Patricia Ryan - [Fairfax Family 01] by Falcons Fire Page A

feel the heat from his body, smell the Castile soap with which he had bathed that morning. Azura flinched, and she realized she had been gripping the bird too hard.
    “Just hold her lightly,” he said. “So she knows you’re there.” First he took a small sheet of parchment and slid it under the damaged feather. Then he reached into a little wooden box and withdrew a gray feather the exact color of Azura’s tail.
    “I save them when they molt,” he said. Using a small knife, he clipped the new feather to the proper length and trimmed the end of the old one. From another box he took a tiny needle, which he threaded with silk. Then he began sewing the feathers together.
    Martine had never seen a man sew. Needlework was the domain of women, and the sole creative pursuit of most noble ladies, although Martine had absolutely no patience for it herself. He hunched over the bird, frowning in concentration as he worked the little needle in and out of the feather’s shaft with his long fingers. His big hands were surprisingly precise in their movements; his stitches were small and neat.
    Martine said, “How did you come to learn about falcons?”
    “How did you come not to?” he answered, still intent upon his work. “I’ve never known a lady of your rank to be so unfamiliar with them.”
    She stared at the top of his head. His questions were becoming more direct. With this bird on her lap, she couldn’t just get up and leave, much as she would have liked to. Had he planned it this way?
    The silence grew heavy. Thorne paused to look up at Martine, his expression thoughtful.
    As he resumed sewing, he said, “I’ve kept birds of prey since I was a child. One afternoon when I was shooting small game, my arrow accidentally brought down a sparrow hawk. So I climbed the tree where she’d been nesting and took her young and raised them. After that, I trained other sparrow hawks, then goshawks and kestrels. ‘Twasn’t till I entered Lord Godfrey’s service that I was able to work with falcons.”
    “They say you’re an accomplished bowman. Is that because you grew up hunting?” If she asked the questions, she wouldn’t be the one obliged to answer them.
    He said, “If you do something often enough, you get good at it. When I was young, I hunted and chopped wood, and little else. We were poor, and I was the only surviving son.” He glanced at her, smiling. “I chop wood very skillfully as well, but it impresses no one.”
    She couldn’t help smiling back. “Were there any sisters?”
    He took two stitches before answering. “One. Louise.”
    “Do you ever see her anymore?”
    Two more stitches. “Every time I look at Ailith.” Leaning over, he bit the silk thread and tied it off, his warm hands brushing hers.
    “No, I mean—”
    “There.” He pulled on his gauntlet, lifted Azura, and took her on his fist. Pointing at the bruised teeth marks on Martine’s hand, he said, “I should lend you that gauntlet the next time you propose to give her little ladyship a bath.” His changing the subject, as if she had been asking things that were none of her business, rankled in light of his own prying questions.
    “She won’t bite me next time,” Martine said.
    As he walked Azura through the leather-curtained doorway, he said, “Where did an only child like yourself learn to handle children so well?”
    An only child? That was surely no slip of the tongue. She waited until he had reappeared, and said, “I have two brothers.”
    Thorne hung the gauntlet back on its hook. “But they’re much older, are they not? And you spent seven years in a convent. It must have been rather like being an only child.”
    She removed her gauntlet and handed it to him. With icy restraint she said, “You know I have two brothers. You know perfectly well I’m not an only child.”
    He looked at her searchingly, and took his time answering. When he did, his words were measured, as if he were choosing them carefully. “My lady, I