The Mistress of Normandy

Surprised beyond caution, Lianna let her hand clutch involuntarily around the lock. The slow match delved into the firing pan.

The ear-splitting explosion deafened her and seared her nostrils with the smell of overheated sulfur. The shaft of the gun recoiled violently, catapulting her backward against something large, warm...and breathing.

Furious at her stupidity in overloading the charge, she scrambled away on hands and knees, prepared to vent her rage on the man-at-arms who’d dared follow her from the château.

She turned.

He smiled.

The impact of her gape-mouthed surprise and his devastating smile sapped her will to rise. Bracing her hands behind her, she stared upward, her astonished gaze traveling a seemingly endless length of broad, blond man.

He picked up the gun, set it aside, and spoke. She couldn’t hear him for the ringing in her ears. Her first thought, if something so absurd could be termed a thought, was that she’d happened upon a mythical Norse deity, a golden forest divinity returned from days of old. For surely a body of such massive power, a face of such sheer beauty, could not possibly be human.

The vision extended a big, squarish hand. Lianna shrank back, afraid that if she touched him, he’d shimmer away like a will-o’-the-wisp from the marshes. His lips were moving; still she could not hear. He cocked his head to one side, his expression mild, quizzical, and perhaps a little amused.

This was no vengeful warrior god from the North, but a more forgiving creature. An angel, perhaps...no, an archangel, for surely only one of the very highest rank could be favored with that clean, powerful bone structure, the chaste innocence that imbued his beautiful smiling mouth and eyes with such heavenly character.

His eyes were not simply green, she noted wildly, but the pure color of a new leaf shot through by sunlight. In their depths she perceived the pain and devotion of the saints in the colored windows of a chapel.

He spoke again, and this time she heard: “Don’t be afraid of me.” He reached down, grasped her by the waist, and pulled her effortlessly to her feet.

In that instant she realized her reckless flight of fantasy for what it was. His hold was firm, his voice a rich velvet ripple over her scattered senses. It was a man’s body pressing against hers, a man’s voice caressing her ears.

Alarmed, she pulled back. “Who are you?”

He hesitated, just for the upbeat of her heart. “Rand,” he said simply. “And you, pucelle?”

She, too, hesitated. Pucelle, he called her. A maid. What would this man say if he knew he was speaking to the Demoiselle de Bois-Long? If he were a brigand, he’d consider her a valuable hostage. And if he were an Englishman... She dismissed the notion. The stranger’s French was not corrupted by the broad, flat tones of a foreigner.

Absently she tapped her chin. The novelty of anonymity intrigued her. The necessity of it, because Lazare had destroyed any trust she might have in a stranger, made her say only, “Lianna.”

“Your face is completely black, Lianna.”

Vaguely annoyed at the mixture of humor and censure dancing in his leaf-green eyes, she lifted her hand, touched her cheek, and looked at her fingertips. Black as soot. At least the concealing powder hid the hot blush pouring into her cheeks.

“I...mismeasured the charge,” she said.

“So it seems.” He took her hands and drew her down to sit on a bed of dry bracken. “I know little of such things.”

“Nom de Dieu, but I do,” she said with self-contempt. “I should have trusted the precision of science instead of my own eyes.”

“Alors, pucelle, how does one so fair possess a knowledge so deadly?”

“My...father was a gunner. He indulged my interest.”

He frowned at the blackened gun. “Then your father was a fool.”

She thrust up her chin but resisted the urge to defend her father and sink deeper into untruths.

“Hold still,” he said. “I’ll clean you off.”

She was never one to obey orders, but, unrecovered from the shock of the explosion and the surprise of meeting this mesmerizing stranger, she sat unmoving. He reached beneath his mail shirt, pulled out a small cloth bundle, and unwrapped a loaf of bread. With the cloth, he began cleansing her face. His light, gentle strokes felt soothing, but the odd intimacy of the gesture revived her anger.

“Why did you sneak up on me? You ruined my aim.”

“That,” he said, brushing her chin, “was my intent. The leveret was a doe, and nursing.”

She scowled. “How could you tell that?”

“Her shape. She was not as plump as she looked, only appeared so because her dugs were full.”

Lianna prayed he’d not yet revealed enough of her face to discern her new blush.

“You wouldn’t have wished to slay a nursing mother, would you?”

“Of course not. I just hadn’t thought of it.”

He held out the loaf to her. “Bread?”

“Thank you, no. I wasn’t hunting my dinner.”

“Blood sport, then?” he asked, mildly accusing.

“Nom de Dieu, I am not a wanton killer. I merely wished to test my gun on a moving target.”

“I doubt Mistress Rabbit would have appreciated the difference.”

She shrugged. “I probably would have missed anyway. My aim is imprecise, the weapon passing crude.”

Like a parent wiping away a child’s tear, he daubed the delicate flesh beneath her left eye. “Your eyes are silver, pucelle.”

“Gray.”

“Silver, like the underside of a cloud at dawn.”

“Gray, like the stone walls of a keep during a siege.”

“Argue not, pucelle. I’ve a sense about such things. Stone does not capture the light and reflect it, while your eyes—” he cleansed beneath her right one “—most assuredly do.”

* * *

Bit by bit, Rand uncovered the face beneath the soot. As he worked, his amazement and fascination grew like a bud warmed by the sun. He’d come to survey the area for brigands and have a glimpse of his barony. Instead he’d found a beautiful girl and a deadly weapon, two surprises and one of them curiously welcome.

Moving aside a pale lock of hair, he brushed the last of the soot from her cheeks. Black dust clung stubbornly to her brows and lashes, but at last her face was revealed to him. The cloth dropped from his fingers as he stared.

Sitting in the nest of her blue homespun surcoat, she stared back with huge, unblinking silver eyes. Her face was a delicate, pale oval shaped by fragile bones and small, fine features. Despite a lingering shadow of soot, he could discern that her skin was the ivory of a lily, with the shade of apple blossoms at her cheeks and lips. His body quickened at the sight.

An unexpected thunderbolt of awareness struck him. He desired this girl; he burned for her with a yearning Jussie had never aroused. Calling up all the strength of his vow of chastity, he resisted the idea that they were alone, unchaperoned, far from anyone else.