“Do you deny me, wench?”Bayard said.
“Aye, I deny you and all your kind,” Berthe said, making a shooing motion with her hands.“Away with you, all of you rogues and knaves!”
“But we must put Quinn to bed,” Bayard said with a grin.
Berthe swatted his shoulder and he blinked in surprise.“You will not!”
“I can manage the feat alone,” Quinn interjected.There was determination in his tone and he moved to stand beside Berthe.
“But...”Bayard protested.
“It is time that you were leaving, sir rogue,” Berthe said.
“Sir Rogue!”the other men echoed, then laughed.
Berthe did not smile.“My lady welcomes only one man to her chamber and it is a finer man than you.”
“But it is tradition!”Bayard argued.He yelped when Berthe reached up and grasped his ear.Evidently, she was not gentle.The other men erupted into gales of laughter as she tugged Bayard toward the door.
“But naught,” she said.“Out with you, Sir Rogue.It should be clear to even the most dim-witted soul that a man and a woman need their privacy at this moment.How much of a fool are you that you cannot see the truth?”Berthe hauled him into the corridor by his ear, much to the delight of the other men.
They chanted “Sir Rogue” as they followed, laughing.
“I am no fool,” Bayard argued.“And I am no rogue.”
“And how would I know?”Berthe demanded.“I might have expected finer behavior from a knight, especially one who has taken up the cross and gone to the Holy Land, but it is clear that I have overestimated you...”
Berthe continued her lecture, Bayard continued to object and the other men kept chanting.
Quinn flicked the door closed with his fingertips.He dropped the latch, then turned to face Melissande.She watched him over the linens, her palms damp.
“Alone,” he said softly.
“Aye.”
The fire crackled and Quinn slowly smiled.That smile would be Melissande’s undoing, she knew it well.
“Hail, my lady wife,” he said softly.“Well met.”
Perhaps it would be his low murmur that tumbled her defenses forever.
Melissande swallowed.“Hail, husband,” she replied in a whisper.
The moment of their consummation was upon her and the wine had abandoned her to her fate.
She supposed it was too late to pray.
His wife resemblednothing more than a cornered and terrified rabbit.Quinn laid his tabard aside, moving slowly that he might not frighten her even more.
She peeked over the linens and her gaze was locked upon him.Her eyes were wide and of a darker emerald in her uncertainty.Quinn knew then that this consummation would not be achieved as easily as he had hoped.
Sayerne hung in the balance.That was both a sobering and a fortifying thought.The certainty that Tulley would rap on the door with the very dawn in search of his evidence did little to help.
The deed must be done, though the lady was afraid.
Perhaps she knew little of what must transpire.Perhaps she had been told dire tales.
Either way, it was his responsibility to gain her trust in this.He must prove himself different than whatever she feared he would be.
