“Play for something?” he echoed.
“Isn’t that what people generally do?” she asked. She almost felt a small bit of regret over using him so ill, but the man had declared quite enthusiastically that he wanted nothing to do with her not a quarter hour after having given her a wilted flower. Perhaps he needed help in clarifying his thinking. Who was she not to offer a trouncing in chess to encourage that?
“I suppose some do,” he conceded. “What would you care to play for?”
“Well, gold seems so . . . what’s the word I’m looking for?”
“Pedestrian?” he suggested.
“Aye,” she said with a smile. “Pedestrian. Wouldn’t you agree?”
He studied her for a moment or two as if he were contemplating things he hadn’t thought to before. “What I would agree with,” he said slowly, “is that you have mercenary tendencies that I’m sure your father wouldn’t approve of. ”
“A girl does what she must to survive,” she said with a shrug. She looked around his solar thoughtfully. “Your keep would be too much trouble, I think,” she mused. “Perhaps something less substantial, but far more troublesome for you personally.”
His eyes narrowed. “Shall I act as a lady’s maid, then?”
“Could you manage that, I wonder.”
The look he shot her almost made her smile.
“Very well,” she said cheerfully, “I’ll have that, then.”
“And what shall I have when I win?” he asked evenly.
“Well, since I’m sure you will win handily, why don’t you suggest something? ”
His expression changed to something quite a bit more serious. “I believe, lady,” he said, “that I would like your forgiveness for having made you scrub my kitchen floors.”
She reminded herself that she did indeed not like him at all. He was going to help her regain her memories, then send her back to her family because he wanted nothing to do with her.
It was hard to remember that when he was looking at her in such a grave, serious way.
“Forgiveness doesn’t sound very interesting,” she managed.
He shrugged. “I thought it best not to frighten you away from the board by revealing my true, unpalatable self. If I told you what I truly wanted, you might tip your king right off.”
She smiled. “Rogue.”
“So I’m told, though the tales are greatly exaggerated.” He nodded toward the board. “Your move.”
She put her finger on her pawn, fourth in from her left. “This one moves forward, does he not?”
“I believe, demoiselle, that he does.”
“Then let’s move him forward a couple of these squares here and see how he fares.”
He considered, then put one of his knights on the front lines.
“Oh, a horse,” she said brightly. “I have one, too. I believe I’ll move one of mine out to join yours.” She smiled. “Is that right?”
“I believe it might be,” he said dryly.
“And you moved one of your—what are these called again?”
“Pawns,” he said with a sigh.
“I like them,” she said. “I’ll move another of mine. And another horse. This is an amusing game.”
He looked at the battlefield she had staked out, then pursed his lips as if he had recently sucked on something that hadn’t tasted particularly good. He shot her a look. “I believe, my lady, that you haven’t been entirely forthright with me about your abilities.”
“Do you think so?” she said smoothly. “Why don’t you carry on with the game and let us see, my lad, if you know the movements of the rest of those things cluttering up your side of the board.”
“‘My lad,’” he echoed with a snort. “You, lady, have an appalling lack of respect for those who have only allowed you to march yourself out so far onto the field that you will find it difficult indeed to defend your major pieces.”
She suppressed the urge to flex her fingers. “Have I? Do show me where I’m failing then.”
He looked at her, then shook his head. And damn him if he didn’t smile as if he knew he had just encountered a battle from which he would not emerge entirely unscathed.
It was a rather quick game, all things considered. She had taken him unawares, which left him scrambling to make up for it and left her with the time to compare him to the men of her family. He was definitely not as deliberate as her sire, who played the game as if every moment had the potential for ending his life, nor was he as rash as Robin, who threw himself into every encounter with either a chortle or an evil grin. She supposed if he reminded her of anyone, it was Nicholas, lethal and elegant about the damage he did. There was, however, something else about Gervase she couldn’t quite lay her finger on. He stared at his king for several long moments, then shook his head before he tipped him over and laughed ruefully.
She wondered if he had laughed every time he’d taken yet another knight for ransom.
“You will not take me by surprise again,” he warned.
“How embarrassing for you that you were taken by surprise in the first place,” she said sweetly.
“I was exercising chivalry, a mistake I will obviously not be making again with you.” He began to push pieces toward her. “Again.”
“After you’ve polished my tack and seen to my wine, I imagine.”
He shot her a look. “We’ll keep a list.”
“I suppose ’tis the least I can do to assuage your badly damaged pride,” she conceded. “What shall we play for this time?”
“Why don’t you play first and find out later?”
“Are you daft?” she asked with a laugh. “I’m not about to give you free rein.”
“Afraid you’ll lose?”
Actually, she was afraid of quite a few things, namely that she might forget that she didn’t care for him at all.
“I am never afraid,” she said. She looked at him quickly. “Not at the board, rather. And aye, I understand very well that you will be showing me exactly as much mercy as I’ve shown you. Fortunately, your black heart is very tender.”
He rolled his eyes. “If you only knew.” He collected her pieces and set them up on his side of the board. “I’ll take white.”
