emotional songs that always started a trill of sensation down his spine. Such a thing was better kept hidden as well.
It wasn’t until he was on the second stanza that he realized the wolf was howling along with him in an off-key fashion. Vincent opened his eyes on the creature, this time lifting its throat and letting loose the most mournful notes he’d yet heard. Vincent had a difficult time keeping the tune flowing with the combination of amusement at the wolf’s antics and the sorrow the music always created in him.
He was afraid he wasn’t successful. He realized it as the last note died away, leaving him sniffing back emotion and the animal looking at him with wet eyes as well. And then he heard the sound of her door closing.
Chapter Five
Sybil fought her increased pulse and the odd constriction in her throat as she leaned on the door, looking at it as if for the first time. That man—the one so annoyingly steeped in his own importance and bounty—had just produced the most amazing, soulful music. She’d been afraid when he stopped that he’d see her openmouthed gape. Nobody saw that much emotion from her and hadn’t for years.
It was by her own decree. She’d set that standard for herself when her mother had first dumped her at the keep’s doorstep when she was but three. She hadn’t known then why.
She knew now. Bastardy was an embarrassment for all concerned.
Sybil sighed, blinked the door back to its normal wood grain, and turned toward the fire and the little pot that was simmering on a hook above it. It smelled delicious. It was supposed to. She’d been brewing a bit of dandelion and boar fat into a gravy to go with his sup, one that would gain him nothing but a loose lower belly and a wish for oblivion. The desire to harm was gone now. He had too much soul, even if he didn’t know it. He had to. Anybody who could elicit the warm tones that had felt like an embrace was taking place couldn’t be the lowest soulless wretch. Stupid, yes…but not soulless.
Sybil took the pot to the oriel window and tipped the vessel, letting gravy run down the haphazard joining of tower stones, just like she’d done with most of her concoctions. When the liquid reached the ground, it would either create more of the dead earth where nothing would grow, or add to the bit of grass that was such a vivid shade of green it had caused more than one onlooker to stop and stare. They didn’t know that was how Sybil had discovered the concoction that was dripped into the soil for the best garden yield.
Trial and error.
She paused in her musings. Giving anything harmful to this Vincent fellow fell into the error category now, after his musical demonstration. Sybil would have sighed as she continued pouring, but it would be wasted. Emotions weren’t for her. Such things were worthless. She’d seen too much of other’s heartburnings to ever wish such a thing for herself. She was unwanted, unloved, and free of worldly goods. It was a good thing she was useful.
Sybil knocked the last bit of stewed dandelion leaves from her pot and wiped it clean.
Her chamber door trembled, alerting her more from the motion of rattling against her door latch than the actual knocking sound.
He knocked? And Waif allowed it? That wasn’t good. Sybil put the pot down, wiped both hands down the sides of her skirt, and crossed to her door. She didn’t know what was wrong with the man. Any male possessing the brawn, handsomeness, charm, and musical soul of this one had options available to him. He probably had property as well. He was everything that shouldn’t be interested in a dowerless, plain, illegitimate woman…and yet he still seemed to be. Still. Sybil crossed to her door, lifted the wood dowel, and opened it a slit.
“You are na’ following the role-play, my lady,” he said from a height she couldn’t achieve without standing on a chair. And then the wretch smiled.
From the width of the door and his stature, the effect of white teeth and the mysterious black color of his eyes was enough to make any lass tremble. It wasn’t entirely her fault when it happened to her, too. Sybil gulped away the excess moisture in her mouth to answer. “What role-play?” she asked.
“The one assigned us. This eve.”
“When?”
“I’ve been wounded. You’ve been assigned to heal me. That role-play.”
“You dinna look wounded,” she replied. He must have known she was shutting the door, for the moment she tried, there was a booted toe in the gap, and then the entire boot. Then he stopped and waited, holding the door open against the pressure of her weight. That didn’t last, for next he reached around the wood and gripped a hand at the level of her nose. Sybil toyed with putting her weight against the door and shoving, but that was illogical and would look stupid as well.
“Where is my wolf?” she asked, hoping the breathless tone of her voice wasn’t obvious.
That was a vain hope. She knew it as his lips widened into a smile again.
“I girded the fierce dragon in his own den and came out not only unharmed but as the victor. You should laud me.”
“Laud…you?”
The second word was separated from the first by the quick force of his shove against the door, pushing her back into the room like she was so much wheat chaff, and showing that Waif was happily engrossed in chewing on a large joint of what looked like cooked mutton. The wolf was even making smacking sounds as it licked at the joint.
“Laud. As in glorify, applaud, sing my name in dulcet tones for all posterity. Things such as that.”
“I canna’ sing,” she replied. Or tried to reply. She didn’t know what it sounded like. There was the oddest buzzing noise affecting her speech, and her heart was hammering almost enough to cover it over.
He was fully in her chamber now—something no man had ever attempted. Actually, she had to amend the thought, no one was ever in her chamber.
“’Tis a good thing I can, then. I’ll make up for your failings, fair wench.”
Fair wench? She was afraid of what the surge of heat through her breast signified, and knew it was a blush when heat hit her hairline and started little droplets of moisture there. She should have worn a wimple, she decided as he stood just inside her doorway observing everything.
Then his eyebrows lifted several times. “I thank you for inviting me into your chamber. ’Tis an honor few receive. Am I right?” He moved three steps farther into the room, making it look cluttered and small. Although it was cluttered, since she liked things about her—lots of things—it had never been small.
“I dinna’ invite you,” she replied and took a step back from him, much to her chagrin. She’d lost control of the situation. She didn’t even know how. It was as if this man had the key to her subconscious and was playing with it. Sybil had never felt at such a disadvantage, and Waif was no help. He’d betrayed her the moment he’d heard this man’s music.
Just as she’d done.
This Vincent put his hands on his hips, cocked his head up, and sniffed. “Have you been cooking? In here? That is na’ fair.”
“Na’ much is at the moment,” she replied.
He smiled, and it effectively stopped her enmity. She couldn’t win at any battle of wits if she let emotion in.
