A Knight's Persuasion (38 page)

“Fight harder, idiots,” Veronique shrieked over the din of colliding swords. Agony distorting her features, hair a snarled mess, she cradled her broken arm against her bosom. “Think of the gold I will pay you!”

“Surrender,” Edouard’s father yelled back. “You cannot escape.”

“He lies!” Spittle glistened on Veronique’s smeared lips.

“Heed me well,” de Lanceau bellowed, his words carrying across the bailey. “My knights control every way in and out of this keep. Lay down your weapons. Yield to my men. Refuse, and you will die.”

“Fight!” Veronique screamed.

With a grisly cry, another of her mercenaries collapsed to the dirt.

Edouard glowered at her, focusing all of his hatred of the past days upon her.
You will yield, Veronique, as my father commanded. On my honor, as a knight, I will see it done
. Adjusting his grip on his sword, he crossed the blood-soaked ground to join the fight.

Anticipation humming in his blood, his gaze locked with Tye’s. Rage and loathing blazed in Tye’s eyes. He spun away, swiftly deflecting a blow from a man-at-arms.

Edouard’s sire stepped back from the fray and wiped his brow. His chest rising and falling with exertion, he glanced at Edouard, clearly sensing his approach.

“I have come to fight,” Edouard said.

“No need, Son. This battle is already won.”

Edouard struggled against his rising frustration. “I want to fight them, Father. After all they have done to me, Juliana, and so many others, I want to see them vanquished. I need to know they can no longer inflict their evil.”
Especially upon Juliana
.

“I feel the same way about those two.” A bitter smile curved his sire’s mouth as his gaze fixed on Veronique. “How many
years
I have waited to capture her. Finally, she will stand trial and be condemned for the crimes she has committed. Finally,”—his voice shook—“I will have peace from her madness.”

A pained scream rang out, and Edouard dared a glance at the fight. Another mercenary careened to the ground, narrowly missing Veronique as he fell.

“You have fought well for me today, Son,” his sire went on, wiping his sweaty face again. “While you may want to see this fight brought to its end, I ask another duty of you. One I would prefer not to assign to anyone else.”

Surprise, sharpened by a glimmer of pride, ran through Edouard. “What duty?”

“Take five men-at-arms with you to the solar. They will join the others in standing guard outside while Juliana retrieves the hidden jewels. Bring the riches to me.”

Edouard nodded and turned on his heel.

“When you return,”—his sire added, an odd tension in his voice—“there is a very important matter we must discuss.”

***

“You lied to me, Mother.”

Snapping her attention from the burly mercenaries shielding her from de Lanceau’s men, Veronique glared at Tye. How dare he address her with such contempt, especially in front of their enemies? Fury raged as intensely as the agonizing pain from her broken arm.

Grinding her teeth, she struggled to think beyond her physical distress, to focus on her loathing of Geoffrey that had helped her evade capture in the past and kept her alive.

“Lied?” she demanded, the word drowned by the crash of swords as her mercenaries thwarted a fierce attack. “About your chance to kill your father and seize all from him? Is that what you mean?”

Tye’s wan face was slick with sweat. Limping, he lunged at a man-at-arms, deflecting a strike, and his whole body stiffened at the resulting collision. Tye was in great pain. Regret, born from maternal instincts she couldn’t seem to suppress, lanced through her; she forced it aside.

A grisly choking noise, accompanied by spraying blood, warned her that one of the mercenaries was mortally wounded. She took an instinctive step back, groaning as she misstepped on the stony ground and jostled her arm. “You
will
defeat your father—”

“Another lie. We are surrounded. Backed against a stone wall.” Each of Tye’s words shot from his lips like bits of ice. “Why should I believe another word from you, when you lied to me about Father?”

Astonishment plowed through Veronique, turning her innards cold. Anguish underscored his voice, a pain that ran deeper than any physical injury he had received today.

“
You
left me on the wall walk,” Tye went on. “You thought only of saving yourself. You did not care whether I was slain or escaped.”

Wretched boy! “You are a champion warrior!” she shrieked. “You can defend yourself.”

Tye’s burning gaze slammed into her. “Tell me, Mother, why Father tried to save me from falling from the battlement. He offered me his hand. He
wanted
to save me!”

