brooding.Phillipe chuckled, and the captain flashed him a withering glarebefore picking up another black piece and moving it.
“What are the figurinesmade of?”she asked.
“The black are onyx,” thecaptain said.“The white are ivory.”
“Ivory?”
“The tusk of anelephant.”
“Elephant?”
“A massive creature thesize of three oxen with legs as thick as an oak trunk,” the captaintold her.“And a head as big as a boulder with big, floppy ears thesize of trenchers and a long, rope-like nose called a trunk thatcan wrap around a full-grown man and pick him up and carryhim.”
“Truly?”Lara was amazedat the captain’s description of such a fantasticalcreature.
“Truly.”First one side ofthe captain’s mouth crooked up and then the other, giving the hardplanes of his features a boyish cast, and Lara understood all toowell why half the valley’s women wanted him to drink their lovepotions.
“Talon.”Phillipe wasgrinning as he looked from Lara to the captain.“You should carvean elephant for Lara.”He turned back to Lara.“He carved one forthe emperor of Byzantium that sits on the mantel at his summerpalace.”
“Did you carve thefigurine of the woman in your chest?”Lara could have bitten hertongue as soon as she asked it.She’d just admitted to goingthrough his belongings.“I’m sorry, Captain.I didn’t mean to pry.Well, I mean, I meant to when I saw her, but it was my first nightin my ca— your chamber.”
“Don’t worry about it,” hetold her with a shrug of his broad shoulders.“I would have donethe same.”
“Who is she?The woman youcarved?”
Phillipe coughed and sputtered on hiswine as the captain’s smiling gaze grew somber once more.He staredhard at Lara for a long moment, and she tilted her head and staredright back, trying to figure out what had happened.To figure himout.
He stood.“Don’t touch my bloody pie,”he growled at Phillipe, who sat grinning as the captain strode outthe door and slammed it shut.
“What was that about?”sheasked Phillipe, who chuckled.“What did I say?I apologized forgoing through his things and he accepted.Was it the woman I foundin his chest?”
“Aye,” Phillipe said,sobering.“It’s the woman.”
He said is, not was, and he watchedLara as he said it.
“Who is she?”she askedagain.
“Who is she?”Phillipepulled at the short curly blond whiskers of his beard as ifweighing his words.“She is a dream.”
***
Talon
Talon resumed his habit of stayinglate in the common room after supper, prolonging his self-imposedtorture with a pitcher of wine and a game of Shah with whomever hecould get to play.More often than not, it was Phillipe who wouldplay him, Phillipe who would say at least once a game, “Just tellher.Tell her who the woman is.”
But Talon had no intention of tellingLara the carving was of her.That after coming across her in theriver that day, he’d stayed up most of the night cutting, carvingand smoothing her womanly curves and flowing lines.That he’ddreamed about her day and night since.He wasn’t about to makethings between them more complicated than they alreadywere.
If he was lucky and Lara was sleepingwhen he finally made his chamber, he would pad over to her cot, petWolf, and watch her sleep until she stirred, which was longer andlonger as she grew more used to his presence.If he wasn’t lucky,and she was still awake and sewing or reading the book on herbs theabbot had brought her, there would be an awkward silence betweenthem as they each sought their beds.
That the Abbot Rogert of the Abbey St.Marie had come himself to Crossroads Keep expressly to visit withLara, to check on her welfare and loan her a priceless tome, saidmuch of her standing in the valley.A standing many others felt itnecessary to point out to Talon.Daily he would meet some villageras he rode his rounds who would tell him how Lara had saved them orsome member of their family from death or disease, or some motherwould hold her round-cheeked babe up and say, “My child wouldn’thave made it into this world alive and whole if not for the healer,Lara.”
There were others, though far fewer innumber, who would sneer and whisper behind their palms as he rodeby, and though they wouldn’t say it to his face, he heard fromothers what they said behind his and Lara’s backs.They called Larawhore, not lady, witch, not healer.
She may have cured half the valley oftheir illnesses, but she had infected him with a sickness the curefor which he would’ve had to make her what those people called her,his whore.And that he wouldn’t do.
Nor would she let him.
Not without a fight.
