by Tamara Leigh
Griffin halted at the center of the bailey, dropped his head back, and stared at the light-pricked sky before allowing his breath to cloud it.
He liked women well, but not so much that his fondness for their company rendered him vulnerable. Ulric de Arell had refused to allow his heir to be overly distracted by the fairer sex, meting out punishment when the youth had shown too much interest in women to the detriment of his knight’s training. And further Ulric had gone in denying Griffin knowledge of the first four and ten years of Thomasin’s life.
Pushing down anger that had receded these past years, Griffin returned his thoughts to Lady Quintin and loosed a greater anger on himself.
Her defeat in the tower room should not bother him. Indeed, he should rejoice in it. But feeling her anguish and weariness as if his own, he had sought to reassure her though she had given him no cause. However, she had given him cause to be encouraged when she had spoken his Christian name, appealing to him in a voice he imagined she would use to call a man back to her bed.
So he had played her game.
Then she had conceded she might be wrong about him.
And more willingly he had played her game.
Discovering her face was silken beneath his touch, he had assured her the word he gave was true, and when he had spoken her name without title, she had moved her mouth to his hand in something nearly a kiss.
And forgetting it was a game, he had wanted more from her as she seemed to want from him.
But the man he had been before Quintin Boursier set herself at his walls had questioned how it was possible. And when her breath feathered his skin, he had realized it was only possible in a game—one seeking to prove he was no more honorable than Serle whose desire had moved him to claim what belonged to another.
Still, even when Griffin had said he would not play that game, he had wanted her to deny it was that. But without apology she had pled guilty and pointed out the sins of his brother with further talk of the cuckolding and the Boursiers’ longing for more justice.
Griffin had not meant to defend Serle, from whom he had poorly parted once his brother’s arm had healed sufficiently to allow him to embark on his pilgrimage. Nor had he intended to demand justice for his own family, but he had met fire with fire. And for it, the lady had nearly slapped him.
Remembering her trembling that had not seemed affected, he wondered what words she had bit back after telling she had witnessed Serle and Constance’s sin. He had assumed she meant to point out the minor injury she had sustained, but was there more to it?
He shook his head. Whatever she had left unsaid had no bearing on his present or future—a future that would likely include Elianor of Emberly. Telling himself a better marriage he would make with the Verdun woman than Boursier’s sister, he resumed his stride.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“He insists, my lady.”
Quintin considered the man in the hand’s width she had opened the door—a different messenger from the one sent twice on the day past to invite her to meal.
Raising her eyebrows at the knight who had accompanied Baron de Arell in taking her around the castle and who had smiled at her during her ill-fated dinner, she said, “He insists? Then I must needs obey.” As she began to close the door on him, she added, “Do not forget the bolt. Your lord would be displeased if—”
He thrust a foot into the room, clapped a hand to the door, and pushed.
Knowing it was futile to resist, she stepped back, and he opened the door wide but did not further trespass by crossing the threshold.
Quintin clasped her hands at her waist. “Your name again?” He had spoken it through the door after freeing the bolt and knocking, but it had not stayed with her.
“I am Sir Otto, and though I do not wish to force a lady to do what she would not, I must do as my lord bids.” He smiled wryly. “Hence, I pray you will take pity on this poor soldier and come peaceably.”
She nodded at the bowl of congealed apple pottage delivered this morn. “As you can see, I have no appetite.” Even less than on the day past. Though her belly gnawed her backbone, foreboding clawed at her throat. If Bayard did not wed Thomasin de Arell this day, the barony of Godsmere would be forfeited.
“Regardless,” the knight said, “you are to sit at table with the baron.”
Then he would convey her to the great hall in whatever humiliating manner was required? She was tempted to test him but inclined her head. “Very well.”
His gaze moved beyond her, and she followed it to the saddlebag Sir Victor had sent on the day past that contained the personal effects she had assembled ere departing Castle Adderstone—and which she did not doubt had been inspected before being delivered to her.
“I shall await you on the landing whilst you change, my lady.”
She glanced down her rumpled gown. “I am suitably attired for the Baron of Blackwood.” She crossed to the chair and lifted her mantle. “Where you lead, I will follow.”
His brown eyes searched her face as she fastened the garment at her neck, then he stepped aside and motioned her to precede him.
She almost felt sorry for a warrior who feared giving a woman his back, but his concern was not unfounded. He had seen her put a blade to his lord’s throat.
No further word did they exchange as she led the way from her prison out into a gray day stirred by the bitter wind that had rattled her window’s shutters. Shortly, they entered a hall alive with the appetites of those gathered for the nooning meal.
Ignoring eyes that sped to her like arrows to prey—and those of Griffin de Arell who occupied the high seat—she halted to allow Sir Otto to draw alongside.
“Unless your lord requires you to lead me to table like a child, I prefer to make my own way.”
He leaned toward her. “Methinks this suffices.”
“I thank you.” She walked farther into the room that was warmed by a fire blazing in the cavernous hearth.