“’Tis more chivalrous to allow the lady to go first.”
“You dare to speak to me of chivalry, you heartless wench?” he asked darkly. “I’ll take white and you’ll have to see what you can do to survive.”
“I suppose ’tis the least I can do to give you the advantage of the first move,” she said thoughtfully. She looked at him. “Wouldn’t you agree? Oh, look. You’ve moved your steed out in front of those . . . what were they called again?”
He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it and glared at her. “Pawns,” he said crisply, “which I can see I’ve been in your hands so far. Don’t assume I’ll allow myself to be put in that position again.”
She smiled, poor fool that she was, because she knew he wasn’t serious with those looks.
She heard his brothers tumble into the solar at one point, but her king was in jeopardy so she didn’t pay them any heed. One thing she could say for Gervase de Seger, he was absolutely relentless. She led him on a merry chase, but in the end he gave her no choice but to surrender. She said a rather foul word, then tipped her king. Joscelin, who had apparently been standing behind her chair, laughed.
“I suppose that’s one way to put it.”
“I’m ahead by one game,” she said, because she thought it needed to be said.
“Aye, because I exercised too much chivalry and allowed you an extra turn at white,” Gervase said loudly.
“You absolutely did not,” she said with a snort. “You allowed me to go first, as you should have. I can’t be responsible for the results of that miscalculation on your part.” She looked up at Joscelin. “He’s rather good, you know.”
“He’s better against flesh and blood,” Joscelin said with a smile. “And perhaps he feared to trample upon your delic
ate feelings.”
“You weren’t here to witness his snarling at me. There was a distinct lack of chivalry on display during the heat of battle.”
Gervase smiled and rose. “Then allow me to remedy that by escorting you as you go collect my weedy winnings. The garden is likely particularly lovely right now.”
“Since you’ll spend the evening tending my wine,” she said easily, rising as well, “I suppose the least I can do is make it comfortable for you.”
He pursed his lips, then offered her his arm. She took it before she could remind herself that he was neither charming nor pleasant nor anything but a Frenchman who was very full of his own huffings and puffings.
“We’ll come as well,” Yves offered, dashing over and taking her free hand. He looked up at his brother. “It would be the chivalrous thing to do, wouldn’t it, Ger?”
Gervase sighed and nodded. Isabelle considered that as she walked with him down the passageway, through the great hall and out into the back garden. She had recaptured her hands by the time they reached the garden, partly because Yves had deserted her to chase after a brother who had insulted him and it seemed a handy excuse to allow Gervase to have his arm returned to him.
“Yves is a good lad,” she said. She looked up at Gervase. “They are all fine lads.”
“They all could have benefitted from a mother, especially Yves.” He sighed. “I have not been here as often as I should have been. I suppose some of that wasn’t my fault, for I was sent away to foster at court when I was young.”
“At court,” she murmured. “Not a very wholesome environment for a lad, I imagine.”
He laughed a little, but there was no humor in it. “Nay, it wasn’t, and I suppose it was only stupidity that kept me from acquiring the most vulgar and depraved of habits. I was allowed to return home periodically, that I might not forget what my duty was, but once I earned my spurs, I found that I was less . . . ” He seemed to consider his words for quite some time before he finally shrugged. “They were accustomed to having me gone, I daresay.”
Isabelle would have flinched, but she didn’t dare. Her father had sent his sons off to foster, but only for a year or so, and he had always welcomed them home with tears of joy. When Robin and Nicholas had gone away to war, the entire family had mourned their absence daily. She couldn’t imagine not wanting to have her family about her.
“Their loss,” she said without thinking.
He smiled faintly. “You didn’t know me then.”
“How terrible could you have been?”
“I was arrogant.”
“Skilled knights generally are,” she said with a shrug.
“And you would know?”
“I’ve spent more than a maid’s allotment of time listening to tales,” she said without hesitation. “One hears things, you know.”
He snorted. “I imagine one does. As for being home, I daresay it was impossible for me to have pleased my stepmother. She was furious when I took Joscelin with me as my squire.”
“I’m sure he worshipped you.”
Gervase lifted an eyebrow. “I think he was happy to be out in the world.”
“And I suspect you took very good care of him,” she said, “which seems to be a terrible habit you have. So, you gathered up your brother, took him with you to raze the countryside, then what? Vats of gold, scores of women, countless accolades?”
“Aye to the gold, to my surprise aye to the last, but tales of my prowess in the bedchamber are greatly exaggerated.”
“But mine aren’t!” Joscelin called from across the garden.
Gervase shot him a look, then leaned closer. “Don’t believe him. I would hazard a guess he’s still a—”
“Shut up, Ger,” Joscelin warned.
Isabelle smiled in spite of herself. “And you, my lord?”
He pursed his lips. “We’ll not discuss my adventures out in the world and what I want to know is, who was it who was daft enough to begin this conversation?”
“I believe it was you.”
“I’m afraid you’re right.” He clasped his hands behind his back and walked along pathways with her for quite some time until he seemed to come to some sort of decision. He stopped and looked at her. “I need to go on a journey tomorrow.”
