Authors: Jennifer Blake
Excuses, he was making excuses for her.
She wouldn’t go through with it. She couldn’t. He would stake his life on it.
It was his life that would be at stake, indeed, because he would follow wherever she led. He would go for this ride with her. Yes, he would follow where she led and see what came of it.
It was not necessary by any means. He could call a halt, here and now, or else force her tonight to tell him what was planned. The last appealed mightily. He would take white-hot enjoyment from questioning her while she lay naked in his bed.
God, no, he couldn’t do that. He must first allow her to prove herself disloyal. Then he would call a halt to the threat, stop it short of riding into an ambuscade.
Or would he? If it meant so much to her to be free of him?
Easing away from the wall, retreating from the soft and deadly murmur of female voices, he left the battlements. In the great hall, he called for wine. Morose and short of temper, he fended off all efforts to join him while he attempted to drink the memory of those voices under the table.
“Y
ou should tell him,” Astrid said, as she stood on top of the chamber’s stool, braiding Marguerite’s hair with quick competence. “It’s too dangerous, otherwise.”
“How can I? He and Celestine were lovers. He will never believe she would plot against him. He will say I am accusing her falsely out of jealousy.”
“And you are not?” Astrid jumped down from the stool to reach the brown ribbon that lay across the bed, using it to confine the long plait for riding.
“You know better.”
“If the
comtesse
made much of his prowess…”
“She wished me to be jealous, but that’s a different thing altogether,” Marguerite said with finality.
Astrid gave her a long look, but made no reply.
“I shall tell him, of course, when it’s necessary,” Marguerite said in answer to the disapproval in Astrid’s face.
“But you’ll not give him time to prepare against it.”
She gave a small shake of her head while doubt burned a hole in her stomach. “He would make none if he didn’t believe me.”
“He could be killed, milady.”
“I know that!” she snapped. “I would not have agreed to this confounded ride, otherwise. He must be put on his guard against the
comtesse
. She must not be allowed to seek out others willing to betray him.”
“Best pray he doesn’t discover what you have done. He has shown only his gentle side to you, but that doesn’t mean he has no other.”
An anxious tremor skimmed over Marguerite’s nerves. It was true that David had never turned his wrath upon her, but she had seen strong men turned to shivering, sniveling wrecks by it. It wasn’t something she wanted to face.
He had not been his usual self on his return the evening before. He had seemed hard, forbidding, with frost rimming the blue of his eyes as he stared at her. There had been no smiles, no kisses or further mention of the marriage he had proposed. His late-evening meal had been eaten with Oliver. He had agreed to ride with her this morning, but had not come to bed last night.
Where had he slept? She suspected it was in the great hall with his men, but would not ask. If it was elsewhere, with someone else, she didn’t want to know it.
Mayhap she had made too many difficulties about taking him as her husband, especially after proposing it herself not so long ago. He had not been pleased at her hesitation, she knew. Yet what wonder that she had misgivings, when he said one day they could never marry and demanded it the next, declared he must love her only in chaste fashion then proceeded to make a wanton of her?
As he could not slake his desire upon her, mayhap he had found a female permitted to him. One lay near
at hand and no doubt available, for all her ire at his escape from her bed. The
comtesse
might even abandon her threat against him for the sake of being in his arms again. It seemed personal vengeance moved her as much as any political advantage.
No. She would not think of that. She would not.
David waited for her in the inner bailey when she swept down the steps with Astrid trotting along at her side. He was not alone, but had Oliver for a companion. To see the Italian mounted and ready to ride was a distinct relief. Whoever awaited them might think twice with his addition to their party.
She was hardly seated upon her palfrey, and Astrid upon her pony, when the
comte
and
comtesse
joined them. The
comte
was irascible and half-asleep, but Celestine more than made up for it. With a forest-green riding gown, and matching hat draped by a fine purple plume perched upon her blond curls, the Frenchwoman was so colorful she made Marguerite feel drab in her serviceable brown wool. The lady greeted everyone with bright cheer, chattering with merriment about the fine morning, her mount, her serving woman’s failure to wake her in good time and the excellence of the wine brought with her morning bread. She was still talking when they clattered out the gate and into the dew-damp morning.
