The Devil's Temptress

by Laura Navarre

  “Stop struggling,” he said hoarsely into her fallen hair. “You’ll upset the animal.”

  Which one? Striving to collect her wits, she said the first thing that came into her head.

  “What happened to your voice?”

  For a heartbeat he stilled. The entire forest held its breath.

  “Does it bother you to speak of it?” She fumbled. “You may forgo the question. I—I should not have asked.”

  “Nay.” He kneed his stallion onto the frozen stream, with Galahad crunching along behind. “But I’m rarely asked. Happened long ago, near Antioch. I fought for Henry in those days . . . saving the Holy Land from the infidel.” Mockery twisted his words. “Heard of Greek fire?”

  “Who has not?” She shivered, and he tossed the heavy sweep of his cloak around her as Lucifer heaved and pitched onto the far bank.

  They passed from slanting sunlight into shadow. Between the skeletal trees, the winter sky reddened toward sunset.

  “Greek fire.” She cleared her throat. “’Tis a blend of quicklime and the black water that flows beneath the ground in Outremer. I have heard men speak of it.”

  “Aye—and sulfur.” He shifted, leather creaking. “Dissolves into acid when it burns, and the fumes are poison to breathe. The Saracens used Greek fire at Antioch.”

  A chill struck inward, knotting her belly. Jesus wept, the thought of him burning . . .

  “Were you—?”

  “Trapped in a burning alley with my—men. Like a lackwit I delayed, trying to save them all. I was a chivalrous fool in those days.”

  Loathing hardened his voice, a contempt directed inward. Compassion plucked at her heart. He had not always been an outcast, had he? Perhaps he’d even claimed some semblance of honor once. He must have sworn a knight’s vows, to uphold God’s will, to defend the innocent and shelter the weak.

  “Did you save them?” she whispered. “Your men?”

  “The flames spread too swiftly. Thank your God on bended knee you’ve not seen the horrors of crusade. Captives staked out under the burning sun for torments no living thing should endure. Tongues torn out for calling Allah by the wrong name. Living men consumed by flames no water can quench, that cling to a man’s skin and burn till death is a mercy.”

  “How did you escape?”

  Was that how Theobold had died? Benedict had never told her, and would not speak of it when she asked. So it must be some horror—

  “I turned coward.” His arms hardened to bands of steel around her. “Scurried like a rat through the flames, wrapped in a wet blanket. Noble image, aye? But I couldn’t avoid breathing the fumes.”

  “God’s mercy!” Appalled, she swallowed down the compassionate phrases that gathered on her tongue, knowing he would rebuff them. “You were fortunate to survive.”

  “Oh, aye—fortunate.” His jaw clenched, muscle flexing beneath golden skin. In that moment she glimpsed his iron discipline, the fierce restraint that held his demons at bay. “I survived when my—when others did not. Didn’t seem so fortunate then.”

  Not knowing how to respond, she turned away. That glimpse of inner strength sat poorly with what she knew of the lecher who’d dishonored her cousin.

  She gathered her nerve. “May I ask another question?”

  “Ask—on one condition.”

  “What condition is that?”

  “For every question I answer, you’ll answer one of mine.”

  Her skin tingled. There were some questions she would not wish to answer, but retreat would be cowardly. He was the one with secrets she must unearth, by the queen’s command, to get at the truth of him—if she could.

  “That is fair, if you will answer honestly,” she said.

  “Want honesty, do you? So certain you’re prepared to hear it?”

  “I have naught to fear. Do you?” She turned to watch his face. “Truly now—what happened between you and Rohese?”

  “I’m no saint.” Black humor threaded his voice. “Wasn’t Augustine the one prayed for chastity . . . later in life, but not yet?”

  Curiously, she felt disappointed. Though why she’d expected more from this rogue she could not imagine.

  “So you did accost her, just as she claimed. ’Tis a pity God did not see fit to unseat you at the tourney and prove your perfidy.”

  “Lady Rohese is a hot piece.” He fired the words like crossbow bolts, as if to wound her—or himself.

  “Monsieur, you are despicable.” Bitterly, she stared ahead into gathering twilight.

