He listened to Isabelle greet Nicholas’s men by name, which led him to believe that perhaps the good Count of Beauvois had brought a few of his English lads with him. He supposed he should have paid more attention to the conversation, but all he could do was listen to her speak and wonder how he could have been so profoundly stupid not to have realized what she was the moment she had first opened her mouth on that muddy road that led to the sea.
“My lord Gervase was good enough to rescue me from ruffians and shelter me whilst I recovered my memories,” she was saying. “But we’ll ride with you, if you don’t mind, and provide my brother with a pleasant surprise. I’m not sure he even knows I’m in France.”
Gervase frowned thoughtfully. That was a mystery he would have happily investigated, to take his mind off his impending death if nothing else. How was it possible that the youngest daughter of a powerful lord could possibly escape not only her father’s keep but the whole of bloody England and find her way to France? Surely Rhys de Piaget couldn’t be so dense as to not recognize that that had been his child riding off into the sunrise, even with her hair shorn.
He would have given that a great deal of thought, but he found himself continually distracted by the woman riding next to him. She was impossibly grave. Gone was the feisty competitor he’d faced over a chessboard in his solar the day before; in her place was a young woman who obviously knew that what lay in front of her wouldn’t be pleasant.
“Isabelle?”
She looked at him, an expression of surprise on her face. Then she smiled gravely. “I forgot you knew my name.”
“It is unforgettable,” he said frankly. He wondered how to phrase his question delicately, then gave up and plunged right into it. “Do you remember why you left Artane?”
She looked at him with an expression that he couldn’t help but believe was wonder. “You know whence I hail?”
“Of course,” he said. “Your reputation extends to France, to be sure.”
“Reputation?”
“For goodness and beauty,” he said quietly. “I fear, however, that the tellers of tales have neglected to mention your unwholesome skill at the chessboard.”
She looked away, then bowed her head. “Very kind, my lord.”
“Are you afraid to go to Beauvois?” he asked bluntly. “We can turn around, if that’s the case.”
She looked at him as if she’d never seen him before. He wasn’t entirely sure that her eyes hadn’t watered a bit, but it was, after all, raining and she had pushed her hood back off her face at least a quarter hour ago. She took a deep breath, then shook her head.
“Nay, I’m not afraid.”
“Your brother won’t strike you, will he? I will stand between you if you fear that.”
She took a deep breath, then pulled her hood back over her face. “Nay, my lord,” she said quietly, almost too quietly for her to hear him. “He will not harm me.”
Gervase wasn’t sure if what bothered him more was that she looked to be on the verge of weeping or that when Nicholas de Piaget shoved a sword through his belly, she likely wouldn’t weep over him. He drew his hand over his eyes and swore viciously—but silently. No reason to trouble the rest of the company with his personal demons.
The rest of the journey couldn’t have taken more than an hour, but it felt as if it took all day. Gervase didn’t dare look at Isabelle, not, he imagined, that she would have been looking at him. He didn’t want to know what she was thinking lest it include desires to see him burning endlessly in the unquenchable fires of Hell.
The gates were reached far sooner than he cared for, but there was nothing to be done about that, either. He rode inside those imposing gates, wishing he hadn’t felt so trapped, then dismounted and looked up at Isabelle.
Whatever she was thinking, she wasn’t going to allow it to show on her visage.
He held up his arms for her and helped her off her horse, almost managing not to flinch at her weight resting even slightly on his right hand.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, taking his hand and holding it in both her own.
It almost killed him to do so, but he pulled his hand away from hers before Nicholas could open his front door and see things that would only increase his ire. He muttered a strengthening curse or two under his breath, reminded himself he was a score and eight and not a whelp of twelve summers, then looked at the woman he thought he just might be much too fond of for his peace of mind. He clasped his hands behind his back and looked at her, but could find not a single useful thing to say.
He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised.
“When did you know?” she asked quietly.
“I saw Arthur of Harwych in the village a handful of days ago.”
“Oh,” she said, nonplussed. “I’d forgotten about him.”
“Well, he hasn’t forgotten about you. Or, it happens, the boots you seem to have borrowed from him.”
She smiled faintly. “I suppose I’ll have to send a new pair to him.”
“I imagine he would appreciate that,” Gervase agreed. “He was, as you might imagine, exceptionally worried about you.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I believe his most pressing concern was that your father not slay him before he could present his suit.” And given that he shared that concern, he thought he might have recently acquired a bit more compassion for the gangly though earnest master from Harwych.
“Did he know I was at Monsaert?”
“Nay, I didn’t think I should tell—”
He would have finished his thought but the door was wrenched open suddenly. Gervase looked up and found a very agitated Count of Beauvois standing there. He gaped at his sister, then stumbled down the stairs and came to an ungainly halt in front of her. He looked as if he’d seen a ghost.
“Isabelle,” he said hoarsely. “You’re alive.”
She nodded slowly.
He dragged both hands through his hair. It looked, as it happened, as if he’d been doing the same sort of thing for quite some time. “Where in the hell have you been?” he managed.
