A Knight's Seduction

by Catherine Kean

  Veronique’s mouth twisted as Tye smiled at Claire. Without doubt, he was wooing the little bitch, courting her with a civilized, indulgent drink by the fire, as if they had a lot in common, which they did not.

  Tye was wise to have sent Braden to gather news of de Lanceau’s whereabouts; such information was crucial to their victory and winning the spoils they all deserved. In the meantime, though, Tye should be plotting, scheming, reveling in his anger and the revenge soon to be his—not seducing a virgin. Such pursuit could cause Tye to become careless and weak. Veronique simply wouldn’t allow it, not when she had invested so much, sacrificed so much, year after year to ensure that Tye would grow into the warrior to crush his sire.

  Claire might shyly tilt her head and cast discreet glances at Tye’s muscled body, but she would only look. She might secretly lust after him, but she’d not lie with him, not willingly. She’d not despoil her precious noble body, just as she’d not fornicate with the dumb louts who mucked out the stables.

  A wicked laugh burgeoned within Veronique, for she could—and would—give Tye what he wanted. Tonight, he’d have his way with Claire. Then, instead of longing for her, he’d realize what he’d craved wasn’t worth all of the effort. ’Twas a lesson that would bring him back under Veronique’s control, focused once again upon the upcoming fight in which he’d destroy his father and claim all.

  Veronique’s fingers slid into the hem of her gown’s sleeve. She lightly touched the dagger tucked there, as well as the small glass vial. The vial had worked its way close to the opening in her sleeve, and she made sure ’twas positioned where she wanted it before she strolled from the shadows.

  With loose-hipped strides, Veronique walked to the hearth. In the glow of the fire, Tye’s expression hardened. He clearly didn’t like what Claire was saying. Smugness trailed through Veronique, for that anger was a good sign. She knew very well how a man’s rage could be coaxed, manipulated, and with relentless patience, transformed into heated passion that required a lusty coupling to assuage it. Years ago, she’d used Geoffrey’s desire for vengeance against Lord Arthur Brackendale to turn his fury into a fierce passion; the memory of that passion still had the power to make her womb clench and her breasts ache. Tonight, she’d turn Tye’s fury into a powerful, undeniable lust.

  Claire saw her first. Her blue eyes widened.

  Was that fear in Claire’s expression? She should be afraid.

  Tye paused in the midst of what he was saying. “Mother.”

  “Tye.” Veronique halted near the table. “You are enjoying a drink by the fire, I see.”

  “We are. What are you about this evening?”

  If he only knew . “Actually, I was hoping to find you.”

  “Ah. And?”

  Veronique’s attention shifted to Claire, sitting as straight as a fence post. Her face was a bit flushed, but then, sitting in that ridiculous way would make any woman uncomfortable. “One of the mercenaries is sharpening my knives for me. I want to be sure I am ready for battle when your father arrives. Would you like me to see that your knives are sharpened, too?”

  He studied her a moment and then nodded. “A wise idea.”

  “May I go into the solar and fetch your daggers? I assume they are still in your saddle bag, where you normally keep them?”

  “Aye, you may go into the solar. And aye, the knives are there. The daggers are all that you may take from my chamber, though,” he said, his words clearly a warning. He softened his threat with a smile. “I am still mulling my strategy for the battle ahead, and since I know where I have put the items I need, they should remain in their places.”

  In other words, Tye didn’t want her meddling with any of his possessions, including what he’d taken from Claire’s room. Damn him. He knew her too well, for those were exactly the items she’d love to borrow for a night and devour. They would no doubt be delightfully entertaining, considering what Veronique had read in Claire’s journal.

  “I understand,” Veronique said, her tone polite despite her annoyance.

  “Good.”

  His brusque reply proved he wanted to appear fully in control of the conversation, likely to impress Claire. Defiance kicked at Veronique’s self-control, but she managed to keep her smile pleasant, her expression calm. Subtly shifting her fingers, she worked the vial out of her sleeve and into her palm.

  “Your jug is almost empty,” she noted. “Is that the bottle there?” She motioned to the earthenware flask sitting on the floor by the right rear table leg.

  Tye eased up in his chair. “I will—”

  “Do not trouble yourself. Allow me.”

  Tye looked about to protest. Refusing to let her smile slip, Veronique bent and drew the flask toward her. She swiftly pulled the stopper from the vial, poured in the liquid, and pushed the vial back into her sleeve, then rose to her feet with a stifled grunt of effort. She poured more of the crimson-colored drink into the jug resting on the table and then refilled both goblets.

  “There,” she said, her task complete.

  “Thank you, Mother.”

  “I was glad to help.” Indeed, she was delighted, for her plan had been far easier to execute than she’d expected. Neither he nor Claire could have seen her meddle with the drink; the table blocked their view. “You are the lord of this fortress. You should not have to pour your own drink. Such a chore is beneath you now.” Catching Claire’s gaze, Veronique grinned.

  Claire dropped her gaze.

  You should be afraid to hold my stare, bitch. Just you wait .

