Tabitha and the ill-tempered little beast were still glaring at each other when Lyssandra swept back into the tower, a shimmering length of silk the rich blue of morning glories cradled in her arms.
She stroked the exquisite fabric as if it were woven of moonbeams and spiderwebs. " Twas my mother"s. She died when I was five, but I still remember how willowy and graceful she was." Lyssandra smiled tenderly at Tabitha. "Just like you."
Tabitha jumped to her feet, nearly stumbling over the stool, and backed away. "Oh, no, I really couldn"t. I"m a terrible klutz. I"d probably get my heel caught in the hem or dribble grape juice down the front of it." She lifted her hands in an imploring motion only to feel the shoulder seams of the gown she was wearing give with a woeful groan. "See! That"s exactly what I mean."
"Oh, pooh," Lyssandra said. "That old rag means naught to me." As if to prove it, she literally ripped the gown from Tabitha"s body, then dropped the cloud of silk over her head.
As Lyssandra gave her mother"s gown a tug here and a tuck there, Tabitha sighed in resignation. How could one oppose someone who actually said things like "Oh, pooh"? And she had to admit, as she stole a tentative glance downward, that the gown fit as if it had been personally tailored for her by Christian Dior.
Lyssandra draped a wide gold belt around her hips before shooing her back toward the stool. Tabitha obediently plopped down, robbed of her will to resist the little tyrant.
As Lyssandra began to do mysterious things with her hair, wielding an ivory comb as if it were a scythe, Tabitha asked, "Isn"t six years a long time to be engaged?"
"So it would seem." The girl"s wistful sigh bubbled into a giggle. "But Colin and I have been betrothed for almost thirteen years, since I was five and he eleven."
Tabitha didn"t know whether to be heartened or horrified. "It must have been love at first sight," she said weakly.
Curling an uncooperative strand of Tabitha"s hair around her finger, Lyssandra nodded. "I shall never forget the first time I saw him. He came to be a page at Papa"s court when I was four and he was ten. He was the most handsome lad you could imagine with those flashing eyes and dark curls."
Tabitha squirmed on the stool. The girl"s naked adoration was all too familiar.
"Even as a boy, Colin was always so gentle and patient with me." Lyssandra wrinkled her pert nose, only succeeding in making herself look even more adorable. "Unlike that nasty Norman."
Tabitha was surprised into a laugh. "Sir Arjon?"
"Aye, Arjon. I begged Papa to send him back to Normandy, but he"d promised Arjon"s father he"d try to instill the fear of G.o.d into him. He was a most horrid boy. Always yanking my hair and dropping beetles down my back." Her dulcet voice oozed contempt. "I loathed him." Lyssandra sighed. "But my beloved Colin was always there to champion me. He challenged Arjon to a duel once on my behalf. Papa would only allow them to use sticks, of course, but Colin buffeted Arjon so hard, he knocked him right into the horse trough. I laughed until my sides ached."
Tabitha put a hand to her own stomach. She was beginning to feel distinctly nauseous and she suspected it wasn"t from lack of food. She didn"t think she could stand to hear any more gushing tales about Colin and his lady fair.
Lyssandra spared her that torture by giving each of her cheeks a maternal tweak and tugging her to her feet. Then Tabitha was ushered over to a candlelit alcove where an enormous mirror hung in a gilded frame composed entirely of entwined hands. Tabitha shook off an absurd impulse to ask it who was the fairest of them all. She had no desire to hear its answer.
But as Lyssandra urged her closer to her shimmering reflection, she realized the mirror must be enchanted after all. For the woman peering shyly back at her was a stranger.
This woman was not gawky, but statuesque. The silk smock draped her in regal elegance, its pleated train rippling around her ankles like a waterfall. The fabric"s rich hue darkened her eyes until she could almost pretend they were a subtle blue instead of ordinary gray.
Being deprived of the Big Macs and pints of Haagen-Dazs she gobbled more out of boredom than hunger had carved intriguing hollows beneath her cheeks. If she squinted, she could almost catch a glimpse of the legendary Lennox bone structure that had always made her father look like a Nordic prince.
The sun had washed away her city pallor, burnishing her skin and ripening her hair to honey-gold. The gleaming tendrils curled lightly against her shoulders, framing a face that had traded its pinched expression for the becoming vulnerability of a woman in love. Even her lips seemed softer and fuller, as if still savoring the memory of a lover"s kisses. With a mixture of wonder and despair, Tabitha touched her fingertips to those lips, just as Colin had done so tenderly the night before.
"You are a rare beauty, are you not, my lady?" Lyssandra said softly before indulging in a melodramatic moan. "Why, oh, why couldn"t I have been tall like my mother instead of stunted like Papa?" She stamped her slippered foot. "If I stand too close to you tonight, someone may very well mistake me for one of Papa"s dwarves."
