tied at least twice each day to keep it from poking where it does not belong. But, since I am finished here anyway, you may have your privacy.” He turned, retreated half a stride, and hesitated again. “You might want to heed a warning and stay well clear of the waterfall. It may look harmless enough, but the bottom is tangled with weeds as thick around as a man’s arm.”
She shook her head without looking up. “I do not know how to swim. I would not venture deeper than my ankles, but … I thank you for the warning.”
The Wolf’s mask of determined indifference slipped yet again and he raked his hands through his hair with an impatient gesture. “I make no excuses for my behaviour, but it has been a long time since my men or I have been in the company of gentlewomen, and, tempers being what they are …”
Servanne clasped her hands tighter. Was he attempting to apologize? Was he suffering pangs of guilt over the abominal way he had treated her last night—as well he should! If she thought it was worth the effort, she would have spat in his face and told him how much she cared to hear his lame excuses and apologies.
“It is not my wish to cause you any further discomfort, Lady Servanne. My quarrel is not with you.”
“It is with the man who is soon to be my husband,” she said tersely. “Therefore, sir, your quarrel is indeed with me.”
The faintest hint of a bemused smile passed across the Wolf’s mouth. Spirited … and loyal too; qualities that would do her good stead in the days ahead. Whether they would be enough to see her through, he had no idea, but for the moment, they earned her more respect than would have been won through weeping, wailing, and swooning off her feet at each turn of a phrase.
He accepted her rebuke with uncharacteristic silence. His slate-gray eyes lifted to the burnished blue vault of the sky above and moved slowly, speculatively around the ring of trees until they settled finally on the source of the waterfall high on the escarpment.
“This place is called the Silent Pool,” he murmured absently. “According to legend, it was filled by the tears of a maiden who had fallen hopelessly in love with one of the monks from the abbey. Unfortunately, the bishop lusted after her too, and one night, on his way from the monastery to the village, the young monk met with an “accident” and fell from the promontory. The maiden knelt by his body and wept until the basin was filled with her tears, ensuring that she and her lover could remain here undisturbed for all of eternity. To show their sympathy and approval for the sacrifice she made, the druids cast a spell over the pool … a spell of absolute silence,” he added cynically “that can only be broken by a love fulfilled.”
Servanne found herself swaying to the melodic drone of his voice. “You believe in curses and spells?”
“I believe what my eyes see and my ears hear. Look around you. Listen. The forest is teeming with birds and animals, but not one is ever seen or heard near the pool. The waterfall makes no sound where it runs into the basin; the leaves move on the branches, but say nothing to the wind.”
Servanne raised her head with an effort. Surely this was another form of torment, for she heard sounds, a great many of them rushing and hissing in her ears. She tried to obey his command to look up at the trees, but the sun was a hot, hazy blur and its glare off the surface of the water made her feel dizzy and disoriented. Cleaving that glare into a mass of sparkling pinpoints of light, was the tall, shadowy figure who moved suddenly toward her.
The Black Wolf reached the lip of the rock an instant before Servanne’s head would have struck it. The act of catching her jolted her eyes open briefly, but they fluttered closed again, the lashes falling like stilled butterfly wings against the ashen skin.
“Little fool,” he murmured. “It is a wonder you have held your head up this long.”
Cradling her against his chest, he lifted her carefully into his arms and waded with her to a point on the bank where he could more easily step out of the knee-deep water. He carried her back up the slope and returned along the path to