Read The Mistress Of Normandy for Free Online Page A

foreigner.
    Absently she tapped her chin. The novelty of anonymity intrigued her. The necessity of it, because Lazare had destroyed any trust she might have in a stranger, made her say only, “Lianna.”
    “Your face is completely black, Lianna.”
    Vaguely annoyed at the mixture of humor and censure dancing in his leaf-green eyes, she lifted her hand, touched her cheek, and looked at her fingertips. Black as soot. At least the concealing powder hid the hot blush pouring into her cheeks.
    “I...mismeasured the charge,” she said.
    “So it seems.” He took her hands and drew her down to sit on a bed of dry bracken. “I know little of such things.”
    “ Nom de Dieu, but I do,” she said with self-contempt. “I should have trusted the precision of science instead of my own eyes.”
    “ Alors, pucelle, how does one so fair possess a knowledge so deadly?”
    “My...father was a gunner. He indulged my interest.”
    He frowned at the blackened gun. “Then your father was a fool.”
    She thrust up her chin but resisted the urge to defend her father and sink deeper into untruths.
    “Hold still,” he said. “I’ll clean you off.”
    She was never one to obey orders, but, unrecovered from the shock of the explosion and the surprise of meeting this mesmerizing stranger, she sat unmoving. He reached beneath his mail shirt, pulled out a small cloth bundle, and unwrapped a loaf of bread. With the cloth, he began cleansing her face. His light, gentle strokes felt soothing, but the odd intimacy of the gesture revived her anger.
    “Why did you sneak up on me? You ruined my aim.”
    “That,” he said, brushing her chin, “was my intent. The leveret was a doe, and nursing.”
    She scowled. “How could you tell that?”
    “Her shape. She was not as plump as she looked, only appeared so because her dugs were full.”
    Lianna prayed he’d not yet revealed enough of her face to discern her new blush.
    “You wouldn’t have wished to slay a nursing mother, would you?”
    “Of course not. I just hadn’t thought of it.”
    He held out the loaf to her. “Bread?”
    “Thank you, no. I wasn’t hunting my dinner.”
    “Blood sport, then?” he asked, mildly accusing.
    “ Nom de Dieu, I am not a wanton killer. I merely wished to test my gun on a moving target.”
    “I doubt Mistress Rabbit would have appreciated the difference.”
    She shrugged. “I probably would have missed anyway. My aim is imprecise, the weapon passing crude.”
    Like a parent wiping away a child’s tear, he daubed the delicate flesh beneath her left eye. “Your eyes are silver, pucelle. ”
    “Gray.”
    “Silver, like the underside of a cloud at dawn.”
    “Gray, like the stone walls of a keep during a siege.”
    “Argue not, pucelle. I’ve a sense about such things. Stone does not capture the light and reflect it, while your eyes—” he cleansed beneath her right one “—most assuredly do.”
    * * *
    Bit by bit, Rand uncovered the face beneath the soot. As he worked, his amazement and fascination grew like a bud warmed by the sun. He’d come to survey the area for brigands and have a glimpse of his barony. Instead he’d found a beautiful girl and a deadly weapon, two surprises and one of them curiously welcome.
    Moving aside a pale lock of hair, he brushed the last of the soot from her cheeks. Black dust clung stubbornly to her brows and lashes, but at last her face was revealed to him. The cloth dropped from his fingers as he stared.
    Sitting in the nest of her blue homespun surcoat, she stared back with huge, unblinking silver eyes. Her face was a delicate, pale oval shaped by fragile bones and small, fine features. Despite a lingering shadow of soot, he could discern that her skin was the ivory of a lily, with the shade of apple blossoms at her cheeks and lips. His body quickened at the sight.
    An unexpected thunderbolt of awareness struck him. He desired this girl; he burned for her with a yearning Jussie had never aroused. Calling up