Beleaguered, she tightened her jaw. “Monsieur, the matter is not so simple.”
Richard pressed a cup of wine upon her. Bowing her head, she accepted it without drinking. There was enough drunkenness about the court this night.
The prince flourished a brawny arm. “The demoiselle’s holdings are occupied by a rival claimant—her fiancé, the Duc d’Ormonde. Isn’t that so, ma chère?”
A deathly stillness settled over the Raven. Suddenly he seemed a stalking beast, crouched to spring on his quarry. Though her betrothal was common knowledge, little though she liked it, she felt reluctant to air the tawdry business before him. “Your Grace—”
“Our Raven is a well-traveled man. Surely he has heard of your duke, even in Outremer?” Spiteful pleasure lurked in Richard’s gaze. “Ponce d’Ormonde was once the most dissolute libertine in the realm, including my brothers. No small achievement, eh?”
“Your Grace—”
“Nay, why should I not tell him?” Richard brandished his cup, wine slopping over the rim to spatter the floor. “They say Ormonde squandered a king’s fortune, so now the old man must marry money. Worse, he’s grown repentant in his old age, become a pious fool mumbling prayers, complete with hair shirt!”
Prodded by guilt, Alienore stirred. “’Tis not well done to mock a man for piety. Well for him if he has repented—”
“He’s a doddering travesty.” Richard scowled. “Your beauty would be utterly wasted upon him. But your idiot brother won’t cede you the manor otherwise . . . and you desire that manor, don’t you, ma chère?”
“I am an earl’s daughter! I would never shame Lyonstone by marrying a baseborn man.”
“Baseborn?” The Raven raised skeptical eyebrows. “The man’s Duke of Ormonde.”
Wrath swelled within and scalded her cheeks. “Ponce d’Ormonde’s sire was a panderer who won his title by warming the king’s bed with whores he liked!”
“Few are privileged to share your pedigree.” A muscle flexed in the Raven’s jaw. “Do we all lack honor?”
Nineteen years of breeding rose to the forefront and banished the vermin of self-doubt that had nibbled away at her since the night she fled Lyonstone. “I cannot speak for most men. But my father always said it. In the end, blood will tell.”
“You’re a fool to think so.” The knight’s voice scraped out. “There be lecherous lords and noble knaves in this world.”
“What would you know of honor?” She should not have spoken so plainly as to give offense, but she had not taken this outcast for a man jealous of his honor.
“Why, nothing at all.” His face twisted with bitterness. “What can the devil know of honor?”
“Brother, I crave a word.” A scowling nobleman pushed into their alcove—Geoffrey of Brittany, the queen’s younger son. Richard pulled him aside with a muttered excuse.
Disconcerted by the ugly words that had flown from her lips, she turned away from the Raven’s piercing gaze. While the princes huddled in conference, she and the Raven stood alone, though in full view of the court.
Courtesy and guilt compelled her words. “I should not have spoken thus.”
It was the closest to contrition she could bring herself, for her cousin’s ravisher. When he said nothing, she steeled herself to meet his gaze.
“My lady’s proud.” Something stirred beneath the Raven’s bronze-skinned features. “Too proud to marry a panderer’s son.”
“’Tis not pride, but honor.” With exquisite pain, she remembered her mother. “I have sworn to forgo all that I own before I make this marriage.”
“Pretty sentiment,” he mocked, oddly intent. “Does honor always echo your heart’s desire? If you’d say aye, you be luckier than the rest of us, or less honest.”
Outrage knifed through her. How dare this dog—the Devil of Damascus—presume to lesson her upon honor and integrity? “We do not all choose to wallow in the muck of our baser natures, Lord Raven. If you cannot comprehend that, I pity you for it.”
“I comprehend you right well.” He leaned close, tugging at her senses. She waited for Remus to growl, but the wolf merely panted up at him. “I thought you fled your marriage with a maid’s fears, and no father living to curb you. Now I see the truth. You fled from some naive sense of honor.”
“You forget yourself, monsieur.” She blazed at him. “No man on earth speaks to me in this fashion.”
