A Knight Most Wicked

How awkward.

“I am so sorry, Your Highness, really I—”

“Lady Mary has been searching for you. I will bring you to her.”

Arabella sucked in a breath, her mind hunting feverishly for a reason to excuse herself. But before she could protest, Princess Anne was escorting her toward Mary and the strange knight, leading her to certain condemnation once he realized who she was and where he had seen her.

“Arabella,” Mary called, drawing her friend in between herself and the knight from the magic circle. “I am sorry I lost you.”

The princess greeted Tristan warmly, apparently well acquainted with him, though Arabella could not hear their words over Mary’s chatter.

“If it pleases you, my lady.” A man handed Mary a fresh cup of wine. The other man from the study.

Arabella wanted to shout a warning to her warmhearted friend to keep her distance from the handsome foreigner with ice-blue eyes.

“Thank you, sir.” Mary smiled at the knight. “Lady Arabella, may I introduce Sir Simon Percival?”

Aside from disliking the golden-haired Percival instantly, Arabella also struggled with her tongue in her first exchange with a man at court.

“How do you do, sir?” She sounded as stiff and formal as in her first days of learning English at Zaharia’s knee.

The crafty knight barely heard her, however, in his rapt attention to Mary.

“Arabella,” the princess’s voice interrupted her thoughts. In her anger over Percival’s proximity to Mary, Arabella had almost forgotten her other cause for fear.

She was now face-to-face with the dark-haired knight. Yet as close to him as she had been that day in the forest, his eyes held no light of recognition. Saints be praised.

“This is Sir Tristan Carlisle.” Princess Anne spoke in English. “He is the knight King Richard has sent to escort us all to England. He is to be our protector.”

“Our protector?” She hoped her disbelief did not find its way into her voice. Blood pounded in her ears as her hands clenched into tiny fists.

“At your service, my lady.” Tristan Carlisle bowed before her, then, sweet Jesu, picked up her hand and kissed the back of it.

Gray eyes held her captive. For a moment, she felt a strange awareness of him, just as she had on that day in the ring of trees. His perusal intensified, and his hand lingered over hers.

“It is a long journey to your homeland. Think you we shall be safe, sir?” Snatching her fingers back, Arabella prayed Hilda’s magic had rendered her unrecognizable.

“I have pledged myself to the cause, lady.”

“Surely you have heard of the recent disappearances of Bohemian noblewomen.” She had not heard of them herself until those hidden moments in the study.

Arabella noticed even the princess looked interested in his response.

“I have heard, and will seek answers for myself before we depart. Yet there is no reason to believe the problem will follow us.”

She knew very well that was not the true nature of his thoughts, since he’d made a very different answer to his friend. Another lesson to be learned about men. They did not necessarily speak the truth.

“I am sure your king sent you because you are quite capable of ensuring our safety.”

“I can only hope that is the reason,” he replied, his voice oddly fierce before he turned to Anne. “Your Highness, I must beg your leave. I would see to some preparations before the reception winds down. I have supped earlier with my men.”

She made a small inclination of her head to convey her approval and Tristan bowed before her, then turned to Arabella.

“By your leave, my lady.”

Arabella felt the heat rise in her cheeks as he stared at her, an emotion she could not guess simmering in his eyes.

“Sir Tristan.” Her voice sounded small to her ears. Lingering a moment, he looked as if he would speak further, but just when Arabella’s fear peaked, he turned abruptly and strode out of sight.

“Does he frighten you, Lady Arabella?” the princess asked, startling Arabella with her bluntness.

“Nay,” Arabella answered, then, seeing the princess’s obvious disbelief, she confessed a small portion of the truth. “Mayhap a little. Sir Tristan is certainly one of the most intimidating-looking men in the room tonight.”

The princess smiled and winked at Mary. “Granted. But I have noticed many of my young ladies-in-waiting are not in agreement.”

“Your Highness?”

“Rosalyn de Clair—” the princess gestured toward a delicate, dark-haired noblewoman a few tables away “—could hardly keep her eyes off him.”

All the better for Arabella, although it would not be fair of her to allow an unsuspecting noblewoman to be deceptively courted by an errant knave. Perhaps she should speak to Lady Rosalyn discreetly.

“Mary,” the princess continued, “I have heard Arabella has not been to Prague before. I wish you would take an escort tomorrow and show her around. I would not want her to see London before she sees her own Prague.”

Surprised and delighted, Arabella promised herself she would not let thoughts of Tristan Carlisle spoil such an opportunity.

“I would be thrilled.”

“As would I, Your Highness,” Mary added, curtsying in the easy manner of a woman who had grown up around a court full of protocol.

“You must be back early, however, so you will not be tired for our long journey.”

Leaving Mary and Arabella to plot their day, Princess Anne moved away to speak with her other guests. And while Arabella was pleased to have escaped Tristan Carlisle’s notice this time, she wondered how long it would be before the knight remembered their meeting. Would he compromise her position at court with tales of her uncivilized behavior?

Or did the heated awareness the English warrior incited within her pose an even darker threat?

Across the great hall, Rosalyn de Clair stamped her foot in frustration under the concealing skirts of her richly jeweled surcoat. She watched as Mary Natansia walked off with Arabella Rowan. Rosalyn had been trying to catch Mary’s ear so she might gain the simpering twit for an ally at court, but the Rowan witch engaged her in conversation and remained steadfastly at Mary’s side.

Rosalyn hoped to appeal to Lady Mary’s heralded sympathetic nature with a clever mistruth she had been working on. Everyone knew the emperor doted on his precious ward. Rosalyn just had to make the most of it, and she was sure she could. Hadn’t her lover once told her she was the most cunning woman he had ever met? Having clawed her way from her status as a bastard castoff to an enviable position among the nobility, Rosalyn considered those words a compliment.

She turned to find other company for the evening meal. Mary could be cornered another time. There would be plenty of opportunities on the way to England. In fact, maybe she should use the extra time to find an English nobleman to woo prettily, rather than the Bohemian gentleman she had tentatively marked. Everyone knew no one in Bohemia had money these days. Even King Wenceslas had stooped to sending his sister to England without a dowry. It was a disgrace.

Yes, an English lord would be all the more beneficial. Rosalyn’s smiles were restored at this new development of her plan. And, as fate would have it, she had just spied the most delicious Englishman she could have ever dreamed of.

Chapter Three

A bazaar took place once each fortnight on the Vltava River in Prague. Everywhere Arabella looked as their carriage rolled past the marketplace, she saw vibrant colors and lively people. Hundreds thronged the merchants’ stands to haggle over vegetables, spices, cloth, animals and tools. Gypsy wagons provided entertainments of all kinds, from dancing to fortune telling.

Astonished by the sights, Arabella thrilled to each new discovery. She was as impressed by the Gypsy street entertainers as she was by the Venetian mosaic of the Last Judgment on St. Vitus’s cathedral wall. At the moment, the bazaar caught Arabella’s eye and she wanted desperately to take a closer look.