AT FIRST SIGHT: A Novella(6)

“Aye, but I still prefer Marlowe. ‘Where both deliberate, the love is slight; whoever loved, that loved not at first sight?’”

A Puritan who could quote Shakespeare and Spencer? Rattled, she rashly positioned her queen in defense. Before she could release her piece, his warm fingers capped hers. Sparks tingled through her hand, and her stomach fluttered. “Reconsider, Eve.”

Nonplussed, she blinked, then realized he was referring to the game at hand. She glanced from their cupped hands to the board. Instantly, she saw that her intended move would expose her valuable bishop to attack. He was giving her a second chance. Until her fingers relinquished her Queen, the move was not an accomplished deed. She looked up at him. “I judged you a man who would win at all costs. Yet you have prevented me from losing a vital piece.”

“Oh, win I shall. I merely wish to prolong . . . this night’s entertainment.”

Shaken by his iron-will intention, she muttered, “Surely, you are weary – after your sojourn – and seek a bed?”

“Aye, I do seek a bed . . . but not till later.” His gaze scanned the main room, as if inventorying it – and then returned to her, as if inventorying herself, as well. “I find . . . your accommodations . . . nourishing.” He released her hand.

“And I weary of this word play,” she said.

He only smiled. “Finish your move.”

And so it went, she moving a piece, he strategizing, then countering her move with an aggressive attack. On either side of the chess board, the pieces mounted – his booty totaling four points more in his favor.

It was as if they were the only two people in the world that Christmas Eve. The warming fire, the kitchen’s tantalizing aromas, and they two focused solely on one another and the chess board – until the wee mews from above intruded upon their consciousness.

She sprang upright, nearly toppling her chair. “The babe!”

He cocked his head, better attuning to the outcries from above. “What?”

She ignored him, dashed to the kitchen, and set the pan of cow’s milk and mush to warming on the embers. Then, another mad dash upstairs to her chamber and the cradle Bonnie Charlie had carved of green wood so fresh that its resinous scent filled the room. The three-weeks-old infant, restrained in its wrap of furred rabbit skin, was wailing its discontent.

“Sshhsh, I know, I know,” she said, coddling the infant. She checked its diapering – “As sopping wet as a mop” – and grabbed another linen from atop the wallpress. “All is well,” she crooned.

She carried the baby, now dry and bundled, downstairs. At the foot of the stairs, she hesitated uncertainly. Hands clasped behind him, Sutcliff turned from where he stood, warming himself before the fireplace. He looked askance at her and the bawling bundle she carried.

“Robbie demands to be fed,” she said. “Grant me a respite from our game to prepare his pap.”

She felt his scrutiny and was certain of what must surely be his conclusion, because he asked. “Your mother’s milk did not come in?”

She flushed. Heat prickled her entire upper body. “Nay.”

She turned back toward the kitchen and the warming milk and mush. He followed, pausing to observe at the half-door. She thrust the babe into his unwitting arms.

His eyes widened at this new, unaccustomed burden. He hefted the squalling infant out at arms’ length, much as he might a hissing, snarling kitten. “Uhhhh . . .”

Secretly grinning, she ignored him and turned her attention to the pap, testing its heat on the inside of her wrist. Satisfied, she ladled the pap into the cow horn, tipped with a leather nipple. She went to the flummoxed Sutcliff and scooped the bundle from him. “Resume the game, shall we?”

Settling onto the chair, she slipped the horn’s nipple-tip into the bairn’s yowling mouth. A lusty child, Robbie would be.

Sutcliff simply stared. Then, with a scoffing expression, he murmured, “Our Lady, the Madonna.”

Her cheeks felt as scarlet bright as the mistletoe berries festooned around the room. “I believe it was your move.”

Curiously, the noise of the suckling bairn put her somewhat at ease. Mayhap, it was the latent mother instinct, or, mayhap, she was reminded life was forever born anew each moment. The miracle of birth . . . the miracle of hope . . . the miracle of new chances.

While Sutcliff pondered the board, she took the occasion to observe him more closely. Cruelty, she did not detect in that determined countenance . . . but, aye, a purposefulness to obtain his will was clearly etched there.

Robbie’s doe-like lashes had closed in drowsiness, and she chucked him under his tiny chin to nudge him into finishing the pap. When she glanced up, she caught Sutcliff staring at her again, his countenance fierce with some unnamable hunger.

“Your move,” he prompted.

The bundled warmth against her breast, she leaned forward, passing the horn over the board into his keeping. At his startled expression, she nearly laughed. She wasted no time with the opportunity he had unintentionally presented her. Using her now freed hand, she jumped her knight toward the board’s center.

He looked from the horn in his hand to her newly positioned knight, then back to her. He nodded in approval. “Well done, Eve.”

At his approval, she grinned. “Have you on the run, do I not?”

His gaze drifted to the baby, once more sleeping. “Robbie, you call him? For his father – or perhaps a family member?”