“You are forthright, my lord,” she said, “even brazen. We have met but once.”
“Perhaps I would have been more temperate in my youth,” Childeric said. “But why should I stifle my passions now? I have the great gift to be seated before a beautiful woman. I intend to enjoy this favorable position for as long as I am given to hold it.”
“Very well,” said Agnes, biting her tongue to subdue her smile, “but I am not some serving girl who will ruck up her skirts in a shadowed corner of the scullery.”
“No, of course not. You are a noble lady, most exquisitely bred.” Childeric’s gaze skimmed down her throat, past the necklace of teeth, and to the swell of her bustline, straining against the silver silk. “I do not propose a hasty, hidden coupling.”
Agnes, mid-sip of her wine, set her goblet down. “I had not realized this was aproposal.”
“Then forgive me,” Childeric said, “for I have misjudged my position—and perhaps yours as well. In the tales that are told across the island, you are lonely, shackled by your widowhood, confined to this castle for the pleasure of the princess. I thought that you would welcome a betrothal to another lord of fine pedigree.”
“I am not a trodden creature to be pitied.” Agnes’s heart pounded fiercely. “Nor am I a helpless maiden to be rescued.”
“No,” Childeric agreed, “you are not a maiden. Perhaps you were when you wed Lord Fredegar, but years have passed since then. Years in which—forgive me, lady—your fruits have begun to wither. I had assumed that as Mistress of Teeth you would desire an heir, and as a woman, you would desire a child. Motherhood is not yet out of reach—”
“Enough,” Agnes said. “Speak no more of this.”
Slowly, and somewhat unsteadily, she rose from her seat. She had not appreciated until that moment how wine-addled she had become, for her vision doubled and her head felt suddenly full of cotton. Agnes drew a breath to compose herself.
Childeric rose, too, though with far greater poise and alacrity. “My deepest apologies, lady. I did not mean any offense.”
The flush on her cheeks was anger now, not joy, not drunkenness. “Leave me be.”
“Wait.” Childeric’s hand shot out and gripped her about the wrist. “Lady, please. I have been too forward—too hasty—and I am sorry.”
Agnes tried to wrench herself free but found that the wine had made her weak and sluggish. She made a low, pleading sound, halfway between a whimper and a gasp—and it seemed that noise, against all odds, cleaved through all the clamor of the feasting hall, all the far louder voices, because Liuprand’s head snapped up.
“What are you doing, Lord Childeric?” he demanded. “Unhand her.”
Instantly Childeric released her. “Apologies, my prince. I only wished to express my admiration for Lady Agnes, my appreciation for her beauty and her many graces. Perhaps I was…overenthused.”
“False flattery,” Agnes bit out, clutching her arm to her chest, as if it had been injured.
“Not false,” Childeric protested. “No, never.”
“You thought to ply me into accepting your marriage proposal,” Agnes said, “so that I might produce you an heir.”
“Soyoucould produce an heir.” Childeric’s pitch rose, and as the rest of the hall fell silent, his words seemed to slash at the air. “Was I so wrong to think that a woman of your age and stature would wish for it? Surely—”
He cut himself off. Liuprand had risen.
“You proposed marriage?” Liuprand asked. “In this manner—under this circumstance—while at a royal wedding feast?”
“I see now that this was unwise,” Childeric said hastily. “Please, my prince, it was not meant as a slight. I believed the lady would welcome a suitor, as a balm to her unhappy widowhood. Surely—surely you would want more for her than to languish here during her remaining fertile years. I could give her the gift of motherhood, such as all women desire.”
Heat rushed through Agnes’s veins. Fury, shame, anguish—she felt each one like the piercing of an arrow. Tears sprang up and gathered on her lashes, though only Liuprand was near enough to see.
And indeed he saw them. Their gazes met, and he recognized her misery in that moment, her outrage, but mostly her despair. He recognized all within the fraction of a second, as quick as the pulse of blood behind a bruise, and a glaze came across his exquisitely blue eyes. It was a barbaric luster such that Agnes had witnessed only once before, in the dungeon of Lord Fredegar.
One more beat passed. And then Liuprand had his hands about Lord Childeric’s throat.
He had lunged across the table, and it overturned, causing all the bright goblets and the golden plates to crash to the floor and shatter. Wine streaked the stone. Agnes cried out.
Within moments Liuprand had Childeric pinned to the ground. His huge body loomed, his golden cape spread from his shoulders.Childeric was gasping, clawing helplessly at Liuprand’s hand, trying to pry his fingers loose. Shouts came from the mouths of the women in attendance, and even some of the men. Their tables overturned. Their food and wine spilled.
“Release him!” roared Lord Thrasamund over the din. “That is myson—”
Liuprand’s hold slackened on Childeric’s throat, but only so that he could pull back his arm and strike him brutally across the face. There was the crunch of bone as his nose broke, and blood spurted from the site of the wound. Blood—blood—
