Amaury rolled his eyes at that. "You should never make a promise you cannot keep, wife. I have no doubt that you shall risk yourself again. 'Tis in your nature. However," he added grimly when she began to relax at his words. "The next time . . . and I do mean the very next time you do something so foolish again, I shall take you across my knee and--" His words came to an abrupt end as his wee wife threw herself against his chest, wrapping her arms about his waist.
"You are a very generous and forbearing husband, husband. I am very lucky."
"Aye . . . well . . ." Clearing his throat, he reached a hand up to pat her back. "Just try not to be so impulsive in future."
"Aye, husband. 'Twill be so, I swear it." Tipping her head back, she smiled up at him sweetly, relaxing in relief when he bent to press a kiss to her soft lips. Well, it was not so bad, she decided as the kiss deepened. Her husband's temper was not so horrid. Most husbands would have blistered at least her ears, if not some other part of her body, for what she had done.
Ending the kiss, Amaury straightened and tried not to frown. In truth he felt like something had gone wrong. He had intended on shouting her ears off with his anger and yet oddly, that anger had fled like a bird before the storm under her smile. Shaking his head, he stepped away and retrieved the rest of his clothes. Quickly donning his tunic and doublet, he belted his sword back on and spared a glance at the bodies lying strewn about the clearing. "I shall have to have Little George and some men see to them."
Emma frowned at that. "Did you send anyone to check on Little George and the other fellow? They did not join the battle."
"Damn." Slapping one hand to his leg in irritation, he strode off toward the trees. Emma hurried after him to lend her aid in finding the men.
It was growing darker quickly now. Soon it would be full night and impossible to find the two men if they were unable to call for help, so it was with some relief that Emma cried out to her husband as she spied a hand sticking out from a bush to the side of the path. It was Little George. Unconscious, he was sprawled on the ground like an abandoned doll, a great bruising bump on his noggin telling the story of how he came to be that way.
After assuring himself that the man was alive, Amaury left Emma to try to wake him, and headed out in search of the second man. He found him twenty feet away, his throat slit.
Little George was just stirring to life when Amaury returned. The fact that he carried his fallen man over his shoulder did not tell her he was dead so much as her husband's expression did. Emma cast him a sympathetic glance, then turned her attention back to the man now coming to grumbling life in her lap.
Amaury's first cursed a blue streak as his aching head forced him back into consciousness. Then realizing whose lap his head rested in, he apologized tersely and sat up, one hand going to rub the knot on his forehead. "Damn me, that hurt."
"Aye, it looks fair sore," Emma murmured, rising slowly to her feet. "Did you cry out afore you were hit?"
"Nay. I had no chance. I heard a sound behind me. Turned . . ." He shook his head. " 'Tis all I recall."
"Then it must have been Edsel," Amaury murmured grimly.
Little George stiffened. "Is he all--?" The question died in his throat as he finally glanced up and saw his comrade draped over his shoulders. Little George's expression fell, and his shoulders slumped wearily.
"Come," Amaury murmured, offering his man his free hand. "We shall return to camp and see if our prisoner talks."
The first's eyebrows rose as he got to his feet. "You caught one?"
"Nay. We caught them all. . . . but only one lives."
Rolling her eyes at the arrogance in her husband's voice, Emma moved past him to lead the way back to camp.
Blake met them on the edge of the clearing with the news that their captive had died and he had dispatched men to tend to the dead. Amaury was silent and grim over the news. Emma knew he had been hoping to gain a confession from the man that he had been sent by Bertrand so that he could present this proof to the king. She watched helplessly as he stalked away, still bearing his fallen man across his shoulders, then moved to where Maude sat by the fire in the clearing, silently hoping that the rest of the trip would be less eventful.
She should have known it was too much to hope for.
They managed two days of uneventful travel. On the second night after the attack, Amaury chose a spot along the river again. When he urged her to join him at the river for a swim, she was reluctant to chance it. It did seem to be pushing their luck a bit, but she was hot and sweaty from the trip and gave in in the end. Still, she held her breath throughout, not relaxing until they had returned safely to camp and the dinner of rabbit cooked over an open fire that Maude had helped prepare.