“Except Richard of Aquitaine, who sullies you with every word. But nay, I’ve forgotten. He’s noble born, can do no insult.”
“I never said—”
“Nay, I understand you. You paint the world black and white, like the perfect world you dreamed in your convent. But virtue and honor are complex matters in infinite shades of gray.”
“Do not believe I have spent my entire life within the cloister. You know nothing about me, no matter what you may hear at this court.”
Unexpected humor tugged at his lips. “Grant you this, lady—you fear not to speak your mind. Bravery’s a fine quality . . . for those who can afford it.”
“Here, now, what’s this?” Richard shouldered into the alcove. “Why, demoiselle, your color is quite fetchingly high.
Can it be our Raven has managed to provoke a display of passion from Lady Virtue?”
Over his shoulder, she caught sight of Sir Guy, features stamped with determination as he marched toward her. A resolve to match his stiffened her spine.
I am weary of fleeing this man. If he wishes to tilt with me, so be it.
Catching her expression, Richard followed her gaze. They watched as fox-faced Geoffrey darted into view and slid up to Sir Guy—blocking his path, as he had done that morn—almost as if someone planned it.
“Come along.” Richard caught her elbow in a proprietary grip. “I’ve taken a fancy to dance, and I will be denied nothing tonight.”
She managed to check the protest before it tumbled from her lips. She trod a careful path with the prince and strove always to temper her distance with courtesy. When she glanced at the Raven, he was tracking Geoffrey of Brittany, who marched off with the angry Sir Guy in tow. Over his shoulder, the Englishman flung her a grim look—unwilling to yield, but bound no less than she to dance to the royal tune.
“As you can see,” she told the Raven dryly, “our prince has spoken. Bid you good night, monsieur.”
The Raven’s eyes never wavered as they stalked Geoffrey through the hall.
No doubt I have bored him with my wholesome convent-bred ways. She spun away, skirts swirling around her knees. She should be thankful he’d treated her no worse. Only consider what had happened to Rohese—
Unexpectedly, the Raven spoke. “My lady.”
She couched her spear and turned, eyebrows lifting to belie her pounding heart.
With careless grace, the black knight bowed, that sinful mane slithering down. His infernal eyes flickered with fire.
“We’ll speak again.” Those topaz eyes dared her to fling defiance in his face—and how she itched to do it. But nay, that would be unlordly.
Instead, she elevated her chin. “If I were you, I would not wager anything I value upon that.”
Chapter Three
A band of pain tightened around Alienore’s temples. With a grimace, she glanced up from her writing table.
Before her, tidy piles of parchment contained a fortnight’s worth of correspondence, marked with her neat notations. She had labored since daybreak and accomplished much.
But not enough, her conscience whispered. And now she would pay for it.
Saint Swithun grant mercy, I cannot afford a megrim now. She pressed cramped fingers against her eyelids to ease the stabbing pain. If she could only shut out the inferno of daylight—
Beneath her writing table, the wolf growled. Her eyes opened to find Sir Guy Aigret filling the doorway to her oratory. Recognizing the steely gleam in his gaze, she sighed and braced for battle.
He addressed her in their common English. “I’ve run ye to
ground, milady—though it’s taken three days to do it.”
“By my faith, have we an appointment?” Coolly, her eyebrows lifted. “If so, I do not recall it.”
“Ye’ll not slip the net this day. Need I remind ye I represent yer king?”
Her jaw tightened with stubbornness. She descended from the earls of Lyonstone, by God. She refused to allow this bull terrier with a minor title to intimidate her.
“Need I remind you, sir, that I am the queen’s privy chancellor? My schedule is not mine to command.”
Clearly prepared to wait her out, Sir Guy braced his stout legs and straddled the doorway. When Remus uncurled, a growl rumbling from his chest, she whistled the wolf to her side. Vexing though she found the man, it would not do for Remus to spring at his throat. “Are you here upon the king’s business? In that event, I am at your disposal.”
“Aye.” He watched Remus warily. “I’d like to hear how ye found matters at Bordeaux.”