  “I’d no notion who she was. The lady was veiled—another damned masque—but she made her desires clear.”

  “No true knight would say such words.” She blinked back the sting of tears. Lies . . . he was lying to her. What else had she expected?

  “By the Prophet, that’s the truth.” More angry than amused, his laughter scraped against her ear. “When we were found, the fine lady cried rape. With my reputation, what use denying it?”

  “Do you say my cousin, a good and virtuous lady, encouraged your attentions? I thought we had sworn to honesty—but I should have known better than to accept your word.”

  “Accept it or nay.” His mouth twisted. “No other would defend her.”

  “They were all afraid of you!” she cried.

  “Save one.” His eyes scorched her. “You’re a trusting innocent, lady, where those you love are concerned.”

  An image of Marguerite seared across her brain: twisted and broken, repudiated by the husband she adored. Weeping as she pleaded innocence to her horrified daughter.

  Alienore had sworn that she believed her—and she had believed, she had—but Theobold had not. Marguerite had taken months to die. Then her father took the cross and thundered off with Benedict . . . leaving his daughter alone.

  And a year later Theobold was dead, lying in an unmarked grave somewhere in the burning sands before he ever reached Jerusalem. And her own brother had not seen fit to tell her. Until the day she died, Alienore would wonder if her father had warned Benedict not to trust her. Like mother, like daughter?

  “Your turn to be honest,” the Raven said. “What knight rode against me?”

  Caught flat-footed, she floundered to gather her wits. Her first shameful impulse was to lie, and hide her secret. The queen will dismiss me from the council in disgrace. I have nowhere else to go . . .

  If she lied, she would be no better than he. So she turned and met his gaze.

  “Do you not already know?”

  “Allah’s heart, it was you. Couldn’t bring myself to believe it.”

  Gripping the pommel, she braced to withstand whatever he flung at her—raucous laughter, threats, blackmail? No other man save one knew her secret, and now she revealed it to him?

  “Little fool! I could have killed you.” He pushed out a breath. “Why?”

  “Why what?” She turned away. “Why did I take the field? Honor required it. There was no one else.”

  “The girl’s honor? She has none.”

  “My mother’s honor!” Heat flamed in her cheeks. “Rohese is her sister’s child.”

  “Why take on a knight’s training? And who dared teach you? Can’t credit your Lancelot with that.”

  She flushed at his scornful reference to Thierry. “I believe ’tis my turn for a question.”

  Over the path, the shadows were deepening, violet against pale blue snow. In the distance, a lynx’s angry scream tore through the fabric of twilight. She shivered, grateful she was not relegated to a solitary walk home after all.

  Firmly, she recalled herself to duty. Eleanor had thrown them together to discern the knight’s motives. “Why did you come to Poitiers?”

  “The queen’s fugitive son thought she could use a man with my . . . talents.”

  Aye, he is hiding something.

  “But you are no English vassal,” she countered. “You are a mercenary who sells his sword to the highest bidder. Why did you come to Poitiers?”

  “Why do
you think? Henry sent me. Wanted another set of eyes and ears to spy on his treasonous wife. Can you blame him?”

  Saint Swithun grant mercy, the queen is right to be wary.

  She had expected him to dodge the matter, even to lie outright. She’d never expected honesty, no matter what he’d sworn. Why entrust her, of all women, with such a dangerous truth? Unless he was lying still.

  “What did you do to gain the prince’s trust?” she asked.

  “My turn for a question.”

  “Very well then,” she said, eager to get past his query to her own. “Ask.”

  Through her loosened hair, his breath licked her ear, tendrils of sensation unfurling all through her. The odor of sandalwood made her head swim.

  “Your inheritance lies before Henry, aye?” He paused for her assent. “So does your brother’s counterclaim. Yet he’s not suspected of treason. What’ll you do if Henry takes his part and bids you marry Ormonde?”

  Hugging herself, she stared over Lucifer’s head into the gathering dark. “Marriage to such a man would mean the ultimate disgrace. I could not enter into such a travesty and remain my father’s daughter.”

  “But if your king commands it? Or your queen?”

