Wicked (6 page)

He turned and moved swiftly toward her again. After a few more failed attempts to trap the King’s daughter, the hoodman was on toward someone else, and the princess glanced back up at Sofia and waved frantically for her to come down.

Sofia quickly stuffed that third piece of cake into her mouth until her cheeks bulged with it, then she grabbed her gown and ran down the stone steps. She was still chewing when she joined her hands with Eleanor and watched the tall young man in the center as he chased the others.

After a time of watching the game, watching the hoodman and who he went after, Sofia leaned close to her cousin and whispered, “Do you see, Eleanor, how this hoodman only grabs for the girls with bosoms?”

“Sofia!” Her cousin burst out laughing, a sound that made the hoodman spin around and face them.

“You laugh!” he said, moving toward them.

Sofia did the opposite of everyone else; she took a step toward him, her hands on her hips and her chin held high. “I say that the hoodman is not blind enough!”

The hoodman did not move, but turned a small bit so he was facing her. He cocked his head. “How blind does this new lady wish me to be?”

“Blind enough to not conquer only the pawns who have breasts!”

There was a cheer of raucous laughter.

“De Clare! She challenges you!”

Sofia knew that de Clare was the Earl of Gloucester’s family name. The hoodman must be his son.

The hoodman gave her a grand bow. “Someone here is not blind, I see.”

“Ah! There. He just admitted that he can see.” Sofia could not keep the cockiness from her voice. She delighted in twisting his words in her favor.

“See?” He did not move, but stood where he was, his hand rubbing his chin in feigned thought. “Suppose I told you that I have a gift and I can see with my mind.”

“Suppose I told you I can fly.”

Everyone laughed.

“The lady doubts my powers of perception.”

“The lady believes the cloth is not thick enough.”

Sofia looked straight at him, knowing instinctively that he could see her.

He laughed again, holding his hands out from his sides as if he were innocent, a performance for everyone. “Perhaps the lady would like to blindfold me herself.”

“Do it, Sofia!”

“Aye! Here is a piece of thicker cloth for a blindfold! It shall be dark enough!” One of the young men tossed her a tunic belt made of midnight silk.

Sofia took the hoodman’s challenge eagerly and swaggered forward, relishing her victory and this verbal sparring with a tall, young stranger who was a powerful earl’s son, particularly one who also needed his ego clipped. “You must kneel before me, hoodman, for I am no thick-headed giant.”

He only laughed at her jibe, then knelt down before her.

She stepped closer.

“You questioned my honor.” His voice was quiet, for her ears alone.

“How honorable is it to cheat?’ Her voice was not quiet. She wanted all to hear. There was no victory in secrecy and whispered threats.

“You claim that I cheat?”

“Aye.”

“You sound certain, milady.”

“Aye. I am.” She gave a sharp nod.

“I see. This is a challenge.”

The others began to murmur.

She would not back down from a challenge. She liked this banter between them. “Aye.” Her voice was firm and she lifted her chin and looked to her cousin, feeling very fine indeed.

“Then as my challenger, you must pay a forfeit if I prove you wrong.”

She whipped her head back around and stared at him. Was he daft? “You claim, hoodman, that you can still catch me with two blindfolds?” She laughed heartily. She would tie the second blindfold so tightly his ears would stick to his big head.

“Aye,” he boasted with an assurance that would have been unsettling if it were not so intriguing.

She would never back down from a challenge. Because she was a woman, her pride was almost all she had. She studied him for a long time. She could feel his eyes on her, even though he wore the black hood. She looked down at the silk in her hand. This second blindfold was a double thickness of woven silk and even darker than the hood she wore. She held it up to the sunlight and could see nothing through it. There was no risk here. ’Twas a certain thing.

“The lady hesitates,” he goaded.

He was bluffing. The buffoon.

“If you can catch me with both blindfolds, I will pay any forfeit.” She raised her chin and looked right at the black hood, right to where his eyes must have been.

