Choose the Sky: A Medieval Romance (Swordcross Knights Book 2) (13 page)

Luc exchanged a glance with Octavian, and Mina guessed they expected more resistance from her.

She recalled the real reason she came into the room. “What a demoralizing subject to speak on,” she said, trying to get back into the role of hostess. “I meant to thank you for the gift of venison. It is most impressive.”

“Little enough to pay for your hospitality,” Luc said.

“Well, Luc has paid,” Octavian added. “Both kills belong to him.”

“You aided, Tav.”

“So did the hounds,” Octavian countered, deadpan.

Luc grinned, sending a tremor down Mina’s body. She was acting foolish. Yes, he’d saved her…again, she thought, recalling the night in London. However, she shouldn’t feel giddy whenever she looked at him. He was just like any other man.

Well, handsomer than many, she admitted. His eyes she noticed the first night, being an unusual shade of blue she’d never seen before. His smile could shift from gentle to sardonic in a moment, showing more awareness of the mood of a room than she would have expected of a knight. But Luc seemed to live for much more than battle. He loved to hunt, he flirted incorrigibly, and he certainly knew his politics. No matter what he was doing, those blue eyes took in everything.

Including, apparently, Domina gaping at him like an idiot.

Her blush deepened. “I’ll…I’ll write something for the sheriff’s use. Please excuse me,” she muttered. Thankfully, no one followed her from the solar. In her chamber, she called for parchment and ink. A short while later, she had written all she felt comfortable saying. She sealed the letter by dripping wax onto the edge, then waiting for it to harden.

She presented it to Octavian, who was still with Luc in the solar.

“No special seal?” Luc asked, peeking at the letter. “Not a swan?”

“My father wears the only seal we have, so of course I cannot use it.”

“Of course,” Luc murmured, “because he’s not here.”

“He always calls it his cygnet ring,” she added, earning a half-smile from Luc when he heard the terrible pun.

“I’ll ride to the sheriff as soon as I can,” Octavian promised. “Only he will read this letter, my lady.”

“I thank you, Sir Octavian,” she said. “You’re doing far more than your due.”

“Whatever a lady asks, a knight is pleased to carry out,” Octavian said simply.

“In that case, I ask you to deliver this and return safely.”

He bowed. “Yes, my lady.”

* * * *

Later that same evening, Domina was sitting in a small parlour, going over some accounts. She should have done it during the day, instead of at night, but she didn’t want to neglect her work any longer.

At a knock, she looked up to see Luc in the doorway. “Did you need something, my lord?” she asked, striving to sound more polite than she felt. Would he always find her just as she thought she’d have a moment alone?

“I do.” He entered the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

Mina noted the action but said nothing. Perhaps he was only concerned about a draft. The winter air was biting, even inside the walls. This little room boasted a merrily burning fire, and the walls being hung with woven cloth helped keep the room even more snug.

“Please sit and warm yourself if you have need,” she said, indicating the seat opposite her.

He instead knelt in front of the fire itself, soaking in the heat of the flame as if he were a cat. The image of Luc as a panther suddenly came to her head. He was built as she imagined such a creature to be: narrow but strong, well-muscled, elegant and deadly, always ready to pounce. When he turned to face her, his eyes caught the gleam of fire, and the image was reinforced. She let out a tiny gasp, she was so caught by the notion.

He smiled then, a smile that belonged to a predator. “Am I stealing your fire, my lady?”

She shook her head mutely. The papers she’d been going through now rested in her lap. Luc reached out and plucked them away. “What task are you at now?”

“Reviewing household accounts, no more,” Mina said, recovering her normal demeanor. “Please give those back.”

But Luc didn’t, instead looking them over with an interested eye. “Tidily done,” he noted.

“I employ a skilled clerk,” she replied, putting acid in her tone. “Though such business is no business of yours.”

“I’m curious,” he admitted. “Everything about you and your life makes me curious.”

Those words, delivered in his soft, suggestive voice, made the room a little warmer.

“I can’t see why,” she said. “The everyday minutiae of country life can only be dull for a knight such as yourself.”

