Linda Needham (15 page)

He eyed her soundlessly, his wondrous mouth now a coldly firm line.

“Then let’s get to work,” he said finally, flatly.

Aye, it was much better that way. Talking of board feet of lumber and buckets of lime.

It seemed easiest to go along with him, to pretend to reinforce the very thing she intended to destroy.

Feeling utterly joyless about the whole mess, her heart still aching for more of him than she should want, or could ever have, Talia knew better than to glance his way as she sat down at the table and took up the quill.

“Where do you wish to begin, Alex?”

Begin?
Alex thought. Bloody hell! He didn’t want to begin anything. He wanted to return to the safety of a half hour ago.

Before he’d tasted her. Before he had turned his unbearable curiosity into this blood-thickening craving. Into this sizzling need.

He would suspect her of toying him, but she wasn’t that kind of woman. She was direct, even brutally honest.

Then you think Conrad will be pleased?

Damnation!

“I’ve sent for three cartloads of reeds to repair the roof of the stable.”

To hell with the stable.
He watched her bend over the neat lines of her script, still reeling from her immodest, inventive touch, still dizzy from her scent.

Conrad would be more than pleased; he’d be bloody knocked bloody out.

Which ought to delight Alex. Instead, the closer the day came to the king’s arrival, the more certain he became that Conrad would be eager to marry Talia. Quite eager.

Which sat hard on him. Bruised his ego. Weighted him down and unfocused his strategies so that he could barely see the details.

“How much slate do you think you’ll need?”

“Slate?” He knew he’d barked the word by the way she huffed and shifted positions.

“The kitchen roof, Alex. You said you had calculated how many tiles—”

“Three dozen.” So businesslike. Her father had taught her well. Hell, the man had probably learned from her.

“Good, then I’ll get you slate from the scree. Will late tomorrow be soon enough?”

“Yes.”
Yes. Yes.

“Then I’ll have Quigley see to it.”

Damned efficient woman. “Have him come find me early in the morning.”

She idly wound a lock of hair around her finger as she studied the rolls and wrote something that ended with a quick flourish. “I suppose the king will be interested in the state of your siege stores.”

He sat down on the edge of the table, a safe enough distance, if he kept his mind on the king’s visit and not on the tendrils of vanilla curling around him.

“As you’ve told me yourself, since castles are mostly taken after a lengthy siege, where supplies and water are really all that matters, yes, he’ll be very interested.”

“Ah, then, I’ll see to the stores myself.”

“
You
will?”

She turned her face up to him, brightened and softened by the candle flame. “It makes good sense, Alex. I’m far more familiar with the cellars of Carrisford and the storage space than you are, don’t you think?”

I think I don’t trust you, madam.
Though he couldn’t put his finger on the immediate reason.

“Oh!” she said—a completely unbelievable exclamation lighting her eyes, deepening his suspicion. “I’m sure, Conrad would find a tour as interesting as the king. Because a siege-ready castle will add a great deal of value to my wardship, and therefore to his desire to marry me.”

He swallowed back an irrational clot of jealousy. “Exactly, Talia.”

“So you will concentrate on the battlements and the courtyard, and I’ll take on the cellars stores and the village.”

“And you will clear everything through me first.”

“Of course, Alex. And to accomplish as much as possible, I give you full permission to employ my villeins as you see fit. As long as you don’t endanger anyone.”

He pitied Conrad the woman’s wheeling, seductive logic, the dampness on her lips as she sipped from the cider cup and went back to her notes, because he damned well needed her cooperation and all of her people.

“Have you lost anyone yet, madam?”

“Not that I know of. No complaints either.” She chewed on a half smile, then threw him off guard with her next question. “What do you plan to do with Kyle now?”

“
Do
with him?”

She tilted her head and sighed. “It must hurt him deeply to know that you go so far out of your way to avoid your own brother. I pray that you’ll be kinder to him, include him in your life.”

He left the table to add a log to the brazier, to put more distance between them. “The boy doesn’t know, Talia.” Sparks rose and sputtered as he laid an oak log on top of the blaze. “He doesn’t know of our…connection.”

“Doesn’t know?” He heard the cracking of the
chair as she sat up sharply. “You don’t mean it, Alex.”

Alex sighed and turned, facing her as her gaze burned through him. “The boy has no idea, and I plan to keep it that way.”

She clunked her cup onto the table. “How the devil could Kyle not know?”

“Though it is none of your business, Talia, I’ve made it my policy not to seek out any of my father’s bastards.”

“You mean your
brothers
.”

“I mean that my personal life is none of your business, madam.”

“So you have no plans to tell him?” She stood up with a stomp, meeting him at the brazier. “That innocent young boy hasn’t a scrap of family in the world except you.”

