Page 7 of Never Love a Lord
“Because you’ve never had me.”
Sybilla’s lips curved even as her eyes ached with unshed tears. She would not weep before him. “You think quite a lot of yourself, don’t you?”
“I believe the arrows on yon table speak for me.” His arm tightened around her waist almost imperceptibly. “Trust me. What have you to lose?”
She noticed that her left hand was lying atop Julian Griffin’s forearm. Through the thick, quilted silk, she could feel his strength. Her fingers curled around his arm of their own accord, as if she would cling to him.
“Send them away,” she said, her eyes staring into the black shadows down the length of her hall, swelling with tears until the little lights from the candles were tiny shimmering suns.
“You are as wise as you are beautiful,” he whispered so low that her ears barely registered the words. Then, louder, he said, “Call off your guards, else the moment I release you, I am a dead man.”
Sybilla nodded. “Stand down!” she shouted up toward the darkened balconies. “There is no reason for alarm. I am unharmed and will remain so as long as you make no move to attack Lord Griffin. He is our guest now, and I order you all tostand down.”
Although there was no discernible movement from the upper-level shadows, Sybilla knew her command would be heeded. And yet Julian Griffin did not readily release her.
“Lord Griffin,” she said in a sharp whisper.
“Hmm?” he breathed at her neck.
“You may release me now.”
“May I?” he taunted low. “What if I don’t wish to?”
Sybilla was finished playing about with Julian Griffin. Although his touch was eliciting a physical response from her, she would not continue to be handled by him in her own hall. He was fast, as he had already proven by his agile leap across her table; he was crafty, evidenced by his swift commandeering of her blade. Perhaps she had underestimated his abilities upon his arrival, but she would not do so again.
Julian Griffin needed to learn that, despite any physical prowess he might possess, he was ill matched in this battle.
Sybilla thought of the standing candelabra at his back, and brought the ornate arms and slender, flickering tapers clearly to her mind’s eye while she remembered the feel of the wild wind atop Fallstowe’s turret.
“Do as you wish,” she stated mildly, with a smile on her lips even, “but it may prove difficult for you to put out the fire without the use of both your arms.”
“What fire?” he asked in a bemused whisper. But in the next instant, he was shouting his alarm and Sybilla was free.
She took up her dagger at once before turning to see him slap at the small wave of flames rolling up his shoulder and back, and Sybilla struggled to keep her face serene as he turned in a circle to reach the extent of the fire, rather like a dog chasing its tail.
His impressive mane was now at risk, and Julian Griffin glared at her. “Could you help?”
Sybilla held out her palms, her golden dagger resting in one. “Shall I stab at the flames?”
He had no time to answer before Graves, ever dutiful, gained the dais, the slop bucket from beneath the table in his capable and ready hands. Fallstowe’s steward tossed the contents of the wooden pail at Lord Julian Griffin, reducing the flames on his back to little more than hissing smoke.
Sybilla had never fought so hard against laughter in the whole of her life. There stood Julian Griffin, King Edward’s own man, before her, no longer afire but now drenched with the remnants of the supper meal of hours ago: old mead, wine, and milk dripped from his hair; a chicken leg bone stuck to the front of his tunic; spongy crusts of bread tumbled slowly down his front like fat, furry caterpillars.
Graves set the slop bucket down on the floor with a hollowthunk. “Are you injured, Lord Griffin?” he asked solicitously.
The man swiped at his face with his right forearm, the only spot on his person not at the moment covered with either refuse or soot, and then addressed Sybilla.
“There was a pitcher at your elbow,” he accused her.
Sybilla turned around and indicated the empty tabletop. “Sorry, no.” She continued as Julian frowned and leaned to the side to peer around her and see the evidence for himself. “You must have knocked it over on your impressive flight across my table.”
He leaned down straightaway but was standing aright again in an instant. “It’s not there. What did you do with it? And I am no closer than six feet from that candelabra. It is impossible that it could have touched me.”
Sybilla raised her eyebrows. “What exactly are you suggesting, Lord Griffin? That I not only somehow managed to set you afire while you were holding me quite captive, but that I also made a pitcher and chalice to magically disappear?”
She thought he may have growled at her for an instant. But then he continued in a slightly more civilized tone. “I have heard of your talent for sleight of hand.”
“Really?” Sybilla mused. “Is that what they’re calling it now?”
