by Tamara Leigh
What had possessed Alessandra to give the glove to her cousin? Lucien wondered as jealousy growled through him. Not only was the man too old, but they were related within the degrees prohibited by the Church.
A token favor only. It had to be.
“Take position, Sir Lucien,” the chief marshal commanded.
Lucien looked around. “I am finished,” he called, and snapped the reins and cantered his destrier to the center pavilion where James sat.
“Lord Breville,” he said, “as agreed, De Gautier lands for gold. This eve, if you will have the papers drawn, I shall deliver the entire sum to you.”
James rose. “My offer stands, Lucien. Do you take a Breville to wife, the lands I will give you, and that which you have gained these past days will keep you in good stead for a lifetime.”
“You are mistaken to believe a Breville bride is all it would take to keep peace between our families.”
James’s nostrils flared. “Dewmoor Pass?”
Lucien nearly laughed—at himself. Since his return to Falstaff, he had hardly thought of the pass that had caused so much bloodshed. Thinking of it now, it seemed ludicrous that so many battles had been fought over a piece of land comprising fewer than fifty hectares.
“Keep it, Breville,” he said, then turned and left the lists.
Rigidly, Gavin sat his destrier before the tilt as a murmur arose from those who were to be denied the final De Gautier match.
Tenfold more aware of the heat of his armor, the sweat trickling down his back, the flush creeping up his neck, he breathed deep. Then he forced a smile, doffed his helm, and shouted, “Alas, ‘twould appear the Lion of Falstaff fears my lance and blade.” He laughed. “As well he should.” He drew his sword, gave his destrier a jab of his spurs, and triumphantly trotted the lists.
The onlookers tittered. Though Gavin knew he was regarded as one of the most competent of jousters, he also knew his chances had been little better than the chances of the others defeated by De Gautier.
Returning his sword to its sheath, he urged his destrier away from the lists.
I am well, he assured himself as he headed for the stables. But still anger brewed until everything he laid eyes upon was splotched red.
When he dismounted, his squire appeared before him. “I will take him, Sir Gavin.” The young man reached for the reins.
The desire to strike him surging through Gavin, he jerked the reins and stepped around the boy. “I will tend him myself. Go enjoy the festivities.”
“But—”
Gavin halted and, keeping his back to his squire, thundered, “Leave me. Now!”
“Aye, my lord!”
Regretting his outburst, Gavin led his destrier into the stables. “All is well,” he muttered and, to prove it, smiled and lifted a hand to an approaching knight.
The man nodded as he passed by.
Feeling as if his mouth might crack wide, leaving a gaping hole out of which his emotions would howl, he slowly—carefully—lowered the smile.
“I am not angry,” he tried again. “I am disappointed. That is all.” With more assurances, he might have convinced himself of it, but Agnes appeared, she who would rub his nose in the humiliation dealt by Lucien de Gautier.
“The miscreant!” she hissed. “Who does he think he is?”
Once more beset with the urge to strike out, he fought down the desire, for his sister must never know of his demons. Though their appearances were rare, when they did rise up, they wreaked havoc on his and others’ lives that haunted him with memories he could not bear to examine.
“’Tis De Gautier of whom you speak?” he said.
“Who else would I call ‘miscreant’?”
“Your husband, perhaps?”
She laughed. “Only when he disagrees with me.”
Which was fairly often.
Gavin led his destrier to the far stall and began to tend the animal’s needs. “He gave forfeit, did he not? What better victory than that, Agnes?”
“What better victory?” She snorted. “Knocking him from his destrier, bringing him to his knees.”
He unbuckled the saddle. “I am content,” he lied, wishing she would leave him.
“He humiliated you, and yet you tell you are content?”
“I am.”
Her face brightened. “Do you know what will be said of you?” When he did not respond, she answered, “They shall say De Gautier forfeited not because he feared your lance or sword, but because he deemed you unworthy.”
Gavin moved around the horse so she would not see his seething.
“Of course, methinks he did it for Alessandra.” She grunted. “Lucien’s homecoming was bad enough, but her arrival has stolen any hope of Melissant wedding the De Gautier heir.”
Gavin looked across his destrier’s back. “What has Alessandra to do with that? ’Tis Lucien’s decision to wed, not hers.”
“Ah, but Lucien and Alessandra are enamored of one another. Do you know where she went after she spoke with you during the break in the tourney?”
Gavin had not known he’d had an audience when he had unhooded Alessandra. It made him terribly uncomfortable. “I do not know where she went.”
“To him—his tent. If he weds a Breville, it will be that one, not my poor Melissant.” She shook her head. “What am I to do, Gavin?”
Alessandra had given him her favor, then gone to another…
Trying again to shake off his demons, Gavin strode around the horse and laid an arm across Agnes’s shoulders. “There will be one more worthy of Melissant than Lucien de Gautier. ’Tis for the best he does not wed her.”
She pulled away from him. “Do you think that is what I wish to hear? From you who would have fallen at the feet of a De Gautier had your challenge not been rejected?” She swung away, crossed to the stall portal, but stopped herself with a hand to the frame.
