The Nutcracker Reimagined: A Collection of Christmas Tales Read online

  The Hawk’s hospitality was as generous as ever. There was ale and bread, both most welcome after Quentin’s hungry days of travel. He was assigned a pallet in the stables and offered a bath, two welcome luxuries he had not experienced in a while. He recognized many in the service of the Hawk, men who had once answered to him as Captain of the Guard, but he avoided them on purpose. They were trained to be observant and the most likely to notice that his injuries were less than he implied.

  He sighed with relief when he entered the bathing chamber at the very end of the stables. There was straw underfoot and bales of hay stacked in one corner. The shadows were deep despite the hour and the scent of horses was strong. A large tub filled with hot water was in the middle of what had once been two stalls. A boy emptied a bucket of water into the tub, then bobbed his head at Quentin before seizing his two empty buckets and retreating. There was a piece of rough soap and a thick cloth and Quentin eyed both with gratitude.

  He shut the wooden portal with some effort, for it clearly had not been closed in a while, then secured it. He reached to unfasten his cloak, and that was when he knew he was not alone.

  He could hear someone breathing.

  The hair prickled on the back of his neck, awareness sending a welcome surge through him. He was immediately as alert as a hound on a scent.

  There was only one place to hide and that was behind the bales of hay. Quentin continued to fuss with his robe, as if he had trouble unfastening it, and hobbled closer to that corner. He heard a slight movement, then deliberately turned his back on that corner. He pretended to be absorbed in the matter of his clasp and muttered beneath his breath in apparent frustration.

  The other person moved, taking a stealthy step closer.

  Someone he had trained. The pause between steps was long, just as he instructed, and their timing was irregular.

  Surely it could not be her. His heart rose to his throat.

  The person stepped closer, the faintest rustle of straw revealing a step, then abruptly reached for him.

  Quentin felt the movement of air because he was waiting for it.

  And he moved faster. He spun and snatched, locking his damaged hand around the throat of his assailant and backing that person into the wall. Mhairi stared back at him as he held her there, her gaze unflinching, fairly daring him to squeeze the life out of her.

  Mhairi.

  “Not so feeble as that,” she whispered, and her eyes began to twinkle.

  Quentin stepped back and turned away from her, trying to hide his pleasure. He forced himself to hobble, disgusted that he had revealed himself to her—and pleased at the same time that she had not been deceived after all. “It was luck,” he said grimly.

  “It was skill,” she replied with the confidence he recalled. “You taught me the difference. You knew not only that I was here, but guessed my height and position. You made one strike and caught me by the throat, immobilizing me immediately.” He stole a glance at her and she smiled at him. “I am glad indeed that you no longer possess a knife.”

  “You should not be here,” he said, fighting his mixed feelings. How could he be both disgruntled and delighted?

  “Neither should you,” she said, stepping away from the wall and folding her arms across her chest. “I did not know he had sworn to have you killed if you returned.”

  “I suspect neither of us wanted you to know.”

  “But you risked that fate to keep a promise to me?”

  “What if he killed me?” Quentin flung out a hand. “I will be a beggar until the end of my days, reliant upon the charity of others. My life is worthless now.”

  “You do not believe that,” Mhairi said with curious conviction. She watched him closely. “You were filled with anger when you arrived, but it changes to despair.”

  “What would you know of it?”

  “I know more than you think.”

  He pivoted to challenge her. “Then why do you think I came to Inverfyre?”

  She bit her lip, considering him. “I would like to think that you came to see me again. I have thought of you every night and day since your departure and had hoped you might send word that you were well.”

  There was no accusation in her tone and no shyness in confessing her hopes. She was as honest as he recalled and Quentin found himself enchanted all over again.

  How he wished he could be the man she desired.

  “I wanted to return in triumph,” he confessed, without having had any intention of doing so. “I wanted to offer you more than a knife that I could have given you seven years ago.” Quentin sighed, then gestured impatiently at the bath. “The water cools and someone will hear us. You should leave.”

