Claire Delacroix (2 page)

Tulley growled under his breath before he found the words to express his outrage further. “And there is no sign that he will be contented with Perricault! No sign at all! Philip must be stopped!” He jabbed a finger through the air toward Yves. “And you—
you
will be the one to strike the fatal blow.”

“My blade is sworn to the count,” Yves said mildly. “It is not for me to decide to leave.”

Tulley waved off that objection. “The count has agreed to release you into my service.”

Yves’ anger rolled to the fore once more and his tone sharpened. “You spoke to the count of this before addressing me?”

Tulley shrugged, though his gaze was unnervingly steady. “It was an objection you were bound to make.”

Yves forced himself to hide his feelings and heard only an edge of annoyance leak into his words when he continued. “I know nothing of this Philip de Trevaine beyond your own accusations. Surely you do not expect me to engage an unknown foe?”

Tulley’s lips quirked. “Must you have made the acquaintance of one you would kill?”

Yves was not amused and he spoke curtly. “No. But I must know the strength of his forces, the number of blades pledged to him, the quality and quantity of his military alliances. Similarly, I must know of your own intent—do you plan that I should ride alone against an invading army of unknown size?” Yves scoffed deliberately. “Perhaps I am to be an assassin, by your plan, instead of a warrior.”

Tulley’s lips thinned. “Your mockery makes little of a great deal. This man is dangerous. Naturally, I will support
you fully with my own forces, as well as those ousted from Perricault itself.”

Yves spread his hands. “Yet still I have no idea of the comparative forces. It seems that you would appoint me to a fool’s errand.”

“Insolent
bastard!
” Tulley pushed himself to his feet with the aid of his cane, but the charge was too familiar to hold any sting for Yves. “I grant you an opportunity to aid one of the most powerful lords in all of Christendom—myself! You would be a fool to abandon this opportunity to make more of your life!”

Yves, unimpressed, stretched out his legs and took another sip of his wine. Tulley’s gaze dropped to the cup before meeting Yves’ again, and for once, Yves enjoyed that Gaston had been absent and thence had not offered the guest a cup.

Yves cleared his throat. “I fail to see what you might offer for this service that I might be inspired to foolishly risk my hide.”

“Gold!” Tulley declared, his fists clenching on his cane. “I shall pay you in
gold.
You name the price.”

“I have no use for gold.” Yves gestured to his tent and shrugged politely. “My needs are simple, as you noted, and already well met.”

“Land, then!” Tulley leaned forward with gleaming eyes. “I will grant you a property within Tulley, if you are successful. That is more than you will gain from the count’s hand.”

“A knight has need of land only if he desires the obligation of wife and family,” Yves countered calmly. “I am content with my circumstance as it stands.”

The men’s gazes locked once more and silence stretched taut within the silken enclosure. It appeared that Tulley ground his teeth silently as he glared at Yves, but the knight remained unmoved.

“I have one thing that I know you will want,” Tulley growled finally.

“I do not believe that.”

The older man’s white brow arched high. “But you will.”

Tulley leaned back to eye the roof of the tent, his expression curiously reflective. “You see, once upon a time, your father was beholden to me. The circumstances do not matter particularly, but suffice it to say that Jerome de Sayerne had to placate me and win my confidence in him anew to secure his hold over his hereditary estate of Sayerne.”

Tulley smiled in reminiscence over that day of power, and Yves knew the old lord had savored that moment. “I could have ripped the estate out from beneath him that time,” he mused, “and the miserable wretch knew it all too well.”

Yves’ throat constricted with this unwelcome reminder of the past and all its emotional turmoil. He had refused to think about his father since his death and was not going to begin thinking about him now.

Tulley’s bright gaze landed on Yves once more. “Jerome put quill to parchment and concocted a declaration, signed before witnesses and dutifully stamped with his seal.” The old lord paused for effect.

“Indeed?” Yves fought to sound indifferent and heard himself fail.

The old man’s white brows rose high at the sound of curiosity in Yves’ voice. “It is a declaration,” he whispered with evident delight, and Yves hated how he strained for the words “that one bastard Yves, born in the year 1086 at Château Sayerne, is indeed the blood of Lord Jerome de Sayerne.”

