A Knight's Vengeance (5 page)

Her skin warmed, and with shocking clarity, she recalled the glint of her rescuer's eyes.
Brilliant, secretive eyes.
He seemed far too clever a man to be apprehended by her father's guards.

Sinful heat coiled through her to the tips of her toes. What would his kiss have been like? She imagined his eyes darkening to a smolder, and his lips pressing over hers. He would kiss like the heroes in the
chansons.
Her belly swooped.

The chair beside her creaked as her father sat. She blinked away her thoughts and fought a blush. How foolish to swoon over that arrogant stranger, when she would never see him again.

Her father smiled at her, then asked the flushed chaplain,
who had only just emerged from the stairwell, to bless the fare.

Sedgewick piled a day-old bread trencher with the dishes that smelled of ginger, cumin and fresh rosemary. "What can I tempt you with, love?" He dangled a greasy bit of game hen between his fingers. "You must .keep your strength for our wedding night"—his eyelid dropped in a wink—"and if your womb is to swell with my son."

Elizabeth waved away his offering and grabbed the goblet, grateful for the wine's numbing warmth.

Just as she set down the vessel, cool air whipped over her ankles. Bertrand de Lyons, Wode's captain of the guard, strode out of the stairwell. He crossed to her father, bowed, and handed him a rolled parchment.

"A messenger gave this to one of the guards
. 'Tis urgent."

"Urgent?" Her father wiped sauce from his chin, then cracked the wax seal between his fingers.

Bertrand turned and handed her a scrap of faded linen.
"Milady, for you."

Elizabeth frowned. She was not expecting any deliveries or messages. She set the little parcel on the table and opened it.

Her ribbon!

She had thought it lost for good. Who had found it? Who had returned it? She gently brushed it free of lingering dust.

"God's bones."

Unease plowed deep within Elizabeth. She had never heard her father speak in such a tone.

Her sire's lips were pressed into a line. His blue eyes blazed.

"Father?"

"Fires have burned the harvest at Tillenham." His hands shook. "The wheat, barley, and rye are destroyed."

The meat in the baron's fingers fell with a juicy plop.

"The message bears the Earl of Druentwode's signature. He begs for my help. He writes that whoever started the fires made sure naught would be left but ashes."

"Who would be so pitiless as to burn the year's crops?" Elizabeth whispered.

The baron's eyes bulged. "You do not think—"

"De Lanceau." Arthur snarled. "For weeks, I have heard rumblings that he was spying, gathering an army, and plotting revenge against me. Now, he has issued his challenge."

"If he wishes to stake his blood claim to Wode, why did he set fires in a town two days from hence?" Sedgewick's chin trembled. "The man is a hero of the Crusades. He knows how to fight and win. If he wanted to defeat you in battle and reclaim Wode, he would bring an army and spit at you through the portcullis. Would he not?"

"I will wrest an explanation from him."

A desperate wail lodged in Elizabeth's throat.

"Do not worry, beloved," Sedgewick crooned. "I will fight at your father's side. I will not allow wretched de Lanceau to win." He tried to take her hand, but she pulled away. Her stomach lurched, and she pressed her arm across

her
middle.

Her
fathers
fist slammed down on the table. Goblets and platters rattled. "I refuse to be threatened by an idiot who believes he has claim to what the crown awarded to me." He glared at Bertrand. "Summon the knights and foot soldiers. We ride to Tillenham at dawn"

"Father, nay."

For a moment, tenderness softened her sire's gaze. Then his eyes hardened with ruthless determination, and she glimpsed the battle-seasoned knight who, eighteen years ago, had besieged Wode on the king's orders and wrested it from a traitor.

Her father was no longer a young warrior. Over two score years old, with joints that pained him on winter evenings, he had not fought in armed combat in years.

De Lanceau was a crusading hero fresh from war.

Elizabeth's heart ached, the pain as awful as the day she lost her mother and sister. Tears pricked her eyes.

"Come, Daughter. You have not lost faith in me, have you?"

"Of course not."
She clasped her sire's weathered hand and smiled through her anguish. "I know you will triumph."

He nodded. "De Lanceau will realize his folly."

Fear shivered through her. "Please. Be careful. I could not bear to lose you too."

Her father's gaze clouded. He withdrew his fingers and shoved his chair back from the table, the squeal of wood against wood echoing her silent scream.

