Claire couldn’t resist a smile.
A wry chuckle snapped her gaze to Tye waiting several paces away.
“Why are you staring at me?”
“I have never seen you smile like that before,” he said.
“’Tis such a glorious afternoon.” Unable to stop the rush of excitement, she added, “A day this lovely must have wondrous things ahead.”
“A rescue, you mean?”
’Twas indeed what she was thinking. She didn’t bother to answer, merely smoothed hair away from her face. Tye didn’t seem to care. He gestured across the bailey, and she walked in the direction he’d indicated, across melting snow that had been trodden into whitish slush.
Ahead, the kitchen doors were wide open and the scents of freshly baked bread and roasting meat wafted on the breeze. Maidservants were returning from the chicken coops with baskets of eggs, while outside the stables, young lads groomed horses, the animals’ coats gleaming in the sunshine. All appeared as it normally did, she noted with a shiver, except for the mercenaries on the battlements who were watching all that went on in the bailey below. More hired thugs guarded the gatehouse and entrance to the dungeons. She mustn’t forget to record those details in the journal.
Tye took her to the keep’s garden. A waist-high mortared stone wall with a wrought iron gate separated the garden from the rest of the bailey. Lifting the latch, he pushed the gate open. He motioned her inside.
Snow still spread like a downy white blanket over the raised beds where the cook grew vegetables and herbs. Bare-limbed apple, plum, and pear trees stretched toward the sky. As she walked farther into the garden, a large clump of snow dropped from a tree limb and landed with a loud thump , making her jump.
The same instant, someone else yelped in shock. Claire saw a woman, frantically sweeping snow off her head, stumbling out of the shadows of a tree. Some of the snow had obviously gone down the back of her neck, for she squirmed and wriggled in an odd little dance.
“Mary,” Claire cried.
Her friend spun, her gloved hand still clutching the back of her cloak. “Claire?” Mary waved and ran toward her, but her strides slowed when she spied Tye, who’d shut the gate and was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, watching them.
“’Tis good to see you,” Claire called.
“And you.” Mary’s cautious gaze slid to Tye again. “All is well? You have not come to any harm?”
An indignant snort broke from Tye.
Claire closed the distance between her and Mary and drew her friend into a tight hug. As she inhaled her dear friend’s familiar scent of soap and floral water, tears pricked her eyes. “I am much better now that I have seen you.”
Drawing back to arm’s length, Mary smiled. “I know what you mean. Spending all day alone in my chamber has been awful.”
“A torment,” Claire agreed. “How are you? Are you well otherwise, apart from perishing from boredom?”
“I am. What of Lady Brackendale?”
“I saw her last night. She is well enough.” Sliding her arm though Mary’s, Claire drew her toward the snow-covered vegetable beds.
“Tye is watching us so intently,” Mary said with a shudder.
“I know. I refuse to let him ruin this walk, though, and most especially, my visit with you. Ignore him.”
“I will do my best.”
“’Tis what the courageous heroines in our stories would do.”
Mary giggled. “True.”
Snow collected on the hem of Claire’s cloak as she walked, crossing into a line of prints left by a bird. She paused next to rows of stakes that had been used last spring to support the green beans.
“Do you think any of what Tye told us in the hall is true?” Mary asked quietly. “Do you think he really is the illegitimate son of Lord de Lanceau?”
Claire leaned down and picked up a twig that had fallen on the snow. “I have been pondering that myself. I honestly do not know.”
“He does look like his lordship, and he does have a similar, authoritative manner,” Mary said. “Many noble lords have spawned bastards, in and out of wedlock, so ’tis possible.”
“If Lord de Lanceau lay with Tye’s mother.” Claire snapped off a bit of twig. “We have both met Veronique. While I do not know his lordship well…”
“What would he have seen in her, you mean, to want to take her to his bed?”
“Exactly.”
“’Twas many years ago,” Mary said. “She may have been quite different back then.”
“No doubt just as selfish and ambitious, though,” Claire said under her breath.
“Aye, well, I suggest we find a safer subject to discuss,” Mary said, sounding nervous. “She is approaching the gate.”
Claire welcomed a flare of mischief. “Well, then. With both of them watching, we must give them a good performance.”
“W-whatever do you mean? If you are thinking of trying to escape—”
“Not today. We are too closely watched.”
Understanding brightened Mary’s features. “Like our heroines, though, we will be seeking the perfect opportunity.”
“We will.” Claire bent, scooped up a handful of snow, and patted it into a ball. “In the meantime…” She hurled the snowball at a spindly bush, and a startled robin darted from its branches and up into the trees.
“Did that bird offend you, or was it the bush?” Mary asked.
“That bush,” Claire answered with a grin, “is Tye.”
Mary chuckled, before worry shadowed her gaze. “Are you sure ’tis wise to pretend such a thing? If he should realize—”
“Courage, Mary.” Claire molded another snowball and threw it. Snow flew into the air in a white cloud, and she giggled. How good it felt to be silly and to laugh.
