Lady of Valor Read online

  “Please,” Lady Emmalyn hissed, stealing her hand from his as if his touch had burned her. “She would not have hurt me.”

  “Neither will I.”

  Cabal was unsure where the pledge came from, but looking into her innocent, upturned face, he was certain he had meant it. She swallowed hard, her gaze entwined with his in the long heartbeats of silence that followed his whispered promise. He saw doubt flash in her eyes. She took a quick breath as he moved closer to her. “I am not looking for a lover, Sir Cabal,” she said quietly, her voice tremulous. “I don't need your protection. Nor do I need you about all the time, forever unsettling and confusing me.”

  Cabal could not harness the pleased grin that tugged at his mouth. “Is that what I do, Emmalyn? Unsettle you? Confuse you?”

  “W-what I mean to say is that I am quite capable of looking after myself,” she stammered, then bent to retrieve the fallen dagger and apple before moving away from him several paces, putting the mare's big head between them.

  “I have no doubt on that score, my lady. But what if I were to tell you that you intrigue me somehow? That I am finding I simply like being in your company?”

  She blinked at him as if surprised, as if she thought he might have said it in jest. Then she scoffed. “I would daresay 'tis more to your liking to enjoy whatever lady you happen to find yourself in the company of, my lord.”

  “Indeed?” he said, puzzled by her retort and wondering what the devil he might have done to warrant such deep scorn.

  “If 'tis an easy conquest you seek, my lord, or merely a means of relieving your boredom during your stay here, I warrant you will find better luck elsewhere. No doubt you already have.”

  She had no sooner muttered the sarcastic remark when a gravelly voice invaded the stables. Humming a tuneless song, Thomas returned inside. The old man entered and hailed the two of them with a smile and a nod, but busied himself near the doorway as if understanding their conversation was not meant for his ears.

  Lady Emmalyn glanced at the stable master, then brushed at her dark woolen skirts with nervous hands. “If you will excuse me, Sir Cabal, I would have a word with Thomas about Minerva's delivery before going on to my daily duties.”

  “I would like to know what you meant just now, my lady.”

  She pivoted to leave. “'Tis of no consequence, I assure you.”

  Cabal took care to keep his voice low, but could not refrain from grasping her arm to delay her flight. “Emmalyn, if I have done something to upset you, I want to know.”

  Finally, and, he suspected, only because he was giving her little choice, she relented. “If 'tis such a great puzzle to you, then I suggest you ask Jane, my lord. You seem to enjoy her counsel.”

  With that, she left him, striding across the length of the stable to where Thomas stood. Cabal could only stare after her, bewildered. Jane, did she say? It took a moment before he was able to place the woman's name, so taken aback was he by the lady's brittle outburst. When he did place it, and then pieced together that Lady Emmalyn must have heard of the maid's visit to his chamber--or worse, witnessed it for herself--he started to chuckle low under his breath.

  God's bones, but she was jealous! And for no good cause, truth be told, though she did not seem interested in giving him the chance to explain what had happened last evening.

  Cabal had been eager only to stretch out his fatigued body and sleep when the soft rap had sounded on his chamber door. Against all reason, he had been hoping his late-night visitor might have been Lady Emmalyn. But, of course, it was not, and his hope had given way to disappointment when his eyes lit upon the lady's young maid, Jane, standing at the threshold. She wore a coy smile, and an unlaced bodice that showed off her ample cleavage and a wedge of supple white shoulder where the worn fabric slipped down her arm on one side. But more appealing to Cabal, as he recalled it now, had been the small tray of bread and cheese and the tankard of ale the red-tressed maid had brought him.

  “I thought ye might be hungry,” she had said, and without bothering to wait for an invitation, she had entered his chamber.

  Cabal had made short work of the food and drink, and was too tired to object when Jane climbed onto the bed behind him and busied herself with his shoulders, kneading his tension away with skilled, sure hands. He knew of Jane; he and the other Crusaders had heard often of her prowess and erotic appetites from Garrett, so it had come as no surprise to Cabal when she suggested he take her as his mistress while he was at Fallonmour.

