The Willows (19 page)

Not having heard their decision, a
perplexed Tom Perkins looked at the field. “I thought the
competition was over.”

“
Indeed not. Tell everyone
that at precisely 2 o’clock, Sir Lancelot will meet the Dark Knight
for a joust.”

There was no need for Mr. Perkins to
repeat it; there wasn’t a soul but not heard father’s booming
voice. As the crowd cheered in obvious excitement, John beamed from
ear to ear.

The dark
Knight
. Sitting slowly, the words echoing
ominously in her mind, Gwen clutched her crown to her
chest.

***

“
I hope you know what you
are doing, Lance,” he snapped. “You cannot afford a repeat of that
fiasco at the rings.”

“
It was the damned horse,”
he bit back, strapping the leather padding over his wrist. “But I
can assure you, my new mount will not misbehave.” He nodded at the
powerful white animal being led in their direction. “There is not a
finer steed in all Louisiana.”

“
I am not worried about the
horse. I’m more concerned about the man on top of it.”

“
You are not serious?” Lance
glared at Michael, showing his own equipment some distance away.
“Look at him. His armor is a tarnished breastplates and a battered
shield. You can’t possibly see danger in that.”

“
What I see is that the
man’s a damned sight too competent for comfort.”

“
Relax. I have been training
for weeks, and I have no intention of losing. You just make certain
Father Jones is waiting on the grandstand, ready to start the
ceremony that instant I have the crown in my hands.”

“
I will do my part. Just see
that you do yours.” Spying a crowd of Lance’s followers
approaching, uncle lowered his voice. “I expect you to do whatever
it takes to win, dammit. Sheet, if you have to.”

Lance answer him with a slow, leering
grin. “But, of course. I have already thought of that.”

***

Gwen trudged up the steps of the
grandstand, as though trudging to the guillotine. During the
intermission, she had gone back to the house for some lemonade, and
to splash cool water on her face, yet nothing seemed to revive
either her, or her hopes.

Maybe what she needed was a poll from
father’s flask. It certainly seemed to help him and uncle recapture
their spirits.

Taking her seat, she saw Lance.
Surrounded by his friends and well-wishers, he made a great show of
mounting his magnificent white horse. She wanted to have faith in
him, she truly did, but she cannot overlook his
opponent.

Why couldn’t Michael take the defeat
and go home to lick his wounds? Why pursue this thing to the bitter
end, when it must be clear by now that he would never let him when?
Why couldn’t he just quit, like any other man would do?

Even as she asked them, she knew they
were silly questions. He was proud and stubborn, and he would not
rest until he had his revenge.

Against her will, her gaze slid to him.
Unlike Lance, Michael stood alone, no one helping, or even
encouraging him. With nothing to shield his legs, nor a helmet for
his head, his sole protection was an ancient, discolored
breastplate and a dented shield. A Knight in tarnished armor, she
thought, noticing how Lance and his friends snickered.

Michael stood proud as if to well
accustom to their scorn to be bothered by it. Nothing had changed,
she thought with a paying of guilt. He was still the boy who
watched from before, and she was still the one who kept him
there.

He looked up then, locking his gaze
with her own, and Gwen felt as if she were falling, tumbling back
into the past. Something always happen when he stared at her, she
realized; even as a child, he alone had been able to dig deep
enough to find the person buried inside. The little girl in her
responded, smiling at him, as if she’d truly wanted him to
win.

As the horn blared, snapping her back
to her senses, Gwen recoiled in dismay. As she completely lost her
mind? This man meant to make a fool of her, to repay her for the
childhood rejection. The absolute last thing she should want was
his victory.

So why, she wondered in panic, could
she not break their gaze?

With a grim smile and a curt nod,
Michael abruptly broke it himself, reaching for his spear and
yanking her handkerchief free of it. For a moment, she thought he
would toss it aside, but he tied the cloth instead to the tiny hook
atop his shield.

As he pulled himself onto his saddle,
Gwen stared at the handkerchief, hanging on this shield like a
flag. By now, he must have told Lance it was hers, hoping to
distract him. Each time he charged toward his foe, Lance would be
force to see that symbol of her treachery.

With irritating arrogance, Michael
crossed the field, coming to his mark on the opposite end. Poised
there on his beast of a horse, shining in black from his head to
his toes, seemed to loom over the competition like a dark
god.

The dark Knight, she thought with a
shudder. The destroyer.

As if to distract her from such morbid
thoughts, Edith came running up the steps, her article and father
in her wake, with an unfamiliar elderly gentleman behind them.
Briefly introducing himself as the father Jones, uncle took the
chair Gwen’s side, while father took his place at her left. She
noticed a new flask in his hands.

“
Is in this exciting?” Edith
said as she sat. “Just look at Lance. Doesn’t he look
wonderful?”

Lance poised on his horse at the
opposite end of the field. Also his horse in white, he seemed to
glisten in the afternoon summer, his shield a gleaming silver
circle with a white bolt of lightning. As he made a show of
attaching her token to his new, sharper spear. Gwen compared the
two competitors, reminded of the classic fight between Good and
evil. The amazing, glittering Lancelot versus the black forbidding
stranger.

To bad Michael was the one who looked
so calm and assured, while Lance looked both angry and
nervous.

Her father must have heard her gulp,
for he suddenly thrust the flask in her direction. “Here, take a
drink. You might find you need it.”

She was so surprised to have him talk
to her at all, she took the flask without thinking. It was not
until the bourbon was burning her throat that she realized she
should have sipped. She choked and gasped, her daddy shook his
head. “Girl never could do anything halfway,” she heard him mutter,
as she handed back the flask.

On in the field, the Herald shouted for
silence. Everyone adds forward in their seats as Tom Perkins
dropped the flag, the signal for the fighters to charge. With a
clutch of dread, Gwen realize it had begun, this battle for her
future.