“It wouldn’t serve either of us, Talia.”

“It would serve Kyle. He needs you, Alex, and you know it.”

A surge of guilt shoved at him, but he shifted his weight and stood his ground. “I insist on your silence in the matter, Talia.”

Her face became a flickering show of raw emotions: disbelief and anger and confusion. It was the disdain that injured him, because he doubtless deserved every ounce of it.

“I take all my compliments back, Alex. And my kiss. And every other exemplary thought I’ve ever had about you. You’re a despicable, stone-headed,
self-centered blackguard, and I pity the poor heiress who finds herself saddled with you for a husband.”

Directly to the point in all things, my dear.
He
was
a brute and a bastard and certainly didn’t deserve a woman as decent as Talia.

“My orders to you remain unchanged. You will say nothing to the boy.”

“I would never tell him, Alex.” She huffed and flung herself back into the chair, then started writing furiously. “You’ll have to confess that sin yourself. The last thing I want to do is to hurt Kyle’s feelings.”

“Good.”

“Because nothing could hurt him more than to learn that you are his brother and that you want nothing to do with him.” She plopped the quill into the holder and stood, pointing to the curling strip of parchment. “Our schedule, my lord. I’ll keep my part of the bargain, if you keep yours. Sleep well.”

Bloody hell, he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since he first met the woman, and he doubted he’d find any tonight.

“H
ow thick is the base of this tower wall, Jasper?”

“Eight or ten feet, my lady.”

“Then we can safely pull out another two feet do you think?” Talia grunted as she shouldered another shoring timber up against the ceiling beam, barely able to straighten from her knees in the cubbyhole they had made directly under the east tower wall.

“No more than that, my lady.”

“Please God, we don’t need an early cave-in.” Aching to the bone, Talia knelt and tied a rope around another timber, knocking the opposite end on a side of salted ham that hung from the cellar rafters in a forest of other meats. “And I don’t want to progress too far before the king arrives
and His Lordship leads him on a tour of every inch of the place.”

She couldn’t bring herself to mention Conrad, even to Jasper. Wedded and bedded to a stranger.

If
this marriage actually came about before she was able to bring down her dear castle.

“So, I’m thinking that we’ll be lifting some of the king’s wagons when he arrives, my lady. Quite a plush treasure that’ll be.”

And an inescapable fate, if they were caught.

“No choice, Jasper,” Talia said, tugging the timber into place. “One day soon we’ll all be living in our ramshackle little village, relying on whatever grain and seed and salted meats we can hide in the caves from Stephen and Maud and their marauding armies.”

A sudden flight of footsteps startled her, bringing her out of the cubbyhole.

“Talia, oh! What’s going on down here?” Brenna’s face loomed out of the paleness of the single candle, her dress was streaked in broad white swaths. “Are you planning the king’s supper?

“Brenna! Blazes, what are you doing? It’s too dangerous down here! Now go!” The girl knew too many of her secrets already.

“Lord Alex sent me to find you.” Brenna shouldered her way to where Talia and Jasper had been working. “But what is this, Talia? Is the tower broken?”

“Yes, Brenna. Jasper and I are fixing it. Now please leave before it falls—”

“Falls? Oh, dear!” Brenna started plowing back through the still-swinging hams. “I’ll go get Lord Alex. He’ll know what to do.”

Mother Mary!
“No, Brenna. Stop!” Talia nearly had to tackle the girl. “Alex can’t help us. And you can’t ever tell him what you found here!”

Brenna stared at the huge hole and Jasper’s owlish, stone-dusted face peering out at them. “But, Talia, His Lordship will know exactly what’s happened and how to fix it.”

“Aye, Brenna, and that would be the end of it.” She had no choice but to tell her everything. Brenna was honest to a fault and said whatever came into her head, unless she was charged with keeping a deep secret. “It doesn’t need fixing.”

Brenna stepped closer to the hole and peered inside. “But look how much of the tower is gone. What’s done it?”

“I did.”

“You?” Brenna wrinkled up her nose in disbelief. “Why would you undermine the tower, Talia? It’ll fall down, and the castle will, too, and then anyone can get in.”

“Yes, I know.” Brenna had to believe in a secret before it was completely safe with her.

“But why would you want that? Lord Alex
can’t very well defend a castle that’s missing part of its wall.”

“No one can. And that’s the idea. Carrisford Castle has to come down, sweet. It has to be destroyed so it can never again be used in a war.”

“Not even to protect us? And all the people in the village?”

“The castle hasn’t been able to protect us since the war started, has it? We’ve been seized seven times so far, and the war is far from over.”

“But what about the village?”

“Without the castle as a beacon to draw the armies, no one will be interested in the village, and we can finally live there in peace.”