  What had surprised him was his disinterest in the woman. At first he had found her lusty banter amusing, had even let her kiss him when she grasped his chin and descended on his mouth. But he had found that her lips were too willing; her slick, probing tongue roused no more than a primal flicker of desire, and the provocative words she murmured against his mouth were far too practiced to stir him to arousal. His body longed for the artless touch and cool regard of a stubborn, serious-minded young widow who would likely never have him. And so, Cabal had turned Jane out of his chamber with nary a pause for second thought.

  A hungered part of him, too long denied, had since been ruing that decision. That is, until this very moment. Now, seeing Lady Emmalyn's reaction to the thought of his having taken another woman to his bed, Cabal knew that try as she might to deny it, he affected her. Now her apparent disgust with him this morning had merit. Jealousy, he could understand. More than understand it, Cabal was duly flattered by the lady's scorn.

  Emmalyn shot him an incensed scowl as she quit the stable, and instead of aggravating him as it rightly should have, he found it buoyed his spirits like nothing else could.

  Chapter 11

  Pete was waiting in the practice yard, pacing to and fro, ready to begin the day's training when Cabal swaggered out of the stables a few moments later. Upon seeing his mentor's approach, the youth dashed forth and met him halfway. “Milord, what's troubling Lady Emmalyn? When I told her I was looking for you, she said, 'Can no one at this keep exist a single moment without that man?' Then she stormed past me, all red in the face and scowling.”

  “Did she, now?”

  “Aye, she did.” Pete stared up at him, likely confused by his apparent nonchalance. He leaned in closer, dropping his voice low, as if the friendly, man-to-man advice he was about to impart warranted a confidential delivery. “Best you beware, milord, and keep your distance from her for a time. She seems in a rare, awful mood this morn.”

  Cabal's grin widened. “Yes, she does, Pete. A rare, awful mood.” He clapped the youth on the shoulder. “So, are you ready to begin your exercises?”

  Together, the two men girded for practice, Cabal with his broadsword and Pete with the Saracen blade. Today, Pete donned Cabal's tunic of chain mail, giving him a measure of added protection should he take a blow. However, seeing the lad in action made the precaution seem almost unneeded, for his extensive training of the day before had made him a master of the parry and dodge. Pete's long limbs and raw agility served him well this morn; he danced nimbly out of Cabal's path each time he charged, and where he could not twist or duck away from danger, he stood his ground, deflecting every strike with the flat of strong Saracen steel.

  But for all his defensive aplomb, it was clear that Pete was loath to land a blow of his own, a reluctance that would bode ill for his chances, indeed, when he met with Taggart on the morrow.

  “Swing as if you mean to hit me,” Cabal ordered, concealing none of his frustration.

  “Milord, please! I cannot!”

  “And damn it, Pete, stop calling me milord. When you're in combat, you cannot afford to give a thought to your opponent's rank or who he may be off the field. In battle, 'tis but man against man,” Cabal advised him. “Come now, start the match anew.”

  A few more feeble bouts left Cabal thoroughly irritated and wishing he had simply taken Taggart and the entire garrison on himself, rather than trifling with this folly. The challenge was becoming little more than a tax on his patience.


  “God's blood, lad!” he cursed when Pete pulled his last thrust before connecting. He lowered his sword and walked forward to confer with his pupil. “Is there nothing that sets your soul on fire? Nothing you can think of that's worth fighting for?”

  Eyes downcast, Pete considered the dusty toe of his boot. “Fallonmour and Lady Emmalyn?” he ventured after a thoughtful moment. “I warrant both are well worth fighting for, milord.”

  Cabal shook his head. “'Tis not a trick question, Pete. I want to know what matters to you. You've got to feel it in your gut--something you would kill for.” Pete bit his lip in contemplation. “Have you never wanted something you couldn't have, lad?”

  “Aye,” the young man murmured, “I reckon so.” Meekly, he lifted his eyes and met Cabal's expectant gaze. “Lucinda.”

  “Lucinda? Ah, a woman, of course! The cause of countless wars and bloodshed.” Cabal might have made light of the cottar's infatuation, but it was clear from the florid color of Pete's cheeks that the young man was besotted with the maid. “Tell me about this Lucinda, then. Who is she?”