Feeling as if on display, and she supposed she was since she was a prisoner and her family was as hated by De Arell’s people as his family was hated by hers, she elevated her chin and met her captor’s gaze. And refused to be grateful when amusement, not anger, moved his mouth.
She looked to his left. As during her first meal at Castle Mathe, Sir Mathieu occupied the seat on that side of him, and next to the knight were De Arell’s son and daughter. Though the boy regarded her with distaste, Lady Thomasin did so with a smile of welcome. And it was almost enough to make Quintin take a liking to the young woman.
Griffin stood as she neared. “Though you missed the blessing of the meal, I am pleased you consented to join us, Lady Quintin.”
“I am pleased to have been given a choice,” she said and ascended the dais and traversed its backside.
The Baron of Blackwood pulled out the chair beside his, but when she stepped past him to gain the seat, he closed his hands over her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Allow me.”
Knowing she would suffer further shame if she wrenched free, she stood stiffly as he unhurriedly worked the fastener at her neck.
“I have been told you are not eating well,” he murmured, “and I can see neither are you sleeping well.”
Realizing she had lowered her gaze to his thick neck, she looked up. “You did not order it. But as Sir Otto is eager to do your bidding, mayhap you ought to task him with ensuring I gain my rest this eve.”
He raised an eyebrow. “As you will learn when you wed, my lady, a man and woman alone in the dark does not a restful night make.”
Though she tried to turn away remembrance of being alone with him two nights past when his hand had touched her face and her lips had touched his hand, memories tumbled back as that same hand now brushed her collarbone.
Heat rising in her cheeks, she set her teeth as he parted her mantle and lifted it from her shoulders.
“Take your ease, my lady.”
She lowered into the chair, and he draped her shed garment over its back. Then
he seated himself beside her as he had done at this table over which they had first shared a meal—and upon which he had landed her. As if to recreate that event, a wolfhound slinked between their chairs.
Quintin averted her gaze lest it was the same one Griffin had said would have attacked her had he himself not taken her in hand. In this, she was certain the Baron of Blackwood spoke true.
“Go, Arturo!” Griffin commanded, and the wolfhound looked to its master who repeated the command.
With a low growl, the dog twisted around and padded across the dais.
“Your hands?” Griffin asked.
She splayed them atop her skirts. Having eschewed bandages, the abrasions were visible, but they were not as livid as before she had applied the salve Griffin had sent.
“They are fine,” she said and nearly thanked him.
He motioned to a servant, and as the man poured wine into her goblet, asked, “Your accommodations?”
She looked around the hall to gauge the scrutiny to which she was subjected. It was much, as if the multitude awaited the moment the Boursier woman again sought to better their lord. But no further entertainment would she provide.
Angling her body toward Griffin, summoning a smile for the onlookers, she said, “Accommodations? A civil word for a less than civil place, my lord.”
“Compared to the alternative—recall Castle Mathe’s underground cells—’tis beyond civil, especially considering your trespass.” He lifted his chin slightly, and she flicked her gaze over the healing cut on his neck. “And lest you forget, my lady, you were first given a comfortable chamber as befitting an honored guest.”
“Which I am not.”
“As you chose not to be.”
Unable to argue that, she was grateful for the distraction offered by the squire who set before his lord a platter of sliced venison poured over with a dark red sauce. Then a separate platter with a smaller portion was placed in front of her.
The appetite she had thought long gone straining toward the scents of thyme, pepper, and wine, Quintin reached to her girdle. But just as there was no meat knife upon it, there was no girdle. Both were in the lord’s solar, along with the Wulfrith dagger she must retrieve before departing Castle Mathe.
Griffin’s hand appeared before her, his fingers around the hilt of a meat knife she recognized as her own. “Allow me to cut for you.”
She turned her face to his. Only the ill, the aged, and young children suffered the indignity of having another cut their meat. Of course there were exceptions, as of lovers, wherein the man cut the most succulent piece of meat for his woman and offered it on the point of his blade.
As she and Griffin would never be lovers, she said, “I am capable of cutting my own meat, Baron.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“My word I give that do you entrust my meat knife to me, I shall behave.” She reached for it, but he did not relinquish it.
“The question is, my lady, can I trust your word more than you trust mine?”
She fastened a look of great thought on her face, held up a hand. “A moment. I am thinking how to answer truthfully, yet in such a way I gain what I seek.”
He laughed, but before she could take offense as she had done the last time they had been here, he said, “Certes, you and my daughter would make good company between you.”
Curious, having minutes earlier acknowledged an unfounded liking for the young lady, she said, “How come you by that?”
“Though a handful you will surely prove to your husbands, neither of you is dull. Thus, possibly worth the effort to keep you in hand.”
“You assume we can be kept in hand.”
He smiled, and this time it was no lopsided thing. Indeed, it was amiable.
How had a man publicly shamed so soon recovered that he was now more civil than before she had done him ill? Might he play his own game, hoping to catch her unawares to visit on her what she had visited on him?
“An assumption a wise man ought not make,” he said and, increasing his smile, appeared years younger and much too charming. And dangerous—for she did not like him and did not wish to, and though two nights past she had done the inexplicable when he had touched her face, she was not attracted to him. Or was she?
