A Knight Most Wicked. Joanne Rock

she had promised herself not to be drawn in by the knight.

      “Come, Arabella.” Mary pulled her along to the side of the room as the trestle tables were moved aside for dancing.

      When the music began, Mary partnered with one of the countess’s sons for a dance and Arabella watched, enthralled, as the couples moved by in a graceful swirl of velvets and silks. The lady’s dress would swing away from her body with a swish, the man’s head would incline to hers for a private exchange, and the music would move the pair along the floor. It was so pretty.

      “Would you like to join them?” a voice asked from behind, and she knew who would be there if she dared to turn around. Tristan’s question caressed her cheek. A shiver chased down her spine.

      “No, thank you,” she whispered, unable to face him and yet unable to move away.

      “Yet you seem to enjoy it.” The heat from his chest warmed her back even though they did not touch.

      She swallowed hard.

      “It is beautiful.” Her heart pounded so loudly he must hear it above the minstrels’ music. But was it fear exactly? Arabella had known the cold dread of fear after the bazaar attack. This was not it.

      “Were you the kind of child to sneak from your bed and watch the entertainment in your family’s keep?”

      His question confused her. “Oh no. My home is not so splendid as this. I have never seen dancing like this before.”

      She did not count the times she had danced beneath the stars to the music of the heavens on warm summer nights. Seeing the way others danced brought home how simple her rudimentary steps seemed.

      “You do not dance?”

      “I do not know how.” One of the couples glided by her and she smiled, thinking that her grandmother had been right to send Arabella into the world, even though the experience had frightened her.

      It frightened her still. Especially with a powerful warrior at her back and a mixture of confusing thoughts in her head.

      “But you would like to learn.”

      “Yes, but—” she began, until she recalled she could not always speak her mind anymore. “I mean, no. I’d like to someday, maybe…” Her words trailed off because her answer did not sound convincing, even to her own ears.

      “I would be glad to teach you.” He turned her gently around to face him and her senses spun at his touch.

      He looked different this evening. She had realized that earlier when he’d been sitting with Lady Rosalyn. But now that she viewed him close up, she could identify the subtleties of the difference. The dark cape circling his neck was held together with a silver brooch of intertwining serpents. The sapphire eyes of the strange beasts glittered.

      The shirt he wore beneath the cape boasted a fine linen, the fabric snowy-white against his darker breeches, the stitches closely sewn. The clean scent of his clothes told her they’d been washed by the maids of Prague keep. She remembered the sweet herbs the washerwomen had used for their soaps.

      Merciful heaven, how long had she observed him thus?

      “No, thank you, sir.” She sounded cold when she had not meant to be. She owed him so much and she had not even thanked him. But sweet Jesu, he unsettled her.

      Just then there was a break in the music and a general changing of partners. Rosalyn de Clair extracted herself from the arms of one of Countess von Richt’s many sons and attached herself to Tristan’s side.

      “Tristan, you promised me a dance.” The woman touched his arm lightly with a trembling hand.

      Arabella vowed she would never let her feelings for any man appear so obvious. Seizing her chance to escape the confusion Tristan wrought, she hurried from the hall. She did not look back as she found the main doors to the keep and fled down the stairs into the cold evening. It was late autumn, but the brisk night air helped clear her mind after the heady atmosphere in the hall. The nearness of the man and the beauty of the dancers had rendered her spellbound and starry-eyed.

      Rosalyn de Clair’s arrival had been a welcome slap in the face. The raven-haired noblewoman in the scarlet-red dress reminded Arabella of the nightshade flower that was beautiful but poisonous.

      Thinking of the nightshade reminded Arabella that she was alone out of doors, where she could peer around the grounds for some late autumn herbs. How she missed her forest. She had brought along a great variety of herbs from the Rowan lands, but it would be interesting to see what she could find in this part of the world. Mayhap something unusual she would not be able to identify.

      The prospect so enticed her that she wandered away from the keep. She found some hawthorn, and some spices, but not many medicinal herbs due to the late season. She used her gown to carry the things she picked.

      It was a waxing of the moon, so that meant good, constructive herbs could be collected. Arabella had no cause to gather any other kind. She was interested in herbs for their medicinal value, but knew there were others who used them to wreak harm. Zaharia had met such people before and assured her they could be very dangerous.

      The thought of such darkness made Arabella grow cold, and she waved a small branch of hawthorn in a circle around herself. A tree of good fortune, its twigs could be used to ward off bad spirits.

      “Witchcraft is punishable by death in this country, chovihani.”

      Arabella was so startled she dropped her gown full of herbs to run.

      “Not this time, Arabella.”

      A warm hand yanked her back and she found herself held fast in the strong arms of Tristan Carlisle.

      Chapter Five

      “Chovihani?” she asked, more incensed now than afraid.

      It was a Gypsy word for witch and Arabella did not appreciate the description, or the implication that she had committed some crime. She struggled to pull away, but his hold did not waver.

      “I did not mean to startle you. I wondered where you had disappeared.” His voice caressed her ear and she felt her knees weaken just a little as he spoke. And there was that flip in her belly she knew only happened when he was near. She stopped struggling and he released her.

      “What do you mean by calling me witch?”

      “Imagine yourself as I have seen you.” Tristan turned from her to look up into the star-filled sky. “I believe I am in the Bohemian woodlands alone until I hear an awful, gut-wrenching cry, like an animal in pain. Venturing through the forest, I find a beautiful wailing woman in a ring of ancient oaks.”

      Arabella felt her cheeks heat.

      “But she does not look like any woman I have ever laid eyes on.” He stepped closer to her. Arabella could not move. “She is barefoot, with a veil of wild hair enveloping half of her body and covered with twigs and leaves. She is like a wood nymph or…an enchantress.”

      Arabella shook her head in mute denial. “Never, I—”

      “Then, when I find her again, she is transformed into a princess of a woman I barely recognize except for the green eyes, but every now and then I get a glimpse of the wild woman out in the moonlight, gathering herbs to make strange potions and waving sticks around her head in some sort of ancient ritual.”

      “I am no chovihani. If some people choose to believe medicine is an art of witchcraft, that only shows their lack of knowledge. But I think you know better.” Or, she hoped he did. She spied intelligence in those gray eyes of his, even when he called forth unexpected feelings from deep inside her. “Call me drabarni, herb woman, mayhap. That name would be more fitting.”

      “You are a healer?” he asked, eyes narrowing.

      “I try to be. There will forever be some things that are impossible to heal. But I try to find cures and relieve ailments, and in some instances