Thrill Of The Knight

by Julia Latham

  Finally Anne noticed how quiet Elizabeth was. “So what has happened?” she demanded, hands on her hips. “You let me chatter on like—”

  “You deserve to chatter on. You never have anyone to talk to.”

  “Aye, but it makes me the worst sort of friend not to see that you’re troubled. What is it?”

  Elizabeth heaved a sigh and tried to smile, although it came out as a grimace. “John discovered who I am.”

  Anne gasped. “How?”

  “He overheard me persuading my sisters to leave.”

  “They’re here?” she cried.

  Elizabeth explained what had happened, how John had behaved with her sisters. She grudgingly respected that he had not shouted accusations at her in front of them.

  “Did he want to speak to you alone?”

  “Of course. He was angry.”

  “But he must be relieved.”

  “Relieved?” Elizabeth echoed in confusion.

  “He was…enamored of you, was he not?”

  She tried not to blush. “He was playing a part.” But she remembered his passionate kiss, and wondered if part of his response to her had been relief.

  Perhaps he was only glad that his standing among the castle residents would not be in jeopardy when they discovered his identity.

  There was something…bothersome about being the object of his physical attention, when she still loved the memory of his brother.

  Surely if she’d had a chance to be intimate with William, she would have felt more desire for him, her first betrothed. When William smiled, the sun had shone brighter, and she had basked in its warmth.

  When John’s smoldering gaze caught her, a darkness seemed to sweep through her mind, taking all her rational thought away. She lost control; she lost herself.

  John had slept little during the night. His thoughts had run in circles as he analyzed what he was supposed to do about Elizabeth.

  After mass, when he broke his fast, he sat alone with his thoughts while he ate. He still couldn’t believe the woman he knew as Anne was his betrothed. And though she mistrusted him severely, at least she wasn’t demanding an annulment of the contract. That only meant he was a better prospect than Bannaster, or that she was determined to honor her parents’ wishes, regardless.

  Although he could not forget all the things he was angry with her about, dwelling on it would not make the transition to marriage easier. It was time to convince her that marriage to him would not be a terrible thing. He had to put aside his anger, in hopes that she would, too.

  Wooing her physically did not seem to be what she wanted—not right now. Though she desired him, it somehow seemed to make everything worse in her mind, as if she didn’t want to feel the way she did.

  She wanted the courtly tradition of romance: a man at a distance, professing his admiration and love with politeness and poetry rather than passion.

  He could do this, although the necessity of it grated on him. But in the long run, he preferred a grateful bride to an angry one. He would learn to live with his own doubts and disappointments. And if the marriage did not turn out as he’d hoped, he would remember all the lives he was helping.

  Even if his own seemed incomplete.

  When Elizabeth entered the great hall after returning Anne’s tray to the kitchens, she saw John talking to Milburn. Both men glanced at her, Milburn nodded, and John limped toward her, leaning on his crutch.

  “Anne,” he said politely, “Master Milburn wishes us to return to Hillesley. He would like the orchard inspected in anticipation of the autumn harvest, to see if there’s enough for Alderley’s needs.”

  “With the combined harvest from all the surrounding villages, we’ve always done well.”

  John’s smile remained fixed, too polite. “Regardless, he wants us to go.”

  “Very well.”

  Elizabeth wondered if John was using this as an excuse to get her alone. But once they were driving in the cart outside the castle, a soldier in front, and Philip behind, he did nothing but drive. Even when she handed him the letter she’d written to her captain of the guard, he only tucked it away as he thanked her.

  “You don’t want to know what it says?” she asked.

  He glanced at her. “I trust you.”

  She barely restrained from rolling her eyes. She didn’t even sense residual anger from him, as if he was keeping everything locked away.

  Yet she couldn’t. Side by side with him, she found herself dwelling on how he’d felt in her arms, the mortifying way she’d clung to him, pulling him against her.

  Though the day had a chill, she felt overly warm. She could not forget the way his hand had felt on her breast, the ache of pleasure he’d evoked, and the way her nipples had hardened against him.

  They passed the stream where they’d first kissed, and he didn’t even suggest stopping.

  She hated that she felt disappointed.

  Now that he had her beneath his thumb, did he feel no more need to seduce her? Was she just a thing he’d already acquired?

  “Tell me about William,” he suddenly said.

  She gave him a surprised stare. “Why would you want to hear about a man I was betrothed to for so many years, and whom you are accusing of so many sins?”

  “Because I had not seen him in eight years.”

  “I only saw him once or twice a year myself. But I did receive letters from him.” She almost wished she hadn’t brought that up. It was uncomfortable to discuss one’s first betrothed with one’s second.

  “Maybe he had changed,” John said musingly.

  “Changed from what? Even when we were first betrothed, and I was but eleven, he was always attentive to me. That never changed through the years.”

  “How attentive could he have been if you are twenty-two and never married?”

  “That was my father’s doing,” she said crisply.

  “Really? He did not want to see you safely wed?”

