John followed his brother as they scampered over to the new arrival. Jake could hear the grumbles from where he stood. The complaints only increased in volume as the twins brought their brother back to where Jake stood.
"Damned gate," Miles was saying. "I had to dispatch Lord Ledenham and his men before I could even get to it. The louts were littering it like so much refuse." He continued to grouse about his exertions, the lack of aid offered him in those exertions, and the heat, then stopped in front of Jake. "And who is this?"
"Jake Kilchurn," Montgomery supplied promptly. "He saved Amanda this afternoon."
Miles looked him over. "Where is your sword?"
Jake looked at Miles, sufficiently knighted and apparently a little jaded, and decided he'd just found his new tutor. He clapped a hand on Miles's shoulder and smiled.
"It's a long story. I'll tell you later."
Miles shrugged. "As you will." He looked back toward the gate. "Ledenham will no doubt be heading home to lick his wounds, but 'tis best we remain inside for now." He looked at his brothers. "Is it possible there might be something left to eat inside, or have you lads laid siege to the larder?"
He slung an arm about each of his younger brothers, then walked off toward the great hall with them. Jake watched them all go, feeling heartened. Then Miles stopped, looked over his shoulder, and frowned.
"Aren't you coming?"
Jake nodded, more pleased that he cared to admit.
Having brothers, even borrowed brothers, was not a bad thing at all.
He caught up with them and went in to the great hall where he was included in their foray into the kitchens. He joined the lads for a late lunch and gave final thoughts to his plans.
Medieval skills were definitely the order of the day, and Miles was his answer, at least the answer to the only problem he could manage to solve at present.
He would protect her, and then he would go home.
That he might not be able to get home was a thought he just wouldn't entertain. He had a pound coin in his shoe that said he could. He would just have to wait until the right time, or until he'd done in the past what Fate had sent him there to do. He applied himself to his meal, leaving the rest of his future to be dealt with in time.
* * *
Chapter 13
Montgomery of Artane knew how to keep his own counsel. Even Lord Pevensey had noticed it and that man noticed little beyond what arrived upon his supper trencher. Once, he had actually looked up from his feasting to remark to Montgomery that he wasn't nearly as stupid as the other lads and that he certainly knew how to hold his tongue.
Montgomery had taken that as high praise.
He sighed in pleasure, partly from the warmth of the fire and partly because he would never have to wonder again what Pevensey thought of him. Montgomery had managed to endure that year at Pevensey's keep only because he knew his father wouldn't force him to stay longer, not after he'd learned what a useless master Pevensey was.
It hadn't been time completely wasted. Montgomery had learned a thing or two about warfare, learned how to hold his tongue, and learned that he loved his home best of all.
No wonder Amanda didn't want to wed.
Montgomery stood with his back to the fire, warming his hands and other important parts of himself, and considered his sister. She was a capital chap, unafraid of mud and vermin, unafraid to hoist a sword or ride like a banshee. How could a lad not love her best of all?
She had changed, though, in the past year. She didn't laugh as much. When she rode, she rode as if she sought escape. When she fought, she fought as if she practiced for the heat of battle. Montgomery had despaired of her ever being happy again.
Until Jake had arrived.
Never mind that the man was a merchant. Montgomery knew there had to be more to him than that. After all, didn't it take a canny wit and quick hands to keep your goods away from thieves? There was that unsettling bit of business of finding Jake senseless on the ground, but Montgomery still wasn't sure that hadn't been something unusual. If Jake had been himself, he surely would have been victorious. Montgomery had vivid memories of watching Jake cripple several of the men who had been attacking him when Montgomery, John, and Amanda had come to the rescue.
A rescue Jake had not needed.
Nay, there was no reason Jake couldn't become a knight.
Montgomery shifted uncomfortably. Very well, there were several reasons he couldn't, but those reasons were foolishness. Why did a man only have the privileges of knighthood if he were born to it? Surely a man with vigor and strength could just reach out and wrest a knighthood away from the kingand retain it as a reward for his cunning.
Besides, Montgomery liked Jake.
He liked him very much more than anyone else who had come seeking Amanda's hand.
He was still a bit confused about why Jake couldn't go home. After all, London was only a handful of days's hard ride to the south. Why couldn't he just go, take care of his affairs, then come back? Obviously, merchantry was a more complicated affair than he supposed.
He looked over to his right as Jake came down the stairs with Miles. They were deep in talk, no doubt about Jake's training. Montgomery couldn't begrudge Jake his opportunity to have Miles's expertise. His brother was, after all, a very daring warrior, ever willing to take chances no one else would. Perhaps Miles would give Jake the skills he needed to make a good showing for their father. Not that skills would likely impress Rhys de Piaget. He was, after all, the most skilled warrior in all of England, followed closely by his son, Robin de Piaget.
Montgomery felt a surge of pride flow through him at the thought that he carried that same blood in his veins. He continued to warm his backside contentedly against the fire as he watched Jake and Miles plow through a hearty meal, rise, and start for the front door. And then Jake paused, smiled, and came over to sling his arm around Montgomery's shoulders.
