“A lady perplexes me.”
“What, another lady?” Richard slapped a brawny hand on the table. “Mon Dieu! I wager we have not heard the last from your latest conquest.”
“Aye, the fair Rohese now curses my name.” He forced a shrug. “Pity.”
And why should the damned affair offend him? He’d thought himself well past minding his blackened reputation.
Ah, but his life now took a different turn. He’d sworn it on his mother’s soul. Slave and concubine though she was, at least Yasmin of Acre had possessed a soul—as he did not.
“No doubt the Rievaulx girl is dismayed by your triumph, but that cannot distress you much.” Something ugly surfaced in the prince’s eyes. “’Tis Rohese’s cousin, the demoiselle Alienore, who should concern you.”
At her name, the Raven’s pulse quickened. He let his hair slither forward to shield his scarred features—an old concealment, to hide his thoughts. “Aye?”
“She cannot be pleased with the way you trounced this champion of hers, whoever he was.” Richard nudged his bishop along the board. “Alienore is proud as any princess. She will not suffer this insult you have dealt her family. Indeed, the lady can be somewhat tedious where matters of honor are concerned.”
The Raven arranged his expression in lines of ennui and advanced his rook. Here was his moment to do what he did so well—listen and learn, betraying nothing in return.
“I don’t know the lady,” he rasped. “Yet she’s much spoken of. Heard a curious rumor—that she’s the queen’s chancellor. Took it for naught but gossip.”
Reaching for his goblet, Richard smiled sourly. “Monsieur, that is no idle gossip. She is my mother’s privy chancellor, a title the queen created for her when Alienore came to court. She handles my mother’s personal correspondence and intimate matters, but leaves affairs of state to Sieur de la Haie, the queen’s chancellor proper.”
Aye, that was the tale they gave out. Henry suspected it for a ruse, behind which his treacherous wife smuggled messages to his enemies, seeding a fresh rebellion to spring forth from Aquitaine’s war-torn soil. Despite his preoccupation over the war with France and his own rebellious nobles, Henry saw to it Sieur de la Haie was closely watched. But Henry could hardly guard each of Eleanor’s sixty ladies-in-waiting.
The Raven’s orders were to nip the dangerous shoot of treason in the bud before it could bear its deadly harvest. Henry didn’t concern himself with the Raven’s personal motives—so long as he deprived Eleanor of her privy chancellor in a manner that could not be attributed to Henry.
Like any man married overlong, even a king must fear his lady’s sharp tongue.
The Raven frowned to find his goblet empty. Though wine was forbidden to a Muslim, the hearth smoke stung his damaged throat, and only wine would ease it. He beckoned to a serving girl. “The lady’s fair, they say?”
“Fair?” The prince’s eyes clouded. “That maid garbed as Venus yonder, she is fair. Your coy little Rievaulx is fair. Even this wench here is fetching, eh?”
Subtly, the prince’s voice deepened. “Alienore of Lyonstone is like the Holy Grail. She is the vision you see in a dream and spend the rest of your life searching for. She is nothing at all like these easy-come lasses.”
The Raven’s blood froze to ice. So Richard wanted the Lyonstone girl, but the lady eluded him. The prince might say what he liked, but the Raven knew otherwise. Alienore of Lyonstone was no saint or holy relic. The chit was reckless at best, spoiled and willful at worst, a menace to herself and all those dependent on her. She’d fled the marriage bed like a rabbit before the hounds—like a giddy, undisciplined girl. But Ormonde would have her back.
“Do you know what they call her?” The prince brooded.” ‘The queen’s most virtuous lady.’ She is convent reared, an ice maiden, aloof and untouchable. They say no man can win her heart. But I know the lady’s price, and I intend to meet it.”
So Ormonde had a rival for the lady’s affections. Worse, a royal suitor, wealthy and blazing with the glory of a new-made knight. Precisely the man to turn any maid’s heart.
Hooding his eyes, the Raven advanced his knight. “Checkmate.”
Richard roared with honest laughter, his bonhomie restored. “Ah, you’re a wily fellow! You distracted me a-purpose with this talk of women.”
