Knights Divided

“And dragging you after me.” Jamie fingered the patch. If he hadn’t gotten angry, hadn’t issued that stupid challenge, neither of them would have been maimed. “You saved my life that day.”

Hugh looked away, a muscle in his jaw jumping. “If I’d been closer…if I hadn’t hesitated.”

“You saved my life,” Jamie repeated, conscious this was the first time they’d discussed the fateful attack that had changed their lives so drastically. “And I know you’ll do your best for Harte Court.” He smoothly changed the subject. “I understand you are to be congratulated on your future marriage.”

Hugh shrugged. “’Tis an advantageous match. Did Papa tell you she is Neville’s daughter, and her lands—”

“Bother her lands, do you love her?”

“Love?” Hugh blinked. “What has that to do with it?”

“Everything.”

“To you, mayhap,” Hugh said stiffly. “You’ve fallen in love with every girl you saw from the time you were ten and five.”

“Ten and three,” Jamie amended, chuckling. “’Twas the rope dancer at the London fair, and she taught me such wonders.”

“You’ve lusted after low women ever since.” Hugh’s lip curled. “’Twas your duty to wed well and breed up heirs.”

Jo was right, their brother was a sanctimonious prig. “You are my heir, Hugh, and I’m well pleased to keep things that way.” His throat tightened as he realized this might be the last time he saw his family. “Take care of things here,” he said hoarsely. “If Harte Court is threatened and you need me, send word to the Killigrews at Arwenack in Cornwall.” ‘Twas as much of his whereabouts as he dared give out. Only a few people knew where he was and, of those, even fewer knew what he was really about. “Tanner, my agent at the docks, can dispatch a ship.”

“Do you really think the French will come?”

“Tis the moment they’ve waited for. A chance to repay us for the humiliating defeats they suffered at the hands of King Edward and The Black Prince. So long as they believe we are weak and vulnerable, they will come.” And we may all die. ‘Twas his last chance to wipe clean the slate. Jamie turned to face his twin. “I want you to know that I tried to sign my inheritance over to you, but the estate is entailed to the eldest, and there was naught I could do. ’Tis not fair. You should have Harte Court,” Jamie muttered. “Jesu, you’ve worked hard to make it prosperous.”

“Life is not always fair,” Hugh muttered. “I will have a fine estate when I wed Willa.”

But it wouldn’t be Harte Court. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“’Tis all right.” Hugh cleared his throat, a sure sign he had something to say. Something he deemed unpleasant. “I…we were upset when we heard you’d been accused of murdering that woman. I abandoned work on the west walls and rode with Mama and Papa to London to support you, but we arrived to learn you’d been cleared and had returned to your ship.”

“Sir Thomas had naught against me save the maid’s word her mistress had been expecting a man that night. Lily never actually saw who did visit poor Celia, but it wasn’t me. I was aboard the Lady at the time, and my men bore out my story.”

“I should have known you would come out on top…you always do. Did you know her…Mistress Celia, I mean.”

Jamie nodded. “Aye, but not well.”

“She was very beautiful. The sort of woman you like.”

Celia had been vain, stupid and shallow, but Jamie wasn’t one to speak ill of a lady. Especially a dead one. “Aye.”

“I heard she loved you.”

“Who said that?”

A shadow passed over Hugh’s face, gone so briefly it might have been a trick of the light. “’Twas the talk at court.”

“Since when are you a courtier?”

“Even crippled second sons are welcomed at court.”

“I did not mean you weren’t welcome there. “Tis a surpris—

“Aye, I’m sure you are astounded anyone could enjoy spending time with me. Icicle, is that not what you and Jo call me?”

Jamie flinched. “I am sorry that my biting wit wounded you. Despite our differences, I think you are a good man, Hugh. A better man than I.” He deeply regretted the gulf between them caused by his youthful pranks and mockery.

Hugh looked even more ill at ease.

“Lord Jamie,” called a soft voice. The overblown blonde hurried along the path toward them. “Have you a moment?”

Jamie gazed down into naughty eyes and wished they moved him half as much as Emmeline’s sober ones had. Ah, well, a man could not have everything. “Sorry, I must be going.”

“Let me come with you.” She pressed against him.

“Impossible, I’m afraid,” Jamie said with no real regret.

Hugh cleared his throat and bowed stiffly. “If you’ll excuse me, I should be getting back to Mama’s party.”