“You’re different, though,” he said. He returned the papers to her, sliding them back onto her lap. His hand lingered on her knee for a moment. “You don’t think like most people, do you?”

“What do you mean?” She intended those words to be clipped, dismissive. Why did she instead sound so interested in his answer?

Luc shifted so he knelt in front of her, not the fire. Seeing him gaze up at her was most disconcerting.

“You don’t simply think of everyday minutiae,” he said. “You think past the next season. You plan. You prepare. You develop ideas for how to react if the world changes.”

“Everyone does that.”

“They do not,” he said, flatly contradicting her. “They assume nothing will change, even when they should know better. You’re smarter than that. You see the world around you, and you know how fragile it all is. The alliances, the battles, who holds what. It can all change in a day.”

She’d never heard Luc speak quite like this before. “I suppose you’re right. I’d be a fool to ignore the possibilities that wait.”

“Exactly.” He put his hands on the bench, one on either side of her, and leaned forward. “You understand how important it is to be ready.”

“Ready for what?”

He seemed to notice how close he’d got to her, but he didn’t pull back. “Ready for an opportunity.”

“Such as?” She couldn’t take her eyes off him.

“What if you heard that fortune was falling away from the king?” Luc asked, his voice no louder than breath. “That the empress’s own star was rising, that everything was about to change?”

“I…haven’t heard that.” She could barely breathe with Luc so close, let alone think clearly.

“I could tell you things most people don’t know, things I’ve learned in my position, being so close to the king.” He lifted one hand and touched the edge of her jaw, running his finger down to her chin. The frisson set up a whole new heat in her body, centered in her belly and running down to her hips and legs.

“For some reason,” he said, “I feel compelled to share a few secrets with you.”

“You…” she began to say, though his fingers on her skin was so distracting she had to stop and try again. “You should not betray a confidence.”

“I’d be starting a new confidence. With you.”

“It’s not right.” His touch felt right, though. No one ever touched her like that. She didn’t want it to stop. “Please don’t tell me anything you should not.”

“We could both benefit,” he murmured. “I know what the king plans, and you control a castle that could be the start of a new stronghold in the west.”

She blinked, shaking off the pleasant haze his touch had put her into. “How can you say that?”

“What’s wrong with making plans?”

“It’s wrong when such plans lead to ruin.” She stood up abruptly, forcing Luc to step back and rise as well. “I will not hear a word more. You say Stephen trusts you. Perhaps his trust is misplaced.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“That’s exactly what you meant.” Domina raised her chin. “I want you to leave Trumwell. Tomorrow morning. With your retinue.”

“I’m not done here,” Luc objected, his voice still quite calm.

“Carrying out your orders for King Stephen? What else can you possibly discover? You’re aware of the castle’s strength, the numbers in the garrison, how well stocked the armory is. You don’t need to wait around for my father to know all that. Take your report back to Stephen, if that’s who you truly serve.”

Now Luc’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Be careful in your words, Domina.”

“Advice you should take for yourself, Luc of Braecon. I don’t like the words you’ve spoken. I had doubts about you before, but they are tenfold now.”

“If you don’t like my words, then at least trust your eyes.” Without warning, Luc lifted his shirt, revealing bare skin.

Luc’s bare torso was all hard muscle, from riding and fighting and training. But, his skin was marked with a long, wicked scar that ran for several inches, parallel to his waist. The new flesh was still pink, and the surface of the scar was raised, not like the rest of his skin.

“I earned this in a battle in which I fought for Stephen,” he said. “I got it in the morning, and watched the blood slowly seep out of me for hours until my friends could get me off the field. I didn’t have a bandage. Just my hand, so I stayed there, tying to hold my guts in while my company fought and died around me. Not glorious. Not pleasant. But I did it without question, and I would again. Because that’s what my oath means.”

Mina’s eyes were locked on the scar. “You could have died,” she whispered.

“A few hours more without aid, and I likely would have. I couldn’t sit up by the end. I was carried off the field on a plank.”

“How long did it take to recover?”

“Months. I was given leave, sent home to rest. But there’s not a lot of rest when you know that the world is spinning on without you. Then you want to serve, but can do nothing but lie there. As soon as I could walk again, I sent word to the king.”

