Page 35 of The Captive Knight
“Stop.” Her pale palm gleamed by the light of the moon. “Not so long ago, in an effort to have a polite and honest conversation, you and I endeavored to avoid certain subjects.”
He grunted an assent. “Your father.”
“And Castétis.”
“I remember.”
He had flirted with her in the sunlight, and at the end she’d looked at him for a long time, dewy-lipped, heavy-lidded.
She said, “Let’s add your liege lord to the list.”
“Consider it done.” At this agreement, his blood surged. He curled his hands into fists to try to divert its direction.
“So,” she said softly, “now we are free to speak of other things.”
She placed the candle on the seat of a three-legged stool, then straightened up and grasped her hands together, tilting her face in expectancy.
Under the perusal of those lovely eyes, he found himself adrift. He knew he was not in her good graces yet, no matter how attentively she now looked upon him. He’d been determined to speak his case, to help her grapple with the new reality that had left her without position or dower or property except what lay in the bride’s chest in her room. Certainly, he had more to tell her. A hundred thousand things. But right now he could think of nothing but how vulnerable she looked, standing in his bedchamber bathed in moonlight.
“Sir Jehan,” she said, seizing the tippet of her sleeve and weaving the tapering fur between her fingers, “is there nothing more you wish to say to me?”
“I have too much to say.”
And no right to speak.
“Then perhaps you’ll allow me to make a request.”
“Anything.”
Her cheeks rounded under the pressure of a suppressed smile. “You would do better to hear what it is first.”
He didn’t care what it was, so long as it kept her smiling for a little longer.
“Before I ask,” she said, “there’s something I must know. Are you now the Viscount of Tournan?”
He raised a brow. “Is this not on the list of forbidden subjects?”
“Not precisely.”
He frowned, considering his words. “Your father lives, so he holds the title still. The prince may someday decree it belongs to me because we hold possession of the castle and the lands. But the truth is the title will be in dispute until this conflict between the kings is settled.”
“It’s complicated, then.”
“As all things in war.”
“Then I ask you this: Are you a good man?”
For the life of him, he could not follow the twists and turns of her thinking. “I’m better than some,” he said, fragments of his life as a sell-sword flashing through his mind. “Worse than others. A man is hardly a fair judge of his own character.”
“Would you treat a man well although you may think he’s a threat to you?”
“A man?”
“Yes.”
A dark thought slithered through his mind. “Is there a man in this castle who threatens me?”
“He doesn’t,” she said. “But you may perceive him to.”