No one tarried long by the fire after eating. It was a lovely night with a star-studded black velvet sky, but three days of hard riding was beginning to tell on everyone. Emma herself was so tired she nearly dozed off where she sat.
Scooping her up easily in his arms when she started to topple toward the fire as she dozed off, Amaury got to his feet, shaking his head at Maude when she stood to follow to help her lady undress, then carried her to the tent.
"Hmm." Emma leaned her head wearily against her husband's chest as he carried her. "Thank you, husband. I fear I was getting quite tired."
"I noticed, wife."
"Did you?"
Amaury smiled slightly at the faint surprise in her voice. "Aye, you were about to topple into the fire as you dozed."
She blinked awake at that. "Nay. I was not."
"Aye, ye were." His chest rumbled with the answer as he pressed her closer and bent to enter the tent. Turning back, he instructed her to close the flap, then turned back to face the interior of the small tent once she had.
"You may set me down now, husband. I am awake now."
Ignoring her, Amaury stepped forward and set her on the bottom of the makeshift bed, then set about undressing her. Recognizing the look in his eyes, Emma simply smiled and began working on his clothes as well. Long day or not, her husband had retained some energy for his nightly duties. Or mayhap the dip in the river had helped revive him earlier. What ever the case, his attentions revived her quickly enough, and once he had satisfied the fires that always seemed to burn just below the surface for him, she was wide awake and frisky.
Hugging him close as she lay half sprawled across him afterward, Emma purred and rubbed her face against the small soft hairs on his chest, then tangled one finger languorously in those hairs before asking softly, "Husband, when is Little George's wife going to join him?" She had asked that question repeatedly since Little George's arrival and did wonder at the delay. She was curious to see what kind of woman the man had married. So much so, that she hoped to convince her husband that they should stop and collect the woman on the way back from court. Hence the reason for her question. She had thought it a good lead in to the suggestion.
Realizing that he was not answering her, Emma tipped her head up to glance at him, and smiled when she saw that he was sleeping. Leaning up, she kissed him briefly on the cheek, then pulled the blankets up to cover them both and snuggled down to go to sleep.
Tired as she had been earlier, it took quite a while for her to doze off for the night. It seemed she had just managed to do so when something jarred her back to wakefulness.
Opening her eyes slowly, she waited for them to adjust to the darkness in the tent, her ears straining to catch the small whisper of sound that had awakened her to begin with, but all there was was silence now. Frowning as she began to distinguish shapes and shadows in the dark, she moved her eyes around. She was no longer sleeping with her head on her husband's chest. Now her legs were tangled with his, and her head was lying several inches away from his own. She had just realized that when she recognized that the large, dark shape looming on her husband's side of the bed was not the far wall of the tent as she had at first presumed, but the shadow of someone standing over him.
Stiffening where she l
ay, Emma took a moment to consider the situation, then spotted the glint of metal in his hand as the shadow moved. Recognizing it as a knife, she tugged her legs free of her husband's, placed them on his behind, and gave him a powerful shove even as she let loose a shrill scream.
Amaury rolled from the makeshift bed, knocking into the legs of the would-be assassin and sending him crashing to the floor as he rolled atop him.
In the next moment, the tent was filled with cursing and shouting as the twosome began rolling about the floor.
Standing on the bed, Emma screamed at the top of her lungs again for assistance, then threw herself onto the rolling mass of male arms and legs.
"What the bloody hell?!" Blake lifted the torch he held a bit higher and gaped at the threesome struggling about on the floor. Amaury and Emma-- naked as the day they had been born-- and a fully clothed Little George were all rolling about the floor kicking and hitting. Or to be more honest, wee Lady Emma appeared to be the only one kicking and hitting. The two men seemed to be more concerned with blocking her blows as she leaped about between, atop, and beneath them all at the same time. Mayhap if Lady Emma would open her eyes, which were squinted closed at the moment, she might realize it and give up the battle, for she was the only one fighting it, Blake thought with amusement. Then he waved away the men who had followed him into the tent, before bellowing, "What goes on here?"
