“Ye gods,” Linsha breathed. “No wonder Lord Bight was so upset.” The orange cat bumped his head against her hand to be petted, and she automatically began to stroke his soft fur and rub his ears. “Then to lose Captain Dewald to murder…” Her voice faded.
“It hasn’t been a good night,” he groaned in understatement. He finished his second helping of wine, poured a third, then pointed to her cup, still untouched in her hand. “You haven’t tried the wine.”
She sampled the wine, letting it trickle down the back of her throat. He was right; it was very good. “What happened to the informer?” she asked.
“We haven’t found him yet. If I have my way, he’ll be drawn and quartered.”
“How did you get hurt?”
His smile flashed again in the pale light. “Some big Knight sideswiped me with a short lance and knocked me out of the saddle. I nearly snapped my neck.” Switching his cup to his right hand, he gingerly reached out and touched Linsha’s shoulder.
To her astonishment, the orange cat snarled at him and lashed at his hand with a clawed paw.
Ian jerked back. “All right, all right, you stupid cat. Lynn, tell your guardian there to relax. I just wanted to know if your injury was doing well.”
She stroked the cat until he subsided, but she made no effort to move him. She glanced up at Ian from under her dark brows. “It aches and burns at times. Other than that, it’s fine.”
Ian’s third cup of wine disappeared and was replaced.
Linsha watched him worriedly while she sipped her own wine. She had never seen his control slip like this before.
“I’m sorry you were the one to find Captain Dewald in the woods,” the commander said apologetically. His words were coming out slower than normal and a little rough around the edges.
“Do you have any idea who would want him dead?”
Ian swept his free hand through the air. “Any number of people. Solamnic Knights. Dark Knights. A jealous competitor. A jealous husband. The captain was my right hand. Maybe he was killed to strike a blow at me.”
“I’m sorry. I know he was your friend.”
“He was a good man.” Suddenly he started chortling. “You know, he used to tell this awful joke about an elf, a kender, and a draconian.” He fell back in the hay, laughing so hard he spilled wine over his tunic. He tried to tell the joke to Linsha and lost the punch line somewhere in his hilarity. His laughter gradually subsided, but his verbosity did not. He talked to Linsha about Dewald and his exploits, about the men in his command who died that night. He told her funny stories about Sanction and told more jokes than Linsha could ever remember while she listened and laughed and tried not to yawn too much. Through it all, he drank steadily, first from the wine bottle then from a flask he brought out of his tunic.
After nearly an hour, to judge from the lengthening angle of moonlight, Ian sagged back into the hay. He fell quiet so quickly that Linsha stared at him, wondering if he was ill. She lifted the protesting cat from her lap and crawled across the blanket to his side. He was lying on his back with his eyes wide open and staring at the roof. Slowly they slid from the roof and fastened on her.
She gazed down at him from his broad forehead down along the line of his cheek and jaw to his full lips and the small cleft on his chin. Her appraisal offered an invitation, and he took it.
His fingers touched her nose, her eyelids, and caressed the side of her face. They slid through her curls, curved around the back of her neck, and pulled her head down to him. Softly, gently his lips curved over hers, and he kissed her long and deep and passionately.
Linsha’s will to resist lasted perhaps two heartbeats before her resolution melted like an old candle. It had been too long since she felt this way. He woke in her a need she thought long dormant, one she could not honestly call love. Perhaps what she felt for him was just lust or infatuation. She didn’t know-not yet But at that moment, she didn’t care. All that mattered was his closeness and their need for each other.
Smiling, she traced his hairline with a finger that curled sensuously along his ear and across his strong neck. She delighted in the warm, masculine feel of his skin, in the musky wine-splashed scent of his body. She kissed him again.
He buried his face in her neck; his arms wrapped around her. As soft as an owl wing, she heard him mumble, “I love you.” Then his body went slack and his breathing slowed. His arm dropped away. He slipped beyond consciousness into a sleep induced by too much wine and too much weariness.
Linsha leaned away, her heart sore and her body disappointed. Only her common-sense mind seemed to heave a sigh of relief. It was then she became aware of the orange cat crouched on the blanket, uttering a most obnoxious noise somewhere between a growl and a yowl. The moment she moved away from Durne, he stopped, making his point obvious even to Linsha’s tired mind. For some cat reason, this torn did not approve of the commander. Linsha pushed herself up to a sitting position and sighed a long, heartfelt breath.
“Who are you, cat, to question my judgment? What are you doing up here, anyway?”
The cat merely blinked his yellow eyes in the darkness and watched her every move.
Linsha sat back on her heels and found she was swaying with exhaustion. The events of the long day had caught up with her at last and wore away every trace of strength she had left. Yawning hugely, she straightened Ian’s limbs to a more comfortable position. He looked boyish in his sleep and so helpless lying there. His vulnerability touched her.
But it did not erase her professional sense of an opportunity to be had. While the cat watched, she laid her fingers on Durne’s temples and summoned her power from the core of her soul. With a deft touch, she extended it around the man and the telltale colors of his aura. As she hoped, his outward nature was a decent blue, tinged only with small red taints of evil. It was when she probed deeper into his mind that she touched a barrier that resisted her even through a wine-induced sleep.
“Varia was right,” she muttered to the cat, who studied her intently. “He is strongly shielded. Why does he feel the need to do so?”
Her power faded and the ensorcellment was broken. Ian stirred in his sleep until Linsha brushed a kiss over his mouth.
“I am such a fool,” she muttered to herself. “I am living a lie that I hate. I have fallen for a man I do not trust, and I am deceiving another man I count as a friend. Every day that he calls me Lynn, I pray that one day he will call me Linsha and not hate me.”
The cat meowed softly.
“I live for honor and yet I have none. What am I going to do?”
Perhaps in response to the sadness in her voice, the cat padded over beside her, rose on his hind legs, and patted her cheek with a delicate paw. The unexpected gesture comforted her. She scooped him up and carried him to the other side of the blanket. She could go no farther. She sagged down onto the hay and stretched out in the warm darkness. Sleep took her in moments.
The orange cat did not settle down at once. He circled her twice, sniffed her face and hair, and gently nosed her hands. One paw found the chain and the hard edge of the dragon scale still tucked beneath her tunic. Satisfied, he curled up against her, putting himself between her and the man who slept nearby. Soundlessly the cat watched through the remainder of the night.
At dawn, a newborn light worked its way into the barn and eventually woke the commander on his bed of hay. He groaned and rubbed his face. Painfully he pushed himself upright. His head was a leaden weight, his side was sore, and his neck felt as if someone had replaced the bones with a hot iron rod. And what was he doing in this hayloft?
A small, angry sound caused him to turn around, and he saw Linsha asleep on the blanket, curled on her side, her back to him. Memory returned, blurred and reluctant. What had he done? More to the point, seeing a fully clothed woman sleeping close by, what hadn’t he done? The noise, he realized, came from the large orange cat crouched at Linsha’s back. He was staring at the man with undisguised dislike.