Brenna sat down hard on a salt barrel. “What a horrible thing, Talia.”

“It is.”

“Are you and Jasper going to take down the whole castle? All the towers? And the walls?”

“Not just me and Jasper, Brenna.” Talia knelt in front of her and tucked a stray strand of hair back under her cap. “There are a lot of us. And in the end fire will finish it off. When everything is ready.”

The girl’s sorrow dipped the corners of her mouth. “How long from now?”

“A few weeks, maybe less.”

The girl twisted up her face in heartbreak, chewed on her lip. “Lord Alex doesn’t know you’re tearing down the castle, does he?”

“He mustn’t, Brenna. He would stop us.”

“Are you going to marry him?”

“I can’t.”

Brenna took Talia’s hand, held it against her cheek. “You should, Talia. He’s the best.”

No time for regrets. “It isn’t going to work out, sweet. He’s not even planning to stay here as lord. Even if there were a castle left for him to garrison.”

“I’m awfully sorry for that.” Brenna took in a long raspy breath.

“So am I.” Talia had to swallow back her tears. “Do you understand what it all means? I need you to.”

Brenna heaved a large sorrowful sigh that left her shoulders hanging. “Unfortunately, I do.”

Talia kissed her cheek, relieved and wondering when Brenna had gained all this maturity. “Thank you.”

“Well, then, what can I do to help?” She canted her head at the timbered struts.

“Keep an eye on the girls—they are little ferrets when it comes to digging up trouble. And do as Alex tells you. Be my spy—”

Brenna clapped her hands together, her face lighting with joy. “A spy, Talia? Oh, yes!”

Mother Mary, save us all!
“Act as you would normally, Brenna. Don’t do anything to bring suspicion down on us, or that will be the end of us.”

“I know just what to do. Lord Alex won’t learn
a thing from me. Oh! Remember he wants to see you, Talia. Right away.”

“So you said.” Talia lifted a corner of Brenna’s kirtle. “What happened to your clothes?”

“Limewash. I was helping His Lordship with the barbican walls.”

“And he wants to see me?”

“Something about needing more lime.”

At least it would keep Alex from poking around in the storage cellars.

“Show me.”

“What are you doing, Lord Alex?”

Alex had to spin on his heels to find Lissa and Gemma standing directly behind him, grinning up at him in the bright sunlight. No sign of Talia or Brenna with his message. “Well, good morning, ladies.”

“Good morning, Lord Alex.” Lissa curtsied deeply, and Gemma hugged his knees fiercely, a gesture that he’d come to look forward to because it always came pouring from her heart, right into his.

“What are you doing, sir?”

The girls stared up at the web of ladders and scaffolding leaning against the barbican walls, gaping at the men scrambling up and down. There was so much activity, it looked like an anthill torn away from its side.

“We’re limewashing the barbican walls. After
that, we’ll move into the bailey.” Alex poured a bucket of water into a pail of powdered lime, narrowly missing Gemma’s head as she peered into the mixture.

“What’s limewash?”

“Careful, Gemma!” Alex grabbed Gemma’s wrist before she could dunk her finger into the mess. “Lime and water and other things.”

“Why, Lord Alex?” Lissa stood over the bucket, securing Gemma’s hand, enabling Alex to stick in the paddle and begin stirring the thickening liquid.

“The wash will make Carrisford look bright and shiny for the king.”

“Yummm! It looks like milk.”

“It’s not milk.” Alex missed the darting hand this time, grabbing back Gemma’s little fingers, now dripping with limewash.

“Ooops!” The impish face was the picture of strawberry-haloed innocence, melting away any scolding he could have mustered.

“Can we help, Lord Alex?”

“I’m afraid the lady Talia wouldn’t be very pleased with me if you got your clothes full of limewash.” He could just imagine Talia’s reaction, augmented by their unwise intimacy a few days past, that had only sharpened her dealings with him.

But she had kept her promise, hadn’t said a word to the boy about the connection between
them. A connection that seemed to have tightened in the days since. That made Alex watch for the boy, to ask after him in the lists.

To worry. To know that right now he was with the crew repairing one of the pier posts on the quay.

A sharp tugging at his elbow made him look down at Lissa. “But Talia told us this morning that we should help you in any way we could. Besides, Gemma is already all limewashed. And I’m very careful.”

Fearing the worst, Alex turned to follow Lissa’s point only to find Gemma working the paddle herself, splashing thick waves of gloppy white out of the bucket and all over the front of her kirtle.

“Ah, Gemma, no.” He grabbed the paddle, but she kept on stirring.

“I’m helping, Lord Alex. See!”

“Me too!” Lissa had found a brush and was halfway up the nearest ladder.

And I’m in deep, deep trouble.
Deeper than ever, by the looks of the two girls.