Tabitha burst into helpless laughter. It seemed she had made a terrible mistake. Colin"s fiancee was not a fairy princess after all, but a fairy G.o.dmother, generous enough to bestow gla.s.s slippers on even the most skeptical of Cinderellas. It was precisely at that moment that she realized why Lyssandra seemed so achingly familiar to her.
She reminded her of her own mother.
Even with her eyes shining with unshed tears, Tabitha could not resist drawing the girl into a laughing hug.
Colin tossed back his third mug of ale, his gaze straying with increasing frequency to the vaulted ceiling of the MacDuff"s great hall.
Although MacDuff"s feast was being given in his honor, he felt more like a fool than a guest. He wouldn"t even have flinched had one of the jesters trotted over and smacked him upside the head with a pig"s bladder on a stick. "Twould be no more than he deserved for breaking both the gentle hearts entrusted into his unworthy hands.
A trio of pipers bleated out a winsome melody. The beaming audience of ladies and knights broke into delighted applause as a dwarf acrobat somersaulted over a ferret prancing across the tiled floor on his hind legs. Colin had long suspected MacDuff of keeping dwarves so there would always be someone in the hall shorter than he was.
Almost as if his canny host had sensed the unkind thought, MacDuff caught his eye and lifted his jeweled goblet in an enigmatic toast. Brisbane"s envoy had arrived shortly before the banquet began and Colin could only too well imagine the poison the pockmarked, mustachioed knight was pouring into the MacDuff"s attentive ear.
He supposed he would find out soon enough. When he was joined by his betrothed and they made their way through the adoring crowd to the seat of honor on the dais.
He"d returned to gazing dourly at the ceiling when Arjon slid onto the bench next to him. "Expecting it to collapse on your head at any moment?"
"I should be so lucky." Colin reached for the flagon of ale only to find it empty.
His friend swiped a fresh one from a pa.s.sing page and thrust it into his hand. " "Tis fortunate you gave up women instead of strong drink."
Colin groaned. "I should have stayed celibate and become a monk." He started to pour himself another mug of ale, then shrugged and began to drink directly from the flagon. "Or a eunuch."
Arjon winced and crossed his hose-clad legs. "Ah, but then you"d have been forever denied those tender pleasures of the flesh. Most especially, the Lady Tabitha"s delectable flesh."
His friend had known him too long and too well. Colin could do nothing to hide the naked longing in his eyes. So he simply shifted them back to the ceiling and muttered, "What in the name of St. Andrew could they be doing up there? s.n.a.t.c.hing each other bald?"
"From the murderous glint in your lady"s eyes when she discovered your perfidy, I"d wager she"d rather s.n.a.t.c.h you bald. Or turn you into the randy goat she believes you to be."
Borne on a wave of panic, Colin surged to his feet. "Oh, dear G.o.d, I almost forgot about Tabitha"s powers. What if she turns Lyssa into a moat rat?"
Arjon grabbed his elbow and tugged him back down. " "Twould well suit the brat"s shrewish temperament."
Colin jerked his arm free, relieved to have found a target for his frustration. "Lyssa was always a very sweet girl. You only dislike her because she"s the only female you never could charm."
The Norman snorted into his goblet. "I"d sooner charm a cobra."
They drank in disagreeable silence for several minutes before Arjon jabbed Colin with his elbow. Shuddering, he nodded toward the stairs. "Now there"s a sight to chill a man"s blood."
Colin followed his friend"s gaze to find his lover and his betrothed descending the stairs arm in arm, their bright and dark heads inclined toward one another as if sharing secrets h.o.a.rded for a lifetime. If that weren"t enough to make him break out in an icy sweat, he would have almost sworn he heard one of them whisper his name and the other reply with a merry peal of laughter.
Chapter 21.
Tabitha had never seen a man look quite so miserable and never enjoyed it quite so much.
Colin sat at the head table on the dais, trapped between his jovial host and his radiant bride-to-be. A roguish hint of beard had darkened his jaw, deepening the furrows around his mouth. His eyes still had the dangerous gleam of a stallion on the verge of bolting. Even with his hair bound neatly at his nape, Tabitha had never seen him look more like a barbarian.
His misery couldn"t quite take the sting out of her own suffering. It still hurt too much to see those striking dark heads together. Even she had to admit they made the perfect couple. Lyssandra was just the right height to look up to him.
The knuckles wrapped around the stem of the golden goblet he shared with his fiancee whitened with strain as he was forced to endure toast after toast to his impending nuptials.
A shriveled old man hefted his mug. "I wish the lad potent vigor in the marriage bed."
