Free Lyon's Gift by Tanya Anne Crosby Page A

“Never!”

 
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER 7
     
     
    “ You can force me to stand at the
altar, you know, but you cannot make me say the vows!”
    Lyon merely smiled. “We shall see.”
    “ Never,” she swore
again.
    That was what they all said: Never.
    Only Lyon knew better. He hadn’t met a woman yet he
couldn’t woo with pretty words and a few stolen kisses. Women were
fickle creatures with pudding hearts and insatiable vanities; they
said never all the while their hands reached out to draw his
lips to their lovely, greedy mouths.
    That was his experience.
    Not even his mother had been so different: all the
while she’d claimed her independence of men, she’d been a slave to
her excessive pride. And she was, in truth, a beautiful woman—even
now in her later years. At two score and two years, his mother
still commanded her choice of men. They gave her jewels and fine
cloth and anything her heart desired... until she grew tired of
them and discarded them for another. They even mourned her when she
was gone. Lyon could easily count upon his two hands—and then
some—the men whose hearts his mother had collected.
    And yet his mother was not hard-hearted. She was
kind and generous and good-natured to a fault. And if she never
returned her lovers’ affections, she treated them well enough. Nay,
his mother was simply... free and easy.
    Or rather, her price was extravagant and she was
quite discriminating, but she lived her life without concern for
anything but the present. Lyon admired her for that. It was
something of a mystery to him that most people either remained so
entrenched within the past, or lived entirely for the morrow, that
so few remembered to live for the moment.
    And he was as guilty as any.
    Well, not today... not this moment. He was following
his greatest impulse just now, and damn the consequences! It had
been much too long since he’d followed his blood knowledge.
    His mother had cosseted him in his early years,
encouraging him to follow his heart’s desires. She’d sacrificed to
see him well educated. She’d made compromises for his sake when she
would never have-done the same for herself. Lyon’s greatest regret
was that he had forsaken his own institutions. He’d relied all of
his life upon his size and brawn to survive amongst peers who’d
viewed him as little more than a castoff, a poor relation. Though
never acknowledged by his father, he’d grown up amidst the elite of
Henry’s court. And it hadn’t been long before he’d discovered that
might and sword brought respect in his cast-off world. And with
little hope of ever earning his own fief or pursuing his own life,
he’d resigned himself much too early to a mercenary way.
    He’d compromised his convictions.
    And for what? A fistful of jewels and a bloody
name.
    And an even bloodier sword.
    Women had come and gone from his life during that
time, but he’d regarded them as little more than passing fancies—a
mutual perception, he was well aware—for he’d had nothing to offer
them, nothing to give of himself. From the time he’d been a lad,
he’d known he was destined to be alone. As a boy he’d stood apart
from his peers, an observer, his hours spent in learning with the
clergy. When he became a man, others trod lightly in his presence.
It was the most he could have expected. Respect. Even if they
didn’t quite see him as an equal, they’d respected him at
least.
    And that had been enough.
    “ What do you wish to be when you
grow up?” David of Scotia had once asked him in gratitude for
Lyon’s loyal defense of him.
    Piers had thought about it an instant and had
shrugged and answered simply, “It matters not as long as I am
happy.” And had truly meant it.
    “ That’s all you want?” David had
asked in surprise, cocking his head and staring at Piers as though
he were a two-headed calf. “Well,” he’d announced importantly, “I
wish to be king! And when I am king,” he’d promised, “I shall give
all