A Triple Thriller Fest (116 page)

Tess felt the warm glow of a couple of drinks. And she had Nick with her, and a promise from Peter. A promise she would enforce with every tool at her disposal. But there was something about the scene that troubled her. At last it came to her.

Three women, almost fifty men. It was a medieval banquet, and wouldn’t most banquets be like this? Men, celebrating a victory in battle, planning their war. Where would the women be? What was their role in such a world? She knew her history enough to know that plenty of women had worked behind the scenes, pulling strings, plotting. But for and on behalf of their men, mostly.

Maybe Peter was right. Maybe the modern world was a fragile construction. It could collapse and so would every measure of human success. Nobody would fall further than women. There were still places where a woman couldn’t vote, for god’s sake, where she couldn’t drive a car, couldn’t testify against a man in court. It was some women’s reality, but every woman’s history. And possible future.

A beautiful woman? Valuable as trade. A smart, quirky woman? Send her to the convent. The wives and daughters of your enemy? Let the soldiers have them; they deserve some plunder.

The man stopped juggling swords and someone picked up another drinking song. Nick started to fidget. Tess waved him over. He sat down and yawned.

“Do you want me to take you up to bed?”

“No, I want to stay here.”

“It’s got to be after midnight. That’s pretty late for a six year-old boy.” She smiled. “And on a school night, too.”

He looked at her with a frown that made her laugh. “I don’t have school tomorrow.”

“Just teasing you. But you still need rest. Come on, I’ll sing you some songs.”

“Tell me a story?”

Peter was talking at the front of the table and he said something that made the guests roar with laughter. She waited until the noise died down.

“A real story, or something make-believe?”

“A real story. Tell me about a castle, about knights and stuff.”

“Oh, I know some good ones. I know a great one about how a man captured a castle with a bag of pigeons. How does that sound?”

“With a bag of pigeons? That’s impossible.”

“No, come on. I’ll tell you.” Tess rose from her chair and took his hand. She caught Peter’s gaze at the far end of the table and they exchanged nods.

“Henri said that someday soon I’ll never have to go to school again.”

“That’s silly, there will always be school.”

Her first parenting act would be to cut through that crap. Nick was far too young for end-of-the-world nonsense. It was like that duck-and-cover, bomb shelter stuff when she was a kid. It just served to freak you out.

She took him upstairs. It was cold in his room and she spent a few minutes building the fire, coaxing the embers to take hold again, before she told him the story. He didn’t make it to the end.

Tess sat by his side for several minutes after he fell asleep, stroked his hair. The stone floors cut all sounds from the banquet hall. It was quiet except for the crackle of the fire and the patter of sleet against the window.

She returned to the great hall just as the doors burst open at the far side. Two men strode in. The first was Henri Fournier. She didn’t recognize the second man. Snow dusted their hair. Tess was doubly glad to be inside the castle, and not in Niels’s camp.

Peter turned and stopped whatever he’d been saying. He set down his beer mug. “What’s this, then?”

Henri stepped to one side. The man he’d escorted inside held out a piece of paper. “Lord Borisenko issues a challenge,” he said in a voice loud enough for everyone in the hall. “Unless you are cowards.”

A noise passed through the group. Like a collective drawing of the breath. Aggression flashed on some men’s faces, excitement in others. They leaned forward and set down drinks. Tess felt her own thrill, that passed as she reminded herself that none of this was real. A rich man’s game.

“Give me that,” Peter said. He snatched up the paper, broke the seal and read it. He looked up, glanced through the crowd until he found Tess on the far side of the table. “Tess?”

She gave a little nod to indicate that he come down by the hearth, where they could talk apart from the others.

Peter set down his beer mug and rose to his feet. “Someone shut the doors, it’s damn cold out there. And get our guests meat and beer.” He made his way to Tess’s side.

He waited until the singing picked up again, then handed her the note. She read it, shrugged, handed it back.

“Straightforward enough,” she said. “Our best man against theirs. Outside the castle walls. The winner gets ten defectors from the other side.”

“More like a game than anything. Ten men isn’t much.”

“Could be,” Tess said. “Right now they’ve got seven men for every three of ours. We take ten of theirs, it improves that ratio to better than two to one. We lose ten and they outnumber us three to one. It’s a small castle, but we need every man we can get.”

