The Conquest Read online

  He smiled at her so knowingly that she looked away.

  "Say what you must."

  "First, see this," he said softly, and he pulled a pair of red silk gloves out of the inside of his tunic. They were embroidered with bumblebees and yellow buttercups.

  In spite of herself Zared took the gloves from him. Before, in front of the vendor, she couldn't try the gloves on, but now she did, slipping her small hand into the silk. They were beautiful, soft and bright, glistening as she turned her hand to look at them. "I have never seen anything as beautiful," she whispered.

  "Not these?" he asked, withdrawing another pair. "Or these?"

  She took them one by one, but as he pulled more and more pairs from his tunic she began to laugh. "What have you done? Stolen them?"

  "I gave him a gold Howard coin," he said, watching her.

  Her face lost its laughter. "Take them. They are yours."

  He made no effort to take the gloves, and he could see that Zared wasn't about to drop them in the dirt.

  "I take no charity."

  "If Howard lands belong to the Peregrines, then perhaps the gold I gave him is, in truth, Peregrine gold. You have purchased the gloves yourself."

  Zared had to think about that a moment. Was he jesting with her? But then there was some truth in his words. The Howard lands did belong to the Peregrine family. She shifted her arms, and the leather gloves sent up a heavenly scent. A wave of longing went through her. She would like to own something as beautiful, something as feminine as a pair of the gloves, and she would very much like to give gifts to Liana and her ladies. Liana's ladies had often looked in pity at Zared, for they knew she was female even if her brothers' men didn't. If Zared gave the ladies such lovely gifts as these gloves, their faces would change.

  Tearle could see her thinking the matter over and had to work to keep from laughing out loud. For all her boy's clothes and hair, she was feminine throughout. "Which pair is your favorite?"

  "I… I do not know," she answered, looking at them. The pair on top was white leather embroidered with black and yellow butterflies.

  "Perhaps you should keep them all. We will purchase another gift for your sister-in-law."

  "Oh, no, one is enough, as I cannot wear them."

  "Can't… oh, yes, I see. What will you do with your pair?"

  "Hide them. I have a… a secret place, a loose stone in the wall. I shall wear them when I am alone."

  He frowned, guilt flooding him, for it was his own brother's obsession with the Peregrines that made the young woman have to hide away a pretty garment. At that moment he had an idea. Perhaps later at the tournament he would have an opportunity to give her what she so clearly wanted.

  He reached out to touch her cheek, ran his finger down the side of her face. "I should like to see you wear the gloves."

  She should, she thought, spit in his eye, but she didn't. Was it her imagination, or was he better-looking than when she had first met him? She remembered him as having beady little eyes, but his eyes were rather nice, actually, she thought.

  "I… I think I'd better get back," she said softly. "Severn will need me."

  "Yes," he said, and he moved his hand down her cheek to her shoulder, then pulled away from her. "Here, I will take the gloves. Were you to tuck them away you would add to what you work so hard to conceal."

  It took a moment for her to realize that he was referring to her breasts. She could feel the blood rushing to her face, and she ducked her chin down to keep him from seeing her red cheeks, but when he'd taken the gloves and she looked up he was smiling at her in an especially infuriating way.

  "Let me pass, Howard," she hissed at him.

  "Aye, my lady," he said under his breath, then he bowed to her as she pushed past him.

  As they started back to the tournament grounds Zared walked ahead of Tearle. Something had happened in the few hours since they'd left the grounds, and she wasn't sure what it was. When they'd left she would have as soon put a knife in the man as look at him, but at the moment he seemed part human to her. He had been very kind to her as they'd looked at the merchants' wares. He'd explained everything to her, and never once had he acted annoyed or been impatient with her lack of knowledge.

  He certainly was different from her brothers, she thought. Severn and Rogan always seemed to be impatient with her, as her other brothers had been. They grew angry when she would stand in one spot and watch a sunset. They ridiculed her once when she'd made a crown of flowers and put it in her hair. They had no patience with her when she was too slow. They had no time for anything but war and training for war.

