My Noble Knight (30 page)

G
riffin stared at her in
disbelief, partially because he didn’t want to be right and partially because he feared that he was. The reins were cut, the very reins she was holding!

“No,” she gasped. “I didn’t cut them.”

“Then what are you doing here, holding them?”

“I was taking them away. I knew they were cut. And I didn’t want you hurt.”

“Enough!” he growled. “Enough of your lies.”

She reeled as though he had struck her.

He stalked forward and she backed away. He was angry with himself for believing her, angry because he had succumbed to her lies. Angry that he still wanted to believe them, even now when the proof was in his hand! She was the saboteur. He held out the reins. “You cut these, knowing what would happen.”

“I didn’t cut them. I came here because I saw someone.”

“No more, Layne. No more lies. I have the proof I was looking for. I knew you couldn’t be trusted. From the first moment you took your brother’s place on the field of honor.” He whirled away from her.

“You never looked for proof! It’s what you’ve always wanted to see! You’ve blamed me from the beginning! You refuse to believe that a woman could be better at something than a man. You refuse to believe that I could be.”

“You’re not!” He turned to her thrusting out the reins. “And this is proof.”

“I tried to stop him. I tried to make him stop. But he wouldn’t listen, either. He wouldn’t listen to me. Just like you. And I don’t know what to do. I don’t know --” Her voice caught and she fought to hold down a sob. She blinked back the glimmering tears in her eyes.

Griffin had seen Gwen use tears to soften him, but Layne’s tears pulled on his heart. He wanted to give in to her reason; he wanted to believe her. But he stood before her with the cut reins in his hand; the physical proof told him she was lying. His fingers tightened around the reins with conviction. His jaw clenched. Betrayal burned through his body. All this time he had been worried about her and Ethan, but this... This was a worse treachery. She was honorless.

She ran a sleeve across her nose. “They’re my family. And I would never betray them.” Her body shook with a repressed sob. “But I can’t betray you, either.” She looked down as if embarrassed. “I love you, Griffin.”

Startled, Griffin reared back. She loved him? But how...? Why...? Then the anger crashed down again, threatening to wipe away any softness that might have started to creep into his heart. He had heard those words before. From Jacquelyn when she was manipulating him. She had said those very words to him one night before she took Richard into her bed. But this was Layne. Layne Fletcher. The one woman he so very much wanted to believe. The one woman who had never done or said a deceitful thing in all the time she had been with him. He squeezed his fist. Except this. Had she been untruthful the entire time she was with him? From the very beginning?

“They’re desperate to win,” she whispered, her shoulders slumped. “
We
are desperate to win. It’s our last chance. Frances’s last chance. But this isn’t the way. This is wrong.”

Griffin’s gaze swept her. The sorrow in her voice pushed back the anger that had been storming inside him. There was genuine regret in her voice. A true pain in her words.

“I’ll go to the dungeon, if you want me to, if you don’t believe me.”

The dungeon. Griffin had never wanted that for her. Not for a woman. Even one that was dishonest.

She stepped past him.

He looked down at the leather straps in his hand. “If you did not do it, who did? Who cut them?”

She didn’t look up at him. An abyss of secrets separated them. “I can’t tell you.” And she moved off, toward her own tent.

Griffin ran his thumb over the straps, scowling. The evidence was here. It had been in her hands. She must have cut them. She was the only one here. Was it only in his mind that he wanted her to be innocent? The proof was right in front of him.

She must have cut them. She... What had she said? Something about her family? And being desperate. Every knight was desperate to win. She couldn't tell him who had cut them. If she didn't cut them, who would she protect? Who...?

He stiffened with realization. Her brothers. Family. They were the only ones she would do anything to protect. Tingles raced across the nape of his neck. She couldn’t betray them. They were desperate to win. They. Her brothers. Griffin’s scowl deepened.

Layne dropped to her bottom outside of their pavilion, and wept. She couldn’t do it. It went against everything she knew to be right. Everything she thought she was. But now she was unfaithful to her family. Where was the honor in that? Where was her loyalty? The tears continued to fall.

“Layne?”

She recognized Colin’s voice, but couldn’t even look at him. “You told him to cut them,” she whispered in a ragged voice. She adored Colin, revered him as honorable. She felt a deep level of sadness she had never felt in her entire life. She couldn’t believe he had told Frances to do something so dishonorable. That was the worst betrayal of all.

The silence stretched.

“What did you do?”

Layne looked up at Frances. She didn’t bother to wipe away the raw streaks of tears lining her face. Colin stood beside him. Michael was in back of them, just coming out of the tent. Her family. She stood to her feet. “I told him.”

“You told him what I did?”

“Is that what you think I would do?” She wiped at the salty taste that tainted the corners of her lips.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what you would do where Wolfe is concerned,” Frances said, brushing past Colin to face her in growing anger.

“I told him about the cut reins,” Layne said with more conviction. Each word felt like a slice to her heart. Like a betrayal to her family.

