An Uncertain Choice(69)

Trudy’s entire body shook, and I moved faster.

“You’ll be fine in just a moment,” I crooned, fighting back tears. “You’ll be fine, my sweet, sweet Trudy.” My fingers tangled with the latch as I desperately tried to loosen it.

In one last agonizing moment, the contraption slipped free and the metal fell away from Trudy’s mouth. It crashed to the floor with a clang. With my bound hands, I caught her against my body and eased her to the floor. She buried her face into my chest, her body heaving with sobs.

Another cry rose above the clanking of swords.

I peered to the circle that had crowded ever closer to Derrick. From the bodies sprawled on the floor near him, he’d apparently already taken down four soldiers. But that left eight.

He wielded his halberd and spun with a deftness and sureness that showed him as the superior knight he was. I could imagine that this was how he fought on the battlefield, how he’d earned a distinction as one of the three noblest knights in all the realm.

He fought off one blow while ducking to avoid another. But how could he carry on indefinitely? He already had a bloody patch on his leg. Just at that moment, the tip of a sword grazed his arm, and in an instant a crimson spot seeped into his tunic.

“Stop!” I called, but my throat was too constricted with anxiety and my words came out breathlessly. Derrick lunged with the halberd’s hook, grappling and felling one more.

Even so, the circle around him grew tighter. The guards advancing on him moved in for the kill, until he was completely helpless with seven remaining swords pressed against his body and ready to plunge.

“Drop your weapons,” the abbot called to Derrick.

Through the danger of the sword tips digging into his skin, Derrick’s gaze sought mine. Across the distance, the blaze in his eyes consumed me, went deep into my soul, and reassured me that he’d done this for me.

He loved me. I could see the message shining there.

“I love you too.” I mouthed the words, praying that if he couldn’t read my lips, he would see into my heart and know the truth of my undying affection for him. I would never love anyone else again.

As if my words had traveled the distance and entered his heart, he gave a renewed cry, ducked beneath the circle of swords, and chopped at the legs of the guards surrounding him with the halberd’s axe head, causing them to fall back.

My heart surged with fresh hope, but it was immediately doused as the abbot’s boney fingers circled around my neck and dragged me forward. His grip was hard and unyielding.

Trudy fell away, crumpling to a heap on the floor, her eyes dull with pain, her mouth a bloody, swollen mass.

“Drop your weapons this instant,” the abbot called, “or I shall start slicing the face of her ladyship, one slice for every slash you make at my guards.”

The icy steel of a knife pressed against my throat.

Immediately, Derrick pulled himself back. “Don’t harm her.” His voice was laced with panic.

“I like how this works,” the abbot said, thrusting the knife all too close to my skin so that it pricked painfully. “In fact, I think I’m going to like my new position of power very much.”

“So you freely admit you’ve been undermining Lady Rosemarie’s efforts to find true love. That you’re the one who sabotaged my companions.”

The abbot chuckled. “Of course I thought she was falling in love with them first and hoped to scare them away. But then once I realized she liked you the most, it was all too easy to pin the blame for the crimes on you and make you look like the jealous friend.”


After all I’d already learned about the abbot, the news didn’t surprise me. Nevertheless, it stabbed me. “Father Abbot, how could you —?”

The tightening pressure of the blade silenced me. “I only did it for your protection, your ladyship.”

“Her protection?” Derrick called. “And I suppose you think you’re protecting her now?”

“She’s taking her vows very willingly, aren’t you, your ladyship?” The abbot tossed a glance to Trudy and the tongue slicer lying on the floor near her.

Derrick followed his gaze, and at the sight of my tortured nursemaid, his eyes glittered as sharp as double-edged swords.

“Drop your weapons.” The abbot repositioned the knife so that it finally nicked my skin. I couldn’t keep a cry from slipping out, more from fright than pain.

Derrick’s face turned pale and somber. He released his halberd, and the shatter of steel against stone ricocheted through the nave all the way to the arched ceiling, reverberating deep within my heart.

It was the sound of good-bye.

He unsheathed his dagger and sword and let them fall as well. And when he met my gaze this time, I knew he was saying farewell.

He was giving up his life to save mine.





Chapter

24




“No!” My scream pierced the air.

I wouldn’t let him make that kind of sacrifice. But even as my scream rent the nave, a trumpet blast swallowed the sound and was followed by splintering wood.

In an instant, the church door caved in and the afternoon sunshine poured into the room. A knight ducked low upon his horse and charged through the gap, his longsword aimed and ready to thrust.

I didn’t need to see the emblem on his horse blanket to know the knight was Sir Bennet. I only needed to see the deftness with which he sliced and stabbed his weapon as his steed crashed through the group of guards, his sword slashing them down.