Claire Delacroix (11 page)

“I was alone,” Yves admitted in a low voice. “Indeed, I have been alone virtually every day and night of my life.”

“Have you no siblings?”

Yves shook his head. “A sister, who was lost through my own youthful folly.”

It was clear he blamed himself for this sister’s demise, and Gabrielle rushed to reassure him. “But—”

“But nothing,” Yves interrupted firmly. “Although I have fared well enough, my lady, mine is not a fate I would see bestowed upon any other.” He flashed a glance toward her. “Let that explanation suffice for the moment.”

It was not easy for him to speak of himself, Gabrielle saw. She smiled reassuringly at him as she nodded. “As you wish,” she said, not wanting to make him feel he had made a mistake in confiding in her. “But know that I will listen whenever you wish to talk of your sister or anything else.”

The knight stared at her, as though amazed by such an offer.

Then, ever so slowly, an answering smile crept across his lips.

The tentative smile made him look much younger than Gabrielle had ever seen him. Her heart wrenched to have that smile turned upon her, for Yves was infinitely more attractive this way than with his lips drawn in a stern line.

“Make no mistake, my lady,” he said with resolve. “Your welfare in this matter is of equal importance to me as that of Thomas.”

The intensity of his amber gaze made Gabrielle’s heart skip a beat. Surely he could not mean as much as his glance implied? Surely this man, convinced to join her cause only of late, could not truly care whether she lived or died?

No! Yves’ concern was only for Thomas. It was to Thomas he had pledged his blade; it was the retrieval of Thomas that he had sworn to see done.

All the same, Gabrielle could not seem to draw a full breath into her lungs. With difficulty, she tore her gaze away from his and studied the forest with feigned fascination.

The man had an appeal, that much was certain. Somehow it was becoming increasingly difficult to recall that such a finely wrought man would have learned to use that appeal as effectively as every other weapon in his arsenal.

Her father certainly had known such skill.

Gabrielle must focus upon the duty before them. She was the key to Thomas not being alone, a state he had admitted to finding important. She was the one who knew most about Perricault and these men pledged to the house. She was the key to Yves’ attaining lordship of the estate.

A lordship Yves had said he did not desire.

Confusion reigned within Gabrielle at that recollection and she knew she had to be free of this man’s dizzying presence to sort fantasy from fact.

“I thank you for your concern,” she said, and hated the breathlessness of her voice. What had happened to her usual matter-of-fact tone? “If you will excuse me, I have an errand.”

And Gabrielle, much to her own shame, fairly fled into the forest.

It was decidedly unlike Lady Gabrielle to turn tail and run, but that was exactly what it appeared she was doing.

For the second time in short order.

Yves could not imagine what he had done to frighten her. He watched her retreating figure with confusion that slowly melted into curiosity.

What kind of errand could she have up there in the woods? She had long ago passed the latrines, but showed no signs of slowing her course. Yves lent chase yet again, determined to set matters between them to rights.

Suddenly, Gabrielle halted, and it appeared she fell to her knees. Yves leaped forward, realizing too late that she had done so deliberately.

The lady looked up and Yves froze, feeling like a child caught with one hand on the sugarloaf. They stared at each other for a long moment while the wind rustled through the new growth overhead.

“I must apologize,” Yves murmured finally. “I have interrupted your prayers.”

Gabrielle seemed embarrassed and that tempting flush rose over her cheeks once more. Yves could not help but take a step closer. It amazed him that the same woman who could argue a point with vehement logic could moments later flush with a softness that made him want to taste her kisses anew.

“Yes, I pray for Thomas each night. You likely think my efforts wasted…”

“On the contrary.”

Gabrielle’s gaze flew to his, and Yves closed the distance between them. “I would have expected you to be a skeptic,” she admitted.

“And so I have been,” Yves acknowledged with a rueful shrug of his shoulders. “Yet there must be some effect to your prayers, for you alone were able to persuade me to take your cause, and that against all odds. Do not forget that Tulley tried to force me to his will only moments before your own arrival.”

