dozens of smoking torches. They climbed a high, wooden staircase
meant to be withdrawn in times of siege. The iron-strapped doors at the top of
the steps opened and noise spilled out into the night.
Emotion choked Adam’s throat as a guard flung the door wide.
Adam’s last visit here was to see his mother laid to rest. He thrust the
thought aside.
In the brightly lighted hall, he had a sudden qualm that
someone might recognize him. He ran his hand over his jaw. He’d only grown the
beard in the last few weeks and it still surprised him when he touched his
face.
No one paid him any heed as Hugh led the way past ranks of
tables toward the great hearth. The company was too busy fawning on the more
important Hugh de Coleville to see a mere knight.
“Is it much changed?” Hugh asked when they’d reached the
fore of the hall and a dais upon which sat a draped table for the bishop’s most
illustrious guests.
“There’s little familiar here. There were not so many
benches. Or embroidered cushions.” He leaned close to Hugh’s ear. “There are
far too many cushions, if I might venture an opinion. I do hope Lady Mathilda
can do more than stitch a pillow cover.”
“She’ll have other things to do with her hands if she weds
you.”
Adam smiled. “There were paintings by the hearth, but I
think I like this better.”
The huge paintings that had flanked the hearth were now
replaced on the left with a fine tapestry and on the right with ranks of
weapons.
“Quite a collection. I see a Viking ax and isn’t that a
Saracen blade?”
Adam nodded, then froze in place. There, amidst a starburst
of weapons, was his grandfather’s sword. He opened his mouth to tell Hugh the
sword had once cut down a score of men at one battle when he became aware of
the scent of flowers. He turned from Hugh to the woman who stood with one foot
poised on the edge of the dais.
She was a vision of beauty. He belatedly bowed. It would not
do to be more interested in the weapons than the object of the matrimonial
hunt.
“My lady,” he managed when Hugh nudged him sharply in the
back. Hugh introduced him.
Lady Mathilda tipped her head to the side. “Adam Quintin? I
believe I know your name.”
The lady’s golden circlet made a halo about her lovely blonde
head. Her face was as serene as any angel’s worthy of a halo, her lips and
cheeks as pink as rose petals.
“I would not know in what capacity, my lady.” Her hand in
his was delicate, made for stitching useless things. No freckles marred her
skin. She had a ring on every finger. He touched his lips to her hand, then
turned it and kissed her palm. She wore another ring on her middle finger,
turned palm-in. Her skin was scented with almond. She was perfection.
“I am sure I know who you are.” She raised her eyes to the
lofty ceiling overhead with its smoke-blackened beams and sighed. “Ah. I have
it. You’re the mysterious knight who is undefeated in tournament play. It’s an
honor to meet you.”
Lady Mathilda dropped into a deep curtsy that belled her
golden skirts, trimmed at the hem with six inches of embroidery. He feared she
might not rise under the weight of the many gold chains about her neck.
Hugh grunted and stepped forward. “He’s the undefeated
Quintin. The best with a sword in all of Christendom.”
Adam coughed. Hugh usually only made the sword reference
when referring to his prowess between a woman’s thighs.
Lady Mathilda turned to Hugh. He took her hand in a
perfunctory way, lifted it, and with barely a touch of his lips, dropped it.
The perfect line of her brows was ruined when she pulled them together in a
frown.
“Lord Hugh,” she said. “It has been a long time since we’ve
seen each other.”
Adam wished there was some way to excuse Hugh’s lack of
manners, but the man still smarted from the barbs of Cupid’s arrow and treated
women with either bland indifference or outright contempt. His usually
formidable features were rendered even
Edited by Anil Menon and Vandana Singh