  Mhairi shook her head. “Not until you tell me why you saved my mother.”

  “Why not? I have no argument with the lady.”

  “But you have one with my father, and anyone of sense in Inverfyre knows that the surest way to deal him a blow would be to hurt my mother. If she had died this day, it would have taken all the merit from his life.”

  “You assume much in thinking I wish him ill.”

  She took a step away from the wall, coming closer, and Quentin’s mouth went dry at the recollection of her soft skin beneath his hand just moments before. “You were angry,” she reminded him with conviction. “You came to Inverfyre, driven by that anger. I can only reason that you came to avenge yourself upon my father for what you have endured. If he had not expelled you from Inverfyre, you would not have been robbed and injured.”

  “Maimed,” he corrected.

  Mhairi’s lashes swept down, hiding her thoughts, and he knew he had never seen a sight more alluring. “As you say,” she murmured and he wondered how much of the truth she had guessed. “And so you might blame him for your fate.”

  He caught his breath but did not reply. She had always been too astute. “I say again, you assume much…”

  “A warrior’s code can be a harsh one. An eye for an eye. A death for a death.” Her gaze swept over him and he was surprised to find no pity in her steady gaze. “But I had a good teacher once who taught me that a man’s true merit is never changed, regardless of what he has endured.”

  “Your teacher was a fool!” Quentin spat, knowing full well that she referred to him.

  Mhairi shook her head. “He said the instinct is true and that when a warrior follows his intuitive reaction, his true nature is revealed. You saved my mother from injury, apparently without thinking that you might take the arrow instead. It was a selfless choice, one characteristic of the warrior I knew, and one that tells me you do not truly wish to injure my father.”

  Quentin was shaken by her perceptiveness. “Or it was a ruse to gain access to the keep,” he muttered.

  Mhairi smiled, unconvinced. “I think then that there would have been a moment’s hesitation, based upon my teacher’s instruction.” When Quentin did not reply—for he agreed with her—she came to his side and placed her hand upon his arm. He felt her touch to his very toes, even through his cloak, and closed his eyes lest she discern his thoughts. “My teacher was a man of honor, a man who found opportunity in challenge, a man whose word could be relied upon.”

  Her conviction of his character was humbling, particularly as Quentin no longer believed that to be his measure. “The teacher you knew might as well be dead,” he said, his words unexpectedly husky.

  “Nay,” she said, reaching to frame his face in her hands. “He is wounded. He feels he has been betrayed. It would only be reasonable to be angry. But the truth that he has forgotten is that he is loved, not for his hands and not for his eyes, but for the valor of his heart.” She smiled a little. “He forgot that his gesture would reveal his nature.”

  And before Quentin could argue with her, she reached up and touched her lips to his.

  It was a kiss that undid him completely. It was a kiss he had intended to steal but which was offered freely; a kiss that shattered the last of his bitterness and dispelled it; a kiss that ki
ndled that valor he had nigh forgotten he possessed.

  For with her kiss, Mhairi not only reminded Quentin of the man he used to be, but awakened within him the desire to be that man once more.

  Quentin fairly flung her out of the chamber when he suddenly ended their kiss, and Mhairi was too overwhelmed by his touch to argue with him. She had sensed the fury within him at the gates, but recognized that his attitude had already changed. She had little time to measure his mood before the door was closed against her, but could not dismiss her sense that his anger had changed its focus.

  She paused outside the chamber, leaning back against the wall to catch her breath, and listened to him splash in the water. She would have given much to see him nude, and not just to satisfy her curiosity about the extent of his injuries.

  The very force and speed with which Quentin had evicted her revealed that he was not as feeble as he would have all believe.

  She smiled, gladdened by that, then sobered at a thought. She had never asked him how he had anticipated the MacLarens’ assault. How much did he know of their plans? She recalled his suggestion that his choice might have been a ruse and chilled. Surely he was not allied with the MacLarens?