"And out of it," croaked one of the anonymous squires lounging against the back wall, sounding suspiciously like Chauncey. The jest incited several hearty guffaws and a blush from Lyssandra.
Colin shot Tabitha an anguished look, but she ignored him, making a major production out of picking the almonds out of her pudding.
A jug-eared lord lurched to his feet, sloshing ale over the rim of his goblet. "May G.o.d bless you with a pa.s.sel of brats to kiss your cheeks and tug your ears."
"His brats apparently didn"t know when to let go," Arjon murmured, spooning in another mouthful of pudding.
Tabitha gave her dinner companion a rueful glance. After the guests of honor had taken their seats, she and Arjon had been ushered to an adjoining table on the dais, near enough to bask in Colin"s and Lyssandra"s glow without casting a shadow over it. The man Arjon had identified as Brisbane"s messenger flanked Mac-Duff"s other side, watching the proceedings with a sour smile.
An elderly knight rose from his bench, his drooping mustache adding a note of gravity to the occasion. "To Sir Colin, a knight dedicated to the service of G.o.d and king. His conduct both on the battlefield and off of it epitomizes bravery, n.o.bility, justice, and a" "
"Fidelity!" Before Tabitha was even aware she was going to stand, she was on her feet. Keenly aware of the sudden silence and the amused quirk of Arjon"s eyebrow, she lifted her goblet and smiled sweetly at Colin, who looked close to strangling on a mouthful of ale. "To Sir Colin, a paragon of Christian virtue."
Her mocking tribute sent a chorus of "Huzzahs!" thundering to the rafters. She sank back into her seat. She would have been far too shy to initiate a toast at a Lennox Enterprises banquet, but having nothing left to lose was making her reckless.
The MacDuff nodded. "Well spoken, my lady. Your eloquence does both you and your cousin honor."
Colin"s eyes narrowed, but it was that hint of a scowl that gave Tabitha a thrill of hope. Before she could savor her triumph, a battalion of pages bearing bacon-wrapped hens dressed with real feathers swept into the hall.
Lyssandra picked at the steaming skin of her bird with a delicate ivory-handled knife, but her father used his bulbous fingers to tear apart the succulent flesh. Colin seemed to have embraced a liquid diet. Each time he took a sip, an eager page rushed forward to splash more ale in his cup.
As his guests followed their host"s cue and dug into their meals with relish, the MacDuff gestured, sending bits of chicken flying. "If you"d give me leave to summon the priest to read the banns, lad, we could have the ceremony on the morrow."
Tabitha had never been so glad to see the stubborn jut of Colin"s jaw. "I"ve told you before," he said. "I"ll not wed Lyssa till she"s turned eighteen."
"Now, Papa. Don"t nag poor Colin." The girl"s weary sigh warned that this was a quarrel of long standing. "After all, I"ll be eighteen in less than two months."
Ignoring his daughter"s pleas, the MacDuff pointed his knife at Colin. "Your mother was naught but thirteen when she bore you."
"Aye. And fifteen when she died two stillborn babes later." Colin"s eyes were beginning to smolder.
Tabitha brushed a hand over her own belly, remembering for the first time what their unprotected s.e.x might lead to. In the twenty-first century, any knight worth his salt would carry a crisp packet of condoms. Her distress was softened by a wondrous vision of a dark-haired, golden-eyed little boy stretching out his arms to her.
She might have remained in her dreamy trance for the rest of the meal if Arjon hadn"t popped a sugared rose petal into her gaping mouth.
The MacDuff was still needling Colin. "Your father informed me that the two of you quarreled bitterly the night you went galloping off on your ridiculous" a" he cleared his throat, remembering his audience of eavesdroppers a" "n.o.ble quest. He begged you to wed Lyssandra before you departed. If you"d have heeded his wishes, he might not have died estranged from his only son."
Colin slammed his goblet down on the table. "Lyssandra was eleven years old at the time."
"Soon to be twelve. Old enough for you to put your babe in her belly and cement my alliance with your father before you committed your sword to the Lord."
Colin rose to his feet. Planting both palms on the table, he leaned over into the MacDuff"s face. Tabitha had to strain to hear the lethal softness of his voice. "And if I had, would my father be alive today? Would you have sent men to his aid when Brisbane attacked or simply ignored his desperate pleas for help?"
MacDuff licked each finger in turn, the arch of his snowy eyebrows painstakingly bland. "Didn"t Lyssandra tell you? I"d packed my entire household off to Castle Arran for the spring. We knew nothing of the siege until we returned. And by then, as you know, "twas too late."
The tension in Colin"s stance showed no sign of abating. Lyssandra tugged at his sleeve, her lovely face reflecting her distress. "Papa speaks the truth, Colin. Your stepmother was a dear friend to me. I cried for days when we learned of her death."
