Page 34 of The Captive Knight
Chapter Ten
The knock on Jehan’s bedchamber door was quick and sharp, as was his reaction when the door swung open to his visitor.
“Aliénor.”
He paused unlacing his doublet. She responded to her name with a dip of her head, but his surprise only deepened. She’d long had the servants clean up the remnants of dinner, indicating to the lingering knights the meal was over and all but ordering them to find their pallets. Now moonlight poured through the arrow-slit window of his room, falling in hazy rays across the space between them, and the only ones likely awake in the whole of the castle were the two of them.
Suddenly his blood rushed in his ears.
“You said earlier,” she said hardly above a whisper, “we should talk.”
Indeed he had. But he’d imagined it would be the two of them at the trestle table, with all others out of earshot and a flagon of wine between them, with all the time in the world to put forth his case, his plans. But that intention had been thwarted when she’d spent the day striding around the place, ordering the dirty rushes to be swept, new ones laid down, an inventory of the provisions to be taken, the wounded to be tended to, and dinner served, all with a reassuring efficiency.
A rustling in the corner reminded him they weren’t the only ones awake. Esquival, a new squire who’d been assigned to him by the prince, shuffled up from his pallet to stare, mouth agape, at the woman who’d arrived.
“You,” he said, disliking the direction of the boy’s gaze. “Outside. Stay by the door.”
Aliénor waited until the door closed behind the boy before lifting a brow and saying, “Keeping him close,” she said, “in case I decide to murder you in the throes of my despair?”
Her tone was light, though her words weren’t. “I’d have kept him inside the room, mademoiselle, if I thought that was your plan.”
“You know very well I can’t overpower you, Sir Jehan.”
“A well-placed dagger can fell the largest of men.”
“I spent the day tending to wounds of such sort.” She passed her hand through the air. “Such bloody sport, I’m done with it.”
“Poison, then?” he prodded, hoping to fan the faint spark of playfulness. “Is that your weapon of choice?”
“Now there’s a thought.” She raised one brow higher. “Idohave access to the food.”
He ran his hand over his jaw with a mock frown. “Perhaps I should choose someone to taste my dinner from now on.”
“Whether you need to,” she said, “depends completely upon what you have to say to me tonight.”
“Then I’d best start with the most favorable news, shouldn’t I?”
She gifted him an inscrutable smile. Always level-headed, always practical, was Aliénor de Tournan. He tried to better read her expression in the flickering shadows of the candlelight, but since the English army had poured over the ramparts and turned them into enemies again, she’d been a stone-faced mystery.
Perhaps he could change that tonight.
“I won’t send you to a convent,” he said. “I promise you that.”
Surprise and relief flashed across her pale face. “Well,” she said on a rush of breath. “Another reprieve.”
“It’d be like winding a funeral shroud around a young colt.”
“And there you go, playing the troubadour again.”
“I need you to know,” he rushed on, “that I tried to stop all this.”
She raised a hand, shaking her head.
“The prince was waiting beyond the ridge, his men in formation.” He’d practiced these words a dozen times in his head. “Whether I had escaped or not, the prince intended to attack and nothing I would have done or said could have changed that.”
“Please, Sir Jehan—”
“It was all part of a larger plan. Burn Gascony from Seissan to Navarre to Carcassonne. When I showed up, the prince only became more determined—”
