Entreat Me (30 page)

“The elder sister certainly got more than her fair share.”

Ballard lifted himself stiffly out of the chair.  “Today you say?”

Ambrose nodded.  “I’ll marry them this afternoon.  Gavin wants you there, as does Cinnia.  And I’m certain I don’t need to remark on Mistress Duenda’s wishes where you’re concerned.”  He stared at Ballard for a moment.  “I can always marry two couples...”

Ballard held up a hand to interrupt him.  He wouldn’t dwell on the impossible.  “Bad enough that Gavin will make a widow of his new bride within a week.  I won’t widow Louvaen a second time, nor will I tie her to Ketach Tor.  Even with no heir to inherit and no army to defend that inheritance, she’ll try to hold onto the thing she considers my legacy.  When we die, Ketach Tor must die with us.”    He closed his eyes for a moment, fighting despair.  “Tell Gavin I’ll be there, but I want to speak with him first.”

Ambrose bowed and strode to the door.  He paused to stare at a point beyond Ballard’s shoulder, expression severe.  “I ask your forgiveness,
dominus
.  I could think of no other way to stop Gavin from killing Louvaen.  I almost killed you in the process.”

Ballard gripped the other man’s shoulder.  “I’d demand your apology if you hadn’t done what you did.  You saved them both.  There’s nothing to forgive.”  Ambrose shuddered under his hand, and his eyes closed.  “Don’t break on me now, friend,” Ballard said.  “You’ve a harder task to carry out soon enough.  I’m counting on you.”

The sorcerer gave a mournful sigh.  “I regret making such a pact with you.  You ask too much of me.”

He pulled away and left the room.  The door closed behind him with a quiet click.

Ballard stared at the expanse of wood, as if he could see Ambrose through the boards.  “I know,” he said.

Ambrose, who had been instrumental in lessening the curse’s effects on Gavin, would have to kill him in the end—and Ballard as well.  He had reason to balk at this last, murderous duty, but Ballard refused to rescind his order to his most trusted retainer.

The enormity of what he’d force Ambrose to do—the absolute failure of every desperate endeavor to save Gavin—made him stagger.  He sank to the floor and leaned against the wall, defeated.

Louvaen found him that way a few minutes later.  The clatter of dishware sounded behind him as she set his dinner down nearby.  He refused to look at her and chastised himself for not throwing on his cloak before she returned with the food.  Except for the breeches, he sat bare before her, his latest metamorphosis testament to the curse’s triumph.

He stiffened as she drew closer and sat down behind him.  Her skirts dragged across the floor as she pressed against the curve of his back, legs spread so that her knees bent on either side of him.   Her cheek was cool and soft on his skin, her slender arms gentle against his sides.

“I’m not at all sorry about your door,” she said, her breath tickling his spine.  “In fact, I consider its current state your fault.”

Despite the hopelessness that threatened to drown him, he managed a small smile.  “I’ll shoulder the blame,” he said.  “I should have hidden the weapons.”

“No, you should have opened the door when I asked so nicely the first time.”  She nuzzled her face into his back.

He wondered how she overcame the revulsion she must surely suffer at feeling the serpentine vines under his skin writhe against her cheek.  The idea sickened him.

“I don’t want you seeing me this way.”

She grumbled under her breath, and her arms tightened on his ribs hard enough to make him wince.  “You are either vain, or stubborn or both.  Or you think me the worst sort of shallow fizgig.”

Ballard could list a number of terms that applied to Louvaen; shallow and frivolous weren’t on the list.  “Vanity has never been one of my shortcomings nor shallowness one of yours, woman.”

“Then give me your faith, my lord.  I haven’t turned away yet.”

“I don’t want your pity, Louvaen.”

“And you won’t be getting it, though you’re seriously tempting me to use that axe on your head.  You should have hidden it when you had the chance.”

This time Ballard chuckled.  “Ambrose said the same thing before he left.”

A puff of warm air gusted across his shoulder as she huffed.  “Well he’s right.  And if you tell him I said so, I’ll strangle you.”

