Claire Delacroix (95 page)

Alys’s fingers clenched. She stared after Burke as Moonshadow’s hoofbeats faded to naught and cursed herself for not uttering the three small words that could have made the difference in his choice.

She had never told Burke that she loved him. ’Twas the only factor in her favor, and he did not know the truth of it.

The village chapel bell rang in a mournful summons to Mass as Alys felt the weight of her own foolishness. But there was naught to be done now. She closed the shutters and turned back to the room, wondering how she would bear the solitary wait.

But Talbot d’Annoceaux leaned in the portal, smiling cheerfully at her shock. “Good morning to you, Alys of Kiltorren,” he said. “Are you truly the daughter of Isibeal of Kiltorren?”

“Aye,” Alys admitted, edging away from the man she had instinctively distrusted from the first. What was he doing here? What did he want from her? And why had the miller let him climb the stairs unchallenged?

“Then you will have to come with me.”

“Nay, I will not go anywhere with you. Burke is here …”

“Burke has left. I watched him go and you are at my mercy.” At her obvious doubt, Talbot beckoned to another out of sight. His squire appeared, holding a knife to the miller’s throat. Alys gasped as the squire’s blade dug deeper and the miller began to beg for his life in barely coherent French.

“You cannot injure him!”

“ ’Tis your choice.” Talbot shrugged. “Accompany us and he will live.”

Alys looked to the miller, then to the squire’s shaking hand. Talbot was determined, though Alys could not imagine what this was about. She had to think of some way to save everyone involved.

She could fool this man, she was certain of it.

“Of course I shall come,” Alys agreed, snatching up her girdle, veil, and circlet, She forced a smile, hoping she could disarm Talbot. “Indeed, I have worried of your fate since Kiltorren!”

Talbot’s eyes widened. “Indeed?”

“Why, you must know that I noted you.” Alys let her glance slide over him, hoping she managed some shred of sensual allure. She let her voice drop. “From the very first moment our eyes met, I thought you were a knight of rare charm.”

Talbot smiled slowly. “I
knew
you were a whore.”

Alys deliberately rolled her hips as she walked across the room, and Talbot devoured her every gesture.

“I thought you favored Burke.”

“Him?” Alys waved dismissively as if scornful of Burke’s abilities. “In truth, I have had better from an ostler.”

Talbot chuckled and elbowed his squire. “I shall see you ridden as you have never been before.”

Alys rather doubted that, but she smiled. “And then?”

“And then you shall win the fate you so richly deserve.” Though Talbot tried to be ambiguous, there was a glimmer in
his eye that did not bode well for Alys. She might have stepped back, but he snatched at her hand and hauled her roughly toward the stairs.

This was no jest and Alys tasted new fear at Talbot’s harsh manner. She could smell the ale on him and wondered if he even knew what he did. Alys managed to kick off one of her shoes, casting it into the middle of the room she had occupied as a signal to Burke of her distress.

Talbot swore at her for impeding his progress and tugged at her arm, the sudden move making Alys’s kirtle snag on the door latch. The metal dug painfully into her flesh. She heard a tear but did not even have time to look back.

In the chamber below, Alys watched helplessly as the squire hit the miller in the back of the head with the hilt of his blade. That kindly man slumped to the floor and was promptly shoved behind a trunk.

Alys could only hope he was not dead.

Talbot’s expression did not bode well for her own survival, though his motive was a mystery. Burke would follow her, Alys knew. Burke would come in time, she had to believe that.

Alys had to keep herself alive, and she had to leave her knight a clear trail. Burke’s insistence that she could not lie to save her life rang in her ears as Talbot dragged her out into the rain.

Alys hoped that for once in his life, Burke was wrong.

ontrary to Burke’s hopes, Margaux de Montvieux was not in a charitable mood. He was ushered into the hall by her thin-lipped chatelain, that man’s gaze barely flickering in recognition. He was not offered even the courtesy of his cloak being removed, Moonshadow was left wet in the stables, and Burke did not doubt his mother’s anger.

