Knights of de Ware 01 - My Champion (30 page)

As silently as a shadow, he stole into the dying night to find Linet. Whether he would kiss her or kill her, he was uncertain. But he had to find her before El Gallo did.

The great hall of de Montfort castle was extravagantly furnished, almost to the point of gaudiness in Linet’s opinion. Richly detailed Arras tapestries hung from the walls, and the wainscoting that ran the full length of the room was painted with intertwined vines and blossoms in shades of green, rose, lavender, and yellow. A row of ornate, carved mahogany screens blocked the entrance of the buttery, where servants scurried back and forth making preparations for supper. Wall sconces with beeswax candles were located between each of the tall, shuttered windows. The beamed ceiling had been plastered and painted with biblical scenes. Glancing at her surroundings, Linet developed a new appreciation for all her father had sacrificed.

“The medallion?” she repeated politely. The man before her—her uncle, Lord Guillaume de Montfort—so resembled her father that it took her breath away. And the hope in his eyes when he beckoned her to join him in the great hall had been raw and anxious. She wished she could give him any other answer but the one she must.

The blood rose to her cheek, but she smiled graciously and tried to swallow her keen embarrassment. “I… It has been lost, my lord.”

“Lost?” The word sounded hollow in the huge room. He doubted her. She saw it in the subtle flattening of his eyelids. He was disappointed.

The trial of her long journey—the chill of the forest, the sleeplessness, and her futile attempts to make herself presentable after a night of trudging along the road to de Montfort—reared its head to torment her. She longed to throw herself upon her uncle’s mercy, to tell him everything, to bury great wrenching sobs against the shoulder that seemed so like Lord Aucassin’s. But that was fatigue motivating her—fatigue and frustration and heartache—not common sense. And it wasn’t befitting a lady.

Instead, she took a shaky breath and fingered the fine, soft, forest green velvet of her new surcoat, the one she’d purchased from a local seamstress at the soul-wrenching price of the beggar’s ring. “I know I must seem a stranger to you. And I know my father was…exiled from—”

“No!” Lord Guillaume cried. Then he turned his face aside. “Not exiled from me. He was my brother…God rest his soul.” He pressed a finger to his forehead, reliving some past agony. “Our father was too stubborn to beg Aucassin’s forgiveness, and I watched him suffer for it. I watched our mother grow old for want of a son’s love. But he was always my brother, by blood and in my heart. When he wrote that he was dying…” He choked back a sob.

Linet felt her own throat constrict. Her nose stung with unshed tears.

Lord Guillaume steeled himself, clearing his throat. “Aucassin wrote that he had a child of his…marriage—a daughter. He said that if anything should happen to her, if ever she needed the help of de Montfort, she would be known by the medallion about her neck.”

Linet’s vision grew watery.

Lord Guillaume studied her. “Your eyes are so like his,” he whispered. Then he sighed. “But without the medallion…”

Linet sniffed. She understood. Without the medallion, she was no better than a pauper masquerading as a lady. She’d been a fool to hope she’d find salvation here. She executed a quick curtsey, and then wheeled away to flee before her exhausted emotions could turn her into a blubbering bowl of custard.

“Wait!” he called.

She stopped, but could not find the courage to face him.

“There is enough doubt in my mind and enough shame staining my soul to extend you common courtesy at least.” He sounded very tired. “Until I discover otherwise, you are welcome as a member of this household.” He clapped his hands twice, beckoning a servant from behind the buttery screens. “Marguerite, see that Lady Linet is made comfortable in the Rose Chamber.”

Linet, her throat thick with emotion, turned and gave him a deep, grateful nod. Then she followed the maid across the hall and up the stairs to her new quarters.

The chamber was exquisite. Rose-colored velvet hung from the canopy of an immense bed, caught at the posts with yards of thick silver cord. The walls, freshly plastered, were painted with roses in every shade of pink imaginable—salmon, cerise, coral, mauve. Candles were copiously arrayed atop every piece of delicately carved furniture—table, chest, and desk all bearing the design of entwined roses. A pair of thick tapestries depicting lords and ladies a-maying framed the tall window, into which was set a panel of stained glass in the design of a rose. Even the freshly laid rushes were sprinkled liberally with rose petals, scenting the chamber like a garden.

