“Mayhap,” Kes countered sweetly, “’twas the guests who wore on this warrior’s mettle.”
The king turned to Nicholas, looking rather surprised. Kes wasn’t being careful. She swore in her mind. Well, she wanted the king to know that his commander’s feelings for her, when he admitted to them, were reciprocated.
“You have a tigress here, Commander. She does not allow a word to be spoken against you.”
“Aye,” Nicholas smiled at her. “Our feelings for each other have grown quickly.
“Quite quickly, indeed!” Reg balked. “Why, just the other morning they were shouting at each other over breakfast.”
“Reg,” Nicholas said on a warning snarl, “’twill be that you take your family and leave, or I cut out your tongue. Choose.”
Reg’s eyes opened as wide as Kes thought they could.
She wondered why Nicholas had let his cousin stay so long when they did not get along.
“Sire?” Reg entreated.
The king’s face remained completely impassive. He looked at his commander, and so did Kes.
Nicholas’ gaze pierced Richard’s. His nostrils were slightly flared as he awaited the king’s response.
Kes wondered what he would do if Richard overrode his command.
“Do as he says, Reginald,” the king told him while he smiled at his commander. “Choose. I would forego my tongue if the choice were mine.”
Seeing that no help came from that quarter, Reg began to weep. Kes looked away. She didn’t want to witness any man’s humiliation.
“Go weep to your wife,” Nicholas ordered. “I will show you mercy for Miss Locksley’s sake. But do not speak of her or me again. Do you understand?”
Reg nodded and then ran away.
The king peered at Nicholas as if he were reading him. Then coming to some secret conclusion, he gave his commander a pitiful look. “You should have thrown him out a long time ago.”
“I need someone to take care of things while I’m away fighting for you.”
“Take a wife,” the king suggested, his smile widening when he glanced at her. “Then she can take care of things. Aye?”
Nicholas looked at Kes with bold impatience. “Aye.”
Kes felt herself blushing. She couldn’t help it. Worse, she couldn’t help that she wished his words were true.
Chapter Eleven
Charles Lancaster sat in the outdoor pub at a small, round, wooden table, alone in the shadows of twilight. He bid the server pour him one more drink while he contemplated everything he knew. His Kestrel had been abducted and it would seem through magic. He’d dug up enough to know certain things were true—and there was nothing he could do about it.
The server gave him a warm smile. He turned away. He didn’t want intimate company. He wanted to mourn the loss of his baby, his only child.
When a woman recognized him and came to his table asking to hear his story, he settled in to tell her. Any opportunity he found to talk about his daughter, he took.
“I’m Noelle Upton, with TTN, The Truth in News. Your daughter’s disappearance has become headline news. We understand there are no new leads. What’s the most difficult part of this for you?”
“Not knowing if she’s suffering right now is the hardest thing.” He pulled her picture from his wallet and smiled looking at it. “If anyone has any information leading to her rescue, I will pay one hundred thousand dollars.”
Ms. Upton smiled, reminding him of the sun and how pleasant it was to stand beneath its light. “The station will match that, Mr. Lancaster. Your daughter’s disappearance is helping many eyes to open about crimes against women.”
Charles wasn’t sure he wanted to use his daughter’s disappearance as propaganda. “Let us find her first, and then we can open more eyes.”
He rose and dropped a twenty onto the table.
He was going to need help. He wasn’t sure how far he could or should go.
For Kestrel, he would give up anything.
*
“Where in York did you say you were from?”
Kes looked straight into the king’s eyes and gave him a slight smile. “Not York, Sire, but Bridlington. I’m from Bridlington. I believe.”
She lifted her cup and sipped her wine. She glanced around from where she sat at the head table, letting her gaze linger on the doors to the great hall.
Her knight wasn’t around for help. The king had sent him away to spy out a rumor of a group of Reds close by. Thankfully, before he left, they went over everything she needed to know about her life if the king asked. Where she grew up and who her parents were.
“You are quite lovely,” the king told her. “Your eyes are like gems in sea water.”
She sighed inwardly. “Your Majesty is too kind.”
“How is it that a woman like you is unwed? Are you a widow?”
“A woman like me, Sire?”
He grinned. “Well, you are not a fresh maiden, now are you? Twenty and two?”
“Twenty and five,” she corrected with no coyness at all. “I remain unwed because I am…barren.” Should she sniffle? Wipe a dry tear from her eye?
He laughed and leaned in. “Who cares about children? I would marry you just to fu—”
“Your Majesty,” she cut him off sharply, “do you think that crown gives you the right to speak to me that way?”
He gave her a hard look. “Aye, it does.”
“No,” she shook her head and went on boldly, “it does not.” She was sure Elia was having a breakdown beside her (after Kes had begged the king to let her sit there). “And I think your commander will agree when we ask him upon his return.”
He stared at her and Kes felt like someone was running their cold fingers up her spine. She had taken a bold chance, but there was just no way she could live with Richard salivating over her. Oh, he was angry. If looks could kill, she’d be pinned to the wall, bleeding out. She was a fool! This was the king in the fifteenth century! He would hang her!
“Perhaps ’twas a
