‘It is now! Our own new step.’ He twirled her around and around, as if she was a mere feather, and indeed she felt like one. Like she floated free high above the world.
She laughed helplessly until her sides ached and tears prickled at her eyes. She couldn’t remember ever laughing so much, or ever being with anyone who made her feel as Juan did—free and light, as if she could be herself for a moment. Their strange, rough little refuge seemed changed entirely to a fairyland.
‘Oh, stop, stop!’ she cried, her feelings overwhelming her.
He lowered her slowly to her feet, but it still felt as if the room spun around them. She clung to him, gasping with laughter. She hadn’t felt so free since she was a child!
‘I think we could start a new fashion in dancing,’ he said, his voice thick with his own laughter.
For an instant, Alys imagined what it might be like to be at court with him. Walking on his arm past those crowds of richly clad people, knowing he was hers and she his. Shyly, she glanced up at him and she was shocked to see he had dropped his careful mask. She glimpsed a stark, naked longing in his eyes, a haunted pain.
Then it was gone, banished behind laughter. He stepped away and bowed again.
Alys fell back a step and rubbed at her arms, suddenly cold again.
‘Thank you for the dance, my lady,’ he said. ‘I think you are quite ready to impress the Queen.’
‘I do doubt it,’ she murmured. She turned away from him, flustered. ‘It—it is cold in here, is it not? I shall bring more blankets when I come back.’
‘I am perfectly comfortable here, Lady Alys,’ he said. ‘You have made it like a true home.’
She glanced around and found that everything did look different than it had only days before, a new place of colour and interest. He made it so; he made the world look different, made her imagine different things, a different life. If only it could be so.
‘I must go now, or I’ll be missed,’ she said. ‘But I will return later.’
He reached for her hand, holding it lightly balanced on his palm as he raised it to his lips. His kiss was warm, soft and light as a cloud and it made her tremble. ‘Thank you, my fair rescuer,’ he whispered.
Alys couldn’t answer. She spun around and hurried out of the room, catching up her shawl to wrap it tightly around her shoulders. The wind outside was chilly, but she welcomed its cold brush against her face. It helped steady her, helped wash away the clouds of dreams that had dared to come into her mind. Dreams of court life, of romance, of dances and kisses. With Juan.
‘Don’t be so silly,’ she told herself as she hurried along the cliffs towards home. Those moments with Juan were only that, dreams, and soon enough they would be gone. But she knew, deep inside, that she herself would never be quite the same again.
Alys tiptoed out of the castle, holding a basket of fresh supplies on her hip. It was growing late, the servants were at their own supper in the kitchens, her father was in his chamber and she had not seen their mysterious guest since their own dinner. It seemed a good time to go to Juan, with the risen moon lighting her path.
She felt a fizzing excitement as she made her way towards the abbey and it made her want to laugh and cry all at the same time. Looking forward to seeing him made her feel alive, in a way she never had before. She dreaded what it would be like when he left again, as he surely would very soon. Dunboyton would be quiet once more, her days filled with her household routines.
Yet she would have memories of him to go over in years to come. That would be enough. It had to be enough.
Alys paused at the top of the cliff steps to shift her basket. It had grown heavier with the climb. The moon shimmered with a silvery glow on the old stones of the abbey, turning their ruin into something jewel-like and magical. It seemed like a night when fairies might appear, when anything could happen.
For an instant, she thought she heard something, a rustle or a footstep.
She whirled around, her heart pounding. Was it the ghosts of the monks, gathering for their prayers under the moon? Or mayhap a far more corporeal danger. There was no guarantee that all Bingham’s men had left the area.
And then there had been the snake. Surely it had not just come out of nowhere, as a sign or a warning. Her old nursemaid would have said it was a demon.
Yet she saw nothing now. She was alone, except for the brush of the wind through the trees.
‘Don’t be so silly,’ she told herself sternly and turned to make her way towards the dairy.
As always when she came to Juan, for a moment she feared he would be gone already, that she would find the old building deserted. She knocked quickly. ‘’Tis me—Alys,’ she called softly.
The door swung open and Juan stood there. He looked almost as if he had been sleeping, his dark hair tousled, his shirt lacings loosened to reveal a vee of golden skin. A smile broke over his sensual lips, wide and delighted, bright as the sun of a summer day, and it made her smile, too. ‘I feared I wouldn’t see you tonight,’ he said as he took the basket from her.
‘Our evening meal took longer than usual,’ she answered. ‘My father has had guests for a couple of days now.’
‘Guests?’ He knelt down to stir the fire, making the flames leap higher. The light gilded his skin, making him seem like a golden god.
To distract herself, Alys started unpacking the food and wine from the basket, laying it out on a blanket as a makeshift table. ‘Not to worry, it wasn’t Bingham’s soldiers returning. I brought you some of the beef and chicken pies that were left, and some of the cook’s fine honey cakes. She doesn’t make them very often.’
‘Then I am most grateful to your guests. I confess I have a terrible sweet tooth.’ He popped one of the small cakes into his mouth and grinned, making Alys laugh.
‘Have you been too bored today?’ Alys asked, pouring herself some wine.
‘Not at all. I read some of the fine books you brought and watched the birds among the ruins. I don’t think I have ever felt so very peaceful in a long time. Maybe never. There truly is a magic in this place.’
Alys remembered when she would come to the abbey with her mother, climbing over the stones, lying in the meadows with the sun on her face. The way it had sheltered her after she lost her mother. ‘It brings me great peace, as well. My nursemaid used to tell me there were fairies living here.’
‘That reminds me, fair Alys—you do owe me a story still. Remember our bargain?’
Alys laughed. ‘I can’t think of any good tales now.’
‘Certainly you can. What of those fairies? Come, entertain me while I eat. I have been alone all day, after all.’ He gave her an exaggerated sad look that made her laugh again.
‘There is a tale I loved as a child,’ she said. ‘It rather reminds me of you.’
‘Of me?’ he said with a laugh.
‘Aye. There are many fairies who live near us and they watch what we do even as we have no awareness of them. Some of them wish evil on humans; some are only mischievous. And some do love us, in their own way, even though their fairy love can destroy us as easily as the illness-causing evil fairies.’
‘Am I an evil fairy, then?’
Alys studied him carefully, his easy smile, his beautiful eyes. ‘Nay. You are the sort who draw unwary mortals closer and closer, until they long for the fairy realm and forget their own homes. Just as the tale my old nurse told