Yves’ heart skipped a beat.

Tulley’s gaze did not waver, though a tiny smile played on his lips.

Yves loathed how he was tempted, hated that the manipulative old lord had guessed the one thing that eluded him despite his success. Illegitimacy was not a taint a man could erase by virtue of his own deeds, regardless of how well he fared in this life.

And Tulley, curse him, offered a respite.

Tulley’s voice dropped conspiratorially. “It further declares that this child’s mother, one Eglantine de Chalome, should be recognized as the second wife of Jerome de Sayerne, for he took her as his common wife.”

Wife? Yves had known no such thing and doubted its truth.

But Jerome had pledged to it.

Respectability could be his! Yves’ heart stopped cold and he could not summon a word to his lips. The promise of Tulley’s document dangled before him like a carrot before a sullen mule.

Tulley leaned closer to press his case. “This document makes you legitimate,” he whispered. “This document wipes the taint of bastardy from your hide, Yves de Sant-Roux. Meet my price and it can be yours.”

Legitimacy! There was something Yves had never thought he might call his own. No longer would those highborn guests of the count’s have reason to sneer at the birthright of the count’s marshal.

The count consistently declared that he had selected Yves by that knight’s skill alone, but Yves knew that the disapproval must trouble his patron. This document would eliminate any shame Yves unintentionally brought upon the man who had granted him so much.

Tulley straightened, a smile playing over his lips with the certainty that he had successfully cornered his prey. “All you have to do,” he continued mildly, “is retrieve Perricault from Philip de Trevaine.”

Suddenly, Yves realized that Tulley had had this document for the better part of his own life and not revealed its presence until now. Tulley had been content to leave Yves twisting in the winds of fortune until it suited the old cur to reveal what he had.

Wily Tulley, after all, only played to his own advantage.

Who could say what other scheme Tulley had in mind?

Would the old lord continue to change the conditions necessary to win the document?

And what precisely did the document say? Was it even genuine? For all Yves knew, Tulley might have another document hidden away that repudiated this one!

One thing was clear—once Yves stepped into the Lord de Tulley’s web, he would never break free of the old man’s will. The tangle would grow tighter and tighter, leaving him as soundly trussed as a fly who ventured unwittingly into a spider’s web.

No, Yves would not venture back into the quagmire of the past simply to serve Tulley’s ends. This mission smacked of whimsy, of the decisions made by men on virtue of emotion alone, decisions oft doomed to failure. Yves was a knight possessed of too much good sense to take Tulley’s bait.

Yves set the cup of wine aside deliberately and rose slowly to his feet. Tulley’s eyes were bright with the certainty of victory and his smile broadened.

“I refuse your offer.”

Tulley’s jaw dropped and he gaped at Yves. “What is this?”

Yves folded his arms across his chest. “I respectfully decline.”

“But, but…” Tulley sputtered in outrage. “You
must
want legitimacy! What thinking man would not?”

Yves shook his head. “Not at your price.”

“This is madness!” Tulley flung out his hands. “I had understood that you were a man with your wits about you!”

“All the more reason not to accept a fool’s errand for uncertain reward.”

Tulley glared at Yves, his breathing labored and the first hint of color staining his pallid cheeks. He straightened and jabbed the cane through the air so that it very nearly hit Yves in the chest.

“Insolent bastard! I should have expected no less.” Tulley’s
eyes narrowed and his voice was no more than a rasp. “I shall see that you regret this.”

He waited, but Yves unflinchingly returned his stare. What could the old lord do to him? Yves was outside the realm of Tulley’s power. Yves caught a fleeting glimpse of the realization of that truth in Tulley’s bright eyes.

Then, with a snort of dissatisfaction, the old man spun and hobbled from the tent. His voice raised imperially outside, sounding much more petulant than it had earlier.

“Didier! We leave this place with all haste! Didier! Get yourself to my side
now!
”

Long after Yves had calmly topped up his cup of wine and returned to his stool, the ghost of Annelise lingered in his mind Silence filled the tent, the sounds from the field so muted they seemed to carry from another world. Yves tried again to push the past into the locked corner of his mind where it belonged.

