Masques of Gold by Roberta Gellis

they feared this woman. She had said she would not profit from Peter de Flael’s death, but perhaps the old man had changed his will—or been about to do so—and the sons were not sure they would not be stripped of everything. Justin had dismissed that notion at first because she did not have the kind of beauty that turned men’s heads. Yet she had turned his—at least enough to make him think of her as Lissa rather than Madame Heloise.
    Justin entered the solar with an angry determination to place a proper distance between himself and the wife of a murdered man. In the doorway he stopped abruptly, barely preventing himself from laughing aloud. What a perfect picture of innocence and an easy conscience, Justin thought, but then he lost his smile and took a few careful steps closer. No, she was not pretending. She really was asleep, and deeply asleep. Her mouth was open, and between a snap and hiss from the fire, he heard a little snort and a soft whistle, a delicate snoring. No woman pretending sleep would expose two common features of the state that she would consider very unattractive.
    For himself, Justin found neither repulsive. The open mouth exposed very pretty, sound white teeth, and the snort and whistle were rather charming. The last word of his thought sounded an alarm in his head. What the devil was it about the woman? He examined her more intently than he had while they were talking and shook his head. She was pleasant looking: Her hair was an ordinary shade of light brown and framed a face neither thin nor fat. As he remembered her eyes, they were neither brown nor green but a soft color that could be either according to the light. Her nose was short, perhaps a little too short for the long upper lip, but the curve of that lip was lovely, even with her mouth open, and Justin could recall how the full lower lip pushed the upper into a bow and pouted provocatively. Still, she was by no means beautiful. Why should he use words like “charming” when he thought of Lissa—and he had done it again, used her pet name without thinking.
    He took a few more silent steps, picked up his cloak, and went out, amazed that he had stood watching the woman instead of working. The boy must have come back with the priest. This was a splendid opportunity to question him without raising fears and suspicions over the absence of his mistress. The boy would accept that Lissa—mentally, Justin shrugged and put aside the question of why she was Lissa to him—must not be wakened. But, having thought he had put aside the problem of why he called her Lissa, he found that it was solved as soon as he began to question Witta.
    The boy was in the workroom, playing with a lump of clay. The activity was approved, Justin assumed, because Witta did not start guiltily or try to hide his plaything. Yet when Justin said mildly he had some questions to ask, there was uneasiness and fear in the blue eyes the child turned up to him. Justin was accustomed to the reaction and did not take it as a sign of guilt, but it came to him as he watched Witta wrap the clay in a wet cloth, that Lissa had never shown either of those emotions. In fact, she had cried out in relief when he arrived and laughed and teased while he ate. She had been worried and frightened—but not of him!
    That was the source of her charm, Justin thought; her ease made him feel comfortable. It was not a comfort Justin frequently enjoyed, and it drew him strongly. Aside from his cousins and a few, very few, close friends, nearly everyone regarded him, if not with active fear, with caution. The reserve made Justin stiff and formal—he knew it but could not help his reaction—and his formality only increased the reserve people felt. It was like a snake swallowing its own tail.
    Justin knew his problem was a natural result of his position as master of the mayor’s guard and the way his uncle and the new mayor, Roger FitzAdam, used him to