Once He Loves (Medieval 3)

Satisfaction permeated his voice, and something more, something that oozed through his words, chilling Briar’s blood. Like evil.

Briar’s heart gave that hard thump, more urgently this time. She tried to remember who she was, to restore her courage. Lady Briar, daughter of Lord Richard Kenton. Aye, she was quite capable of dealing with a mere knight. And her feelings might be a little confused right now, but she would not let them overwhelm her. She was here on a matter of importance to Ivo, and the sooner she found out what she needed to, the sooner she could leave.

?

??You said you had something to tell me about my stepmother, Sir Miles,” she reminded him, as calmly as she was able. “And about Ivo.”

He walked forward, and he was not smiling. His gray eyes were as cold as the Ouse in winter. As he drew closer, his face no longer seemed handsome, but instead had the lean, unpleasant look of a weasel or a stoat. A killing animal, an animal without pity. Why had she ever thought him charming?

Briar shivered. It was very cold in here. Her breath puffed white and her toes were going numb.

“Sir Miles? Lady Anna?” she reminded him.

“What can I tell you about Lady Anna? She was a wellborn whore.”

Briar heard her own gasp. “I—that is brutal, Sir Miles,” she managed, but her face betrayed her.

He smiled then, enjoying her fear. “I prefer brutal, Lady Briar. You asked me to tell you, and I have. She lay with my master Fitzmorton, but then her eye turned to me, and so she lay with me, too. She was beautiful, but even beauty loses something when you are made aware so many men have used it before you. Don’t you think?”

“I am not schooled in such matters.”

Her voice was frigid, but it took all of her willpower not to stumble backward, away from him. Briar sensed that if she ran he would give chase, and enjoy the hunt, so she stood still and brave before him.

“Did you…” Her throat had gone dry, and she cleared it. “Did you kill her, Sir Miles?”

The look he gave her was astonished. “Why would I? Put myself at risk for such as she? Nay, lady, I did not kill her. She was not worth the effort.”

Briar felt the nausea in her belly, threatening to sap her strength. Not now! Please, sweet babe, not now! She must not be weak. She must talk her way out of this place, then escape and run. Run all the way home, if necessary. Dear God, she thought, let Ivo forgive me. What have I done, what have I done…

“Ivo wants you.” He said it like an accusation.

“Nay,” Briar laughed brightly, as if he had made a nonsense joke. “He does not want me, Sir Miles. I am a diversion to him, that is all. The traitor’s daughter who sings songs. He thinks me an oddity.”

He didn’t believe her. She saw it in his wolfish smile. And she knew, in that single moment, what her heart had been trying to tell her all along. He would hurt her, but not because he had any grudge against her. He would hurt her because by doing so he could make Ivo suffer.

“You were riding with him the night I tried to frighten him,” he went on accusingly. “He knew it was me. I saw the fear in his eyes.”

Briar remembered the night in question well, the journey from Lord Shelborne’s house, but she had not realized until now that it was Miles who came out of the darkness, screaming like a devil.

“Ivo is afraid of nothing,” she said with complete certainty.

Miles’s pale eyes narrowed. “Ivo was always the brother that people preferred,” he said, and it was a statement. “That people loved. Do you love him, lady?”

Aye, I do love him.

Briar shook her head, her eyes on him. She dared not look away, in case he sprang.

“I think you are lying,” he said, and shook his finger at her as if she were a wayward child. “I think you do love my brother. I am going to enjoy this. I wondered whether or not I should finish you in the alcove last night—I had a dagger, nice and sharp—but then I decided I needed more time. There are so many things we can do together, lady. Oh yes, I am going to enjoy imagining Ivo’s face—when he finds what is left of you…”

The bird flew up.

It must have been nesting in part of the wall and their voices had disturbed it. It was the only chance she had, and Briar used it. She turned and ran for the door. It seemed leagues away. A patch of brightness in the shadows. She heard him behind her. His fingers tugged briefly on the back of her cloak, and then he was cursing foully as he stumbled on loose stone. Next thing she was out in the light, gasping as if she had run the entire length of York.

The man stepped in front of her so suddenly she cannoned into him.

Briar screamed, backing away, her feet stumbling on the uneven road. He caught her in his arms, and something in his touch, his warmth, his scent, spelled safety. Wildly, she looked up into his face. Savage dark eyes, hair growing back some of its riotous curl, and a grim, white face.

It was Ivo.