  “Now,” Veronique said, moving away, “I shall see to those knives.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rubbing his thumb against the side of his goblet, Tye watched his mother climb the stairs. She was scheming. Of that, he was certain.

  Whatever she was planning, he’d find out. She might believe she had free reign here at Wode, but with his victory over his father so near, the last thing he needed was for her to do something unexpected.

  “Have you ever talked to her about Lord de Lanceau,” Claire asked, her voice cutting into his thoughts.

  Tye wrested his gaze from his mother. “I have.”

  “All that you know of him has come from her?”

  “Most of it. The rest I gleaned from legends and hearsay. Why do you ask?”

  “Is it possible…?” Claire hesitated, clearly choosing her words carefully. His gaze riveted to her mouth, for he ached with the desire to kiss her. She’d taste of liqueur, and cake, and a hundred other sweet temptations. “What I mean is, she obviously hates your sire.”

  “We both do.”

  “Could she…might she have lied to you about—?”

  “ Lied ?” he growled.

  Claire’s throat moved with a hard swallow, but she held his gaze and nodded.

  “Lied about what?” The words broke from Tye’s lips like chips of ice. Most grown men would have immediately retreated from their questioning, but his stubborn little Kitten merely lifted her chin higher.

  “Lied to you,” she ventured on, “that your sire…never wanted you. That he refused to accept you. You must admit, ’twas to her advantage—”

  “He did refuse to accept me, in front of his own men.”

  “I see.” She spoke so quietly, he almost didn’t hear her over the fire. In the shifting light, her skin looked dewy, soft. He longed to touch her cheek, to feel her skin against his, to make her body melt against him in an impassioned kiss. He craved the feel of her in his arms.

  “When did that refusal happen?” she asked.

  Dragging his wayward thoughts back to their conversation, he said, “I was but a young boy. My mother had arranged a meeting with my father, to
present me to him and make him acknowledge me. De Lanceau arrived in the field with a small army, determined to arrest my mother.”

  “Arrest her? There is more between your sire and Veronique than just a lord rejecting his former lover, then.”

  Tye shrugged. “De Lanceau barely escaped being poisoned years ago by my mother when he was recovering from a grave injury caused by a crossbow bolt. However, that is not relevant to him acknowledging me as his son.”

  “True. You can see, though, why he might be hesitant to believe her claims, especially one as important as you being his child.”

  God’s bones, but she spoke so calmly, so rationally, as though she had every right to defend de Lanceau’s damnable actions.

  “Whatever lay between the two of them, my sire hoped to finish it on the day of the meeting. He intended to kill my mother. When he saw me, he realized he must eliminate me as well.”

  Claire sucked in a breath. “You cannot mean—”

  Tye smiled coldly. “He wanted me dead.”

  “Never! Lord de Lanceau is known to adore children.”

  “But not his own,” Tye sneered. “Not me , his bastard, born to the courtesan he cast aside.”

  “Listen to yourself! Do you really believe he meant to murder you? An innocent boy? A helpless child?” Claire’s voice sharpened with revulsion.

  “Why not? Then I would not grow up to be a threat to him or his well-respected family.”

  Claire’s eyes glistened in the firelight. “Is that what your mother told you?”

  “She did.”

  “I thought so.”

  The dismissal in Claire’s tone brought him forward on a surge of irritation, his arms braced on his knees. He cradled his goblet in his fingers as he said tightly, “I owe my mother my life .”

  “Tye—”

  “ She saved me from certain death that day. She refused to hand me over to de Lanceau or to let him take me from her by force. My mother protected me, fled England to keep me safe, raised me, and ensured I was trained to defend myself. I owe her everything.”

  “She did do all that you mentioned. But—”

  “ But? She made me who I am now. And now, I am ready to take what I am due.”

  Claire shook her head and stared down at her drink. The irritation simmering within Tye burned hotter.

  “My sire will not have the pleasure of murdering me. He will find I am a far stronger opponent than he ever expected. I will slay him, and that day, I will rejoice. Each day that I conquer another of his estates, I will celebrate, until I have all that belonged to him.”

  Remorse touched Claire’s gaze. “Have you seen Lord de Lanceau since your mother first presented you to him? That day was so long ago.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  Claire’s lips curved in a faint, hopeful smile. “People change. Mayhap if you could see him again, talk to him, just you and him…”

  Talk? Like hell . Talking wouldn’t bring about his sire’s defeat. “I last saw my father when I was imprisoned months ago. Before that, I saw him at the battle at Waddesford Keep.”

  “That battle. ’Twas the first time he had seen you since that day long ago?”

  “Aye.” Tye would never forget the anticipation and anguish that had hounded him every moment of every day until he’d faced his sire at Waddesford Keep. Those same emotions lived within him now, only they had grown sharper, deeper, and far more painful.

  “What happened at Waddesford Keep?”

  He drew upon the intense hatred that flowed whenever he thought of his father. “I asked him to acknowledge me as his son. In front of witnesses, in front of his most trusted men and my mother, he refused.”

  Claire sighed, her expression troubled. “Did he give a reason why?”

