A Knight Most Wicked

“Perhaps my sense of fair play demands I do not allow another ambitious woman to bend the court to her whim.” Tristan was no longer the unknown bastard Elizabeth Fortier had once rejected. After seeing the way his former love had broken the spirits of a much older and far wealthier man following her courtship with Tristan, he had regretted his quiet complicity in her scheme.

He might not have denounced Elizabeth, but he had the power to unmask Arabella Rowan.

Arabella would be the king’s problem in England, but until they reached London, Tristan would be wise to keep a close watch on the reckless female with secrets in her past.

“You’d better be careful then, friend.” Simon grinned, one brow arched in lopsided mockery as he slid from his mount. “If our young enchantress truly is a powerful wise woman in disguise, you may be in for more than you bartered for.”

Tristan did not deny it.

Chapter Four

After days of riding in Princess Anne’s specially fashioned carriage, Arabella thought she would expire from the tedious polite conversation and the confinement of the padded velvet walls.

There were windows in the carriage at least, to provide an occasional breeze, but the view was disturbing.

Tristan often rode near the royal carriage, providing Arabella with too much opportunity to brood over the man.

He looked more at ease on the destrier than most men looked on their own two feet. His black hair was caught in a queue trailing carelessly over his mantle. Dressed in his customary austere black, he bore no decoration on his person, no trace of family emblems, heraldry or garters from the king. As if no ties of loyalty bound him to anyone or anything.

Why her eyes were drawn to him time and again, she could not fathom.

He was dangerous. Arabella knew it because her mother had assured her every man was. And from his crude discussion with his friend, she knew he was accustomed to taking advantage of women. The fact that they were usually widows did nothing to lessen her indignation.

Yet…he’d saved her.

The day at the bazaar had scared her witless. Like a madwoman, she’d fought her attacker with all her strength, the cold certainty that he intended her serious harm driving her to frenzied kicking and pushing.

Out of nowhere, Tristan appeared. In that moment, her heart nearly burst with relief. He seemed larger than life as he loomed over the brute who hurt her. Yes, Tristan Carlisle was dangerous, but all that power and strength had been on her side. She could not forget that feeling of absolute protection.

Unsure how to handle the strange mixture of feelings he inspired, Arabella had done her best to avoid him since they’d left Prague. Her eyes, however, had a will of their own.

Lost in thought as she stared at his broad back, she was caught off guard when he turned and met her gaze, as if he felt her watching.

Flustered, she studied her knotted hands in her lap. Still, he drew closer. Arabella could feel his presence. He reined in near Anne’s window, a few hand spans from her own.

“Excuse me, Your Highness. We are in Cologne now,” Tristan informed her. “It will take all day to reach the countess’s lands. Do you wish to ride straight through?”

“I want to be sleeping under Countess von Richt’s roof this night.” Anne smiled warmly. “Think you we will be there for a late supper?”

“We will make all haste so that it may be. I wish you good morning, Your Highness. Ladies.” Acknowledging the other women in the carriage by a quick bow of his head, he disappeared to rejoin the head of the party.

As Arabella tried to make sense of the feelings he roused within her simply by his presence, she decided she would make every effort to maintain her distance from him during their stay at the countess’s keep. No matter what the leap of her pulse meant when Tristan was near, she was certain it couldn’t be good.

“Let the entertainment commence,” Countess von Richt announced after an endless supper.

Finally.

The meal had dragged for Arabella, whose seat provided her with an unimpeded view of Tristan Carlisle with Rosalyn de Clair. The sight diminished her appetite even though she had promised herself not to be drawn in by the knight.

“Come, Arabella.” Mary pulled her along to the side of the room as the trestle tables were moved aside for dancing.

When the music began, Mary partnered with one of the countess’s sons for a dance and Arabella watched, enthralled, as the couples moved by in a graceful swirl of velvets and silks. The lady’s dress would swing away from her body with a swish, the man’s head would incline to hers for a private exchange, and the music would move the pair along the floor. It was so pretty.

“Would you like to join them?” a voice asked from behind, and she knew who would be there if she dared to turn around. Tristan’s question caressed her cheek. A shiver chased down her spine.

“No, thank you,” she whispered, unable to face him and yet unable to move away.

“Yet you seem to enjoy it.” The heat from his chest warmed her back even though they did not touch.

She swallowed hard.

“It is beautiful.” Her heart pounded so loudly he must hear it above the minstrels’ music. But was it fear exactly? Arabella had known the cold dread of fear after the bazaar attack. This was not it.

“Were you the kind of child to sneak from your bed and watch the entertainment in your family’s keep?”

His question confused her. “Oh no. My home is not so splendid as this. I have never seen dancing like this before.”

She did not count the times she had danced beneath the stars to the music of the heavens on warm summer nights. Seeing the way others danced brought home how simple her rudimentary steps seemed.

“You do not dance?”

“I do not know how.” One of the couples glided by her and she smiled, thinking that her grandmother had been right to send Arabella into the world, even though the experience had frightened her.

It frightened her still. Especially with a powerful warrior at her back and a mixture of confusing thoughts in her head.

“But you would like to learn.”

“Yes, but—” she began, until she recalled she could not always speak her mind anymore. “I mean, no. I’d like to someday, maybe…” Her words trailed off because her answer did not sound convincing, even to her own ears.

“I would be glad to teach you.” He turned her gently around to face him and her senses spun at his touch.

He looked different this evening. She had realized that earlier when he’d been sitting with Lady Rosalyn. But now that she viewed him close up, she could identify the subtleties of the difference. The dark cape circling his neck was held together with a silver brooch of intertwining serpents. The sapphire eyes of the strange beasts glittered.

The shirt he wore beneath the cape boasted a fine linen, the fabric snowy-white against his darker breeches, the stitches closely sewn. The clean scent of his clothes told her they’d been washed by the maids of Prague keep. She remembered the sweet herbs the washerwomen had used for their soaps.

Merciful heaven, how long had she observed him thus?

“No, thank you, sir.” She sounded cold when she had not meant to be. She owed him so much and she had not even thanked him. But sweet Jesu, he unsettled her.

Just then there was a break in the music and a general changing of partners. Rosalyn de Clair extracted herself from the arms of one of Countess von Richt’s many sons and attached herself to Tristan’s side.

“Tristan, you promised me a dance.” The woman touched his arm lightly with a trembling hand.

Arabella vowed she would never let her feelings for any man appear so obvious. Seizing her chance to escape the confusion Tristan wrought, she hurried from the hall. She did not look back as she found the main doors to the keep and fled down the stairs into the cold evening. It was late autumn, but the brisk night air helped clear her mind after the heady atmosphere in the hall. The nearness of the man and the beauty of the dancers had rendered her spellbound and starry-eyed.

Rosalyn de Clair’s arrival had been a welcome slap in the face. The raven-haired noblewoman in the scarlet-red dress reminded Arabella of the nightshade flower that was beautiful but poisonous.

Thinking of the nightshade reminded Arabella that she was alone out of doors, where she could peer around the grounds for some late autumn herbs. How she missed her forest. She had brought along a great variety of herbs from the Rowan lands, but it would be interesting to see what she could find in this part of the world. Mayhap something unusual she would not be able to identify.