  Since Liana had come into their family their lives had softened, but still neither Severn nor Rogan had much time to give to her. Rogan spent his time with his wife, Severn with his mistress, and Zared had been alone.

  She turned to look back at Tearle, walking backward as she went. "In France, did the women wear such gloves as these? Is that where you learned about their scent?"

  "English women wear them also. I would think Lady Liana has a pair or two of scented gloves."

  "I do not know. I have not smelled them." She looked at him not as her enemy, but as a man. He did not look feminine, but how did he know so much about women's clothes? Her brothers knew nothing of women's clothes, she thought. Wasn't that how men were supposed to be? "Did you spend your time in France with the women? Is that why you know of women's goods and not of men's?"

  "I know of men's goods," he said, puzzled and somewhat defensive. She always made him feel as though he were defending his masculinity.

  It was very confusing to her. She recalled that Liana had said that there was more to a man than his fighting ability, but was this the kind of man Liana had meant? This man knew of women's gloves and fainted from small wounds. Were men divided into two categories? Men like her brothers and Severn on one side and men like the Howard on the other?

  "Why do you look at me so strangely?" he asked, pleased that she was looking at him at all.

  "You are not a man, yet you look to be one," she said thoughtfully.

  "Not a man?" He was aghast.

  "No. You do not fight as men do. You faint from the smallest of wounds. You are large, yet I, much smaller than you, fought you and won."

  "Fought me and won?" he said under his breath, at first having no idea what she was talking about. Then he remembered the first time they'd met, when she'd drawn the knife on him. He'd planned to release her from the moment he saw she was female. Yet suddenly he knew she thought she had "forced" him to release her.

  "Yes, I fought you. Had someone pulled a knife on my brother, he would have destroyed his attacker."

  "Even a bit of a female?"

  "Perhaps not a female, but he would not have been beaten so easily. No, not my brothers or"—she thought for a moment—"nor do I think Colbrand would have been beaten so easily."

  "But then Colbrand would not have the brains to know you were female," he said tightly.

  "Perhaps not. You do have a mind, it seems. You seem to know about… about unmanly things such as women's gloves, and how to tell the quality of emeralds. It is just men things you know nothing of."

  "Oh?" He was trying to keep his temper. "And what assures you I know nothing of what men do?"

  She looked surprised. "You would be entered in the tournament if you could. You would not spend your time playing nursemaid and servant if you could hold a lance. Liana said Oliver Howard was so rich he could hire men to fight for him. Perhaps in France you hired men to joust for you while you sat with the ladies." Her face brightened. "Yes, that is it. That is how you know so little of men and so much of women."

  Tearle could not speak for a while. She was still, like a kid, walking backward, and she was smiling as though she'd figured out some great problem. She had decided that because he knew so much about fabrics and jewels and ladies' clothes that he could not be a man. It had not occurred to her that there were more men like him than men like her brothers, who car
ed only for warfare.

  He opened his mouth to tell her—as though words could change a lifetime of her ideas of what men should be—but he saw a man behind her trying to control an unruly horse. The horse, angered by several strokes from its master's whip, broke free, running and kicking toward Zared, who had her back to the animal.

  Tearle didn't think; he just leaped for Zared and flattened her to the ground, his big body completely covering hers. As the horse ran at him, hitting him again and again with its steel-shod hooves, he tucked his head down, trying to protect his head and neck by hunching his shoulders.

  Within seconds there were shouts, and men scared the horse away, but not before it had done a great deal of damage to Tearle. He lay still a moment, taking deep breaths. He couldn't yet tell if his ribs were broken.

  Beneath him Zared began to squirm as she tried to push out from under him so she could breathe.

  "You are hurt?" a man above them yelled.

  "Fetch a cot," another man yelled. "We will carry him."

  Tearle painfully rolled away a little to let Zared out from under him, and as he looked at her face he knew he could not allow himself to be carried away. He could give her no more reason to think him less than a man.

