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groaned out loud. Who would have dreamt,she thought despairingly as she retreated before de Jar-nac's steady advance, that the man would know so much about her family? She cleared her throat and said in a wooden voice, “My mother also is a bastard.”
If she didn't stop soon, Attica thought with a nervous inner bubble of amusement that she suspected verged on hysteria, she was going to end up bastardizing her entire family. But to her relief, the statement at least stopped him in his tracks.
“Indeed?” he said, his brows rising. “Another bastard. Also acknowledged, apparently, if your uncle Renouf not only recognizes the connection but holds you in such esteem that he sends for you from his deathbed.”
Attica eyed the knight suspiciously. There was no doubt that he was amused. She could see the glint of quiet laughter in his eyes—along with something else that was not laughter at all. “My mother and her half brother were very close as children,” Attica said cautiously.
“What a loving, congenial family you have, lordling. You are fortunate.”
For some reason she could not have explained, Attica felt suddenly, irrationally annoyed. “Does this mean you will escort me to Laval?”
Damion de Jarnac bounced Attica's ring up and down in the palm of his bloodstained glove, then closed his fist around it. “Yes. I believe I shall.”
She expected to feel relieved. She should have felt relieved. Instead, she had the most sinking sensation that she had just made a terrible mistake.

    CHAPTER
THREE
The monk from Pierreforte l’abbaye had wanted to paint the ceiling of her bed with scenes from the martyrdom of Saint Agatha. Imagine, thought Yvette with a lazy yawn, having to wake up every morning to the sight of a defiled virgin having her breasts cut off .
She let her gaze travel lovingly over the woodland scene of flowers and trees and prancing unicorns that now decorated the great oak panel over her head. Beautiful . With another yawn, Yvette Beringer, viscomtesse de Salers, stretched her arms up over her head and smiled. Next, she thought, I'll have him paint the —
A frigid gust of morning air rushed in as the bed's brocade hangings flew open with a harsh squeal. Yvette yelped and swung about. “Odette, you fool,” she began, but broke off at the sight of the handsome face and Viking-like proportions of her husband.
Gaspard Beringer, viscomte de Salers, stood well over six feet tall, a great, strapping man with long, elegantly formed limbs and an awesome physique. Pale blond hair framed a face of exquisitely shaped bones, a wide brow, glowing blue eyes, and sensitively formed lips: the personification of beauty in hose and tunic.
Yvette smiled as a warm tingle coursed through her theway it always did at the sight of this gorgeous man. Being so plain herself, she had a special weakness for beauty, and she never tired of looking at her husband. “Gaspard,” she said, yawning again. “You are making me cold.”
“But, Yvette—” Gaspard opened and closed his lovely mouth in distress. “She's gone!”
With a sigh born of experience, Yvette sat up and yanked her chemise from beneath her pillow. “Who is gone?” She tugged the fine linen over her head and goose-bumped naked shoulders. “Your goshawk? Your favorite hunting bitch? That new mare you bought last week?”
“No.” Gaspard let go of the curtains and spun away to where a ewer of wine stood warming on the exquisitely inlaid and carved table Yvette kept beside the hearth. “Attica,” he said over his shoulder as he hunted for a cup. “Attica is gone.”
“What?” Yvette froze for an instant, then scrambled to thrust her plump white legs over the edge of the big bed and push upright with a grunt. “What do you mean, Attica is gone? Gone for a walk? Gone riding? Gone—”
“I mean, she's simply gone.” Gaspard swung around to point the hand holding the ewer at her. “I told you she'd never agree to this betrothal. Didn't I tell you?”
“Don't be ridiculous.” Yvette jerked the ewer