Across the hall, a flash of white and gold snared his eye. A solitary woman had appeared before the doors, blazing like a beacon over night black seas.
By her attire, the lady was Athena, goddess of wisdom and war. Silver damask draped her form to sheathe high breasts and supple hips in a manner any man would notice. She held an argent spear easily as a knight and wore a shining breastplate as though born to it. Beneath her helm, a river of gold and silver hair rippled to her waist. At her feet a white wolf bristled, watchful beneath her hand.
By the wolf, he knew her—the wolf they all spoke of. Inevitably, Richard confirmed it. “Behold, monsieur, the very lady. ’Tis Alienore herself.”
Alienore of Lyonstone, the shape of his salvation—the single straw that waved above the morass of death and destruction he’d made of his life.
A prickle of recognition raced across his skin. From head to foot he tingled as if struck by lightning. He’d been waiting for her all night—nay, all his life. Allah be merciful, what was this madness? Lyonstone’s daughter was all that stood between him and damnation.
The lady swept into the room, one hand draped over her escort’s sleeve. What in hell was this—another rival? A pretty-faced gallant squired the lady with an elegance the Raven had lost, burned away by fourteen years of hell on crusade.
An unpleasant frisson clenched his belly. In another man, he would have called it envy. He swallowed it down and cleared his damaged throat. “The lady has an admirer.”
“That yapping puppy? He is nothing—the Comte de Beaumont’s landless son, come to court to find a wealthy wife.”
“Does she favor his suit?”
“Alienore wants nothing to do with marriage, believe me.” Richard snorted. “But Beaumont is a clever lad. He has sworn to her cause, vowed to win back her stolen lands. So she tolerates his affection. I assure you, monsieur, he means nothing to her.”
So the lady wanted her lands back. Well, she could not want them very badly. For she need only become the Duchesse d’Ormonde—no lowly position—to claim them.
Draining his wine, the Raven swirled its tart sweetness around his tongue. There were times on crusade he would have killed for so fine a vintage . . . or perhaps not. He’d done enough killing to last any man a lifetime.
He cloaked his intent, mouth twisting in a scoundrel’s smile.
“There’s no diversion so amusing as virtue. Introduce me?”
“Ah, so you too thirst for the Holy Grail.” Richard tilted back his chair, powerful limbs sprawling as he eyed him. “Do you fancy a wager?”
“A wager.” The Raven studied his cup. Empty again, and he had best ensure the wine did not dull his wits. “What do we wager on?”
“Why, the demoiselle’s favor! I shall make you known to Lady Virtue—for she would never speak to you otherwise, would she? The first to bed her wins . . . what?”
The Raven’s lip curled. The man was a prince of England, yet he stooped to this. A boy’s game, a dirty trick to play on a highborn lady—and what a lady. Brash and reckless though she might be, he possessed no desire to disgrace her.
Yet he could not afford to earn the prince’s enmity. Without Richard’s intervention, the lady would cut him dead as soon as look at him, after that blasted business with her cousin.
So he lied—which was what he did best, the Raven thought bitterly, save for killing.
“Wealth doesn’t interest me. Say you win. Then I owe you a favor of your choosing. If I win, you owe me the same.”
“Avoi, the favor of a king’s son is no trifling thing.”
“For trifling stakes, the game will bore us.” The Raven shrugged. “You’re a pri
soner in your own castle, and I a free man. Time may come you need a favor from a man like me.”
The prince drummed his fingers on the table, then flung back his lion’s mane of hair and laughed. “Very well, monsieur! But I must warn you I am unlikely to lose. The demoiselle favors me, as you shall see. Come, you, and meet her.”
She had managed to elude the queen’s jailer all day, but Alienore feared her luck was about to turn. When the queen insisted she attend this frivolous revel, Eleanor had thrown her to the wolves.
Resigned, she stationed herself in an alcove to await Sir Guy. Then the shifting crowd parted like the Red Sea before Moses. Slowly she lifted her gaze, and saw him.
By his height she knew him, a colossus casting his blade-straight shadow across the flagstones. By his sinuous grace she recalled him, stalking toward her across the tourney field.
