The Huntress (22 page)

Martin rested his bow against the bench, pausing to wipe a bead of sweat from his brow. “I have the greatest respect for your abilities, Catriona.”

Catriona.
Something about the way he said her name nearly brought a blush to her cheeks until he added with a mischievous smile: “And besides, it would not have been nearly as enjoyable being
arranged
by a man.”

She did blush then.

“Why, you—” she choked, launching herself at him, intending to give him a swift box to the ears. But he laughed and caught her fist easily, pinioning first it and then her other hand to the small of her back.

Cat glowered, but she was all too aware of the mock quality of her outrage. She was enjoying this tussle far too much and not fighting nearly hard enough to get away.

Her heart skipped a beat as Martin drew her tighter against him, her breasts pressing against the taut wall of his chest. He peered down at her through the thicket of his dark lashes.

“Blue was the right choice,” he murmured.

“I—I beg your pardon.” She was feeling oddly breathless. Perhaps that was why his words made no sense.

“
Blue,
” he repeated. “It was the correct choice for your gown. It suits you.”

Cat attempted to give a scornful sniff. “Oh, I suppose you are going to hand me some rot about it being the same shade as my eyes.”

“No. I could have searched all of London and I would never have been able to find that fierce and brilliant a blue.”

Damn the man for sounding so sincere and for drawing her closer still. Her heartbeat sped from trot to full-out gallop. It was not the first time she had experienced this heat, this tug of attraction between them. Often during these past weeks, she felt as though it was always there, just pulsing below the surface.

A purely physical impulse and natural enough, she assured herself. She’d been a long time without a man and she suspected Martin also suffered from imposed celibacy. She doubted that the virtuous Lady Jane was servicing his masculine needs.

Yes, a completely natural and understandable attraction, but that didn’t make it any the less wrong. A dangerous urge that could only complicate matters between them.

Martin was staring far too intently at her mouth. Cat caught herself moistening her lips in involuntary response. As he bent closer, she retained enough wit to duck her head.

Martin’s grip tightened on her for a moment, then he appeared to come to his senses. He released her. They sprang apart, both of them concentrating on retrieving arrows with an energy and focus far greater than the task required.

She needed the use of Martin’s knife to dig out one deeply imbedded in the apple tree. He handed it over, scarce looking at her. As she hacked away at chunks of bark, Cat desperately sought for a topic to ease the tension between them.

“So what inspired this sudden urge to take up the bow?”

“It is required of me by law.”

“What!”

Yanking arrows out of the target, Martin explained, “Ever since the days of Henry the Eighth, every Englishman under the age of sixty is required to own a bow and know how to use it.”

Ah, so that was what all this earnest practicing was all about, just more of Martin’s endeavors to transform himself into a respectable Englishman. She wished she could give a derisive laugh at the notion, but she found it all too sad. As sad as that little girl in the house, plucking her fingers raw on that lute in her efforts to learn music “like a proper lady.”

Cat knew by now the uselessness of remonstrating with Martin about his plans for himself and his daughter. She contented herself with muttering, “Trust the English to take the joy out of a fine sport by passing a law about it.”

“The English don’t regard skill with a bow as mere sport. They have no standing army. Should there ever be an invasion, the country relies on all the parishes mustering to the defense.”

“With bows and arrows against cannon shot and gunpowder?” Cat could not resist, adding provocatively, “Alas, the glorious days of Agincourt are long behind us.”

“Agincourt?” Martin snapped, his reaction exactly what Cat had hoped. He looked ready to spit. “Mon Dieu! There was nothing glorious about that battle. In the first place, Henry the Fifth had no right invading France. And in the second, the French had the English badly outnumbered. It was merely a matter of luck that the English were able to—”

Martin broke off, looking irritated, whether with himself or Cat, she was hard-pressed to tell.

She finished working the arrow out of the tree and strode over to hand it to him. As he thrust it into his quiver, Cat bit down on her tongue. But she was unable to stop herself from saying softly, “You’re never going to be able to do it, Martin le Loup.”

“Do what?”

“Turn yourself into an Englishman.”

He compressed his lips into a stubborn line. “Yes, I will. Like the bow, it just wants more practice.”

“And if you do succeed, what then? What if an invasion did come and it was the French?” she challenged. “Could you really become English enough to fire on your own countrymen?”

“From what I have heard, the English are far more likely to suffer an attack from Spain. But if it was France—” Martin paused, an expression shadowing his face that was at once grim and sad. “It wouldn’t be the first time I have had to draw steel against someone from my own land. France has been plagued by civil war for years. I was in service to the Protestant king of Navarre, stood shoulder to shoulder in battle with my good friend, the Huguenot captain, Nicholas Remy.

“And I was there in Paris on that Saint Bartholomew’s Eve when the streets ran with blood. People slitting one another’s throats over who regards the wafer as the holy body of Christ and who thinks it’s nothing but a bit of bread. Frenchmen slaughtering Frenchmen. I daresay you wouldn’t understand—”

“Oh, yes, I would. The Irish have been after killing one another for centuries longer than you French. That is how I lost my father.”

Martin shot her a curious look. “Meg told me your father perished in battle when you were young, but I assumed it was the English…”

Cat gave a swift sad shake of her head. “No, it was in a skirmish with the Dunnes. The two clans had been feuding over who knows what for generations, a dispute over land, a bit of poaching, the theft of a goat perhaps.”

She shrugged and gave a brittle smile. “’Tis the curse of my people, short tempers and long memories. I have no idea what set off the hostilities again. I was only eight at the time. All I know is that at the end of that day, my da never came home again.”

Her voice grew husky with emotion. She made haste to turn away from Martin but he caught her hand. Another man might have chafed her raw, trying to offer some comforting platitude.

