Locksley seemed satisfied with her excuse, and began talking about the strengths and weaknesses of the different archers in the competition. Jayr listened and made the appropriate comments along the way, but found that most of her brain was preoccupied with tracking her master's scent. The closer they drew to the ball the more it thinned, until it seemed to vanish completely.
At the same time, the strangeness that had racked her also disappeared, leaving her as calm and collected as ever.
Before they entered the hall, Jayr saw Will Scarlet waiting, and drew her arm from Locksley's. "This is where we must part ways, my lord. Expect to hear my applause above that of your many admirers." She bowed and went through the doors before he could respond.
"Jayr." Harlech came to her side. "You are later than I expected. Have you seen Viviana?"
"Not yet." She scanned the crowd, looking for Byrne, and taking a sharp breath as the bizarre, heated ache returned and simmered just under her skin. "Where is our lord?"
"I had thought he would be with you. Excuse me; I must find my wife." Harlech turned and hurried after one of Viviana's maids.
Jayr wandered among the guests, nodding to those who greeted her but feeling too distracted to converse. Suzerain von Lichtenstein, a strapping Prussian in a red tunic embroidered with the figure of Aphrodite, asked her if she would deliver a note to the Lady Alexandra for him. Jayr accepted it, knowing the letter would contain a badly written poem, and that the suzerain would later call her and request she destroy it. They had played this game of unrequited courtly love and courier with other females many times over the years.
She found an empty table on the other side of the room and sat down to watch the dancers.
Dressed in their finest, the Kyn filled the large dance floor with the men in elegant black tie and the women in Garden of Eden of gowns. The first of the dances had begun, with the lively music for it provided by an ensemble of Kyn musicians playing in the balcony above the floor.
Nowhere, however, could she see Byrne.
Chapter 13
Harlech had never hunted his own wife, but exasperation and her continued absence left him no alternative. He searched the ballroom until he picked up her scent and then followed its trail through the halls and into the guest wing. From there he used his talent for sound to search for her voice.
She did not often come here, but likely she had accompanied one of her friends to mend a torn hem or sleeve. Women always viewed such things as disasters during a dance.
The trail of her scent ended at the door of Nottingham's chambers, but even that did not alarm Harlech. The dark lord's manner and dress marked him as a fop; he must have drafted poor Vivi into refitting something of his. He lifted his hand to knock, then stopped as he heard the Italian's voice.
"It is not enough, Ana. I will have my due."
Ana? Harlech had never heard anyone call her by that name.
His wife replied in a voice so bitter and cold Harlech almost thought it was another woman speaking. "Who do you think I am here? The lady? I am but a seamstress. I have told you what I know. I have done what I can do. Release me."
Nottingham made a sound that might have been a laugh. "Your prison is of your own forging."
"As is yours. Forget him and this thing before you destroy yourself."
The despair in her voice made Harlech step back. He moved around the wall and into the alcove beneath a window where he could not be seen. Soon afterward Viviana came into the hall, her skirts flaring as she was caught from behind and spun. Nottingham laughed as Viviana struck at his chest with her small fist.
Harlech pulled the dagger from his belt and took a step out, intending to gut the Italian where he stood, only to freeze as Nottingham spoke.
"My blood runs through your veins, Ana. My mother may have been your mistress, but I created you as surely as God did Eve." He caught her fist before it connected with his face, and took her into his arms. The hot licorice smell of aniseed, dark and pervasive, spread throughout the hall. "You owe me your life."
"My debt to you was paid the night I helped you leave England, my lord. You have no claim on me."
"Do I not?" Nottingham touched her mouth with one gloved fingertip. "Have you forgotten all the nights we shared? How sweetly you gave yourself to me? How I made you scream with pleasure?"
"I was a maiden." She slapped him. "I will never forget how you used me."
"Not even for Harlech's sake?"
Viviana sagged, her breath catching on a sob. "Please, for the love of God, release me. I honor my husband. I am faithful to him. I love—"
Nottingham stopped her words with his mouth.
Harlech watched with a distant, icy wonder as his wife withstood the kiss, and then slid her hands around the Italian's waist.
