The Conquest Read online

  The whole story came tumbling out. Tearle told Anne everything from the beginning, about Oliver's men kidnapping the youngest Peregrine and Tearle realizing they held a girl. He told her about Zared cutting him, about his obsession with her and how he'd arranged to be near her.

  "But she has fixed on Colbrand," he said bitterly. "I throw myself over her body and protect her, yet still she does not acknowledge that I am a man."

  "You could beat Colbrand. You could take Severn also. How I'd like to see him fall," she said, her eyes glittering. "After dinner today he tried to kiss me." She smiled. "I applied my knee to his brain."

  Tearle snorted. "It seems we have opposite goals. Your father would not force you to marry a man who could not win the tournament." He smiled. "And I would love to beat Colbrand; I should greatly love to see him brought low."

  "Were it not for this silly disguise you've adopted you could fight them. You could bring them both down. I have seen you fight, and you are better than either of them."

  "Yes," Tearle said sadly, sitting up so Anne could bind his ribs. "If only I didn't need to remain as Smith—" He broke off and stared at her. "I could fight now."

  "Yes," she said eagerly, "there is no reason you cannot be seen. Announce yourself as a Howard and enter the next two days. That Peregrine would not dare harm you while under my father's roof."

  "No," Tearle said thoughtfully. "I will not stoop to my brother's level. Too many people have seen me with the Peregrines, and they will see them as fools for having had a Howard in their midst."

  "They are fools," Anne said vehemently.

  Tearle looked at her exquisite face. Was she protesting too much? "Severn does not strike me as being unattractive to women."

  "He is a boor, an unmannered boor who believes a woman is his for the taking—not for the asking, mind, but for the taking."

  "But not unpleasant to look at," Tearle said. "He sits a horse well."

  "I should like to see him fall to the ground. I should like to hear him laughed at. I should like him seen as the fool he is. I should—"

  "I understand," Tearle said, unable to keep the amusement from his voice.

  "If you dare to laugh at me, I will—"

  "I?" Tearle said in innocence. "I, a man sorely wounded in the cause of the Peregrines, laugh at another's ill wishes for them?"

  Anne's lovely face relaxed. Tearle had known her too long and well, she thought. When that awful man, smelling of sweat and horse, had pulled her into a dark corner, she had at first responded to his kisses. There was something so very basic about the man. He seemed to take it for granted that she would be willing, even eager, to marry him. Throughout dinner he had talked easily to her father, as though they were already kin, and her father had responded in kind. Anne had sat between them, ignored. The Peregrine man had repeatedly reached across her for food, and she'd had to lean away from his elbows. He had talked across her and over her as though she weren't there.

  And all the talk had been of weapons and warfare. As far as she could tell, there wasn't a finer sentiment in the man's body. At least Colbrand, the other man her father favored, had beautiful manners and had noticed when her gown matched her eyes. There were no compliments from the Peregrine. He had looked at her once as though appraising her, and as far as she knew, he hadn't glanced at her again.

  After dinner he'd gone off with her father. Anne would have left them, but her father had ordered her to accompany them to the mews where he had some hawks to show the Peregrine. Anne and a couple of her ladies had followed the men, not speaking or being spoken to.

  It was at the mews that the man had pulled her behind a shed and kissed her. Perhaps it was because she was so full of anger that at first she kissed him back, but it didn't take long for her to recover her senses. She'd raised her knee and brought it up between his legs. He had pushed her away from him, his face furious. Anne didn't want him to know how much he frightened her, so she had stood her ground.

  He didn't say anything to her for a moment, then said, "Go back to your father," and he turned and left her. She had to admit that his reaction wasn't what she would have expected, but she was pleased she had made him so angry. Perhaps he would drop the suit for her hand.

  "I shall appear in disguise," Tearle was saying.

  "In disguise?"

  "Yes, as… as the Black Knight. Can you find armor for me and have it painted black? I will challenge the men who have the most points so far."

  "That will be Colbrand and this Peregrine. No one seems able to touch them."

  Tearle remembered the way Zared looked at Colbrand each time the man came within sight of her and felt a surge of strength flow through him. "I will beat them," he said softly. "For you I will beat Severn, and for myself I will make Colbrand sorry he was born."

  Anne smiled at him. "I will find the armor. Come to the garden tonight at midnight, and I will see that you have what you need. And I will see that all is arranged with my father. He will like a mystery knight to act as his champion."

  Tearle rose, his wounds feeling much better. "And what if he gives you to me as my prize?"

  Anne, sitting on the edge of the bed, looked up at him. He was wearing only the smallest piece of white linen, and as he moved muscles played under his skin. "I would accept," she said softly.

  He turned to look at her. She was so lovely, so perfectly featured, and he knew her dowry would be enormous. Uniting the Marshalls and the Howards would be a very wise thing to do, and he knew his brother would heartily approve the match. Oliver could use Anne's dowry to buy more weapons to try to destroy the Peregrines.

  As he looked at Anne's face, at her perfect loveliness, he began to see Zared's face, her prettiness nothing to compare with Anne's beauty, but there was an innocence to Zared that Anne could never have. Tearle remembered the look on Zared's face when she'd tried on one of the gloves. There was a world of new and different things he'd like to show Zared.

  Perhaps it was her lack of experience that fascinated him, he thought. Perhaps because he had seen and done so much in his years on earth, Zared's freshness was a delight to him. Even the open, adoring way she looked at Colbrand intrigued him. Anne, and women like her, who were used to courts full of handsome men, would never show their feelings so openly. Tearle knew that if Anne loved a man she would not tell him so unless it was suitable for her to do so. But Zared, Tearle thought, smiling—if Zared loved a man, she'd protect him with her life.

  "Then I should be most honored," Tearle said, smiling as he lied.

  Anne smiled, too, knowing he lied. "Get dressed. I will leave first so no one sees me alone with a half-dressed man—even if you are old enough to be my father."

  Tearle smiled at her knowingly. He was pleased to have her look at him as a man. After Zared, it was pleasant to have any woman look at him. "At midnight, then," he said as she reached the door.

  She nodded and left the room.

  Zared left the tournament grounds more confused than ever. Too many things were happening to her. She kept remembering—feeling—the Howard man on top of her as the horse stomped on him. She could feel the blows through his body to hers. Yet later he had refused any help from her.

  Had he saved her for some ulterior reason? Did he want to unite the Peregrines and the Howards? If his brother had found papers proving the Peregrines owned the land held by the Howards, Oliver Howard would merely have burned the papers. He wouldn't need to send his brother to join the two families.

  She put her hands to her ears as though to stop the raging thoughts. What did the man want from her? Why didn't he just go away and leave her to herself and to… to Colbrand?

  At the thought of the beautiful man Zared decided to go to his tent. Perhaps the sight of the blond man would make her forget the dark one who was beginning to haunt her.

  But at Colbrand's tent she was greeted with abuse from Jamie, his squire.

  "Do you come to gloat?" he sneered at her.

  "No, I…" What? sh