Free A Lord for Haughmond by K. C. Helms Page A

upon forest mosses.
         God’s bones, she was more enchanting than he’d realized. How had it been possible he’d thought her a shrew? The fading firelight danced shadows across her small face, making her soft and desirable and bewitching.
         His gaze shifted to the shadows dancing across the wall, looking much like nuns on their way to prayer. That gave him pause. Out of necessity he should have resisted the urge to shoulder more responsibility.       
         “Must a scowl be permanently affixed to your brow?”      
         Katherine’s sharp query jolted him from his thoughts. “Was it?” He schooled his features. “I dare say I was not aware of it.”
         Her sad, hollow sigh filled the chamber. “Mayhap my storytelling was unworthy.”
         “’Twas a fine beginning, as was mine,” he hastened to reassure. “With greater thought, you can enlarge upon it. Practice on Anne. The two of you shall remain within this chamber. Entertain me when we retire on the morrow.” He laughed, quick and easy. “Though I must admit, betwixt storyteller and page, I prefer you in the latter role.”
         Katherine bestowed upon him a brilliant smile. “Then I shall endeavor to compose a better tale.”
         “Um-m," he replied, enjoying the tantalizing arrangement of her tresses, how they drifted over her shoulder and dipped low to follow the line of her waist, then flared again at the curve of her hip. ’Twas as fine a form as he’d ever beheld. “Truth to tell, ’tis my consideration you are already in possession of a very fine ‘tail.’”
         His waggling eyebrows must have given her the hint of his jest, though it took some moments for her disapproving frown to follow.
         Amused once more by her transformation, Rhys chuckled. “I’ll leave you to your disgust, Lady Katherine. Good eventide.” Rubbing at his scratchy chin, he rolled over and pulled the coverlet up around his shoulders. He tried to sleep, but a lively and very precise imagination of limbs and tresses wrecked that ambition and plagued him far into the night.
     
    *  *  *
     
         Sequestered within the small chamber, the hours dragged. Yet ’twas welcome respite after fear and flight, and far easier on Katherine’s hand than hefting unwieldy baggage. Her wound did not smart as greatly as yester day. She found the creation of a newly fledged tale less problematic than she’d supposed, and ’twas easy to charm Anne with her version of a crusading knight returned home to find his castle occupied by a neighboring knight. But he’d brought with him a magical elixir that, when drunk, turned him into a ferocious dragon. She made sure this was one story wherein the poor dragon won the fight. And so her assigned task was accomplished before the castle residents had been dismissed from morning mass, leaving the remainder of the day. Anne and she sought to entertain themselves, but even singing songs they recalled and humming those they’d forgot could not diminish the monotony. She was grateful when dusk drew nigh.
         With lamp lit and fire stoked against the evening chill, they snuggled together beneath the thick coverlet on Rhys’s narrow bed and listened longingly to the music and singing and loud merrymaking drifting up from the evening feast in the great hall below. Would Rhys never return?
         Finally, his pounding fist and command to open brought blessed relief to their weary day.
         Katherine flung aside the coverlet and hurried to the stout door, lifting away the bar. But the moment he and Simon entered, she knew something was amiss. Worry etched both men’s features.
         Rhys carefully closed the door and bolted it before turning and speaking to them. “The king is delayed. He broke his journey at Amesbury, to pray with the queen dowager during Eastertide,” he explained in a low voice. “Now he is postponed by a fortnight, as the Earl of