He had defeated her, not beaten her cleanly, quickly, utterly. He’d let her keep her triumph.
“What say you?”
She said, so low that only he could hear her, “You showed me you are the more skilled, but you did it so charmingly, so nicely, I want to kill you because I don’t think I have your generosity. I also want to swing you up in my arms and yell with laughter. I think you are the most clever man I have ever met, other than my father, of course. That is what I say.”
“All that?”
“Yes, all that.”
“I am—very pleased to hear those words from you. I should like for you to swing me about.”
He stuck out his arms. She laughed, drew a deep breath, wrapped her arms around his waist and tried to lift him off his feet. She managed to pull him to his toes, but no more. And so she simply squeezed her arms as tightly as she could around his waist and hugged him. Jerval closed his eyes with the feel of her. His men were laughing. Any moment now there would be jests, probably very crude ones. He couldn’t allow that. It would ruin everything.
He quickly backed away from her. She was smiling, and there was a softness in her eyes that scorched him to his booted feet.
“I knew Sir Jerval would win,” John said, his child’s voice overloud. “She is only a female. She is weak.”
Lord Richard looked for a moment at his son’s upturned face. He had his mother’s pointed chin and his mother’s querulous voice. John was indeed spoiled, but not for much longer. Grantham was a man of moods, many of them black, but most important, he was strong and mean and fair. He would accept no petulance from John.
Lord Richard said to Crecy as he strode back toward the keep, “Jerval controls her well. Did you see her throw her arms around him? I have made the right decision.”
“He also pleases her, something I have never seen before. But still, my lord, she doesn’t see him as a suitor. She seems him as—” Crecy couldn’t find the right word and so Richard said, “Jerval told me she regards him as her playmate. But he wasn’t completely the playmate today. Progress, Crecy, progress.”
“Aye,” Crecy said. “Perhaps you are right, my lord. But still, I am worried.”
“If Jerval wants to wed her, then he will make her understand all of it. Don’t fret. He isn’t a fool. I just hope he can keep from—no, never mind that.”
“Ellis said that if any man could woo her and tame her, it was Jerval.”
“My girl doesn’t want taming. Now, Ellis is limping badly. I don’t believe he will ever again ride into battle.”
“Ah, Ellis is gnarly as an old oak tree. He will improve, my lord. He will improve.”
Richard was thinking that he would have Crecy write immediately to the king, asking his permission for the alliance between Croyland and Camberley. It would be ready for the messenger to take to London as soon as Jerval made his decision.
The following afternoon, Jerval rode silently beside Chandra away from the tiltyard toward the sea. Her face was streaked with sweat; her thick braid, plaited tightly about her head, was dulled with dirt.
In the tiltyard, her lance held firmly against her side, urging her beast of a destrier at full gallop, she had showed nearly his own skill when he had been her age. He had no particular wish to turn their every encounter into a competition, but it was she who wanted it, forced it on him, and in the most natural way imaginable. If only she’d been a man . . . but she wasn’t. I am still her good friend, he thought, her companion, and she looks up to me, admires me, never becomes angry when I best her, never pouts or sulks, merely laughs and smacks me on the arm. What in the name of God am I to do?
He wanted to talk to her, simply spend time sitting beside her, looking at her, mayhap even holding her hand, but really, just talking, learning what was in her mind, in her heart, not these continuous challenges and competitions, pitting them against each other. Like two brash young men bent upon impressing each other, he thought. Damnation.
He thought of his cousin, Julianna, how all she wanted to do was sit with him and talk and talk. It had made him restless, all those soft words of hers, made him desperate to do something, stride about, run with his father’s dogs, anything. But with Julianna, it was always just those sloe-eyed looks of hers and so much talk that he sometimes wanted to stuff one of his mother’s beautifully sewn bathing cloths into her lovely mouth. Julianna had learned to tease and flirt by practicing on him. He’d believed her an angel, perhaps a bit tedious, but that wasn’t important, and then he’d seen her turn red in the face and shriek like a fishmonger at a hapless serving maid, and strike the girl. Jerval had simply walked up to her, carried her away, still shrieking, under his arm, and dropped her at his mother’s feet. He’d never looked at her quite the same again.
He knew Julianna wanted him. He also knew that even if he’d wanted her, his father would never allow it. Marriage wasn’t about anything other than property. He smiled, a big pleased smile. Mayhap not always.
“Chandra, pull up.”
She reined Wicket in, the huge destrier nickering as he drew close to Pith.
“Am I as filthy as you are, Chandra?”
She looked at his powerful arms, still damp with sweat. His tunic was open, and the light hair on his chest was matted with dirt.
“Probably more because you are so large. There is more area for the filth to cover.”
He didn’t care if she was black with dirt. He still wanted to caress every inch of her, feel her with his fingers while he closed his eyes.
“You know that Father is holding a banquet tonight in your honor. Two of his vassals, Sir Andrew and Sir Malcolm, will attend.” But thankfully not Sir Stephen, Mary’s father. Mary believed she should confess to her father, but Chandra knew that would be a horrible mistake. She needed more time to persuade Mary not to tell anyone what had happened, particularly not her selfish and inflexible father. As if what had happened were Mary’s fault. Chandra sighed. Were men so rigid, so set in their thinking that they would not be able to see that it wasn’t Mary’s fault that she was no longer a virgin?