At the
comte
’s suggestion, they turned from the road onto a dim pathway, little more than an animal track, that meandered through the woodland, which crowded the back of the keep. That gentleman took the lead and Oliver fell in beside him. He was followed closely by David with Celestine, while Astrid and Marguerite
came last. How their places were decided, Marguerite could not have said, but she didn’t care for the odd pairing. Short of pushing forward to dislodge the
comtesse,
there was no way she could have a private word with David.
She could not think trouble would come this early in the jaunt. Any attack was likely to be launched a good distance from the keep. They would stop at some point to rest the horses and refresh themselves with the wine, cheese and bread attached to Astrid’s saddle. She would find a way to warn David then.
Oliver, she noticed after a moment, carried a pair of longbows behind his saddle, as well as a plentiful supply of arrows. She was gratified beyond words to see them, yet could not help wondering at it.
“Do we hunt while we are out?” she called to those ahead of her. “Should I be alert for game?”
“Meat for the larder is always an excellent thing,” David answered her over his shoulder, “as is staying alert.”
Were his words significant? She could not say, yet her skin twitched as if a spider crawled under her clothing. “Why, we might even stumble upon a Yorkist party,” she returned with ironic optimism. “Think what a diversion that would be.”
“
Mon Dieu,
never say so!” Celestine exclaimed with a theatrical shudder and quick frown over her shoulder at Marguerite.
“No telling where they might be riding,” Astrid said in stout support.
“I was certain Warbeck tarried in Scotland,” the Frenchwoman said, reaching out to put a gloved hand
on David’s arm. “Pray tell me there has been no word otherwise!”
“None,” David answered.
The curtness of his tone pleased Marguerite. At least he was not short with her alone.
David’s mouth was set in a grim line, she saw on closer inspection, and his eyes were more than a little bloodshot. Yet he sat his saddle with ease, appearing stalwart, strong and outrageously handsome with the early-morning light striking silver from the buttons on his blue-green doublet. His gaze was keen, and he appeared to miss no detail of what they were passing or what lay ahead of them.
The tightness in Marguerite’s chest eased a fraction, though she kept her own vigilance.
They flushed a deer a few minutes after the sun cleared the treetops. Oliver, being in the lead, gave chase. They heard him crashing through the trees and underbrush, heard his faint shout of triumph as he brought down the animal. The place was marked so servants could retrieve the venison later. As they were halted already, refreshment was brought out. They sat about under a great, spreading oak, drinking wine poured from a skin into metal beakers and nibbling on chunks of cheese and bread.
Marguerite tossed her crust toward a trio of jays and pushed to her feet. Carrying her small beaker of wine, she strolled with a fine pretense of idleness toward where David squatted with his back to the oak’s thick trunk. “Shall we go back now?” she asked as she approached.
“Go back? But we have hardly begun,” Celestine said in frowning protest.
“We would not want Oliver’s kill to spoil.” Marguerite sent a small smile toward the Italian. “Besides, I don’t believe Astrid is feeling quite well, though she would never complain.” She waited with a suspended feeling in her chest for David’s decision.
He rose to his full height, slowly looming above her. He searched her face, his eyes darkly blue and far too penetrating. “You are pale, Lady Marguerite. Are you certain it’s not you who is unwell?”
They were back to formal address and politeness. Something had clearly changed between them.
“Not in the way you mean. But…but you will remember, mayhap, that I sometimes have a feel for ill tidings?”
“Don’t be silly!” The look Celestine gave Marguerite was sharp with suspicion and fury. “What passes with you?”
David paid no attention to the
comtesse,
never removed his gaze from Marguerite’s face. It seemed the breath he took was deeper than usual. “You have such a thing now?”
“I believe so. Truly.”
The
comte
got to his feet. His florid face shone with perspiration in spite of the midmorning coolness, and his fleshy mouth had a contemptuous twist. “Return now?
C’est ridicule.
We come so small a distance it is hardly worth leaving one’s bed.”
“I believe I may have eaten bad beef,” Astrid said, resting a tiny hand to her stomach.
Oliver contributed nothing, but only squatted where
he was, looking grimly amused as he smoothed his mustache.
“We can always ride another day,” David said after a long moment.
“Yes,” Marguerite breathed in heartfelt relief. “Another day.”
“But no!” The
comtesse
stamped a booted foot. “I insist we go on.”