“Then tie the second blindfold.” He knelt and bent his head for her. As she made the knot, she wondered what possessed him to make a wager he was certain to lose. She stared down at the black hood, wondering for just a flash of an instant what color his hair was underneath. What his face looked like? His eyes? His voice was deep, not like the other lads, whose voices would crack at times and squeak like cart wheels that cried out for oil.

His height was tall enough to hint that he was only a few years away from manhood and probably a squire. There was no doubt he was from a wealthy family, for the cut of his garments was finely done and the fabric heavy with expensive trim and fine needlework. His boots were of glove-soft leather, the kind that came from Spain and cost dearly.

From what he had said she knew he was the son of an earl. He had said as much. But there were many sons of the King’s earls she did not know because of fostering.

As she finished tying the knot, she looked down at his hooded head and she cursed herself for not paying more attention during the feast meal, when all the guests were sitting at tables in the hall and she, who sat just below the head table on the dais, was in a position high enough to the salt for her to have seen every guest. Then she would know what he looked like.

If she had only been paying attention, which she had not She had been intent on stuffing her face with wedding treats and frumenty. She stepped away from him.

“Hoodman! Name your forfeit!” Someone called as he rose to his feet. Gracefully and surprisingly, the way heavily armored knights did.

She cast a quick glance at him. He
was
tall, that one. She retreated a step or two.

“Aye!” All the circle agreed. “Name the forfeit!”

He said nothing, but stood there so tall and straight that it was like looking up at the tower. She felt suddenly small, which annoyed her. She did not want to feel frail and inconsequential.

She waited, and waited.

He was silent.

She wondered what he was waiting for. When he still said nothing she looked around her, at the others, then shrugged and relaxed her stance. “Perhaps I tied the blindfold so tightly the hoodman can no longer think
or
speak.”

Everyone laughed again.

Then his voice cut through their laughter. “I demand three kisses from my challenger.”

“
Three
kisses?’ she whispered, frozen to the ground like a deer caught in a snowdrift. “What kind of a forfeit is that?”

“The best kind.”

There was more laughter and cheering by the others, which annoyed her to no end. Kisses? Who would think of kisses. It certainly had never entered her mind. Think, she told herself. And think she did, quickly, and she spoke just as quickly, “
Three
kisses? Is that not gluttony, hoodman?”

“No more gluttonous than three pieces of cake,” he said quietly.

She was stunned to silence—a miracle to those who knew her—and she did little more than stand there in the center of the game circle and gape at him, until she realized what she was doing. She then clamped her mouth closed, an action that rang clear through her teeth and jaw.

She did not stop looking at him, but she could feel her expression change and her eyes narrow to a cold glare. “Fine. Three kisses it is,” she agreed in a clipped voice, then spun around and marched over to the outside of the circle, where she faced him with her hands on her cocked hips and her head held high and haughty. “Catch me if you can, hoodman
blind
.”

Chapter 4

She watched Edith disappear through the crowd. Sofia wanted to disappear, too. Instead she had to stand there in front of Sir Tobin de Clare and act as if her heart wasn’t pounding, as if nothing that happened in their past could possibly matter, as if she were as calm as stagnant water.

“There is something between us.”

Lud! He felt it, too.

“We have a debt to settle.”

Now all she felt was foolish. He was not speaking of the odd attraction she felt, but of the forfeit she owed him.

Face the devil, she thought.
Do it
! She turned back toward him slowly, shook her head and raised her chin so it appeared as if she were looking down at him, even though she was a full foot shorter. “You cheated.”

He cocked his head and frowned a little, as if he had expected her to say anything but that “There was a huge circle of witnesses that day.” He gave a wry laugh. “Tell me exactly how I could have cheated before all those pairs of eyes.”

“I do not know.” She waved a hand in the air. “I am not that devious-minded.”

“You? Lady Sofia Howard? Not devious-minded?” He roared with laughter, while Sofia stood there, staring at the half-moon-shaped nails on her right hand.

