Free My Lady's Guardian by Gayle Callen Page A

remote, as if there was more beneath the surface of their shared glance.
    He told himself he had simply missed the company of gentlewomen for too long.
    Margery stood up without warning. Her shoulder brushed his chest; her skirts surrounded his legs. He caught her elbow, and noticed that the twins' backs were turned.
    "I taught you this game," he whispered.
    She was silent. He tried not to breathe, so as not to smell the scent of roses that was a part of her.
    "Do you remember?"
    "Did we play before a hearth?" she asked, and he could hear the hesitation in her voice. She slowly turned to look up at him.
    "We lay on our stomachs."
    She shook her head. "I did not remember that."
    She pulled her arm away and Gareth let her go, watching as she seated herself at the table. After a moment's indecision, he moved to stand behind Lady Anne. The head table was on a raised dais, which put the Tables board at Gareth's chest, and the women's heads equal with his own.
    Margery began the game. For a few minutes they played in silence, and Gareth watched her slender fingers roll the dice. He should leave the women alone, but he was amused by Margery's concentration. With lucky rolls of the dice, her skill should let her win.
    She seemed to win at anything she attempted, just like her entire family. His humor faded, replaced by anger—anything was better than the memory of the hollow emptiness in his soul when he'd ridden away from her family home so long ago.
    Gareth stepped up and slid onto the bench beside Lady Anne. When she was about to make a move, he said, "No, not that piece."
    All three women looked at him and he shrugged.
    Margery puffed out her lower lip in a pout and glanced up at him with storm-cloud blue eyes. "Why, Sir Gareth, you're not going to help me?"
    "You do not need my help."
    He could see why she got her way, even with her brothers. He wanted to tell her that her problems couldn't be solved with a flutter of her eyelashes— but he'd settle for watching her soundly defeated at Tables.
    He boldly studied her, and not always her face. He told himself he merely wished to fluster her, but more than once his eyes lingered on the shadowy indentation between her breasts, and his thoughts were not only of anger.
    He whispered suggestions in Lady Anne's ear, and soon Margery was floundering. They'd attracted a vocal audience of soldiers and knights, who were actively betting.
    "Anne, you've blocked me," Margery said pleasantly, but she was almost glaring at Gareth.
    There was laughter all around them, Desmond the loudest of all.
    "Gareth," he called, "Don't make me lose a day's wage on Mistress Margery."
    "You should have bet on Lady Anne." Gareth smiled. "I may not yet have convinced Mistress
    Margery of my worthiness as her suitor, but even she cannot doubt my skills."
    As everyone laughed, Margery's gaze was locked with his in a contest of wills older than any table game. Couldn't she see that her wiles were no match for his?
    Yet she soon beat Anne at Tables, and the knights led her away, showering her with admiring congratuladons. Gareth put the game away, and tried not to let his frustration show.
    Later in his bedchamber, Gareth set a candleholder on the table and moved to the windows. The room was dark, shadowy, with only the single candle for light. He'd asked the maids to leave his fireplace cold, since the summer nights were warm enough.
    He opened the shutters and pulled back the glass window. He'd been at Hawksbury Casde for only two days, and already he was growing used to the luxury of glass in every window. Life here was making him soft.
    Outside, the landscape was illuminated by a half moon, and he could see the faint traces of the descending hdlsides and wooded glens between
    squares of farm fields. In the southeast, the Cotswold hills jutted toward the stars.
    Margery lingered on his mind. He wasn't quite sure why he felt the need to defeat her, and why he was so disappointed that it hadn't happened. She was