Suzanne Robinson by Lord of Enchantment Read Free Book Online

door shut, and returned to him. She brushed straw and dust from her cloak. “In truth, my lord, I’ve abducted her.”
    Pen surveyed her retainers with approval, as though she took great pride in their accomplishment.
    He rubbed his temples, for his head had begun to ache again. “You stole a pig? A pig?”
    Her amusement disappeared, and she turned on him.
    “Stole? What mean you? I don’t steal, sirrah. I have abducted Margery from my meanest enemy for good reasons.”
    Tristan hardly heard her as he realized she had been wandering about the island at night, that she had an enemy from whom she could expect danger, and that she’d also risked the welfare of her servants.
    “Jesu,” he said. “You’ve hazarded yourself and endangered these people as well? God’s breath, woman. You’re not fit to command a cattle pen, much less a castle.”
    He heard her mutter something under her breath but couldn’t catch it, for she turned her back and dismissed her servants, who were listening in avid silence. When they were gone, she whirled around to confront him. Gone was the practical manner of an enterprising adventurer. Her golden eyes had taken on the glint of metal, and her breathing had gone shallow and quick. Tristan began to forget his disapproval of her as her fury provoked his senses. He was so distracted that he failed to attend to her words.
    “And if you suppose that I’ll endure another of your chastisements before my servants, you’re deluded, sirrah. You’re an ungrateful, sirrah. And you think being a man gives you the privilege of judging me and requiring me to answer to you.” Pen looked him up and down as if he were a dog that had soiled a precious Turkey carpet. “I, sirrah, am not a thief.”
    For a moment he could think of nothing to say. Blood rushed to his face. He was blushing! She’d madehim blush like a child. Thoroughly furious, he began to walk toward her, but she sidestepped to keep distance between them.
    “Thievery, mistress. Taking something to which you have no right, something that isn’t yours.”
    He took a quick step toward her, and she shuffled backward. She was facing him and feeling behind her with one hand. That hand met the empty space of the stairwell. He grinned as she glanced behind her. Both of them remembered her last experience with stairs.
    “Don’t,” he said as he stalked to her, “call me sirrah.”
    He reached for her with both arms. Too late he saw that she’d braced her hand against a wall. Her foot came up and jabbed him lightly in the chest. Air burst from his lungs. He grunted and stumbled back while she whisked around and vanished into the darkness of the winding stair. He straightened, rubbing his chest, and gazed after her half in puzzled irritation at her recklessness and half in admiration for the way she burst into sunlike radiance when aroused.
    “God preserve me,” he said to himself as he remembered Mistress Fairfax’s passion. “I’ve been rescued from a sulfurous, roaring storm by a most savory and inflaming pig thief.”
    On the other side of Penance Isle, the foxes, weasels, and hedgehogs of the fields and forests were just recovering from the spectacle of the abduction of the pig called Margery. Many of them still gazed in astonishment upon the stately courtyard house of Much Cutwell, for it was from the rear of this magnificent brick and stone abode that the parade of thieves had come, squabbling and bickering all the way.
    Much Cutwell spread itself over four acres, had fifty-two staircases, three hundred sixty-five rooms, and no sow, of course. Within the house, Sir Ponder Cutwell, owner of this sprawling modern edifice, trailed through the gallery and down the main staircase, his sleeping cap askew, his spindly legs working hard beneath the expanse of his belly. His knee joints cracked as he moved, and with him floated the odor of the cloves he chewed to combat his foul breath. He was muttering to himself.
    “My Margery, my