Page 86 of Bold Angel
He tightened his hold, raking his fingers through her heavy auburn hair, then pulling her head back to take her mouth in a hot, demanding kiss. She was trembling when he finally released her.
“We are good together, Cara. Can you not see?”
Good for pleasure, for the easing of a physical need, but what of love? she wanted to ask. He had once loved Eliana and he had been hurt badly. Could he learn to love again? ’Twas a question she did not ask. She had not told him of the love she felt for him. She was afraid to. He had run from her once. He might do it again.
The next time, she could not forgive him.
Chapter Seventeen
Worried about the villeins who had lost their cattle to murrain, Richard crossed the bailey toward the pens behind the stable. The animals at Braxston Keep had so far resisted the disease but Richard checked on them daily. Their meat would be crucial this winter.
He started around the building, then on the chance Lady Caryn might be tending her fawn, decided to go inside. It was quiet in the shady interior, dark except for the sunlight slanting in through the windows and doors. It smelled of hay and horses, and as he walked, his tunic stirred dust motes on the hard-packed earthen floor.
At the sound of a voice, and thinking he had found Lady Caryn, Richard turned in that direction. Instead, in a corner of the stable, Ancil said something Richard didn’t quite catch then bent over the rim of a barrel.
“What do you in here, little one?” the jester said more clearly, soft laughter floating up, echoing inside the barrel. Richard barely heard the words, his attention fixed instead on the lad’s graceful legs. His short brown tunic rode high up on his snug-fitting chausses, revealing a rounded behind.
Firm and curving, it was as lush as any woman’s. Too lush for such a youthful, gangly boy. Richard’s brows drew together in a frown. He eyed the wriggling bottom and a tightening gripped his loins. This time the masculinethickening did not embarrass him. It only made him more suspicious. For days he had wondered about the jester and his body’s strange reaction to the slender youthful boy, the last of the troubadours to remain in the castle.
The rest had returned to their travels, but Lady Caryn had insisted Ancil stay. Now as Richard looked at the lad’s shapely hips, he thought of the blond boy’s delicate features and at times almost too-gruff voice. Something was wrong and it was time he discovered what it was.
His doubts growing stronger by the moment, Richard walked boldly up to Ancil and whacked him hard on his tempting behind. The boy cracked his head on the inside of the barrel, then shot out so fast that his hat fell off his head.
Silky blond hair tumbled down around the youth’s slender shoulders. “Richard!”
The word came out high and more lilting than it ever had before. Except for his ears, Ancil was nothing short of pretty. As pretty as any woman, which it now seemed clear that she was.
“That is my name, you deceitful little wench. Now I would know the truth of yours.”
The girl looked frantically around the stable, hoping no one had seen. She reached back into the barrel and dragged out one of Lady Caryn’s half-grown kittens, along with her brown felt hat. She slapped the hat on her head and stuffed her shoulder-length blond hair up beneath it. Unfortunately in doing so, she knocked something loose from the back of her ear. The shell-like rim settled perfectly against her head, making her womanliness even more apparent.
Richard reached down and picked up a small chunk of clay. He rolled it around in his fingers. “I believe you’re in need of this—you’re looking a littlelopsided.”
She grabbed it out of his hand and pressed it once more behind her ear, forcing the rim to stick out. “Thank you.”
“You have lied to us, tricked us, and made us all look like fools.”Especially me,he thought with some bitterness. “I would know who you really are.”
She nervously licked her lips and glanced toward the door as if she meant to bolt at any moment.
Richard took a menacing step in her direction. “You may tell me or you may tell Lord Ral. Neither choice matters to me.”
“I beg you, Richard. Please do not tell him.”
“Why have you deceived us?” Her slim hand touched his forearm, feeling warm and smooth against his skin. Richard felt a sudden jolt of heat.
“I did not think I would be here overly long. The truth would not have mattered had we not become friends. Since that time, I have regretted my deception every day.”
“Why do you pretend to be a boy?”
As briefly as she could, Ancil explained that she was really Lady Ambra, that she was betrothed to Beltar the Fierce, and that in order to avoid the marriage, she had been forced to run away.
“Such a betrothal cannot be broken,” he said, feeling an unexpected heaviness in his chest. “You will have to return to your uncle.”
Ambra lifted her chin. If he had thought her a graceful appealing lad, now that he knew she was a woman, he found the delicate bones of her face beyond compare.
“Nay,” she said. “I have come too far to turn back now. I will not marry a man the likes of Beltar.”
“A woman has no say in such matters,” Richard said firmly. “If you are destined to be Beltar’s wife, then so it must be.” He reached for her arm, but she jerked itaway.
