Scarlet Moon (Once Upon a Time), Page 3

  The tears coursed down her cheeks, and she let them. This was the only place such tears were welcome. In the village she had to be strong, both in the shop and at home. Her father did not welcome tears, believing them to be a sign of weakness. Weakness was a privilege that Ruth had given up the day Stephen left for the crusades. Her father was a kind man, but he kept his emotions hidden.

  When she was younger he had been a little warmer, but the departure of her brother had been hard on him. Though he only reluctantly accepted her help at the shop, he did treat her as more of a man than he wished she was.

  He wishes I would act more like a young woman. Yet, where the work is concerned he treats me like a man. I guess it is the only way he can reconcile the thought of a woman working at a man’s job. Things might have been so different. How would my life have played out if I had never gone to work at the shop, if I had never learned to fight, if Stephen had never left?

  Stephen. Over and over in her mind she imagined her brother dying, run through with a sword on a bloody field, his body falling slowly to the ground. In her mind she saw his eyes as he died, the love and hope fading slowly from them until there was nothing left.

  “Monkshood needs to be avoided at all costs,” Giselle said.

  Ruth snapped back to attention and watched as her grandmother displayed a plant with deep green leaves and clusters of dark blue flowers.

  “This one brings only death, swift and ugly. The tiniest amount of it can cause numbness, and a little more can cause death. It is popularly used as a poison. It grows in moist soil. I haven’t been able to find a single positive use for it yet.”

  James turned noticeably paler. “What do you experiment on?” he asked, his voice quavering a little.

  Ruth bit her lip to keep from howling with laughter. She knew all too well what the answer was going to be.

  “I will tell you when you are ready to know,” Giselle answered.

  James’s eyes widened in alarm and Mary gave a little gasp. Ruth hid her smile behind her hand.

  At least Grandmother can still make me laugh, she thought. The truth was, Ruth herself didn’t know what Giselle experimented on. For a while she had suspected it was animals, but her grandmother cared too much for the woodland creatures to risk harming them.

  Then Ruth had thought her grandmother experimented on herself, but that seemed too dangerous and ill-conceived to be true. At last she had come to terms with the fact that she likely would never know. I would tease her and say she experiments on the townspeople, but given their hatred of her, and her banishment, she would likely find it painful rather than humorous.

  “Well, I believe that will be all for today,” Giselle said at last. Her voice sounded strong and clear, almost cheerful, but Ruth could see the pain and exhaustion in her eyes. In one day she had found one grandson and lost another.

  Ruth rose and went to her grandmother, throwing her arms around her. The action startled Mary and James, who were unused to seeing such open displays of affection.

  “I’ll be all right,” Giselle whispered against her ear.

  Ruth nodded, sniffing slightly as she pulled away. Giselle reached out a hand and caught one of her tears. “Do you need to stay here tonight?” she asked, eyes loving and concerned.

  “No, I should go home. Father needs me more than ever.”

  “Then go, and be safe.”

  Mary and James rose from their seats on the floor and said their good-byes. Together, the three of them left the cabin. Outside the cabin they parted ways. As Ruth faced the path she would take back through the woods, she shivered.

  It was near dusk when the three left the cabin in the woods. Two went their own way, by a path known only to them, and they were safe. The third walked the same path she always walked, and the trees were afraid for her. It was not safe in the woods—a predator lurked just out of her sight.

  The trees whispered, the trees moaned, but still she ignored them. At last a wind whipped up, and as it passed through their limbs the trees began to shriek. She looked up, her face white with fear.

  Yes, hurry home, child. Your father is waiting and the wolf is close behind. She broke into a trot and they whistled, encouraging her. Faster, he is close at hand. One of them sacrificed a branch, letting it fall scant feet from her. She screamed and began to run. Satisfied, the trees began to whisper again amongst themselves.

  Ruth was drenched in sweat when she burst out of the forest. She panted as she slowed slightly, her eyes fixed on the village. Heart pounding, she forced her tired legs to keep moving.

  Why am I so afraid? she wondered. ’Twas only a falling branch. No matter what she told herself, though, she couldn’t shake the feeling that it had been something more than that. There are times when I hear something—a whisper, a voice—like the trees are trying to tell me something. She shuddered as she slowed at last to a walk. The first time I heard it was the day the wolf attacked.

  She stopped just short of her home, not yet ready to go in and see her father and Peter. She stood, still winded, trying to banish the fear from her mind, but it was hopeless.

  It doesn’t matter what else I’m feeling, the fear is always there. If I’m happy, there is still the fear. If I’m angry, there is still the fear. She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe more slowly. And if I’m sad, the fear is overpowering. No matter how strong I am, how much I can lift, or how well I can fight, I’m still afraid.

  She turned and glanced over her shoulder with a shudder. The trees looked like ghosts as the evening fog rolled in. They swayed and shook, though she felt no breeze. what the woods were, at least for her. For a moment she thought she saw something slipping between the trees, a gray phantom. It’s just one more of my ghosts, she thought. To me, there will always be a wolf in these woods. She turned away and forced herself to take the last few steps home.

