Jenny stared at him, her pulse beginning to race like a maddened thing, but her body was rooted to the floor, as if she was trying to run in a nightmare.

"Jennifer!" he said hoarsely, "Royce is letting them kill him." His hands bit painfully into her arms, but his voice broke with anguish. "He is out there on that field, dying for you. He killed your brother and he's paying-" He broke off as Jennifer tore free from his grip and started running…


Garrick Carmichael spat on the ground near Royce as he rode off the field, victorious, but Royce was oblivious to such subtle insults. He staggered to his knees, vaguely aware that the roar of the crowd was slowly and unaccountably rising to deafening proportions. Swaying, he reached up and pulled off his helmet; he tried to transfer it to his left arm, but his arm was hanging uselessly by his side, and the helmet fell to the ground. Gawin was running toward him-no not Gawin-someone in a blue cloak, and he squinted, trying to focus, wondering if it was his next opponent.

Through the haze of sweat and blood and pain that blurred his vision and fogged his mind, Royce thought for a moment he saw the figure of a woman running-running toward him, her uncovered hair tossing about her, glinting in the sun with red and gold. Jennifer! In disbelief, he squinted, staring, while the earsplitting thunder of the crowd rose higher and higher.

Royce groaned inwardly, trying to push himself to his feet with his unbroken right arm. Jennifer had come back-now, to witness his defeat. Or his death. Even so, he didn't want her to see him die groveling, and with the last ounce of strength he possessed, he managed to stagger to his feet. Reaching up, he wiped the back of his hand across his eyes, his vision cleared, and he realized he was not imagining it. Jennifer was moving toward him, and an eerie silence was descending over the crowd.

Jenny stifled a scream when she was close enough to see his arm dangling brokenly at his side. She stopped in front of him, and her father's bellow from the sidelines made her head jerk toward the lance lying at Royce's feet. "Use it!" he thundered. "Use the lance, Jennifer."

Royce understood then why she had come: she had come to finish the task her relatives had begun; to do to him what he had done to her brother. Unmoving, he watched her, noting that tears were pouring down her beautiful face as she slowly bent down. But instead of reaching for his lance or her dagger, she took his hand between both of hers and pressed her lips to it. Through his daze of pain and confusion, Royce finally understood that she was kneeling to him, and a groan tore from his chest: "Darling," he said brokenly, tightening his hand, trying to make her stand, "don't do this…"

But his wife wouldn't listen. In front of seven thousand onlookers, Jennifer Merrick Westmoreland, countess of Rockbourn, knelt before her husband in a public act of humble obeisance, her face pressed to his hand, her shoulders wrenched with violent sobs. By the time she finally arose, there could not have been many among the spectators who had not seen what she had done. Standing up, she stepped back, lifted her tear-streaked face to his, and squared her shoulders.

Pride exploded in Royce's battered being-because, somehow, she was managing to stand as proudly-as defiantly-as if she had just been knighted by a king.

Gawin, who had been immobilized by Stefan's hand clamped on his shoulder, rushed forward as soon as the hand released him. Royce put his arm across his squire's shoulder and limped off the field.

He left to the accompaniment of cheering that was nearly as loud as it had been when he unhorsed DuMont and MacPherson.


In his tent on the jousting field, Royce slowly, reluctantly opened his eyes, bracing himself for the blast of pain he knew would come with consciousness. But there was no pain.

He could tell from the noise outside that the lists were still underway, and he was wondering dazedly where Gawin was, when it dawned on him that his right hand was being held. Turning his head, he looked in that direction, and for a moment he thought he was dreaming: Jennifer was hovering over him, surrounded by a blindingly bright halo of sunlight that spilled in from the open tent flap behind her. She was smiling down at him with so much tenderness in her beautiful eyes that it was shattering to behold. As if from far away, he heard her softly say, "Welcome back, love."

Suddenly he understood the reason he was seeing her surrounded by shimmering light, the reason for his lack of pain, and for the incredibly tender way she was speaking and looking at him. He said it aloud, his voice flat, dispassionate: "I've died."

But the vision hovering over him shook her head and sat down carefully beside him on the bed. Leaning forward, she smoothed a lock of black hair off his forehead and smiled, but her thick lashes were spiky with tears. "If you've died," she teased in an aching voice, "then I guess 'twill be up to me to go out onto that field and vanquish my stepbrother."

Her fingertips were cool on his forehead, and there was something decidedly human about the press of her hip against his side. Perhaps she was not an angelic vision after all; perhaps he had not died, Royce decided. "How would you do that?" he asked -it was a test, to see if her methods would be spiritual or mortal.

"Well," the vision said, bending over him and gently brushing her soft lips against his, "the last time I did it… I threw up my visor… and I did this-" Royce gasped as her tongue darted sweetly into his mouth. He was not dead. Angels surely did not kiss like that. His free arm came up around her shoulders pulling her down, but just when he would have kissed her, another thought occurred to him and he frowned: "If I'm not dead, why don't I hurt?"

"Aunt Elinor," she whispered. "She mixed a special potion, and we forced you to drink it."

The last cobwebs in his mind cleared, and with a sigh of bliss, he drew her down, kissing her, his spirits soaring as her lips parted and she kissed him back with all her heart. When he finally let her go, they were both breathless, longing to say words that deserved to be spoken in a better place than here in a tent that shook with the bellows from a crowd.

After a minute Royce asked calmly, "How badly am I injured?"

