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She raised it higher, aimed at his heart, and cried, "You killed my brother." The dagger flashed through the air, and Royce caught her wrist in a vice grip, twisting the dagger free and sending it spinning to the floor, but even then, he had all he could do to restrain her.
Wild with grief and pain, she launched herself at him, striking at his chest with her fists when he jerked her tightly against him. "You devil!" she screamed hysterically as they carried her brother out. "Devil, devil, devil!"
"Listen to me!" Royce ordered tautly, grabbing her wrists. The eyes she raised to his were sparkling with hatred and glazed with tears she could not shed. "I told him to stay behind if he wanted to talk to you." Royce let go of her wrists as he finished harshly, "When I started to turn back to take him upstairs, he was reaching for his dagger."
Jennifer's hand crashed into the side of his face as she slapped him with all her strength. "Liar!" she hissed, her chest heaving. "You wanted vengeance because you believed I conspired with my father! I saw it on your face. You wanted vengeance and you killed the first person who got in your way!"
"I tell you, he drew his dagger!" Royce bit out, but instead of calming her, that enraged her—and with good reason: "I drew a dagger on you, too," she cried furiously, "but you took it away as easily as a child's toy! William was half your size, but you didn't take his away, you murdered him!"
"Jennifer—"
"You're an animal!" she whispered, looking at him as if he was obscene.
White-faced with guilt and remorse, Royce tried once more to convince her. "I swear to you on my word, I—"
"Your word!" she hissed contemptuously. "The last time you gave me your word 'twas that you'd not harm my family!"
Her second slap crashed against his cheek with enough force to snap his head sideways.
He let her go, and when the door to her chamber slammed, Royce walked over to the fire. Propping his booted foot on a log, he hooked his thumbs into the back of his belt and stared down into the flames, while doubts about her brother's intent began to hammer at him.
It had happened so quickly; William had been close behind him as Royce stood near the door watching his uninvited guests depart. From the corner of his eye, Royce had glimpsed a dagger sliding out of its sheath, and his reaction had been instinctive. Had there been time to think—or had William not been so damned close to his back—he would have reacted with less instinct and more caution.
Now, however, in retrospect, he remembered perfectly well that he'd sized the young man up before inviting him to remain to see Jenny, and that he'd thought him nonaggressive.
Lifting his hand, Royce pressed his thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, but he could not shut out the truth: either his original instincts about William not posing a threat had been wrong, or else he'd just slain a young man who'd been drawing his dagger merely as a precaution in case Royce was tricking him.
Royce's doubt erupted into almost unbearable guilt. He'd been judging men and the danger they represented to him for thirteen years, and he'd never been wrong. Tonight he'd judged William harmless.
Chapter Twenty-Three
In the sennight that followed, Royce found himself confronted with the first wall he could not find a way to breech—the wall of ice Jennifer had built to insulate herself from him.
The night before last, he'd gone to her, thinking that if he made love to her, passion might thaw her. It hadn't worked. She hadn't fought him, she had simply turned her face away from him and closed her eyes. When he left her bed, he'd felt like the animal she'd called him. Last night, in fury and frustration, he'd tried to confront her about the matter of William, looking for a quarrel—thinking that the heat of anger might succeed where bedding her had not. But Jennifer was past the point of quarreling; in aloof silence she walked into her bedchamber and bolted the door.
Now, seated beside her at supper, he glanced at her, but could think of nothing to say to her or to anyone else. Not that he needed to speak, for his knights were so conscious of the silence between Royce and Jennifer that they were trying to cover it with forced joviality. In fact, the only people at the table who seemed to be unaware of the atmosphere were Lady Elinor and Arik.
"I see you all enjoyed my venison stew," Lady Elinor said, beaming at the empty trenchers and platters, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Jennifer and Royce had eaten very little. Her smile drooped, however, as she looked at Arik, who had just devoured another goose. "Except you, dear boy," she said with a sigh. "You are the very last person who should be eating goose! 'Twill only complicate your problem, you know, which is exactly what I told you. I made that nice venison stew for you, and you didn't touch it."
"Pay no heed to that, my lady," Sir Godfrey said, shoving his trencher aside and patting his flat stomach. "We ate it, and 'twas delicious!"
"Delicious," proclaimed Sir Eustace enthusiastically.
"Wonderful," boomed Sir Lionel.
"Superb," Stefan Westmoreland agreed heartily with a worried glance at his brother.
Only Arik kept silent, because Arik always kept silent.
The moment Lady Elinor left the table, however, Godfrey rounded on Arik in anger. "The least you could have done was taste it. She made it particularly for you."
Very slowly, Arik laid down the goose leg and turned his huge head to Godfrey, his blue eyes so cold that Jenny unknowingly drew in a long breath and held it, waiting for some sort of physical explosion.
"Pay him no heed, Lady Jennifer," Godfrey said, noticing her distress.
After supper, Royce left the hall and needlessly spent an hour talking with the sergeant-of-the-guard. When he returned, Jennifer was seated near the fire amidst his knights, her profile turned to him. The topic of discussion was evidently Gawin's obsession with his Lady Anne, and Royce breathed a sigh of relief when he noticed the slight smile touching Jennifer's lips. It was the first time she'd smiled in seven days. Rather than join the group and risk spoiling her mood, Royce leaned his shoulder against a stone arch, well out of her sight, and signaled to a serf to bring him a tankard of ale.
"Were I a knight," Gawin was explaining to her, leaning slightly forward, his youthful face taut with longing for his Lady Anne, "I would challenge Roderick to meet me in the village jousting matches!"
"Excellent," Sir Godfrey joked, "then Lady Anne could weep over your dead body, after Roderick finished with you."
"
Roderick is no stronger than I!" Gawin said fiercely.
"What jousting matches do you mean?" Jennifer asked, trying to distract him a little from the helpless antagonism he felt for Sir Roderick.
" 'Tis an annual affair held here in the valley each year after the crops are in. Knights come from far and wide—well, from as far as four or five days' journey, to participate in it.
"Oh, I see," she said, though she'd already heard much excited talk about the lists from the serfs. "And will all of you participate in them?"
"We will," Stefan Westmoreland answered, and then anticipating her unspoken question, he added quietly, "Royce will not. He thinks them pointless."
Jenny's pulse jumped at the mention of his name. Even now, after what he'd done, the sight of Royce's rough-hewn face made her heart cry out for him. Last night she'd laid awake till dawn, fighting the stupid urge to go to him and ask him to somehow ease the ache in her heart. How foolish to yearn to ask the very person who'd caused the pain to heal it, yet even at supper tonight, when his sleeve had touched her arm, she had wanted to turn into his arms and weep.
"Perhaps Lady Jennifer or Lady Elinor," Eustace said, pulling Jennifer out of her dismal reverie, "could suggest something less hazardous to your life as a way to win Lady Anne's heart—other than a joust with Roderick?" Raising his brows, he turned to Jennifer.
"Well, let me think for a minute first," Jenny replied, relieved to have something to concentrate on besides her brother's death and her husband's vicious betrayal. "Aunt Elinor, do you have any ideas?"
Aunt Elinor laid aside her embroidery, tipped her head to the side, and provided helpfully, "I know! In my day there was a custom of long standing that impressed me very much when I was a maiden."
"Really, ma'am?" Gawin said. "What would I do?"
"Well," she said, smiling with the memory. "You would ride up to the gate of Lady Anne's castle and shout to all within that she is the fairest maiden in all the land."