  Chapter Three

  Ruth mopped the sweat from her brow and marveled at how much hotter the forge seemed than usual. The air in the shop felt superheated and she was having a hard time catching her breath. Today a skirt would have been helpful, at least cooler than trousers, she thought.

  “I’m heading over to the parson’s place,” her father grumbled.

  She glanced up with a smile.

  “I thought having my own shop, a place where I could work and people could come to me, meant that I wouldn’t have to go out so often.”

  “What needs to be done?” she asked.

  “One of the large candlesticks is bent and wax is dripping onto the altar, apparently.”

  “I could go if you like,” Ruth offered.

  “No,” he said, not even stopping to think about it. “You stay here. Simon should be by to pick up those blades a little later. Make sure he pays.”

  “I will,” she promised.

  Ruth watched him leave with a trace of envy. Her father hated leaving the shop to perform his job elsewhere, but she could use a change. He would never let her go, though. He was already concerned enough about her image. Having her out working in the public eye would just make it worse.

  She turned back to what she was doing. Now that Peter was home, he might begin to help out as soon as he felt stronger.

  After working for nearly an hour, she heard footsteps behind her and turned to see a tall, burly man enter the shop.

  “Good afternoon, Simon,” she said.

  Simon, a tanner by trade, grunted in reply, “Your father here?” he demanded.

  “No, but your new blades are ready,” she said, nodding toward one of the worktables.

  He crossed and picked one up, examining its edge by running it lightly along his thumb. Even from a couple of feet away she could see the thin line of blood that appeared with the blades passing. It gave her a good feeling to see the sharpness of her blades and to know that her work had paid off.

  “They’ll skin a deer twice as fast as your old ones,” she asserted, moving toward him.

  He tucked the two blades into the ba
ck of his belt before sucking the blood from his skin. “I’ll take them because I need them, but I won’t pay for such shoddy work.”

  “Shoddy work!” she exclaimed, cut to the quick. “I assure you both my father and I worked on them, and they are the finest blades in these parts.”

  “I figure a woman would think so,” he grunted, giving her a withering glance. “Tell your father that when he can make better blades I’ll pay for them,” he said, starting toward the door.

  “You’ll pay for these now,” Ruth told him, moving between him and the door.

  “Out of my way, girl, before you get hurt.”

  She balled her hands into fists at her side and braced herself. She might be afraid of wolves and woods, but common men didn’t frighten her. “I know you, Simon, and I won’t be the one getting hurt.”

  “Run home to your father, girl. Maybe if you ask nice he can find a husband for you, if there is a man out there willing to bed you.”

  “You swine!” she shrieked. She lunged forward and hit him, hearing a crunch as her fist connected with his nose.

  He staggered back with an oath, his hands flying to his face. Then with a roar he lunged toward her. She sidestepped and boxed his ear as he lumbered past. He turned, one of the skinning knives in his hand, and was about to come at her again when a man strode into the building and stepped between them.

  “Good sir, you will pay this lady what she is due and leave this place.” The stranger was tall and very well dressed.

  “And who might you be?” Simon asked with a bloodstained sneer.

  “William, Earl of Lauton.”

  Simon turned pale and took three quick steps backward. “I’m sorry, milord,” he muttered, dropping his eyes.

  Simon dug into a pouch at his belt and placed three coins on a table before turning and stumbling out of the shop. Ruth snatched up the coins and contemplated throwing them at his retreating back, but she took a deep breath and clutched them tightly in her fist instead.

  “Did he hurt you?” the earl asked after a moment.

  “No,” she spat. “And if you hadn’t interfered I might have knocked some sense into him. Now I’m just going to have to deal with him later.”

  He laughed out loud, his eyes dancing. “My apologies, milady. Next time I will just stand back and watch.”

  “Thank you,” she said, taking a deep breath. They stood still for a few moments as Ruth tried to force her body to relax and her heart to slow. She found it hard to do under his watchful eye.

  At last she turned and looked at him closely. He was tall; her chin only came up to his chest. His wavy brown hair just brushed his shoulders. His skin was bronzed, with the look of one who spent much time outdoors. Then she looked into his eyes and her heart skipped a beat. He had the most mesmerizing green eyes she had ever seen. There was something magnetic and exotic about them, and she felt as though she were drowning in their depths.

  She forced herself to break the contact as she realized that her heart was still racing but for an entirely different reason. Perhaps it was that realization that startled her into remembering her manners. She began to curtsy, but then remembered she was not wearing a skirt. She blushed for one awkward moment before finally bowing deeply. When she stood back up, Ruth thought she caught him smiling. “I’m sorry, milord, you caught me at an inopportune moment. I did not mean to offend you.”

  “Don’t do that,” he said softly.

  “What?” she asked, startled.

  “Don’t remember that you are a blacksmith and I am an earl. I liked you better when you didn’t care a whit who I was.”

  She found herself smiling despite herself. “You’ll have to forgive me; I often have a different view of life than others.”

  “Of course you do; you’re a woman in a man’s clothes and with a man’s work. You’re a lady and a blacksmith. I praise your father for his courage in raising you as both.”