“Hugh, please take Lady…”

“Chantal,” the blonde replied.

“Of course. Please take Lady Chantal back to the—”

“I want to go with you.” Chantal pouted prettily.

“She obviously prefers you.” Hugh sounded petulant, too.

Jamie had no time to humor either of them. “Well, we don’t always get what we want.” He bowed over Chantal’s white hand, gallantly lied about seeing her in London and hurried away. “Thanks for everything, Hugh”, he called over his shoulder.

The nape of his neck began to prickle as he reached the stable. The courtyard was deserted, Rob nowhere in sight. Jamie paused at the stable door, acutely aware he’d be silhouetted in the opening when he entered to retrieve Neptune. An inviting target if someone waited within.

His ears and eyes strained to pick out any hint of trouble lurking in the dimness. All was quiet save for the low, contented sounds of horses dozing or chewing. Reassured but still vigilant, he stepped within. The new straw crunched beneath his boots, and he cursed his father’s fastidiousness. Had the straw been old and wet, his movements would have been soundless.

Neptune was saddled and waiting in the first stall. Nerves taut, Jamie reached for the reins and prepared to swing into the saddle. Straw rustled to his left. Quick as lightning, Jamie dove to his right, drawing his sword in the same practiced move and raising it to counter an attack.

“Sweet Mary,” gasped a soft voice.

Jamie stared up the length of naked steel into Emmeline’s pale, shocked face. “Emma, what are you doing here?”

“Emmeline,” she replied. “Waiting for you.”

“For me?” he echoed.

She nodded, her eyes huge, her fingers pleating her skirts.

“Is Markham after you?” Jamie leapt up, wrapped an arm around her and scanned the darkened stables for her uncle.

“What? Nay.” She looked even more uneasy, and shudders rippled from her body into his, tearing at him.

“Easy, sweetling.” He drew her closer. “Tell me what troubles you, and I’ll deal with it.”

“I…oh, this is so difficult.” She looked up at him, her lips set in a grim line.

He had a sudden urge to kiss her and soften her mouth, bend her to his will. Not now, you randy wretch. “Tell me,” he coaxed.

“I will go with you.”

“With me?”

She nodded. Her slender throat worked as she swallowed, the gulp audible in the silent stables. “If…if you still want me.”

Want was a feeble word to describe the thrill that shot through him. Anticipation. Triumph. He hid both. ‘Twas not chivalrous to gloat. “Of course I do, but what changed your mind? You were so, er, vocal in rejecting me earlier.”

She looked away, then up at him, not through her lashes as a practiced flirt might, but openly, directly. “I am afraid.”

“Of Markham,” he guessed. At her nod, he sighed. “Well, at least I am accounted the lesser of two evils. You were supposed to smile at that,” he added when she didn’t.

“I have not had much to smile about lately, milord.”

“None of that formality if we are to be, er, traveling companions.” He wondered if she meant to share his bed, then dismissed the notion as unworthy of a white knight. “Have you a horse?” he asked.

She let go the breath she’d been holding, the sound even louder than her gulp had been…and more touching. “Aye, but I fear the poor old thing will not keep up with this fine beast.”

“I could take you up with me if you’d prefer.”

“Would you mind?”

“Mind cuddling you on my lap all the way to London? I should say not.” He waggled his brows in a mock leer that never failed to make the ladies giggle.

Emma, or Emmeline as she preferred, blinked like a solemn little owl, then nodded. “Let us be about it,” she said grimly.

Damn. She really did see him as the lesser of two evils. If matters had not changed between them by the time they reached London, he’d take her directly to her grandfather’s house. ‘Twas likely for the best anyway. Though she stirred him as no woman had in years, taking her to Cornwall with him would be lunacy.

As he swung up behind her and put his arm around Emma to grasp the reins, Jamie’s good intentions faltered. That voluminous gown of hers concealed a delightfully slender, supple body. The poker stiffness of her spine as she held herself away from him only heightened his interest. What would it take to get her to relax and lean against him?

The good-natured ribbing of George and the other guards at the front gate did not aid Jamie’s seduction. He deflected their jests gruffly and nudged Neptune into a ground-eating gallop that spirited them out of earshot as quickly as possible. “Sorry about that,” he murmured, slowing as they cleared the drawbridge.