“I’ll tell you what, ladies,” he said, resigned to his fate. He hooked his arm around Lissa’s waist and lowered her safely to the ground. “I’ll welcome your help with the limewash, but only with a few conditions.”

“What, what, what, Lord Alex?” They jumped
up and down, making him wonder if he wasn’t about to make a grandly foolish mistake.

“All right, ladies.” He took a stern, lord-to-villein stance and glared down at the messy young girls. “You’re to keep the wash only on the wall—not on the ground or on yourselves or me or anyone else. You’re to stay off the ladders and the scaffolding, and you will mind Wallace here.”

He pointed to his horrified sergeant, who had balked earlier at letting the much older Brenna help with the limewashing. “He’s in charge.”

“We will!” The girls would have dived into the buckets with both hands if he hadn’t caught them and carried them to the supply table.

“Some instruction before you start, ladies.” Though certain that his advice wouldn’t stick nearly as well as the soupy white stuff, he handed each a thick brush and showed them the proper way to apply limewash. “Small strokes, applied lightly, neatly. Do you see?”

“Yes! Yes! Lemme try!”

“Easy, Gemma. Don’t miss a spot, else the stone beneath will show in blotches.”

“Like this, Lord Alex?” Lissa frowned as she concentrated on an area, doing a fine job, actually.

“Excellent, Lissa.”

Gemma hadn’t a chance at any kind of accuracy, but she was squealing in delight, running along beneath the scaffolding, barely able to lift
the brush as she trailed it along the wall, and then running back to the bucket beside him, a streak of white now adorning her cheeks.

“That’s one way to do it, Gemma.” Lord, Talia was going to kill him.

“Thank you, Lord Alex.” Gemma’s aim was impeccable, clipping him across the knees with a spray of white as she drew the brush out of the bucket and ran to a new part of the wall.

“Watch out for them, please, Wallace. I don’t want them falling off the ladders.”

Wallace flinched. “But my lord—”

“They’ll soon tire of the game.”

“Are you sure? They look wound enough for days, my lord.”

“I’m sure, Wallace.” Though Lissa had already covered quite a bit of wall and Gemma was concentrating on her third thick line of limewash.

“But what about till then, my lord—”

Alex glanced again through the gate into the bailey and saw Talia striding toward him, Brenna on her heels.

“Bloody hell.” Though he felt a wild relief at the sight of her.

“Looks like trouble, my lord.”

And all he wanted was to carry her off into a deserted tower, to run his fingers through her hair, and—

“Talia! Look! We’re helping!”

“So I see, Gemma.”

Talia shifted her gaze along the length of the wall, then blinked up at Alex with those clear blue eyes. He’d been holding his breath, expecting a ringing harangue. Finally, she sighed.

“You’re far braver than I, Alex.”

The smile she’d been so poorly hiding broke across her face, followed by the sort of laugh that he wanted to tuck away deeply into his heart. Broad and homey, including him this time, with a shake of her head that made the red in her plait glint in the sunlight.

“Oh, Alex, you’re as full of limewash as they are.” To his amazement, his great pleasure, she reached up and drew her palm across his cheek and just under his jaw, then showed him the streak of white.

“See what I did, Talia?” Lissa slapped the wall with her brush, spattering limewash in a fan above her head.

“Lord Alex showed us how!” Gemma ran toward them and threw her arms around his legs again, clobbering the back of his thigh with the brush.

“Careful, Gemma!” Talia said, as she loosed the girl from his legs. “I think His Lordship’s got just about enough limewash on him.”

“Near as much as me!”

He could plainly see the woman hiding her smile again as she sent Gemma off to the bucket. “You needn’t put up with them, Alex.”

Alex followed her gaze, lighting with hers on the three girls, diligently at work on the wall.

“I don’t mind.” And damned if he didn’t. In point of fact he wanted to laugh. To throw back his head and revel in the pure, reeling pleasure of the moment.

But he held it inside, restraining his smile, even when he felt her eyes on him, felt the softly probing questions she asked.

“You’ve been so very good to them, Alex. They’ll miss you terribly when you leave us.”

She might as well have stuck her dagger in his heart. He swallowed hard and looked away, pretending an interest in the stone finials that lined the barbican wall. “Your family is distracting, to say the least.”

“They are everything to me, Alex.” Her eyes shone as she watched them, love and loyalty sparkling brightly.

Oh, to be loved like that.

And to love as freely.

“By the way, Alex, Kyle is helping Rolf at the quay.”

“I know.”

She stood in profile, a half smile perched on her lips. “I thought you might.”

“It means nothing, madam. I also know that William and Garin are making arrowheads. That Gordon is fitting out the lists for a demonstration—”