Chapter 13
Lord Renald snatched the sword from her. “You’ve cut yourself?”
Claire rubbed her palm and found no wound at all. “No.”
He had stood and was already sliding the sword out of the scabbard, revealing a crimson trace on the blade and around the join to the hilt.
“Josce?”
The squire blanched. “I just brought it from your room, my lord.”
Lord Renald touched the blood. “Not fresh, but not old either.” Watched by the now silent hall, he drew the sword clear. Lit by torch and candle, the blade stayed dark, light only rippling on the surface like fire on a deep, dark pond.
A pond streaked with blood.
“When did you last kill, my lord?” Claire whispered.
“Too long ago for this. And Josce would be flayed if he’d left my sword in this state.”
Claire seized her goblet and drained it. Of course he hadn’t killed recently. Not since coming to Summerbourne. But now she was sharply reminded of what he was.
A true blooded sword. It was as if heaven shouted it! Was she wicked to fall in love with such a man?
He shoved the blade back in the scabbard. “Some strange joke, perhaps.” He flashed a cold look at the earl, and Claire remembered who had pushed to have the sword brought out. Why, though, would such a powerful man indulge in such a petty trick? Just because he objected to this marriage?
He thrust the sword at his squire. “Clean it. Then bring it back so all who wish can see it.” He then sat, calling for water. When it came, he cleaned Claire’s hand himself. “I’m sorry for that, my lady. Such matters should not come to trouble you.”
“We can’t live a lie. A wife must share in her husband’s life.”
He kissed her clean palm. “I will keep you as joyous as Summerbourne deserves.”
“But you will still ride out to kill.”
He tossed the bloodstained cloth on the floor and let her go. “It is my duty if called.”
“I know that. But—”
Before she could say anything else, he placed a honeyed plum to her lips. She had to take a bite, but he could not silence her mind. She’d been happy. She’d been surrendering to love. But now her dizzy feelings and the gaiety all around seemed like froth, froth on a swamp of violence and death.
She glanced at the earl. He’d been fined heavily for his part in the rebellion, but he still had his life and his lands. His children still had their birthright. What right had he to stir the dark waters beneath her happy day?
Renald turned her face back to him, eyes searching hers. “Don’t frown, fair lady.” He kissed her gently on her forehead, where she must be creased by troubles. “Paradise should know only smiles, and angels never frown.”
Claire let him tease her out of the dark. She was tired, tired, of thinking and fretting. When he drew her in for another overwhelming kiss, she surrendered. When he finished, everyone applauded again, and Claire suspected they were as happy as she to put blood and swords behind them.
Then someone called, “The dance! Let’s have the dance!” and the musicians started up the Holly Berry, the traditional bridal dance.
Claire was supposed to lead the maidens in the dance, but she wondered if she was able after the wine she’d drunk. Ah well, no one expected the happy couple to be entirely steady on their feet.
When she stood, the world had a slight buzz of unreality, but Claire decided she could walk and talk without embarrassing herself. A tug at her scalp reminded her of her chaplet and veil, and she carefully began to take it off.
Lord Renald rose and helped her, hands mysterious against her head. She remembered to thank him for the chaplet.
“It becomes you,” he said, smile warm and comforting.
She smiled back then walked into the center space, gesturing to the maidens to join her. Soon, so soon, she would no longer be a maiden. Soon she would be intimate with him.
It was a strange thought, full of mysterious music.
Ordinary music called, however, and so Claire led the maidens in their dance, turning her attention, as they all did, to her chosen man.
Claire liked the dance, but she’d never before performed it for a significant man. Stamping her foot at him, raising her skirt, flashing challenging looks, seemed to start something inside her. Or set something free. Something fiery that she saw reflected in his dark, dangerous eyes.
He was leaning back in his chair, big hand lax around his goblet, but his eyes stayed fixed on her. Intent. Hot, even. It dried her mouth, that heat, but seemed to drive her to yet wilder movements in the dance.
Then, as she spun, she caught the eye of another man. Lambert of Vayne—young and handsome—was leaning forward, grinning most appreciatively at her.
With purely wicked intent, she danced for him for a while, swaying her hips, flashing her leg, her true attention all on the dark man at the high table.
When she turned fully back to her betrothed, he was still lounging, but now his hand gripped tight around his goblet, and his eyes warned. Instead of making her cautious, that sent a flicker of excitement down her nerves.