She looked at him in surprise. “You don’t sound pleased about it.”
He seemed to be considering his words, which seemed very much unlike him. “I wouldn’t say that,” he said very slowly. He started to speak, then shook his head. “I’m not sure what to say about it.”
“Do you need me to do something whilst you’re away?”
“Nay, I need you to come with me.”
“Do you?” she asked. “Where are we going?”
“I think it best to avoid saying.”
She frowned. “Are you going to toss me into the sea?”
He shook his head solemnly. “Nothing so dire. Just a little ride through the countryside.”
“As you wish, then,” she said, wishing that perhaps she had been a bit more forthcoming when she’d had the chance. It would be just recompense for all her hedging if he carried her off to Caours where her grandmother would immediately identify her. But at the moment, it wasn’t as if she could ask him where exactly he was intending to go because then she would be forced to tell him who she was.
And she simply couldn’t bring herself to do that.
It was madness, but she wanted for one last day not to be who she was. She didn’t want Gervase to look at her and see the nameless youngest daughter of Rhys de Piaget. She wanted him to see her, a woman whose hand he had just taken and tucked again in the crook of his elbow.
Just for one more day.
Chapter 12
Gervase was grateful for the rain in a way he wasn’t usually grateful for it. It gave him an excuse to keep the hood of his cloak pulled around his face where he didn’t have to look at the woman riding next to him. The truth was, he couldn’t bear to see her expression when she realized where he was taking her.
Though he supposed there was no mystery to it. If she’d been to her brother’s keep before, she would have known at least an hour ago where they were going. At the very least, she would have been able to see Beauvois in the distance.
Unless she genuinely had no idea who she was.
He wasn’t sure which would have been worse, having her know or having her not know which would make him the one responsible for introducing her to her very intimidating brother Nicholas.
He’d had more pleasant rides, to be sure.
Unfortunately, there was nothing else to be done. He had attempted two nights previous to invent any sort of way to keep her near him and have it seem reasonable. He’d come to the inescapable conclusion that keeping her near him, no matter how much he might have wanted to, was madness. He’d been a fool to believe that whoever had tried to murder him four months ago had given up on the idea. To knowingly put Isabelle in that sort of danger was something he certainly would have killed a man for had his own daughter been in that man’s care.
But because that thought didn’t comfort him at present, he turned his mind to admiring Nicholas de Piaget’s seaside holding. The keep was lovely, the surroundings productive, and the smell of the sea intoxicating. He wasn’t unhappy with Monsaert simply for the sheer magnitude of the resources he could command and the truly lovely countryside. When it didn’t sport scorch marks, it was quite a lovely place. But he couldn’t help but admit he loved the sea and envied Nicholas his view of it.
He noticed a detachment of garrison knights riding his way and supposed there was no time like the present to assess the extent of the damage. He pushed his hood off his head and looked at the woman riding on his right.
She was watching the guardsmen coming toward them from the privacy of her hood. She didn’t seem to be terribly unsettled by the sight, but what did he know? She finally turned her head toward him, though he could only see a shadow of her expression.
“Here
for a visit, are we?” she asked mildly.
He wasn’t in the habit of needing bracing breaths, but he supposed indulging in one at the moment wasn’t unreasonable. He took a very deep one, then shifted in the saddle to look at her more fully.
“Nay, my lady Isabelle,” he said quietly, “we’re not.”
She looked at him in surprise, then closed her eyes briefly. “I see.”
“Do you?”
She considered her words for far longer than he was comfortable with, actually. “My father always taught us,” she said seriously, “that if we found ourselves in dire straits to never give anything away.”
He nodded, because he supposed he would have told his own children the same thing. “And you were in a strange place—”
“I should have told you sooner.”
He shot her a look. “How long have you known?”
“I remembered my name as I was being assaulted by Coucy’s man and you rescued me. The rest followed quickly.”
He wasn’t sure if he should have been offended or not that she had felt unsafe enough at his hall to want to keep her particulars to herself. What he did know was that he would be damned before he made mention of it.
Damn her anyway.
He soothed himself with a handful of silent curses. He had known from the start that she was not for him. Discovering how long she had known who she was but had chosen to say nothing to him could mean nothing but that she had been looking for a reason to . . . well, he had no idea what it meant. He was simply glad that he was almost rid of her.
Lovely, sparkling thing that she was.
“Shall we continue?” he asked roughly.
She only nodded. “We likely should.”
His mood soured with each mile they rode, but perhaps he could have expected nothing else. The riders reached them far sooner than he would have liked, but there was nothing to be done about that, either. He started to ride forward to speak with them, but Isabelle put out her hand.
“Let me,” she said quietly.
In that, he supposed she might have a point. Better that she invent some reasonable-sounding excuse for why she found herself unchaperoned in his company than leave it to him. The saints only knew what sort of idiocy would come tumbling out of his mouth. Perhaps he would pattern the rest of his day after Sir Aubert’s usual manner of comporting himself and remain safely silent.