“And he failed.”

“Most definitely.”
Gabrielle’s violet gaze clung to Yves’ face. He had the sense that there were none but they two in the world, and recalled yet again the sweet press of her lips beneath his own.

The wayward thought awakened a heat deep within Yves that made it very difficult to follow the thread of the conversation.

“While you, my lady, succeeded,” Yves concluded. “Surely that must be of import.”

“You do not mock me in this,” Gabrielle whispered.

Mock her? “Of course not.”

“Then you will not keep me from my prayers any longer.” Gabrielle’s tone was dismissive.

But Yves was not quite ready to turn away. He looked back over his shoulder toward the slumbering camp and his heart ached at the homecoming that had greeted Gabrielle here.

For the first time in all his days, he felt that there was someone in whom he could confide. Gabrielle had not judged him for sharing the tale of his bastardy, after all.

She deserved the truth.

All the same, such confessions did not come easily to an independent man like Yves.

“My lady, this place is unlike any I have known,” he said with less than his usual grace, his words falling more quickly than was his wont.

Gabrielle seemed to force a polite laugh. “It is not the accommodation any of us are accustomed to—”

“No, I do not mean that” Yves interrupted her with a terse shake of his head. “It is a home, as no place I have ever called my own has been.”

Gabrielle’s lips parted with surprise. “You have never had a home? What about Sant-Roux?”

“A fiction, created by the man who knighted me long after I fled my father’s abode.” Yves glanced toward her and then away, fearing her censure. “He had to knight me in the name of some estate and was reluctant to use his own, lest others think me
his
bastard.”

“But your mother…”

“Died but days after I was born,” Yves supplied tightly. He could not look at her, so frowned into the shadows of the forest. “And my father was less than delighted to have a bastard son underfoot.”

“But surely at the count’s court…”

“I was a bastard, tolerated for my abilities,” Yves said savagely. “The count, to be sure, has always been gracious about my birth, but few others share his grace.” He shook his head then and forced his tone to become cool once more. “I apologize, my lady, for none of this is your concern.”

Gabrielle, to Yves’ surprise, rose and laid a hand upon his arm. Reluctantly, he looked into her eyes, relief flooding through him at the compassion that shone there. “No, I apologize doubly for any offense caused,” she said quietly. “I can well understand why you find the issue of your birth a troubling one.”

Yves shook his head, “You did not know.” He looked back toward the camp, his eyes narrowed against the darkness. “Just as you cannot know what a pleasure it is to be welcomed in such a home as this.”

Gabrielle’s grip tightened on his arm, the slight weight of her slender figures sending a tingle over Yves’ flesh.

“I have never raised my voice in prayer, my lady,” Yves admitted hoarsely. “But it seems that on this night I have something to be thankful for.”

She inhaled sharply in surprise. “You have never prayed!”

Yves studied his boots and shook his head. “Indeed, I do not know how to begin,” he confessed. “But since our objectives are as one in this, I would appreciate if you would permit me to lift my voice along with yours.”

Gabrielle said nothing and Yves feared she would refuse him. He glanced at her and their gazes locked once more. “I would add my entreaties for your son’s safe return to your side.”

Gabrielle could not have declined Yves’ simple request for all the riches in Christendom. She stared into the amber depths of his eyes, marveling that he had not been more severely scarred after all that he had endured.

It was so easy to imagine Yves as a young boy, a boy not unlike Thomas, all alone in an unkind world. Gabrielle’s heart ached for what Yves must have endured. It was a credit to the strength of his character that he had become the success he was, for certainly the world had not granted him any favor.

“It is easy enough,” she said huskily, and offered him her hand. The warmth of his grip closed securely over her own. Gabrielle began to pray, and Yves haltingly echoed her words, lending his voice to her appeal.

And for the first time since she could remember, Gabrielle felt she was not alone in battling the forces arrayed against her and her son

T
he mist was still clinging to the surface of the river when Yves had his first sight of Chateau Perricault.