She stood there a moment, then turned back. “Forgive me.” Her eyes glistened. “Alessandra’s coming has been difficult for me.”
“I can imagine,” he pushed the words past his constricted throat.
Agnes nodded. “She has brought with her Catherine’s ghost, and I know not how to battle it. But I shall.” As if gaining strength from her declaration, she smiled and left Gavin to his own private battle.
He held the demons back until he was certain she was out of earshot. Then, eyes painting everything red, he pulled the saddle from his destrier and threw it against the wall. While the horse whinnied and sidled away, he hurled buckets, brushes, reins, a whip—anything he could lay hands to—until his demons were exhausted. Collapsing against the wall, he slid down it. There he sat, minute after godforsaken minute, weakened by the fit that had possessed him.
When he finally rose from the straw-covered floor, a voice within whispered, Something must be done.
Knowing his demons hungered, that if he did not feed them, they would eat him from the inside out, he said, “So it shall be. And soon.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“It could all be yours, and the land,” Vincent said as he sifted through a pile of coins, “if you wed the red.”
Lucien did not comment until his squire, struggling under the load of armor, exited the tent. “The red, hmm?”
“Aye, the red,” Jervais agreed with Vincent.
Lucien dragged his arming doublet off over his head. “Her name is Alessandra.” He tossed the mailed garment to the cot. “And I shall wed her once order is restored to Falstaff.”
Vincent jerked. “If that was what you intended, then why…?” He shook his head.
“Why not accept Breville’s offer?” Lucien supplied, then picked a coin from the pile and turned it front to back. “For one thing, De Gautier pride.”
“Which you have little enough of, Vincent,” Jervais pointed out.
Vincent shot to his feet and lunged toward his younger brother, but Lucien stepped between them. “Enough!” he growled.
Vincent tore his gaze from Je
rvais. “I do not need him”—he jabbed a finger—“reminding me of my mistakes. I am paying for them, and will no doubt continue to pay the remainder of my life.”
Lucien knew that, among other things, Vincent referred to jousting, a contest abhorrent to him. Prior to attending the tournament, he had voluntarily submitted to weeks of grueling practice alongside his more capable brothers. Yet for all the humiliation and pain he had borne, he had not heretofore uttered a word of protest.
Though Lucien was certain it would be a long time before he could completely forgive his brother for his wrongdoing, he had been proud of the man Vincent had struggled to become.
“We will speak no more of this,” he said. “Come dawn—”
A skittering sound caught his ear, and he looked over his shoulder at the opening he had slashed for Alessandra’s escape. A shadow moved across the red and gold stripes.
Alerted to Lucien’s discovery, his brothers started across the tent, but Lucien stopped them and motioned for them to continue speaking.
Too late. The shadow dissolved, and by the time Lucien thrust his head through the opening, only the trampled scrub evidenced an eavesdropper had been there.
“Who was it?” Vincent asked.
“The bishop?” Jervais suggested.
Lucien considered a long moment, muttered, “Possibly.”
Following the repast, the return of De Gautier lands took place behind closed doors. An hour after entering the lord’s solar, the parties emerged.
Carrying the documents, a brother on either side, Lucien traversed the great hall. His eyes flickered over Alessandra, then he passed through the doors with nary a word to those who watched.
Alessandra slumped where she sat before the blazing hearth. On the morrow, before first light, Corburry’s guests would depart en masse. Would Lucien leave without further word to her, believing the ultimatum she had given him in anger?
“You look unhappy,” Sir Gavin said, reminding her they had been conversing before Lucien’s appearance. “Is it something I said?”
She met his kind eyes. “Nay, I—”
“’Tis what was not said,” Melissant interrupted.
Alessandra turned to find her sister over her shoulder. “What speak you of?”
Melissant winked at her uncle. “I believe our Alessandra hoped to have words with Lucien De Gautier.”
Wondering how her sister could speak so boldly of matters of the heart in front of Sir Gavin, Alessandra said, “You are mistaken.”
“I do not think so,” Melissant replied in a singsong voice.
Grinning, Sir Gavin said, “So, ’tis Lucien de Gautier who occupies your mind. I should have guessed.”
As both Melissant and Gavin appeared firm in their beliefs, Alessandra decided it was useless to protest further. “We are friends. He was good to me when he brought me out of Algiers.”
Melissant plopped down beside her. “Good to you? Is that all?”
“Melissant!” Alessandra exclaimed.
“You have your mother’s foolhardiness if you think you can tame that one,” Sir Gavin said.
“Perhaps she does not wish to tame him,” Melissant suggested.
Sir Gavin chuckled, mussed his niece’s hair. “What of you, Melissant? Would you want him tame?”
“I do not want him at all!”
“But ’twas you who were to wed the De Gautier heir.”
“Aye, Vincent. And good riddance to him.”
“But now Lucien is heir,” he pointed out.
“A better choice,” she said, and added, “were I inclined to make a choice.”
Grateful the conversation had shifted from her involvement with Lucien, Alessandra glanced around the hall and found it emptying as the guests moved to bed down for the night. Which she should also do to rise early enough to seek out Lucien before he departed.
Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Agnes and Bishop Armis. They stood at the far end of the hall, their intent gazes making her feel like prey.