Not for him the courtiers’ costumed frippery—unless he came as descending Night. He drew her gaze over his forbidding frame, starkly clad in a black surcoat. A belt of hammered bronze, knotted at his hips, divided the darkness. But his face made her tingle, head to foot, with the lightning charge of wariness.
Swarthy as a Saracen, with aquiline features, sharp planed and cruel, he was beautiful as her father’s sword: lethal and humming with contained violence. Amber eyes burned beneath drooping lids; bitter disappointment had carved lines around his mouth. The jagged seam of an old scar sliced from his ear to his shaven jaw. His mane of ink black hair poured over powerful shoulders to slither around his hips.
Dismayed, she stared into his exotic countenance as a feverish shiver raced through her. She had been waiting for him all her life—but that was utter nonsense. She mistrusted this dangerous excess of emotion. Leaning into Remus’s shaggy bulk, she anchored herself against the black knight’s pull.
How does she manage it? The Raven groped after his scattered wits. She did nothing to command attention, but stood before a hundred eyes with dignity and the queen’s own poise. Now a frisson of response sizzled through him as the blade of her gaze pierced him.
He stared into her wide gray eyes, darkening with storm clouds of anger and alarm. I know those eyes, he realized, incredulous. They belonged to the masked knight—the knight he’d left sprawled in the mud that morning. The knight he’d thought for a fleeting second was a woman, before he dismissed the instinct.
Allah save him, he was a fool! Who else would defend the Rievaulx girl, with her dubious reputation?
Richard of Aquitaine strode forward to stake his claim. Clenching his fists, the Raven fought an impulse to haul Alienore of Lyonstone bodily away from her lusting prince, haul her into his own arms. He wanted to demand what in hell she thought she was about, masquerading as a knight on the tourney field. He could have killed her before he knew her!
Grimly he mastered his jostling emotions and girded himself with an armor of calm. He would not reveal that he knew her secret. Why should he? For all he lacked a courtier’s charm, women seemed to find him appealing enough. Let her swoon into his arms as her damned cousin had done, and the battle would be halfway won.
Alienore swam up from her curtsy before Richard of Aquitaine—the queen’s heir. Costumed as the Sun, he blazed in crimson, tongues of flame leaping from the crown over his ruddy hair. Larger than life, he eclipsed lesser mortals, yet somehow she had overlooked him until his jocular voice boomed out. Near her feet, the wolf rumbled a warning only she could hear.
“My demoiselle, you are the evening star, throwing radiance over the mortal world.” Richard kissed her cold fingers.
“Your Grace, I am Athena. Surely that is evident.”
She battled a familiar rush of impatience for the court’s empty compliments, while the outcast knight hovered on the edge of vision, marking her every word and gesture.
To the prince she said, “I am given to understand you are newly knighted. ’Tis a very great honor.”
Even at barely sixteen, three years her junior, Richard of Aquitaine possessed his mother’s subtlety. His piercing gaze saw past platitudes, and he barked out a laugh.
“Poor Alienore! Already chafing to return to your duties? Tonight you’re mine, to do with as I will.”
She flushed beneath the words, darting a look toward the Raven’s sleepy gaze. Would the black knight recognize the champion who’d defied him? Unlike others at court, she had never been crafty at concealment.
“Ah.” Richard scowled. “You recall me to my duty. I promised an introduction for monsieur. Sieur le Corbeau is our new master-at-arms . . . for a time.”
She itched to give this Raven the cut direct, but churlishness ill became an earl’s daughter. After a palpable delay, she offered an unwilling hand. “I am the queen’s privy chancellor. In her name, I must bid you well come.”
She would bid him well come in the queen’s name, but never her own—this wretch who’d left her lying in the mud!
“You’re Alienore of Lyonstone.” The Raven’s sword-toughened fingers closed around her hand.
From the minstrels’ corner, the clash of tambours underscored his rasping voice, hinting at old injury to his throat. Somehow, she found it not unpleasant. An exotic aroma curled in her nostrils: musk and sandalwood. A shiver rippled up her spine as he bent over her, night black hair spilling forward to tickle her hand.
No doubt Rohese found him pleasant at first. She herself held the advantage of knowing him for the unprincipled rogue he was. She would not be taken in.