Veronique swallowed an ugly flare of disquiet. She’d spent years cultivating Tye’s hatred and forging him into the brutal warrior she expected him to be. Geoffrey had shown him kindness? ’Twas a complication she’d crush like a beetle, for she aimed to keep her hold upon Tye. She must, in order to escape.

“Why did he try to rescue me?” Tye demanded. “
Why?
”

Did he think there was fatherly generosity behind Geoffrey’s gesture? Did Tye presume he might get his sire’s acceptance? Fury boiled inside her that Geoffrey had found and preyed upon this weakness in Tye. Geoffrey intended to turn their son against her. “Your father tried to save you so he could imprison and interrogate you. If you died in the fall, he would never be able to wrest information from you.”

“I do not know. In his eyes, I saw—”

“What he wanted you to see,” she sneered. “No doubt your sire gilded his offer with false words about his chivalrous intentions. He did not act out of honor; he hoped to manipulate you so you’d be easier to capture. How right you were to refuse his trickery and risk the fall. Our injuries will heal and soon—”

Tye brought his sword arcing down toward a man-at-arms.

A gurgle erupted close by. As a warrior crumpled in her direction, eyes rolling back into his bleeding head, she took another backward step. She sensed the wall looming behind her, less than a hand’s span away.

“Listen to me, Tye,” she said, her words muffled by the din of fighting. “For years, I have protected you from your sire. Even now, I have not failed you. Remember when you told me that you believed the missive from Geoffrey was a trick?”

“Mother—”

“Listen!” she hissed. “I thought well about what you said. The mercenaries your father claimed were fleeing the keep today? Not all of them left because they feared being conquered.”

Tye glanced at her, his gaze filled with suspicion.

“I dare not say too much, except that during our trysts, Landon confided secrets that will be of interest to King John. I paid a mercenary to deliver a message for me if Geoffrey decided to attack Waddesford.” She indulged in a laugh, but grimaced as her arm throbbed. “The king will be most eager to hear what I have to say.”

“You will tell him,” Tye said with a mirthless grin, “in exchange for our freedom?”

She grinned back. “You will get that opportunity to cut down your sire, Tye.” As the last mercenary fell and de Lanceau’s men-at-arms swarmed in, she said, “We are not vanquished. That is most certain.”

***

At the raps on the solar door, Juliana started.

Three knocks. The signal Lord de Lanceau had described, if accompanied by—

“Juliana,” Edouard called from outside.

Unable to hold back a delighted cry, she set the rattle on the table, rushed to the door, and unlocked it. Drawing it open, she saw him standing beyond, grinning, his sword sheathed at his side. The chain mail he wore, though, was spattered with blood.

“You are alive!” Before she could think better of it, she threw herself into his arms. Only then did she remember de Lanceau’s armed men in the passageway, who exchanged bemused glances.

Her body collided with Edouard’s, and he grunted. “Of course I am alive.” His broad arms wrapped around her, embracing her with the scents of sun-warmed metal, fresh air, and sweaty male. A truly pleasing blend of smells, because he was
alive!
She’d remember his scent always, even when he was gone from Waddesford.

Refusing to acknowledge the sadness chasing that thought, she stepped out of his embrace and smiled at him. “Is the fight won?”

“Aye. Veronique and Tye are trapped in the bailey. My father will soon have them as his prisoners. Their treachery ends today.”

“Good. Are you all right?” Her gaze dropped to the blood on his armor. “Were you wounded?”

“A few nicks, but naught of concern.” Signaling the men who’d accompanied him to wait outside, he brushed past her into the solar. Once she’d followed him inside, he shut the door.

A wicked thrill shivered through her that she and Edouard were once again alone.
’Tis a senseless thrill
, her conscience answered. With Veronique’s tyrannical grip on the keep destroyed, Edouard would be returning to his duties for his father. He’d be marrying Nara.

Juliana’s stomach twisted, for on the wall walk he’d admitted he cared for her. Could that make any difference, though, since he was pledged to Nara? How did Juliana manage to say that she believed she loved him? That none of the disagreements between them mattered anymore? That if, by some chance, he cared enough to want to marry her instead of her sister, she’d say “aye” without the slightest delay? She couldn’t let him leave the keep without telling him that truth.