“Why? Th-they were right in what they said. You are taking me with you so you…so we…” Her voice trailed off.

“Only if you want to, Emma.”

“Emmeline.” Her back was stiffer than ever. “Tis what you do with your women, is it not? Take them to some tavern or mayhap in their own homes and…and…”

“Only if they are willing.” A new idea intruded. “Emma…Emmeline, have you ever been with a man?”

“Of course I have. D-dozens of them.”

Liar. Sweet, prickly little liar. He was stricken by absurdly conflicting urges to ravish and protect her. He was glad the distance she’d put between them would keep her ignorant of the effect she was having on his wayward body, which had already decided what it would prefer to do.

They rode along the moon-washed road in a tense silence, their only contact the brush of his forearm against her waist as he held the reins. She was shivering, dammit. Hoping it was from the chilly night air, he pulled his cloak from the roll behind the saddle and draped it over her shoulder.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“You are cold. Since you refuse to share the heat of my body, I’m gallantly giving you my cloak.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Grudging words.

“What do you do in London?” he asked politely.

“Do?”

“You said you were not a member of the Wait. Are you your grandfather’s chatelaine? I recall his wife died years ago.”

“Oh. Aye, she did.”

“I am sorry. I didn’t mean to make you more unhappy by bringing up her death. Were you very close?”

“Nay. I—I was estranged from my grandparents until recently…because of my father, Cedric, Markham’s older brother.”

“Did he inherit leadership of the Wait, then?”

“Nay.” Short, curt and angry.

Jamie didn’t ask why. He knew full well elder sons sometimes did not follow in their father’s footsteps. “What does he do?”

“He lies and breaks hearts.”

Damn. He could feel her pain and longed to ease it, but she’d take naught from him, certainly not pity or comfort.

“Could we stop?” she asked suddenly.

Jamie started and looked around. They’d reached the tumble of rocks and trees that marked the base of the next ridge. “I cannot leave you here, Emmeline. If you want to go back—”

“Nay, I need to get down for a moment.” Her voice dropped to a miserable whisper. “I—I should have visited the garderobe before we left, but did not, and now I have to—”

“Certainly.” Jamie eyed the thick woods and giant boulders. A fine spot for an ambush. “But not here. Up on the ridge—”

“I need to get down now.”

Jamie sighed, dismounted and lifted her to the ground. She darted away into the brush. “Call if you need me.”

Almost immediately he heard a grunt and a thud.

“Emma?” He drew his sword and started forward. “What is it?”

“I—I fell…I think I’ve broken my ankle.”

“Don’t try to get up.” Sheathing his blade, he stepped into the woods. ‘Twas dark as the inside of a pocket “Where are you?”

“Here,” she called from his right.

He turned, tripped over something and pitched forward. As he brought up his hands to break his fall, something slammed into the back of his head. Pain exploded and black dots danced before his eyes. He fought it, fought to stay conscious, but the darkness sucked him down, down….

Chapter Three

Liord Giles, what a surprise to find you here.”

Giles turned away from trying to decide which of the guests he might use to spy on Jamie and started. “Oh, Lord Hugh, for a moment I thought ‘twas your brother.” “I do not see how. His patch is most distinctive.” Giles ground his teeth together. Cold, haughty bastard. Though they’d only met a few times at court, he disliked Hugh nearly as much as his twin. “Ah, you are the one with the lame leg, are you not?” he sneered, pleased to see Hugh flush. “I recall both afflictions were the result of the same incident.” Hugh’s gaze turned even frostier. “Why are you here?” So, he was as loath to discuss the event as Jamie. Interesting. Giles had heard they’d been set upon by brigands and nearly killed, but there was something else. Something in Hugh’s expression when he mentioned Jamie that made Giles’s heart leap. Anger. Jealousy. Did Hugh dislike his brother? If so, Hugh might prove useful. “I could say I was here to honor your mother,” Giles said, smiling now, “but the truth is, I came to spy on your brother.”

“What has he done now?” Hugh grumbled.

Fascinating. “The Earl of Oxford has appointed me—”

“I am well aware you are Robert de Vere’s hireling, so you needn’t wrap this up in fine linen. What has Jamie done now that will again stain our family name and wound our parents?”

“We think he and Lancaster’s son are involved in something.”

“Of course they are. Jamie fostered in Lancaster’s household. He and Henry of Bolingbroke are close as brothers.”

