The Conquest Read online

  He smiled at her so knowingly that she looked away.

  "Say what you must."

  "First, see this," he said softly, and he pulled a pair of red silk gloves out of the inside of his tunic. They were embroidered with bumblebees and yellow buttercups.

  In spite of herself Zared took the gloves from him. Before, in front of the vendor, she couldn't try the gloves on, but now she did, slipping her small hand into the silk. They were beautiful, soft and bright, glistening as she turned her hand to look at them. "I have never seen anything as beautiful," she whispered.

  "Not these?" he asked, withdrawing another pair. "Or these?"

  She took them one by one, but as he pulled more and more pairs from his tunic she began to laugh. "What have you done? Stolen them?"

  "I gave him a gold Howard coin," he said, watching her.

  Her face lost its laughter. "Take them. They are yours."

  He made no effort to take the gloves, and he could see that Zared wasn't about to drop them in the dirt.

  "I take no charity."

  "If Howard lands belong to the Peregrines, then perhaps the gold I gave him is, in truth, Peregrine gold. You have purchased the gloves yourself."

  Zared had to think about that a moment. Was he jesting with her? But then there was some truth in his words. The Howard lands did belong to the Peregrine family. She shifted her arms, and the leather gloves sent up a heavenly scent. A wave of longing went through her. She would like to own something as beautiful, something as feminine as a pair of the gloves, and she would very much like to give gifts to Liana and her ladies. Liana's ladies had often looked in pity at Zared, for they knew she was female even if her brothers' men didn't. If Zared gave the ladies such lovely gifts as these gloves, their faces would change.

  Tearle could see her thinking the matter over and had to work to keep from laughing out loud. For all her boy's clothes and hair, she was feminine throughout. "Which pair is your favorite?"

  "I… I do not know," she answered, looking at them. The pair on top was white leather embroidered with black and yellow butterflies.

  "Perhaps you should keep them all. We will purchase another gift for your sister-in-law."

  "Oh, no, one is enough, as I cannot wear them."

  "Can't… oh, yes, I see. What will you do with your pair?"

  "Hide them. I have a… a secret place, a loose stone in the wall. I shall wear them when I am alone."

  He frowned, guilt flooding him, for it was his own brother's obsession with the Peregrines that made the young woman have to hide away a pretty garment. At that moment he had an idea. Perhaps later at the tournament he would have an opportunity to give her what she so clearly wanted.

  He reached out to touch her cheek, ran his finger down the side of her face. "I should like to see you wear the gloves."

  She should, she thought, spit in his eye, but she didn't. Was it her imagination, or was he better-looking than when she had first met him? She remembered him as having beady little eyes, but his eyes were rather nice, actually, she thought.

  "I… I think I'd better get back," she said softly. "Severn will need me."

  "Yes," he said, and he moved his hand down her cheek to her shoulder, then pulled away from her. "Here, I will take the gloves. Were you to tuck them away you would add to what you work so hard to conceal."

  It took a moment for her to realize that he was referring to her breasts. She could feel the blood rushing to her face, and she ducked her chin down to keep him from seeing her red cheeks, but when he'd taken the gloves and she looked up he was smiling at her in an especially infuriating way.

  "Let me pass, Howard," she hissed at him.

  "Aye, my lady," he said under his breath, then he bowed to her as she pushed past him.

  As they started back to the tournament grounds Zared walked ahead of Tearle. Something had happened in the few hours since they'd left the grounds, and she wasn't sure what it was. When they'd left she would have as soon put a knife in the man as look at him, but at the moment he seemed part human to her. He had been very kind to her as they'd looked at the merchants' wares. He'd explained everything to her, and never once had he acted annoyed or been impatient with her lack of knowledge.

  He certainly was different from her brothers, she thought. Severn and Rogan always seemed to be impatient with her, as her other brothers had been. They grew angry when she would stand in one spot and watch a sunset. They ridiculed her once when she'd made a crown of flowers and put it in her hair. They had no patience with her when she was too slow. They had no time for anything but war and training for war.

  Since Liana had come into their family their lives had softened, but still neither Severn nor Rogan had much time to give to her. Rogan spent his time with his wife, Severn with his mistress, and Zared had been alone.

  She turned to look back at Tearle, walking backward as she went. "In France, did the women wear such gloves as these? Is that where you learned about their scent?"

  "English women wear them also. I would think Lady Liana has a pair or two of scented gloves."

  "I do not know. I have not smelled them." She looked at him not as her enemy, but as a man. He did not look feminine, but how did he know so much about women's clothes? Her brothers knew nothing of women's clothes, she thought. Wasn't that how men were supposed to be? "Did you spend your time in France with the women? Is that why you know of women's goods and not of men's?"

  "I know of men's goods," he said, puzzled and somewhat defensive. She always made him feel as though he were defending his masculinity.

  It was very confusing to her. She recalled that Liana had said that there was more to a man than his fighting ability, but was this the kind of man Liana had meant? This man knew of women's gloves and fainted from small wounds. Were men divided into two categories? Men like her brothers and Severn on one side and men like the Howard on the other?

  "Why do you look at me so strangely?" he asked, pleased that she was looking at him at all.

  "You are not a man, yet you look to be one," she said thoughtfully.

  "Not a man?" He was aghast.

  "No. You do not fight as men do. You faint from the smallest of wounds. You are large, yet I, much smaller than you, fought you and won."

  "Fought me and won?" he said under his breath, at first having no idea what she was talking about. Then he remembered the first time they'd met, when she'd drawn the knife on him. He'd planned to release her from the moment he saw she was female. Yet suddenly he knew she thought she had "forced" him to release her.

  "Yes, I fought you. Had someone pulled a knife on my brother, he would have destroyed his attacker."

  "Even a bit of a female?"

  "Perhaps not a female, but he would not have been beaten so easily. No, not my brothers or"—she thought for a moment—"nor do I think Colbrand would have been beaten so easily."

  "But then Colbrand would not have the brains to know you were female," he said tightly.

  "Perhaps not. You do have a mind, it seems. You seem to know about… about unmanly things such as women's gloves, and how to tell the quality of emeralds. It is just men things you know nothing of."

  "Oh?" He was trying to keep his temper. "And what assures you I know nothing of what men do?"

  She looked surprised. "You would be entered in the tournament if you could. You would not spend your time playing nursemaid and servant if you could hold a lance. Liana said Oliver Howard was so rich he could hire men to fight for him. Perhaps in France you hired men to joust for you while you sat with the ladies." Her face brightened. "Yes, that is it. That is how you know so little of men and so much of women."

  Tearle could not speak for a while. She was still, like a kid, walking backward, and she was smiling as though she'd figured out some great problem. She had decided that because he knew so much about fabrics and jewels and ladies' clothes that he could not be a man. It had not occurred to her that there were more men like him than men like her brothers, who car