“He  sent you here, though,” she said. “Far away from the battles.”

“There are battles everywhere, Domina. Not all of them are fought in the open.”

“Why are you here?” she asked, dragging her gaze from the scar to Luc’s deceptively calm face. “
Why
has he sent you here?”

Luc let the hem of his shirt drop, and she breathed a little sigh of relief. “My orders are my business, and I’m not leaving here until my business is done.”

Mina nodded absently, her mind in turmoil. She backed out of the room, not aware she was doing it and not sure where she was going.

Her instinct was to go to her father’s room, but of course she couldn’t dare do that now. Instead, she fled to the chapel, deserted now except for her. The space was cold, and only a pair of candles burned on the side altar. She walked to the light, then stood in front of the small iron-wrought cross, her mind full of Luc’s words.

She didn’t understand Luc at all. It was bad enough that he was here, disrupting her life and her peace of mind. It was far worse that she reacted to him so strongly. Every time she saw him, her heart raced more. Not just because she was nervous, needing to watch her words and her demeanor lest he suspect the truth. No, it was purely a reaction to him. The few times he’d touched her, she felt it like a burn. If he ever kissed her, she might catch fire.

When he’d driven off Haldan, she wondered for half a moment if her prayers had been answered in the form of a knightly protector. He certainly looked the part, and he seemed to say all the right things…until that disturbing conversation they’d just had. Did Mina misunderstand something? She reviewed the words in her head, striving to find a different meaning in them. Luc could not have seriously suggested treason, and yet no matter how she tried to change her mind, that was still how it sounded.

She had to get him away from Trumwell Castle as soon as possible, along with his whole retinue. If he was false, she couldn’t trust anyone with him, from the quiet Sir Octavian to the lowliest page.

She decided that she’d simply tell Luc that she’d write to the king himself of her suspicions. If he was loyal, then he’d argue his case. If he wasn’t, well, she was doing the king a good service. Regardless, Luc couldn’t stay here.

* * * *

After Domina fled from him, Luc remained in the room, thinking over what just happened. She certainly hadn’t liked the suggestion of supporting the empress in any way. Her reaction gratified Luc, even if it meant she looked at him as untrustworthy for the moment. He’d weather that storm. His loyalty wasn’t in question, not to those who mattered.

Luc picked up the papers Domina had left behind, scanning them. Household accounts, as she’d said. The amounts were rather small to his eye. Was a castle like Trumwell able to survive on such frugal spending? Perhaps not. He noted a few entries—the purchase of grain, the sale of some equipment a few weeks prior to that. They matched almost exactly. Did someone have to sell an asset to simply feed the castle’s residents? Luc remembered an offhand comment from one of the garrison’s men, who’d said that it had been a long time since the last real feast.

He knew little about stewarding a castle, but it seemed Trumwell wasn’t faring particularly well. That didn’t match with Drugo’s picture of Godfrey de Warewic spreading wealth around in the form of swan-marked coins. Godfrey would consider himself first. Any noble would, if only because a financially poor ally was, well, a politically poor ally.

Then again, Godfrey wasn’t directing life at Trumwell now—he was laying insensate in a corner building, while Domina pretended he was traveling. Luc frowned. The whole castle had to know the truth, and they all conspired to hide it from the guests. Everyone lied to Luc and Octavian. Everyone tried to keep them away from the building where Godfrey rested, to distract them in one way or another.

What was Domina’s game, then? Why would she conceal the truth, if she was indeed following whatever her father’s original intentions were? All she had to do was inform the king…

And there was the answer. If Domina told the king that her father could no longer defend Trumwell Castle, the property would be given to someone else—a knight or a lord whose favor the king wanted to keep. Domina and her family would be forced out, with no concern for where they might go. Domina might be married off to a man who needed a noble wife to boost his own standing.

Luc’s fingers itched as he thought of the marriage contract he possessed. The king never intended him to actually marry Domina, but he had it all the same. Luc could use the contract for a more noble cause, such as protecting Domina from the political ambitions of some lord’s son…