Page 65 of The Captive Knight
Chapter Eighteen
Thibaud held her so tightly he must have expected her to hurl herself bodily over the ramparts. The truth was she was incapable of movement. She’d gone numb right to the marrow of her bones, helpless to do anything but watch the tableau of the mud-trampled field below, where her brother held up a sword against her lover.
A silence fell over the gathered crowd, so heavy it suppressed the creaking of leather, the ring of mail, and the suck of horses’ hooves in the mud. Blood pounded in her ears and filled her head with pressure. This could be a mummer’s play, for all that she recognized the two men. Standing there with his arms flung wide, Jehan was the prince’s man, the bachelor warrior who’d risen to power by the strength of his sword arm, not the man who held her in his arms every night. And Laurent, her little brother, now bore no resemblance to the boy who used to curl up in a kitchen cupboard. The man in his place was a wiry, sly fighter whose feints and swift retaliations had already drawn blood from a larger, more experienced foe.
Don’t kill him.
Her brother stood like a stone, his sword raised.
I love him.
Jehan shifted his gaze to the ramparts and that’s how she knew she’d spoken aloud. A strange, regretful smile crossed his face. In his smile she remembered a thousand kisses, sweet words, warm caresses, the deep peace and satisfaction she felt in the circle of his embrace, the promise of their new life.
But as his smile faded, so did the certainty that the joy they might have had, all the life they might have shared, the family they could have made, now drained away like water sluicing out of a tipped water jug.
A curse cut through the silence, shattering the moment. The harsh words she heard fell from her brother’s mouth.
With an angry flip, Laurent tossed his sword away.
Then he fell to one knee in the mud.
***
“Release me, Thibaud.”
Her voice was calm as she watched Jehan lead her brother, whose hands were bound before him, into the castle.
Thibaud’s grip on her only tightened. “Not now, woman.”
“The fight is over.”
“Swords are sheathed, but the battle is not settled.”
“I will have a say in how it’s done.”
“This is not woman’s work.”
“Iam the woman they fought over,” she retorted, as a painful tingling began in her fingers. “Who else is to settle this but me?”
Thibaud’s sigh held all the weariness of the world, and when he finally reached the end of it, he let her loose.
Rubbing her upper arms, she strode across the ramparts and stepped into the darkness of the stairs until she reached the bottom. The courtyard already milled with horses, men-at-arms, pike men, and knights. She wove through the crowd until she spotted Jehan dismounting from his horse. Her stomach dropped at the sight of the blood staining his hose and the surcoat below his arm.
She must have made some noise, for he turned and looked directly at her.
She knew every fleck of silver in the depths of those blue eyes. She knew every nick of scar on his skin. She knew the pattern in which black and rust-brown stubble grew upon his jaw, and how his cheeks rounded when he smiled.
But she hardly recognized this man staring at her. The grim, shuttered face he turned upon her may as well have been a stranger.
“That needs tending,” she said, gesturing to his leg. “Come inside, I’ll see to it—”
“See to your brother first.”
The order was like a slap of cold wind. “Your wounds are deeper.”
“They look worse than they are. Another woman can tend them.”
An argument rose to her lips and would have spilled out if it weren’t for the attention they were receiving from the servants and men-at-arms. This conversation, she thought, would be best had in private.