“What are they up to?”

“I am the last man Jamie would take into his confidence,” Hugh growled.

Better and better. “You two are not close, then?”

“Tis a fine jest that we are identical in looks, yet under the skin we are completely different. Except, of course, that we are both scarred…in our own way,” he added bitterly.

“Jamie and I never dealt well together. I did not enjoy being the brunt of his sharp tongue,” Giles said on a hunch.

Hugh snapped up the bait, his manner softening as he nodded. “I suffered the same fate till he went to Lancaster’s.”

“It cannot have been easy being Jamie’s brother.”

“You are a master of understatement. He was always first in everything, swordplay, wrestling, running, swimming and, of course, women.” A muscle worked in Hugh’s jaw, and his eyes burned with the fire of past grudges. “The victories came so easily to him, yet they meant naught. Even Harte Court, an estate any man would give his soul to possess…Jamie turned his back on it and went off adventuring.”

Giles smiled inwardly. He was the son of a simple knight, but he’d risen to the right hand of a powerful earl by exploiting others’ weaknesses. Each man had his price, and Hugh had just declared his. Harte Court. Now he saw how he might fan Hugh’s resentment into the fires of Jamie’s destruction. “You should have been the firstborn…not him.”

“Aye.” Hugh shifted his weight off his left leg and grimaced. “Jamie does not appreciate what he has.”

Giles looked around the crowded garden, then drew Hugh onto one of the shadowy paths. Lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, he said, “Oxford agrees with you. Your brother is not only unworthy of the high station he holds, he is a danger to England. We think…” Giles cast about for a suitably nefarious crime. “We think he is plotting against the crown.”

Hugh’s lips thinned. “I knew he’d go too far one day. It’s the Lancasters, is it not?”

Oh, this was too good to be true. “Has he said something?”

Hugh shook his head. “I told you he’d not confide in me.

“Quite so. Then what makes you mention Lancaster?”

“Jamie’s thick with them, and the duke has been vocal in his criticism of the king. If Lancaster decided he’d make a better king than Richard, Jamie would be certain to support him.”

Giles nearly wept with joy. Though he doubted Lancaster was plotting to usurp his nephew’s throne, he did agree with Oxford’s suspicions that the duke, Bolingbroke and Jamie were working secretly to thwart Oxford’s peace treaty with the French. ‘Twas Giles’s job to uncover their scheme before they ruined the agreement that would make Oxford the most powerful man in England…and fill Giles’s own pocket with gold.

Carefully he began to reel in the fish he’d unexpectedly netted. “We must have proof. Do you know where Jamie has gone?”

“Well…” Hugh looked uneasy. “He said he was patrolling the Cornish coast to keep watch for French ships.”

Cornwall. They’d not looked so far afield. He’d dispatch men there at once. “That area is ripe with smugglers.”

“Smuggling. I’d not thought of that,” Hugh murmured. “But ‘tis far more likely he’d be trading in stolen goods and evading the king’s tax collectors than that he’d actually try to overthrow the crown.”

Pity, Giles thought. The penalty for treason was much stiffer. “Well, I must return to London. If you hear anything you think the king should know, please contact me at once. His Majesty is lavish with his gifts to those who aid him. Who knows, you might be rewarded with an estate as fine as your brother’s.”

The grinding of Hugh’s teeth was audible. “I shall see what I can discover.”

I am certain you will.

Jamie awoke to shadows and a wretched pounding in his head. The rest of his body was so stiff and sore he wondered if he’d been beaten. Where was he? The last thing he remembered was tripping over a rope. Giles! Giles had captured him?

Terror drove out the pain. Had he talked? Then he remembered Emma, and an agonized moan clawed its way out of his chest.

“Ye’re awake,” said a coarse feminine voice. A cup pressed against his lips. But when he tried to lift his head, hot pain tore through it. “Easy, don’t try to move. Just open yer mouth.”

He obeyed, sighing as something cool slid down to ease the wool from his parched throat. Sweet wine laced with herbs. No dungeon fare this. Opening his eye, he focused on his nursemaid, an older woman in clean homespun. She offered him the cup again, and he drank, a dozen questions whirling dizzily in his mind. When she took the cup away, he asked the uppermost one. “Emma?”

“If ye’re meaning Mistress Emmeline, she’s sleeping.”