She rose and turned to bid good eve to Melissant and Gavin, and discovered her sister had wandered off to a side table to pick at a platter of cold meats and cheeses.
She looked back at Sir Gavin whose eyes were closed. She touched his shoulder. “Good eve.”
His lids opened. “Good eve, Lady Alessandra.”
As she turned to go, a serving girl appeared before her.
“I’ve a missive for you, milady,” she whispered and placed a parchment into Alessandra’s hand and scampered off.
It had to be from Lucien.
Though her heart fluttered, she grimaced. The girl had tried to be secretive but had not succeeded, for the feeling of being watched was stronger than ever.
Curling her fingers around the missive, she looked into Sir Gavin’s questioning eyes and said again, “Good eve.”
Out of sight of the hall, she threw her skirts over her arm and took the stairs two at a time. Once inside her chamber, she went to stand before the fire and opened the missive.
It was from Lucien, his boldly scrawled initials overlapping the final sentence. She read the note through, then pressed it to her breast.
He wished her to come to his tent, urging her to be cautious so she might slip from the keep unseen and suggesting she mingle with those who headed for their camps outside the castle walls.
Quickly, she donned the cloak and hood that had allowed her to attend the tournament unnoticed. Of course, it had not fooled Sir Gavin.
Keeping him in mind, she descended to the hall. From the shadow of the stairs, she searched for him and found him absent. She continued to the kitchens where some of the servants looked up from their toil, but allowed her to pass without question.
Night’s crisp air greeted her when she stepped outside.
Rubbing her hands over her arms, she traversed the inner and outer baileys. At the portcullis, it proved easy to merge with a group of departing nobles, and moments later she skirted them and ran toward the encampment.
She paused as she neared the red-and-gold striped De Gautier tents, looked cautiously around, then toward Lucien’s tent from which light shone. Smiling, she hitched up her skirts and hurried forward, only to stumble.
She thought she had tripped on her skirts, but instead of falling forward, she was dragged backward.
Her cry of surprise caught by a hand that clapped over her mouth, fear cut a jagged path through her. Desperate to free herself, she twisted and thrust her elbows into the chest of the one behind—a man, as told by his grunt of discomfort.
Gripping her more tightly about the waist, he continued to drag her opposite Lucien’s tent.
Alessandra kicked a leg back and connected with a shin. When that failed to result in her release, she sank her teeth into the fleshy palm that bruised her mouth. But to no avail. Her captor held tight as he maneuvered her from the camp toward the bordering wood.
Did he intend to violate her? Murder her? Who was he? Had he followed her from the keep? Had he been among the nobles she had trailed out of the bailey?
The crunch of leaves and the shadow of trees alerted her to their entrance into the wood. Heart beating so hard she thought it would burst, she reached over her shoulder and raked her nails down the man’s face.
He growled and shifted his hand so that it also covered her nose.
Alessandra tossed her head in an attempt to dislodge the hand, but it bit more deeply into her face. She opened her mouth and screamed against it, but the sound was heard only in her head.
As unconsciousness crept over her, weakening her struggles, one lucid thought made it through. Embracing it, she became deadweight in her captor’s arms.
As she hung there, she sensed his uncertainty. Then, blessed air. Desperation entreated her to gulp the precious stuff, but she forced herself to draw slow, shallow breaths. Her hazy senses slow to clear, it was not until she felt the cold, moist earth that she realized she had been lowered to the ground.
Fearful the n
ight was not dark enough for her to risk opening her eyes, she lay still and waited to discover what the man intended.
He whistled softly, and she heard the sound of approaching horses.
Lifting her lashes slightly, she saw the dark silhouettes of three horses and two riders heading to where she lay. Her captor, his back to her, motioned them forward.
Struggling to keep her breathing even, Alessandra commanded herself to devise a plan before the man’s accomplices reached them. But all she could think to do was run and scream in hopes of drawing the attention of someone in the camp.
She rolled to her stomach, jumped to her feet, snatched up her skirts, and lunged toward the flickering lights.
A shout sounded behind her, then she heard her captor give chase.
Her hair flying out behind her snagged something. A branch? Or the grasping fingers of the one in pursuit? She ran faster, felt the roots of her hair pull free, and knew it was the man.
The blood pounding in her ears echoed by the hooves of riders bearing down upon her, she sent forth a prayer that just this one time she would not trip over her long skirts. Then she screamed. It sounded pitiful, wheezing from her and cut short by the need to draw more breath to fuel her flight.
When her feet touched meadow, her heart soared. Nearly free, she told herself, then an arm turned around her waist, lifted her, and held her like a rag doll against the side of a galloping horse.
As the animal was wheeled around, Alessandra saw the woods rise up before her again—refuge for those who meant to steal her away.
Shortly, she was dropped to the ground.
Where she lay in a heap, she heard voices that sounded strangely and impossibly familiar.
Am I dreaming? she wondered and rolled onto her back and stared up through her tangled hair at those above her.
“I want her gone from here,” spat one of them. "Now!"
Though she was certain she knew the voice, she could not place it.
There was an answering murmur, then one of them dropped to his knees beside her.