She let him go and scrambled to her feet.  “Up with you.  You haven’t eaten in at least three days, and Magda worked hard to make sure the food stayed hot.”

He shook his head.  “I’ve no appetite.”  As if to make a liar of him, his belly issued a gurgling squeal.  He heard the grin in her voice.

“Tell that to your stomach.”  She tapped him on the shoulder.  “You can’t sit there all day holding up the wall.”

She maneuvered around his legs until she stood between his feet and filled his vision with the hem of her dress and shoes.  He kept his head lowered.  He couldn’t hide the horns or vines woven through his hair, but he’d shield her from the greater devastation of his face.

“Let me see you,” she said.

“No.”

One foot set to tapping an impatient beat.  “Did Ambrose tell you Gavin will marry Cinnia today?”  He nodded.  “Good.  Then I’ll be back with the tub and soap.”

She was starting to fray his temper.  “I don’t want a bath,” he half snarled.  He glanced up to catch her glare.

“I don’t care,” she said in a flat voice.  “My only sister, whom I adore, is marrying a man who turns into a bat-faced cur when she tells him she loves him.”  Ballard flinched, but she was relentless.  “Afford her the courtesy of appearing at her wedding bathed and dressed in your best finery.”

Why had he ever feared he’d earn her pity?

Louvaen crouched before him and reached out to touch his face.  Ballard caught her wrist, his claws clicking together as they closed around the fragile bones.  He met her eyes then, as gray as the rest of his world had become but far more compassionate.  “Gavin almost killed you,” he said gruffly.

She tilted her head, scrutinizing him with a gaze that saw past his features.  “No, a curse almost killed me.  And you make too much of it.”  Undeterred by his disbelieving snort, she continued.  “All I have to show for my brush with death are two bruised elbows and a stubbed toe.  I’ve more to fear from your fish pond.”

He freed her arm to scrub at his face.  “You make light of dangerous things, Louvaen.”

“If I didn’t, I’d weep for us all, and I wouldn’t stop.”  Her solemn expression softened, and she reached for him a second time, fingers gliding along his jaw, up to his temple and into his matted hair.  “You’ve flowers in your hair,” she said.  Tender amusement, instead of distaste, threaded her voice.

“That’s because they’re growing out of my head.  Along with a pair of horns.”

“At least they aren’t roses.  Her smile wilted as her fingers continued their trek through his hair, back down to his face, over the bridge of his nose and across one cheekbone.  “Do these hurt?”

He shook his head.  “No.”  The scars had throbbed and burned so badly during the flux, he was lucky he didn’t try and tear his face off his skull.  Now they were the only things on him that didn’t ache.

Louvaen leaned forward and replaced her hand with her mouth.  She might not offer him a drop of pity, but she gave unstintingly of her devotion, even now when he was more forest creature than man.

She pressed a last kiss to the corner of his mouth before rising.  His hands delved into the folds of her skirts in an unconscious bid to keep her there.  “I’ll be back with everything you need for a bath.”   Ballard blinked at the speed in which her tender look turned severe.  She pointed a threatening finger at him.  “Don’t even think about barring the door again.”

Ballard watched her go, the memory of her touch lingering on his face.  He wondered how altered his life might have been if it were Louvaen instead of Isabeau he was betrothed to centuries earlier.  He grinned as he clambered to his feet.  One thing was certain; Gavin wouldn’t be blond.

The smell of food enticed his rumbling stomach.  He’d been too sick to eat the first day Ambrose and Gavin had taken him from the cell and too exhausted yesterday.

He retrieved his cloak and threw it over his shoulders.  Magda had already seen him at his worst—filthy and incoherent, curled in on himself as he spasmed in agony and retched blood and bile onto her shoes.

She’d just stroked his tangled hair and gone about the business of sponging the muck off him.  She’d dressed him in clean clothes, trimmed the claws on his feet, and coaxed him to crawl onto the pallet she’d prepared before the fire.

While this flux had been the worst so far, it was one of several similar episodes, and the stalwart housekeeper had tended him without hesitation.