“Unsettled, sir. I did what I could to convince Aquitaine’s noble seigneurs these rumors of rebellion are much exaggerated. ‘Twould come better from the queen herself.”
“Don’t hold yer breath waiting for that. The king knows better than to set that virago loose. They’ve always been her men, and Henry knows it!”
“The queen is loyal to her husband. Once he returns, he too will see it.”
“Unlikely.” He snorted. “What news from the queen’s uncle, hey?”
Her meeting with Raoul de Faye was supposed to remain secret, a private matter between the queen and her uncle. With every bone in her body Alienore abhorred lying, even by royal command. Worse, she knew she was abysmal at it. Always, always, her face gave her away.
She unsheathed her long-knife to sharpen her quill. “I am unclear of your meaning.”
He showed no better patience for evasion than she. “I know ye went sneaking off to meet Sieur de Faye, and so will the king. So I’ll ask ye again—in the king’s name—what did he say?”
With steady fingers, she honed her quill. She drew strength from the blade, a long-knife no other lady would carry. A blazing lion clawed around its hilt toward a fire red ruby—a gift from her father.
But she dared not resist outright. She was loyal to Henry no less than to Eleanor, and she did not believe one must negate the other. “Sieur de Faye conveyed messages of love and concern from the queen’s son in Paris. ’Twas a family matter.”
“Oh, come, lass! Ye can’t expect me to believe that doggerel. It’s my duty to see the queen causes no more mischief while Henry has his hands full with the Norman rising. Did that snake give ye a message?”
“Aye!” She was no woman to be intimidated by a man’s raised voice. “I conveyed the sealed parchment directly to the queen’s hands, so I can say no more.”
When he strode forward, her belly clenched.
“Lady Alienore, I knew yer father all my life. Perhaps ye didn’t know it, but we fought together in the Holy Land. I mourned his passing, lass.”
The ache of loss swelled in her throat. Her love had not been enough to keep Theobold at home. He had abandoned a grieving girl and taken his cherished son away with him to war.
Benedict was a comfort to our father, as I was not. My father saw naught in me but his wife’s betrayal.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Say on, sir.”
Often her directness disconcerted the subtle courtiers of Aquitaine, but Guy Aigret was an Englishman to the marrow of his bones. He looked at her without condemnation, as though he understood the many facets of her grief.
“Theobold was an honorable man,” he said gruffly. “I can’t believe any daughter of his would practice betrayal. For yer father’s sake, I’ll warn ye. The king suspects ye. ’Tis treason, milady—and the consequences of that are dire. Be warned.”
She stared up at him, pulse beating hard and fast at her throat. Aye, who did not know the penalty for treason: death by hanging, to be cut down from the noose still living, then disemboweled, the traitor’s entrails burned before his eyes. Then to be drawn and quartered, as a grim warning to others whose loyalty would stray.
Jesus wept, this could not be real. How could she, Alienore of Lyonstone, be suspected of such deadly offense? She was no traitor!
Allowing herself a single moment of weakness, she wrapped her arms around the wolf’s warm body. Remus whined in sympathy and licked her jaw. For a time she said nothing, until she regained command of her voice.
“Sir Guy, I am . . . grateful for your concern. I swear to you, I am loyal to England.”
“I trust that’s so. But ye cannot serve two masters, lass.”
“The queen regrets this estrangement! Perhaps she has been . . . overzealous . . . but I am certain she has learned from her mistake. My duty to the king lies in serving his lady and ensuring she does not stray further.”
“Fairly spoken, like a true counselor.” His whiskers lifted in something like a smile. “I hope ye’ll not find yer faith misplaced. She’d use yer innocent love sure as any other tool—easy as she used her husband’s trust, by God.”
“Nay, sir, I will not hear her so abused. She is a good and virtuous lady, and loves me truly, as she loved my mother.”
“Pray that’s so, milady, that ye might exert some influence. Be wary she don’t exploit yer trust to her own advantage.”
To that she could find no response. She bowed her head, and hoped he would take that for acquiescence.
When he had gone, she ground her fists to her aching brow. She had forgone the modesty of a veil within her sanctum, yet now she wished she had worn one. She gave too much away with her bearing.
