"You are right." He looked disgusted now. "Jayr—"

"Your guests are waiting. Excuse me, my lord." She made her bow and ran.

Chapter 14

Rainer saw Viviana slip out of the keep, and followed her, as he had been ordered to. She wandered aimlessly, now and then pressing a handkerchief to her eyes, until she stood at the edge of the lake and stared across it.

He thought he might leave her there, until he saw the dark gleam of a copper dagger in her hand. She rolled the hilt between her fingers in a compulsive manner, as if steeling herself to grip it and put it to use.

The sight of the seamstress choosing death over dishonor destroyed something in him and made something else grow in its place.

"It is a beautiful night," he said from behind her. She didn't move, although her hand tightened on the blade. "The moon smiles down like that smug cat from the child's story."

Viviana sounded calm when she replied, "So it does. Would you excuse me, Rain? I should like some privacy."

"One often does when one is contemplating one's mortality." He came to stand beside her. "Do you mean to pierce your heart, or cut through the cord at the back of your neck?"

"I don't know what you mean."

Oh, how cool she was. "When I leave. When you kill yourself with that dagger." He cradled his throbbing arm, which Nottingham had broken again during his latest interrogation. "I am only curious, as I am pondering how I will go about it. Surely I will bungle it unless I have some example to follow." He glanced sideways at her. "You will permit me to stay and watch, won't you?"

"You don't know what you are saying." Viviana's wet eyes closed. "Go back to the keep."

"He ordered me to shadow you," Rain said conversationally. "I am supposed to prevent you from harming yourself."

"He knows me well." She shuddered.

"As he does all of his victims," Rain agreed. "How did you come to be under his power?"

"Famine ravaged my village when I was sixteen," she said softly. "There was no work, and when the crops failed, the youngest and the oldest began dying. Then the Lady of Sherwood sent her men to collect the youngest and prettiest girls and bring them to the castle. When she chose me to serve as her maid, I thought I had saved my family. I did not know what she was, or what she meant to do with me."

"I remember you." He smiled when she stared at him. "I served the lady as her fool."

"That was you?" She took a step back and looked all over him. "Oh, my God. It was."

"The last time I saw you in your human life was the morning you were taken down into the dungeons. Like the other girls, you never came back." He hung his head. "When my turn came, do you know I fought him? Valiantly, I might add. Three days later I dug myself out of the ground. I went at once to the lady, to warn her that she had imprisoned a monster in her dungeons. I was a consummate fool, you see."

Her face turned wooden. "How did you escape Sherwood?"

"Farlae," Rainer said. "He came to make a gown for the lady, and he took a fancy to me. She agreed to let him have me in exchange for a new wardrobe. The bitch traded me for a handful of gowns and petticoats. How did you attain your freedom?"

"I helped him escape her." Viviana raised the dagger, and then offered it to him. Her hand shook so much it appeared as if she were waving it at him. "Will you do it?"

He looked down at her steadily. "Let me fetch another one, and we can kill each other." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Imagine the fun. Harlech and Farlae will go mad, thinking that we were secret lovers who chose death over them. They would never recover from it."

The dagger slipped from Viviana's hand, and she fell against him, sobbing. He held her with his one good arm, and let his own tears run from his cheeks to her hair.

The sound of wings drew his gaze upward, and he watched a flock of birds flying across the lake as they made their way south. There, he knew, they would stay until the ice and snow in the northern country melted and it was safe for them to return.

"Viviana." He drew back and took her hand in his. "I think I know another way."

Alex's chills subsided as soon Michael made Nottingham leave the ball, although it took a few minutes for the numbness to recede from her hands and feet.

"That feels better," she told him as he chafed her hands between his. "Nothing quite like vampire-induced hypothermia." She smiled up at Phillipe, who offered her a mug of steaming mulled bloodwine. "This won't make me puke, I hope. I'm wearing white. You'll never get the stains out."

"Try a sip first," he suggested.

Alex did, and the hot, spiced wine covered the taste of the blood that had been mixed in with it. When her stomach didn't reject it, she sighed. "Better. Thanks, Phil."

"I looked for an electric blanket," the seneschal told her, "but all I could borrow was this." He held up a small heating pad covered with short, tawny hairs. "Lady Harris brought her favorite terrier with her, and it seems that Sookie dislikes sleeping on stone floors."

