Margaret Moore - [Maiden & Her Knight 03] (23 page)

“I
said
, ‘Let him alone.’”

Denis ignored Alexander’s correction. “But the butcher, he is not willing to let me go. He grabs my shoulder. Alexander grabs the other. For a moment, I am in danger of being torn in two, when Alexander sees that the butcher has—
Mon Dieu!
—a cleaver in his hand. The next thing I know, the butcher is on the ground, holding his hand, and Alexander has the cleaver. ‘You see what happens to those who challenge me?’ he says. ‘Who else will take me on?’”

“I never said that.”

“You did!”

“I did not. I said, ‘Now will you let him go?’”

“Your version would be boring.”

“That doesn’t give you leave to make things up.”

“What, is it not true the butcher had a cleaver?”

“Yes, the butcher had a cleaver,” Alexander reluctantly admitted, but his eyes were bright with a gaiety Isabelle had never seen there before, as if a burden had been momentarily lifted.

And suddenly, there in the tangled garden of a ruined fortress that was her prison, she saw Alexander DeFrouchette as the knight he could—and should—have been, and for the first time she truly understood all that he had lost.

“Whatever Alexander says, he saved my life,” Denis said, interrupting her thoughts, “and for that, I will be forever grateful.”

Alexander shifted as if he didn’t like being thanked, or perhaps it was just from sitting on the unyielding ground. Then he hoisted himself to his feet and held out his hand to help Denis stand. “I have sat here long enough. My lady?”

Denis scrambled to his feet without assistance. “I have other things I should be doing, too.”

“Such as?” Alexander charged as Denis hurried away.

“Making Kiera smile.” Grinning, he dashed out of the garden, leaving them alone.

Isabelle slowly turned to face Alexander, her heartbeat racing, and she couldn’t meet his steadfast gaze. “It was good of you to help him.”

“He has repaid me many times over with his friendship.”

“He seems a lively companion.”

Alexander laughed softly. “Indeed, he is that.”

She raised her eyes and took a step closer, as if drawn to him like a cold woman to the warmth of a hearth. The memory of his tender care and passionate embraces filled her mind and her heart.

If he had had the chance, this man could have been a knight, respectable and worthy of high regard. He could have been a welcome addition to any lord’s retinue, or even the king’s.

If his life had been different, if they had met under other circumstances and he stirred her heart as he did now despite what he had done, she would surely have welcomed his attentions and his kisses. She would have wanted more. She would have wanted him to take her to his bed and make love with her all night.

She wanted that now, and the passionate certainty hit her like a blow.

She wanted to be in her enemy’s bed. She yearned to be his lover, to feel his powerful warrior’s body taking hers with hot and anxious need. To have him thrust inside her until she cried out in ecstasy and completion.

The expression in his blue eyes shifted, and it was like a shutter closing on a window. “If you will excuse me, my lady, I need to wash.”

He grabbed his sword and hurried out of the garden.

Breathing hard, feeling as if she had had a very narrow escape from something more fraught with danger than the Brabancons, Isabelle sank down on the bench.

A
lexander moved the sharpening stone up and down his blade, the smooth rasping sound the only noise in the roofless tower. He did this the first thing every morning, ever since the day his mother had presented it to him. She had been so pleased, seeing this as the first real step on his way to making his father proud of him, and her, too, he supposed.

In one way, he hated what his sword represented, for he had seen what it had cost her to get the money to buy it. Yet because of his mother’s sacrifice, he loved the weapon, too, and took great care of it. The blade was not a fine one, but it was always honed sharp enough to pierce chain mail and the padded gambeson beneath.

This much in his life had not changed.

Other things had, especially after being in the garden with Lady Allis two days ago. He had allowed himself the pleasure of her company, as if he had a right to it. He had loosened the strictures he placed upon himself in her presence, and he had even enjoyed telling the story of how he had met Denis.

But then he had looked at her, their gazes holding, and he thought he had seen something that was surely impossible. She could not like him, not after what he had done, and yet the expression in her eyes…

Was that not why you went into the garden, to be more yourself in the hope that she might at least cease to hate you? Why then do you deny what you saw? What you felt?

Because it was useless. There could never be anything between them once she was returned to her husband.

Who might be betraying her with her own sister.

That is not your concern. When this is finished and she has gone back to Bellevoire, take the money and go far away and try
—
try!
—
to forget her
.

He was not the only one who was going to have a woman to forget. He had seen the way Denis watched Kiera, and the look that crossed his face every time she went around the screen with Osburn. If
he
hated Osburn, it was nothing compared to the animosity that fairly shot from Denis’s eyes every time the man even spoke to his mistress.

But that was a hopeless yearning, too. A woman like that, blindly devoted to a man, would probably stay until he killed her.

The door to the tower crashed open.

The woman who haunted his restless dreams stood there, staring at him, closer to panic than he had ever seen her, even when she thought Osburn was going to cut off her finger. “Come!”

His sword clutched in his hand, the sharpening stone fell to the ground as he scrambled to his feet. “What—?”

“He’s going to kill Kiera! I tried to stop him, but he drew his sword and—”

A curse flew from Alexander’s lips. “Did he hurt you?”

“No, but—”

Since she was unharmed, he lingered no more. He sprinted across the courtyard as the sound of a woman’s screams reached his ears.

