Read Online Twelve Kisses by Lindsay Townsend - Free Book Online Page B

Christmas goose. The
small window under the bed platform was shuttered, the table and
two stools drawn alongside the fire.
    “ Good.”
    Should he say more? Unsure, as he never was when dealing with
his men, he placed the panniers on the table and went outside again
for the saddles and bridles. Dropping the tackle by the door, he
barred it.
    “ Cups and ale and victuals in there.” He nodded to the larger
pannier.
    Checking the fire, he thought he heard her mutter, “It would
be quicker if you helped,” but when he raised his head, she was
unpacking the stuff on the table. Amused by her flash of temper, he
sat on a stool, warmed his hands by the blaze, and watched her.
Alis had always been a pleasure in action.
    His new wife was dark where he was blond, svelte and small,
with eyes the color of ripe acorns and a white and rose complexion.
She had long black hair that he remembered would curl over his
fingers and a pretty, expressive face with black eyebrows and
lashes, bright eyes, and blood-red lips.
    No! Not blood red, nothing of war . Red
as holly berries, he thought frantically, following her again to
forget and close the door on his last four years of skirmishes and
deceits. Alis was always as honest as good water and as clear in
her meanings. It was one of the things he had always loved in
her.
    For the rest, small and slender and trim, she was as she had
been at fourteen. To be sure, she was by no means as strong as a
farrier's usual help-mate, but always nimble and quick. Her clothes
were different, richer and brighter somehow, though he did not
understand women’s fashions, not even her country fashions. But he
missed her loosened hair. Today her long hair was somehow lashed
into submission under a white linen coif—the sign of her new status
as wife.
    My wife , he thought, though that was
not true in the full sense. They had wed just before Christmas—he
had insisted on the security and certainty of marriage—but had not
slept together.
    He nodded thanks when she poured him a cup of ale from the
flagon, but she was chewing on her lower lip, another trick of hers
that secretly delighted him. “What is it, wife?”
    She tossed a glance at him like a dagger. “Shall I set snares
tonight, sir? And have I your leave to forage about
tomorrow?”
    “ Ah, you think the food too scant to last over Christmas!” He
almost smiled at her, but her steady stare made him as solemn as
she was. “More will be delivered here by our people, Alis. They
shall feast at the main forge, and we here shall lack for
nothing.”
    To prove it, he poured her a cup of ale, set it on the table
and patted his knee. “Come.”
    She darted for the second stool, but he hefted it away, into
the shadows. Her dark eyes flashing, she stood beside him and
raised her cup. “To winter's defeat.”
    She pretends obedience yet defies me. That realization stirred him like strong wine as he took a
drink himself. “Do you have any Christmas customs?” he asked,
allowing her to stand by his shoulder.
    “ I no longer drink to the king's health.”
    He stifled any smile, aware that if he indulged her pertness
he might never hear the end of such things. Instead, he answered
her challenge by hooking her around her narrow waist and skimming
her down onto his lap. “What else?”
    She shook her head. “You should say now.”
    He racked his head for an easy answer, but staring at her
flushed pretty face and red lips, all that came out of his own
mouth was, “Kisses.”
    She had stayed on his knee, silent and stiff, but at least had
not turned away.
    Taking hope from that, he added, “Christmas kisses. Twelve
kisses for Christmas.”
    “ Kisses.” Her face was as still as a painting.
    “ As a start,” he said.
    He meant to show her, but she sat up on his lap even
straighter and demanded, “What Christmas custom is this? I never
saw it before at your parents' house. Is it a kiss each
day?”
    “ Nothing so formal. Rather as I wish.”
    “ As you