Exhaling a fierce sigh, Geoffrey released Elizabeth’s hands. He rolled off her, got to his feet, and snatched the parchment from Veronique. Behind him, the bed ropes creaked. Elizabeth stumbled away from him, clutching at her ruined bliaut.
Geoffrey broke the seal with his thumb and read the terse lines scribed on the parchment. He laughed. “Damsel, you are not as valuable to your sire as you might believe.”
“What do you mean?” Her fingers knotted into the green wool, holding the edges of the slashed fabric together.
“Your father refused to surrender Wode.”
Pride and relief glowed in her eyes. “I told you he would never agree to your demands.”
“He has challenged me to a melee three days from now, in Moyden Wood.”
“A melee?” Elizabeth’s face turned pale, and she swayed on her feet.
Her horror touched Geoffrey. Despite her pampered, sheltered upbringing, she knew of the savage mock battles that pitted one enemy against another, without the king’s knowledge or consent. Geoffrey had fought two with the Earl of Druentwode. In the fight’s ensuing thrill and blood lust, few warriors heeded the rules of chivalry that governed tournaments. Even fewer considered their opponents’ safety. Most weapons were not blunted, a fact, he expected, her father knew as well.
Anticipation snaked down Geoffrey’s spine. At long last, vengeance. If he were correct in guessing Brackendale’s intentions, one lord would be killed. The other would stand as the dust settled on the maimed and the dead. He would be the rightful ruler of Wode.
“You cannot,” Elizabeth shrieked. “You cannot!”
Geoffrey shrugged. “’Tis a fair challenge. May the mightiest lord win.”
Her eyes grew wide with fear. “My father is no match for you in armed combat. He will die.”
“Then he will die,” Geoffrey said with cold finality.
Elizabeth’s hand flew to her mouth. She ran for the door.
He let her go.
***
As the sound of Elizabeth’s footsteps faded, Veronique turned to Geoffrey and grinned. “Tsk, tsk. A spineless wench, is she not?”
“’Tis no concern of yours,” he snarled.
Veronique arched an eyebrow. With his hands on his hips, and his lips pressed into a line, he looked less than satisfied with his encounter with the lady. She bit back a smug laugh. Served him right for dallying with another woman.
Frustration and fury surrounded him like invisible armor. Excitement shivered through Veronique. Ah, she loved to soothe his anger. It took skill and patience to transform rage, such a volatile emotion, into unbridled passion.
But she could.
She cast him a teasing pout. With loose-hipped strides, she crossed to him and twirled her fingers into the fine hair at his nape. “You are not pleased I interrupted you, after all?” When he did not respond, she slid her flattened palms down his torso and shoved them up under his shirt.
He cursed.
With a teasing giggle, she crushed her body against his while her fingers glided over his bare skin. “Tell me, milord, that you are not angry with me.”
He growled. “You disobeyed me. The message could have waited.”
Veronique hid a scowl. If she had not entered the solar, he would have sampled another woman’s body. She dug her nails into his flesh and covered her rage with a bold, slippery kiss that should have left him enticed and malleable. “Who would see to your needs then?” she cooed. “’Tis clear Brackendale’s daughter could not.”
His hands closed around her wrists, stopping her caresses.
“I am no mood for your games,” he said, his voice so iron hard, she shivered.
As Veronique stared up into his face, half-masked by shadow, fear prickled in her veins. The night he had returned to bed after leaving her alone, he had not touched her. When she had tried to entice him, he had rolled onto his side and left her cold. Nor, over the past few days or nights, had he invited her to share his bed.
Forcing a sultry grin, she stretched up on the tips of her toes. She would prove he was not immune to her seductions.
He frowned and pushed her away. Turning his back to her, he reached for the wine jug on the side table.
With rigid fingers, Veronique smoothed her gown’s crushed sleeve. “A drink first then, to ease you?” she suggested, unable to keep the edge from her tone. Geoffrey must have heard it, too, for his hand froze on the pitcher’s handle.
“Go.”
“Milord?”
“I wish you to leave, Veronique,” he said without facing her. “Close the doors behind you.”
“You are dismissing me?” As she stared at the unyielding wall of his back, the significance of his rejections crashed down upon her like a crumbling wall. “Why?”
He looked at her, his gaze shadowed with regret. His shoulders raised in a stiff shrug. “I do not feel for you as I once did. I do not want to lie with you. I am . . . sorry.”
His words stung. He did not need her. He did want her. Not now, mayhap never again.
Beneath her powders and rouge, warmth drained from her face. He was forcing her away because he desired the lady.
Elizabeth Brackendale was younger, more beautiful, and her noble bloodlines made her a far richer prize than a poor farmer’s daughter turned courtesan.
