Page 41 of A Knight’s Vengeance

Her eyelids grew heavy. Yet, when she closed her eyes, she saw de Lanceau looming over her. His gaze smoldered with the thrilling intensity she had witnessed before he had kissed her.

Her lips tingled.

Rolling onto her side, she pressed her face against the scratchy pillowcase.

The next time she attempted escape, she would succeed.

A sliver of moon gleamed like an ivory tusk in the night sky beyond the window when Geoffrey disentangled his limbs from Veronique’s and rose from the bed. She stirred, mumbled a few incoherent words, and then turned over with a rustle of bedding.

Standing in the shadows, he stared down at the satiny curve of her arm draped atop the coverlet. At last, she slept. He had not made love to her. While fury blazed in her eyes, he had explained he was more tired from the previous day’s ride than he had first thought.

“You speak false, milord?” she had asked, her voice tight.

“I do not.” Exhaustion ached in every bone and muscle in his body. Of that, he spoke true. After a silence, her anger had defused to grudging acceptance and she had allowed him to take her in his arms. He had coaxed her under the coverlet and had lain with her, his clothed body nestled behind hers.

He watched the steady rise and fall of her shoulder. Guilt tore through him as his lust stirred anew, the urge to drive hard and fast into her voluptuous body.

Would she deny him now, if he asked her to make love? He doubted so. After wringing a gasped apology from his lips, she would take him inside her with the eagerness he had come to enjoy, anticipate, and expect.

For the first time in years, that was not enough.

He muttered a soft oath into the darkness. The lady had addled his brain. She had interfered with his lovemaking, and now she influenced his judgment.

The moonlight’s pale glow revealed his boots lying beside the bed, and he bent to retrieve them. In all his years, he had never encountered a woman quite like Elizabeth Brackendale. Why did she intrigue him?

Elizabeth lacked the sophistication of a wench who knew the power of her own beauty, but she held a power over him just the same. Veronique used her fingers, tongue, and body to stir him to passion. Elizabeth had but to challenge him with the toss of her hair and barbed words, and his blood ignited like liquid fire.

Tension tightened his gut. Such comparisons were pointless. The lady was a temporary burden. No more.

Taking care to prevent the leather from creaking, Geoffrey pulled on his boots and then quit the solar, drawing the door closed behind him with a faint click. His footsteps echoed in the stairwell and when he stepped out into the torch lit bailey, he breathed in deep to clear his mind.

He would not lose sight of his purpose.

As he exhaled, his breath formed a white cloud. Change was in the air. The cool summer night foreshadowed winter’s chill.

The wind gusted and tangled his hair like an invisible hand as Geoffrey began to walk the bailey’s perimeter. A guard on the wall walk hailed him, and Geoffrey called out a gruff greeting.

He turned to retrace his steps across the uneven ground. A sound, the scrape of a boot heel, warned him he was not alone. Someone concealed in the dark shadows, where light from the flickering torches did not reach, watched him.

His disquiet shifted into warrior alertness. “Reveal yourself,” he ordered.

Dominic materialized, garbed in a brown wool cloak. His mouth eased into a sheepish smile. “Good evening, milord.”

Geoffrey massaged stiffness from his neck. He wondered how long Dominic had watched his pacing, and how much his clever friend had gleaned from it.

“I am surprised to find you here, milord. I thought you would be enjoying the warmth of your bed and fair Veronique.”

“I could not sleep.”

“Ah. Lady Elizabeth.”

“’Tis not so,” Geoffrey snapped.

Dominic winged an eyebrow. Geoffrey wished that by some miracle, the breeze would blow, snuff out the torches, cloak the bailey in darkness, and shield him from his friend’s scrutiny.

“May I point out that the lady came into our care yesterday morning? Since that time, you have acted like a demented boar.”

Geoffrey snorted. “Far better a boar than a weasel.”