  She sighed. “With my sisters fostered, my parents decided they would miss me too much. I was learning so much about running Alderley. And William was busy in London. We thought there was so much time,” she added sadly.

  “What was William doing?”

  She frowned. “He was at Parliament for part of the year, in the House of Lords.”

  “But when King Henry came back to England and won his crown, how did William switch allegiance?”

  “I know not. He did not talk of such things in his letters.”

  John wasn’t surprised. He was positive William took whatever seemed to be the easiest course. Yet in this instance, he’d somehow saved Rame Castle from retaliation from the new king, for supporting the old king. That was a positive accomplishment, and John was grateful to be able to find something good to remember about his brother.

  “What did he discuss?” he asked. “This might seem too personal, but he was my brother.”

  “Our letters were filled with our plans for Alderley. It was the future that mattered, our marriage, not the present.”

  “He didn’t tell you about himself? What he was doing at court?”

  “Nay, he often talked about…me.” She looked away, as if she was embarrassed.

  “Ah, the poetry,” he said, feeling grim, but trying not to show it.

  “He could make one feel special,” she murmured.

  “And when he was with you?” Though he hated hearing the details, he wanted everything in the open between them, so that he knew the memories he was up against. How else to change her opinion of him?

  “He was often with my father, of course, but he never forgot about me, even if it was a smile as I crossed the room, or a song he sang dedicated to me.”

  John didn’t like the dreamy sadness on her face—and he couldn’t sing. But he told himself that it was good that his brother paid attention to Elizabeth.

  “You did not know these things about your brother?” she suddenly asked.

  “We did not have a close bond.”


  “I’ve already gathered that,” she said dryly.

  “I was younger enough than he that I proved something of an embarrassment because I was small and—”

  “Plump?”

  He shot her a startled look. “I was going to say awkward, but aye, I was that, too.”

  “And William didn’t try to help you? He seemed so considerate of others.”

  “He thought I should already be better than I was. He decided when I was fifteen that training me would be his mission in life.”

  “Then he was trying to help,” she said brightly.

  For just a moment, John saw true happiness on her face, instead of endless worry or the mask of her disguise. He wondered if she would ever smile like that for him.

  Was Elizabeth right? Had William been trying to help in his own stupid way?

  “So he worked with you every day?” she asked.

  If he told her the truth, would she just think he was trying to make his brother look bad again?

  “He did,” John said gravely. “And I was bloody and bruised every night.”

  “He worked you hard.”

  Too hard, John had always thought. But had he? Had John taken it all personally, because it was his brother? Were not other squires as beaten as he was? It had seemed so humiliating to him, and the fact that his father hadn’t stepped in and put a stop to it was the worst part.

  “Mayhap…though I didn’t see it,” he began slowly. “They thought they were helping me.”

  “They?”

  “My father and my brother. After the humiliation of failing so often, I was glad to squire at my cousin’s home. In fact, maybe I trained hard there just to prove myself to my family.”

  Something deep and troubling shifted inside him, and he didn’t know how to react. Suddenly Elizabeth’s knowing gaze was too personal. He was not yet ready to forget William’s last betrayals.

  And here he was trying to clear William’s legacy between them, and this conversation had probably convinced her that she was right.

  She faced forward again, saying with resignation, “William was a good man, who didn’t deserve to die young.”

  John remained silent, considering.

  For the rest of the journey to Hillesley, Elizabeth considered John. He was obviously a man who had felt the need to leave his family permanently at a young age, and some of the reasons were now clear. She tried to imagine how she would have felt were her father a strict, cold man. Maybe she would have wanted to marry earlier, to escape.

  But maybe William wouldn’t have wanted to marry earlier. She’d always thought it was her father’s doing that she was yet a maiden, but could her father have been protecting her from knowing that William wasn’t ready? That he was having too good a time in London?

  She’d thought John had abandoned his family to go off on a personal hunt for glory. But when he heard about her parents’ death, he’d left that life to come to her, even though he was vulnerable without an army. So much more was at stake for him than her happiness: the resurrection of Rame Castle, his access to power and wealth beyond anything a mercenary knight could know. All of it without having to bow to his family’s needs.

  When they arrived at the village, she continued to watch him carefully throughout the afternoon. She saw him hand her missive to Philip, who galloped away after giving her a smile. A little girl brought John a sweet, and he got down on one knee to talk to her while he ate it. After they’d examined the early growth of fruit in the orchards, they watched several little boys playing at sword fighting with sticks. John had freely given advice, had even delayed their meeting with Hugh to show the proper technique for holding a sword.

  Elizabeth had a sudden memory of William’s impatience when dealing with his squire. Had he treated his youngest brother the same way?

  She didn’t like to think of William’s flaws, but he’d been human like everyone else. She’d never been able to see that.

  Could he have neglected his own castle?

  Nay, surely that was too much.

  But he hadn’t returned home to see for himself. He’d been too busy in London with his amusements.

  From long ago, the betrothal contract had been written that she was to marry the heir, the baron, not William in particular. Had even his parents had their doubts?