  She shook her head, bemused. “I’d give you these coins to hear you tell him that.”

  “I shall tell him, and you can keep the coins.”

  “What is it you came for, William?” she asked, daring to use his name and knowing how many would be shocked to hear her do so.

  He smiled his approval. “My horse threw a shoe not twenty paces from your door.”

  “Well then, that is fortunate for both of us.” she answered.

  “Yes, it would seem so.”

  “Fetch your horse and put him in that stall,” she said, pointing.

  He bowed low before disappearing outside« She didn’t have even a moment to collect herself before he reappeared, leading a magnificent black stallion.

  “Beautiful,” she murmured almost involuntarily.

  “Are you referring to me or the horse?” William asked with a wink.

  She laughed and fought down the urge to throw something at him. “My, aren't we arrogant. I was, of course, referring to the animal.”

  “Then, you were talking about me,” he said, his smile gone in an instant and his eyes glinting with a hard light.

  Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at him. In that moment it was easy to see him as an animal—a wild, dangerous creature that would consume her if she only let him.

  Then the steely look was gone and the smile again in its place. He led the horse into the stall and secured it. Ruth brushed past him and entered the stall.

  “Which shoe?”

  “Left foreleg.”

  “Easy, boy,” she crooned as she slid her hand down the horses silken leg.

  When she reached his hoof he lifted it for her without a fuss. “You have lovely manners,” she told him.

  “He learned them from me,” William offered.

  “You sure it wasn’t the other way around?”

  He guffawed, sounding for a moment like a horse, and she laughed quietly to herself. She studied the horse’s hoof for a moment.

  “You treat all your customers this way?” William asked.

  “No, you’re special.”

  “And here I asked for no special treatment,” he teased.

  “Well, that will teach you.”

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  She let go of the hoof and straightened. “Hand me one of those files on that table. His hoof needs to be shaved a little before I can put on a new shoe.”

  William hurried to do as she asked. She slid her hand down the horses leg again, and this time he picked his hoof up before she asked. Holding it steady between her knees, she filed the edge down. As she leaned slightly into the great beasts shoulder, he nickered softly.

  “He likes you,” William said, his tone sincere.

  “The feeling is quite mutual. He’s a wonderful animal.”

  She returned the file to William. “Can you get me one of the shoes hanging from the first nail on the wall, closest to me. I also need a hammer and some nails from the table below it.”

  He grabbed the things she needed and handed her the hammer, the shoe, and one of the nails. He stood close at hand with the rest.

  She fitted the shoe onto the stallion and drove the first nail into the hoof easily. William placed the next one into her outstretched hand, brushing her fingers with his own. Her skin warmed at the contact, but she tried not to think about it.

  Ruth finished quickly and patted the horse on the shoulder. “Thank you for your assistance,” she told William as she let herself out of the stall.

  “The pleasure was mine,” William said with a smile. “What do I owe you?”

  She shrugged. “Let’s call it even. After all, you did save me from having to kill the tanner.”

  The smile disappeared, and the steel returned to his gaze. “Dear lady, I would have killed him myself before I would have let you stain your hands with his miserable blood.”

  She didn’t know what to say, so she just stood, staring mutely into his eyes. Suddenly he bent closer, and for one heart-stopping moment she thought he was going to kiss her. Instead he whis
pered low and fierce, “Thank you.”

  “For what?” she breathed.

  He smiled grimly and shook his head before moving to the stall and leading his horse out. He left the shop without a word or a backward glance. Ruth walked to the door and watched as he mounted his horse and rode off. Puzzled and feeling slightly dazed, she turned back inside and saw a small pouch sitting on the table next to the file she had used on his horse’s hoof.

  She picked it up and gasped when she saw that it was filled with coins. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  William’s head was spinning as he galloped his horse toward the castle. The girl had seemed so familiar to him; something about her had called to him, but he didn’t know what it was. He hadn’t even found out her name, though her face would forever haunt his dreams. For a moment he had been able to forget all the darkness in his life and he had felt truly free.

  Freedom was not his, though, no matter how much he yearned for it. Mine is a life already destined, the course of my future plotted, thanks to the actions of my ancestors and this legacy they left me. He cursed his fate as he spurred his mount on.

  Minutes later the hooves of his steed clattered on the stones in the castle courtyard. He slid from the stallion’s back and tossed the reins to a waiting servant.

  He strode into the main hall of the castle, his boots causing hollow echoes to sound throughout, until he reached the great wall, where a portrait of each marquis of Lauton hung. His father’s was at the end, and next to it was a space where William’s would one day hang when his father was dead and he, himself, was marquis.

  He glared at the wall. Four centuries of Lautons all stared back at him, their eyes accusing him as they always did. “I have done nothing to deserve this,” he hissed.

  He looked at each portrait in turn, beginning with the first—William, his namesake. All of them had the same strong jaw, the same high cheekbones, the same wavy hair. There was one thing that not all of them shared, however. The first six Lautons did not have it, but all the rest did. All the rest had a darkness to them, a hungry, predatory look in their eyes. William knew that look; he had seen it in his own eyes when staring into pools of water.