Lady Emma stilled at once at his words, much to everyone's relief. Opening her eyes to find the tent as bright as a sunny morning, she clambered quickly out of the tangle of arms and legs on the floor and scampered to the bed to grab up the bedclothes to cover herself as she turned to face the fracas she had left behind. Unfortunately, everything was a blur just then, and she reached up fretfully to rub at her eye. She had received a fist to the eye on first joining the fray. It was the reason she had kept her eyes closed after that. Now she scowled in the direction of the two men raising themselves from the floor, and pointed accusingly at the one who was dressed. Or at least, he appeared to be dressed. Emma's eyes had not yet adjusted to the light. For all she knew she might be pointing at her husband, but presumed Blake would know who she meant as she exclaimed, "He tried to kill us!"
Blake cocked one eye as he turned to peer at Amaury and Little George. He thought surely she must be joking, until he saw the shamefaced look on the man's face. "Little George?" he said uncertainly.
Emma frowned at that. Squinting harder, she tried to make out the man she had pointed at. Surely it could not be Amaury's own man?
"He did not try to kill me," her husband announced wearily, much to both Blake and Emma's relief, but that relief died on dismay when he added, "I was awake. He stood there a good ten minutes and could not bring himself to it."
Blake saw Emma drop weakly to the bed at that, and would dearly have loved to join her in doing so as he tried to sort out the muddle before him. "Nay. Not Little George. Tell me 'tis not so," he demanded, anger beginning to rise within him.
Avoiding his eyes, Little George stared guiltily at the ground.
"But why? Amaury has been good to you. He--"
"Where is your wife?"
Emma turned to her husband in surprise at that question. It was the same one she had asked him earlier, though she knew he had been asleep then. It seemed he too had wondered at the delay keeping the newlyweds apart.
Understanding coming to his face, Blake slumped slightly where he stood. "She is not with relatives, is she."
"Nay," Little George admitted unhappily.
"Where is she?"
"Taken." That one word was filled with a wealth of grief. "We were on our way to Eberhart. An hour from the castle she asked me to stop so she might relieve herself. She went a little ways into the woods. She never returned. A stranger came instead. He said they held her and would kill her should I try to find her. He said she would be safe . . . so long as I did as I was told."
"What did they want?" Amaury asked when he grew silent.
"Very little at first. I was simply to wait and listen and tell what I learned when asked."
"Who were you to tell?"
"I did not know at first. So I watched and listened, and then de Lascey and his women came."
"Sylvie." Blake murmured on a sigh.
"Nay. Gytha."
"Gytha?" Emma peered at him in horror. It had been bad enough when she had thought it was the young girl Sylvie, but Emma had liked Gytha.
"Aye." Little George nodded. "She used Sebert to find out things I could not tell her."
Amaury's eyebrows rose at that. "What would Sebert know that you do not?"
"A great many things just lately, it seems," Little George told him with a brief flash of amusement that soon died. Sighing, he shook his head. "Sebert has been spending his time since your wedding bouncing between doing his duties and trailing Lady Emma about, trying to be privy to any and all conversations in which she partook. 'Twas at your order," Little George added when Emma began to look upset at that.
"Mine?!"
"Aye. He told Gytha that you ordered him to listen at doors and make himself privy to any and all conversations so that you did not have to waste time explaining things to him."
She nearly groaned aloud as she recalled her panic on the day of her wedding and the stupid orders she had been bellowing about.
"You did that?" Amaury stared at her wideeyed.
Waving the question irritably away, Emma turned back to Little George. "So she was the one to put the poison in Amaury's tankard?"
"Aye."
"Why did she kill Sylvie?"