  Surely he was not a spy for them within Inverfyre’s walls?

  Surely the Quentin she knew could never be so traitorous?

  But there was his anger…

  Mhairi glanced over her shoulder to the chamber, wanting to know the truth. She tried the door quietly but it was bolted from the other side.

  “I will only be a moment longer,” Quentin growled, clearly thinking another wished to bathe.

  She put her lips to the crack in the wood. “Take your leisure,” she whispered. “I will see you at the board this night.”

  The sound of water stilled as if she had shocked him, but Mhairi spied a stable hand approaching. She retreated into the shadows and took the long way around the bailey, pausing in the armory for a moment, then talking to the cook. She walked the battlements and found Nigel there, surveying the forests, and behaved as if she had just come from their mother’s side.

  All the while, her thoughts were churning. Would she have another chance to speak to Quentin?

  Would she have another kiss?

  Even as she tasted him upon her lips, Mhairi knew she wanted more, far more, than one more kiss.

  If Quentin had felt at odds before, Mhairi’s kiss only made the matter worse. Or was it her confidence in him that shook him so?

  What was his path, if not to avenge himself upon the Hawk?

  How could he show himself as the man Mhairi believed him to be?

  Certainly not by avenging himself upon her father.

  What if he could prove his merit? Might the Hawk welcome his service again? His injuries were less than he let them believe, but his hand was still marred. Hope lit in Quentin’s heart, a sense that had become unfamiliar to him, but was welcome all the same.

  He stared at the ceiling from his pallet as he considered what little he had overheard in the forest the night before. The MacLarens had meant to assault Lady Aileen this day. They said it would be a sign to their man within the walls of Inverfyre. Quentin wished he had heard more.

  Who was the traitor in the Hawk’s court?

  Could he reveal the spy and win the laird’s favor?

  Quentin fell asleep on the straw pallet after his bath with his thoughts spinning. He was lulled by the sound of the horses below and the familiar rhythm of Inverfyre, the recollection dawning within him of how much he had loved this place. He slept more deeply than he might have expected, but then, it was the first time Quentin had felt safe in seven years.

  Aye, Inverfyre was the place he had long felt to be home.

  After Mhairi’s kiss, though, he felt that he owed the Hawk thanks for letting him know it at all, never mind for allowing him to return, even if only for one night.

  Perhaps his anger had served its purpose in driving him back to the place he had long considered to be home.

  Perhaps his return meant his heart could be healed.

  Quentin awakened to find the sky darkening and the new ostler calling to him from below. “Hoy, there! Do you mean to share the evening meal?”

  Quentin thanked the man and donned his boots, then walked to the hall behind the others. He deliberately made slow progress and expected he would find only a place at the back of the hall. It would be a good place to observe the others and seek changes in them, changes that might reveal their alliances.

  The Hawk met him at the door to the hall, though. If his manner was cool, Quentin could not blame him and he admired the older man’s grace.

  “My guest,” the Hawk said. “Come to the high table, Quentin, that I might properly thank you for your action this day.”

  “It is not necessary,” Quentin objected, seeing that three of the Hawk’s children and his wife were already seated at the high table.

  “It is necessary,” the Hawk insisted, then dropped his voice. His gaze was steely. “All must see that my debts are paid.”

  Of course. This was the ethical man he recalled and whom he had been proud to serve.

  Quentin nodded and continued to the high table in the Hawk’s company, well aware that every gaze in the hall followed his progress. He heard the whispers and ignored them. It was only right that some doubted his objectives, even if the Hawk hid his own doubts.

  Quentin sought the changes. The Hawk and Aileen’s two younger sons must have finally been sent away to train for their spurs. Quentin calculated as he walked. Gawain must be nigh grown to manhood by now, and Avery not far behind him. He had begun their training and wondered if they thought of him at all.

