Free Through a Dark Mist by Marsha Canham Page B

vested as sheriff.”
    “I would have given a thousand crowns to witness the exchange,” the baron said, his eyes glinting with humour.
    “No doubt you would, you beast. I felt quite sorry for him, myself—and even sorrier now for the innocent little Berengaria, his intended bride.”
    “You? Feel sympathy for another woman?”
    The dark eyes narrowed. “It has been known to happen a time or two.”
    “Usually only after you have crippled, maimed, or blinded one of them. Come now, Nicolaa, false sentiment does not become you. Turn soft and sincere and there truly would be a mass plummeting of mankind over the cliffs—out of fear.”
    “Melancholy. It happens whenever I am feeling neglected.”
    “Neglected? How so?”
    Nicolaa sighed with mock frustration. “It has been over a month, my bold lusty lord. Four weeks. Thirty-two days and a good deal too many hours since these poor thighs have held a real man between them.”
    The azure gaze strayed downward, following the deliberately laid trail of a meandering finger as it flowed from throat to breast to waist to thigh. She wore nothing beneath the pale yellow tunic. Her nipples were clear, dark circles straining against the fabric, and where her thighs met, the nest of down bushed against the cloth like a mossy hillock.
    It was rumoured she bathed in blood to keep her skin so supple and startlingly white. For a certainty, she employed the skills of several herb-women who fed her insatiable vanity by supplying creams to prevent wrinkling, powders to keep her teeth white and her lips red, possets to leave her hair smelling always like wild musk on a spring breeze. She had once ordered a clumsy dressmaker boiled in oil for scratching her flesh with a needle. Another waiting-woman had found herself impaled on a stake for daring to whisper, within Nicolaa’s hearing, that her mistress made love as often to a mirror as to a man.
    As for her to have gone so much as a sennight without something hard and hot between her thighs, it would have had to have been because of a grave, life-threatening illness striking her prone. Even then, she would have found better ways to raise a sweat than with hot poultices.
    “How do the plans for the wedding celebration progress?” she asked sweetly. “I suppose I should ask, since it was my excuse for arriving early.”
    “The preparations go well. William the Marshal has sent his acknowledgment, as have Salisbury and Tavistoke. Prince John should arrive early in the week, as will Fournier from Normandy, and La Seyne Sur Mer from Mirebeau.”
    “The queen’s champion?” Nicolaa arched a brow. “You should indeed be honoured that Eleanor of Aquitaine would send her favoured knight as envoy. A pity the wrinkled old sheep’s bladder is too feeble to make the journey herself, but surely a feather for you that she persuaded La Seyne Sur Mer to journey in her stead. Will he participate in the tourney?”
    “It remains to be seen,” De Gournay said, the merest trace of pleasure betrayed in his expression. “I suspect he might be eager to establish a reputation outside of Brittany.”
    “Saints assoil us,” Nicolaa murmured. “You would share your own laurel wreath with the Scourge of Mirebeau? How generous of you.”
    “Wisdom before generosity, my love. The wisdom to see his skill firsthand and judge his mettle by mine own eyes rather than rely solely on the reports of others.”
    “It is said he has yet to meet his equal in the lists,” Nicolaa remarked with a sly lack of subtlety.
    “He has yet to venture more than a hundred miles from Mirebeau,” Wardieu shot back. “Much less come to England to meet his match.”
    Nicolaa shivered deliciously, riding the ripples of a series of small inner fluctuations. Wardieu angry, or Wardieu impugned usually set the stage for an incomparable bout of lovemaking and she felt her thighs slicken with anticipation.
    “Then you intend to challenge him?”
    “The notion has its