Quintin did not realize the confused state of her face until his turned serious and he said low, “I am not wicked. I am not my father. I am not my brother. I am Griffin. And that man, Quintin, is who I would have you judge, if you must.”
She tensed to hold in the shiver roused by him so intimately speaking her name. “Do you wish to be judged different, you will release my brother if you hold him.”
“If,” he murmured. “I am pleased we continue to make progress.”
Suppressing the impulse to scoff, she continued, “And if ’tis true you do not hold him, release me so I may continue my search.”
“Nay.”
“Why?”
Lightly, he ran a thumb over the knife’s edge. “Though there remains the matter of your trespass against me that could set a poor precedent were I perceived as too lenient, of equal import is that you are safer inside Castle Mathe than outside it.”
“Safer? I am a prisoner, the men tasked with my protection set outside your walls.”
“That is your doing, though I do concede it was ill mannered of me to provoke you. More, it was wrong to laugh at you before all. For that, I apologize.”
He did? She blinked, pressed onward. “Tell me, how am I safer with you?”
“Better you suffer my company than resume a search that could see you set upon by men who would do far worse than lock you in a room.”
“You speak as if I came alone and would go alone. Lest you forget, I departed Castle Adderstone with fifty knights and men-at-arms.”
“The same who allowed The Boursier’s beloved sister to lead them in a search for their lord, then permitted her to enter the lair of her family’s enemy in the company of six.” He widened his eyes. “Six.”
Of which Bayard would be greatly displeased. But though she dreaded his wrath, especially that which would befall his men, she would welcome it before embracing its absence.
Be alive, Brother, she silently beseeched. Come as angry as you will, but be alive.
“Too, an early winter is upon us,” Griffin continued, “one that promises to worsen long ere the sun once more warms the land.”
“Our entourage is provisioned.”
“Yet, I wager, they are miserable.”
And he would not let them in, as neither would Bayard have allowed De Arell’s men to enter Castle Adderstone.
“Nay, my lady, you are safer here. With me.”
“When my brother—”
“Should he appear to fulfill the king’s decree, relations shall be strained enough with my new son-in-law without adding to the strain by having been remiss in assuring your safety.”
Quintin’s imagination momentarily placed Bayard here alongside this man, and she would have laughed had she any light inside her. How strange that Griffin, but three years older than her brother, would become Bayard’s father through marriage. If Bayard appeared.
“Now, my lady, let us to meal ere it grows colder.”
She glanced at her venison, then his. No more heat wafted from the meat, much of the taste enjoyed by others in the hall lost to them. Though her appetite dipped, the hunger of her belly was painful, and so she reached for the knife.
Griffin sighed. “I am tempted to believe I can keep you in hand, but Arturo’s instincts say otherwise.” He nodded at the wolfhound who sat on the other side of the table, eyes fixed on the woman who had attacked its master. “Should a blade appear in your hand…” He shrugged.
“It is not within your power to send him from the hall?” she said tartly.
“Since he but does his duty to me, ’twould be a poor reward for his loyalty, do you not think?”
She smiled tightly. “Then it falls to you to cut my meat.”
“My pl
easure.” He sliced off a piece, speared it on the knife’s point, and carried it toward her mouth.
It would be more expedient to pick it off with her teeth, but she plucked it with her fingers and popped it in her mouth.
He smiled, cut another piece, and himself ate from the knife’s point.
Quintin managed a half dozen bites swallowed down with wine, but once her hunger eased, she shook her head.
“That is all?” Griffin said.
“’Twill suffice.” She looked sidelong at him. “I trust that if my brother does not arrive at Mathe this eve, you will allow me to return to Godsmere on the morrow so I might prepare my mother for the loss of our home.”
He ate the venison she had refused, chewed it well. “Methinks the weather will prevent your departure, that there will be snow by nightfall.”
A convenient excuse to hold her here. Where her hand rested on the table’s edge, she gathered a fistful of the tablecloth. “’Twas not mere speculation that you wed me to gain Godsmere. For that, you would keep me prisoner—out of reach of Magnus Verdun so he cannot gain the barony through me.” She curled her upper lip. “You condemn my brother for making another man’s betrothed his wife, and yet you would steal my betrothal to gain Godsmere for yourself.”
He set the knife on his platter. “Though wedding you was a consideration, on nearer thought, I find it is not viable on my front or the king’s.”
“Your front?”
“Should Godsmere be forfeited, still an alliance must be made between the De Arells and Verduns. Were I to take you to wife, it would fall to my daughter to make that alliance, and though I prefer she be joined with the Baron of Emberly rather than your brother, it would be better she wed neither. Thus, I shall make the alliance with Lady Elianor that is already in place.”
Might he so deeply care for his daughter he would give up the possibility of doubling his demesne? In the next instant, she rejected the thought. He might wish to be judged as Griffin, but he was sprung from Ulric De Arell.
“I do not believe a daughter, even one of legitimate birth, would stand between a De Arell and that which they have ever coveted.”