The Heat of the Knight by Scottie Barrett

Author:Scottie Barrett
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Scottie Barrett
Published: 2016-06-07T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Christiana knelt over the lavender plants and plucked out several of the overcrowded seedlings. The garden had soaked up the rain and turned a bit wild.

Sir Rascal stood abruptly and growled. Shading her eyes with her hand, Christiana watched as a slim silhouette of a boy approached. It was Thomas. She jumped up and brushed the dirt from her knees. The poor lad’s face was blotchy and swollen.

“Were you stung?”

“This ain’t no fault of the bees. Me mum weren’t happy with me today for forgetting to milk old Bessie.” He rubbed his mottled cheek.

Christiana had never known his mother to show any violence toward him. Perhaps, she worried, the widow had followed her husband’s example and taken to drink.

“Strange you askin’ about the bees, though. Someone hacked up the hive. ’Tis all in pieces. The bees have left the village walls. They are in the apple orchard, and Agnes is raging ’cause I can’t pay the tax in beeswax. And me mum blames me.”

“You haven’t any idea who destroyed the hive?”

He scrunched up his face with a look of concern. Encrusted dirt defined his frown lines. “Some vile crank. Though I suspect Farley’s John may have done the deed. He’s an envious lad.”

He raked his fingers through his hair, plowing furrows in the greasy locks. “As you can see, I’m in a rough spot.” His thin chest heaved as he took a deep breath. “I’ve come to plead for your help. Since you once kept the bees, I thought you might be more clever at discovering where the queen might have landed. I was hoping to find where they started the new hive and carry it back home.” His eyes widened suddenly. “What happened to your lovely hair?”

With a sad smile, she quickly donned her caped hood. “Shall we go?”

Thomas had a gait as awkward as a colt’s. In the short time she’d been at the castle, he’d grown taller. His sleeves exposed knobby wrists. She hadn’t remembered him as a timid boy, yet a permanent blush seemed to stain his cheeks, and he kept peering sideways at her through his sparse lashes. Perhaps this unease came from his unhappy home life. She would ask Beckett to consider him for a position in the stables or as a page.

“’Tis the lord’s woman,” the guard said in a rough whisper meant for her ears.

Once through the gates, escape occurred to her, but she was already becoming spoiled by Beckett’s mastery in bed. Her body still ached deliciously from the attention he’d lavished on her in the night.

Instead of taking the path to the village, they made a sharp turn and traveled along the castle’s outer curtain. She wondered that the bees had been attracted to the ancient orchard. Because of blight, the trees hadn’t flowered in years. Thomas took her on a winding tour between the gnarled, dead trees. Finally, they stopped at the edge of the orchard. Beyond was a wide swath of brown grass, and then the forest loomed.

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