  “He claimed there is no proof that I am his child. I have been told, though, one has only to look at him and me side by side to see the resemblance.”

  “Still, you must surely understand his reluctance. He has only your mother’s word, as well as a similarity in looks between you two, and that is not much to convince anyone that—”

  With a furious growl, Tye slammed down his goblet and rose.

  Claire hurriedly set down her goblet and huddled back in the chair, her eyes enormous. Spilled liqueur dripped from the table with a steady pat-pat .

  Rage burned like white-hot flame in his veins. He caught the wary stares of the mercenaries at the nearby tables and glowered at them until they averted their gazes.

  “Tell me this, if you can,” he muttered, glaring at Claire. “If de Lanceau does not believe that I am his son, why did he try and save my life? Why bother?”

  “Save your life?” Claire sounded astonished. “When?”

  Tye flexed his hand, the one he’d used to cling to the side of the battlement. The memory of rough stone biting into his palm was as clear as if he were back at Waddesford Keep, in that dangerous, precarious moment. Fury and confusion whipped through him, and he faced the fire, its heat licking over him, as searing as his internal tempest.

  “’Twas near the end of the battle,” he said roughly. “I had nowhere left to go, except down.”

  “Down?”

  “I fell over the edge of the battlement.” Again, he heard the shouts and clangs of fierce fighting, tasted death on the wind whipping around him. “At the last moment, I caught hold and hung there, with only air beneath my feet. The bailey was far below.”

  “Mercy!”

  “Aye. Mercy .” Tye said between his teeth. He wondered if he’d ever be able to forget that moment of struggle, so fleeting yet so damned haunting. “As I fought to hold on, de Lanceau reached down his hand. He told me to grab hold, and he would pull me up.”

  “A kind gesture,” Claire said. Her admiration for de Lanceau warmed her voice.

  “Was it kind?” Anguish tore through Tye. All would have been so much simpler if de Lanceau had knocked away Tye’s fingers gripping the stone, causing him to fall, or turned his back on Tye, withholding all compassion and leaving Tye to his fate. Instead, de Lanceau had knelt and offered his hand.

  Why? Why ?

  Tye suddenly wanted to grab the jug of liqueur from the table and down it all at once. Drunken oblivion had to be better than this blistering pain.

  “Of course ’twas kind,” Claire said. “Your sire didn’t have to offer you help.”

  “True. However, there were also many witnesses. No doubt he wanted to appear chivalrous in front of his men, by offering me his aid.”

  A disbelieving laugh broke from Claire. “He is a man of honor. He lives by the rules of chivalry. If you were his most bitter enemy, he would have offered the same.”

  “Ah. So ’twas not a gesture of kindness, then,” Tye ground out. “’Twas a deception disguised as courtesy—”

  “’Tis not what I—”

  “—just as my mother said.”

  Silence answered him, a quietude measured only by the crackle of the fire and the hushed conversation of the mercenaries across the hall. He turned his back to the flames.

  “Tye—”

  “Do not try to convince me my father acted out of any sense of compassion , for your own words have confirmed what I suspected. He did not offer to help me because of who I am, because I am his son. He did so because ’twas expected of him.”

  “Please, Tye. Whatever the reason, he still tried to save you. That should count for something.”

  “Should it?”

  “Aye. When you see his lordship again, you must ask him about that moment. You should hear from his own lips why he wanted to save you.”

 
; “I do not care to hear his reasoning,” Tye seethed, hauling a hand through his hair. Yet, a tiny part of his soul said he really did want to know. He did want to hear the truth. Indeed, he might ask—before he ran his sire through.

  “You did not say what happened,” Claire said. “While you struggled to hold on, did you take de Lanceau’s hand?”

  “I did not.”

  “You fell ?”

  “I let go.”

  She pressed her hand to her mouth. Horror and disbelief flickered across her features; the emotional torment inside him intensified.

  “I let go,” he repeated on a growl, “because I made a choice. I refused to yield to my sire. I would not willingly surrender and become his prisoner, his pawn.”

  “You are lucky to have survived such a fall,” she said, lowering her hand to her lap. “You could have been mortally wounded.”

  “I was injured. I cracked the bones in my right leg. Regrettably, there was no hope of getting away, and my mother and I were taken captive. We were separated and imprisoned at different castles, but with Braden’s help, we escaped.”

  “If I remember correctly, you saw Lord de Lanceau during your imprisonment.”

  “Aye. Once.”

  “Did you not have a chance then to discuss the fact you may be his son?”

  Tye snorted. “He came to interrogate me about what happened at Waddesford Keep. When I would not cooperate, he left and never returned.”

  She trailed a slender finger over her bottom lip. He had the overwhelming urge to stride to her, grab her hand, and nibble on her fingers, before he claimed her mouth. ’Twould be so easy, to take her lips, press her back in the chair, her body soft beneath him…

  “You must understand that ’twas your sire’s duty to question you, as he would any man taken prisoner taken during a battle,” she said. “Regardless whether or not he is your father, his duty had to take priority.”

  “As always,” Tye muttered.