Page 52

C olin sat in the great hall and fidgeted, nervous as a cat.

The keep was crawling with intrigues of all kinds and he could scarce wait to be free of the place.

He wondered, absently, how it was that Aliénore had borne it all those years.

He knew that he certainly would have fled at his earliest opportunity.

He felt very lucky to be a man with the freedom a sword could buy.

The poor wench hadn’t even had that to save her.

Which made him wonder, and not for the first time, just what had happened to her.

He sighed, drank deeply of wine that was scarce drinkable, and wished her peace, wherever she was.

He stole a look over his shoulder at his other problem.

She stood in the shadows behind his chair, still as stone.

Her hood was still over her face and he supposed that was a boon.

When they’d sat for supper and Denis had bid her remove her cloak, Colin had said that the lad’s face was horribly marked by the pox and shamed him to show it.

He’d barely managed to choke out the lie, but what else could he have done?

No sense in letting anyone here know that the lad was really a girl.

The saints only knew what would befall her then.

Having met the lady of the house, Colin suspected quite fully that young Henri would have found herself revealed, mocked, and perhaps even humiliated, merely for Marie’s sport.

The only thing of a goodly turn Colin had noted in the past hour was that Marie wasn’t fully the lord of the manor. She certainly hadn’t been able to argue with her husband about young Henri’s lack of manners in keeping his head covered.

Colin, of course, had his own opinion on manners in general, but he kept that to himself.

“Would you care for more wine?”

Colin looked to his left to find the viperess in question offering to refill his cup.

He looked at her and wondered how it was that Denis of Solonge couldn’t see past the beauty to the exceptional coldness of her eyes.

Then again, he himself wasn’t sure how to comport himself with this woman.

He’d trotted out his best table manners and tried to keep his thoughts to himself.

Marie, however, was apparently unused to being thwarted, for she continued to pepper him with questions ranging from how he found the weather to what he would do to Aliénore when he found her.

Colin limited his responses to as few words as possible.

“Two years,” Marie mused. “A long time for a girl to hide.”

Colin, holding to his course, merely grunted and reached for meat.

“I’ve looked in the convents,” she continued easily. “My concern for her was great.”

Colin was hard-pressed to smother his snort of disbelief. Whatever this woman had felt for poor Aliénore, it hadn’t been concern. Even Colin could tell that, and he hadn’t known her an hour.

“I sent men to Spain as well,” she said.

Colin was surprised at that. “Did you indeed?”

She smiled at him, and he shivered in spite of himself.

That was not a pleasant smile.

“I was concerned,” she repeated with that same, cold smile. “How could I spare any expense in my search?”

“Lord Denis did not search?” Colin asked uneasily.

She dismissed her husband with a look of disdain. “He hasn’t the stomach for anything so unpleasant. I took the task on myself.”

No wonder Aliénore had fled.

“Not in Spain, not in France. Not even in England, or so the reports go.” She looked up at him. “Perhaps she is dead.”

He couldn’t even manage a grunt.

“I fear your search may be in vain.”

“So be it,” he said.

“But, should you find her,” Marie pressed, “what will you do?”

Colin opened his mouth to reply, but found that his reply was unnecessary.

“Punishment would be just, I should think,” Marie said thoughtfully. “Beatings would be just. I daresay you would know how to administer one properly.”

Colin found his tongue. “I do not, my lady,” he said stiffly, “beat women.”

“She has earned your ire.”

“I do not,” he repeated, “beat women.”

“Then perhaps I should find her for you,” Marie said pleasantly. “I’m sure I could instill a proper sense of remorse into the girl, then deliver her to you meek and tractable. What think you?”

What he thought wasn’t fit for a lady’s ears, so he refrained from comment.

Even so, he seriously doubted that anything he could say would shock Marie of Solonge.

By the saints, the woman was evil. Colin lifted his gaze above her head to find Lord Denis calmly and steadfastly plowing through his supper.

Perhaps he had listened to this venom for so long that it no longer shocked him.

Colin heartily pitied the man.

He began to count on his fingers under the table the hours he must needs remain before he could depart.

The evening lasted too far into the night, as far as he was concerned.

