Page 116 of A Knight’s Vengeance

“Will he be all right?” Elizabeth asked.

“I do not know.” The matron moistened a linen cloth in cool water and wiped sweat from his face. “He is fighting, milady. But I do not know whether ’twill be enough.”

Buoyed by fresh hope, Elizabeth returned to the chair and resumed her needlework. Yet, when her father strode into the chamber a few moments later, without even a preliminary knock, her insides chilled. He had not set foot within the room since Geoffrey had been brought here. Her sire had not wished even that small measure of respect upon his avowed enemy.

Her father looked tired. Grim. Unsettled. A loathsome secret seemed to weigh on his conscience. He carried a crude wooden box marked on the lid by what appeared to be strokes from a dagger.

Where had he obtained such a container? She had not seen it before.

To her astonishment, Dominic entered behind her father. As he closed the door behind him, she set down the trapping and stood. Dominic dipped his head in a gracious nod before he strode to the bed, his face fraught with concern.

“Father?” Elizabeth drew his thoughtful gaze from Geoffrey’s sleeping form.

“A messenger arrived not long ago,” her sire said. “The Earl of Druentwode is dead.”

“Oh, Geoffrey.” She imagined his reaction when he awoke and heard of the earl’s passing. The news would cause him grief, mayhap even set back his recovery.

“Aye, Geoffrey.” Her father’s voice sounded odd. Strained.

When she looked at him, puzzled, he pressed the box into her hands. “What is this?” she asked.

“Open it and see.”

She set it on the end of the bed. The knife marks on the top were letters incised as though by a young boy’s hand.

G-e-o-f-f-r-e-y.

I left the merriment in the hall to fetch a wooden box I had made under the tutelage of the earl’s carpenter. I was proud of my work. I could not wait to show my father …

An awful tightness gripped Elizabeth’s throat. She raised the lid. When she saw the assortment of childhood treasures inside, her gaze blurred. Three feathers wrapped in a swatch of worn linen. A handful of pebbles. A sling shot. A small dagger, and a beautiful wooden carving of a hawk with its wings outstretched, the exact image of the hawk on the saddle trapping.

She pressed a shaking hand to her lips.

“The documents,” her father said, his tone rough.

There. Flattened against the side of the box. Blinking back tears, she unfurled one of the faded skins with her fingers. She noted the broken remains of a wax seal, the terse signature at the bottom, the lines of formal, scribed Latin.

An official document ratified by the crown.

“’Tis dated seventeen years ago,” she whispered.

Her sire nodded. “A formal pardon for Edouard de Lanceau.”

Her heartbeat suspended, then slammed against her ribs. “What?!”

“It seems he was no traitor to the crown.”

A sob tore from her. “Oh, God!”

With a gentle grip, her father steadied her shaking arm. “The other parchment is a letter written to Geoffrey and signed by the earl. He says he got the pardon from the king years ago, but was blackmailed into destroying it by another lord.”

“Blackmailed?” she repeated, horrified.

“Aye. As you see, the earl did not burn the document. Instead, he secreted it away until at last he was free to give it to Geoffrey.”

“When the earl died,” Elizabeth said with a sniffle, “and the blackmailer no longer had power over him.” She dried her cheeks with angry fingers. “Who would blackmail the Earl of Druentwode? Who would deny Geoffrey the truth about his sire?”

Her father shook his head. “I do not know. ’Tis unfortunate the earl did not name the lord.”