Jenny swallowed and bit her lip, her eyes shadowed with pain for the wounds he'd suffered on her account.

"As bad as that?" he teased huskily.

"Yes," she whispered. "Your left arm is broken, and three fingers. The wounds at your neck and collarbone, which Stefan and Gawin said are Malcolm's work, are long and deep but no longer bleeding. The gash on your leg is monstrous. But we've stopped all the bleeding. Your head took an awful blow-obviously when your helmet was off-and undoubtedly," she added vengefully, "when another one of my butcherous kinsmen attacked you. Beyond that you're bruised horribly everywhere."

His brow arched in amusement. "Doesn't sound too bad."

Jenny started to smile at that outrageous conclusion, but then he added in a quiet, meaningful voice: "What happens after this?"

She understood at once what he was asking her, and she rapidly considered the extent of additional physical damage he'd be likely to suffer if he returned for one more joust, and then weighed that against the awful damage to his pride if he didn't. "That's up to you," she answered after a moment, unable to keep the animosity she felt for her father and brother out of her voice as she added, "However, out there on the 'field of honor' which my family has disgraced today, there is a knight named Malcolm Merrick, who issued a public challenge to you an hour ago."

Royce rubbed his knuckles against her cheek and tenderly asked, "Am I to infer from that remark that you actually think I'm so good that I could beat him with my shield strapped to my shoulder over a broken arm?"

She tipped her head to the side. "Can you?"

A lazy smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and his sensual lips formed one word: "Absolutely."


Standing outside the tent beside Arik, Jenny watched as Royce reached down to take his lance from Gawin. He glanced at her, hesitated a split second-a pause that seemed somehow meaningful-then he turned Zeus and started to ride toward the ring. It hit Jenny then what he had hoped for but had not asked for, and she called out for him to wait.

She hurried into Royce's tent and snatched up the shears they'd used to cut cloth strips to bind his wounds. Running up to the black destrier who was restless now, pawing the ground with his front hoof, she stopped and looked up at her smiling husband. Then she bent and cut an oblong piece from the hem of her blue silk gown, reached up and tied it around the end of Royce's lance.

Arik walked up beside her and together they watched him ride onto the tourney field, while the crowd thundered with approval. Jenny's gaze riveted on the bright blue banner floating from the tip of his lance, and despite all her love for him, an aching lump of tears swelled in her throat. The shears in her hand hung like a heavy symbol of what she had just done: from the moment she'd tied her banner on Royce's lance, she had severed all her ties with her country.

She swallowed audibly, then jumped in shock as Arik's flattened hand suddenly came to rest atop her head. As heavy as a war hammer, it stayed there for a moment, then it slid down to her cheek, pulling her face against his side. It was a hug.


"You needn't worry we'll awaken him, my dear," Aunt Elinor said with absolute conviction to Jenny. "He'll sleep for hours yet."

A pair of gray eyes snapped open, searched the room, then riveted with lazy admiration on the courageous, golden-haired beauty who was standing in the doorway of her chamber, listening to her aunt.

"Even without the tisane I gave him," Aunt Elinor continued as she went over to the vials and powders laid out on a trunk, "any man who returns, wounded, to participate in five more jousts would sleep the night through. Although," she added with a bright smile, "he did not take much time routing the lot of them. What endurance he has," she said with an admiring smile, "and what skill. I've never seen the equal to it."

Jenny was more concerned with Royce's comfort at the moment than with his feats when he reentered the lists. "He's going to hurt terribly when he does awaken. I wish you could give him more of the potion you gave him earlier, before he went back onto the field."

"Well, yes, it would be nice, but it's unwise. Besides, from the looks of those scars on his body, he's accustomed to dealing with pain. And as I told you, 'tis not safe to use more than one dose of my potion. It has some undesirable effects, I'm sad to say."

"What sort of effects?" Jenny asked, still hoping to do something to help him.

"For one thing," Aunt Elinor said in a dire voice, " 'twould render him unable to perform in bed for as long as a sennight."

"Aunt Elinor," Jenny said firmly, more than willing to sacrifice the pleasure of his lovemaking for the sake of his comfort, "if that's all there is to worry about, then please fix more of it."

Aunt Elinor hesitated, then reluctantly nodded, picking up a vial of white powder from the top of the trunk.

" 'Tis a pity," Jenny observed wryly, "that you couldn't add something to it-something to keep him calm for when I tell him Brenna is here and that Stefan and she wish to be wed. He did so want a life of peace," she added with a tired chuckle, "and I doubt he's ever been through more turmoil than he has since he set eyes on me."

"I'm sure you're right," Aunt Elinor unhelpfully replied. "But then, Sir Godfrey confided to me that his grace has never laughed as much as he has since he's known you, so one can only hope he enjoys laughing enough to compensate for a life of upheaval."

"At least," Jenny said, her eyes darkening with pain as she glanced at the parchment on the table that had been delivered to her from her father, "he will not have to live in daily expectation of my father attacking him in order to set Brenna and me free. He has disowned us both."

Aunt Elinor glanced sympathetically at her niece, then she said philosophically, "He has always been a man who was more capable of hate than love, my dear, only you never saw it. If you ask me, the one he loves best is himself. Were that not so, he'd have never tried to marry you off, first to old Balder and then the MacPherson. He has never been interested in you except to further his own selfish goals. Brenna sees him for what he is because he is not her true father, and so she is not blinded by love."