As the Last Petal Falls Page 2

  He’d told Marlplot to take her to a room and get her warm. Of course, like an idiot, he hadn’t specified which room, and Marlplot, who really was an idiot, had promptly left the lass in Fain’s very own chamber. In Fain’s very own bed. Underneath Fain’s very own covers. He wouldn’t normally have minded finding a lass left in his bed, especially a dark-haired beauty like this one, but the circumstances here were hardly normal.

  The longer he sat and glared at the lump keeping him from his own bed, the more suspicious he grew. What were the chances that anyone here would have a pouch full of Albian gold on their person? The majority of the inhabitants of this region wouldn’t have any type of gold on them, even the Toldan nobility wouldn’t generally carry this much. A noble of Albion might be in possession of a pouch like that, but the chances of an Albian noble straying across the border into the untamed wilderness alone were small indeed. When you added to that the fact that the person in question was a barely grown woman... no, it just wasn’t conceivable.

  On the other hand, a woman showing up alone outside a keep in winter would almost always be given shelter inside. And money from a foreign kingdom would make it far less likely that any would suspect her of being sent from Toldas.

  Which could mean that she was a spy.

  Fain scrubbed at his face with his hands. Gods above, he was getting to be a suspicious man. He was going to feel like the worst kind of rascal if the lass turned out to be just what she had appeared to be when he scooped her up from the snow: lost, frightened, and utterly alone. He couldn’t take the chance, though. This wasn’t just about him anymore; this was about all his men, and their families as well. So he stood up, wiped all sign of reluctance from his face, and strode over to the bed to yank the covers off and slap the woman awake.

  Her eyes-a vivid shade of violet-were open.

  He was startled for a moment, but covered it with a scowl. He waited for her to say something, some sad, pitiful thing that would wring his heart, the kind of thing that a lass lost and alone would say. The kind of thing a spy would say, to worm her way in.

  Instead she started giggling.

  “Point four!” the woman tittered, “You neglected to mention that, if rescued at all, it would be by scowling, terrifying men who stare at you in your sleep!”

  Maybe she wasn’t a spy. Maybe she was a deranged lunatic, instead. Clearly she was on the verge of hysteria. She couldn’t seem to stop snickering.

  “Look...” he wasn’t sure what exactly he was planning on saying, but she waved him off by flapping one hand at him, even as tears began to roll down her face and her laughter took on a panicked edge. He felt a surge of pity, but quashed it ruthlessly. He wanted answers, damnit, and she was going to give them to him, not sit there cackling like a loon.

  “See here...” He sat down forcefully next to her on the bed. Her laughter abruptly cut off, and she turned white as a sheet.

  “Could you... get off... my arm.” The words were gasped out. Fain leaped from the bed and threw the covers back, and then cursed foully. Her arm was obviously broken between wrist and elbow; he didn’t know how he’d missed it before. It should have been set while she was still unconscious; now she would have to go through it awake. Whether she was a spy or not, he wasn’t a monster. He cringed inside at the thought of any lady suffering through what was to come, but he knew it had to happen. Sticking his head out the door, he found one of the lads on duty.

  “Fetch Connelly, and be quick about it.” The man dashed off, and Fain returned to the room. The lass hadn’t fainted, and that was a pity. Still, he had to admire her guts. She sat, calmly inspecting her arm-still white, but completely composed.

  “It’s broken, isn’t it?” The words were spoken with nary a tremor or tear. There was none of the weeping or cringing he’d expect from a lady of quality.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Have you sent for a doctor?

  “In a manner of speaking.” That earned him a sharp look. Not crazy, not delirious with pain, not hysterical-or, at least, not because of the injury; maybe she was a spy after all. “Connelly isn’t precisely a doctor, but he can set a break easily enough.”

  “What, precisely, is he, if not a doctor?”