David still held Marguerite’s gaze as he answered. “You and the
comte
may continue, if it pleases you. Lady Marguerite and I will make our way back with Astrid.”
“Bene,”
Oliver drawled. “I will go also.”
There was more in the same vein, but finally the Comtesse Celestine threw up her hands. “Very well, then! It is a pity of the greatest, but we shall all turn back.”
They mounted and returned to the forest trace, this time with David and Marguerite in the lead. They were followed by the
comte
and
comtesse,
with Astrid and Oliver bringing up the rear.
Gladness was a tripping refrain inside Marguerite. With every mile traveled, she shed a portion of her fear. It was all she could do not to kick her palfrey into a gallop, tearing back down the woodland track toward the safety of the keep. She stood on the single stirrup of her sidesaddle, searching ahead for the sight of its stone walls rising above the trees. Yes, and for David’s pennon, with its stylized green crown on a pale blue ground, fluttering in the breeze above it.
She glanced at him as he rode in grim watchfulness beside her. Her smile was tentative, but she could not
stop it, did not try. Long ago, the two of them had ridden at breakneck speed through meadow and field, across streams and through woodlands where the fallen leaves of a hundred years and more had muffled the hooves of their mounts. How reckless they had been, and how full of the joy of being alive. It was a good memory.
David turned his head to meet her eyes, his own guarded yet inquiring.
“Race you to the keep,” she said, the challenge ringing like a low chime in her voice.
His laugh was short, but his smile, when it came, held the warmth of old. “Done,” he said, and leaned forward, spurring his mount.
His stallion leaped into a gallop. Marguerite, unprepared for such quick acceptance, was an instant behind him.
The arrow whistled as it streaked through the air where David had been. Its barbed head pierced Marguerite’s cloak. It skimmed her chest, and bit into her arm.
She reeled, thrown off balance by the snagging blow. Pain took her breath. Shock and the stunning unreality of the fletched shaft bobbing through the rent in her clothing stopped her anguished cry in her throat.
Another shaft flew over her head and struck the tree beside her with a solid thwack. More sped about her, before her and behind her, slicing through leaves and branches and things softer and less solid. A man screamed, or it might have been a horse; Marguerite could not tell as her palfrey reared in terror, dancing on its hind legs.
A shout rang out in hard command. David had
turned, was coming back, pounding closer. She wanted to warn him away. The words would not come. Somewhere behind her, Oliver’s bow twanged and he gave the same triumphant yell as when he brought down the deer.
A dark shape flashed before her. She flinched, tried to rein away, but her arm had no strength. She dropped her reins, reeling in the saddle.
Abruptly, a band of steel wrapped her waist. She was lifted free of her saddle. What breath she still had left her in a moan as she hit a wall of solid muscle. Searing agony streaked from her arm up to her shoulder and into her head.
Even in the midst of it, she knew David’s scent. His heat and strength surrounded her, though she saw nothing except the red mist behind her eyelids. Darkness closed in upon her as his stallion jolted into a run. The hooves around her of other horses were muffled thunder, but it was impossible to tell if they carried friend or foe.
She caught at David, twisting her good hand into the thick wool of his doublet. She held on as if she would never let go.
David cursed in vicious phrases from a half-dozen languages as he bent low over Marguerite, protecting her with his body. He wore mail beneath his doublet, while she had none. He had escaped the arrow with his name on it, but she had not.
He’d thought himself the only person in danger, but he’d been wrong. He knew not how many men were hidden among the trees, who had sent them or what they
would do now. And he couldn’t think, couldn’t plan or retaliate until Marguerite was safe.
He suspected the arrow was in her shoulder or arm, but couldn’t be sure and had no time to look. It could be in her chest, draining her life’s blood around it. He could feel that warm wetness against his side, and nothing had ever struck such despair into his soul.
Oliver was behind him. The Italian had the reins of Astrid’s pony looped around his arm while he drew bow from the saddle at some target behind them. The Comte de Neve had been hit, for David had seen him fall. He had no idea what had become of the
comtesse
and cared not a whit.
She or her noble husband, or the two of them together, had designed this ambuscade. If Celestine had seen fit to join the attackers, what odds? Had she fallen, it meant even less. He need not accuse her or the
comte
then, or explain how he had come to know they were behind the attack. No, and neither would he be forced to mention Marguerite’s part in it.