Veronique’s jaw tightened with fury. “I never expected you to choose Brackendale’s daughter over me.”
Geoffrey looked at her over his wine goblet, his stare hard with warning. “I asked you to leave. Do you ignore yet another of my orders?”
Veronique forced a smile with lips that felt carved from stone. “Nay, milord.” She dropped into a graceful curtsey. “I bid you good evening.”
She sensed his gaze upon her as she walked across the chamber. How she hated the ache that crushed her heart.
As Veronique hastened down the passage to the musty antechamber she claimed as her private room, her bliaut lashed at her ankles. Her eyes burned, and not from the smoke spewing from the torches. What had happened was all her fault, that black-haired, blue-eyed wench’s. Veronique remembered Elizabeth’s pale limbs entwined with Geoffrey’s, and spat an oath into the shadows.
Veronique trembled with rage. Geoffrey was her lord. Her lover. Her warrior. No one had ever challenged her position as his favorite until Lady Elizabeth Brackendale arrived at Branton.
Staggering into the darkened chamber, Veronique slammed the door and leaned back against the splintered wood. She had followed Geoffrey across the continent to this vile, festering, run-down keep because he had ambitions of power and wealth.
After spending two years of her life with him, she would not be denied her share of the riches, or the glory.
She groped for a taper and lit it from the candle beside the straw pallet. Light glinted off the polished steel mirror lying on the bed. She picked it up and looked at her reflection.
The taper flickered, illuminating the wicked smile on her blood-red lips.
If Geoffrey intended to cast her aside, she would find a way to deny him his wealth.
And vengeance.
Chapter Sixteen
Elizabeth paced her chamber, her slippers tapping on the floorboards. She must find a way to change what was inevitable. Frowning, she turned and walked back the ten steps she had counted out so many times before which brought her to the opposite wall. She had to think. Think!
Worrying the end of her braid with her fingers, she spun on her heel. She had to stop the melee. The brutal battle might prove the victor’s honor and his right to Wode, but it also meant her father’s death. She knew that without doubt. Why had he challenged de Lanceau to such a skirmish when he knew he could not defeat a crusading warrior? Why?
Had he chosen the melee because ’twas an honorable death?
She forced a painful swallow. Her gaze fell to the rose wool folded on the trestle table. The melee had come about because of Geoffrey’s desire
for revenge, his quest to seek justice for his father’s death.
Geoffrey was not so heartless if he felt such anguish.
He had loved his sire very much, mayhap as much as she loved hers. Even, as he had posed that afternoon on the wall walk, with the poignancy she felt for her mother’s death. He, too, knew the anguish of loss. Elizabeth hugged her arms to her chest and blinked away tears. He, too, knew the fear of being alone.
The afternoon sun faded to twilight, and when she next looked out the window, a crescent moon gleamed in the heavens, surrounded by a scattering of stars. An owl hooted in the darkness. Time was passing. Still, she had no answer.
She must stop Geoffrey. She must save her father.
Somehow.
Elizabeth sighed. She could stand the futile pacing no longer. Marching to the door, she pounded on it with her fists and shouted for someone to come. The sentries outside waited until she was almost hoarse before the door opened.
“’Avin’ a tantrum, are ye?” The guard eyed her as though he expected the water pitcher to be hurled at his head.
“I must speak with Lord de Lanceau.”
“If milord wished to see ye, he would ’ave summoned ye,” the sentry grumbled.
“Ask him anyway.” She softened her demand with a wide-eyed, plaintive, “Please.”
The door slammed in her face.
Determined not to work herself into an anxious fit while she waited, Elizabeth washed, pulled on the rose wool, and loosened her hair so her curls cascaded down her back. As she smoothed a crease out of her bodice, the door opened. The sentry tipped his head and indicated she was to go with him.
Elizabeth walked into the dark corridor. She prayed that since their encounter, Geoffrey’s temper had cooled and also his desire to punish her. If she appealed to his sense of reason, his knight’s code of honor, she could convince him there was no advantage to the melee.
Oh, God, she had to convince him. Even if it meant risking his hands on her skin and more of his sinful kisses. Even if meant risking . . . her innocence.
Lie with me, Elizabeth, he had whispered. Those terrifying, thrilling words had torn from him with raw honesty.
Could she save her father’s life by giving herself to Geoffrey?
The guard pushed open the solar door. She stepped in, and the door closed with a thud. The solar was shadowed and quiet, as she remembered. Drawing a shaky breath, Elizabeth started toward the hearth.
Geoffrey sprawled in one of the chairs, swirling a goblet in one hand. He stared at the crackling fire and did not glance up when she neared.
His hair looked mussed. How ridiculous to wonder how many times he had dragged his fingers through it. She expected him to be gloating, basking in the battle victory so certain to be his, but his expression held wariness.