She pushed her hood back off her head. “I was on a quest,” she said carefully.
Nicholas blinked stupidly. “You cut your hair.”
“Well, aye, I did—”
Gervase was unsurprised by the turn of events from that point on. Nicholas caught sight of him and his mouth fell open. He pointed with a finger that unfortunately didn’t tremble as much as Gervase might have hoped for.
“You,” he said in garbled tones. “What are you doing here?”
Gervase inclined his head as politely as possible. “Bringing your sister to you, as you can see.”
Nicholas’s change in mood was swift and ruthless. Indeed, his newly acquired temper burned with the exact amount of brightness Gervase had suspected it might.
“What were you doing with her in the first place?” Nicholas demanded incredulously.
“I found her wandering on the side of the road,” Gervase began carefully, “and—”
“And you stole her!”
“Nay, he rescued me,” Isabelle said loudly.
“So he could ravish you at his leisure, no doubt,” Nicholas said furiously.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Isabelle said with a snort.
“I’m not asking you for your opinion,” Nicholas snarled at her. “I know his reputation!”
“He didn’t ravish me.”
“Then where have you been?” Nicholas spat. “In his stables? In his bed—”
Gervase supposed, in hindsight, that his first mistake was thinking that his right hand would work as it should have. His second mistake was taking that right fist and plowing it into Nicholas of Beauvois’s damned mouth.
The only thing that saved him from being slain immediately thereafter was that Nicholas wasn’t wearing a sword. He was, however, wearing knives down his boots. Once he’d picked himself up off the ground, those knives came from their sheaths with a speed Gervase might have admired at another time. At the momen
t, he was too busy trying to keep an avenging woman who had most definitely not passed the previous three se’nnights in his bed from lying somewhere else, namely her grave. She seemed to have no sense of her peril as she stood between him and her knife-wielding brother. He tried to move her aside, but she fought him, then turned herself about and gave her brother and his deadly knives a hearty shove.
“Stop it,” she commanded. “I was in his hall, not his bed.”
“For a fortnight?” Nicholas exclaimed.
“Nigh onto three se’nnights, I daresay,” she said, “though I don’t remember the first one. I think I was unconscious in bed—”
“What!”
“In the healer’s house, you fool!” She looked at him with disgust. “Put your blades away before you do damage to someone with them. I daresay that someone will not be the man behind me.”
Nicholas’s fury had turned into something so cold, Gervase would have shivered if he’d been the sort of lad to shiver, which he wasn’t. He watched Isabelle’s older brother very deliberately resheath his blades, then straighten. He folded his arms over his chest.
“Very well, he is now safe. Given that he had you in his hall for so long, would you be so good as to tell me what he did do with you?”
Damn her if she didn’t hesitate. “That’s a bit complicated.”
Nicholas shot him a murderous look. “It shouldn’t have been. The good Duke of Monsaert sees a lady of breeding and rank and accords her the respect due her. Very simple, indeed.” He turned to his sister. “Where were you lodged after the healer’s house or did you remain there?”
Isabelle squirmed. “I remember being in the kitchens—”
Gervase wondered if it would be rude to simply put his hand over her mouth. He supposed that wouldn’t be any more helpful than simply standing there and attempting to look innocent, but it was honestly all he could do not to elbow her in the ribs and tell her to stop trying to help.
“And then?” Nicholas asked in clipped tones.
“I scrubbed the floors first, then swept—”
Nicholas swore.
Gervase found himself with the youngest, fairest, most perfect daughter of Rhys de Piaget standing in front of him as if she sought to protect him. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, actually, but he didn’t dare interrupt her.
“He rescued me not once but twice—”
“Which he wouldn’t have had to do if you’d stayed at home where you belonged!”
“He rescued me from a particular lad with designs upon my person,” Isabelle continued relentlessly, “showing a most admirable amount of chivalry. He has since then been nothing but an honorable, fairly polite, mostly reasonable—”
“Idiot who will be sporting my sword in his gut as soon as I can get you out of the way and send someone to fetch my blade for me,” Nicholas snarled. “Isabelle, move.”
“I will not—”
Gervase put his hands on her shoulders. He was almost tempted beyond what he could bear to turn her around and hug her until she couldn’t breathe, but he supposed that wouldn’t do anything to improve Nicholas’s opinion of him. So instead he very gently held her in place while he stepped to her left.
And then, as he had expected, all hell broke loose.
The lord of Beauvois apparently didn’t feel inclined to bother with his sword, which Gervase supposed he might have to protest later when he had the breath for it. At the moment, he was far too busy trying to keep Nicholas’s clutching fingers from gaining any purchase around his own bloody throat.
It was a brief battle, made all the briefer by his own rather ignominious collapse in the mud. He would have cursed his right leg for continually deserting him when he needed it the most, but he was too busy trying to ignore the blinding pain in that leg. He knelt there in the muck and wondered how he was going to regain his feet before Nicholas simply kicked him to death.
“Isabelle, do not touch him!” Nicholas bellowed.
Isabelle shoved her brother, then reached out toward Gervase.