True to rumor, the keep rose high and unassailable above the river, which noisily raged at spring heights. A tributary joined the river at the south end of the massive rock that rose to support the keep itself, and the water boiled there against the great boulders scattered at the base of the steep cliffs. The walls that capped the cliffs were unsurmountably high.

A natural wonder had been transformed into a fortress that would not be readily assailed. The river’s swift flow and the volume of water made it impossible to even consider crossing anywhere other than the bridge.

And Yves could see the men pacing its length even from here. Similarly, men could be spotted on the high curtain walls above, and there were more lookouts for archers than Yves would have preferred.

How he had hoped that Seymour had overestimated the keep’s strength! It was doubly defeating to see that its formidability had been understated.

“It does not look good, does it, my lord?” Leon murmured by Yves’ side. He was the only man to accompany Yves this morning.

“Not from this side,” Yves acknowledged. “Though it
would be a fine keep to defend.” Which made Yves marvel anew that Philip had claimed Perricault so readily.

Could Gabrielle’s suspicion be right? Just the thought of her, and the shadows lurking in her violet eyes when she spoke of Thomas, distracted Yves from the puzzle before him.

Never had he met a woman with whom he could so readily talk, who grasped so easily the full import of strategy and planning. Yves had told her more than he had ever confided in another, yet the awareness of that did not make him feel exposed. He felt more calm than he certainly had of late, as though the burden of his history was not the weight he had long believed. For a man who had always kept his thoughts to himself, that was remarkable enough in and of itself.

But Gabrielle listened without judgment. She took Yves for what he was and did not hold his bastardy against him. Gabrielle only succumbed to the emotion that ruled most women’s lives when she feared for Thomas, and that was sentiment Yves could readily understand.

He wondered suddenly what it would be like to hold a place in that lady’s esteem. An unfamiliar longing rushed through him with such dizzying speed that Yves banished the thought and forced himself to consider the dauntingly high walls of Perricault once more.

Certainly it seemed against the odds that any surprise would be great enough to win access to the château without inside aid, for this keep could be defended with very few men.

But perhaps he misjudged its situation.

“Closer,” he urged Leon, and the pair crept toward the bridge in silence. The thick forest undergrowth hid them from view, especially wrapped as they were in brown, homespun cloaks. The fog over the river similarly aided their mission.

The bridge was surprisingly active for such an early hour. Yves could hear men’s boots stomping on the wooden planks even before they drew alongside. Noting how readily the sound carried through the mist, he silently advised Leon to move yet more quietly.

The sky had just barely lightened to gray in the east, but gradually Yves could discern great numbers of men mounted and armed on the road to Perricault’s gates. Heavily laden wagons and carts spilled through the high gates even as they watched.

Could Seymour have spoken aright?

Yves and Leon exchanged a glance and settled in to the last outstretched finger of the forest to listen and watch.

“Hail, Reynaud!” bellowed one guard. “Have you enough ale in that cart to warm the Lord de Trevaine’s belly in his home estate?”

The man driving the cart flicked his whip at the donkeys harnessed before it. “That and enough even for the thieving likes of you!” he retorted.

The men on the bridge laughed, then ushered the cart towards the bridge that crossed the opposite branch of the river. Yves drew a crude map in the dirt, placing Trevaine to the east of that river before looking questioningly to Leon.

That man nodded emphatically, then pointed back to the activity on the bridge.

A caparisoned steed of obviously fine breeding pranced down the road, the knight upon him garbed in fine mail and cloaked in crimson. A pair of squires trotted their palfrys before the destrier, one holding a standard of similar red hue high before the knight. A bevy of knights followed behind, their trap clattering in the morning light, their virtual army of squires trailing behind.

Yves looked at Leon, who traced a mark on his chest where the knight displayed his emblem. He moved his lips so that the name was clear without him uttering a sound.

“Philip de Trevaine.”

