Page 87 of A Knight’s Vengeance

Her legs trembled. She moved to the hearth. The fire’s heat, as warm as Geoffrey’s caresses, touched her skin, and she shivered. “I have come⁠—”

“—to ask a favor of me.”

Elizabeth started. She could not deny that was indeed her aim. “How did you know?”

“I guessed.” Wry humor warmed his voice. It gave her the courage to plunge ahead and say what she must.

“Milord, I ask that you… I want you to refuse my father’s challenge.”

Geoffrey laughed bitterly. “I am many things, but I am not a coward.”

“I did not mean you were.” She struggled to keep her tone calm. If she enraged him, she would achieve naught, and she must convince him to halt the battle. “The melee is a fight to the death, is it not?”

He nodded, hair snarling over his shoulder.

“My father is more than twice your age. He is not as strong, quick, or as skilled with a sword. He will die.” Her words ended on a whisper. “You accused me earlier of being a murderer. Are you so eager to be one?”

Geoffrey’s eyes darkened. He sipped his wine; then he rested his goblet on his thigh. “My father was an innocent man. Your sire is guilty of taking his life. To kill the guilty is justice, milady, not murder.”

“My father is guiltless! He followed orders from the king.”

“The melee will decide who is right.” Geoffrey’s mouth twisted into a mirthless smile. “’Twould please you, aye, to see my head on a pike?”

She pressed her arm across her stomach, sickened by the gruesome image and shocked by the anguish that swept through her when she thought of him dead. “Of course not.”

For the barest moment, surprise flickered in his gaze. Then his face hardened with scorn. “I will not decline your sire’s challenge. Naught you say or do will change my mind.”

Desperation clawed up inside her like a living creature. His words had sounded so bleak. Final. “Milord⁠—”

“I will not,” he growled.

She shook like a leaf buffeted by a gale, about to be tossed over a fathomless pit. Despair threatened to devour her. She braced her palm against the cold wall and sought strength from the solid stone and mortar. “You know the pain of losing a father,” she whispered. “You have lived with the agony of losing someone you love, respect, and admire. Do you wish the same misery for me?”

A muscle leapt in Geoffrey’s jaw.

“Promise me you will spare my father’s life.” She pleaded with the depths of her soul. “Please.”

Geoffrey raised the goblet to his lips and looked at the fire. “I cannot.”

Tears welled in her eyes. She should have realized he would never listen to reason or pleas. His anguish had festered for too many years.

Still, all was not lost. Not yet.

One way remained for her to save her sire.

One last chance to sway her enemy from vengeance.

She blinked away the tears. She would have no regrets.

Raising her chin, she met Geoffrey’s gaze. With slow, loose-hipped strides, she crossed to him.

Caution flared in his eyes. “Elizabeth?”

A sob jammed in her throat, yet she dropped to her knees before him. The bliaut pooled around her and snagged on the worn floorboards, but she did not care if it never pulled free. She bowed her head, and her tresses fell around her face like a black veil. “I beg of you. Spare my father.”

“’Tis not like you to beg, damsel.”

Her head jerked up. She fought an angry blush, struggled to find the will to say what she must. “If you spare him, I will lie with you.”