Gervase then did something he thought he might regret for quite some time to come.
He turned away from her.
Aubert hauled him to his feet, which he appreciated. He didn’t dare look at Isabelle, who had been yanked over to stand next to her brother. He instead looked at Nicholas as coolly as he could manage. It was nothing, he supposed, compared to the look Nicholas was giving him.
“I will not kill you now,” Nicholas said.
“Good of you,” Gervase managed.
“I’ll give you a month to regain your strength,” Nicholas said. “Is that enough time, do you think?”
“So you can kill me?”
“Why else would I waste any time with you?”
Why, indeed. “Three fortnights, then,” Gervase said. “Wouldn’t want to rob you of any sport.”
Nicholas’s look was not at all friendly. “If you think that infamous charm of yours will keep me from repaying you for my sister’s distress, you’re sadly mistaken.”
“I don’t think I could reasonably expect anything else,” Gervase said.
“Get off my land,” Nicholas said in a low, rather unpleasant tone. “If I find you on it again, uninvited, I will kill you without hesitation. Is that clear?”
Gervase had definitely not expected anything else, so he simply nodded. He supposed there was even less reason to expect to have any opportunity to speak to Isabelle. He imagined if he tried, Nicholas would kill him right there with his bare hands.
He refused to allow himself the weakness of a sigh, but instead simply turned and walked away. He heaved himself back up onto his horse with as much grace as possible. He supposed his second mistake—or it might have been several mistakes farther down the list of disastrous decisions he’d recently made, actually—was not looking at Isabelle at that point.
He couldn’t. He didn’t want to see what she was thinking written on her face. He rode out of the bailey before Nicholas decided that a month and a fortnight was too generous an offer.
There was nothing else to do.
• • •
Several hours later, he walked into his own hall. His leg ached as if it had been freshly broken. That was, unfortunately, nothing compared to the fiery agony that seemed to linger in the vicinity of his heart.
He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised by the events of the day. He should have at least bid Isabelle good-bye, or told her that he was happy to know she would be safe, or that he loved her—
He rolled his eyes and snorted as best he could past the lump in his throat. Of course he didn’t love her. He hardly knew her. She was not the sort of woman for him, obviously. She was . . . well, she most certainly didn’t . . . and no one could reasonably deny that . . .
He cursed. It was all that was left him in his poor, mindless state.
The only bright spot in the gloom had been the opportunity to shut Nicholas de Piaget up before he had made a bigger ass of himself than usual by accusing his sister of—
He took a deep breath. What he needed was a very large, very strong drink. He wasn’t one to indulge in the like, but he had a bottle of some sort of rot that Joscelin had found for him while he’d been out of his head with pain from his leg. Perhaps a very large glass of that would serve him at the moment.
He walked into his solar to find it full of younger brothers. He ignored their questions and cast himself down into his chair. His cloak almost strangled him, which he supposed he should have suspected before he sat. He pushed himself to his feet, pulled off his cloak, then threw it to Lucien, who apparently thought it was best to do something with it besides dump it onto the floor. Gervase sat again with a deep sigh and closed his eyes.
A throat cleared itself in front of him. He opened one eye, then realized he had no choice but to open both eyes.
Yves stood there, quivering with righteous indignation.
Gervase sighed. “What?”
“Where is she?”
Gervase considered, then lifted his brother up and set him on his knee. Yves was not placated by it, though he did do Gervase the favor of glaring at him from less of a distance. Gervase stared at him in consternation. What now?
“Why’d you take her away?” Yves asked plaintively.
“Because she needed to go home.”
“I wanted to keep her!”
And then Yves burst into tears.
Gervase looked for aid, but the rest of his brothers, damn them all to an eternity of roasting their arses against the fires of Hell, found other things to look at. He tamped down his own instinct to fling Yves across the chamber and flee for safer ground, then put his arms around his sobbing brother and drew him close. And he had to admit, as he proceeded to be drenched by a lad who sounded as if his heart had just been ripped out of his chest by bare hands alone, that he completely understood the feeling.
He patted, he made soothing noises, he sighed deeply a time or two, then simply waited for the storm to pass. What he eventually found himself with was a small lad curled up on his lap, chewing on his thumb. At least he was chewing, not sucking, which was a relief. Gervase was just certain that knights, no matter their age, did not suck their thumbs.
“Go get her back,” Yves commanded at one point.
“I’d like to.”
“Then do it.”
“Aren’t you the brave one,” Joscelin said, collapsing into the chair opposite them, “to order such a fierce lord about that way.”
“He’ll go,” Yves said confidently. He looked at Gervase. “Do you know her name yet?”
Gervase sighed. “Isabelle,” he said. “Isabelle de Piaget.”
Yves’s mouth fell open. “Is she Lord Nicholas’s sister?”
“Indeed she is.”
Yves considered. “He’s fairly fierce, though not invincible,” he said, as if he merely discussed the merits of worms to take fishing with him. He looked at Gervase with an utterly serious expression on his tear-stained face. “We’d best consider our strategy well if we’re to have her back as quickly as possible.”