  “One of my men.” Again the sharp look. Not prying, just... vigilant. As though the giver of the look were intelligent and recognized a non-answer when she heard one. “He dabbles in medicine. Rest assured, I’ve seen him set many breaks, several far worse than this, and all have healed clean. Let’s get that sleeve off so he can have a look. You’ll be fine.” Fine after she stopped screaming from having the bone reset, that is.

  “Hmmmm...” She eyed him while he gently cut the lower sleeve away from her arm, as though carefully gauging how much trust she wished to afford him. Whatever conclusion she drew remained hidden behind her violet eyes. Fain wondered if he was looking at her the same way. He wondered if he was hiding his thoughts as well as she hid hers. Maybe those heavy lashes she had helped keep in her secrets.

  Her voice interrupted his musings. “Have you any brandy?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Brandy, whiskey, wine... have you got any?”

  “You want a drink?” He was baffled. Obviously it was good manners to offer a guest an aperitif, but now was hardly the time to be following drawing room manners.

  “I want several. I’ve seen bones set before.”

  Ah, well, that made more sense. The lass was quite right, the more alcohol he got down her throat the better. Grabbing a bottle of rotgut from the cabinet where he kept his personal things, he handed it to her. Quickly she gulped down several mouthfuls, and then stuck her tongue out and made a sound Fain had never heard before.

  “GlaghaaAhhhgh. Blehh.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “That is... really foul.”

  “Mostly we mix it with things.”

  “I imagine almost anything is an improvement.” The dark beauty gave the bottle a skeptical look, but she resolutely swallowed more. Fain was impressed. He’d seen grown men who couldn’t handle more than a mouthful of the stuff.

  “That’s probably enough. It’s strong.” She opened her mouth, and her eyes glinted with combative fire. The door opened and Connelly came in, but the lass ignored it.

  “I am quite capable of making that decision for myself, thank you very...” Her voice petered out as she finally caught sight of Connelly.

  Their medic was a peculiar looking man. He was short, and slight, and his features were gnarled and... odd. He wasn’t hideous or deformed, but Fain had spent many an evening gazing at him over an open fire, trying to figure out what it was about him that looked so wrong. It could have been his teeth, which were just a touch too small, or his nose, which was just a bit too big, or his hair, which grew low on his forehead and close on his cheeks, and was perpetually snarled. Whatever it was, he had the kind of face that people’s eyes slid away from.

  People’s, perhaps, but not the lass on the bed. She blinked at him once, owlishly, but that was all. Come to think on it, it might have just been the rotgut setting in that caused her to blink, because she then took a moment to observe the whole room, blinking ferociously all the while.

  “Is it... sparkling in here?”

  Fain smirked and quickly looked at Connelly, expecting him to share the joke, but the small man was regarding his patient very seriously.

  “Aye, that ’tis, lass. There’s not many as can see it.” Fain had never known Connelly to so obviously humor a patient before, but then again, his patients were mostly men. Perhaps he had a different standard for females.

  “And you— you are a fascinating little man.”

  Fain was amused, but felt the tiniest jab to his pride. She had called him terrifying, but she found Connelly fascinating. He cleared his throat.

  “Yes, well, sparkles and fascinating little men aside, don’t you think we should be worried about setting that arm?” Both sets of eyes turned towards him. Connelly’
s were bright with humor, as though he saw past Fain’s bluster to his wounded vanity. The lass merely blinked at him, her eyes growing rounder and rounder.

  “The sparkles... the sparkles are coming from you.”

  Vivienne was foxed. She knew she was foxed. It had been her precise intention to become foxed when she started chugging that hideous, hideous rotgut.

  She hadn’t, however, intended to become so foxed that she started hallucinating. She knew it couldn’t be real, but she clearly saw pinwheels of sparkling gold, like miniature fireworks, bursting from the large, unkempt man scowling down at her. They leapt off his skin and spread out to hang in the air, glittering with a light wholly unlike the firelight that cast shadows throughout the room. His slightest movement created ripples and eddies in the sparkling patterns, sending them out to circle the tiny medical man, or flow to envelop her. Her eyes tracked the glittering motes, following their graceful whorls as they spiraled through an intricate dance that seemed to beckon her to follow, to see, to understand...