All Martin did was carry her hand to his lips. She trembled at his touch, finding these moments of empathy far more difficult to handle than those times when heat flared between them. Passion she could easily deal with. It was tenderness that undid her.

She yanked her hand free, saying with a false briskness, “I had best be getting back to the house. Meg has been as hard at her music lessons as you with your bow. Someone needs to rescue the poor girl.”

Or more accurately rescue Master Naismith and the rest of the household, Cat thought, but it would not do to make such a jest to Martin. The man was as willfully blind about Meg’s musical abilities as everything else.

Striding back across the garden, Cat bent to retrieve the coif she had discarded. She was astonished when Martin reached out to snatch it away from her.

“Don’t wear that thing. I gave it to you only in jest, to ruffle your feathers. I never really thought you’d put it on.”

“I thought it was necessary, to complete my disguise of being a respectable member of your household.”

As though to emphasize her point, one strand of her untamable red hair straggled across her face. Martin tucked it back behind her ear.

“The cap doesn’t become you at all.” His mouth twisted in a teasing smile. “There is such a thing as trying too hard to be respectable, Mistress O’Hanlon.”

Cat tried to think of a clever retort, but any words seemed to lodge in her throat, her heart flooded with a strange ache. Perhaps because she wished so much she could convince him of that very same thing.

M
EG FLEXED HER SORE FINGERS AND FETCHED A DESPONDENT
sigh. Her tutor said that in time, her fingertips would become tougher, inured to the lute strings. Perhaps he was right. But what was never going to change was her ability.

In tune or out of tune, the difference between one note and another…she simply couldn’t hear it. She was miserably conscious of being a failure and a great disappointment. Not just to her father, but to the golden youth who occupied the parlor window seat beside her.

Sunlight filtered through the window, haloing Alexander Naismith’s smooth handsome face and wavy blond hair. Stretching his arm around Meg, he patiently readjusted her fingers upon the lute strings for about the dozenth time.

“There now, Mistress Margaret. Try it again. Just the first few bars of the song.”

Meg nodded, scarce able to look up at him. Sander’s mere presence, let alone his touch, was enough to make her feel all fluttery inside.

Drawing in a deep breath, she gripped the frets of the lute and assailed the instrument again. But no matter how hard she tried to imitate what Sander showed her, all she produced was the most dreadful twanging.

She stilled her hand, letting the last awful note vibrate to silence. A tear welled from the corner of her eye, cascading down her cheek.

“Here now. What’s this?”

Sander crooked his fingers beneath her chin, trying to coax her to look up at him. But she ducked her head, allowing her hair to fall forward as she struggled to contain herself.

“I—I am hopeless, Sander.”

“Nonsense, milady. You are much improved.” Sander bent down, parting her cascade of hair to peer at her. “Why, you have not broken a single string today.”

His grin was teasing, but warm as well, eliciting a chuckle from Meg in spite of herself. She tensed at the sound of snoring from across the room.

Sometimes she forgot that she and Sander were not alone. Agatha sat in a chair, plying her needlework, ostensibly to act as chaperone for her young mistress during the music lesson. But she tended to nod off from time to time.

Her head bobbed lower and lower until her chin all but rested atop her sagging bosom and then she straightened with a mighty jerk. She blinked owlishly at Meg and Sander, then gave a foggy smile before returning to her needlework. She set a few stitches before her eyelids grew heavy and the process began all over again.

Sander leaned closer to whisper in Meg’s ear, “Sometime I expect Mistress Butterydoor’s head to entirely drop off and go rolling across the floor.”

Meg clapped her hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle.

“I cannot even begin to fathom how she can sleep that way,” Sander added.

“Especially with the horrible noise I am making,” Meg replied in a low voice. “Perhaps she puts cotton wadding in her ears the way Maude and Jem do.” She turned her attention back to the lute positioned on her lap and added indignantly, “I overheard Jem laughing and telling Maude that you make far more melodic music with one ear than I will ever be able to with two—”

Meg broke off, horrified that she had been insensitive enough to repeat such a cruel jest. “Oh, S-Sander, I am so sorry—”

“Nay, don’t you fret a moment about what that rapscallion says. I vow I will box both his ears if he dares to speak so disrespectfully about my young lady again.”

His
lady? Meg’s cheeks warmed and she stared fixedly down at the lute.

“As for myself, I pay no heed to such stupid jests. I am accustomed to them.” There was no bitterness in Sander’s voice, but Meg felt his arm move and she did not even have to glance up to know that he smoothed his hair over the severed stump of his ear. It was a frequent gesture of his.

Meg tried not to think of it, but sometimes her mind could not help painting terrible pictures of Sander being dragged to the block, his beautiful head forced down upon the rough wood, the sharp glint of the jailer’s knife…

She shuddered and stole a timid peek up at him. “It was a very cruel thing that was done to you.”

“’Tis a cruel world, young mistress.” He tapped his slender graceful fingers on the neck of the lute. “But music makes it a much sweeter place.”

“Not the kind of music I make,” Meg replied glumly.

Sander studied her for a moment before slowly shaking his head. “You have the most astonishing memory of anyone I’ve ever met. You can recollect the lyrics of every song I have ever taught you, even after you heard them only one time.”

Meg brightened a little. “I can,” she said eagerly. “I can also hold entire passages of Latin and Greek in my head, nay, entire books…”

She trailed off, cringing, realizing it was a dull accomplishment for a girl to boast of, certainly not the sort of thing a lively young man like Sander would find captivating.

“You are a very intelligent girl, Meg.” He tapped her playfully on the nose. “So why can’t you keep all the music notes in that clever little head of yours as well?”