The YIELDING (31 page)

He listened to the receding footfalls that told only one lady remained at table. Beatrix? The bench creaked, followed by a prayer spoken in Latin. Aye, Lady Beatrix.

A curse upon Sir Durand for interfering on the night past! May he rot—

Canute bit back bitter laughter. A curse on himself for having prayed something—anything!—might turn Michael from his quest to deliver Lady Beatrix to her family. For what he had done in sending word of her capture, he ought to be flogged. Worse! Had he not…

He shook his head. Two days, then Lady Beatrix was Lavonne’s.

None tried to stop her, even when she stepped off the bottom step into the inner bailey.

Staggered by Lady Laura’s revelation, Beatrix halted. There was nothing she could do with what had been revealed to her. Nothing that would free her of a sin she had not committed. Nothing had changed. She would have to defend herself as planned and pray God was with her.

She looked to the men-at-arms on the walls, then the castle folk who bustled about the bailey to fulfill their service to their lord. They watched her, most firmly Sir Durand who stood alongside the fence that enclosed the inner stables—until the destrier at his back nibbled his shoulder.

The knight turned and extended a hand, from which the horse greedily accepted his offering.

Beatrix put her chin up, her skirts as well, and stepped around a cart. Though she knew Sir Durand remained Sir Piers to all but a few, she crossed to his side.

He frowned heavily, and she knew he did not think it wise for her to approach him. “You should leave Soaring, Sir Durand. There is naught I…require of you.”

Ignoring his destrier’s nudge, he said, “Naught but my absence?”

Hating that she must seem ungrateful for what he had tried to do, she said, “I am sorry, but it must be as it is. Tell my brother—”

“Methinks it best
you
tell him.”

She laid a hand on the top rail of the fence and squeezed. “Pray, Sir Durand—”

“How is your arm?”

“It heals.”

“And my dagger?”

Conscious of its press against her leg, she said, “It serves.”

He grinned, causing grooves to appear alongside his mouth.

He was handsome, and for a moment she forgot her bid to see him gone from Soaring and remembered all the times he had sought her gaze. Strange that she had never felt the flutterings for him that she felt when Michael—

Rejecting such thoughts, she stepped nearer Sir Durand. “You know you cannot accompany me to Broehne, do you not?”

He patted his destrier’s muzzle. “If you go, so shall I.”

“I am going, Sir Durand, and if you go, you may be recognized.”

“I may be as a spider slung from a beam, Lady Beatrix, but I shall be there—
if
you go.”

Then he might not honor his vow.

He leaned in. “Others may not, but I make a distinction between a vow freely given and one stolen.”

“Sir Durand—”

“I see your destrier is of a better mind today, Sir Piers,” Michael’s voice came across the corral.

Beatrix saw he stood in the stable doorway. Wiping his hands on a cloth, he held Sir Durand’s gaze.

Though it would be fitting for the knight to draw back, he did not relinquish the narrow space that separated him from Beatrix. “He is of a much better mind today, Lord D’Arci, though I fear it might be another day—mayhap two—ere he sees fit to release me from your hospitality.”

“Two days ought to suffice.” Michael looked to Beatrix. “There is something you require, my lady?”

“Naught of you, my lord.” Across the distance, she saw his jaw tighten.

“He looks to be jealous,” Sir Durand murmured.

He was wrong. Surely he was.

“But mayhap I err, my lady.”

“You do.”

“But not in telling that
you
feel for him.”

Feeling as if cut wide and spread for all to look upon, Beatrix glared at him, “Aye, you err. And trespass.”

A corner of his mouth tugged. “’Tis as Lord D’Arci said to me last eve.”

He had discussed her with Michael? When she looked around, Michael was gone. Had he returned to the stables?

“I would escort you to the donjon,” Sir Durand said, “but it does not appear that you require an escort.”

She followed his gaze to the landing before the donjon doors where Sir Canute stood. Though his hands were behind his back and his attention appeared to be elsewhere, she knew Sir Durand was correct.

“I wager he has watch over you—to ensure I keep my vow, of course.” He sighed. “It seems Lord D’Arci is most determined to keep his own vow.”

He was? Beatrix had only begun to ponder it when realization returned her to Sir Canute. Had he been near when she broke her fast? Might he have overheard what Lady Laura told?

Sir Durand jutted his chin toward the donjon. “Go.”

She did, but in a different direction. Shortly, she traded daylight for the dim of the stables that housed Soaring’s mounts.

A lad, lugging a bucket in one hand, toting a shovel in the other, halted in the aisle between the stalls. “My lady?”

She nearly retreated, but when a snort sounded from a stall at the far end, she knew it was Sartan. And Michael was with him.

She shook her head at the lad, inched up her skirts, and stepped forward.

The boy edged aside to allow her past and continued toward the stable door with his pungent burden.

Of the dozen stalls Beatrix passed, all but four were occupied, and nearly every one by a horse of remarkable color and stature. Sartan was in the end stall.

His great eyes rolled over her as she halted before the door, then he snorted and tossed his head as if in welcome.

Michael did not accord the same, though he had to know he was no longer alone. He kept his back to her where he stood at the destrier’s shoulder, his dark head bent to whatever task he tended.

“You should not be here,” he bit.

Jealousy? Nay, Sir Durand erred.

“With the injury done you last eve, you should be at rest.”

“Sartan is well?”

Michael reached to a pot at his feet. Before he straightened, she caught sight of the gash in the destrier’s neck. It was packed in salve, to which Michael added more.

“What happened?”