Only she, of the women in the castle, saw him after a flux.  Joan and Clarimond were always banished to another part of the castle while he recovered.  They had only witnessed the aftereffects of the curse, the scarring that slowly covered him and turned him from man to monster.  His disfigurements were so much worse this time, and he wasn’t interested in hearing the smothered gasps of shock or horror if they saw him.  It was best to remain concealed when they arrived with the tub.

He had finished the last of the stew Magda prepared when the door opened on a short knock.  Ballard pulled the hood over his head and retreated to a shadowed corner.  All the women of his household, except Cinnia, entered in procession, dragging the tub with them, along with pails of water.

Ambrose came through last, a bulging sack slung over his shoulder.  He dropped his burden by the hearth with a loud rattle.  “A bag of rocks,” he said, holding his lower back as he straightened.  “Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

It took another half hour and continuous parades of water pails before they’d filled the bathtub enough and heated all the rocks to keep the water warm.

Ambrose spread his fingers above the water’s surface and gave Ballard a warning look.  “Don’t get used to it.  I’ve better things to do with my magic than warm your bath water.”  With those words, a ripple spread out in a widening circle across the water.  Heat flowed over the tub’s edge, wafting across Ballard’s hands.  The sorcerer inclined his head and bowed before leaving.

Only Magda and Louvaen remained in the room, and the former gathered up the dishes to take downstairs.  She sniffed.  “Well, about time you ate.  If you want more, send Louvaen down.”  She followed Ambrose out, leaving Ballard to Louvaen’s care.

She trailed her fingertips through the water.  Steam undulated across the surface in revenant tendrils.  “The water’s hot, my lord.”

He turned away.  She’d seen enough of him today—held him in her arms and kissed him.  He sorely needed the comfort, but he couldn’t ignore the urge to retreat from her gaze.  “I don’t need your help.”

“Who said anything about helping?  You’re sharing.”

His eyebrows arched, and he turned in time to see her shrug out of her unlaced bodice.  She winked at him before shedding the rest of her clothing to stand nude before him.  “Your turn,” she said.

He’d give his sword arm and what was left of his property to see colors again.  He could only imagine the rosy glow of the hearth’s light washing over her skin or the red tint to her dark hair bound in braids.  She was still beautiful—long-legged and dappled in shades of slate, smoke and iron.

He returned her quiet scrutiny.  “Woman, I think you’re truly blind.”

She crossed her arms, hiding the delectable sight of her small nipples tightened with cold, and frowned.  “I can see perfectly, maybe better than you see me.  Now let’s get a look at the rest of you.”

She was an intractable force, with or without an axe in her hand.  Her insistence on having him bare-arsed was far greater than his will to resist her demands.  Ballard tossed off the cloak along with his breeches.

Her frown transformed to a delighted smile.  She stepped closer to him, her gaze resting on his thighs.  To his surprise, he hardened under her regard.  He’d thought this last flux had stripped him of desire, turning him into a eunuch without castrating him.  He returned her smile.  Leave it to the militant Louvaen to make even his cock obey her.

Her hand glided down the length of his shaft, fingers sifting through the curls of soft hair surrounding its base.  “Oh,” she said in disappointed voice.  “No flowers to pick.”  She winked a second time.

He remembered the sharp pinch on his scalp when he yanked one of the curling vines from his hair.  His thighs tensed.  “One small mercy,” he said.

And it was a clemency.  During his first lucid minutes of recovery from the flux, he’d done as any man would and checked between his legs.  The thundering heartbeat he refused to acknowledge as terror had calmed once he ascertained that while a great deal of him had changed, one very important part was still human.

Louvaen tied her braids to the top of her head, securing them with a complicated knot.  The style accentuated her elegant neck.  She took his hand and led him to the tub, affording him a fine view of her graceful back and curved backside as she stepped into the water first.  Ballard couldn’t resist and cupped one buttock, careful not to dig his claws into her smooth skin.  She paused with one leg in the tub and glanced over her shoulder with a half smile.  “Such a gallant knight to help a lady into her bath.”