What would he do if she really flirted with other men?
For some mad reason she wanted that danger, hungered for it.
She desperately wished she had her long hair loose and free to swing like a whip to torment and defy her dark wolf even more.
When the dance whirled to a stop, she staggered, clutching on to similarly gasping, dizzy friends, joining in the wild, delighted laughter. Then he appeared at her side and cinched her to him, support and capture.
“You are a bold wench,” he murmured, kissing her sweaty neck. But then he nipped her sharply.
Even as she squeaked, she knew it was playful chastisement.
She stared up at him, suddenly wishing this was her wedding night.
“Ah, Claire, if you dance as hotly in the marriage bed, I will be a very happy man.”
“Isn’t it the groom’s place to make the bride dance?”
His smile was slow, lazy, and blistering. “I will certainly do my best. Now,” he said, steering her back to her seat, and gently settling her veil and chaplet back on her head, “sit, my bride, and watch as I perform for you.”
He called for the sword dance and most of the younger men leaped forward to take part, keen to show off before the women.
They didn’t use swords—though Claire had heard that at one time they used to. As the music began, a beat more than a tune, they clashed short staves with one another. It was a simulation of a sword fight but with a rhythm that became music.
Turning, stamping, beating stick against stick, the men eyed their chosen women.
His eyes were for her alone.
She’d not seen this dance very often for her father hadn’t liked it. She’d tended to think it vulgar, and she’d hated the aura of violence it created. But now, something had changed. Now, seeing the ease of Renald’s movements, his fluid grace, she recognized a thing of dangerous beauty.
Pure skill. Without any experience of swordplay, she could see that Renald’s command was greater than any other man’s. Like everyone, she began to clap along with the beat of the dance, but she clapped just for him, feeling the beat thrum through her body.
Then the pattern turned him to face Lambert. Perhaps the local man made a challenge of it. Or perhaps Renald did, itched by her play.
Suddenly the movements seemed less rhythmical, more threatening. The clapping died away. Like ripples in water, the other men drew back into a circle, beating their sticks against the floor as the two in the middle made a contest of it.
Renald and Lambert kept to the rhythm after a fashion, but they also tried to overcome each other’s guard. Lambert was hopelessly outmatched. Even Claire could see that. He trained for war, but only as duty. He was no match for a king’s champion, a man whose life was battle.
Watching Renald toy with his opponent, Claire remembered him speaking of a skilled fighter in control of a match. It was here before her. He just blocked Lambert’s moves, making occasional attacks so mild as to be easily countered. Clearly, he could prolong it, use it, end it at will.
Suddenly, chillingly, Claire imagined her father facing such a man, helpless before unerring death. After all, Lambert was younger, fitter, and much more able at swordplay than her father, but he was drastically outmatched.
She grasped her goblet with shaking hands, praying for the macabre dance to end. Of course her father’s death had been nothing like this. It had doubtless been in some muddled skirmish somewhere and he’d not even seen the blade that killed him.
But End it, she thought desperately, stick-music pounding in her brain. Kill him now. Stop toying with him!
She gulped wine, fighting madness. They fought with wooden sticks. No one was going to be killed. No one would even get hurt. It was a dance.
A dance.
She saw Renald flash her a glance and frown.
A moment later the rhythm returned. Smoothly, under his control, it blended with the beat of the other men’s sticks and the musician’s drum.
Renald looked untested by it all, but Lambert gasped, the sweat running.
Whoever had started the contest, Lambert was relieved to take the escape offered.
The other men picked it up and wound into the end.
It was well done. Claire admitted that. She was doubtless reacting stupidly to a mere entertainment. But as soon as the dance ended, before Renald could return to her, she slipped out of the hall into the cooler, fragrant evening to try to untangle her tormented mind.
The sun had sunk, giving a pearly glow to the scene which soothed her rattled nerves.
At a footstep behind, she turned, braced for his displeasure.
But it wasn’t Renald, it was the Earl of Salisbury.
“My lord.”
“Claire.” He was a tall, rather thin man, but with a sinewy strength, not the thinness of frailty. “Strange indeed to see such warlike entertainments at Summerbourne.”
“It was only a dance, my lord.”
“Indeed. But a dance of death.”
“They were in no danger.” She wished he would go away.
“Certainly de Lisle was not.”