Free Heart of the Flame by Lara Adrián Page B

toting a bucket of slops out of the stables. Kenrick caught the lad's eye with a commanding look and gestured him forth. Dropping his pail at once, the squire dashed over to receive his orders.
    "Aye, milord?"
    "Take word to the stable master: I will need a mount and escort available at all times, provisioned to ride as far as Cornwall on my instruction. Once this lady is healed and fit to travel, I will see her returned to wherever she wishes to go. Understood?"
    The squire bobbed his shaggy head. "Aye, milord. I'll go tell 'im what ye said."
    "I trust that puts to rest some of your doubts," Kenrick said, looking back to Haven once the boy was gone. "You are as free as anyone here. I don't know what more I can do to convince you I am in earnest, lady."
    She stared at him in mute contemplation, then quietly said, "Thank you."
    "The gardens are this way. Unless you'd rather tour my dungeons?"
    She smiled at his jest, a plainly unwilling warming of her otherwise cool regard for him. He held out his arm like a courtly gallant, and she stepped forward to join him. They crossed the rest of the inner bailey at an easy pace, a wary sort of truce stretching tenuously between them.
    Kenrick watched the busy scuttle of the pages and squires as they went about their duties, the knights resuming their training, and the servants attending their day's business back and forth from the keep. Kenrick surveyed all of this mundanity with a keenly observant eye, but the whole of his interest--indeed, his every sense--was tuned toward the unusual beauty at his side.
    There was something elemental, yet ethereal, about her very being. He had been told by the villagers in Cornwall that she was a common maiden, a simple healer, but Kenrick could see nothing common in her at all.
    Fire leaped in her russet hair and in her sharp, gem-bright eyes. Delicate yet strong, she held herself with the bearing of a queen--a warrior queen, he mused, noting her rigid spine and the fine tendons that flexed beneath the fair skin of her hands as she toyed with a loose thread on her borrowed gown. Her gaze was distant, her expression a bit forlorn, as though she were lost somewhere deep inside herself.
    Kenrick felt a pang of sympathy for her, understanding how distressing it must be to awake a stranger in one's own skin, uncertain where she was, or where she might belong.
    But it was not his place to console her. Nor was it a burden he desired.
    Still, he found himself hoping she might find some peace at Clairmont. More the better, should that peace bring along the full recovery of her memory the night of the attack on Greycliff.
    He was mulling over that eventuality when they rounded the far corner of the tower keep and came upon Ariana's splendorous gardens. Haven drew in her breath with a soft exclamation of awe.
    "'Tis lovely," she whispered, leaving Kenrick to venture into the heart of the glorious patch of Eden.
    The garden spread out along one full side of the keep, its colors resplendent, mingled fragrances beckoning even Kenrick to draw a deeper breath in order to savor the sweetness of the many blooms and budding herbs. He had to admit it was a pleasing sight, although he had never given this area of the grounds much thought. In truth, he could not recall the last time he had been outside to enjoy his sister's hard work on the hundreds of flowers, trees, and herbs that flourished under her nurturing hand.
    Haven stood in the center of the verdant sanctuary and held out her arms, tipping her head back to let the sun beat down full upon her. She seemed to forget he was there, indulging in a little twirl of pure, uninhibited joy. She came out of it almost as quickly as the urge had overcome her, shooting him a shy glance across the distance that separated them.
    Kenrick's blood was pounding hard just to look upon her in the midst of so much fertile beauty. He took a step into the garden, his gaze rooted on her, his mind returning eagerly to an image of Haven's