  “She's from the village, milord. Martin's daughter.”

  “Martin the reeve?”

  “Aye, the same. He'd kill me if he knew how I felt about Lucy, though it hardly matters. She doesn't even know I exist.”

  Cabal chuckled, suddenly lighting on a way to stoke Pete into action. “Well, I've not seen the girl, but more's the pity should she liken her father in any way. I reckon she can't be much to look at, your Lucinda.”

  Pete swiveled his head toward Cabal as if he had just blasphemed. “Lucy is beautiful, milord!”

  “So beautiful she won't give you a second glance, then, is that more the problem?”

  “Nay.” Pete sighed, wearing a forlorn pitiful scowl. “'Tis worse than that. She pines for another, a faithless cur from a neighboring village.”

  “Ah, unrequited love,” Cabal remarked idly. “How tragic.”

  By now Pete's eyes had grown intense and bright with feeling. “The tragedy is that she was left to bear and raise his child after the louse returned to his wife.”

  The lad's tender underbelly revealed, Cabal pressed on, edging the sharp blade of cynicism a bit deeper now. “You have designs on a peasant wench who's saddled with another man's bastard? Saints' balls, Pete! Even a sorry whelp like you could do better than that.”

  The youth's reply was schooled but all the more tight for its restraint. “You will pardon my saying so, milord, but you misjudge her. Lucinda is sweet and kind and mild.”

  “Oh, I don't doubt that one bit,” Cabal said, chuckling as he moved in for the kill. “In fact, Pete, I'd wager I could find at least a dozen other men who would attest to much the same thing when it comes to your Lucinda. She is sweet and kind and mild...and oh so willing to spread her creamy thi--”

  Without preamble, Pete raised his sword and struck to Cabal's left. The angry clank of steel on steel reverberated in the courtyard as Cabal deflected the blow a startling mere hair's breadth from serious contact. He lifted a brow at Pete in surprise, but the young man's eyes continued to blaze. “You misjudge her,” he repeated tersely.

  Ah, now they were getting somewhere, Cabal thought with satisfaction. He repositioned himself and delivered an offensive counterattack, grinning when Pete blocked it and came at him again. “She must be quite a prize, after all, Pete. Mayhap I should see about her myself. Perhaps you would oblige me in an introduction when we finish here? As you say, she is disinclined to notice you, but mayhap I could make her forget the cur who so grievously wronged her.”

  It was a jest, but the young man seemed lacking any humor when it came to the matter of his lovely Lucinda. He snarled and advanced on Cabal, striking hard and with a singular determination worthy of even the most seasoned tournament competitor. After several minutes of what Cabal assumed was mock--if ardent--combat, he called a stop to the practice.

  “This is what I was looking for,” he told Pete, giving his mop of hair a good-natured tousle. “This is the sort of focus you need to call upon in battle.”

  Pete looked at him, panting, and thoroughly confused. “Milord?”

  “You've got the heart of a knight after all. It just took some prodding to bring it out.”

  “I don't understand. You foxed me into fighting you, milord?”

  “Nay, Pete, you foxed yourself. Just like every warrior must learn to do each time he goes onto the field. Can you do that?”

  Pete shrugged. “I--I reckon so, milord.”

  While not the most confident of rejoinders, it would have to suffice, for at that very moment, Taggart and the other knights came out of the keep and caught sight of the suspended training. “What's this?” Taggart called with a chuckle as he strode toward them and placed himself between Pete and Cabal. “No piglets to spar with today?”

  His meaty fist came down on Pete's shoulder as if in well-meant greeting but it contained all the force of a smithy's iron hammer. The combined weight of the chain mail tunic and Pete's total unpreparedness for the blow sent him to the ground like a sack of grain dropped off the back of a cart. He lay in the dust, prone and coughing, sprawled at the big knight's feet. “Clean them off while you're down there...peasant.”

  Though Taggart's heavy Norman accent blurred the mouthful of English words, his implied malice rang unmistakably clear. Soundlessly, and with abject solicitude, Pete made to dab at the large boot with the edge of his sleeve.

  “Don't do it,” Cabal growled. “He's no better than you, Pete. Come up off the ground.”

