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“And now Miss Fairclough, you spit at him,” said Colonel Patterson.
“Spit?” She looked startled.
“This is a barbarian invader, come to steal everything you have. He’s killed your defenders. Set your church on fire. Now he’s dared to enter your house and laid hands on you.”
Fenella’s blue eyes flamed. She bared her teeth and spit, though to the side rather than in his face.
It might have been funny, but it wasn’t, Roger thought. Had he been an invader, he’d have been taken aback by the fiery spirit she’d revealed. A man might be proud to have such a woman defending his native land. Surprised by an impulse to pull her closer, he went still.
“Good.” Patterson nodded. “Now, this next part is a bit tricky.”
A boy ran into the room. “The monks is calling for ale, colonel, sir. Saying they was promised a drink for their trouble.”
Patterson scowled. “Stay where you are,” he commanded. “I’ll be back in a moment.” And he followed the boy out the door.
Did Patterson mean he was to keep hold, Roger wondered? Such was the colonel’s influence that he hesitated to let go. But she was so near. The slightest move and her breasts would brush his chest.
Once he’d noted this Roger could think of nothing else. Except the feel of her under his hands and the brilliance of her gaze. How long had the colonel been gone? It seemed like forever, and yet not long enough. He should say something. The silence was becoming awkward.
“It’s rather like that time you were forced to dance with me,” Fenella said.
“Eh?”
“I’ve been remembering our neighborhood dances for some reason. This was at the Haskins’ ball. Mrs. Haskins pulled you over and made you ask me. You were so angry. You’d wanted to dance with her daughter.”
Roger didn’t remember the incident, though he did recall Sara Haskins. She’d been a lovely girl, the belle of the neighborhood when he was younger. Fenella, on the other hand, was only a vague presence in his youthful memory. A shadowy figure, slipping into view at the edge of a gathering and then forgotten again, utterly different from the way she was now. Had her lips been so full back then? So enticing? Surely he would have noticed if they had been. And yet a woman’s lips didn’t change after she was grown. Did they?
“That was right before our fathers hatched their stupid scheme.”
A tremor went through him at this forthright remark. They’d never discussed the past. When Arabella was alive the topic was obviously out of bounds. And after her death they hadn’t talked at all.
“And I ran for my life,” she added.
“I admired that,” Roger said, words slipping out as they sometimes did, without any advance notice to his brain.
Fenella looked surprised. “My craven flight?”
“More like rebellion.” He’d thought of her more after that dramatic departure than he ever had before. Once she’d shown some defiance, a flare of spirit, he’d even wondered what it would have been like to marry her. Not seriously, of course. He wouldn’t be ordered about like a vassal.
Roger experienced an odd dislocation. In this moment, he resented her long ago rejection of his charms. Even though he’d done the same, more emphatically. It was confusing. He had to let her go. He did so, and stepped back. Fenella gazed up at him as if he’d done something strange.
Fortunately, Colonel Patterson strode back in. He looked irritated. “All right, Chatton,” he said. “Now you throw Miss Fairclough over your shoulder and carry her through the archway.” He indicated the supposed span of stone with a wide gesture.
“Pick her up?” said Roger. He didn’t want to touch Fenella again, mainly because he very much wanted to do so. “That isn’t proper.”
“You’re a Viking,” replied the colonel dryly. “I don’t think propriety is a consideration.” He turned to Fenella. “You have no objection? I assumed Benson explained the whole to you.”
She shook her head.
“We must leave that bit out,” said Roger.
Patterson looked concerned. “I’ve given my word that the scenarios will be performed exactly as written. They were put together by a pack of historians, you know. Very stern on the subject of accuracy. As bad as headquarters regulations.”
Everyone knew that the colonel’s word was inviolate. Roger looked at Fenella. “Let’s just do it,” she said.
“You don’t mind?” asked Patterson. “It’s only a moment. Through the archway and finished.”
She nodded.