“The mare was not of a mind to be mounted by Sartan and gave back some of what she got.”

Heat rose to Beatrix’s cheeks, and she averted her gaze to the earthen floor.

She did not hear Michael move until the stall door opened. “Forgive me, I should not have said what I did.”

Seeing the urgency in his eyes, she realized he mistook her discomfort for something else. Fear?

Michael stared into Beatrix’s upturned face. What had he been thinking to speak of Sartan’s mating with the mare? He had
not
been thinking, so tightly wound by the sight of her with Sir Durand that his tongue had strayed. As soon as the words were out, he had known his mistake and needed no confirmation of it, but confirmation was given when he had looked around.

“Do not fear me, Beatrix. Simon’s sins are not mine.”

“This I know,” she surprised him. “I have…known it for some time.”

He stepped nearer and was relieved when she did not retreat. “I ache for you, Beatrix—to hold you and feel your mouth against mine.”

Her breath caught. “You desire me? How can that be?”

Denying himself the temptation of her lips, he asked, “How can you doubt it?”

She touched the side of her head. “I am not as other women, not as I once was. Though I have…regained much, what I am is not what a man wants or needs.”

He urged her chin up. “If you will allow me, I will show you how wrong you are.”

A sad smile scored her mouth. “Desire is not enough.”

Whence came the words he next spoke, he did not know, but they slid from him as if there was no question they could not answer. “I did not say it was.” He lowered his head.

When his beard brushed her smooth skin, she did not pull away, when the first taste of her met his lips, she did not deny him a second. Such sweetness she was, twisting his desire, recasting it, making something of it he had not known it could be. Always before, desire had resided in his loins only. This was different. Just to touch her, to lay his mouth to hers, to breathe her…

Lids fluttering closed, Beatrix pressed against him and parted her lips.

Michael deepened the kiss, but when he felt his body bind tighter, he drew back. “You lack for naught, Beatrix,” he murmured.

Cheeks flushed beneath the sweep of her lashes, she opened her eyes.

As he stared into her vulnerability, urgency gripped him—and fear that the Lavonnes would content themselves with nothing short of her death. “Let me take you from here. Now. This very moment.”

She frowned, and he felt her pull away even before she stepped back. “For this you kissed me? To make of me a p-puppet?”

He should have known she would think as much. “Beatrix—“

“Once is enough to be very wrong about a person.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I will not let you do that to me again.”

When had she thought different of him? In the rain when she had surrendered to his kiss? When she had nearly staggered to learn word of her capture had been sent to Lavonne? It had to be.

“I give you my word, Beatrix, I will remedy what I have wrought.”

“You are saying you would…carry me away without cover of night?” She retreated another step and slid a hand up over her injured arm. “…without tale that I escaped?”

Michael lowered his arms to his sides. “It is as I would do.”

Her chin dimpled with emotion. “I am to believe you would give all for me, Michael D’Arci?”

Strange how “all” no longer sounded much. “’Tis true I would not return to Soaring.”

She searched his face. “Then you love me?”

The word, small though it was, startled him. Sir Durand had suggested the same and Michael had felt as if struck, but to hear Beatrix speak it pierced him straight through. Why? Because, perhaps, the asking of it meant
she
loved
him
?

Smile as tight as a bowstring near release, she raised an eyebrow. “I did not think so. Desire only, then, Lord D’Arci, and what a fool you would be to…yield all for the mere ease of it.”

She was wrong, of course, but love?

She turned away. “
That
I would not ask of you.”

Michael stared after her as she traversed the aisle between the stalls, and he too soon found himself alone with a mire of emotions. But that was remedied when the horses turned restless in their stalls and Sartan snorted loud in answer to the appearance of young Giffard.

Michael castigated himself, not only for what the squire might have come upon had Beatrix not retreated, but that Beatrix had made him forget what had summoned him to the stables. Sartan’s wound had required further packing, but that had merely occupied Michael while he waited for Sir Robert’s squire to deliver news from Broehne.

Michael nodded the young man forward.

With a stride that spoke of self-possession, Squire Giffard followed Michael into the vacant stable opposite Sartan’s. Here it was safe to speak, for even if a cat wandered into the stables, the horses would alert Michael.

“What tidings, Squire?”

“Most worthy, my lord.” Looking the knight he would be when his training was complete two months hence, Giffard drew himself up to his full height. “The baron’s father has directed Sir Robert to accompany the sheriff when he delivers Lady Beatrix to Broehne.”

That did not surprise.

“And in doing so, to be of good heed.”

A threat to Beatrix? Feeling a vice about his chest, Michael said, “Continue.”

“Brigands, my lord—hired to ensure the lady does not reach Broehne.”

Had Aldous Lavonne so little confidence in securing Beatrix’s death sentence? Why?

“It seems the justice who has come from London is not amenable to the baron’s desire,” the squire answered Michael’s unspoken question. “He seeks absolution for the lady.”

Absolution. The word that had angered Michael when Beatrix had spoken it in the darkness of the crypt, momentarily beget the opposite emotion, but no absolution could there be if she was killed en route to Broehne.

“When? And where?”

The squire grimaced. “I fear ’twas not told, my lord.”

That would make it difficult to defend against, especially as the men Michael would need to assemble would have to follow at a distance unbeknownst to the sheriff or Aldous Lavonne’s men.

Had the missive told more than what Sir Robert had revealed in Giffard’s presence? Unfortunately, the old baron was sound enough of mind to seal the missives carried by the squire, ensuring the contents were viewed only by the one for whom they were intended.