Chapter Two

Just look at them all. Thorstan watched from his place in the shadows and experienced a flash of disgust he sought mightily to conceal. They capered and fawned around her like—well, like fools, and not a drop of sincerity in any of them. It made him long to whip out his sword and challenge them, one by one, for her hand.

But he was here devoid of sword, and the tactics by which he usually lived his life would not serve in this situation. Why else had he come in disguise?

Yet he wondered as he stood there amid the clamor and merriment, with the music beating at him like a second heartbeat, had even one of these sorry excuses for suitors truly looked at the lass? Did none of them want her, rather than her father’s lands?

Aye, he did.

But to turn it all about, she had not seen him—not yet.

She stood now speaking to her mother, towering over the older woman. Aye, a fine, tall lass, but full of grace as well, like a Nordic queen. He admired the strength with which she moved, the certainty with which she held herself, and the bold light in those incredible gray-blue eyes. And aye, that golden hair—he ached to see that unbraided and hanging around her, tangled about the both of them as they…

Steady on, man, he told himself. Do not get ahead of yourself. He had yet to get near the woman, and she would never choose him if she knew who he was.

Then again, she might. He was willing to bet her mind was her own. In fact, he had already bet on it.

He thought back to the first time he had seen her out riding with her father, straight and supple as any man on the back of her pony. They had swept by his holding just north of here and never spared so much as a glance for him or the place. Thorstan frowned to himself. His dwelling might be humble, but he had earned every stone of it, along with a hard kind of pride. Even coming here clad in a jester’s suit could not dent that pride. So much did a young man learn after making his own way in the world on the strength of his sword.

Aye, he had wanted Edwina from that moment he beheld her with the sun in her face and her glorious hair hanging down, tumbled free of her head covering in a wild fall of brightness. He wanted her in his life and in his bed. But a man such as he—self-made, at best—did not present himself at her father’s door with such a request on his lips.

Yet perhaps he might approach her, unnoticed, amid all this commotion.

Even upon the thought, another of the worthless lords stepped up to Edwina and requested a dance. This one—a weedy specimen of surely no more than fourteen—looked like he would bend under the weight of a decent sword, or a decent woman. An abomination to think of proud Edwina bedded by that.

She made some excuse to the stripling and shook her head. Saints be praised, she did not wish to dance with him. She took her seat on the dais where, the other girl so often in her company having stepped away, she was momentarily alone.

Thorstan adjusted the hat of bells on his head, steeled himself, and scampered forth.

****

“You do not look merry, my lady. Would you like the fool to help you smile?”

Edwina’s head jerked round as yet another voice spoke near her ear. This one did not belong to a suitor, thank the holy heaven. The jester stood beside her in his preposterous costume and with the ridiculous, jingling hat on his head.

She relaxed slightly. Surely she did not have to be on guard with this absurd creature.

“Can you cure headache with your nonsense?” she asked.

“To be sure I can.” Light-footed, he leaped and performed a cartwheel in the air, then landed on his hands. He tapped his shoes, also decorated with bells, three times before flipping upright once more. His hat fell off, revealing a thatch of thick, brown hair not unpleasing to the eye.

“Very amusing, Sir Fool, but my head still pains me.”

“All due to the noise and confusion, no doubt.” He leaned closer, and she looked into his eyes. Dancing, bright eyes they were, as brown as his hair. “Fool suggests a dose of fresh night air. You should step outside for a moment.”

“That sounds like heaven. But I doubt much I will be allowed to slip away on my own.”

“Not on your own, my lady.” He clapped his hat back on his head and offered his arm. “Only allow Fool to accompany you.”

“A gallant escort, indeed.” Edwina found herself arising and looping her arm through his. “But I am no lady, not yet. That is the point of this farce.”

“Farce, lady? How can you say so?” He lifted both brows, which were strongly marked and darker than his hair. “The way I understand it, you have the very finest of noble manhood from which to select a bridegroom.”

Edwina snorted in a decidedly unladylike fashion and steered their linked steps toward the side doorway that led to the east gate. “You call that manhood?”

“Do you not, my lady?” They passed through the doorway, and no one called them back. Had their departure even been noticed?

Edwina quickened her steps, and the jester drew her arm more closely against his side. Oh, highly improper, but at the moment she did not care.

