Reckless (Age of Conquest #5) - Tamara Leigh Page 0,104

himself for the breaking of fast this morn, then taken De Warenne and a dozen others—including Guarin Wulfrith—to hunt Thetford’s wood.

Though in the hours since, the nooning meal had been served and cleared away, still the hunting party had not returned, meaning Vitalis was no nearer his punishment. The only good of it was the certainty Lady Nicola and her lover were more pained by the waiting than Daryl.

The whelp stepped nearer, and no greater rebuke nor insult could he have dealt than to repeat his question in the language of the English as if Daryl were deficient in Norman-French. “For what do you watch Lady Nicola?”

He breathed as deeply as he furrowed his brow. “Is that how it looked, my prince?” He grimaced. “When I am heavy with thought, oft I stare. Be assured, no harm is intended the lady and certainly none you.”

Perhaps he should not have said that last, but already the whelp disliked him—surely because he had been told Daryl knew he had paid Vitalis’s guards to leave their prisoner unattended. Why Richard had aided Lady Nicola he did not know, though likely the youth was so besotted it mattered not how he gained her attention. And her gratitude.

“Lest further you offend,” the prince said, “stare elsewhere.” Then as if he knew Daryl’s thoughts, he looked at the injured side of his face. “The cut that was dealt by… Was it two men? Terrible, aye, but only of the flesh. Dig a blade deep and, alas…” He raised his eyebrows and pivoted.

His threat tempted Daryl to issue his own by warning of the king’s great displeasure when he learned his son had bribed those guarding William’s long-sought enemy. Instead, Daryl seethed as he watched the whelp stride from the alcove.

“I have but to get you alone, Prince, and you shall learn your place,” he muttered, only to regret speaking it for how much more pitiful it sounded. More, that it brought to mind a lesson Vitalis had sought to impress on Daryl before he saw him turned out of Wulfen for taking what that girl had wanted taken.

If you are in the right, your cause just, seek not secret places nor the backside of one with whom you disagree, young Daryl. Do you fear an audience, do you fear confronting another face on, then that is your conscience giving warning neither your cause nor your intent is just.

What was commanded of him had seemed honorable, but it was quicker, easier, and more effective to stealthily deliver justice to those who wronged him. Of added benefit, most times what needed doing was done with few, if any, repercussions. And since ever it had worked well for his sire…

Daryl took a step back to gain deeper shadows, looked from the prince who paused to observe a chess match between two aged knights, then to Lady Nicola. As he resumed his watch over the latter, he fingered the scabbed cut she had dealt and once more wondered if there was a way to expose her and the prince’s deception without harm to himself. Had pride and little consideration not caused him to lie about being cut by a woman, good use could have been made of this.

Though it was upon the wall he had learned Vitalis’s guards were bribed, and he had expected to find the prince in the cellar, he could have claimed the inability to sleep permitted him to witness the lady going down into the cellar. He could have expressed remorse for not sounding the alarm—told he but wished to spare her the shame and punishment for meeting with her lover by discreetly turning her back from such folly. In the Norman way of thinking, his behavior would have been deemed chivalric, and great the sympathy due him for her attempt to slay him lest he reveal her.

A great tale that would have been. But too late now, and even were it not, since she was Norman—and a D’Argent—her word might have taken precedent over that of one born Saxon. “But could I get you alone, Lady—”

Of a sudden, her eyes widened and she sat straighter. Sir Maël had returned to the hall, doubtless to deliver tidings of the man who may have got her with child.

Fool Normans, he mused the same as on the night past when her hand on her belly made it appear her virtue was lost. Even in the absence of great reward such as her eldest brother enjoyed, the D’Argents were