Lady Isobel's Champion. Carol Townend
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… what are you doing?’
His eyes—it must be something to do with the mean light—were almost black. ‘Kissing my betrothed,’ he murmured.
Something thumped on to the table.
‘Your wine,’ the potboy said. He had a distinct snigger in his voice. ‘Are you certain you won’t be wanting that bedchamber, sir?’
Isobel moaned with the shame of it and, even more shaming, found herself wrestling with the impulse to hide her face against Lucien’s chest.
The dark head shook. ‘No, thank you. We are … negotiating terms. Later perhaps.’
‘Negotiating terms?’ Isobel glared at him. ‘I hate you, I really hate you.’
‘No,’ came the soft answer. ‘Thankfully, I don’t think you do.’
He had done kissing her, it seemed. Strong hands were smoothing back hair that had escaped from her veil. He kept her tight against him—the arm encircling her waist felt proprietorial. And so it was, she supposed. I am his betrothed. His heiress. I am his latest trophy.
Lucien leaned against the wall of the inn, taking her with him, making her drape her arm about him. ‘There, isn’t it a relief to have got it out of the way?’
‘Got what out of the way?’ Isobel spoke sharply, hoping to conceal the most unsettling discovery. She liked being tucked against Lucien almost as much as she liked kissing him. It felt as though they belonged together. She was not feeling unalloyed pleasure though. She also felt anger—but whether she was more angry with herself or with him she could not say.
This man ignored me for years. I am nothing to him but a means to an end.
‘Our first kiss.’ Lightly, he touched her nose. ‘On the whole, it was quite enjoyable. Far better than I had hoped.’
She ground her teeth together. On the whole … ‘Lucien, I swear—’
‘Yes, yes, you hate me.’ Leaning towards her, he kissed her ear. Except that he wasn’t really kissing it, he was using the kiss to conceal the jerking of his head towards the next table. ‘Listen … can you hear?’
Isobel fought to ignore the rush of tingling evoked by his kiss and concentrated on the nearby table. Two heads, the shawled and the hooded, were close together.
‘Your man said to tell you that he will be at the next tournament,’ the woman said.
The thief wiped his nose with a ragged sleeve. ‘I take it you don’t mean the Twelfth Night joust in Troyes Castle?’
The woman laughed. It was a dry sound, like the rustling of leaves. ‘Don’t be a fool, that one will be bristling with Count Henry’s Guardians. I am speaking about the All Hallows Tourney at the Field of the Birds. I am told …’ the woman lowered her voice and Isobel barely caught the words ‘… your man has a buyer in mind. He will pay well for a relic that belonged to St Foye.’
‘Better than last time?’
‘Much better. He will meet you at the beginning of the tourney, at the vespers when the young knights run through their paces.’
‘Before the vespers?’
‘Yes.’
Firelight glinted in a shard of broken glass by the thief’s elbow. ‘Where? Where shall I meet him?’
‘He will find you.’ The woman gave a snort of laughter. ‘He ought to know you by now.’ Keeping her shawl firmly about her, she rose and scurried out.
Careful to keep her voice low, Isobel looked at Lucien. ‘Did you see her face?’ Where is the Field of the Birds? Isobel was bursting with other questions, but she bit her tongue on the rest, the hooded man was too close.
Lucien’s hand tightened its hold. ‘No. You?’
‘Not so much as a hair on her head.’ Isobel sighed and tried to put space between them. As she did so, she realised with horror that whilst she had been listening to the conversation on the next table, Lucien had taken possession of her other hand. Their fingers were entwined. How had she not noticed? Under the pretext of picking up her wine, she hastily disentangled herself.
She took a wary sip. The wine was earthy and faintly sour; it had an unpleasant undertone that defied identification. Ordinarily, Isobel wouldn’t dream of drinking it, but she was glad to have the excuse to edge out of Lucien’s arms. He discomposed her. He made her forget herself. Shooting him a glance, she caught his eyes on her, distant, watchful.
‘Must you look at me like that?’ she asked.
‘You are not as I expected.’
‘If you had troubled yourself to visit me at Conques, you would have come to know me.’
His face went hard. ‘It is not necessary to know a woman in order to marry her.’
Isobel stared. ‘You are blunt, my lord.’ Her fingers curled into her palms. ‘You want my lands.’
Lucien leaned in. His eyes were no longer dark as they had been when they had kissed, they gleamed with intent. Ruthless, he is utterly ruthless. Those eyes were the eyes of a man who never took his eyes from his target. ‘I admit your lands will be useful,’ he said quietly. ‘My lady, only a fool would turn down the chance of enlarging his estates. But I am not marrying you solely for your lands. I am marrying you to honour the oath I swore at our betrothal. My father was sorely disappointed at the delay. I did him wrong in the matter of our marriage and that wrong has sat heavy in my mind for years. The time has come to put it right.’
Isobel frowned. ‘Your father died some years ago. Why wait till now to honour your oath to wed me?’
It was as though Lucien had not heard her. That hard gaze shifted to the jug of wine, although she doubted that he saw it.
‘I need an heir.’
Isobel’s hand jerked. Wine slopped on to the table. An heir. He means a male heir, the one thing my mother could not give my father. The one thing Isobel was afraid she would not be able to give him. Lucien’s mouth, the mouth that had stirred such feelings in her, was set in a hard, uncompromising line. When Lucien put his mind to it, he would be relentless. What would happen to her if she failed him as her mother had failed her father? Two great fears twisted together in her mind: I may not be capable of giving him an heir. I may die in the attempt.
He reached for his wine, drank, and gave an eloquent shudder. ‘Mon Dieu, Isobel.’ He prised her cup out of her grasp and dragged her to her feet. ‘Don’t touch that pi—er, swill, else you’ll be joining your maid in the infirmary. We’re leaving.’
As they squeezed past the tables, the thief looked up. His lip curled and he reached for his dagger.
Isobel made a small sound of distress.
Shielding her with his body, Lucien urged her past the fire. ‘As I feared, he noticed you giving chase.’ He pushed a coin into the potboy’s waiting hands. ‘I shall escort you back to the Abbey.’
‘Thank you, my lord.’
Outside, Isobel heaved in a lungful of fresh air. Lucien took possession of her hand. He didn’t tuck it into his arm in the more formal manner; instead, he held it at his side, as though they were sweethearts. As he wove his fingers with hers, something knotted up inside her. It was very painful. Rather like longing for something one could never have. She was not this man’s sweetheart—he was marrying her to honour the arrangement his father had made. He wanted Turenne. He wanted an heir.
‘My lord?’ Blue eyes glanced her way, as they plunged into a side street. ‘Where is the Field of the Birds?’ The device on Lucien’s shield was a black raven, and the Counts of Aveyron had long been allies with the Counts of Champagne. It struck her that the tourney field must lie on Lucien’s land.