Page 50 of Peregrine's Call
“It’s meant to please the viewer, not the wearer,” he said. “And for what it’s worth, the sight of you in the gown pleases me.”
She ducked her head and smiled. Perhaps it was not such an ordeal after all.
One more lingering kiss, then she slipped out of Tav’s room and made her way through the utterly silent keep.
The large bed in the women’s quarters where Robin slept was occupied, of course, and there was no chance of Robin slipping in unnoticed, since she had to rouse at least one person to make room.
The servant named Irene was on the end, and she woke up when Robin prodded her in the shoulder.
“Where have you been all night?” Irene asked in a grumpy tone as she shifted to the left, allowing Robin room.
“Pierce asked me to visit him in his chamber,” Robin mumbled, looking at the floor.
“Hmmm,” Irene responded, still only half awake. “Better you than me. I only go when he insists, or when Estmar needs me to. Just don’t get it into your head that it’s love.”
“I’m not in love.”
“Good. Love is for fools. You’ll have a few late nights, till he tires of you. And he will. He cares for no one but himself.”
Robin only shrugged. “It matters not to me.”
“Aye, that’s the spirit. Take what you want from men, because they just take what they want from us.” Irene yawned and rolled to the other side, burrowing down amid the blankets.
Robin crawled into the bed. It was warm on the side where Irene lay, but cold on the outer edge. When she’d lain with Tav, she’d been deliciously warm all over. She wished she hadn’t had to leave him. But she also refused to let him suffer for her impetuousness. She would go to hell on her own.
Chapter 20
After Robin left, Tav couldn’tget to sleep. What had he been thinking? Nothing, other than that he wanted Robin.
He reached for the pitcher by his bed, and managed to pour some water into the cup without spilling. His arm was shaking, a consequence of the agitation in his mind. He’d experienced that feeling many times before, usually when a life-changing choice loomed before him. Tav preferred decisions that had to be made in the moment. How to parry an attack. Whether to stand or run. Respond to a challenge in the same language, or to pretend not to comprehend it.
It was the choices that he saw coming that pained him. The choice of whether to remain in the Levant, or follow a new lord to France. He’d agonized over that for days, weighing the options, praying for guidance, doubting his own impulses till the very morning Denis would depart.
Take wing when you can, the brothers once told him. Granted, they’d meant it in warning to avoid the bullies and rough men in the streets of the city. They’d beat or rob children, or steal them to sell as slaves in the markets. But Tav applied the advice more generally in later life, almost always choosing to go somewhere new, to keep journeying, whenever he had the chance. That was what led him through Europe and to the distant isle of Britain. That was what let him meet the other knights who served the same king. That was what made him meet Robin, a woman born so far away from him, in such different conditions, that their paths never should have crossed.
And now they had shared a bed. Even if he hadn’t done the one thing his body was screaming at him to do, he’d absolutely taken advantage of Robin’s innocence and inexperience. All because he wanted her.
Tav had always prided himself on keeping his lust in check. Unwarranted pride, apparently, because he had many chances to end what he was doing with Robin that night, and every time, he chose to go on. Was he just that desperate for a woman?
No. He had other opportunities. Plenty of them. Prostitutes would have happily taken payment for the night, but he’d also been made offers by women who thought him an interesting challenge. The farther north and west he traveled, the more often it happened. Some women saw the shape of his body, and in particular the shade of his skin, and wanted to know if he was different from the other men they’d had in bed. Women like that were easy to turn away because nothing was less alluring than pure disgust, which was all he felt when he heard such offers.
Robin was different. When Robin looked at him, when she shyly confessed that she looked forward to seeing him more than she looked forward to spring, he felt like he was the only man in the world. She didn’t regard him as a curiosity. She regarded him as himself.
But Tav couldn’t think about the ramifications of his night with Robin now, because he wasnotthe only man interested her. Pierce’s attempted seduction drove Robin to his room, and Tav hated the fact that the other man laid a finger on her.
He sat up. If he wasn’t sleeping, he saw no reason why Pierce should slumber away peacefully. It was time to talk.
The moon had set and dawn was still an hour away. Tav dressed and made his way through the icy, dark hallways to Pierce’s doorway. It was unguarded, and when he tried the handle, the door swung open easily.
Only embers lit the room now. The bed was curtained off, hiding the sleeping figure of Pierce. Tav took a candle from its sconce and lit it with the glowing embers. Light flared. He walked over to the bed and yanked the curtain aside, in no mood to be gentle with his wake-up call.
He grabbed Pierce’s shoulder. “Get up. You’ve slept long enough.” The white cat sleeping on the pillow yawned.
Pierce’s eyes flew open, and he took in the sight of Tav with near panic. “What are you doing here? You’ve come to assassinate me!”
“Shut up. If I were here to assassinate you, I wouldn’t have woken you up first.” Tav lit the rest of the candles on the great iron fixture near the bed. He pulled the rest of the curtains aside, to Pierce’s ineffectual protests, and then sat on the most comfortable-looking chair.
“You weren’t supposed to get back until tomorrow,” Pierce said. “Or later tonight, if it is tomorrow.”