Yves narrowed his eyes and scanned the obviously departing party once more. This was his opponent. It was impossible to discern much of Philip, for that man was fully helmeted and cloaked. He seemed of a build and carriage suitable to a man not much older than Yves.

Philip rode down the road from the castle gates and led his retinue across the far bridge. As soon as he reached the far shore, he gave his destrier his spurs. The party galloped along the road and were swallowed by the forest in mere moments.

And silence reigned.

Seymour was right, it seemed, for Philip looked to be abandoning Perricault. Yves scanned the walls once more and spotted only three or four archers lining the summit. Perhaps Philip, too, thought the keep could be defended with few hands.

But where was Thomas? Yves scanned the stragglers, scrutinizing each horse that passed, and could not find evidence of a small boy anywhere within their ranks.

And no child had ridden with Philip, Yves was certain. There were no women, either, not even any whores trailing behind the knights and men-at-arms, leaving him to wonder whether Philip had abandoned them within the keep, purportedly to care for the boy.

All the same, it was most odd.

Horses’ hooves clattered on the bridge to the far side and, to Yves’ amazement, the better part of the guards on gates and bridges turned to follow Philip’s departing company

By the time the sun crested the horizon and dispelled the mist from the river’s surface, only a handful of souls remained in residence at Perricault.

Yves leaned back in the shrubbery and scowled at the keep etched against the morning sky. It seemed that his opponent was a more trusting fool than Yves could have imagined possible.

Seymour
had
been right. This was the opportunity they needed, and Yves knew he would be a fool himself if he did not take advantage of Philip’s certainty that Perricault was securely his own.

Rumor, after all, of Yves’ departure with Gabrielle might await Philip at Trevaine. It was imperative that Yves act now,
while he yet had the elements of surprise and Philip’s cocky confidence upon his side.

Had Yves known that a whistle echoed to mark his departure from the river valley, he might have been less certain of Philip de Trevaine’s folly.

No less if he had witnessed those same departing troops quietly filtering back through the gates of Château Pemcault. By noon, the keep looked precisely as it had when he left, with the marked difference that its walls sheltered a formidable army on full alert for Yves’ next move.

Darkness had fallen on the forest camp by the time all of the horses were mustered. Gabrielle surveyed the armed troops and approved of their restlessness. They were anxious to strike a blow for her son, ready to avenge Philip’s crimes against Perricault, and she would not have missed riding out with them.

The trick was that Yves de Sant-Roux must know nothing of her presence until it was too late to turn back. She could imagine full well that he would not take kindly to a woman in the ranks, but Gabrielle was determined to have the earliest possible glimpse of her son.

Seymour had been more than delighted to accept her offer of his nding Methuselah, though that destrier had been less than impressed to find an unfamiliar rider in his saddle. Indeed, the steed might be the one to give Gabrielle away, for his accusing glare was locked unswervingly upon her.

Curse the beast!

Here Gabrielle had thought the plain rough garb she had filched—including men’s heavy woolen chausses—hid her identity remarkably well. The chestnut palfry she had quietly commandeered was not worthy of note. With mud smeared on her face, Gabrielle had prided herself that she blended readily into the company of miscellaneous troops.

At least until Methuselah fixed his stare upon her. Gabrielle
fought to show no signs of discomfiture, and hoped against hope that the night would conceal any telltale hints of her identity.

It seemed that Yves at least was unaware of her presence.

“Where is Lady Gabrielle?” she heard him demand of Leon, who shrugged and looked about the camp. “I had expected she would see us off on this mission.”

There was an obligation Gabrielle had nearly forgotten! She caught her breath. Methuselah stared stubbornly at her, as though he would answer the question for all.

“That beast seems taken with your steed,” murmured the man beside Gabrielle.

She made a gruff sound and nodded as the man chuckled to himself. “They are a horny lot, those stallions, regardless of where they find themselves.”

He leaned over and tapped her saddle with a knowing finger. Gabrielle’s heart stopped with the certainty that he would look into her face and see the truth.

“Mind you watch your steed’s back, lest that one take it into his mind to pursue another conquest than the one we all seek this night.”

