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Ivo shot one of his searching glances at Mary, and then he smiled. It was the sort of nonthreatening, courtly smile that a knight might bestow upon a fragile creature, and therefore nothing like the smile he gave Briar. His bow to Mary was equally courtly. “I am enchanted, demoiselle. I have heard your playing upon the harp and admire it very much.”
Mary flushed pink with pleasure. “Oh! I thank you, sir. I am not very good, not really, but I practice.”
“Then your practice has been well rewarded, lady.”
“I,” Mary glanced at Briar, momentarily tongue-tied, “I am not a lady, sir.”
“And I am not a sir. Call me Ivo and I will call you Mary.”
Mary gave him her shy smile, clearly captivated by his manner. “Very well, Ivo.”
Briar couldn’t bear it any longer. His easy conquest of her sister was almost a betrayal, and certainly very irritating. Her voice was tart and somewhat shrewish, but she could not stop the words.
“You may have lost your knighthood, de Vessey, but your tongue remembers well that tradition of flattery.”
Ivo raised his eyebrows, and anger glittered in his eyes. He held it at bay, but Briar was pleased to think she had struck home with her barb. Unmasked the real Ivo from beneath the polite pretense. Somehow she did not think him a man made for calm conversation and measured argument. One glance at Ivo de Vessey was enough to tell her he was either passion or anger, joy or sadness, one thing or the other. There would be no middle ground with him. He was a man who would love you or hate you, and maybe both.
He pinned her with his gaze, like an insect against a wall, and then leaned down, his breath warm against her cheek.
“I have been seeking answers to my questions about you, Briar,” he said, and it was almost a threat. “I would know what kind of woman barters her body to strangers, and yet speaks the French tongue like a lady born.”
He had asked about her! Pried into her past? Perhaps even laughed with his friends about her passion, describing in detail what they had done. Suddenly, Briar felt ill and frightened, and more. The only way to deal with the pain was to replace it with something hotter, and Briar allowed her anger to engulf her.
Ivo had the satisfaction of seeing rage cloud those lovely eyes, before her dark lashes swept down and hid them. She had lit his temper, so he had repaid her in kind. They both had secrets. Proud areas of flesh they would rather not have prodded. She best remember that, next time she wanted to wound him.
And yet…Ivo’s gaze slid over her, and he felt his anger melting before the picture she made. Plum juice had stained her chin, and her hair, loose about her shoulders, was windblown and untidy. She wore an old darned gown and no shoes upon her feet. And she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
He was filled with an aching longing. How could he miss someone so much, when he had only held her in his arms so briefly? They had joined bodies, but her mind was still very much a mystery. And her motives…Well, he had still to clarify them, although he was moving closer.
When Ivo had first reached the market, and spotted Briar, he had sat upon his horse for a long moment, just watching her go from stall to stall, hand in hand with her sister. Like two children. The sight had delighted and puzzled him. When he had remembered Briar it had been her body in his arms, or her sobs, or her stubborn refusal to admit what was between them.
Certainly not this sweet innocence she was displaying now.
There was much he did not know about her. While Ivo had fought in the north, taking on the grim task of subduing rebels, he had spent his few spare moments dreaming of Briar. While he lay, soaked by rain and muddy from fighting, trying to sleep, he had warmed himself with the memory of her voice as she sang. While he rode hard through rugged country, searching for the straggling remains of the rebel force, he had remembered her eyes, blurred with passion, as he joined his body with hers.
She was in his blood. Whether he willed it or not, she was now a part of him. And he needed to understand what secret game she played, so that he could save her from the consequences. And mayhap save himself, too.
Immediately upon his return to York, Ivo had gone to Lord Shelborne’s house to inquire of the singing sisters. After a time, and much whispering beyond the curtained doorway, a tall woman with blue eyes and dark hair had come to speak with him. She had looked long at him, without any shyness or fear.
“You are Ivo de Vessey,” she had said at last, with satisfaction.
“Aye, lady. I seek the songstress, Briar. Do you know where I can find her?”
The woman had smiled a little smile and nodded, a gleam in her eyes. “It is market day. She will be there with her sister.”
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nbsp; The information had been gained so easily—Ivo had felt puzzled and a little suspicious. “I do not mean to hurt her.” He had meant to reassure and instead had blurted it out.
That smile again. “I can see that, Ivo de Vessey.” Then, a frown had creased her brow, and she had said, “Your name is familiar to me. Why is that?”
“I am a soldier in Lord Radulf’s household.”
“And before that?”
Her questions had been sharp, impertinent, but Ivo had not thought to refuse her her answers. There had been something in her manner—the same sense he had had with Briar—that it was her right to ask such questions, and his duty to reply to them. This woman was no ordinary servant, and his wits had sharpened.
“I was a knight, once. And long ago, when I was a young boy, I was a squire in the household of Richard Kenton.”