"The girl saw her put the potion in the tankard. That morning when they went down to break fast, Gytha slipped some into her ale. I do not know what happened after that, but when I went up to fetch de Lascey and his women, Gytha trailed behind to speak to me. She slipped an empty vial to me and told me to put it in the girl's hand. She must have already put the other in her bag."
"Did you know that we would be attacked when we went to the river on the first day of our travels?" Amaury asked now.
"Nay. Not until I was approached in the woods standing guard," he admitted reluctantly.
"Who was it approached you in the woods?"
"Gytha."
"She was there?" Emma asked in dismay.
Little George nodded. "Edsel had stepped a little distance away to . . . er . . . relieve himself." He grimaced apologetically at Emma as he said that. "I heard him cry out and started to follow him. Gytha stepped into my path. She told me my wife was alive and well, so far, but would only stay so if I continued to do as asked. Should her men fail this time, I was to kill you before we reached court, else my wife would die. Then she koshed me over the head."
"So you planned to kill me to night," Amaury murmured.
"I tried," Little George said grimly.
"And could not."
His first shrugged uncomfortably. "As Blake said, you have been good to me. We have been friends for years. And I do hot know if my wife still lives or if they have already killed her. I simply could not bring myself to--"
"Who is Gytha working for. Is it Bertrand? If so, we can go find your wife right now," Blake said urgently, but the other man shook his head.
"I do not know. I have never known. Had I known, I would have gone to get her long ago and refused all their orders."
Silence filled the tent. When it had stretched out as taut as a bow, George shifted uncomfortably. "What will you do now?"
Amaury shrugged unhappily. He had been awakened by the faint breeze that had entered the tent with Little George. Had heard the faint rustle as Little George had approached the bed, and had stiffened in preparation of defending himself, only to freeze when his eyes had adjusted and he recognized his first. It had taken a few moments for him to recognize the weapon he had then unsheathed and stood over him holding. Hardly able to believe what he was witnessing, Amaury had waited tensely to see if the man could really go through with it. After a good ten minutes had passed w
ith Little George simply standing there, seemingly unable to do the deed, and at the same time unable to walk away, Amaury had been about to speak up and let him know he knew of his presence. Unfortunately, his wife had awakened and preceded him, he thought wryly, recalling the boot to the behind that had sent him sprawling into his would-be attacker.
"I will do nothing, Little George," he said now with a sigh. "I am sure had I been in your position, I would have plunged the knife home for Emma."
Little George shrugged. "I thought I could too until I stood over you."
Grimacing, Amaury moved to peer out the entrance of the tent. The first faint rays of dawn were streaking across the sky in ribbons of pink that underlined the inky black of night. " 'Tis almost dawn. We will reach court today."
"And they, whoever they are, will know I failed," George said unhappily, misery taking shape on his homely face.
"Not if Amaury is dead."
All three men turned on Emma in horror at her words. She rolled her eyes at their expressions. "Not really dead. We shall pretend he is. No one but the three of us know what happened in this tent. Who is to say that Little George did not succeed?"
"Well . . ." Blake shifted uncomfortably. "There are more than the three of us," he admitted wryly after a moment. When Emma raised her eyebrows at that, he grimaced. "Half the camp followed me in here when you started screaming. I sent them away when I realized you were . . ." He gestured to where she now sat wrapped in the bedclothes and Emma flushed. It appeared as if half the camp had seen her thrashing about naked on the floor with her husband and Little George. A damned embarrassing bit of knowledge, but she really did not have time to worry on it overmuch.
"Did they get enough of a look to see if he was wounded or nay?"
Blake thought on it a moment, then shook his head slowly. "Nay, I do not think they would have."
"Well, then, 'tis settled. You are dead, husband." Emma smiled at her own cleverness. "That will keep Little George's wife safe until you can save her."
His eyebrows rose at that. "I am to save her, am I?"
"Surely. Being dead gives you a great deal of freedom. We can put you in a disguise. You can sneak into Bertrand's castle, snoop about, find out where she is and . . . Why are you shaking your head at me?"