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“Always, demoiselle.”
The moment stretched. His fierce black gaze almost undid her, but she held on. Her voice was breathless. “Tell me why you were disgraced?”
A door closed within him; she saw it happen. His eyes went blank, cold, distant. He shut her out as effectively as if he really had stepped inside a room. “I, too, have my secrets,” he said.
She was tempted to push him further, to try and learn that which he did not want her to know. But then she remembered it was none of her business—nor did she want it to be. Better he keep his hurts to himself. She was not interested in his past, was she? She did not want to know him too well; she dared not begin to care for him. Ivo de Vessey was to be a means to an end. Nothing more.
“Very well. We will share our bodies but keep our feelings removed.”
The statement sounded so cold.
Ivo was watching her closely, but then he spoke the words she had been waiting to hear.
“It will all be
just as you wish, demoiselle.”
Chapter 5
Mary watched with relief her sister and the big, dark man make their way toward her. It was cold. The sunshine had vanished, and dark clouds loomed over York. The thinning crowds were in a hurry to be home before the storm came, and Mary didn’t blame them.
“Their reunion does not appear to have been a happy one.” Sweyn had dismounted, and was standing beside Mary.
She agreed—Briar’s expression was guarded, while Ivo de Vessey looked grim. “My sister is cautious where men are concerned, and with reason.”
Sweyn seemed amused by her answer. “Ivo is careful of women,” he explained. “With reason.”
“Oh. Then mayhap they are well matched.” She sounded prim and self-conscious.
“Aye. Love makes the strangest bedfellows…” The humor seemed to have gone from him and they stood side by side, both longing, Mary was sure, for the other to be gone.
It had not been like this a moment ago.
After the first awkwardness of two strangers being left alone together, they had found they conversed easily enough. Sweyn’s manner was so easy, so comfortable; shy Mary had blossomed. And Sweyn, too, seemed to be delighted by her. They had been enjoying their brief, unexpected moment, and then something had happened. Sweyn had fallen quiet, and when he tried to recapture something of their previous ease, he had been almost clumsy.
Mary had not thought him a clumsy man, far from it. He was a man who did not take himself too seriously, and he had seemed so tolerant, so indulgent, so truly interested in her. The sort of man any woman would be flattered to be with.
And now this.
Had she done something wrong? Said something very foolish? Why else would the big, handsome Dane lose interest in her? It was as if, she thought bleakly, he had shone a golden light on her and then turned it off.
Anxious, upset, Mary greeted Briar, fully expecting her sister to notice her wounded feelings and comfort her, as she always did.
But for once Briar did not notice her dilemma. Her gaze kept flicking to Ivo de Vessey, almost as if to assure herself he was still there. Ivo looked even graver this close up, but he gave Mary a courtly bow before he swung himself up onto his horse. He was clearly impatient to be gone, but his impatience had the flavor of someone who was being hunted. Chased by his own demons.
Looking at Ivo’s dark, commanding gaze, Mary thought his demons must be great indeed.
Sweyn remounted more slowly, the lines about his blue eyes crinkling as he looked at the sky. Rain was close now; she could smell it in the air. And so, she realized, could he.
“I must go.”
He sent a half smile in Mary’s direction, something far removed from the lazy grin he had worn earlier. Mary nodded, pretending to fiddle with a thread on her sleeve, her heart lodged in her throat as she asked herself again what she had done wrong. Then she heard the clatter of his horse’s hooves as he followed Ivo from the market.
Only then did Mary, her face bright with color, lift her head to watch him go.
The two sisters stood close together, waiting by silent consent until the horses were no longer visible. Mary turned reluctantly to her sister, but Briar remained still, her face pale and set. Strangely, even in her stillness, she seemed to thrum with tension, a little like the strings on Mary’s harp. There was something between Briar and Ivo de Vessey, something serious, but whether it was good or bad, Mary could not guess. Nor did she expect her sister to tell her. Briar still thought of her as a child, and until recently Mary had been content to allow herself to be so treated.
It had been simpler, somehow.
