Read The Running Vixen for Free Online Page B

pleasure, you know where the guardroom is!’
    Adam’s eyes darkened. Torn between fury that she should bring it down to this base level, and shame at his own loss of control, he could only stare at her, bereft of words. Heulwen stared back. The air between them trembled. Then she turned from him and fled.
    ‘Oh blood of Christ!’ he snarled and plunged after her, but in the darkness he stumbled over someone’s pallet and came down hard among the rushes, the disturbed sleeper cursing him in English. Adam snapped a scalding reply in gutter French, and struggled up again. In the dim light from the banked fire he could see the snoring servants and men-at-arms, the polished brown highlights of the lord’s oak chair set on the dais, a dreaming dog twitching its paws, but no Heulwen.
    Adam swore again, this time at his own stupidity, and dug his fingers through his hair. He had meant only to comfort, had not realised until he held her how precarious was the line between the need to comfort and the need itself, and his lack of judgement had just cost him dearly. The memory of her frightened anger filled him with chagrin. What if she loathed him now?
    He returned to the solar, found the garnet-eyed flagon and his cup, and set about seeking oblivion in lieu of the sleep that he knew would not come.

3
    Miles, lord of Ashdyke, watched his youngest grandson leap and turn and, with his wooden sword, cut beneath the defences of an imaginary foe. The old man sighed deeply and propped his aching legs on the footstool that Heulwen attentively fetched for him.
    ‘It’s a long time since I was even half so agile,’ he told her wistfully. ‘He’s faster than a flea.’ In his eyes there was pride, for he recognised much of himself in the slight, elfin boy, or as he remembered himself in the unfettered days of a long-distant childhood.
    Heulwen watched her half-brother too, wincing as he clipped the laver and almost sent it crashing over. ‘I suppose you let him wear you out, Grandpa,’ she scolded gently, bringing him a cup of wine.
    ‘Not in the least.’ Miles grinned. ‘It has been a pleasure to have him with me. He’s deadly with a slingshot. Brought down two big pigeons that had been damaging the seedlings in the garth - and very tasty they were too.’
    Heulwen smiled dutifully, the expression not quite reaching her eyes which were full of care. Miles sought her fingers and squeezed them. She looked down at his hand. It was brown and mottled with a twisting blue rootwork of veins, but it was hard and steady and it was her own young unblemished one that trembled. She cast him an anxious look, which he returned with the serenity of long years. ‘We had a visitor while you were away with William.’
    Miles slowly nodded and smiled. ‘I know. Young de Lacey. Eadric told me when I arrived. I dare say when I’ve rested these old bones enough to want to sit a saddle again, I’ll ride over to Thornford and welcome him home.’ His gaze was shrewd. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?’
    Heulwen looked down. ‘I’ve quarrelled with Adam,’ she said in a small voice and swallowed, thinking of the incident of two nights since. She had asked him to the solar, forced her dilemma on him, and then, when his sympathy had turned into something far more dangerous, she had reacted like a wild animal striving to break free of a trap. Even worse, she had accused him as though it had all been his fault, when she knew to her shame that it was not. Her own body had quickened readily to desire, and when she had run from him, she had been running from herself. The following day she had pleaded a megrim as an excuse not to come down to the hall, and Adam, without personal invitation, could not go above. He had asked to speak to her and she had sent her maid Elswith to tell him she was unwell. He had taken the hint, gathered his men and ridden out, and the silence left behind weighed heavily on her conscience.
    ‘There’s nothing new