She nodded to the guard at the gate, and they passed into the chill of the evening and a wash of moonlight. Urging her escort toward the stone wall at their left, she drew a deep draught of air. “You are right, Lord Fool. Much better.”

“ ‘Lord Fool’?” he questioned, his mouth beside her ear.

“If you can call me ‘lady,’ I can call you ‘lord.’ ” She turned her head and found her face very near his. Aye, most improper—but such luxury to be with a man taller than she. Too bad he was only a traveling jester.

He leaned on the wall beside her. “My fool’s wisdom tells me you are not enjoying this great pageant staged for your benefit.”

“That I am not.”

“Yet I hear there is much gaiety and frolic yet to come—a play, and even a masked dance.”

“Aye. Perhaps you can attend as a jester.”

“Perhaps I will. If I do, will you dance with me?” He caught both her hands and, in true fool’s fashion, whirled her about in the cold air until her breath came fast, and she laughed aloud. Edwina could no longer hear the music from inside, but the fool hummed a tune in a deep, velvety voice. The moonlight flickered around them, striping his face in brightness and then shadow until all she could see was the laughter in his eyes. When they came to rest at last, she leaned against him.

“You should laugh more often,” he said. “It makes you even more beautiful.” Suddenly Edwina felt breathless from more than the whirling dance. He had strong arms for a buffoon who spent his time jangling his bells.

But she turned with a sweeping gesture. “You see all this?”

Her father’s lands lay spread out before them, field and pasture and farmstead, all dotted with snow that glowed white beneath the moon. “This is what they have come for, not me. I am but the bargaining piece that will bring it to them.”

“Then ’tis they are the fools.” He caught her hand in his and raised it to his lips. She felt his warm breath there an instant before the touch of his still warmer mouth. Heat seemed to travel through Edwina, from the place where their bodies met to her heart and still lower, making her shiver.

“You are cold,” he said with compunction. “I should have thought. Allow me to take you back inside.”

Aye, Edwina thought, she had to go and, quite truly, face the music. But even these stolen moments had served to lift her spirits.

She smiled and curtseyed to her companion. “Thank you, Lord Fool. I feel better for the air and your nonsense.”

“I remain at your service, my lady, always. I hope you will not hesitate to call upon me should you desire anything.”

Edwina’s brow twitched as she once more hooked her arm through his and turned back to the doorway. Did she hear a note of suggestiveness in his voice? Surely not. ’Twas but a game he played, like any good jester, to amuse her and lift her mood.

“And,” she asked lightly, disguising the agony of the question, “what wisdom has a fool for a woman in my precarious position? My parents expect me to choose one of those sorry lords for husband before the end of these festivities.”

“That does seem a bit precipitous, my lady. How will you know any man’s heart well enough by then?”

Again she gazed up into his eyes. “’Tis not about his heart.”

“Oh, but I think it is.”

“Then you are as foolish as I, when all this began. Can you believe I thought to find love? That hope died a swift enough death.”

“My lady—”

“Oh, I know I am fortunate to be given any say at all. It has been made clear to me that my father could have just pointed at one of them and required me to wed. He is a kind father and a good man. But, faith, this is scarcely better.”

The fool ducked his head toward hers as they paused, ready to reenter the great hall. “The players, lady, say there are ten suitors, all invited by your father. Why ten?”

“They are all known to him. Lord Giles is son to a neighbor—Father thinks it would be well if our lands were joined. And Father fought with Lord Angus’s sire in some battle, years ago.”

“Fought?”

“My father was many things before he built this grand holding for himself. Adventurer, sailor, even a soldier.”

The jester’s arm twitched beneath her hand. “Definitely not Lord Angus,” he breathed.

“I agree with you. But then, which? Edelbert is stupid, Julian has a sour nature, Cormac wishes only to play me tiresome tunes on his lute, which hurts the ear. But, Lord Fool, do you know what is worst of all?”

“What, lady?”

“One of those invited, a Lord Kenweth, did not even bother to show his face. So you see, in truth there are only nine lords competing for my favor.”

“Aye, well”—the fool shook his head and his bells jingled—“a tenth suitor may yet make himself known, and be worth all the others put together.”

“Just between you and me, Lord Fool, that is the one hope of my heart.”