“If you tell me what secrets burden you, Briar, I can help.”
“Help?” He sounded sincere, but she did not trust him. She did not trust herself. Briar would have pulled her hand from his, but he would not let her go, gripping her fingers more tightly in his calloused ones. “I have no secrets, de Vessey,” she told him sharply. “I do not know what you speak of. I am a simple songstress, that is all.”
He gave a skeptical laugh, and followed her through the jostling, indifferent crowd. “You did not answer my question before, Briar. Did you miss me while I was gone?”
Briar turned her head to glance up at him. His expression was unreadable, but she thought he would not have asked the question had he been as sure of her as he pretended. What should she do? Abuse him further, or play at being indifferent? Neither would gain her the result she was seek ing. To bind him to her, she must give him a part of herself. No matter how grudgingly.
“I missed you, aye, and I prayed for you.”
The words came surprisingly easily—something else to worry her!
He smiled, lips curving, his black gaze slipping from hers to play on her mouth. “What part of me did you miss the most?”
Briar made an impatient sound. “What sort of question is that, de Vessey?”
“A fair one, demoiselle. I will answer the same question for you. I missed your mouth. Your lips are so soft and so sweet, but inside you feel hot and my head spins when your tongue mates with mine. Aye, ’twas your mouth I missed most. And yet…” He examined her face and body, making Briar squirm. “And yet, there are other things about you I missed just as much. Will I list them?”
“No, you will not!” She tossed her head so that her chestnut hair danced in the fitful sunlight. “I was sorry to see that bruise upon your face, but now I think it well deserved.”
“You are cruel, lady. Will you not heal me with a kiss?”
In Briar’s opinion, that didn’t deserve a reply.
They had reached one of the man
y snickleways that linked the streets of York. Shadowed and narrow, the lane was suitably private. Briar walked ahead and Ivo followed her through, uncomplaining, but clearly prepared for trouble. His free hand closed on the decorated hilt of his sword, and he turned his head from side to side, carefully examining each doorway and each shadow.
Briar smiled secretly to herself.
He was suspicious of her, and yet he still came with her. He was willing to put himself at risk, to be with her. Surely that boded well?
Briar had never tried to ensnare a man before; she had not believed it in her nature. There were some women who found such things enjoyable, to whom the capture of a man’s mind and heart was a pleasant day’s sport. Briar had never been one of their number. She had been betrothed to Filby, and thought to wed him and eventually be his wife, but there had been no attempt on her part to ensnare him. No talk of desire or love, not by her, although Filby had played at being the besotted bridegroom once or twice, more to her amusement than her delight. A woman in Briar’s position took the husband her family chose for her. Filby had suited because his estates abutted hers, and he was a Norman of some wealth and power. He was not as wealthy or as powerful as Richard Kenton, but Briar’s father had thought to keep her close and make her happy, and for that he had been willing to forgo a brilliant marriage.
She would not marry now.
Who in her old world would want her? And she could not see herself wed to a fleshmonger in the Shambles, or a beltmaker in Girdlergate. She walked among these people as if she were one of them, but Briar knew deep in her heart that she was not, and never could be. Nay, she was neither one thing nor the other.
They had reached a particularly dark spot in the snickleway. Briar stopped, and Ivo paused a little way behind her, wary, watchful. Instinctively he loosened his sword in its scabbard, glancing around, searching for enemies.
“What do we here?” he asked her. “’Tis the sort of place where men’s throats are slit.”
He wondered if it were a trap, if she intended to do harm to him. He might desire her, she thought, but he was not a fool.
“I thought you wanted private words with me,” Briar replied airily, and turned a face to him that she knew was pale and a little wild. This was the very spot where Anna, her stepmama, was murdered, but Ivo de Vessey could not know that. It seemed to Briar somehow apt that her seduction of him should begin here. How could she possibly lose sight of her real objective, in this place? How could she feel any pleasure in it, while such a memory was raw at her feet?
“Your choice of scene lacks something, Briar.” He spoke dryly, but he took his hand from his sword.
She shrugged. “Take it or leave it.”
A chill breeze drifted up the snickleway, a reminder that they were well into autumn. Briar shivered. Or mayhap it was the spirit of Anna? Beautiful Anna, who, it was said, broke men’s hearts with impunity—although that, Briar reminded herself, had been before she married Richard Kenton. Still, if anyone could give Briar lessons in making a man crazed with lust, then surely it was Anna?
Ivo made an impatient sound and, taking her by surprise, grabbed up her hand and led her firmly out of the snickleway, and into Goodram-gate. Abruptly, at the same moment, the sun shone, throwing aside its covering of clouds. Briar closed her eyes, feeling its welcome warmth against her skin. When she opened them again, she could see beyond the uneven rooftops, to where ladders and scaffolding had been thrown up by the men usually hard at work reroofing and rebuilding York’s Saxon Minster.
The Minster had stood upon that spot for over three hundred years. During the most recent rebellion in the north, King William’s men had burned much of the city, including the Minster, to prevent the rebels from overtaking it. Aye, York had suffered much from the wars between men, and the new Norman Archbishop of York, Thomas of Bayeux, was determined to restore the Minster to God’s glory.
Ivo hurried her along, closer to the great church. The precincts were still much in ruin and deserted. An arched section of wall stood alone, warmed by the sun, and a barrier against the cold breezes.
“This is better.” Ivo stopped, and promptly pulled her into his arms.