What he wanted was to seek his bed, then rise, dredge up a few polite words, and bolt back to the convent where souls were pure and motives uncomplicated.

The intrigue that flowed through Solonge like a river befouled with refuse was almost enough to finish him, and he considered himself quite above being finished by almost anything.

And then a ray of hope broke through the clouds.

Marie yawned.

It wasn’t the delicate yawn of a woman whose life was governed by Gillian’s rules. It was the yawn of a fierce huntress who had finished her kill, but knew without a doubt that she would kill again and be satisfied.

It sent chills down his spine.

Marie looked at him. “My servant will show you your chamber.” She smiled that smile that made his skin crawl. “Solonge’s finest, of course. A warrior of your stature deserves nothing less.”

He inclined his head, but found he could muster no polite response.

Marie rose and stretched.

Colin gulped.

She leaned over and twined her arms around her husband’s neck. “Don’t be long, my love. I’ve needs that cannot wait.”

“Of course,” Denis said absently.

“I must make a short visit to the stables,” Marie said. “A quick nighttime assignation, you know.”

“How skillfully you jest,” Denis murmured.

Marie looked at Colin, winked, then sauntered from the hall.

Colin reached for his wine and downed it in a single gulp. Then he set the cup back down with shaking hands and looked over his shoulder.

“Henri,” he rasped, “come and sit. Eat. There’s ample left for you.” He held out Marie’s chair.

The girl balked.

“Come,” Colin said impatiently. “Nothing here to fear. Lord Denis will not snap at you, I’ll warrant.”

Lord Denis continued to stare vacantly out into the midst of the great hall and offered no comment.

Yet still Henri didn’t move.

Colin sighed, reached around and pulled the girl forward. He sat her down, then shoved a trencher in front of her. “Eat,” he commanded. “The wine is ghastly, but it will wet your throat. Eat whilst you may, for who knows when you’ll have this kind of fare again.”

Hopefully only if they both were thrust down to Hell, but he didn’t say as much.

He wondered if politeness required him to converse with Lord Denis, but the man seemed burdened by his own black thoughts, so Colin forbore.

Instead, he found himself watching as slight, delicate fingers reached out and hesitantly brought food to a mouth that, though Colin couldn’t see it, he knew was just as delicate.

He was momentarily tempted to thrust those pleasing observations away, then shrugged his shoulders.

He’d endured almost the entire day in this hell-hole; didn’t he deserve a respite?

And what better a respite than watching Henri and allowing himself the luxury of wondering about her?

He leaned his elbows on the table and scratched his cheek thoughtfully with his dagger.

What was a beautiful girl such as this doing hiding in filthy lad’s clothes, wielding a sword, and pretending to be what she was not?

And what could possibly inspire such fear in a gel that she would choose this life?

She said she’d fled a cruel mistress. Immediately Marie’s image came to mind, but Colin shook that aside with the appropriate shudder. Passing unpleasant woman. Or had Henri lied to him? Was she fleeing a cruel mistress, or a cruel betrothed?

A cruel betrothed, aye, that was likely the answer. But could there really be a man so fierce and terrible that any alternative besides wedding with him could seem appealing? An alternative such as dressing as a man?

Colin searched through his vast memories of men he’d encountered in the course of his life and came up with no one who seemed that intimidating to him.

He supposed many might feel that Christopher of Blackmour was that ruthless.

Though he merely thought his dearest friend a fierce and cunning warrior, he knew that others found the man quite terrifying.

He remembered vividly going to fetch Gillian and the fear she had displayed when she’d learned to whom she was to be wed.

But who could possibly have a fouler reputation that Christopher of Blackmour?

He thought on that for quite some time.

Then he stopped scratching.

And the blade fell from his hand.

Who indeed?

“My lord Berkhamshire?”

Colin blinked to find Lord Denis looking at him with concern.

“Are you unwell?” he asked.

Colin looked at Lord Denis, then about the hall at the few guardsmen still left there, then finally at Henri.

He found that, for the first time in his life, he simply could not form words.

The realizations piled upon him so quickly and with such force, he could do no more than struggle under their weight.