Fury rose up, hot and strong and powerful, as he barged through the door. The serving wenches, who were clustered around the door to the kitchens, fell silent as he charged forward. The Brabancons in the hall made no move to interfere; Alexander would have struck them down without hesitation if they had.

Rounding the screen, he saw a half-naked Osburn, his sword in his hand, and swaying drunkenly, in the midst of disarray. The bed linens were a heap of torn cloth. A dented silver carafe rocked on the floor in a puddle of wine. A goblet lay at the base of the wall, its contents splattered like blood over the stones above. Pieces of the bedpost had been hacked out, as if a mad woodsman had thought they were trees to be cut down.

Covering her head with her arms, Kiera cowered near the tousled bed. A huge tear in her gown exposed a red welt on her shoulder and an older bruise, purple and yellow and ugly. Her eye was blackening and her lip was cut.

The urge to run the man through pounded through Alexander, demanding that he punish Osburn and assuage the fierce anger shooting through him.

He raised his arm, ready to strike the fatal blow, when Kiera saw him and screamed, “No!”

Her cry alerted Osburn, who whirled around to face Alexander, his bleary eyes trying desperately to focus. He raised his sword.

Stupid fool
. He was drunk nearly to senselessness and he thought he could prevail? The joy of certain victory sang in Alexander’s veins, even as he tossed aside his sword. “Come on, Osburn,” he said, smiling. “Fight me. Show me what you can do against an unarmed
man
.”

“No! You’ll kill him!” Kiera wailed. “It’s my fault. I didn’t want—”

“Don’t excuse him, Kiera,” Alexander growled. “He doesn’t deserve it.”

“Get out of here,” Osburn slurred, waving his sword. “Kiera is my woman to do with as I please—”

In the next moment, he was flat on his back on the floor, struck down by a single blow from Alexander’s fist.

“You’ve killed him!” Kiera wailed.

His chest heaving, Alexander rubbed his knuckles as he stared down at his unconscious enemy. “No, I have not.”

“Don’t hurt him anymore!”

“Take her away from here,” he said to Isabelle, who had come around the screen. He spoke to Kiera. “I won’t hurt him anymore.”

Isabelle hurried to the beaten, terrified girl. She put her arms around Kiera. “Can you stand? Can you walk?”

At that moment, Denis came careening around the screen. He took in the sight before him, especially Kiera’s battered face, and his own reddened with rage. If Osburn was not already lying on the ground, Alexander was sure Denis would have attacked him.

He might give him a few kicks as it was, and if he did, Alexander wouldn’t stop him.

Isabelle led the sobbing Kiera away, probably intending to take her to her chamber, where the girl could weep in private.

He watched them go, one a shivering, weeping mass of cowardice and insecurity, and the other the sort of woman he would have all women be. “Go after them, Denis. See if they need anything.”

Denis nodded, then hesitated, his gaze going from the man on the floor to his friend. “What will you do?”

“Put his lordship to bed.”

“Lord Oswald may not be pleased that you struck his son.”

“Lord Oswald has much to answer for himself,” Alexander grimly replied.

Ignoring the curious looks of the others in the hall, Isabelle led Kiera across the room, up the stairs and into her chamber. The girl sobbed the whole way, tears falling down her face, her choking, gasping breaths wracking her slender frame.

“Here, lie down,” Isabelle said softly as she helped Kiera to the bed. Removing the torn gown could wait; for now, it was more important that Kiera feel safe and cared for.

While Isabelle pulled the coverlet around her and tucked the free end beneath her, so she was swaddled like a baby, Kiera turned her head to sob into the pillow. Isabelle quickly filled the basin on the table with fresh water from the ewer and took the only scrap of linen left in the room to clean Kiera’s face.

She sat on the bed and cradled the basin in the crook of her knee, just as Alexander had done when he had tended to her with such gentleness. She touched Kiera on the shoulder. “Let me bathe your face.”

The girl obediently rolled over, and Isabelle’s eyes filled with tears when she saw the wounds Osburn’s blows had inflicted.

Not meeting her gaze, Kiera flushed and stammered, “I-it was the wine and I wouldn’t … he wanted me to…”

“You don’t have to explain to me, Kiera,” she said as she dabbed at Kiera’s cut lip. Other than cleaning this wound and wiping away the blood, there wasn’t much to be done. The bruises would heal by themselves, and there was no way to bandage her lip. Fortunately, a scab was already forming, so the cut was not as deep as she had feared. “Alexander was right. Don’t make any excuses for Osburn. Only a coward strikes a woman.”

Kiera’s expression shifted, and it was like a wall had come between them. “Osburn has been kind to me. He still is, most of the time. He’s upset and anxious because his father is coming any day now, so he loses his temper quickly.”

Isabelle’s hand hovered over the basin. Oswald was coming here
any day now?
He would recognize her and reveal who she was, and what would they do to her then? Would Alexander still continue to protect her, or would he be angry that she had deceived him? Would whatever … kindness … that had developed between them be destroyed?

She could not risk that.

“If I were more obedient, he would not have to hit me.”

Kiera’s plaintive remark brought Isabelle forcefully back to the here and now. “If you were any more obedient,” she said gently, “you would be no more than a dumb beast. I’ve seen how he treats you, and it’s not right, Kiera.”

Someone scratched at the door, sounding more like a mouse than a person, and Denis poked his head into the room. “I am to make certain Kiera is all right and to fetch you anything you need.”