“Can you beat their best man?” Peter asked.

“You’re thinking I’ll be our champion?”

“Of course. I saw you handle Niels, he kicked my ass last time we sparred, and I’m pretty good.”

“Might have been holding back, I can’t tell. Besides, it might be someone else, someone better.”

“Maybe.” Peter didn’t sound convinced.

“Let’s say I can. Can we be sure it’s not a trap?”

“Niels won’t cheat,” Peter said.

“That’s not cheating. Cheating is if he drills a hole in the wall and blows it up with dynamite. A trap on the battlefield is perfectly fair. Forget what you know about chivalry and honor, that sort of thing happened all the time in the Middle Ages.”

“So we can’t do it. Not unless they’re willing to come inside the castle for the fight.”

“I don’t want that,” Tess said. “The last thing I want Niels to do is see what I’m doing to shore up the defenses. Outside is better. What we need is a hostage, we get that, then yes, I think I can take Niels. He wasn’t the only one holding back.”

Peter quieted the men, then told Borisenko’s man that Tess would be his champion. They would meet at noon the following day fifty yards in front of the castle gates. The battle would continue until one side yielded.

“And one other condition,” Tess said. “We don’t leave the castle until we have a hostage. Lady Borisenko will turn herself over, alone and unarmed for our safekeeping.”

Peter leaned to whisper in Tess’s ear. “Yekatarina? You want her?”

“Of course. Niels can’t come, and not Borisenko, either. Who better than the wife of the attacking lord? We’ll be perfectly safe.”

“But, Tess.”

“I’ll deliver your terms to my lord,” Borisenko’s man said. “But he’ll want a hostage in return.”

Henri Fournier stood up and turned to Peter. “I’ll be the hostage, if you’d like.”

Peter nodded, but he seemed to be focusing on something else entirely. “Yes, of course.” He leaned in to Tess. “We have to talk.”

“Dismiss your guests, then we’ll talk.”

The hall was in an uproar as Borisenko’s man left the hall. He gave a rather reluctant looking glance over his shoulder at his unfinished plate of food and his mug of beer. Henri escorted him out. A thin breeze knifed into the hall until the doors shut behind them.

“Thank god we took the castle,” Tess said. She turned her body to warm the other side in front of the fire. “Or we’d be out there enjoying the delightful breezes floating down from the Canadian Arctic.”

“Tess, you remember how Nick’s mother died?”

“You were in the Seychelles, right? She fell off the yacht one night.”

He looked pained. “Right. Well that’s not the whole story. Remember how I said she was upset about the baby? How she had never wanted to be pregnant in the first place?”

She felt a frown come to her face. Why was he telling her this now? There was a lull in conversation from the table, and she waited until it picked up again.

“You don’t think it was an accident? You think she drowned herself on purpose?”

“By ‘not the whole story’ I mean a total fabrication, except for the part about not wanting to be pregnant.”

“Peter?”

“Okay, so that’s not entirely true. She wanted to be pregnant enough that she didn’t get an abortion and she’d have done that if she thought it was necessary. She was playing something. I don’t know what. You know, I can be a little focused and there was something going on behind the scenes. I think she was playing for some advantage.”

“Will you stop?” she interrupted. “You’re so far ahead, I just…what about the yacht? Are you trying to tell me she didn’t drown?”

“It was the story I came up with to tell Nick when he got older, so he wouldn’t know his mother hadn’t wanted him. That she just abandoned him. It would be easier that way. The truth was too painful and I didn’t think it would help anyone. So I was thinking…”

“Oh, god.” She didn’t feel well.

“Tess, wait, listen.” Peter took her arm. “He doesn’t have a mother. She found something else, bigger than me, and is playing that. I don’t know what, or why. But she’s not interested in Nick.”

“How do you know? How do you know she won’t come back some day and want him back? How will that work with our deal?”

“She won’t come back, because she doesn’t care. She’s here and she doesn’t even want to see him.”

“She’s
here,
here?” She drew back, yet again shocked momentarily into silence. “My god, it’s Yekatarina, isn’t it? Yekatarina Borisenko is Nick’s mother.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

Chapter Twenty-five:

Tess ignored the first knock. She was awake, and sitting in the window sill, wrapped in a blanket. Sleet had turned to snow outside. She could see the watchman patrol the outer curtain. He had a lamp on a pole and it looked like a glowing ball in the white darkness that fell around it.