“Why did you do that?” Colin asked, mystified.

“Because that’s not the way to win. You don’t cheat and risk someone else’s life. You don’t cut the reins!”

“You’ve ruined our chance,” Frances said softly. “It was our only chance.” His fists clenched and he stepped toward her. “You’ve ruined our chance at winning because of your feelings for Wolfe!”

“It has nothing to do with my feelings for Griffin and everything to do with honor! I couldn’t live knowing that we won by deceit. I would rather rot in a dungeon cell.”

“I hope your high morals will feed us this winter. I hope your chivalry will keep us warm when we are out on the road!” Frances’s words were biting sarcasm. “Where is your loyalty to our family!
We
are what is important! And now you’ve endangered us all!”

Colin stepped between them. “Enough Frances.”

“This is all because of you!” Frances continued his tirade. “We are in more debt than we can ever repay! We’ll never win this tourney now because you told Wolfe! Our family would be better if you weren’t in it!”

Layne’s mouth dropped in a gasp. She took a step back as if he had hit her. He was right. He was so right. She whirled and dashed away into the night.

“Layne!” Colin called.

But she didn’t stop running. She didn’t belong there. She never had.

“L
ayne!”

Griffin heard Colin’s call and emerged from the tent to see three shadows standing near the Fletcher tent.

One of them separated and ran into the darkness.

Griffin jogged over to the tent.

“Get out of here, Wolfe!” Frances snapped as he neared.

Griffin ignored him to look at Colin. “What’s wrong?”

“Family quarrel,” Frances growled. “Mind your own business.”

Griffin knew for a fact the man he sought now stood before him. Michael couldn’t have cut the reins with his injured hand. Colin couldn’t have walked far from the tent with his wounded leg. Griffin glared at Frances. The saboteur. He stifled the burning impulse to bury his fist straight into France’s face. He clenched his hand, but left his arm hanging down by his side. “Where’s Layne?” he demanded.

“She ran off,” Colin told him.

Griffin whirled to look into the night. She had been hurt by his insult. He had seen it in the tears on her face, heard it in her voice.

“I sent Michael after her,” Colin said, striking his own wounded leg viciously. “She was really upset.”

A sense of dread tightened the muscles in Griffin’s entire body.

Lightning split the sky in the distance.

“She’ll be fine,” Frances insisted.

Griffin spun on him. “A woman alone in the dark? Sometimes you Fletchers forget that Layne is a woman. And there are worse things she might face alone in the dark.” He pointed at Colin. “Wake Carlton. Tell him to gather as many men as he can to look for her.”

Colin nodded and began to hobble across the clearing.

Griffin started to walk in the direction Layne had gone. Where would she go? There were men out there who were still angry with what she had done on the jousting field. She was in the dark. There were all kinds of danger out there. She was alone. The memory of her bloodied head came to his mind. He began to run.

A rumble of thunder rolled through the night sky.

Layne ran and ran. She didn’t know where she was going and with any luck she wouldn’t know where she was when she finally stopped.
‘Our family would be better if you weren’t in it’
. Frances’s words replayed again and again in her mind. She thought of Michael’s hand. And Colin’s leg. No, she told herself firmly. Colin’s leg was not her fault.

But Osmont had delivered the blow. Maybe he wouldn’t have been so brutal if he wasn’t so angry with her. Maybe...

She stopped to catch her breath, leaning against a tree, and looked at the sky through the leaves of the trees. Lightning lit the sky in a blanket of white. Griffin thought she was the one who had sabotaged him. Her! She thought he knew her. She thought of all men, he would have taken her side. But he had accused her instead. He didn’t believe her. He never believed her.

She pushed herself from the tree and ran on as thunder boomed around her. She couldn’t run fast enough to forget that he wanted nothing to do with her. She wasn’t good enough to present to his family. She couldn’t run fast enough to erase the memory of his tender kiss on her lips.

Lightning split the sky again, crashing to earth with a large boom.

Layne covered her ears and ran. She turned a corner and stumbled, falling to the dirt. She lifted her face. The first large drops pelted her. At first, she thought a person stood before her and she startled, but then she slowly realized it wasn’t a real person. It was the quintain. She turned her head. The empty berfrois was to her right. She followed the darker shadow of the fence around the field. Lightning forked in the sky, splitting the darkness and opening the night. Rain fell in a drenching downpour as she realized she was in the field of honor. She didn’t remember passing through the gate that led out into the field, but somehow she must have, because here she stood.

Slowly, she stood to her feet. The sheets of rain blurred her vision of the quintain. The downpour plastered her hair to her forehead. She brushed the soaked strands aside and sloshed through the quickly growing mud to the quintain. She stared up at it for a long moment. Just a dummy. A toy for the knights to practice with. An emotionless block of wood. Griffin had destroyed it. Her brothers had struck it. The other knights had cursed it. And it just came back for more, again and again.