  Visions of disaster multiplied in her brain. Her father had thought her unworthy and left her behind to mourn her unworthy mother. But she would prove herself worthy of Wishing Stone Manor—prove she was not Marguerite. Surely, even beyond the grave, her father would know it.

  “Neither king nor queen could command me to dishonor. I would fight rather than flee—this time.”

  “Some would say you speak treason,” he whispered. Such a dangerous word, even borne on a breath in the wild.

  “Then let them kill me,” she whispered. “What would I have to live for?”

  His hands clenched the reins as if to hold her back from that fatal course. He turned his face into her hair. “Alienore—”

  As they rounded a bend in the path, a horse’s startled neigh rang out. At once the Raven released her. Steel hissed as he unsheathed his scimitar, battle ready in an instant.

  She gripped her long-knife. Ahead, something large crashed through the undergrowth. That lynx we heard—but this creature is larger. Through the trees she glimpsed a mounted figure, sunlight glinting on silver hair—oddly familiar. Then the forest swallowed him up. The rapid tattoo of hoofbeats receded.

  Before them, another man waited, broadsword gleaming as he crouched in his saddle. Then he swept back his hood: Geoffrey of Brittany, Richard’s unpleasant brother.

  He’s been meeting someone in secret. But whom? In the tumult of the hunt, one of Eleanor’s eagles had flown the nest.

  Though caught by surprise, the swarthy prince threw back his head and brayed with laughter.

  “Par Dieu, what have we here? The mysterious Raven, blackguard and despoiler of women, keeping company with Lady Virtue? My brother will be devastated when I tell him.”

  “Your Grace,” she said stiffly. “’Tis nothing of the sort. My horse was lamed in the hunt. Lord Raven is doing no more than his duty to see me returned.”

  “Are you so dutiful, monsieur?” Beneath his thick eyebrows, Geoffrey flashed a mocking glance. “You disguise it well.”

  The Raven bowed from his saddle. Yet she sensed no lessening in the battle-keen tension that gripped him. “Why are you here? So far from the hunt . . . and Sir Guy?”

  The prince’s eyes narrowed. “Why, like the lady, I returned with an injured mount. Can’t you see the beast is limping?”

  “Must be so,” the Raven rasped, “if Your Grace speaks it.”

  She strove to defuse the tension crackling in the air. “Let us all return together, before we are missed. ‘Twill be full dark soon.”

  “Aye, won’t that set them all wondering, to see the three of us keeping company?” Geoffrey uttered a jarring laugh.

  He wheeled his mount and spurred before them, the horse unhindered—so far as she could tell—by any injury. Ahead, the wood fell away to reveal the castle heights, where hidden eyes marked their return.

  Chapter Five

  Sleep was a cunning adversary these days. Tonight it slipped before Alienore like a mocking rival, evading every attempt at capture.

  That disturbing encounter with Geoffrey of Brittany, lurking where he had no business, lingered in her mind. But the disgraced knight was a greater distraction. What had he meant, telling her outright he was spying for the king! Why should he reveal such a thing—unless to test her loyalties?

  For she no longer believed the interests of the royal couple coincided. In the end, she would be forced to choose.

  So, as the courtiers lingered below, roistering into the small hours, Alienore turned to her work and held it like a shield between her and her demons.

  Her candle burned down to a puddle of wax; her quill scratched over parchment. Her lids were listing when the wolf lifted his head and growled.

  A thundering knock rattled her door.

  Startled, she sprang up, clutching her pelisse over the night rail beneath. “Who goes?”

  Wood groaning like a tortured soul, the door swung inward. When she recognized Richard of Aquitaine’s broad-shouldered frame, alarm tightened her chest.

  At her feet, Remus rose and rumbled a warning. Just in time, she caught him by the ruff.

  Richard studied the candlelit island of her writing table, floating in a sea of darkness. “What, still hard at your labors? Do you never sleep, nor romp?”

  “Romping is for children, Your Grace.” She wished for a veil to cover her hair, a heathen tangle of beaten gold. But who would expect to receive a man at this hour?

  The prince chuckled. “Surely even lords may romp a little, don’t you think?”