Indeed, her eyes snapped like jewels. She sat in her great wooden chair, its arms carved in the
shape
of snarling griffins, her hands braced upon the knob of the cane she needed to walk in these days. Her hair had silvered completely since he last saw her, every vestige of ebony gone. But there still was a force of will that emanated from his mother, and ’twas one with the impact of a buttressed wall.

“You will ensure that my steed is brushed and dried,” Burke informed the chatelain.

That man had the audacity to lift his brows. “Will your squire not see to it?” he asked mildly, knowing full well that Burke had arrived alone.

“This quarrel is between my mother and myself,” Burke declared tightly. “There is no need for the beast to suffer.”

The chatelain glanced to his mistress.

“Do it,” she said tightly, her hearing obviously as sharp as ever. “ ’Twill not be said that Margaux de Montvieux is unkind.”

The chatelain scurried away, leaving mother and son. Burke was hardly in the state he would have preferred, but he shook off his sodden cloak and laid it over a bench as if untroubled.

Then he crossed the floor with leisurely steps to meet his mother. She rose as he drew nearer, bracing herself on her cane, lifting her chin. Though she stood on the dais, they were eye to eye, for Margaux had never been tall.

“If you come to beg my forgiveness, ’tis past time you fell on your knees,” she said coldly.

Burke smiled at the very thought. “And why would I seek forgiveness?”

Margaux’s eyes flashed with fury. “For your disregard! Your father told me of your foolish choice and, indeed, I expected to see you much sooner than this! On your knees,
chevalier,
and I might consent to grant you your inheritance once again.”

“I have no desire for Montvieux,” Burke said with a shrug.

“
What nonsense is this
?”

“As I told Father, the price of your approval comes too high. I surrender Montvieux for the chance to follow my own will.”

His mother sat down heavily. “You will think little of the merit of your own will when it compels you to watch that woman starve.”

Burke’s surprise must have shown, for his mother smiled coldly. “Naught happens on this holding without my knowing of it. You should know that.”

“Indeed, your grip has tightened since last I was here.”

“ ’Tis naught but a reflection of my concern for you.”

Burke smiled sadly at his mother. “ ’Tis Montvieux alone that concerns you. Do not pretend that this fury is born of anything else. My rejection of Montvieux leaves your beloved
estate without an heir apparent, and that is the only issue between us.”

She eyed him for a long moment, her anger fading slowly from her features. “You truly believe that,” she commented finally.

Burke shrugged. “I have spent my life fulfilling the dreams of others. I have a dream of my own and you will not undermine it.”

“Then why have you come?”

“I believe ’tis courteous for a man to introduce his bride to his family.”

“Courtesy.” Margaux snorted. “You have had women before and they have never filled your head with such nonsense.”

“This is different. I love her.”

“A fine claim to make without a denier to your name.” His mother rolled her eyes. “You could come back to Montvieux and offer this woman a finer life than you will win otherwise.”

“And be subject to your every whim once more?” Burke shook his head. “I shall take my chances at the tourneys.”

“The tourneys will see you dead!” Margaux snapped. Her lips pinched tightly together. “Who is she?”

“Her name is Alys.”

“And her parentage?”

Burke smiled, knowing his answer would not win approval. “Is obscure.”

His mother caught her breath and swore softly. “A
bastard.
You throw all away for a bastard, who is probably no better than a whore. Did I raise you with no more wits than that?”

“I would expect you to have the wits to refrain from addressing my betrothed in such terms.”

His mother’s eyes narrowed anew. “You mean to wed her.”

“Of course.”

Margaux straightened. “You have a lineage that makes you
worthy of wedding royalty. You would have an inheritance to back any such claim, if you were not so stubborn as to accept it. Yet you would discard all to marry some woman born of naught. I assume she brings you naught.”