"You see, Ana," Nottingham whispered as he kissed a path down the side of her neck. "You do remember." He lifted his head and set her back at arm's length. "We will finish this later. Come to me when he sleeps."
Viviana wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "If I come to you again, it will be when you sleep, and the next caress I give you will be with my blade."
Nottingham smiled. "I am all anticipation."
Harlech watched his wife stalk away, as did Nottingham. The only thing that kept him from stabbing the Italian in the back was the pain Harlech saw on his face when he turned back to walk into his rooms. Pain not unlike a man who had been thrown from his horse or kicked in the groin.
Harlech left the guest wing and returned to the ball. He said nothing to Viviana when she came to him, and accepted her excuse of being delayed by a guest in need of her services.
"All these last-minute alterations are a bother," Viviana said as he led her out onto the floor and took her into his arms. "I am sorry to make you wait, but Farlae has no patience for the fine work."
"I would forgive you anything," he told her, seeing her differently. How many times had she gone to Nottingham and done his bidding to protect him? "You are my wife."
"That I am." Her complacent smile faltered as she looked up into his eyes. "Harlech? What is the matter?"
"He will never leave you alone," he heard himself say. "You must know that."
She stumbled over her feet, but he lifted and turned her, smoothly covering the mistake.
"I beg your pardon." She tried to smile up at him. "Never worry about Farlae. I will tell him that Helvise can see to the guests."
"What of Nottingham?" he asked politely. "Will she go to him tonight in your place?"
She paled. "Harlech, what are you saying? Who has told you these lies?"
He spun her to the edge of the dance floor, where he kissed her brow and then looked into her fearful face. "I saw you tonight, outside his rooms, in his arms. I saw how he looked at you. You are in his heart."
"You are wrong." She shook her head. "He never loved me. He only took my life and made me Kyn."
That explained the hold Nottingham had over her. Viviana never spoke of her past, and Harlech had always assumed that, like so many Kyn females, the curse had been passed onto her from a member of her family who had served as a Templar.
Instead, Nottingham had forced immortal life upon her by draining the blood from her body and compelling her to drink his own. Changing humans to Darkyn in such fashion had been possible during the hundred years after the first Kyn had risen to walk the night. Kyn lords created entire households of warriors, servants, and leman to serve them for eternity. Then God had punished the vrykolakas for their arrogance by striking down any human who drank Kyn blood. Before the process of the change could even begin, they all died.
Few things were more durable than the bond between a Darkyn and a human he had turned. Then there was the possibility that a deeper bond had formed between Nottingham and Viviana: that of a lord and his sygkenis. It happened when the change created an emotional and physical dependence between the two. Often only death could sever the ties shared between a Kyn male and his life companion.
Either bond would still affect Viviana, but if she had once been Nottingham's sygkenis, and the Italian had somehow reawakened those feelings, she would be unable to deny him anything.
"Have you given yourself to him since he came here?" When she opened her mouth, he shook her once. "Tell me the truth."
"No." She swallowed and looked down at the floor. "Not yet."
"Then I cannot kill him." He dropped his arms. "Not yet."
"Harlech." Her hands seized his. "We will go away. Somewhere he cannot find us. We will go away and be happy together, as we have always been. Tonight." She gave him a brilliant smile and tugged at his hands. "Come; I will pack our things. We can be gone before the moon rises."
"This is my home. I am not leaving." He took his hands from hers. "You must decide between us now, Vivi. Stay with me, and I will protect you from him. But if you go to him tonight you need not bother returning to me."
She flinched. "You do not know what you ask."
"I ask that you choose to be my wife," he said gently. "Not his lover."
Tears streaked down her face as she gathered up her skirts and fled.
"I take back all the stuff I've said about the Kyn being dull," Alexandra said as Michael led her from the dance floor. The skirts of her ivory gown brushed against his trousers as she twisted, making them whirl. "You guys really know how to party."
"We should." He rested his hand against the small of her back. "We invented the party."
She laughed. "Is there anything the Darkyn haven't done?"
He gave the question serious thought. "Mastering the Macarena. It does not strike us as a particularly attractive dance." After nodding to Lord de Troyes, whose face fell as he saw that they weren't returning to the floor, he sat down with Alexandra at their table and asked, "Were you working in the infirmary all afternoon?"