“Suddenly, Tye is no longer as comely as he was before.” Mary scooped up some snow. “In fact, he looks rather scraggly.”
“Nor is he as bossy and loud.”
“Take that,” Mary said, her snowball slamming into the bush.
Another from Claire quickly followed. “Ha!”
Claire bent to gather more snow; a mound of icy wetness slapped against her head.
“My hand slipped.” Mary’s eyes sparkled.
“Mine is going to slip now,” Claire warned. She tossed snow in Mary’s face.
Moments later, the air was flying with clumps of white.
***
“Look at them.” Veronique’s mouth twisted with disdain. “They act like naughty children.”
Watching Claire and Mary frolic in the snow, Tye smiled. “They are not causing any harm.” He’d always thought Claire beautiful, but with her tangled hair gleaming like the purest gold in the sunlight and her face lit with joy, she was more exquisite than he’d ever seen her.
“Those two are prisoners. Ladies stripped of all noble rights and privileges. Hostages to be bartered for what we desire.” Veronique’s perfectly shaped brows lifted. “Have you forgotten?”
“Not at all. There are ways, though, of getting what we want.” His voice lowered. “What I want.”
“Willingly, you mean, rather than by force or coercion?”
“Aye,” he said quietly. Claire had collapsed on her knees in the snow. As he watched, she fell onto her back to stare up at the endless blue sky. With a dramatic flutter of her hand, Mary fell down beside her. Both were breathing hard.
His mother stared at him, her gaze unyielding. “ Not by force? What foolishness do you speak?”
Foolishness ? Anger flared to life within Tye. He barely resisted the urge to snarl at her. “I speak what I know to be true.”
He chuckled, the sound devoid of mirth. “I lost my heart ages ago. You made sure of that.”
“I did, and rightly so. No warrior of any merit relies on his emotions. He depends on his wits, fighting skills, and, when necessary, cold-blooded deceit.”
“Claire is hardly an opponent in the tournament lists or on the battlefield, Mother.”
“She is still an adversary.”
Shaking his head, he muttered, “Do not worry. I know very well how at odds she and I are in a great many matters.”
“I should hope so.” Veronique brushed a crease from her cloak sleeve. “’Tis the way it must be if we are to win this final battle against your sire and then seize all that was his. Our victory is what is important. I hardly need to remind you, do I?”
The sharpness of her words made Tye curl his gloved fingers against the rough stone. “Mother—”
“I would hate to think you held notions of any kind of lasting attachment to Claire. You do know better.”
How just like his mother to remind him of the reality of his position, to ensure he knew that a pure-blooded, cultured young woman like Claire was worthy of a far greater man than he could ever be.
For all that he had done in his life, Claire did deserve better.
Tye’s attention once again on the two women who were climbing to their feet, he said, “I need no reminders. Your efforts would be better spent elsewhere.”
Veronique frowned, causing a crease to form in the layer of fine powder dusting her brow. “Elsewhere?”
“Braden was to give me a full accounting of the weapons in the keep’s armory by this morning. He has not yet presented me with his list.”
Coyness glinted in his mother’s eyes, a look that told Tye exactly what had delayed Braden. “He has been very busy—”
“I expect that list by sundown.” When she gasped in outrage, Tye held her stare, refusing to back down. “Will you go and remind him, or must I?”
***
A choking rush of fury whipped through Veronique. What bloody nerve! What rudeness from her own son.
She swallowed the unpleasant burn of anger, even as her gaze warred with Tye’s. He didn’t flinch, didn’t glance away, or give the slightest indication that he was going to relent, not even when the breeze whipped hair into his eyes. In this battle of wills, they were an even match.
Pride, fierce and bittersweet, dimmed the acidic burn of her fury, before she forced herself to break his stare and look down at the mottled stone wall between them. Better that she was the one to yield. Better that she let him believe he was in full control, having all within the keep at his command, even her. If his own mother didn’t respect him as lord, no one else would, and without doubt, their confrontation was being witnessed by not only the two ladies, but others going about their work in the bailey. She had to play her part, no matter how much it galled her.
After a moment had passed—long enough for Tye to believe she’d acknowledged him as the victor—she raised her gaze. She’d wrestled the anger into submission, but still, she suffered an uncomfortable tightness in her chest. Lodged like a jagged rock against her breastbone, ’twas a sensation she’d rarely experienced, but, each time, it had been caused by Tye. Each time, it had happened after he’d dismissed her advice as though her opinions held no weight.
She was his mother. He owed her, more than he could ever hope to repay.
“Well?” Tye demanded.
Some of the pressure in her chest eased, for she enjoyed knowing she’d kept him waiting for a reply. “I will find Braden and ask about the list.”
“Good.”
“There is one other matter,” she said crisply.
“Aye?”
“ Aye . Next time we speak, you will not use such a foul tone with me. I will not be spoken to in that way.”
Tye studied her and then the ladies who were now walking arm in arm in the garden.