Alex almost choked. "Sookie? Who names something they like Sookie? Isn't that the word you use to call pigs?"

Michael leaned close. "Would you like to know what Lady Harris calls Lord Harris in private?"

"How would you know that?" When he only gave her an enigmatic smirk, she shook her head. "Never mind. So what turned on Nottingham's ice machine? Robin breathe on him?"

"I gather he did not care for Scarlet's ballad," Michael guessed. "No doubt he has listened to gossip and discovered that Locksley was once an outlaw. Robin has had a difficult time gaining acceptance among the European Kyn."

"Ex-cons are hard to trust," Alex said, nodding. "Was the song true? Did Rob break up his girlfriend's marriage?"

"Some say Marian did come to Robin to beg him help her flee before she was made to marry Guisbourne," Michael said. "Others claim that he kidnapped her."

"The king wasn't too thrilled about all this, I take it."

"Marian's father paid the king a handsome amount of gold to approve the match," Michael said. "Robin had titles and land, but no money. There was no contest."

"So you had lobbyists screwing up your government, too. Interesting." Alex finished the mulled wine and set the mug on the table. "Robin got Marian to the convent, right? How did she die?"

"Guisbourne killed her."

Alex looked over her shoulder at Scarlet. "Well, that wasn't in the song."

"He didn't run her through with his sword, my lady. He used other, more brutal means to end her life." Scarlet knelt down beside her. "Guisbourne forced himself on her. He wished to disgrace her and shame her into marrying him."

"It was common practice in our time, I fear," Michael said. "Marriages that had not been consummated were easier to prevent or annul. Few women went to the altar virgins."

"Possession being nine-tenths of the law, I suppose." Alex glanced at Scarlet. "It gets worse, right?"

"When Lord Robin delivered Lady Marian to the convent, she was with child." Scarlet ducked his head. "She never told him or anyone; perhaps she had hoped to conceal it. As soon as my lord returned from the Holy Land, he went to the convent to retrieve her. The nuns could offer him only dreadful news: Both Lady Marian and her baby died during the birthing."

"Poor girl." Alex recalled all the happy endings she had seen for different movies about the star-crossed lovers. "Robin must have felt like everything he'd done was for nothing."

"He gave her freedom from Guisbourne, who would have made her life a living hell," Scarlet said softly. "It did not matter what it cost him. My master would have moved heaven and earth for Lady Marian." He rose, bowed, and retreated.

"I hate unrequited love stories. They always sound like something Nicholas Sparks would write." Alex got up and sat on Michael's lap. "How about you cheer me up?"

Amber sparkled around the edges of Michael's turquoise eyes. "Is that a personal proposition, my lady?"

"I could do a little lap dance for you," she mused, "but Mom told me that kind of thing was unladylike."

"You have often said that you are not a lady." Michael kissed her temple. "So you have not grown weary of my attentions?"

She knew what he wasn't saying. Since they'd come to the Realm they hadn't had sex. It wasn't exactly unusual for them—being seigneur often kept Michael too busy to have time for fun—but after the almost continuous sex they'd been having since she'd gotten back from Ireland, it seemed off.

No, Alex thought. I haven't had sex with him since the dreams started. In fact, she had gone out of her way once or twice to avoid having sex with Michael.

Avoiding having sex with the best lover she had ever known. She was losing her mind.

"Alex?" He turned her face toward him. "You do look tired. Shall we go?"

"Yeah." She looked over his shoulder and saw Jayr practically running across the room. The seneschal's face looked hot, and her sleeve had been ripped at the shoulder. "Ah, no. I'll be right back." She stood and went to intercept Jayr.

Nottingham's seneschal stepped into her path. "My lady, may I have the pleasure?" He held out his hand and gave her a modest smile. "I should warn you that I am the finest dancer in all of Florence."

"Maybe another time." Alex went around him and ran.

As soon as the seneschal saw Alex coming after her, she turned around and came to her. "Doctor, something is wrong." She grabbed Alex's arm and pulled her to a secluded corner. "This potion you put into my veins… I fear it is poisoning me. Or perhaps driving me mad. I must have an antidote."

"There's a big difference between being poisoned and having a psychotic break," Alex said, feeling a small, ugly stab of pain behind her eyes. "Calm down and tell me what happened."