Rough laughter echoed about Gabrielle, and she tried to look comfortable with the man’s earthy conversation. She grunted acquiescence, as he seemed to be awaiting an answer, and to her relief, he nodded and looked away.

Gabrielle exhaled as silently as she could manage and prayed her heart would cease its erratic pounding. Surely someone would hear the thunder of her pulse?

“She complained of a sour stomach when she offered me her steed,” Seymour recalled, much to Gabrielle’s relief. He smirked. “Women, you know, seldom have the constitution to face adversity.”

Before Gabrielle’s blood could boil, Yves slanted the man a glance that spoke volumes. “Lady Gabrielle is a rare breed in many matters,” he said sternly. “I should hope you sent
a healer to her, for she is not a woman given to nervous ailments.”

A healer! Would Yves check upon her welfare himself? At the prospect, Gabrielle did not dare to breathe. He would find her missing, he would search for her and she would be discovered hiding in these ranks.

And Yves would ensure that she was left behind.

“Of course, my lord,” Seymour lied, and Gabrielle’s lip curled with scorn.

Trust a man to see no further than ensuring his own reputation with his lord! Though the lie had served her purposes well, Gabrielle’s estimation of Seymour’s character was not improved in the least. He was typical of the men she had known in her life who saw to their own concerns alone.

“Well done!” Yves pivoted and faced the troops, his gaze darting over them all with such intensity that Gabrielle was certain he would spot her.

When he raised his voice to muster the spirits of the troops, Gabrielle felt her own heart stir with excitement. “We ride out to a battle that will not be easy, despite the apparent odds,” Yves declared. “Remember that you avenge a wrong, for not only has the Lord de Perricault been struck down without cause—” the men murmured displeasure at this crime “—but those beneath his protection have been ruthlessly slaughtered—” the murmur became an indignant muttering “—his lady has been cast from her home, his heir and son has been taken hostage!”

Several men shouted outrage at this last and the horses stirred anxiously. Yves’ eyes flashed and his black destrier snorted impatiently. He unsheathed his own blade and held it high, so that it flashed wickedly.

“Justice is on our side this night!” he bellowed, thrusting his sword toward the sky.

The troops roared and waved their weapons in the air in turn.

“Ride on!” Yves cried, and he pulled on his helmet. “Ride on and let Philip de Trevaine taste the bite of our swords!”

He spurred his great black steed and the destrier sprang toward the gates, Leon and Seymour riding fast on his heels. Franz cranked open the gates and ran to leap upon his own palfry, even as the raiding party passed into the forest like wind rushing through the trees.

The air was crisp on their faces as they left the valley, and once they had gained a narrow path, the horses thundered down its length toward Perricault.

The path turned onto the broader road and several horses galloped abreast. Gradually, the forest began to thin, and Gabrielle felt that Thomas was close to her grasp. The familiar sound of the raging river filled her ears and she could barely contain herself.

The promise of seeing Thomas again made her feel vibrantly alive. She chanted her son’s name beneath her breath. Thomas would be securely within her arms before the sun crested the horizon once more!

Yves was fulfilling the pledge he had made to Gabrielle with a vengeance unexpected. Her heart fairly burst with the certainty that she had chosen the right knight to champion her cause.

Gabrielle’s excitement made her urge the palfry faster and faster. So intent was she upon reaching her son that she was directly behind the knights before she realized what she had done.

She made the mistake of gasping aloud.

Yves fired a glance over his shoulder at the sound, and she saw anger flash in his eyes. Clearly her disguise did not even begin to fool him at closer quarters.

“My lady! What is this you do?”

The knight hauled his destrier to a merciless halt, ripped off his helmet and snatched at her palfry’s reins. Destrier and palfry halted unceremoniously, while the other riders
streamed around them and faltered to an uncertain stop just ahead.

Gabrielle swallowed carefully and looked into the molten gold of Yves’ eyes. “I ride with you, of course,” she said as casually as she could manage.