"I think I might need your opinion as well, Montgomery. Come with us and keep an eye on my form."
Montgomery's heart swelled within him, in spite of his attempts to look unaffected.
By the saints, he wished Amanda could wed with this man. Never mind that he had no knightly blood flowing through his veins. He was kind to Amanda, and he was kind to Amanda's younger kin. That was a kind of nobility none of Amanda's other suitors had ever shown.
For Montgomery, it was enough.
* * *
Chapter 14
The air was thick with stratagem. The two combatants leaned forward, each looking to have the advantage. They circled, paused to consider, then struck again, seeking constantly to best the other so thoroughly that the only honorable escape was death.
Amanda watched Miles and Jake facing each other over her father's chessboard and wondered who would emerge the victor. Miles was a very good player, but it looked as if Jake was equally as good. She had watched them trade insults, then bluff, all the while comporting themselves as equals.
Which, she supposed, they might have been, had things been different.
"Damnation." Miles tipped his king over with a sigh. "Checkmate."
Jake smiled. "A very good game. You're a good player."
"I should be," Miles grumbled. "My father has drilled me in it from the time I was small. He said it would make me a better knight." He looked at Jake with a frown. "I can't say as it has."
"Are you kidding? You almost had me several times."
Kidding was another of those words that left Amanda shaking her head. She caught the gist of it, though, and hoped that Miles understood the compliment. That was one thing she could say for Jake: he was not stingy with his praise.
And he was an exceptionally fine chess player.
Miles sighed, rose, made Jake a low bow, and then came to sit next to Amanda on the bench. He put his arm around her shoulders and scowled.
"He may be a mighty chess player, but the man can't wield a sword to save his life."
"Miles!"
"That's wh
at you think this week," Jake said easily. "Give me a month or two and see what you think of my swordsmanship."
Amanda leaned back against Miles and contemplated the mystery of Jackson Alexander Kilchurn IV.
First, why had the man been given such a lofty name if he were a mere merchant's son? Second, where had he learned to play chess so ferociously, and didn't that canny sense of warfare obviously extend to his sword arm? Third, why was it a man who was so far below her brothers in station could look so comfortable with them, grinding them to dust in her father's solar with her father's chess pieces?
And fourth, and most distressingly, why couldn't he have been one of the scores of men who'd come to seek her over the past four years?
"You're muttering," Miles said pleasantly. "Careful, Amanda. You're beginning to take on several of Robin's more irritating habits."
She stuck her tongue out at him, but couldn't follow it up with anything nastily said because he was wearing that very small smile he gave only to her, his admittedly preferred sister, and when he did so, she forgave anything and everything. She studied him.
"You're very cheerful tonight," she remarked.
"Why shouldn't I be?" he asked, cheerfully. "I'm home. I have you here to cook for me and mend my clothes. I've just found myself soundly thrashed in chess by a man who takes your barbs and laughs at them. Where in that list should I find anything to bemoan?"
"You don't want me mending your clothes."
"I don't want you cooking for me either," he said, with a friendly laugh, "but I'm happy just the same."
Amanda had to admit that, astonishingly enough, so was she. She was sitting comfortably in her favorite chamber in the keep, she had three of her most favorite brothers to hand, and she was basking in a very homey feeling of belonging.
"Amanda, are you next?"
She blinked when she realized Jake was speaking to her. "I beg your pardon?"
"Do you play chess?"
"I'd tread carefully there, Jake," Miles warned. "Amanda has many hidden talents and the ability to thrash us all in chess is one of them."
"Then perhaps I'd better practice on your brothers first," Jake said. He looked at Montgomery. "Do you want to play next?"
Montgomery looked as if Jake had offered him the contents of the king's treasury. He leaped up and threw himself down into the empty chair.
"Ready," he said, flexing his fingers.
"I can only hope I am," Jake said fervently, but he turned his head and winked at Amanda.
"Thrash him, Montgomery," Amanda suggested.
"Now, was that kind?" Miles whispered. "Such a nice man. So nasty of you to make sport of him."
"I'm wearing him down," Amanda said loudly. "To make my task of reducing him to rubble that much easier."
Jake only laughed and continued on with his play. Amanda watched him, finding that she couldn't look away. It wasn't so much his handsomeness, which was undeniable, or his skill with what she had always considered a game reserved for nobility, which was also quite evident.
It was that he was good to her brothers.
She watched Montgomery simply glow under Jake's attentions. Jake complimented Montgomery's strategy, fretted over the potential for his own king's demise, wondered aloud if he could possibly prevail against one so young, but so obviously skilled in the knightly arts.
Montgomery ceased to glow. He began to preen.
Jake pinned his king eventually, but it took a great deal of time and appeared to take a great deal of effort on Jake's part.
"Oh, by the saints," Amanda said. "He has that one completely won over."
"And what of you?" Miles inquired innocently.
"Me?"
"Has he won you over yet?"
"Why do you ask?" she asked with a scowl.
Miles shrugged. "He seems a good sort."