  Nigel, the Hawk’s eldest son and heir, was a fine young knight, dark of hair and blue of eye. Quentin’s reckoning made him twenty-two summers of age and he saw how the son favored the father in appearance. Was his nature similar, too? Quentin did not know Nigel well, for the boy had been training for his spurs when Quentin had arrived at Inverfyre and had only returned home for occasional visits. Where had the boy trained? Quentin could not recall the name of the holding. His patron had been a cousin on his mother’s side in England.

  Evangeline, the Hawk’s second child, had blossomed into the raven-haired beauty all had anticipated she would become. She undoubtedly would be some man’s prized bride, though she was the kind of woman whose company left Quentin tongue-tied. He supposed her marriage had been arranged, and realized with some discomfiture that Mhairi’s might be as well.

  He had no right to have any hopes, but realized that he did.

  The Hawk matched his pace to Quentin’s slower one, but did not otherwise aid him. In a way, Quentin was grateful for that. In another, it foiled his attempt to appear to be a cripple. He stumbled on purpose, but the Hawk merely steadied his elbow with a touch, then let him continue alone.

  “I have a favor to ask of you,” the Hawk said in an undertone.

  “Indeed?”

  “I would hear what you know of the MacLaren clan and how you anticipated them this day.”

  Quentin had anticipated the question and nodded agreement. “The better to rout them,” he said.

  The Hawk met his gaze steadily. “There will be no second instance of this day’s events.”

  “I recall that you do not suffer an error twice.”

  Their gazes met and held. “Indeed,” the Hawk said tightly. “I will speak to you after the meal, when there are fewer listening ears.”

  “Of course.” Quentin deliberately did not call the Hawk his lord, and knew the omission was noted.

  “I hope you enjoy the fare.” The Hawk indicated an empty place at the end of the high table before taking his own seat.

  Quentin’s spot was at the opposite end from Mhairi. She was watching him and he held her gaze for a potent moment as he recalled that unexpected kiss. Even the memory sent heat flooding through him, but he dropped his gaze that no others might see. He bowed to her father and took his place besid
e Evangeline, who spared him a glance filled with pity.

  Ahearn O’Donnell, a comrade of the Hawk’s, arrived in that moment and took the seat on Quentin’s other side. Quentin noted that Ahearn’s handshake was as resolute as before and it appeared the man had lost none of his easy charm.

  Reinhard took the place at the far end of the table, beside Mhairi, pausing to spare a glance of open suspicion at Quentin. The Hawk was seated in the middle, his wife on his left and his heir on his right. Squires stood behind every second person, prepared to serve. The linen on the board was simple but finely wrought. The torches burned bright and the fire was lit on the hearth. Dogs slept in the rushes at the back of the hall, and those men invited to dine in the lord’s hall chatted easily to each other. There was trust, and honor, and security in this hall.

  God’s wounds, but he had loved this place and the people within it. Quentin surveyed the hall and thought time might have stood still.

  Save for his injuries.

  Save for the silver at Ahearn’s temples, the lines on Reinhard’s face, and the winter on the Hawk’s brow. He was not the sole one who had changed in seven years, but he was the one who had let his experiences betray his nature.

  Mhairi’s kiss reminded him that he owed better than that to all he knew.

  Regardless of what his own future might be.

  In that moment, Quentin decided that he would leave a legacy of merit, despite his injuries. He knew then that he would do whatever was necessary to aid the Hawk in ridding his forests of the MacLarens. They were the vermin who threatened this haven.

  They were more deserving recipients of his fury.

  The Hawk raised his cup and saluted the gathering. The company raised their cups in turn and drank to their laird’s good health. The Hawk smiled, then beckoned to the cook and the first dish was carried from the kitchens to be served. Chatter erupted throughout the hall as the smell of the food filled the air.

  “I suppose we have all changed in your absence,” Ahearn said as a fine rabbit stew was ladled on to the trencher they would share. It was like the man to put another at ease and Quentin nodded.