Indeed, Sir Guy’s warning had done naught to alleviate her headache. This megrim showed every sign of degenerating into one of the hideous episodes that sent her to bed, weak and nauseated, with a cloth soaked in lavender over her eyes. Groaning, she kneaded her scalp.
Remus bounded up with a happy yip—his greeting to those he considered friends. Her eyes flashed open, whirring thoughts spinning to a halt.
A sinister figure commanded her doorway, black surcoat swirling around him, his silken hair plunging to his waist. At his belt, the curved Saracen sword with its topaz eye gleamed in wicked promise.
She stared into those deep-set eyes, burning like embers beneath his eyebrows. He watched her as though he knew her, knew all her secrets. Yet he concealed his own behind his hard face.
Alienore stood to confront the black knight. Softly she said, “You.”
He’d been angry since he learned her name, irritated and impatient when the antics of a headstrong girl sent him galloping across two kingdoms to claim her, when so many needs clamored for his attention. When he’d stared into those stormy eyes at the masque, one thought had pounded through his brain.
Allah, be merciful. This is worse than I feared.
Was the lady so undisciplined, so heedless, that she disguised herself and took the field for a lark? But then, who’d taught her the lance and the sword? Even encumbered by ill-fitting armor and that half-wild charger, she would have unseated a lesser man.
That she possessed the fortitude to withstand a man’s training, and the discretion to do it in secret, told him Alienore of Lyonstone was more than he’d taken her for—more than a stubborn spinster fearful of the marriage bed.
Lurking outside her door, he had overheard the exchange with Sir Guy, and that alone was enough to freeze his blood. How could the lady fly so far down the road to treason and the hangman’s noose in a few short months? Surely she couldn’t be so pure a fool she didn’t know it. But this business would take time to unravel—time he did not have, damn the girl.
He could not merely assert his authority over the unruly minx, toss her over his shoulder and sail cheerfully for England. He would have to woo her, worm his way into her confidence. Who could say how long that would take?
Annoyance and perplexity gnawed at him like rats. A beauty, she is—Allah’s heart, there’s no
denying it. Grimly resisting her pull, he resolved to shatter this shining illusion.
The lady stood bathed in winter sun and blazed like a torch. Surely there were dozens of beauties more comely, with the same pale fire of gold and silver hair?
There must be others with skin like ivory silk, proud cheekbones and Norman nose, the cleft of a determined chin beneath lips whose generous curve made a man dream of kissing. Surely there were other eyes like hers, flashing lightning silver and storm gray at will.
She was the tallest lady at court, and that could be naught to recommend her. She dressed sober as an abbess, and where was the allure in that? A great cat snarled from her hilt—a man’s knife, a fighting knife no proper maid would carry. Yet something about her called to him, an incandescent spirit that blazed in her, like the fires that raged in his own soul.
He leaned a hip against the doorframe. “So this is where you’ve been hiding.”
A furrow of annoyance appeared between her ash-blonde eyebrows. She spoke with a deep-throated contralto, a husky voice to make any man think of bedding—until he looked into her wintry gaze.
“I do not hide from any man living. I attend Mass and Vespers with the queen each day . . . though I have noted you do not.”
Well, that was encouraging. At least she thought to look for him. “Your God and I are not on speaking terms.”
Surprise and curiosity glimmered in her gray eyes. She clasped her hands like a nun—and why in hell should that beguile him?
“I take the noon meal at the queen’s table, monsieur. I have not seen you there.”
“I’m no man of leisure.” Had it frustrated her that their paths failed to cross, the way it frustrated him? “I’m master-at-arms. I’ve duties in the lists.”
“Yet you are not there now.”
A flicker of appreciation tugged at his lips, but he contained it. It would never do for this proud and stately lady to believe he was having sport at her expense.
He bent and whistled to the wolf. With a yip, the beast bounded across the floor to him, braced large paws on his shoulders and slathered on affection with a pink tongue. Mindful of the wicked teeth, the Raven scrubbed the shaggy ruff with a sense of wonder that the wolf allowed him these familiarities.
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