  He took a deep breath and rolled onto his side.

  "I will fetch Severn," Zared said. She could think of nothing else to say, but she knew that a Howard had probably just saved the life of a Peregrine. She would fetch Severn, and he would know how to deal with an injured man.

  "I am well," Tearle said, speaking with difficulty. The right side of his body felt as though it had been crushed. "I have merely had the wind knocked from me.

  "Severn can—"

  "No!" he said, closing his eyes against the pain. Using all the effort he could muster, he sat up.

  "You are hurt," Zared said. "I will fetch help."

  "No!" he said again.

  By then there was a crowd around them, all of them gaping at the man who had been brutally kicked by a horse but was rising as though he had not been injured.

  It took all Tearle's effort to come to his feet. He slowly took a couple of deep breaths, and as far as he could tell, his ribs were unbroken. "We must return," he said to Zared.

  "You have to—"

  "To what?" he asked, glaring down at her.

  "Nothing," she said angrily. "There is naught I want you to do. If you were hurt, you would no doubt cry to high heaven for relief. I have to return to help my brother."

  She turned away from him, leaving him to follow or not. She hated the way her knees felt a little weak after what had happened. The Howard man's body had so completely covered hers that she had been able to see nothing of the horse, but she had felt the impact of the hooves on his body as the horse hit him.

  Yet he had shielded her. Why? What did that Howard want of her?

  She glanced back over her shoulder to see him following her. He was walking, but stiffly. He said he was unhurt, yet how could he be? Should she go to him and demand that he let her see his wounds?

  She, a Peregrine, demand to help a Howard? Yet he had saved her. Why had he saved her? Why hadn't he allowed the horse to trample her? It would have eliminated one Peregrine on earth.

  There had to be something that he wanted. There must be a reason that he wanted her alive. He had talked of marriage between them, a marriage that would join their two families. What if the documents saying the Peregrines were true owners of the lands the Howards held had been found? Perhaps Oliver Howard had found the papers and sent his young brother to court the only Peregrine female. That would explain why the man so much wanted her to stay alive. If the only Peregrine female were dead, the families could not be united, and if the papers were found, Oliver Howard would lose all he had killed to keep.

  The weakness began to leave her knees. Everything was beginning to make sense to her. The Howard man wanted her alive and well, and he wanted her to marry him willingly. That explained why he had purchased the gloves for her. The gloves were an attempt to endear himself to her.

  It will not work, she thought. He will not be able to win me no matter what he does. And if he is hurt, it is because he has his own selfish motives. She straightened her shoulders and hurried toward the tournament grounds. She no longer felt guilty because a Howard had protected her.

  Chapter Seven

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  Tearle managed to walk back to the tournament grounds keeping his head high and his back straight. What kind of woman was she? he thought. A man had just risked his life protecting her, and she did not so much as acknowledge the deed.

  He went back to the tent only long enough to leave the gloves, then went to the field. On the grounds Severn was dressed for the joust, and he was in a foul mood, obviously angry about something that had happened at dinner. He snapped at Zared for being late, and the first man to run against him was hit so hard by Severn's lance that he went sprawling in the dirt. The crowd cheered, but Severn's mood didn't lighten.

  Tearle stood to one side and watched as Zared scurried to and fro fetching lances and trying to do enough to please her brother. Only once did he try to speak to her, and for his attempt he got a tongue-lashing.

  "Do you think to impress me, Howard?" she hissed at him. "Do you think I will marry you now and unite our families? Do you hope to assure yourself of keeping the lands that belong to my family?"

  Tearle stood there, the entire right side of his body screaming in pain from having saved her underdeveloped little body, and she was talking to him of land and estates. He could only gape at her as she went running off to help Severn as he mounted to ride against Colbrand.

  He watched Zared smile sweetly at Colbrand even as she helped her brother. "I nearly die for her, and I receive not even thanks, but Colbrand receives all from her for doing naught," he muttered.