But he had captured her sword hand, a danger she must deflect. Let her sleeve slip an inch, and he would glimpse the linen bandage. She tried to withdraw, but he tightened his grip.
“My lady,” he rasped with his ruined voice. “I’ve waited long for this.”
“Indeed?” She spoke in her chancellor’s voice. “Have you business with the queen? I should warn you. Unlike others, I am hers before I am any man’s.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” His topaz eyes mocked her. “Surely you serve your king?”
Of course I serve my king—can you doubt it? Yet somehow the words tangled on her tongue. “’Tis the same service.”
“Be at ease, lady. I’m no grasping courtier, come to plead your support with Eleanor.”
He raised her hand to his lips. A shocking heat arced through her.
“In that case, monsieur, what is your business here?”
“Why, lady,” he whispered. “My business is you.”
Villain! Does the man think to amuse himself with me, now he has disgraced my cousin? Outrage flashed through her, mingled with a faint disappointment she could not comprehend. She jerked her hand away.
“In that case, monsieur, we have no business at all.”
Prince Richard laughed and claimed her arm, eyes flashing with curious triumph as he met the Raven’s gaze. Something was afoot between these two, but she could not fathom what.
Growling at the prince’s nearness, Remus curled back his muzzle and bared wicked teeth. She swung her spear aside and bent to ruffle his fur, thus freeing herself from the prince. When the wolf licked her jaw, her disquiet dissolved as she inhaled his familiar doggish smell. He had remained strangely placid before the black knight, but Richard’s closeness roused all the wolf’s protective instincts.
The prince scowled at the unfriendly animal, but kept his distance. “Dangerous beast. You should keep him chained up.”
Protective, her arms tightened around the wolf. Remus would never harm anyone without her express command. She had trained him from a pup with her own hand, slept curled against his shaggy bulk at night. He adored her as no other living creature had ever done.
“By my faith, Your Grace,” she said, “I could say that of half the men in this court.”
Irritation sparked in the prince’s gaze. “Mon Dieu, if any other spoke to me so . . . but I can deny you nothing.” Turning to the black knight, he adopted a jovial air. “You see, monsieur, you must have a care with this one!”
Before the Raven’s w
atchful presence, she couched her spear against the flagstones and rose to her full height. Still, the outcast knight topped her by well over a head.
The Raven arched his eyebrows. “You manage that spear with surprising ease.”
I would like nothing better than to thrust it through your black heart. But caution prickled her skin, and she held her tongue. She had known it was risky to choose such attire, bringing her secret too close to the surface. But how she tired of cowardice and deception. Sometimes she longed to shout her truths into the court’s astounded ears.
She clenched her spear, and her moonstone ring flashed like a star as it caught the light. Richard’s eyes narrowed as the stone snared his gaze.
“Bah, do you still wear that paltry jewel? I can’t believe your devoted Sieur de Beaumont is so ungenerous. Does his father hold his purse strings too tight?”
“’Tis no suitor’s gift, but my mother’s ring.” Her throat swelled. “I wear it with pride.”
The fog of memory clouded her vision: Marguerite’s fragile features as she lay on her deathbed after the tragic accident that had broken her body and shattered the trust between husband and wife.
Richard broke the painful spell. “Proud or humble, lady, only royal favor will return your precious lands and restore your precious honor.”
She observed the flush beneath his tanned skin and wondered how much he had been drinking. Jesus wept! He was going to be difficult tonight, in front of this rogue knight.
“As it please Your Grace, I seek only justice, by the king’s law—to confirm my rightful inheritance.”
“The king!” Richard sneered. “Soon my father will have no authority to confirm anything. You had best place your wager with me.”
“You speak treason!” Hastily, she glanced left and right. Where was Sir Guy? And why did Richard not take greater care before this Raven? “Guard your tongue, I pray you, else we be all undone.”
The Raven’s uncanny eyes burned into her as if they stood alone.
“If you’d gain your inheritance, you should remain on your lands, aye?” She found herself noting his clipped cadence, and wondering if his damaged voice pained him. “Surely absence weakens your claim.”
The Devil's Temptress Page 3