“You dare to venture into my chamber alone again?” His gruff voice seemed loud in the room’s stillness. He tilted his head and looked at her, and his eyes glinted in the dim light.
She clasped her sweaty hands together. “I am not afraid of you, milord.”
“You should be.” His thumb brushed away a drop of red wine on the goblet’s rim. “If you have come to demand an apology for my behavior this afternoon, you will not get it.”
“I do not seek your apology.”
“I am still angry, damsel.” Distrust echoed in each word. He must wonder why she had asked to see him and thus courted danger.
Steeling her nerves, she strolled into the shadows painted by firelight. His gaze moved over her unbound hair and the clinging rose wool, and hope sparked within her. Desire still gleamed in his eyes. If he refused to heed her reasons why the melee must be canceled, she still had a chance to sway him.
She paused near his chair. “H-how is Dominic?”
Geoffrey frowned. “Why do you ask?”
“I hope he is recovering well.”
He stared at the drop of wine glistening like blood on his thumb. “He is awake, but suffering a headache and sour stomach. Mildred has not left his side. She is convinced he would recuperate faster if he drank one of her purgative tonics, but he refuses to have one.”
Elizabeth chuckled. “She has great faith in her tonics.”
Silence lagged. She fidgeted with her cuff and tried to decide the best way to broach the subject of the melee.
He sighed, an impatient sound. “What do you want? Why did you ask to see me?”
“I must speak with you.”
“Then speak.”
Her legs trembled. She moved to the hearth. The fire’s heat, as warm as Geoffrey’s caresses, touched her skin, and she shivered. “I have come—”
“—to ask a favor of me.”
Elizabeth started. She could not deny that was indeed her aim. “How did you know?”
“I guessed.” Wry humor warmed his voice. It gave her the courage to plunge ahead and say what she must.
“Milord, I ask that you . . . I want you to refuse my father’s challenge.”
Geoffrey laughed bitterly. “I am many things, but I am not a coward.”
“I did not mean you were.” She struggled to keep her tone calm. If she enraged him, she would achieve naught, and she must convince him to halt the battle. “The melee is a fight to the death, is it not?”
He nodded, hair snarling over his shoulder.
“My father is more than twice your age. He is not as strong, quick, or as skilled with a sword. He will die.” Her words ended on a whisper. “You accused me earlier of being a murderer. Are you so eager to be one?”
Geoffrey’s eyes darkened. He sipped his wine; then he rested his goblet on his thigh. “My father was an innocent man. Your sire is guilty of taking his life. To kill the guilty is justice, milady, not murder.”
“My father is guiltless! He followed orders from the king.”
“The melee will decide who is right.” Geoffrey’s mouth twisted into a mirthless smile. “’Twould please you, aye, to see my head on a pike?”
She pressed her arm across her stomach, sickened by the gruesome image and shocked by the anguish that swept through her when she thought of him dead. “Of course not.”
For the barest moment, surprise flickered in his gaze. Then his face hardened with scorn. “I will not decline your sire’s challenge. Naught you say or do will change my mind.”
Desperation clawed up inside her like a living creature. His words had sounded so bleak. Final. “Milord—”
“I will not,” he growled.
She shook like a leaf buffeted by a gale, about to be tossed over a fathomless pit. Despair threatened to devour her. She braced her palm against the cold wall and sought strength from the solid stone and mortar. “You know the pain of losing a father,” she whispered. “You have lived with the agony of losing someone you love, respect, and admire. Do you wish the same misery for me?”
A muscle leapt in Geoffrey’s jaw.
“Promise me you will spare my father’s life.” She pleaded with the depths of her soul. “Please.”
Geoffrey raised the goblet to his lips and looked at the fire. “I cannot.”
Tears welled in her eyes. She should have realized he would never listen to reason or pleas. His anguish had festered for too many years.
Still, all was not lost. Not yet.
One way remained for her to save her sire.
One last chance to sway her enemy from vengeance.
She blinked away the tears. She would have no regrets.
Raising her chin, she met Geoffrey’s gaze. With slow, loose-hipped strides, she crossed to him.
Caution flared in his eyes. “Elizabeth?”
A sob jammed in her throat, yet she dropped to her knees before him. The bliaut pooled around her and snagged on the worn floorboards, but she did not care if it never pulled free. She bowed her head, and her tresses fell around her face like a black veil. “I beg of you. Spare my father.”
“’Tis not like you
to beg, damsel.”
Her head jerked up. She fought an angry blush, struggled to find the will to say what she must. “If you spare him, I will lie with you.”
“Elizabeth.” His voice became a helpless groan. “You must not—”
Medieval Rogues Page 22