She’d seen wealth before, but never had she seen a room so luxurious. The maid drew open the shutters, and the sunlight streaming in illuminated the chamber until it almost hurt Linet’s eyes to look at the bright walls. Surely, she thought, even heaven wasn’t so wondrous.

Once the maid vacated the room, Linet threw herself headlong onto the thick furs upon the bed. The pallet enveloped her in its feathery embrace. And despite her resolve to lay aside her new garments with meticulous care, despite her intention to explore every opulent corner of the room, to pick up and examine every ivory comb and silver candlestick, within an instant she drifted into a deep slumber.

A cloud slipped in front of the moon, shrouding Duncan’s face in complete shadow within the cowl he pulled over his head. From the trees, he could see the sentries atop the wall walk as they strolled back and forth, guarding de Montfort castle.

Then the pale moon emerged again, and anyone able to see Duncan’s bruised and battered countenance would have thought him a monster.

His guise, one of the reivers’ cassocks, helped to conceal his injuries. It would also gain him entrance, if no one noticed the three feet of Spanish steel hidden beneath his holy robes.

He let his gaze travel up the two tall corner towers of the castle and wondered if Linet was somewhere within. Did she rest peacefully, he wondered as irony twisted his lips, or was her sleep troubled by dreams of betrayal and vengeance? He grimaced at the bitter taste in his mouth and spat on the ground once before he emerged from the forest to beg entry to the castle.

Linet awoke with a start, gasping at what seemed sudden immersion in a sea of darkness. At first, she couldn’t remember where she was. The objects in the moonlit room shimmered in ghostly blue, unrecognizable shapes. She rose up on her elbows and stared at the thin panel of light slashed upon the wall through the open shutters until it all came back to her—the beggar, her betrayal, this new home she didn’t deserve. With a guilty heart, she pushed the hair back from her eyes, wondering what hour it was. She came to her feet, smoothing the crumpled fabric of her ill-gotten surcoat as best she could.

The vertical beam of light crossed her face as she padded over to the window to peek out. A queer tingle of anticipation crept up her back as she drew close to where a chill draft slipped through the space between the shutters. She could see the barbican of the castle from her chamber. Two guards were standing watch over the cold, clear night.

There was a visitor speaking with them, a late-arriving monk from the looks of him, probably seeking shelter. Something in the carriage of his body, his size and shape, disturbed her. But the vague sensation vanished almost as soon as it appeared. They let the man in, and she watched the shrouded figure disappear from view.

A low growling from her belly intruded upon the quiet. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. No one had disturbed her nap for supper, and she hadn’t eaten since dinner of the night before. Perhaps she could find her way to the kitchen and turn up some scrap of meat or crust of bread.

She plucked the stub of a beeswax candle from the holder beside the bed and tiptoed into the hallway, lighting it on a wall sconce. Shadows jumped out eerily, heightening the unfamiliarity of the steps as she descended.

A hundred people or so lay strewn in the great hall in various postures of repose amid the rushes. Their presence was some comfort to her in the vast room. Some snored loudly, others slept like the dead. Every now and again, one of the hounds would chuff briefly, aware of her, but apparently unconcerned. In the midst of it all, the fire blazed healthily, tended by a single little girl who poked at it with a stick as tall as she was. Linet smiled. Here was someone who could help her.

Duncan huddled against the wall of the great hall, his head hung wearily between his knees. He still shivered with cold from his long trek. But nothing compared to the chill of his heart, the chill that bore the name Linet de Montfort. He peered up beneath his heavy brows toward the fire crackling with false cheer. Then, almost as if he’d summoned her with his thoughts, Linet herself appeared, eclipsing his view, her silhouette stark against the orange glow. He sat breathless, watching her every move like a hawk.

Her new status suited her well, he thought sourly as his gaze coursed down her body over the costly velvet surcoat belted with silver. But the gown was horribly rumpled. Someone should have told the naughty girl that proper ladies didn’t sleep in such garments. Evidently she wanted her hard-won trappings of nobility surrounding her at all times, even in slumber.