Annelise was dead. Sayerne had fallen to his elder brother Quinn’s hand and was undoubtedly managed with the same cruelty as his father had shown. Was not Qumn said to be the very echo of Jerome?

But none of that had anything to do with Yves’ life any longer. His part was over and done, for better or for worse.

From the fields came the sound of the crowds cheering with renewed vigor. Someone had won a contest, evidently, but Yves did not care. He swirled the wine in the cup and stared into its scented depths.

The past had been successfully sent away from his door, he told himself, and would never return. All would continue in his life as it had these past years. Yves would once more be the man within the count’s hall who had no history, and gratefully so.

But the image of his last sight of his sister would not fade away as easily as it had before.

The sunlight had darkened to a deep gold when a rustle
came at the tent flap. Yves did not look up. “See that I am not disturbed, Gaston,” he said, running a tired hand over his brow. A good sleep would see Annelise’s ghost banished once more. “I have need of some sleep.”

“It is too late for that.”

Yves’ head snapped up at the sound of a woman’s voice.

The lady hesitated on the threshold, a shadow against the shadows, her resolute words echoing in Yves’ ears. She was cloaked so that her features were hidden, the brown, homespun wool covering her from head to toe. She was tall, but beyond that and the firm resonance of her words, Yves could discern little about her.

He guessed by her accent and distinct manner of speech that she was nobly born. And she stood straight, like a princess.

That such a woman came here was odd, indeed, but the knight merely waited for explanation. As Yves stared at her, the lady lowered her hood, and he looked into the determination shining in her violet eyes.

She was a woman tending more to plain than beautiful, he judged, with her dark hair fastened tightly back in a way that was less than flattering. Her features were balanced and pleasant enough, but unadorned by carmine and kohl.

Those eyes, though, snapped with an intelligence that could not be denied.

“My name is Gabrielle de Perricault,” she said. Her voice was slightly melodic, her tone firm, yet pitched low so that none might readily overhear.

Yves stared back at her, intrigued. He had never met a woman who gave no quarter to feminine charms and their powers over men. Was this one of the women that Gaston was certain were ready to cast their favors his way?

Surely not!

The lady’s lips thinned before she continued, her blunt speech surprising him yet further. “I have need to hire a
knight and leader of men.” Her gaze did not swerve from Yves’ own. “I hear tell that you are the best.”

Yves arched a brow, unwilling to give any evidence of his interest. “You make your choice based on rumor?”

Had she been a man, he would have called her response a snort. Certainly her gaze sharpened. “Rumor may have brought me to these tournaments,” she retorted. “But it is my own assessment that brings me to this tent.”

“You watched the tournaments?”

“Of course. You show both strength and cunning on the field.” The lady arched a brow in turn. “It is a combination most lethal, as was well proven on this day.”

That revealed such clear thinking that Yves could not argue with her. Indeed, he was quite astonished to make the acquaintance of a woman possessed of a sensible mind. It was so far beyond his experience at the count’s court, where women chattered of clothing and embroidery and children’s smiles, that he momentarily did not know what to say.

The pair stared at each other for a long moment The crowd roared in the distance once more and she started, glancing back over her shoulder with unexpected nervousness.

“None must see me here,” she murmured.

Yves responded before he thought. “I will tell none of your visit,” he assured her.

The small smile of appreciation that curved the lady’s ripe lips caught at Yves’ heart in a way he could not explain. How could he have imagined, even for a moment, that she was plain?

“I heard you were a man of honor, as well,” Gabrielle said, her low voice pleasant upon his ears. “How agreeable to find that true.”

Yves felt his pulse quicken, but frowned into his cup to hide his response. “And why would you have need of a knight?”

The lady’s expression turned grim. “To reclaim my home, the estate of Perricault, from one Philip de Trevaine.”

Perricault again! Belatedly Yves recalled the lady’s name and cursed himself for not paying more heed to her words than her smile. What had possessed him this day?