For My Lady's Heart by Laura Kinsale Read Free Book Online

declared, his voice rising. “I carry Her
    Highness’ favor, impudent rogue!”
    Melanthe seized her moment. She slanted him a cool look. “Think you so,
    my lord?” she asked softly.
    Lancaster glanced at her, his face growing red. “I—” His jaw went taut.
    “I am at your service, if you will honor me,” he said stiffly.
    Melanthe smiled at him. She caught Gryngolet’s jesses and pulled the soft
    white calf’s leather loose from about the falcon’s legs, slipping her dagger
    inside to cut the belled bewits and the jesses free. Gryngolet’s varvels
    swung suspended from the ends—two silver rings jeweled with emeralds and
    diamonds and engraved with Melanthe’s name. She slipped the bells from Milan
    onto the jesses, tying them so that they made a falcon’s music—one note
    striking high and one low— in the rich harmony that belonged to nothing else
    in heaven or earth.
    Lancaster was watching her. She looked at him for a long, significant
    moment, then turned back to the knight who still knelt below her.
    “Green Sire,” she declared, “the most precious prize I possess on earth,
    I give thee for a keepsake, to defend me for my honor on the morrow.”
    She tossed the jesses with their gems and bells onto the rush before him.
    “I challenge for it!” Lancaster exclaimed instantly.
    “And I, on my lord’s behalf!” A man stood up beyond him on the dais.
    “And I!” They were seconded by two more, and then four, i knights
    standing in the hall to shout their dares until the hammer-beams rang.
    “Enough!” Lancaster lifted his arm. “It shall be arranged who will
    fight.” He glared down at the green knight. “Rise, then, insolent fellow.”
    The knight came to his feet, his eyes downcast again. She noticed that
    he’d had the presence of mind to retrieve his gauntlet along with the jesses
    while he knelt—not entirely a lack-wit. God only knew how Allegreto had
    threatened or enticed him to do this thing. The knight stood waiting with a
    stony stare at his lord’s feet, the light on his virid armor sculpting broad
    curves at his shoulders, chasing silver arcs across his arm-plates.
    Lancaster could barely keep the fury from his face.
    “A most marvelous unicorn,” she said with amusement. “My lord’s grace is
    kind, to put him at my service.”
    Lancaster seemed to find some control of his emotion. He bowed to her,
    producing a smile that did not quite cover the grim set of his jaw. “I would
    have counted it worth my life to serve you myself, my lady. But now I count
    it an honor to win your better regard by trial tomorrow, against this man I
    had thought under true oath to me.”
    The green knight looked up, his expression a fascinating play of yearning
    and pride, of checked temper. “My beloved lord, I wish with my whole heart
    to please you, but my lady commands me.”
    “Thou takest too much credit upon thyself, knave!”
    The knight glanced to Melanthe; his eyes as green as his armor, human now
    instead of hidden by steel and darkness. In his intense gaze there was an
    open dismay of his own defiance before his prince—he looked to her hoping
    for reprieve, asking her for release from what he had done.
    She held him, denying it. Her answer was unrelenting silence.
    The knight bowed his head. She could see the taut muscle in his bared
    neck. “Does my lord bid me serve his pleasure before my lady’s?” he asked in
    a low voice.
    It was a futile attempt, hardly more than a strained whisper. Without an
    appeal from Melanthe herself, Lancaster would not withdraw—could not, not
    now, when he had agreed to fight.
    “I do not well know where thou comest by this notion that Her Highness
    stoops to command such as thee!” Lancaster snapped.
    “From me, mayhap,” Melanthe murmured.
    The duke gave her a sullen small bow. “Then your wish is mine,” he said
    curtly. “And my command, of course. This man shall ride for you on the
    morrow, my lady, against myself and all who challenge for your