No one had ever claimed that she did things halfheartedly. Lying therefore should be no different. If she was going to lie, the lie should certainly not be a puny one.

He obviously found her very amusing, for he was still laughing softly. She did not know if she liked that or hated it.

He took a step closer to her. “Tell me, Sweet Sofia, just how did you manage that day to get the Queen to call for you at the exact moment I was about to collect my debt?”

She would never admit to him that she had done nothing, that the Queen’s timing had been only pure luck. Let him think she was that mystical and shrewd.

“Come. Confess.”

She gave him a smile. “I shall tell you, sir, when you tell me how you managed to chase
only
the girls in that circle who had,” she paused, “blossomed.”

He shrugged, denying or admitting nothing, a tactic she knew well since she frequently did the same thing.

He pinned her with a penetrating look from those intense and knowing eyes. “I think over the past two years you have cooked up the notion in that cunning little head of yours that I won only because I cheated.”

“Three years,” she said. “Not two years.”

His sudden laugh had a victorious sound that told her she had fallen into a trap of his words. He had known it was three years, but tested her.

He moved so close his hips brushed against her side. “I stand corrected, milady. Over the past
three
years, you have conveniently decided you do not owe me anything because you can claim I cheated.”

“There was nothing convenient about my memory. I
know
, not
think
. And I
know
that no one could possibly have moved as quickly as you did, especially in my exact direction.” She kept her ground. It was uncomfortable, to have him standing mere inches from her. She could not think as sharply.

But she knew he was trying to intimidate her with his height and size. Men did that, used their physical powers to compensate for the lack of their mental ones. So she tilted her head back to look him straight in the eye, which usually surprised arrogant men because they were used to meeker women. She did not bow her head but would look anyone in the eyes.

However, he did not appear surprised, which annoyed her to no end. The least he could do was be predictable.

“I think what you mean, Sofia, is that you think no one can move as swiftly as you can. Your pride drives you. You believe that you are the only one with a quick mind and even quicker feet.” The cad took a step closer. He was almost standing on her feet. She could feel the warmth of his breath when he spoke.

She stepped away. “What I
believe
is that you cheated. Now if you will excuse me, sir, I am off to watch the races.” She turned with her nose high in the air, lifted her gown and planned to walk away with a haughtiness that would do Queen Eleanor proud.

She got no more than a few feet

His hand closed around her upper arm. “I shall be happy to escort you to the races, Lady Sofia,” he said so loudly she was stunned, so she looked up. He had almost bellowed it like a herald announcing the King’s demands.

People around them turned to stare.

He gave her a slight, courteous bow as he pulled her arm through his, casually, in the manner of courtier doing the bidding of his love. But in truth he was clamping her arm firmly to his side so she could not pull it away, which she had already tried twice.

He began to walk, his strides so long she had to almost run to keep from being dragged along slave-like behind him.

“Would you slow down?”

“Only if you will stop trying to snatch your hand away.”

She relaxed her hand on his arm and stopped trying to jerk it back, so he slowed his steps. She would lull him into thinking he had won.

She walked in silence, staring at their arms, at their hands, looking for the perfect moment to pull away and run like the very Devil himself.

But the moment did not come. She did not run. She could not get her hand free. She stared at her hand resting on his forearm, then gritted her teeth and glanced up, eyeing all around them. She realized that they looked as if they were any other knight and lady walking through the crowds. Except the other ladies did not have their escort’s big, hammy hand smashed over theirs so they couldn’t snatch it away.

“Perhaps, milady,
together
 . . . ” he squeezed her hand “ . . . we can find the man you were seeking.”

Die
. She wanted to die, but she would never let him know it. With a casual tone that was the exact opposite of what she was feeling, she said, “Perhaps so, sir. You are tall enough to see above the crowd.”

Flatter him. Tell him he is tall. It implies he is superior. Most men loved to think they were superior, so while he was preening, she would devise a way to escape him. Somehow. Someway.