Rhiana. Michele Hauf

Rhiana’s approach.

      Narcisse Guiscard, baron de St. Rénan, turned. To his right, an iron torchiere shaped like a dragon’s head flickered, though the sunlight beaming through the colored glass overhead brightened the room sufficiently. Narrow brown eyebrows lifted in lascivious manner upon spying Rhiana, but his wondering expression quickly crimped to a frown.

      Even ugly moods could not dampen his elegance. Rhiana always caught her breath at sight of him. So young and attractive. She fancied him her age, but he must be years older, for his father had been sixty-two when he died five years earlier.

      Tall, lean, and wrapped with muscle, Guiscard stood, feet spread and thumbs hooked at a hip belt of interlocked gold medallions. Thigh high boots, revealed by a sweep of his surcoat, emphasized long legs wrapped in parti-colors of emerald and black. He wore not the fashionable pudding-basin cut that had the men shaving the backs of their heads up to ear-high level. Long dark hair was braided at the baron’s ears to keep it back from his face. Possessed of bright blue eyes and cheekbones sharp as any blade, he easily slayed all females who fell to his allure.

      Sapphires glinted at his fingers and along the gold chain that strung from shoulder to shoulder. Rhiana lingered on the gold. She liked gold, its brilliant and warm veneer. To hold it in her hand made her feel safe—comforted—strange as that sounded.

      It was with great willpower she resisted reaching out and touching the finery that glittered everywhere on Lord Guiscard.

      The baron had taken command of the castle upon his father’s death five years earlier. Pascal Guiscard had succumbed to fever after eating rotten fish, and following months of suffering, had died after three decades of benevolent rule over St. Rénan. He had been known for his gentle yet precise ways. It was Pascal who had discovered the hoard, and he who had chosen to share it with all.

      Narcisse Guiscard shared his father’s attention to detail and possessed a forced kindness, but there were things about him that put up the hairs on Rhiana’s arms.

      “Ah, the Tassot wench. Our very own rumored dragon slayer.” He spat the words through teeth clenched tighter than the fists at his hips.

      She would not deny the truth. But until now, Rhiana had not known the castle was aware of her slaying activities. How could they know of this morning’s kill? Had Rudolph—?

      Mayhap now she could explain the situation to Lord Guiscard, perhaps even suggest he loan her a few strong knights. If there was another dragon, as she suspected, she would require assistance. For where there were two, could there be even more?

      “My lord,” she said, and bowed.

      Her unbound hair spilled to the floor as she did so. The tresses were not clumped with mud, which relieved her, but certainly they were in need of a comb. The only time she was aware of her lacking femininity was in the presence of a powerful man.

      The men standing around the baron, smirking and handling all manner of shiny weapon from ax to bow to leather-hilted sabre, focused their attention on the woman who so boldly approached.

      Oh, but the bravado heavy in the air put her to guard. Absently, Rhiana slid her palm over her left hip. No dragon talon dagger to hand.

      Guiscard glided out from his entourage and met her in the center of the keep. The clean lavender scent of his soap attacked her senses as if a fox dashing for the rabbit. Now she smelled everything, from the fennel and mint rising about her skirt hem to the barrage of musk that claimed the keep as a man’s domain. Women belonged in the kitchen and the laundry, she had heard Guiscard say before, or as ornaments decorating their man’s arm.

      Curious blue eyes preened across Rhiana’s face, and then tilted a smile at her. Not a generous smile, most always devious.

      “Tell me,” he said, “what it is about slaying dragons that intrigues you so? Be it the danger? The fight? The desire to touch such fierce evil?”

      “Is not the desire to see my family safe enough of an attraction?”

      “But you are a woman. Women do not gallivant after dragons. Why…” He glanced over his shoulder to a fellow knight and murmured, “Women are to be made sacrifices, no?”

      A few snickers from the men enforced Guiscard’s cocky stance. A shrug of his broad shoulder tugged tight the gold chain across his chest and with a distracting clink.

      Drawing in a breath, Rhiana grabbed back the courage and focus she had initially held. “My apologies for being so abrupt, my lord, but is it possible we may discuss the business of these dragons come to nest in the caves?”

      “Dragons in our caves, my lady?”

      “Three men have been devoured in five days.”

      “You said dragons, as in, more than one?”

      “Mayhap.” A surreptitious glance about saw many more eyes had become interested. She did wish to alarm no one, especially the women, so she lowered her voice. “Do you not wish it put to an end?”

      The baron now regarded her with a lifted brow. Utter arrogance seeped from him as if the lavender scent. “And you propose to be the one to end it? My lady, I had not thought to entertain such a humorous farce this morn, but I thank you heartily for the amusement.”

      He touched her chin with a finger that glittered with enough gold to serve a peasant family for an entire year, and lifted her head to look directly into her eyes. The look was familiar, and dreadsome. On occasion Guiscard caught Rhiana as she was entering Lady Anne’s room. A silent capture, which held her against the embrasure outside the solar, his blue eyes eating her apart with unspoken lust.

      “You’ve been to the caves,” he said. “This morning? My men report seeing you leave just after lauds. Your return was not remarked.”

      She would lie to no man, for integrity of word was important to her. “I did, my lord.”

      “Such boldness to tromp about a dragon’s lair.”

      “I killed one rampant this morn. But there may be another. I…sensed its presence.”

      “Just so?” He spread his gaze across her face. A curious look. Fascinated or horrified? “You sensed another? Without sighting it? Sounds…magical, to me.”

      “I have no magic, my lord.” She wanted to follow with, “I am not a witch,” but best to leave that word unspoken. For once heard…

      “Who gave you permission to do such a thing?”

      Permission? Rhiana gaped. To protect— To— Why, to see her family safe? She did not know what to say to that.

      “You say there are others?”

      “Mayhap,” she answered. Still at a loss—he expected her to ask before slaying a danger that threatened the very people of his village?

      “So you are not sure. And yet, you boldly approach me with these ideas of another. You frighten us all, my lady.”

      “I do not mean to. I only wish to protect—”

      “Against imagined evils?”

      “They are not imagined!”

      “Did you see this other dragon?”

      “N-no, but I—” Blessed be, why must the man be so difficult?

      “You are not like other women.”

      How many times had she heard that statement, and always as an accusation? It deserved the usual response. “I try, my lord, but sewing and cooking does little to satisfy me.”

      “Ah?” He delivered a smirk over his shoulder. A few knights snickered. “Well, if it is satisfaction you desire….”

      Oh, but she’d put her foot in it with that one.

      “Is there a reason you had me escorted to you this day, my lord?”

      “Indeed there is.” Mirth