  He stood to one side and watched Severn and Colbrand run at each other. They were both excellent fighters, and he could see that unless one of them had luck on his side, the match would be a draw. By the fourth run Tearle was sick of watching Zared hold her breath at each pass, her eyes on Colbrand, afraid he might be harmed. "She cares naught for horses' hooves on my back but all for a light wooden lance against his steel-covered body," he muttered.

  When Severn broke his fourth lance against Colbrand just as Colbrand had broken his fourth lance against Severn, Tearle waved Zared away and took water and a lance to Severn.

  "He lowers his lance too much," Tearle said to Severn while he drank. "And he holds it wide to the left. If you were to swing in to your left and lift your lance, I think you might take him."

  Severn gave Tearle a hard look. "My sister watches this Colbrand. Do you have a wish to see him downed?"

  "I should like to see his guts in the dirt," Tearle answered with feeling.

  Severn grinned, then lowered his faceplate. "I will do my best," he said, adjusting the lance Tearle handed him.

  It was the only run in which Severn's lance broke but Colbrand's did not, thus giving Severn the higher score.

  Tearle could not resist gloating to Zared. "It seems your invincible knight can be brought low," he said smugly.

  "By my brother," she said, "but only by a Peregrine. There is no other man here who could beat him. No other man in England."

  "I—" Tearle began, then he stopped.

  "You what?" she asked, glaring. "You were not about to say that you could beat him." She smiled at him. "Howards can only hide and kidnap. Howards do not make open fights."

  She turned away from him and went to Severn as her brother went back to the Peregrine tents. Suddenly it was all too much for Tearle. He had always had more women than he knew what to do with. Never had obtaining the affections of a woman been a hardship for him, yet this scrap of a girl was beginning to make him doubt himself.

  He stopped a boy passing by, gave him a copper coin, and told him to deliver a message to Lady Anne in the stands. Moments later he saw Anne listen to the boy, then say something
to her father before leaving the stands. Tearle followed her at some distance as she went back into the house. He watched as she mounted the stairs, and he was soon behind her. On the second floor he saw the edge of her skirt disappear inside a doorway. He followed her into the room and shut the door.

  "You are in danger?" Anne asked.

  "Danger of killing a woman," Tearle said.

  "And I a man," Anne answered.

  "Colbrand?"

  "Nay, it is your enemy, that Peregrine."

  "Severn?" Tearle asked as he unbuckled his belt and began to remove his tunic.

  "What do you do?"

  "A horse stepped on me, and I would have you look at the wound. What has Severn done?"

  Anne began to help her friend undress. "Do you know he plans to marry me? To him there is no question. Today at dinner my father seated him next to me, and this Peregrine told me he had journeyed here for the express purpose of marrying me. He seemed to consider this a great honor for me—as does my father, now that he has seen this man on the field."

  Tearle felt sympathy for Anne, for if her experience with a Peregrine was as bad as his was, she deserved sympathy. When Tearle pulled off his linen shirt Anne gasped.

  "You are black and blue and bloody. Tearle, no horse merely stepped on you, you have been kicked— and hard. How far does this extend? Get the rest of your clothes off. I would see all of you." She went to the door and told a passing servant to bring rags and hot water.

  Behind her Tearle smiled. This was how a woman was supposed to act, he thought. Women were supposed to be sweet, gentle creatures. They were supposed to stroke a man's brow and murmur soothingly to him when he was in pain. Proper women did proper things. They knew about gloves and satins, and they did not sharpen swords.

  Tearle removed all his clothes except his breech-cloth and stretched, facedown, on the bed in the room. Anne, beautiful, sweet, proper-woman Anne, bathed his wounds and applied salve to them.

  "Tell me of her," Anne said softly.

  Tearle started to say he could not, that there was too much danger, but he knew he could trust her. After all, he was already trusting her with his life. If Anne told who he was and Severn heard, Tearle had no doubt that Severn would kill him instantly.