  Vivienne shook her head. This was all really too much.

  She peered at the mysterious man with the golden sparkles. He was like the statuary in the palace back home-well proportioned, but scaled larger than most humans. His hair was a dark brown, the kind that people called black if they hadn’t seen hair like her own, which truly was black. His was long and unkempt, and hung freely about his shoulders. His clothing looked like the garb of a huntsman-if the huntsman in question had been wearing the same thing for weeks on end, rendering it ragged and frayed. He was clean, though; there was no grime on his hands or staining on his tunic, and the slight shadow on his cheek suggested he had shaved that morning.

  Her thoughts were dragged sharply from her observations as she felt Connelly’s fingers begin probing at her arm. A gasp, all unbidden, fell from her lips. As gentle as the little man’s hands were, she could still feel her bones, moving and shifting in ways that they should not. Dreading what she would see, but unable to look away, she watched the undulations as things shifted beneath her skin. Swiftly her ungroomed huntsman moved around to the other side of the bed and turned her face gently towards him.

  “No, lass, don’t look, it won’t help.”

  Vivienne was about to respond tartly-it might not help, but it could hardly hurt-when she felt a hand wrap around her wrist, another around her elbow, and a wrenching twist. Her vision went dark around the edges, as though she was staring down a long dark tunnel, rimmed with red pain. She locked her eyes on her savior. His face, beneath his stubble and shaggy hair, was fine boned and strong. Not strictly handsome, perhaps, but with character. His skin had the weathered, darkened cast of a man who spent a great deal of time out of doors, and faint lighter patches of scar tissue, an almost invisible testament to previous injuries. His eyes were dark, like the forest floor where no sunlight reached, and intense, forceful, as though he could block her pain through sheer force of will.

  Further agony came shooting up her arm, and instead of fighting Vivienne let herself float on the pain, holding onto the lifeline his eyes cast out. He gave the smallest of smiles, a mere crook of the mouth and a tiny crinkle around his eyes, and spoke to her in a low voice.

  “Good girl, there’s a good lass. Don’t fight him, just let him work.”

  Fight? She was barely breathing. Another twist, and then she wasn’t even breathing anymore. In an effort to keep her injured arm still she convulsively clenched the other hand, and was startled when it closed on large, warm fingers. The same crooked smile appeared once more.

  “Go ahead, lass, squeeze all you like.”

  Vivienne settled into the waves of pain. As Connelly would stretch and twist her arm, slowly realigning it, she would squeeze her other hand with all her strength. Then, as the hurt receded, she would let the rich brown eyes calm and comfort her. It seemed to go on forever, but at last she felt the pain ease greatly, and heard Connelly’s voice, sounding far away, saying he was done. The dark eyes drew nearer, and the sparks of gold cascaded into a glittering ring around them.

  “Did you hear, lass? He’s done.”

  “Oh.” Vivienne was relieved, but only for a second, because then a wave of blackness overtook her, and she fainted.

  Fain looked down at the delicate hand crushing his own. For all that she was a lady, she had a strength about her. He was surprised he didn’t have any broken bones of his own, after that.

  “A shame she coudna have fainted a fore, an’ spared herself a wee bit o’ the pain.” Connelly spoke with a mixture of regret and respect. Fain could understand that. “Give her this when she wakes.” As the little man spoke, he laid out herbs, already bundled for steeping. “An’ this the next time she wakes, and dinna try ta feed her a single morsel between, she’ll just heave it up again.”

  “What if she’s still seeing sparkles?” Fain spoke in jest, but Connelly’s amused look made him feel like the medic wasn’t laughing with him, but rather at him.

  “If she can still see ’em when she’s sober, lad, then ye’ll be needin’ a sight more help than I can offer.” Connelly practically skipped from the room, leaving Fain, he belatedly realized, to play nursemaid. To the lass who’d appropriated his bed. Who might be a spy.