  He strode forward, filling the oratory with his larger-than-life presence. His surcoat billowed behind, garnets winking in russet brocade as they caught the light.

  Highly improper—even scandalous—for him to visit her privy chamber alone at midnight.

  “Why are you here, Your Grace? ’Tis not my habit to receive guests at this hour.”

  Deliberately, Richard circled the table. Remus rolled back his muzzle to bare sharp fangs. Sensing the wolf’s coiled tension, she gripped his ruff harder, and the prince’s eyes turned wary. Beyond range of the bared teeth, he halted.

  “You refuse to appear for meals, my demoiselle. When you are enticed into company, you diligently avoid my presence. Mon Dieu, you slipped away from the hunt like a villain!”

  “Your Grace, I never intended—”

  “With any other lady, I would say you did it to beguile me.” His cobalt eyes sparked. “But nay. Not Alienore of Lyonstone, the queen’s most virtuous lady.”

  She measured his temper, the threat of his presence, the fruity bite of wine on his breath.

  He was a prince of royal blood. She needed his goodwill. If his elder brother died without issue, Richard would be her king some day.

  Clearing her throat, she called, “Nesta!”

  After a worrisome delay, the inner door flew open to reveal the girl’s sleep-fuddled features. Hastily Nesta bobbed a curtsy.

  “Will ye be wantin’ yer bath, milady? I—oh! Beggin’ yer pardon, milord—”

  “Never mind, Nesta. Pray stir the fire, and bring ale for His Grace.”

  As the girl bustled about, Richard eyed Alienore with dry appreciation. Perching a hip on her table, he smiled blandly and swung a booted foot.

  With a sigh, Alienore locked the queen’s correspondence in her strongbox.

  Nesta thumped down two brimming cups of ale. “Will ye be wantin’ me to take that wolf out, milady?”

  “Nay, leave him. You may draw my bath, for I intend to retire shortly.”

  Richard waited until Nesta retreated, then leaned over Alienore with an intimate smile.

  “Why not let the girl seek her bed? I’ll wager you’ve never had a prince attend your bath.”

  A flood of humiliation scalded her f
ace.

  “Pray do not say such things, even in jest! ’Tis bad enough—”

  “Have I shocked your convent-bred sensibilities? Surely, ma chère, my presence is not a complete surprise. Even you can’t be quite so innocent.”

  “Perhaps you would be good enough to say why you have come.” Grasping after her composure, she crossed to the brazier. “The hour is late, and I am weary.”

  “So quick to business?” His heated gaze burned her back. “Very well. Let’s speak about your new champion, Lord Raven.”

  Now she felt grateful that he could not see her face.

  “Your Grace, the Raven is no lady’s champion. I suppose my lord of Brittany has mentioned our encounter.”

  “Aye, Geoffrey mentioned it.” Her scalp crawled at the undercurrents beneath his negligent tone. “The Raven’s the most notorious man at court. Innocent damsels, comely widows, young wives who’ve tired of the marriage bed—even the serving wenches aren’t safe from him. Mon Dieu, have you forgotten your own cousin!”

  “I have not forgotten.” Rigid, she twisted her fallen hair into a knot. But lacking any pin to hold it, the heavy mass spilled down her back again.

  Aye, she knew what the Raven was—none knew better. So why should her heart sink?

  “Pray do not be concerned on my account, Your Grace. No woman at court is more immune to that rogue’s advances.”

  “Has he offered you any?” Casually, he strolled toward her.

  “Of course not!” She voiced an unconvincing laugh. “If you would warn me, of all women, against falling prey to the Raven, you are wasting your breath.”

  “Am I?” His features shifted, became crafty. “The fellow has acquired the habit of confiding to me his conquests. Unfortunately your virtue . . . your chastity . . . has piqued his interest.”

  “’Tis not my virtue that interests him.” Distracted, she’d allowed Richard to trap her before the brazier. Now she tried to edge around him. Hooking an idle hand in his sword belt, he shifted to prevent it.

  She raised her chin and met his gaze. “Surely your lady mother has confided her suspicions? The Raven is the king’s man, no more than another spy sent to watch her. Indeed, he admits as much. I—I plan to inform the queen tomorrow.”