  And was some of her anger directed at William, who had died so foolishly and left her in this mess, watching the death of all her childhood dreams of romance and marriage? She’d always had everything planned to perfection, and it was all gone now.

  Was she taking some of this out on John?

  On the way back to Castle Alderley, she decided she needed to resolve some confusion. “John, last night you were so furious with me. What changed overnight? I was expecting a miserable trip, and instead you talked about your family as if all our disagreements had never happened.”

  He didn’t look at her, but she thought he clenched his jaw. “I simply realized that arguing would serve no purpose.”

  “So you’re still angry.”

  He glanced at her. “Are you not? Does it not anger you that we have been put into this situation not of our making?”

  She braced her elbows on her knees. “Aye, I’m angry,” she said in a low voice.

  “At whom? Tell me. I know you’re angry with me. The method I chose to get close to you hurt; if not you, it would have hurt Anne. My apologizing doesn’t make it go away.”

  She pressed her lips together and shook her head, worried that if she started to talk, the tears would start, too.

  “I’ve spent the day trying to treat you as you want to be treated,” he said.

  “I never—”

  “Every chance you get, you throw into my face the deference William paid to you. You seem to want an abstract man, not a flesh and blood man with needs.”

  “I thought you treated me in this distant fashion because you now have everything you wanted from me.”

  “Everything I wanted?” he said in disbelief, letting the reins go slack. “I’m torn between ending this captivity the way I want, or finding a solution that suits you. I’m actually beginning to hope there is a League of the Blade, because we could use them. But most of all, if I had everything I wanted, I’d be touching you, instead of doing my damnedest to keep my hands to myself, like this mythical, romantic man you seem to want.”

  The cart came to a stop in the middle of the road, the horse dropped his head down to nibble grass, and Elizabeth gaped at John. He was trying to behave as he thought she wanted? As if she even knew what she wanted anymore. There had been so many revelations in the past few days that her head was spinning from it all. She felt confused and uncertain, and so formless as to be shifting with any wind that passed.

  The soldier who’d accompanied them for protection now glanced at them over his shoulder, shrugged, and kept riding.

  “Aye, I’m angry,” she said again. “I’m angry that every plan I made is gone. I’m angry that your brother was stupid enough to die, and maybe wasn’t the man I thought he was. I’m even angry at my parents, God rest their souls, for not finding some way to have me safely married.”

  “That is one thing I am glad did not happen.”

  His voice was low and fierce and husky. His desire was a thing she didn’t trust, too raw, too primitive, and too full of sensations that she didn’t understand. Just the look in his eyes affected her powerfully. She had to turn away, holding herself, trembling.

  She heard him pick up the reins to urge the horse to trot again, leaving her alone with her chaotic thoughts. She had a need of him, in more ways than one, and she wasn’t used to needing anyone.

  Chapter 17

  The next afternoon, Viscount Bannaster returned with an armed troop of guards. Word spread before he was even in the great hall, and Elizabeth found herself instinctively looking for John, but he was not in the castle. She ran to the double doors in time to look down upon the inner ward, and the chaos of Bannaster’s arrival. Dogs bark
ed and ran about the horses, people darted away from the pawing hooves of the ill-controlled animals, and Lord Bannaster rode in the center of it all.

  Looking too well pleased with himself, Elizabeth thought. Nausea swirled through her stomach. She looked about anxiously for John, and finally saw him limping toward the castle from the tiltyard, Philip right behind him. Oh heavens, was she already starting to depend on his presence? She looked up at the tower and wondered if Anne was watching, too.

  Was it already too late? Elizabeth had come up with no method to free herself that would not hurt other people. So little time had passed since Bannaster had left for London; King Henry must have needed little persuasion. What if the king had skipped guardianship and settled on marriage as an end to the problems of Elizabeth and her dowry?

  Bannaster swung his leg over the side of his horse and jumped from the saddle. His fur-lined cloak swirled about him, and he tossed it back over his shoulders. He left his soldiers to deal with the horses, and came up the steps to the great hall two at a time. Elizabeth stumbled back, and to her relief he didn’t even notice her as he swept by. She was only a lady’s maid he’d met once, after all.

  “Bring me an ale!” he called. “Travel parches my throat.”

  A dozen or more knights followed behind him, laughing too loudly, pushing each other like boys, and looking about as if for prey.

  For women.

  And Elizabeth felt very vulnerable against the wall. Just then, John came through the door, and his big body was between her and the rest of the hall.

  “Are you all right?” he asked in a low voice.

  She nodded, absurdly grateful for him, though she knew he could do nothing should Bannaster’s men decide to amuse themselves at her expense.

  “So this is the man who wants to take what is mine?” he said near her ear.

  That annoyed her, and she flashed him an angry look. “It is all still mine,” she answered.

  He rolled his eyes. “Has he revealed anything?”

  “Nay, though does he not seem far too pleased with himself?”

  John drew her hand into the warmth of his elbow, and turned to watch the viscount again. She found herself clutching John tightly.