The Conquest (Peregrine 2)

"Colbrand?"

"Nay, it is your enemy, that Peregrine."

"Severn?" Tearle asked as he unbuckled his belt and began to remove his tunic.

"What do you do?"

"A horse stepped on me, and I would have you look at the wound. What has Severn done?"

Anne began to help her friend undress. "Do you know he plans to marry me? To him there is no question. Today at dinner my father seated him next to me, and this Peregrine told me he had journeyed here for the express purpose of marrying me. He seemed to consider this a great honor for me—as does my father, now that he has seen this man on the field."

Tearle felt sympathy for Anne, for if her experience with a Peregrine was as bad as his was, she deserved sympathy. When Tearle pulled off his linen shirt Anne gasped.

"You are black and blue and bloody. Tearle, no horse merely stepped on you, you have been kicked— and hard. How far does this extend? Get the rest of your clothes off. I would see all of you." She went to the door and told a passing servant to bring rags and hot water.

Behind her Tearle smiled. This was how a woman was supposed to act, he thought. Women were supposed to be sweet, gentle creatures. They were supposed to stroke a man's brow and murmur soothingly to him when he was in pain. Proper women did proper things. They knew about gloves and satins, and they did not sharpen swords.

Tearle removed all his clothes except his breech-cloth and stretched, facedown, on the bed in the room. Anne, beautiful, sweet, proper-woman Anne, bathed his wounds and applied salve to them.

"Tell me of her," Anne said softly.

Tearle started to say he could not, that there was too much danger, but he knew he could trust her. After all, he was already trusting her with his life. If Anne told who he was and Severn heard, Tearle had no doubt that Severn would kill him instantly.

The whole story came tumbling out. Tearle told Anne everything from the beginning, about Oliver's men kidnapping the youngest Peregrine and Tearle realizing they held a girl. He told her about Zared cutting him, about his obsession with her and how he'd arranged to be near her.

"But she has fixed on Colbrand," he said bitterly. "I throw myself over her body and protect her, yet still she does not acknowledge that I am a man."

"You could beat Colbrand. You could take Severn also. How I'd like to see him fall," she said, her eyes glittering. "After dinner today he tried to kiss me." She smiled. "I applied my knee to his brain."

Tearle snorted. "It seems we have opposite goals. Your father would not force you to marry a man who could not win the tournament." He smiled. "And I would love to beat Colbrand; I should greatly love to see him brought low."

"Were it not for this silly disguise you've adopted you could fight them. You could bring them both down. I have seen you fight, and you are better than either of them."

"Yes," Tearle said sadly, sitting up so Anne could bind his ribs. "If only I didn't need to remain as Smith—" He broke off and stared at her. "I could fight now."

"Yes," she said eagerly, "there is no reason you cannot be seen. Announce yourself as a Howard and enter the next two days. That Peregrine would not dare harm you while under my father's roof."

"No," Tearle said thoughtfully. "I will not stoop to my brother's level. Too many people have seen me with the Peregrines, and they will see them as fools for having had a Howard in their midst."

"They are fools," Anne said vehemently.

Tearle looked at her exquisite face. Was she protesting too much? "Severn does not strike me as being unattractive to women."

"He is a boor, an unmannered boor who believes a woman is his for the taking—not for the asking, mind, but for the taking."

"But not unpleasant to look at," Tearle said. "He sits a horse well."

"I should like to see him fall to the ground. I should like to hear him laughed at. I should like him seen as the fool he is. I should—"

"I understand," Tearle said, unable to keep the amusement from his voice.

"If you dare to laugh at me, I will—"

"I?" Tearle said in innocence. "I, a man sorely wounded in the cause of the Peregrines, laugh at another's ill wishes for them?"

Anne's lovely face relaxed. Tearle had known her too long and well, she thought. When that awful man, smelling of sweat and horse, had pulled her into a dark corner, she had at first responded to his kisses. There was something so very basic about the man. He seemed to take it for granted that she would be willing, even eager, to marry him. Throughout dinner he had talked easily to her father, as though they were already kin, and her father had responded in kind. Anne had sat between them, ignored. The Peregrine man had repeatedly reached across her for food, and she'd had to lean away from his elbows. He had talked across her and over her as though she weren't there.

And all the talk had been of weapons and warfare. As far as she could tell, there wasn't a finer sentiment in the man's body. At least Colbrand, the other man her father favored, had beautiful manners and had noticed when her gown matched her eyes. There were no compliments from the Peregrine. He had looked at her once as though appraising her, and as far as she knew, he hadn't glanced at her again.