The Conqueror

e were five.” She sounded like an idiot, and couldn’t stop. Why was she going on in this childish way, as if Jerv were something to be fought over?

“Ahh.”

“And he’s loved such things, castles and architecture, since he was twelve.”

“Seven.”

This hauled her up short. “What?”

“Since he was seven.”

“Seven?”

A nod of the dark head, then more silence. She downed a rather large quaff of wine. This would make what…three cups? Mayhap four. Who cared. She was absolutely aghast at this piece of information. Since he was seven? It had taken her years of knowing Jerv to discover this hidden love, and Pagan had extracted it in what…ten minutes?

“He told me of it when we were twelve,” she muttered, more to herself than him.

“Ahh.”

They were quiet a moment while the full impact of his smooth, wordless reply hit her. She turned with narrowed eyes. “You think you are so clever.”

“I do?”

A wary, slightly drunken tilt of her head greeted this. He was a menace. Pure, unadulterated evil. And he was stealing her men. “You do not know so verily much.”

“Nothing at all,” he agreed, then stepped around her chair to take his seat beside her. She swiveled her rump in the chair to examine him better. Thief.

She hiccoughed. Their eyes met, and she hiccupped again. A slow smile drifted over his face, and his eyes did a downward spiral across her gown. A flutter of heat quickened inside her groin, and she set the rim of the cup to her teeth to stop herself from—’twas awful—smiling back.

“De l’Ami,” he said, rolling her name over his tongue as if he were tasting it. A small shiver raced down her spine. “A friend. ’Tis an odd name for your father.”

“King Stephen gave him the name,” she retorted, swallowing another huge draught of wine.

“Stephen did not give him the name.” He reached over, took the cup from her hand and placed it on the table. “My father did. In Palestine.”

The wash of chills curled up her backbone. “But, no,” she protested weakly. Was everything she’d once thought settled to be churned up by this man? “I was under the impression…my lord king gave him the name. King Stephen found Papa to be loyal and constant.”

The smile Pagan sent down was slow and terrifying. “Henri did not.”

He lifted his hand and in a heartbeat two servants stood at his side. A low conference ensued. Gwyn’s only participation in it was as the recipient of a number of significant looks. When the servants retreated, she glared at him.

“They come quicker to you than they have to me in ten years,” she admitted grudgingly.

He shrugged.

“Mayhap I ought to have been sterner,” she reflected.

“You think I have been stern with your kitchen staff?”

“God’s truth, Pagan, you’ve scared them witless.”

He looked at the screens separating the corridor to the kitchens from the great hall. “They do not appear witless to me. They seem obedient.”

“Quite. That is my point. I should have used more of your tactics,” she mused. He looked at her. “You know, unsheathe a sword about supper time and bellow ‘This is my castle!’”

And bellow she did. The hall ground to a halt. It was nothing compared to the silence before. This was a full-on, drop-dead stoppage of all breath and movement throughout the cavernous hall. Every stricken eye flashed to the dais. The music faltered.

“Careful, Gwyn,” he murmured by her ear.