Read Online The Last Knight by Candice Proctor - Free Book Online Page A

Father and all the holy saints preserve us .” He tried to sit up again, gasping for air as if he'd just had the wind knocked out of him. “ Damion de Jarnac? My lady, you cannot .”
“Shhh,” she hissed again, pressing him back down against the pillows. “I have no choice, Walter. You must see that. With a knight such as de Jarnac to protect me, I should have no difficulty reaching Laval. Whereas alone …”
“But my l—” He broke off to dart an anxious glance toward the empty doorway and dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper. “Who is going to protect you from de Jarnac? Do you know the things he has done?”
His words brought a peculiar dreadful ache to her stomach. She had heard some of the tale, but she had always suspected there was more to it, told only in whispers and never to an unmarried maiden. “He does not know who— or what—I am, Walter,” she said, keeping her voice calm and level with effort.
“But if he should guess and …” Walter broke off and swallowed the rest of his sentence, his eyes bulging out as if he were strangling on whatever it was he couldn't bring himself to say aloud to a gentlewoman.
“Walter, the man is a knight, not a common brigand.”
The groom's fist tightened over the edge of the rough monastic blanket, his normally congenial face hardening. “A knight he may be, yet I have heard it said he openly laughs at the codes of chivalry. You will not be able to rely upon his honor, should he learn the truth.”
Attica ignored the chill his words sent coursing through her. “He won't. I'll make certain of that.”
Walter's gaze drifted awkwardly away from her as he struggled with something he obviously felt he needed to say. “You will not reach Laval today. You realize that?”
Attica nodded. She knew it, but if she let herself dwell on the intimacy of all those hours she would be spending alone on the road with that man—if she thought about tonight—she would never find the courage to ride on. “If possible, I'll try to convince him to ride through the night without stopping anywhere. I'll—”
She broke off at the sound of footsteps coming toward them down the corridor. She barely had time to leap to her feet like some guilty conspirator before de Jarnac's strong hand swept the curtain to one side.
His big body filled the doorway, his gaze traveling from where Attica stood, her color probably betrayingly high, to Walter, who looked so much like a cornered wolf determined to guard its only cub that Attica might have laughed if she'd been in a different frame of mind.
Then the knight's cold green eyes swung back to Attica, and any thought of laughter fled. “If you still plan to come with me, it's time to leave.” He held her gaze for a long, tense moment, as if he were issuing some sort of challenge.
“I am ready,” she said, careful to keep the fear she felt out of her voice and face. “Only give me a moment to say farewell.”
Nodding, he spun on his heel and left the cell. She could hear the quick tread of his boots echoing down the corridor.
Walter reached out to grasp her hand, jerking her attention away from the empty doorway where the curtain still quivered. “You don't need to go with him. You could stayhere, in the monastery, where you'll be safe. Surely there must be someone you could send in your place?”
Attica gently slipped her hand from his grasp. “You know I can't, Walter. How could I trust such a secret to some stranger?”
Walter's gray brows twitched together in a troubled frown. “Do you think Stephen would want you to do this thing you are so set upon?”
A wry smile twisted Attica's lips as she thought of what her big brother would say if he knew what she were about to do. “Probably not. But he would do it for me.”
“He is a man.”
Attica's chin came up in an unconscious gesture of pride. “He is a d'Alérion, and so am I. Just because I am a woman doesn't mean that loyalty and honor are nothing to me. Or that I can't be brave.”
Walter let his breath out in a long sigh. “I