Burke folded his arms across his chest. “She brings me happiness, and that is no small thing. I shall wed her, with or without your approval, though I had hoped that you might stir yourself to welcome her to the family.”

Margaux laughed, a chilling sound that echoed in the empty hall. “
Welcome
her! Have you taken a blow to the head?”

Her mockery angered Burke as her indifference had not. “Nay, I have not. But I have seen well enough what comes of a marriage wrought of fleeting desire and fitting circumstance.” His mother’s mirth faded abruptly. “And I will not spend my days and nights in a match such as the one from which I sprang.” He glared at her. “I do not care what I must sacrifice to ensure that end.”

His mother caught her breath. “You have set a price on welcoming your intended, unless I miss my guess.”

Burke straightened. “You have a choice to make, Mother. You may greet my betrothed appropriately, you may welcome her to Montvieux and embrace her as befits the mother she has never known.”

“Do not hold your breath on that account.” She surveyed him. “What of my other choice?”

“Bluntly put, spurn my lady and you spurn me.” Margaux sat up at this, but Burke did not cease. “Understand this, Mother. Alys and I have cleaved to each other as surely as if we had pledged before a priest. I love her and her alone, and naught you can say will change that. All you choose in this meeting is whether you will ever see me again.”

Burke watched the color drain from his mother’s features.
She said naught and the stubborn set of her chin did not ease.

Well. He had said his piece, she had denied him. He should not have hoped for more.

’Twas time to leave.

“I wish you well, Mother, and many years of health and prosperity.” Burke turned on his heel and strode across the hall where he had played as a boy. Silence crackled in the air behind him, but he scooped up his cloak without a backward glance.

He and Alys could leave for Champagne as soon as Kerwyn and Edana arrived.

“Wait!” his mother shouted just before he left the hall. Burke turned slowly to find her once more on her feet, though she trembled with anger. “You
cannot
choose this woman over me. I will not permit it!”

“ ’Twas you who made the choice.”

Margaux de Montvieux swore thoroughly. When she had exhausted every expletive Burke had ever heard, she used her cane to descend from the dais and leaned heavily upon it to cross the floor in his wake. When she paused before him, her will blade-bright, Burke was stunned by how tiny she had become.

“Tell me of this obscure parentage,” she demanded. “Who is her mother?”

“ ’Twas Isibeal of Kiltorren.”

“And her father?”

“No one knows.”

Margaux inhaled and her lips nigh disappeared. But she did not stride away, and Burke was struck by a sudden idea.

“Indeed, Mother, you might be able to aid my lady in this.” His mother looked infuriated by the very thought, but Burke continued smoothly. “The tale is that Alys’s mother, Isibeal,
met her lover in Paris, that her guardians did not approve of him as a match for he was a younger son with no holding to his name.”

“People of good sense do not permit men to wed when they have naught to their name,” his mother said testily. “What is amiss with this Isibeal’s wits?”

“She is dead,” Burke declared, and his mother made a sound that might have been construed as a halfhearted apology. “ ’Tis why no one knows Alys’s father’s name. This Isibeal was convinced he would treat her with honor, though he never came to claim her hand. ’Twas also said that he was likened to a unicorn and she the maid who seduced the beast with her sweet manner.”

“Romantic nonsense,” Margaux muttered under her breath.

Burke was undeterred. “Think upon it, Mother, for there is little that occurs in Paris without your awareness. Alys is twenty summers of age, her parents met at the king’s own court. Perhaps you might recall the man’s identity.”

Something flashed in his mother’s eyes before she abruptly turned away, and Burke knew ’twas anger at being denied her way. “I will not aid you in this course. You cannot wed this woman and shun Montvieux!”

“Then, ’tis farewell, Mother,” Burke said without apology. Indeed, she cared for him only when he did her bidding. Burke was finished with all such ties. “Be well.” He donned his gloves, pivoted, and stalked out of the hall, disappointed but not truly surprised by his mother’s rejection of Alys.