  While Pete rose up, then slowly dragged himself to his knees, Taggart's anger refocused, centering on Cabal. “No better, did you say? No better?”

  As his voice climbed with outrage, castle folk abandoned their tasks, the crowd assembling in the bailey growing several rows deep. From the corner of his eye, Cabal saw the reeve push to the fore of the gathering, and then, at his side a moment later, were two women: a rotund matron of middle age and a slender, pretty young maid holding a swaddled infant. Without a doubt, this had to be Pete's beloved Lucinda, now present to witness his humiliation before the entire keep. Cabal swore softly under his breath.

  In the quiet moments that passed, Taggart's mood turned darkly belligerent. “Surely, Sir Cabal, you don't mean to say that this filthy, stinking, lowborn cottar, who wouldn't know his prick from a pick-spur, is in any way my equal.”

  Cabal clamped his jaw tight and bit back the reply so quickly coming to his tongue. It would be easy to level Taggart right there on the spot and be done with this risky match of peasant against knight. Cabal considered what this day might cost him--verily, what it might cost Pete--and cursed his want to take the big knight down a notch.

  Beside him, Pete dropped his chin, his downcast face doing nothing to hide his defeat. The rest of the onlookers--Martin, his wife, Lucinda, and dozens more--each wore morose expressions of concern. More than concern, their faces reflected their humiliation, for in degrading Pete for his lowly station in life, Taggart degraded them all. Even Cabal felt his gut twist with a coil of rage, a bone-deep reaction to oppression that he thought he had long ago learned to control.

  Taggart's ensuing bark of laughter called for full attention. “My equal, indeed! Why, there's not a body present this morn who'd agree that this peasant vermin is good enough even to wipe my noble arse.” His narrowed gaze panned the crowd, arrogantly inviting defiance. “Is there?”

  “No,” Cabal replied, countering the man's irate bellow with a calm that belied none of his own enmity. “And your point is well taken, Taggart. I misspoke myself when I compared the two of you. Pete is not your equal...”

  “Damn right he's not,” the knight interjected.

  “...he's your better.”

  The bailey echoed, first with a wave of stunned whispers as Cabal's challenge swept the crowd, then with an answering ebb of endless, foreboding silence. Pete's knees began to knock, but to his credit, he remained standing upright and spoke non
e of the fear that showed in his face. Cabal suspected the lad was entirely unaware that his hand had since curled around the hilt of the Saracen sword, a reflexive anticipation of pending conflict. Whether he knew it or not, this simple cottar did indeed have the heart of a warrior.

  For his part, Taggart seemed oblivious of Pete's substance, so distracted was he by his wounded pride. He glared at Cabal, turning three shades of purple while a muscle jerked in his jaw. His thick lips quivered with the incomplete forming of what surely would have been a string of vile threats and curses, if only he'd had the ability to rein in his futile, voice-robbing rage. That inability counted chief among Taggart's weaknesses; Cabal could only pray the behemoth suffered more than bloated pride alone.

  “Pete's a better man,” he said, deciding then and there to throw a bit more fat into the fire, “but what's more, I wager he's also a better fighter.”

  “We shall see about that on the morrow,” Taggart snarled.

  “Why don't we see about it now?”

  Taggart's was not the only head that swung around to stare disbelievingly at Cabal. Pete, the other knights, and Sir Miles as well, who had hence moved to the front of the retinue's ranks, all gaped slack-jawed upon hearing the challenge issued in such a public forum. The old captain shot Cabal a sober look of doubt, then shook his head slowly as if to caution against the idea.

  “Very well,” Taggart agreed. “Now it is.”

  With a cocksure chuckle, he turned away and drew his broadsword, making a great show of cleaving the air as the group of knights backed off, creating a circle in which the two men would spar. Pete grabbed at Cabal's sleeve, his voice a strangled, desperate whisper. “But, milord, I'm not ready!”

  “You're as ready as you would be come the morn. I see no reason to put this off any longer.”

  “But if I lose--”

  Cabal did not afford him the chance to finish the grim thought. “There is a lovely young lady standing at the front of the crowd who seems hopeful that you will not.”