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Warm fingers grasped her own. Briar looked up into Mary’s kind, dark eyes. “Come and let me wash your face.”
Jocelyn raised an eyebrow as they passed, but she was smiling.
“I hope you’re enjoying this,” Briar murmured darkly as Mary led the way. “You’ll be sorry when Mary is abandoned and ruined. It will be too late then.”
“Life is never certain, Briar.” Jocelyn held her gaze. “We cannot always wait to have all our questions answered. There is not always time to wait. Sometimes we have to leap, and pray we land safely.”
Ivo watched Sweyn make his way back into the hall. The Dane’s eyes fixed upon Lord Radulf, and he only seemed to notice Ivo as he drew closer. Clearly Sweyn was a man on a mission.
Ivo still felt empty. Like a large vessel unloaded of its cargo, echoing with a forlorn silence. Briar’s reaction had cut him so deep he was light-headed with loss. He knew his hand was ugly—that was why he made sure to always keep it covered—and aye, in his heart, he was ashamed of it, too. But it had never yet made a woman vomit. And that it should be this woman, in particular…
He shook his head angrily.
Maybe ’tis for the best.
He squeezed his gloved hand into a fist. He should never have let Briar open his heart again.
“The songstress is ill, my lord.” Sweyn’s voice drifted into Ivo’s consciousness. “I beg permission to take her, and her sister, safely home. They are alone and they live by the river. ’Tis not safe for them to walk.”
“Near the river?” Radulf replied.
“The songstress is ill?” Lord Shelborne was looking concerned, despite a tendency to sway back and forth, the legacy of too much of his own wine.
“Aye, my lord.” Sweyn turned politely to Shelborne, concealing his impatience to be gone. “Have I your permission to escort her and her sister home?” Now Sweyn was looking to Lord Radulf, waiting.
“I will do it! I have men aplenty.” Lord Shelborne swayed more violently and had to flop down upon a nearby stool.
“Thank you, my lord, but they have asked for me,” Sweyn replied, all smiles and respectful steel.
Ivo straightened and paid more attention. Sweyn was an easy going man, but a man used to getting his own way. Would he get his own way with Mary? And what exactly was it that he wanted?
“You are in a hurry to play the gallant knight, Sweyn.” Radulf was no fool. He had seen there was more to this than Sweyn was saying. He grinned, planting a playful blow on Sweyn’s shoulder that made him stumble and almost lose his balance. “You are lovesick,” he announced. “I well know the signs. Which one is it that you covet? The smaller one who sings so sweetly, or the tall one with the dark eyes?”
“I covet neither Briar nor Mary, my lord,” with a betraying gaucheness.
Radulf chuckled at the wary, almost scared expression in Sweyn’s blue eyes. “Aye, I believe you, but the heart is not always as obedient as a man would like.” His own eyes narrowed, all humor fleeing his face. “What did you say their names were?”
Ivo sensed trouble. He stepped forward and stood shoulder to shoulder with Sweyn. His friend sent him a relieved and grateful glance. Radulf raised an eyebrow and waited.
“My lord,” Ivo said, “they are called Briar and Mary. Two simple girls who sing and play like angels.”
Radulf raised the other black brow. “What, are you being poetic now, de Vessey? You have never struck me as the type. Which one
of these sisters do you covet? Briar or Mary?”
Ivo hesitated. ’Twould be easy for him to deny it, to swear he had no interest in either of them. A moment ago he would have done it—mayhap. But now, suddenly, he couldn’t. It would be a lie, and Ivo did not want to lie about Briar. He did want her, despite all that stood between them now and in the past. Perhaps it was time she and everyone else knew it.
“I want Briar,” he said bluntly. “My lord.”
Radulf gave a soft laugh. “Aye, I believe you, Ivo. You have the look of a man who’s been struck down by love.”
Lord Shelborne was turning his head from one to the other, making an effort to follow the conversation with an obviously wine-soaked mind. “Briar and Mary? Aye, Radulf, their names are f-f-famil…familiar to me, too.”
Radulf nodded, frowning. “I know them from somewhere.”
Shelborne hauled himself up by grasping on to Radulf and using him as a ladder, ignoring the latter’s sigh. “Kenton had a daughter named Briar,” he muttered drunkenly. He wagged his head back and forth. “Poor Kenton. We all take some blame in his death.”
Radulf was staring at Ivo, but Ivo refused to meet his eyes. Now was not the time for such confidences, and he prayed God Radulf had the wit to realize it…