Colin straightened, gently shaking off her hand. "Is that why your father is entertaining her murderer"s minion at his table?"
Brisbane"s sallow knight had been watching the entire exchange, all but drooling with antic.i.p.ation.
The MacDuff"s ruddy cheeks puffed up with self-righteous indignation. "The quarrel between you and Lord Brisbane is an old one, in which I claim no part." His acid tone indicated that he knew exactly what had precipitated that quarrel. "Once you"ve wed my daughter, son, you"ll have every right to tell me who I should entertain. And who I should wage war against. But until that time, I shall dine with, and kill, whomever I please." He rose and clapped his pudgy hands, coolly dismissing Colin. "Let"s have some music, minstrels. "Tis dull as a tomb in here."
As the pipers resumed their melody, Colin dropped back into his chair. The calculating glint in his eyes warned it was less a retreat than a reprieve. Several of the diners rose to join the dance, including the MacDuff and Brisbane"s man, leaving them in awkward silence.
All innocence, Arjon blinked at Tabitha and asked in a voice strident enough to carry all the way back to her penthouse on Fifth Avenue, "Haven"t you some skill as a troubadour, Lady Tabitha?"
"No!" Colin said firmly even as delight brightened Lyssandra"s face.
"Oh, do sing for us, Tabby! I grow so weary of Papa"s minstrels. Perhaps you could teach me a new tune."
"Heaven forbid," Arjon said dryly. "The brat never could do more than squall like a dying cat."
Lyssandra"s smile puckered into a pout. "And have you forgotten, Sir Arjon, that I can also scratch like one?"
He fingered his chin. "How could I when my face still bears the scars from your claws?"
"I should have scratched out your eyes. "Twould have been no more than you deserved for setting my braid afire."
"Children!" Colin snapped. "Can"t the two of you declare a truce? People are beginning to stare."
"He started it," Lyssandra mumbled, scowling into her pudding with uncharacteristic petulance. "Forgive me, Lady Tabitha. I shouldn"t have presumed upon your generosity. You"re a guest here at MacDuff, not one of Papa"s trained dwarves."
Tabitha surprised herself by gliding smoothly to her feet. "Why, I"d be honored to sing for you."
Colin leaned forward in his chair. "I"d rather you didn"t strain your delicate throat, cousin."
She fingered the amulet. "Perhaps you"d prefer I show Lyssandra a few of my magic tricks. As you know, I haven"t quite perfected making things disappear."
Lyssandra clapped her graceful hands. "Oh, I do love magic even more than music."
"Sing," Colin said flatly. "By all means, sing for us."
He watched warily as his fiancee led her to a stool at the side of the dais. If he was expecting a few wistful verses of "If Ever I Would Leave You," he would be disappointed.
Intrigued by the prospect of a new diversion, the acrobats collapsed in midtumble and the dancers drifted back to their benches. Hoping their standards of entertainment weren"t any higher than Colin"s, Tabitha cleared her throat, then threw back her head and launched into a soulful rendition of "Your Cheatin" Heart." She knew she was a success when the minstrels exchanged a baffled glance, shrugged, then began to strum along on their lutes in a flawless country tw.a.n.g.
She followed an enthusiastic round of cheers and applause with a mocking "Torn Between Two Lovers," then belted out a rafter-shaking chorus of "Who"s Sorry Now?" When she dared to glance over at Colin, his hands were clenched around the goblet as if he longed to clamp them over his ears or her mouth. From his murderous expression, she suspected the latter.
She might have stopped there if Lyssandra hadn"t chosen that moment to brush his taut jaw with a tender kiss. Tabitha felt a stab of pain beyond jealousy. So she leaned back on the stool as if it were the top of a piano in a smoke-filled bar and began to softly sing Nina Simone"s stirring blues cla.s.sic "The Other Woman." The minstrels lowered their lutes, reluctant to disturb the sultry intimacy of the melody.
Yearning robbed Tabitha"s voice of its sarcasm. She could only gaze at Colin as if he were the only man in the hall, her heart laid bare by the simple lyrics. Taking another sip of ale, he met her gaze squarely. The MacDuff"s shrewd eyes missed little, but the sentimental Lyssandra was occupied with dabbing crystalline teardrops from her cheeks. Snorting in disgust, Arjon tossed a kerchief at her. She blew her dainty nose on it and handed it back to him, ignoring his grimace.
As the last note warbled from Tabitha"s throat, Colin stood. She hoped in that moment that he would come to her. That he would march across that dais, draw her into his arms, and proudly proclaim that she was the only woman he adored.
s.n.a.t.c.hing up a full flagon of ale, he shoved back his chair and pushed his way through the crowd, pa.s.sing through the outer door without once looking back.