Lady of Fire by Tamara Leigh

Author:Tamara Leigh
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Medieval
Published: 2014-11-22T14:00:00+00:00

Though tempted to forgo the nooning meal, Alessandra gathered herself together as a woman would do and left the cabin.

When she entered the galley, Lucien and Nicholas looked up from their meal of salted meat and fish.

She inclined her head and came around the table to seat herself on the long bench beside Lucien.

“Sit next to Nicholas,” he said.

She halted. Had she so angered him that he did not wish her near?

“A lesson,” he clarified, and she knew he had glimpsed her distress.

A lesson, she mulled as she advanced on his cousin, not as dire as him being angry, but unwelcome, nonetheless.

Aware of the strain between her and Nicholas, despite it having abated, she lowered herself several feet from him.

Without looking up from the meat from which he was pulling a strip, Lucien said, “Closer.”

“Why?”

“Closer, Alessandra.”

She edged nearer.

“More.”

She looked to Nicholas. Though his attention was on his goblet, there was a smile in the corner of his lips.

Determined to upend his private humor, even at the cost of looking childish—surely even a woman could enjoy herself from time to time—she slid so near him their thighs touched. And gained what she sought.

Mouth suddenly weighted, he snapped his gaze to her.

It was Alessandra’s turn to smile. “This close?” She looked to Lucien.

“No respectable English lady would sit so near a man in public,” he growled, “not even her own husband.”

“I must remember that,” she said, though she did not move. Thus, it was Nicholas who put space between them.

Shortly, the wiry old cook came out from behind the screen in the corner. Bearing two trenchers, he set one before Lucien, the other between Alessandra and Nicholas.

She peered into the stale, hollowed-out loaf of bread that held a thick concoction in which unappetizing foodstuffs floated. “I fear I am not very hungry.”

Lucien arched an eyebrow. “Still, you will eat, for there is no lesson otherwise. Now try the stew.”

She lifted the spoon and reached to pull the trencher in front of her, but Nicholas’s hand shot out and prevented her from doing so.

“Now what?” she exclaimed as she turned a frown upon him.

“It is also Nicholas’s trencher,” Lucien said. “In England, sharing food between two is common.”

It was difficult enough becoming accustomed to dining among men, but to also share food?

“Did your mother not tell you of such things?” Lucien asked.

She did recall Sabine speaking of it, but it had only been talk. How primitive the reality. “She did.”

“Then I need not explain further.”

She sighed and scooped up a spoonful of stew. The dish proved more palatable than it looked—indeed, it was tastier than anything she had thus far been served aboard ship.

She dipped again, and her spoon collided with Nicholas’s.

“You must await your turn,” Lucien said.

She withdrew and watched as Nicholas took his time fishing for a worthy morsel. Finally, his spoon curved around a large piece of meat. And abandoned it.

Alessandra looked up and found him watching her.

“Mayhap you would like to choose one for me, my lady,” he said.

She drew back.

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