“Safe?” At her nod, he took heart. “Where am I? How long have I been here?”

“Two days.”

“Can’t stay.” Jamie tried to sit up. There was a loud clanking noise, and something caught at his wrists and ankles. That was nothing to the agony in his head. Fighting to stay conscious, he lay still. When the worst of the pain had passed, he rolled his good eye toward the maid. “Have I bedded down in the scullery with the pots and pans?” He smiled faintly.

“Nay…” She frowned.

The pounding in his head disoriented him. “Then where am I?”

“Tis not for me to say.”

“Is he giving you a hard time?” asked a familiar voice. Emma’s face appeared above him in the gloom.

“Emma.” The relief at seeing her was almost as dizzying as his headache. “How is your ankle?”

“Fine. Go up and break your fast, Molly. I’ll sit with him.”

Jamie smiled as he watched Emma primly tuck her skirts about her and take the stool Molly had vacated. “I fear I failed miserably at rescuing you and am now in your debt What happened? My limbs feel like they’re made of lead.”

“I expect that’s the chains,” she said flatly.

Chains? Teeth clenched against the pain, Jamie lifted his head just far enough to survey his body. His bare feet stuck out of the end of a coarse blanket, shackled at the ankles. “What the hell?” His wrists were chained, too. Belatedly his dazed brain fit the pieces together, the thin pallet on the floor, the meanness of the stone walls, the dank smell of earth and straw. “Giles Cadwell’s dungeon?” he croaked.

“My storeroom,” she countered. “You are my prisoner.”

“Yours, but why? Did Giles put you up to this?”

“No one employed me to imprison you. I have my own—”

“How much to release me. That is what this is about, is it not? Ransom,” he added when she still didn’t catch his meaning.

“Certainly not” She seemed affronted. “I want justice.”

“Because I tried to seduce you?”

“Not for myself, for my sister. Celia is…was my sister.”

Good God! “Impossible. You don’t look anything like—”

“I am aware I am no beauty, but she was my sister.”

“I didn’t kill her,” Jamie exclaimed.

“So you told Sir Thomas, but we do not believe that.” Her expression tightened. “He explained that his hands are tied—” her gaze flickered to his bound wrist, a half smile hinting at wry humor he’d have appreciated at another time “—by your alibi and your family’s prestige. I, however, am not so constrained.”

“What do you hope to gain by this insane—?”

“Your confession.”

“For something I didn’t do?”

Emmeline glared at him, disgust mingling with disbelief. “You had been my sister’s lover for several months—”

“Once! I took her to bed only once. And rued the episode almost the moment it was over.”

“So naturally when she told you she was pregnant, you—”

“Pregnant! That’s impossible.”

“You refused to marry her, and—”

“She never told me she was pregnant.”

“And when she persisted, mayhap even threatened to drag your precious family name into the mud, you killed her.”

“I did not!”

The door to the room flew open, hitting the wall with enough force to make the room tremble. A large, sturdy man strode in. “Do ye need help, mistress?”

“Nay. Toby, could you hear us upstairs in the shop?”

Shop? Jamie’s eyes widened. A shop meant people. If—

“Not a whisper,” Toby said.” This room’s hollowed out of solid stone. Ye could scream your lungs out down here, and no one would hear ye.” As he spoke, the big man grinned and fingered the knife in his belt. “Mistress Emmeline’s got some odd notion of wringing a confession from ye. Me, I’d as leave slit yer gullet for what ye did.”

“I did not kill Celia,” Jamie said, enunciating every word as though speaking to backward children. Or lunatics, which he very much feared they were. “I was only with her the once, and that five months ago,” he protested. “If she was carrying my child, she’d have contacted me.”

“Her maid claims you were a frequent visitor this summer.

“Impossible. Bring her here. Let her say so to my—”

“Lily is not available. But according to Sir Thomas, the neighbors saw a man of your description enter my sister’s house on several nights over the past months.”

“It was not me. There is another man, a knight with a grudge against me and your sister. Giles is tall and blond, like me, and he knew your sister.”

“Celia wrote and mentioned you…by name. She said she loved you. She hoped you’d wed her. My poor, trusting sister.”

Jamie groaned. None of this made any sense. It must be some diabolical scheme of Giles’s to get rid of him. “You have my word as a knight and a gentleman that I did not murder your sister. Please, release me. I must return to my ship.”