easing away as tiny rivulets of sweat trickled down her cheeks. She was safe at last. She sighed and closed her eyes.
They popped open as an image of the agonized face of Dirick de Arlande intruded into her thoughts.
She firmly turned her mind toward the thought of seeing her father again, refusing to let the face of the man who’d betrayed her encroach upon her peace. Nor did she allow herself to think long and hard about the fact that she’d saved his life when Bon de Savrille would have slain him. Maris might despise the man, mistrust and dislike him, but she would not have his death on her hands.
Dirick’s face, and the fury in his voice as he’d cursed her “witch,” would not be banished, however. Maris shivered, remembering the glint of anger in his grey eyes as she’d yanked free of his grip and swept past him to the steps. She’d felt something akin to remorse as she left him behind, knowing the pain her herb was capable of inflicting. He’d always appeared so large and strong that it disturbed her to see him laid low. An odd thought, she allowed. For should she not have been glad to see such a threatening man laid weak and slow?
He’d been grey with fatigue and breathing heavily against the agony in his middle. Thick hair clung to the sweat on his face and neck, and Maris remembered how his hand, though gripping her ankle tightly, trembled with the effort. She could not dismiss the memory of the lines of pain that radiated from his eyes and mouth. His lips had been thin and taut…not at all like the full, soft ones that had closed upon her mouth in the stables.
For a moment, she was back there, his arms around her and that mouth devouring hers. She remembered the feel of his fingers grasping handfuls of her hair, pushing up through her scalp…the warmth of his hard body in the chill of the early morning…and the spiraling pleasure curling up into her belly.
Maris jerked her thoughts from their pathway so violently that her body moved in the tub, splashing water onto the floor and startling the servant who sat silently in the corner. Must she call her confessor back so soon?
Pulling upright in the tub, she gestured for the maid to attend her. As the sure fingers of the servant massaged her scalp, spreading a rose scented soap in her damp hair, Maris allowed her eyes to ease shut again.
Lulled by the fingertips stroking her head, she found herself back in Dirick’s arms. His eyes were a silvery grey flecked with black and blue, and fringed with dark lashes, half closed with desire, his soft, smooth lips moving closer to hers…she could not block the image from her mind.
Instead, she focused on the expression of loathing in his face. The fury and disgust. And the abject pain and misery.
When the maid gently pushed, Maris bent her head so that the soap could be rinsed into the tub in front of her. The water trickled down her neck and the sides of her face, spilling into the water.
All at once, fear struck. Had she given too much of the broom? Mayhap he’d not survived, as she’d promised. Mayhap she’d risked overmuch in using the potent plant…and even now, Dirick and other innocents could be lying in their death pools.
She shuddered, pushing the thought away. Nay, she’d taken care so as not to make the dose too strong. But the look of agony…and the hatred in his eyes….
Maris swallowed deeply as she was made to stand in the shallow tub. Careful hands soaped her body as she struggled to dismiss the fears and regrets that plagued her mind now that it was not occupied with thoughts of escape.
Nay, she decided firmly, she’d not worry over it. Her papa may not have arrived in time, and she could not give pause to regret. What she’d done, she’d done. She’d escaped Breakston and would return home to her family.
Banishing the lingering thoughts of Sir Dirick, Maris stepped from the tub and allowed the maid to towel her dry. The fire still roared in the grate, keeping her warm until a borrowed night shift was slipped over her head. The maid braided the long dark hair then helped Maris climb into the high bed.
Just as she began to slip into sleep, a menacing thought prodded her wide awake. Returning home to Langumont meant returning home to her betrothed.
For an instant—a brief one—Maris contemplated returning to Breakston and accepting Lord Bon’s offer of marriage. At the least, he was malleable and would do her bidding. Sir Victor was naught but a rough bully.
But, nay, she’d return to Langumont and find some way to dissuade her father from finalizing the betrothal.
Chapter Fourteen
Dirick’s head swam.
He closed his eyes, then reopened them carefully. Aye, the room was still shifting, tilting to one side.
Then a face bent over his.
It was a woman’s face, aged and covered with the fine, soft hair of the elderly.
“Ah, milord, you’ve come back to this world at last.” The voice was gentle and its accompanying smile the same. “Ye gave me quite a scare, lord, for how was I to explain how a dead knight came to be in me home?” Old eyes sparked with humor, but Dirick was too weak to acknowledge it with more than a grunt. “Drink this.” She firmly shoved a crude wooden mug of something warm and heavenly smelling at his mouth and he accepted it gratefully.
She held the cup long enough for him to take several sips, then eased it back.
“My horse,” he was able to ask now that his mouth was moistened.
The woman nodded. “Aye. He’s well tended. He’s had more to eat than ye have in the day past.”
“A day?” Dirick croaked, struggling to a seated position on his low pallet.
“Aye. Ye came to me yestereve, lord, an’ ’twas a struggle to get ye in here when ye chose me doorway to collapse in.” Again, the eyes glinted with humor. “But I coulden leave ye there, now could I? ’Twould get to be horrible cold in here for me auld bones if the door weren’t shut.”
“Maris.” Hell. He’d surely lost her by now if he’d been bloody sleeping for a day.
“Ah, aye, ye called for her last evenin’, lord. There weren’t no one with ye, that I could see.” The head tilted to one side as she looked down upon him. “But she weren’t with ye, were she, lord? Ye were after her, for what I know not, but the leaves will tell me. Here ye, drink all of this now as yer sittin’ up.” She pushed the mug into his face and brought his hand up to hold it.
Dirick drank the rest of the brew, thankful that the room had righted itself. The old woman, who wore a long, heavy gown that dragged the floor, took his empty cup and peered into its depths. “Ah, aye, I’ll look at these in a moment.”
He watched as she trundled over to the fire and stirred something in a large pot. She ladled its contents into a bowl modeled in the same crude fashion as the mug and brought it to him, accompanied by a piece of hard bread and a wooden spoon. Dirick smelled rabbit stew, and his mouth began to water when the food came into his presence.
Knowing that he was in need of sustenance before continuing his search for Maris, he would have eaten eagerly even if the food were barely palatable. However, the stew tasted just as delicious as it smelled, and he was so engrossed that he barely noticed that the old woman. She was clucking over his empty tea mug, peering with a tallow candle into its depths.
“Ahh, aye….Ye’ve some grief of late, milord . . .’tis sad I am to see it.” She glanced up at him, then back at the mug. “Yer Papa, ’twas, aye?”
Dirick swallowed a chunk of rabbit meat and stared at the woman. How could she have known? “Aye.”
Her white head shook sadly. “Much blood, I see ’t…an’ much evil ’round, too…spreadin’ ’round this land. ’Tis a madman’s hand is in ’t, I warrant.”
“I’ll find him,” Dirick told her fiercely, no longer shocked that she seemed to understand what she could not know.
She nodded. “Aye, Godspeed to ye in that task. I pray ye’ll find it afore more bloodshed.”
The woman turned her attention back to the herb leaves plastered over the bottom of the mug. “An’ what of this Maris ye was callin’ fer?” The woman spoke more to herself than to Dirick as she frowned into the mug.