A second knock. “It’s me,” Peter said from the other side of the door. “Can I come in?”

“Depends. Do you have way to break down the door?”

“Come on, Tess.”

She got up and swept off her blanket and tossed it to the bed. The fire had died to glowing coals. She grabbed the candlestick from the wall and lit the wick in the embers. She put the candle in its sconce and unbarred the door.

Tess stood with her hands on her hips and a raised eyebrow while Peter looked her over. She wore a nightgown, tied with a cloth belt. The top was linen, thin and nearly transparent and she felt his eyes linger on her breasts. Fine, let him know what he was missing.

And yet, seeing him with his hair rumpled, his shirt undone, she found herself softening. She should be furious; she had been furious. She should throw him out the window, but instead she found herself wanting him.

“You look beautiful.”

“Is that your way of an apology?” she asked.

“No, I didn’t come to apologize.”

“Nothing to apologize for, I guess. Probably didn’t even occur to you, to say something like, ‘Sorry, Tess, your adopted son—who I’ve taken back, by the way—has a biological mother. I know I said she was dead, but…’”

“It did occur to me. But I figured it would sound callow and insincere.”

“Because you don’t regret not telling me, you mean.”

“Of course I regret it. But I’d still probably do it again, knowing only what I knew then, I mean. Now that I know more, sure, it was a mistake.”

She looked him over. There was a glint that she recognized in his eyes. “You didn’t come to apologize and you didn’t even come to talk, did you?”

“No, I guess not.” Peter gave a shrug and a half smile. “You want me to go? It’s not like you’re the only woman in the castle.”

“Does that mean Susan Hartford slipped you a note at dinner?”

“I’ll give Susan a pass,” he said. “That nose is a bit of a turn-off.”

“Right. It’s damn lucky she’s with us. Niels could use that thing as a battering ram. How about Daria LeFevre?”

“Yeah, Daria. Should I call her up to join us?” Peter asked. “Cause I’ll admit that she’s pretty hot.”

“Hot and a lesbian, if I’m catching her vibe correctly. Bring her to my room and you could forget about being an active participant.”

”
Participant.
I like that the thought of participation has crossed your mind.”

“It’s starting to, yes.”

Peter put a hand on her belt and pull her toward him. “This thing a chastity belt?”

Tess resisted, just a little. Her gown slipped on one shoulder, exposing the top of one breast, halfway to the nipple. She looked down, but didn’t adjust herself, then looked up again and drew his eyes to hers.

“Maybe, maybe, not,” she said.

“How do I find out?”

“We could fight for it. You win, you can have me. Lose and you can duel with Susan Hartford and her nose.”

He laughed. “Only a fool would take that deal. Anyway, I’m not armed.”

“Not armed? You didn’t bring a weapon of any kind?”

She slipped her hand below his waist and stroked her fingers on the outside of the bulge in his pants. “Feels to me like you’re ready for a fight.”

Tess backed toward the bed. “Bar the door. There could be violence. Mature audiences only.”

Peter let go of her belt and obeyed. Tess stood in front of the bed and turned in such a way as to let the light of the candle shine from behind her shoulder. It glowed through her linen blouse, and he again looked at her breasts. “God, you’re beautiful. Why did I ever—?”

“I don’t know, but you did, and this doesn’t change anything, you understand? It’s about tonight, right now, that’s all.”

“Tess,” he said, “I made a mistake, I know that now. Maybe we should—”

“Shhh. Don’t ruin it.”

Peter stepped forward and she slid her hand into his shirt. She could feel his breathing, heavier now. And his heart, thumping. He bent his mouth to her neck. She arched her head, then pulled her blouse further down her shoulder when his lips trailed lower.

His hands untied her belt and they were together on the bed. Tess pushed him down and sat on top of him while he fumbled with his own clothes. She swept off her gown with one movement. The cold shivered along her skin. Peter drew in his breath. He looked at her for a long moment until finally he pulled the blanket up around her shoulders. And then he was in her and she closed her eyes and took in her own, shuddering breath.