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A pity he couldn’t find himself a woman with a few of Henri’s finer characteristics—namely a willingness to hoist a sword and tramp about in the mud without complaining about the condition of her shoes.

He studied Peter and Sybil and supposed he had no one but himself to blame for this turn of events.

Hadn’t Peter been slobbering over the girl’s hand for the past three days?

Hadn’t Peter been filling her ears full of foul reports of Colin’s fierceness?

Who could blame the girl for looking for a bit of sanctuary?

Much, the thought occurred to him suddenly, as Henri had tried to do.

By the saints, was he so fierce then that he drove anyone with faint hearts straight into priestly arms?

Well, let Sybil have her dreams whilst she could.

The time would come soon enough when she would have to step into the fray like a man and put away her girlish fancies.

She was betrothed to him , like it or not.

Besides, his brother was on the verge of becoming a priest. What use had he for a woman to clutter up his praying?

Colin felt someone breathing down his neck quite suddenly and he looked up in annoyance to see Sir Etienne hovering over him, his knife in his hand. Colin spared a thought for the man’s foolishness even as his own hand was striking out to encircle the other man’s.

“What do you?” Colin demanded. “Putting a knife so close to another?”

“I was reaching for cheese,” Sir Etienne said, looking none too innocent. “By your leave, my lord.”

Colin flung the man’s hand away from him. “There’s cheese farther down the table that’s good enough for you. Seek it out there.”

“My mistake,” Sir Etienne said with a little bow. “Perhaps Henri could show me where—”

“He’ll do nothing of the sort. Be off with you, fool. Sit, Henri. We’ll finish our meal.”

Out of the comer of his eye, Colin watched Henri sink back down into his chair. The lad’s face was unnaturally pale and he looked to be on the verge of heaving up his supper. Colin took his wine and shoved the cup into the boy’s hands.

“Drink,” he commanded. “Breathe. If you puke in here, we’ll be sleeping in the stables.”

Henri nodded weakly and sipped at his wine in a most wenchlike fashion. Colin rolled his eyes and finished his meal as quickly as possible. Perhaps the best place for him was outside where he could drive a few more manly manners into the lad before bed.

He grunted at Sybil’s parents as he pushed back from the table.

“Follow me,” he threw at Henri over his shoulder.

He didn’t look to see if Henri would obey.

He could hear the light pat-a-pat of the lad’s footsteps as he followed obediently along.

Colin thrust open the door and stepped out into the cooling evening air.

Aye, there was daylight enough for him to be about a bit more training before the sun deserted its post completely.

He was just choosing an appropriate spot for a little impromptu fighting when who should appear before him in a most unsettlingly unexpected fashion but that chief practitioner of shady arts, Berengaria. Colin folded his arms over his chest.

“I’ve no need of you. No improvement to my visage could possibly aid me at this point.”

Berengaria smiled. “Your visage suits you as it is, my lord. I merely came to see how your heart fared.”

“My ... h-heart!” Colin spluttered. “My heart!” he repeated. “What could that possibly matter?”

“Does being a warrior mean you can’t enjoy a little happiness as well?” she asked in that wistful voice that always set his teeth on edge.

“I haven’t time for that,” he said, gritting his teeth to keep them from aching.

“It might make you a better swordsman,” she offered slowly.

“Ha,” he said derisively. “What will make me a better warrior is a bit more time in the lists. Now, move yourself, mistress, lest you force me to aid you.”

“What of the lady Aliénore?” Berengaria asked.

Colin reached out to steady Henri, who had swayed suddenly and quite violently. He gave the lad a good shake, then turned to Berengaria. “Why does everyone persist in speaking of her?” he asked in astonishment. “The wench is dead!”

“Mayhap she isn’t,” Berengaria insisted. “Mayhap she needs aid.”

He looked at her narrowly. “You’ve been having speech with Gillian. You women and your foolish, romantic notions. I have a notion and that is that if that gel from Solonge isn’t dead, mayhap she should find someone to see to that for her.”

“Now, my lord—”

He wasn’t sure there were words in common use equal to expressing his displeasure—or his discomfort—with speaking on Aliénore of Solonge and her doomed flight from her home.

“She is dead,” Colin said curtly, “and if she isn’t, I hope her current straits are just recompense for what she did to m—”

He clamped his lips shut. Damned errant things. This was what a man deserved for letting his tongue run free from between his bloody lips. Too much babbling and the next thing he knew, he would be spewing forth the contents of his heart.

So he folded his arms more intimidatingly across his chest and glared down at the old woman before him.

And he did so silently.

“I’ll say no more,” Berengaria said pleasantly.

He grunted. She’d said far too much already.

“She might,” the old witch mused, “aye, she might very well be in need of your aid, however.” She looked at him in silence for a moment or two. “A rescue might be in order, my lord.”

Colin snorted and so forcefully that he cleared his nose of several things that had been troubling it since his last trample through the farmer’s field. He dragged his sleeve across his upper lip, nodded curtly to Berengaria, then motioned with his head to Henri for the lad to follow him.

A rescue? Ha! He would sooner climb to the tallest tower in England and do a jig on the roof.

But that name. Aliénore. It rolled sweetly over his tongue and seemed to travel upward and rattle quite often around inside his head. He couldn’t seem to rid himself of thoughts of her, where she was, if she were dead or alive.

If she needed aid.

He clapped his hand to his head so forcefully, he had to blink aside a great pain above his eyes.

“Henri,” he barked.

“Aye, my lord,” Henri squeaked.

“Never speak to women.”

“My lord?”

“Bed them. Get them with child. But never converse with them. Nothing good ever comes of it.”

“I’ll remember that, my lord.”

Colin grunted. If only he were intelligent enough to take his own advice, he would be far better off.

But what if Aliénore did need aid? Who better than he to provide that aid?

“Draw your sword,” Colin said, pushing aside his momentary weakness. “Let us see what you’ve learned.”

Which, as it turned out, was more than Colin could have hoped for, but less than he would have liked. At least Henri’s failings gave him something else to think on besides a foolish wench who likely had herself in the most perilous of straits with no one there to rescue her.

Leaving him, of course, to do it for her.

Damn her anyway.

He stared at Henri and noted that the lad was hoisting his sword without trembles, for a change.

A pity this one had no sister, as pretty as he was and with a bit of his courage.

Colin sighed and grasped his own sword a bit more firmly.

Mayhap Christopher had it aright, that he didn’t need a wife, he needed a squire.

Henri would be a damned sight less trouble than Sybil, to be sure.