“Well?” Veronique mimicked the tone he’d used when speaking to her moments ago and glared at him as she had when he was a boy, when she expected immediate compliance.
“Fine.”
Not “Yes, Mother.” Not “I am sorry for being rude, Mother.” Merely a curt and dismissive “Fine.”
Veronique fought a fresh surge of anguish. She strangled the emotion, killing it with the rage she’d nurtured for years and years and that she’d learned to draw upon at the slightest provocation.
Rage had kept her alive after Geoffrey had cast her aside and taken Elizabeth Brackendale to be his wife. Rage had sustained her through childbirth and raising Tye on her own in France, and rage would continue to sustain her, even after Tye slew his sire and Geoffrey was finally dead.
Rage, too, would give her the cunning she needed to ensure Tye did as she expected of him.
Refusing to meet her son’s stare again, refusing to say goodbye, she turned and started across the bailey. As she left the shadows of the fruit trees and entered full sunlight, she smiled, for she sensed Tye wrestling with surprise, guilt, and anger over the way she’d walked away without the courtesy of a single parting word.
She hoped he fought with his conscience for the rest of the day.
Her thoughts slipped back to the way he’d looked a short while ago, when he’d watched Claire. Before he’d gathered his composure, she’d caught an expression on his face she’d never seen before. Admiration? Respect? Affection, even?
Anguish welled again, but Veronique smashed it back down. No lady was going to stand in the way of Tye’s destiny, most certainly not a pretty virgin.
Veronique’s smile broadened. The day promised to be interesting indeed.
Chapter Sixteen
Claire walked beside Mary, following the raised stone wall of the herb beds peeking through the snow. In hushed tones, Claire said, “Remember to nod and smile as though I am telling you an amusing story.”
“All right.” Mary managed a grin. “Are you going to tell me terrible news?”
“Nay.”
“Thank goodness, because if that were so—”
“Listen, now,” Claire said, more sharply than she’d intended. “I am sorry. I do not mean to be impatient, but I do not know how much longer we have until Tye separates us again.”
In the sunlight filtering down through the fruit trees, Mary looked troubled, but she dipped her head and smiled. “Go on.”
“I may need your help. ’Twill depend whether I can get to the storage chambers myself or not.”
“The chambers beneath the keep?”
“Aye. Last night, Lady Brackendale was having nightmares, and Tye took me to her chamber to calm her. She told me of a secret passageway in the room that holds the wine and ale. ’Tis a way into the castle that de Lanceau will know from when he lived here as a child. I must somehow get to the cellars and unlock the door, so all is ready when his lordship arrives with his army to confront Tye.”
Mary frowned. “That sounds dangerous. If Tye finds out, or even worse, his mother… The way she treated Lady Brackendale in the hall—”
“I know,” Claire said, “but it may be the only way to free us all. ’Tis a risk the strong-willed damsels in our stories would take, if they were in our predicament.”
Mary laughed softly. “Thank goodness for strong-willed damsels.”
“Will you help me?”
“Of course. Whatever you need me to do, I shall do.” Her smile didn’t completely hide her grimace. “I shall be utterly terrified, my stomach twisted in knots, my knees banging together like broken shutters, but I shall think of our defiant damsels and do my best. And I p
romise not to faint this time. Not unless you need me to.”
Claire squeezed Mary’s arm. “Thank you. Now, help me think of a good reason to visit the cellars. One that Tye and his men will believe.”
“Hmm.” A pair of jays, flitting through the overhead boughs, suddenly swooped down over the garden beds ahead of them. “I suppose ’tis not enough to claim that Tye’s conquest of Wode has driven you to drink?”
Claire shook her head.
“Or that his kiss left such a foul taste in your mouth, you needed to rinse it out with a strong liqueur?”
Heat spread across Claire’s face. “Actually, when he kissed me—”
Mary came to an abrupt stop. “He did kiss you! I knew it. I just knew , from the way he has been staring at you.”
Claire caught both of Mary’s hands in hers. “Listen—”
“Did he force you? Did he try to take more than a kiss? Did he… ravish you? If he has dishonored you—”
“He has not.” Claire heard the crunch of approaching footfalls. “In truth, he has been far more chivalrous than I ever expected.”
Mary gaped. Questions glimmered in her eyes. She was clearly bursting to ask just how chivalrous Tye had been, to glean all of the tiniest details, but he’d drawn near.
With his nearness came a swift flare of longing and forbidden desire. Trying to keep control of her unruly emotions, Claire kept her expression cool and glanced in his direction, acknowledging him but not saying a word.
“’Tis enough of a walk for today,” he said.
“Tomorrow, then?” Claire dared to ask.
“We will see.”
“Thank you, though, for today,” Mary said. “’Twas a delightful surprise.”
For an instant the wariness left his features. He smiled, a flash of his even, white teeth, and warmth lit his gray eyes. He could seduce a woman with that smile. Caught in the full force of that roguish charm, Mary blushed scarlet.
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