Claire Delacroix Read Free

“Yet still I have no idea of the comparative forces. It seems that you would appoint me to a fool’s errand.”
    “Insolent bastard! ” Tulley pushed himself to his feet with the aid of his cane, but the charge was too familiar to hold any sting for Yves. “I grant you an opportunity to aid one of the most powerful lords in all of Christendom—myself! You would be a fool to abandon this opportunity to make more of your life!”
    Yves, unimpressed, stretched out his legs and took another sip of his wine. Tulley’s gaze dropped to the cup before meeting Yves’ again, and for once, Yves enjoyed that Gaston had been absent and thence had not offered the guest a cup.
    Yves cleared his throat. “I fail to see what you might offer for this service that I might be inspired to foolishly risk my hide.”
    “Gold!” Tulley declared, his fists clenching on his cane. “I shall pay you in gold. You name the price.”
    “I have no use for gold.” Yves gestured to his tent and shrugged politely. “My needs are simple, as you noted, and already well met.”
    “Land, then!” Tulley leaned forward with gleaming eyes. “I will grant you a property within Tulley, if you are successful. That is more than you will gain from the count’s hand.”
    “A knight has need of land only if he desires the obligation of wife and family,” Yves countered calmly. “I am content with my circumstance as it stands.”
    The men’s gazes locked once more and silence stretched taut within the silken enclosure. It appeared that Tulley ground his teeth silently as he glared at Yves, but the knight remained unmoved.
    “I have one thing that I know you will want,” Tulley growled finally.
    “I do not believe that.”
    The older man’s white brow arched high. “But you will.”
    Tulley leaned back to eye the roof of the tent, his expression curiously reflective. “You see, once upon a time, your father was beholden to me. The circumstances do not matter particularly, but suffice it to say that Jerome de Sayerne had to placate me and win my confidence in him anew to secure his hold over his hereditary estate of Sayerne.”
    Tulley smiled in reminiscence over that day of power, and Yves knew the old lord had savored that moment. “I could have ripped the estate out from beneath him that time,” he mused, “and the miserable wretch knew it all too well.”
    Yves’ throat constricted with this unwelcome reminder of the past and all its emotional turmoil. He had refused to think about his father since his death and was not going to begin thinking about him now.
    Tulley’s bright gaze landed on Yves once more. “Jerome put quill to parchment and concocted a declaration, signed before witnesses and dutifully stamped with his seal.” The old lord paused for effect.
    “Indeed?” Yves fought to sound indifferent and heard himself fail.
    The old man’s white brows rose high at the sound of curiosity in Yves’ voice. “It is a declaration,” he whispered with evident delight, and Yves hated how he strained for the words “that one bastard Yves, born in the year 1086 at Château Sayerne, is indeed the blood of Lord Jerome de Sayerne.”
    Yves’ heart skipped a beat.
    Tulley’s gaze did not waver, though a tiny smile played on his lips.
    Yves loathed how he was tempted, hated that the manipulative old lord had guessed the one thing that eluded him despite his success. Illegitimacy was not a taint a man could erase by virtue of his own deeds, regardless of how well he fared in this life.
    And Tulley, curse him, offered a respite.
    Tulley’s voice dropped conspiratorially. “It further declares that this child’s mother, one Eglantine de Chalome, should be recognized as the second wife of Jerome de Sayerne, for he took her as his common wife.”
    Wife? Yves had known no such thing and doubted its truth.
    But Jerome had pledged to it.
    Respectability could be his! Yves’ heart stopped cold and he could not summon a word to his lips. The