She held her breath as the two horsemen
rode towards each other, gathering speed, their long wooden staffs
poised to do their worst. Please oh please oh please, she chanted
in a whisper, bracing herself as the pair raced to the coming
collision.

But at the last possible second,
Michael veered away, avoiding lances thrust, yet managing to knock
the weapon from his hand. Lances. Went in one direction, her
handkerchief in another. Only Gwen seem to notice it, fluttering to
the ground.

Heaven help her, she thought with
growing dread as his friends rushed out to retrieve the spear.
Watching how lances hand trembled as they handed it to him, Gwen
reached again for her father’s flask. This time she welcomed the
burn, for Michael’s cool smile had proved her suspicion. He was
toying with Lance. Like a machine, he and that demon of a horse
work together with silent efficiency, confident that they could
unseat their opponent whenever they chose.

As if he saw this, too, Lance gave a
blood curling yell before spurring his horse into a mindless
charge, Spears sorting recklessly in the air. Holding his own
weapon steady, Michael leaned down to whisper to his horse, clearly
urging stallion to greater speed. At the sound of each pounding
stop, Gwen gripped the rail tighter, her knuckles showing white as
she prayed for a miracle.

Near seconds later, Lance was on the
ground, while Michael galloped past in triumph.

The crowd went silent, stunned by the
outcome. Gwen who had yet to return the flask, took another, deeper
pull.

Horrified, she watched Michael wield
his horse and ride back to Lance. With a puzzled expression as if
he, too, wondered how Lance had been unseated so easily, Michael
dismounted and offered his hand. Lance refused it. With a shrug,
Michael turned to the grandstand.

Gwen had gone numb. Whether it was the
bourbon or the mirror shock, she could not with any real clarity
recall what had happened. One moment Lance was charging toward; and
the next, he had joined her handkerchief in the dirt.

Some part of her mind was
aware that Edith had gone running onto the field, uncle muttering
in her wake, but though she knew she should follow, she cannot
bring her muscles to obey.
Lance,
please,
she thought in a daze,
get off the ground and come save me.

As needed bends over him, Gwen saw him
sit up, but her relief vanished as she realized it was nothing he
could do to save her now. Fatalistically bowing to the inevitable,
she watched Michael steadily approach.

A roar went up from the crowd as the
victor came to the rail to claim his prize, as if everyone was
eager to witness her humiliation. About to give in to the urge to
bolt, Gwen stopped by a sudden pressure on her wrist.

She looked into her father’s eyes.
“Hand him the crown,” he said softly, nodding to
Michael.

She knew her own eyes must be wide with
fright. “But daddy-“

“
Hand him the crown, Gwen.
“The words grew with sternness, “there is not a man here who can
say he did not earn it.”

He was beyond drunk, she thought
miserably, knowing that in such a state, her father was incapable
of listening to reason, much less her please. Swallowing painfully,
she stretched her arms, holding the crown out as far as possible.
She wish to avoid all contact with Michael; she did not want to
even look at him.

Lance,
she kept thinking.
How could you do
this to me?

As Michael took the crown, she
continued to look away. She had hoped that by now the crowd might
disperse, but, of course, they meant to savor every embarrassing
moments. In her mind she could picture Michael grinning, ready to
deliver the words that would make her spinster forever.

“
Did you come for that
stupid crown?” Daddy asked. “Or are you here to claim my
daughter?”

Gwen braced herself, waiting for
Michael’s rejection.

“
That is up to her,” Michael
said quietly. “What do you say my lady? This time, do you mean to
keep your promise?”

Was he offering an option, a case of
one hand washing the other? If she let him have this victory, would
he spare hurt the public humiliation? Willing to grasp any straw,
Gwen found yourself nodding.

“
Good.” Father waved at the
gentleman behind them. “Jones, get over here. You two, Michael. We
have work to do.”

Work? Confused, wishing she had it been
the so indulgent with the flask, a flustered Gwen watched Rafe
climb the steps toward her. “Daddy, what is this?”

“
Ceremony.” Standing none it
to steadily, John covered a small belch with his hand. “Come on,
Gwen, folks are waiting.”

Lance had promised it would be a mock
marriage ceremony, meant only to entertain the crowd. The real
church wedding wood, later. Surely she had nothing to fear in
that.

Conscious of the crowd staring,
waiting, she so little choice. It was all right, she thought
quietly; she could do this, especially if it made her daddy smile
at her, and if it meant the disturbing Rafe would at long last
leave her alone.

Stopping before her, Rafe offered his
hand to help her to her feet. It was a strong, well-formed hand,
she noticed, but she cannot stare at it forever. Bracing herself as
she rose, she risked a glance upward.

A mistake. In the conclusion, she’d
forgotten his intensity, how his eyes could probe inside and find
parts of her she hadn’t known existed. As an unfamiliar heat
ignited at the core of her body, she felt herself open up, like a
flower blooming but need the warm, brilliant sun.

Tightening his grasp on her hand, he
smiled down at her, a gesture no less enticing for its brevity.
Unable to focus on anything other than his lips, so strong and firm
and near, Gwen relived the moments they had been pressing against
her own. Standing before him, her hand encased in his reassuring
grasp, she found herself hoping he would kiss her again.

That he shared this need was clear; she
could see desire in his heated stare, could all but taste it in the
air between them. Lost in his dark eyes, Gwen could be looking into
a magical pool devised by the great Merlin.

Indeed, she felt as if she had fallen
into that pool, to be transformed into a mythical queen, here to be
claimed by her brave king. Any moment now, this beautiful man it
would sweep her into his arms to carry her off to their secret
hideaway, where alone and undisturbed, he would slowly and
painstakingly reveal the mysteries of love.