His cool, steady, captivating gaze locked with hers. Again, she felt that wondrous surge of joy and anticipation. Could he see in her eyes how she felt? Oh, God, could he see?

He looked away, swallowing hard, obviously fighting a tempest churning within himself. He turned his back to her, his hands clenching and unclenching. Her gaze skimmed over him, memorizing the curves, lines, and angles of his masculine beauty as she would before sketching him.

In her mind, she made him hers forever.

Before she could venture to break the silence, he muttered, “I smell rosewater.”

“Not for much longer,” she managed to say. When he glanced at her, she gestured to the heap by the door. “These are Veronique’s belongings. I plan to throw them over the wall walk. I will smash them on the rocks, break them, rip them into tiny, worthless pieces . . .”

“I will gladly help.” Edouard lips formed a tight smile. “I cannot wait to rid this castle of all remnants of Veronique.”

“Most of them, anyway,” Juliana said. They couldn’t change the events of the past few days. The memories they both had of Veronique would be with them for the rest of their lives. Her cruel grip on this keep, though, was gone.

Edouard dragged a hand through his mussed hair and faced her, his expression solemn. “Juliana, I know you and I have a great deal to discuss. But I am afraid that conversation must wait. Father wants us to retrieve the jewels and bring them to him.”

A great deal to discuss
, her mind echoed. Anxiety snaked its way through her. Did Edouard plan to tell her that whatever he’d said on the wall walk, they could never be together? That he’d never meant to raise her hopes?

She pushed the agonizing thoughts aside. Lord de Lanceau had given important orders. They must be obeyed.

“One moment,” she said, before hurrying into the antechamber. Reaching beneath her pallet, she pulled out the sketchbook—still, thankfully, where she’d left it—and opened it to one of her drawings of Mayda. The most important one, she silently acknowledged.

When she started toward the trestle table, she sensed Edouard’s gaze traveling over her. Not a cursory glance; an intense stare that assessed her from head to toe. A look she might mistake as . . . possessiveness. A wanton excitement raced through her, and she bit down on her lip, using the discomfort to help her refocus on her task.

Edouard’s boots thudded on the planks. As she reached the table, he came to stand beside her. She ignored the inconvenient warmth pooling within her, set the sketchbook flat on the table, and smoothed the pages.

“’Tis a good likeness of Mayda.” Edouard studied the drawing of her ladyship standing before the trestle table, the fingers of her right hand touching the table top just above one of the three large drawers.

“After Mayda told me of the hidden jewels,” Juliana said, glad of her steady voice, “I drew this picture of her, to help me remember her words.” Lifting up the hem of her skirts, she settled on her knees before the table.

“Juliana.” Edouard made a small sound, akin to a groan; he obviously couldn’t believe she was down on the dusty floor. “Why—?”

“You will see.” She patted the planks next to her.

He dropped to a crouch, his boots creaking with the movement.

“This table was a gift from Mayda’s parents,” Juliana said. “Part of her dowry. Now, if I remember what Mayda told me . . .” She pulled open the closest drawer. It slid easily, as though frequently used. Inside were sheaves of parchment, beeswax candles, a few quills, and sections of twine.

With a brisk tug, Juliana removed the drawer and set it aside. Then, peering into the empty space, she felt around the plain, rough-hewn back panel. “This table was specially commissioned by Mayda’s parents,” Juliana said, while her fingers explored the wood. “Her father suspected a traitor in their household, so he had this table built. From underneath, the framework all looks the same, but Mayda said there is . . . Ah.” A slight shifting of the panel told Juliana she’d found the right spot. She pressed. With a muffled scrape, the wood fell away, revealing a concealed section.

Reaching in, she drew out a cloth bag. The contents inside shifted with a musical
clink
.

Edouard chuckled. “The ring was within Veronique’s reach all along. Judging by the sound, many other jewels, too.”

Juliana nodded, doing her best not to reveal how her stomach swooped at his velvety, roguish laughter. “Thankfully, Veronique did not suspect—”

“Wait. There is something else.” Edouard brushed against Juliana as he reached inside; the mere drag of his garments against hers caused her to catch her breath. When he straightened, he held out a rolled parchment bound with twine.