"If de Lanceau believes I am a weak old man, he is very much mistaken. He wants a bloody battle. He shall have one."

Elizabeth awoke from a fitful dream. Someone pounded on a door down the passage. She grumbled, rolled over in the cozy tangle of bedding, and shoved a pillow over her head. Could the matter not wait until morning? It seemed only moments ago that she had fallen asleep.

After helping to organize her father's departure yesterday, and her extra duties overseeing the keep's routines, she had rested little in two days. She had crawled into bed last night, her body numb with fatigue, but sleep refused to come. As she lay staring at the fire lit trusses overhead, battle images charged through her mind.

She worried for her father, and Aldwin, who had ridden at his side. She had not been able to speak with him before he left, and visions of her and the baron standing side by side in Wode's chapel, reciting wedding vows, haunted her. How
sinful, that a part of her hoped Sedgewick would not return from battle alive.

The hammering persisted, loud even through the downy pillow. A door creaked open. Mumbled voices sounded in the passage.

"By the blessed Virgin."

At Mildred's shocked cry, the sleepy fog flew from Elizabeth's mind. She tossed aside the pillow and sat up in her dark chamber.

A terrible chill ran through her. Her father was dead.

She shoved aside the sheets and coverlet and slid her legs over the bed's edge. The fire had burned to embers, and the wooden boards were cold as hoarfrost against her bare feet.

Teeth chattering, she yanked on her leather slippers and groped for her woolen robe. Tears threatened, but she blinked them away. She did not know for certain her father had died. She must be strong, and not succumb to worry and despair.

A knock rattled her door.
"Milady!"
Urgency rang in Mildred's voice.

Abandoning the robe, Elizabeth stumbled to the door and pulled it open. In the light of a tallow candle, Mildred's face looked ashen, her eyes huge. Her unbound hair, spilling down over her shoulders, glowed white.

"What has happened? Is my father—?"

"De Lanceau!"

Elizabeth's breath caught.
"
What
?"

"De Lanceau is inside the keep. Young Jeremy counted at least ten men, all armed. They hid in the miller's wagon."

"The delivery for the wedding," Elizabeth said. Fraeda, the chief cook, had ordered extra flour to be baked into pastries, pies and tarts for the nuptial feast, and had requested the delivery be made early this morn.

Panic clutched Elizabeth's innards-like a fist.

"They took control of the kitchens right after Fraeda sent Jeremy to fetch salt from the storerooms. The poor lad fled out a side passage. He came to warn us." Mildred tugged on Elizabeth's sleeve. "You must hide."

"Hide?
Like a frightened animal?"
Anger crackled in Elizabeth's veins. She clenched her shaking hands into her shift. "This is my father's keep. I will not cower to a traitor s son."

Mildred shook her head. "Your sire would want you safe."

"I will warn the men-at-arms."

"Milady—"

"Wode will not fall to de Lanceau." As Mildred's mouth opened, Elizabeth said, "Please, do not argue with me. I will not be swayed." Softening her tone, she said, "Find my mantle.
Hurry."

Muttering under her breath, the matron hurried to the linen chest at the end of the bed. She pushed off the pile of children's clothes and embroidery thread, lifted the lid, snatched up a knee-length black wool cloak, and set it about Elizabeth's shoulders.

"The air is cold, milady. Will you be warm enough?"

"Aye
. "

Footsteps echoed in the passageway. Elizabeth's pulse raced like a spooked horse. Mildred grabbed the edges of the mantle together and struggled to secure them with a gold brooch. Firelight flashed off the ornament's scrolled design.

Images of another desperate moment flashed through Elizabeth's mind. Her mother's screams.
Her sister's wails.
Her mother's hand falling limp and the brooch's weight falling into Elizabeth's palm.

"Hurry!" she pleaded.

Mildred exhaled a shaky sigh. "'Tis fastened."

Elizabeth shoved her hair under the mantle's hood, drew it over her head, and darted into the passage. The wall torches sputtered and cast eerie shadows, but she smothered the anxiety surging inside her. She must reach the stairwell.

"Sweet lady," she heard Mildred whisper. "God be with you.

*
    
*
    
*

Geoffrey knew each of Wode's corridors as though he had never left the keep. His strides quickened as he approached the lord's solar, the spacious chamber where he had been born and where his mother had died from fever when his younger brother, Thomas, was scarce one year old.