"And how does that serve me?" she asked. "He is a merchant. I, by some accident of birth, am not. There can be nothing between us."
Miles tugged on her hair. "Perhaps not. But it might at least show you that not all men are as wretched as the ones who have camped outside our front gates over the years."
"Again, what does it serve me?"
"Perhaps it doesn't," he said easily. "But I like him. I admit to being a little baffled at his lack of skills, even for a merchant, but I think those can be remedied. Given that he has, well," he paused modestly, "me, for a teacher."
"Poor man."
"Perhaps you should face me over swords, sister, and see if your opinion changes." He crossed his feet at the ankles and leaned back. "Aye, I like him well. He has traveled, you know. Many places I should like to see."
These were tidings. Amanda wondered how it was that Miles had been home not even a se'nnight and yet he knew so many things about Jake that she did not.
After all, she had been the one to find him.
"Where?" she asked, trying not to sound very curious.
"Italy. France. Spain. Other places I'd never heard of. All very exciting and new. I envy him."
She was unsurprised. Miles was surely the wanderer in their family. He was a handful of years younger than she yet already had been to France twice as often as she had. She understood his longing, though. There was something appealing about the thought of seeing other places, tasting new things, smelling new smells.
Though at the moment, there wasn't a new place she would have traded for an evening in her father's solar, surrounded by people she loved.
The evening progressed. John was treated to a game in much the same manner as Montgomery, only Jake was more serious with John. He gave fewer compliments yet talked to him in the manner her father's eldest guardsmen did amongst themselves, speaking and jesting together as if they were the only ones who could understand those particular conversations. In Jake's estimation, apparently John was someone worthy of his regard and trust.
Jake beat him handily, but that didn't seem to matter to John. He joined Montgomery near the fire, where the pair of them looked insufferably smug.
Jake sat back and looked at Amanda. "Your turn?"
"You'll not find me so easily bested."
"I never, ever thought you would be."
Miles choked on a laugh. Amanda glared at him, then rose to face Jake over the chess board.
"Ladies first," Jake said pleasantly.
"Your first mistake," she said, just as pleasantly.
She found, as the game wore on, that Jake offered her no compliments, nor was he nearly as talkative as he had been with her brothers. She might have, perhaps, even seen his brow furrow a time or two. And every time he looked at her to see, no doubt, if she was struggling as mightily as he, she gave him her best smile, the one guaranteed to have her father agreeing that she really should ride whatever horse she pleased and it would be perfectly fine with him if she tromped about in lads' clothes because they were more comfortable.
Apparently, it worked on men other than her father.
Several minutes later, Jake looked up from the board where his king stood, helplessly pinned by her queen, a bishop, and a knight.
He blinked. "I think I've been beaten."
"Then surrender."
He put his hand on his king, looked at her seriously and, with deliberate slowness, tipped his king over.
"I think I surrendered the moment the game was begun."
She had the feeling he was talking about more than just the game.
He leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. "You're very good," he said.
"Strategy is my lifeblood," she agreed. "I should have been a commander of armies."
"France would have lived in fear," he said with a smile.
"My suitors certainly have."
"So, what else do you do with your time when you're not inventing strategies to baffle and bemuse those impertinent enough to try to get past your guards?"
"She doesn't sew," John supplied.
"She definitely doesn't cook," Miles said lazily.
br /> Montgomery remained silent. Jake looked at him.
"What, no offerings from you?"
Montgomery shook his head with a smile. "I don't think there's anything Amanda cannot do. She rides, she knows what to do with a sword, she dances, she can forage for herbs—"
"She consorts with witches, you mean," John muttered.
"John!" Miles said sternly. "They are not witches. Berengaria was a girl at Segrave, and I can assure you that Grandmother never would have condoned witchcraft on her land. Well," he added with a smile, "not any of the foul kind."
"They aren't witches, they're midwives and healers," Amanda said, "and I do not consort with them, I visit them when they are traveling our way. I've learned several useful things that might save your sorry life, John, if ever I desired it to be saved. And besides, Berengaria lived here for many years. The only reason she left was because you had been born." She looked at Jake. "Any other questions?" she asked briskly.
He held up his hands in surrender. "Not a one. I can see you are very busy."
"And what of you?" Montgomery asked. "What do you do with your merchantry business?"
"Aye, I would like to hear of your travels," Miles said.
"And I would like to hear of the jewels," John said. "Robin has a dagger with a very fine red stone in the hilt which I think is too ornate for his use, though he seems quite reluctant to let me have it."
"He'll allow you to have it when you have the skill to take it away from him in a fight," Amanda said. She looked back at Jake. "I for one would like to see what you create for these wealthy patrons. Can you not describe it to us?"
"I can do better than that. Do you have paper and anything to write with?"
"You can write?" John asked in surprise.
"Of course," Jake said, looking equally as surprised. "Can't you?"
"Aye, but I'm a lord's son."
Jake only smiled. He accepted a scrap from the pile their father kept for lesser correspondence, as well as a feather and ink.
Amanda put away the chess pieces and returned to her seat in time to see a creation half drawn on the parchment.