Still, as bedraggled as she was and as harshly as he felt her betrayal, he couldn’t deny that Linet was breathtaking. The fire cast a coppery glow upon her unbound hair. The deep shadows beyond her made her skin nearly translucent in contrast. The dark surcoat molded to her body as perfectly as his hands. Satan’s ballocks, he thought, how could such an angel have dealt such treachery?

Somehow, some way, he’d find out. And he’d repay her for her heart’s treason, if it was the last thing he did.

Linet couldn’t shake the queer feeling that someone was watching her. Even as she bent to speak with the little girl, she cast uneasy glances about the hall. Did reivers lurk in the black corners? Was she truly safe in this fortress? She doubted that she’d ever feel secure while El Gallo lived, not without…someone…to protect her.

Shaking off painful memories and swallowing her trepidation, she followed the little girl into the kitchen for cold meat and ruayn cheese. She never noticed how her skirts nearly brushed the feet of the monk reclined against the wall, the monk peering out at her with vengeance in his eyes.

For several days, Lord Guillaume and his kin approached Linet with tenuous respect. She understood. They didn’t want to invest too much faith in her claim, a claim that would only bring disappointment later if it proved to be false. Still, she was astounded by the regal treatment she received from the household. Maidservants fussed over her as if she were a spun sugar subtlety. She was bathed and adorned and perfumed until she was sure she’d be attacked by bees if she went out of doors. Complex, colorful dishes she’d never tasted before were offered to her at the high table. The lord’s three daughters, pitying her lack of belongings, even slipped her a few of their older surcoats to wear.

She should have been elated. Everything her father had worked for had been achieved at last. She’d been returned to the bosom of nobility. His indiscretion had been healed. Though the de Montforts’ acceptance was tentative, already the family had begun to show a fondness for her. It was only a matter of time before they accepted her completely.

And yet it was difficult for her to fit into this new garment of nobility. She’d left too many loose ends in her life—her mesnage, the Guild, Harold…the beggar. And like a length of cheap cloth, the fabric kept threatening to unravel.

Everywhere she looked,
he
haunted her. She’d peruse a box of jewels and be drawn immediately to the pair of sapphires, so like his eyes. The palfrey Lord Guillaume let her borrow was the same ebony shade as the beggar’s hair. The jongleurs’ songs could never compare to his, and their wit was never as sharp.

She tried to forget the beggar, tried to immerse herself in the opulence around her. But no matter how many nobles offered her friendship and kindness, a pervading melancholy surrounded her like a thick, gray fog. She wondered if it would ever lift.

High now upon the wall walk, in a rare moment of solitude, Linet gazed off across the darkening countryside toward the place where she’d last seen…him. She wondered where he was. He’d be free by now. She doubted he’d come looking for her. She’d wounded him. Only a fool would seek out the thistle that had pricked him so sorely.

Besides, she reasoned bitterly, it was likely she was merely another conquest for him in a long line of dalliances. Commoners engaged in many such trysts. Women no doubt swooned over the likes of him, lapping up his sugared flattery like a kitten did cream. The beggar surely wouldn’t lack company for long.

As for her…

An unwelcome lump swelled her throat. She stared up at the first star of evening winking in the mauve sky until it grew blurry from the welling of tears in her eyes. Damn, she mustn’t think of him, mustn’t remember the wine-sweet taste of his lips, the clear crystal of his eyes, the reassuring strength of his arms around her. She wouldn’t dwell on the memory of the ebony hair curling about his neck, the powerful play of muscles along his arms, the large, callused hands that stroked her body as skillfully and tenderly as they did a harp.

Suddenly, the wretched truth hit her with numbing force. She’d betrayed him. She’d betrayed a man she was trying desperately to make into a scoundrel—faithless and cruel and uncaring.

But it wasn’t true. He’d been more than kind. He’d been patient, gentle, understanding. He’d protected her with savage swordsmanship and made love to her with savage grace. He’d shown her nobility—this peasant—nobility and honor and strength. Possessing no title, he’d shown her dignity. Possessing no wealth, he’d shown her generosity. She closed her eyes as the terrible, wonderful truth poured into her soul.