  With a groan he laid out his traveling bedroll before the fireplace. As he settled down to rest, he stretched his aching hand thoughtfully. Maybe he should just have left her to the wolves.

  Chapter Three

  Vivienne woke in a darkened room, unlit but for the low fire on the hearth. Her whole body smarted, as every scrape and bruise clamored for her attention. It was nothing, though, compared to the merciless throb in her arm. Her mouth was dry and had the faint taste of rotgut in it, and though she tried to reach the small earthen cup sitting on the low table beside the bed, it was just out of her grasp. She stretched, but it was hopeless; even that small motion caused her to let out a pitiful whimper. Her broken arm was tightly bound, but shifting it even slightly was too much for her. Vivienne bit her lip and refused to cry. It didn’t hurt that much and she wasn’t that thirsty. Eventually someone would show up. She could wait.

  A dark bulk arose from the floor. She caught her breath, but gave a sigh of relief when she realized it was the mountain man. Apparently he’d bedded down before the fire, and her cry had awoken him. Furthermore, Vivienne realized as she watched the firelight play over a very large expanse of smooth skin, he’d removed most of his clothing before doing so. His arms and back, and what little she could see of his side, were roped with smooth, taut muscles. As he moved, they rippled beneath his skin in a fascinating way.

  Vivi had never seen a naked man-or a mostly naked man-before. For that matter, she had never been alone in a room with a man. She shuddered to think what her father would say, if he knew. Of course, by now it was just another thing to add to the list of things he could chastise her for when they saw each other again.

  T houghts of her father drifted away as she watched the mountain man. His movements were deft as he built the fire up and swung a kettle over the flames to begin heating. Vivienne felt a tiny twinge of regret that his next act was to slide his shirt over his arms. At least he didn’t lace it up.

  At least he didn’t lace it up? Clearly she was still foxed.

  He turned to her with a scowl. Vivienne wasn’t sure if he was irritated that she’d woken him, or if that was just his natural expression whenever he wasn’t trying to comfort women having their broken bones set. She was about to inquire when he spoke.

  “Connelly should have given you something to make you sleep longer. That arm must be on fire.”

  Vivienne was sorry he’d brought it up. She’d been trying to ignore it, but now that she thought about it...

  “I would rate it somewhere between a roaring hearth and a bonfire.”

  His eyes glittered with amusement. “I’ll have a tea for you, as soon as this water boils. It ought to help.”

  “Perhaps while we wait this would be an appropriate time
for introductions.”

  “Perhaps it would.”

  Vivienne waited, but so did her hulking nurse. The man had an impressive capacity to loom ominously. She tried to think how to answer him. Perhaps the wolves hadn’t planned to eat her after all, but he’d surely still saved her from freezing to death in the snow. She owed him some gratitude, and it would be churlish to withhold her name. On the other hand, well...

  On the other hand, there were several very good reasons for her to lie her tongue black right now. After all, if she told the truth, the best that was likely to happen was that he would send a note to her father, informing him of her whereabouts. There were other, less savory scenarios, as well. She was a very valuable person, and her father was only one of the people who would pay a great deal of money to a man demanding ransom.

  In the end, it wasn’t a very difficult decision to make. After all, she could always apologize later, if he turned out to be completely trustworthy.

  “I’m Isabelle Wellesley.” Isabelle was her mother’s name, that had been an easy choice, but it was a calculated gamble, using Max’s last name. His lineage was public knowledge, and if this man knew enough of the Albian peerage her lie would be obvious. She judged it was worth the risk, though. If he wrote to the Wellesley house, Max would intercept the message, and he’d play along with anything she claimed.

  “Related to the Duke?” The mountain man’s eyebrow shot up as he recognized the name. Drat.

  Vivi gave a charming smile. “The Duke is my father’s second cousin. My family is in trade. We run a merchant fleet.” With all the time she’d spent studying trade negotiations with the Chins, she could easily pose as a tradesman’s daughter.

  “And what is a merchant’s daughter doing, running alone through the Toldan mountains, Miss Wellesley?”