"Outlaw?" Alain frowned. "Hold! I know you, do I not?" Then, before Forrest could answer: "Indeed I do! You are the bandit chieftain whom I defeated and sent to my lady!" He turned to Cordelia. "Lady Cordelia, how is it you have let this man go free?"
"I did not." She frowned, puzzled, but kept her eyes on Forrest. "I sent him, with his whole band, to Sir Maris. How is it the seneschal has dispatched you, Forrest?"
"Forrest?" Alain stared. "You know his name?"
"Indeed," she said indignantly—perhaps the more indignantly because Alain had been fighting for another woman. "I required his name and rank of him."
"Sir Maris bade me go, and trouble good folk no more," Forrest explained. "He said nothing of bad folk."
Alain smiled, amused. "So you have seen your way clear to the troubling of such as these?" He nodded after the witch and her cronies.
"Aye, though I follow good folk." Forrest gazed up at Cordelia, his smile so warm that she felt it with an almost physical pressure.
Alain's eyes sparked with jealousy. He moved his horse closer to Cordelia's. "Surely milady is indeed `good folk'the best of the best, and the fairest of the fair—far too good for so incorrigible a rascal as yourself to attend upon her!"
"If I am incorrigible, do not incorrige me." Forrest was still gazing up into Cordelia's eyes. "Will you bid me go?"
"No-o-o-o," Cordelia said, as though the words were being dragged out of her. Then, quickly: "This pathway through the forest seems to be hazardous; there is no saying what dangers lurk upon it."
"Well, I can say." Forrest grinned. "I have been through this wood before—and through it, and through it! You speak truly, my lady—there are dangers by the score: monsters, wild beasts of all sorts; wolves and bears are the least of diem. There are ogres, wild men, all manner of dangers! Nay, even with two such doughty knights to guard you, you cannot have too many defenders."
"Nor I," said Delilah, with an air of hauteur.
"Nor yourself either, milady." The gaze Forrest had given Cordelia had been warm, but the look he gave Delilah was a sunburst. "Any fair ladies who travel this wood do need protecting—and the fairer they are, the more they need warding."
"By that token," Geoffrey said, with an edge to his tone, "the Lady Delilah would need an army."
Forrest turned to him in surprise. "And what of the Lady Cordelia, sir?"
"Oh, Cordelia?" Geoffrey made a dismissive gesture. "She is my sister."
"I see." Forrest's lips quirked with humor. "And a sister, of course, can never be beautiful to her brother." He turned back to Cordelia, his gaze boring into hers. "But I assure you, my lady, I am not your brother."
"No; I should have recognized you if you were." Cordelia strove to sound cool and disinterested, but it was no use. He knew exactly how interested she was.
"Come! Must we stand here all day chaffering?" Delilah shook her bridle till the rings jingled. "Or shall we not move onward toward my father's house?"
"Aye, most assuredly!" Alain turned back to Forrest and said severely, "Thank you for your help, good fellow. Now be off."
"Nay, I shall be on. As to calling me `fellow'..." Forrest's face hardened as he looked up at Alain. "I am as well born as you, I warrant, and was knighted. It is true that I have fallen on evil days, and I may have been less than honorable as a consequence, but that does not lessen my quality."
Alain's mouth quirked in wry amusement. "As well born as I, sir? To be sure, any lapse in chivalry does show you to be of lesser quality than your birth."
"If that is so," Forrest returned, his voice hardening, "there are many men in Gramarye who are of lower quality than that to which they were born, yet wear duke's coronets and sit in great houses."
Alain lost his smile.
Cordelia decided the tension was growing too thick. She clucked to Fess, and he moved between the two men, so that she broke their gaze. "Come, gentlemen! Let us not stand in idle chatter; the Lady Delilah hath the right of it in that." She stressed the word "that."
"Let us go."
"To her father's house?" the outlaw asked in surprise. "Indeed," Cordelia answered.
"Aye," Alain said severely. "We have given our word that we will escort the lady to her home—though I doubt that you would understand the importance of honoring one's word, sir!"
Now it was Forrest's gaze that darkened, and Cordelia said quickly, "Alain! That was unchivalrous of you, sir!" Then, to both of them, "Do what you will—I am going."
She kicked her heels against Fess's sides, and the great black horse moved off with alacrity. The two men looked up, startled; then Alain kicked his horse and rode to come up beside her, and Forrest ran.
Cordelia reined in Fess, and the two caught up, pacing along on either side of her. She made sure that Fess was going slowly enough so that Forrest wouldn't be pressed too hard.
"Nay, you must not leave me behind, fair lady!" Forrest protested. "For this Forrest would be dark indeed without you."
She turned to him, tilting up her chin, and said, in her coolest tone, "Black-haired, sir, and black-bearded; how dark can you not be?"
The outlaw stared at her a moment, then grinned, showing white teeth. His lips, she noticed, were very red, and fuller than most men's. "Even as you say it, my lady—but darker tenfold for want of your smile."
"Though any man would seem dark," said Alain, "near the light of your beauty, lovely Cordelia."
She turned, gratified. "Why, thank you, Alain. Where have you learned such pretty manners of speech?"
"Why, from my heart," he said, gazing into her eyes. For a moment, her heart fluttered, and she found herself wondering if he really did mean it.
No. Surely. It was only the competition with Forrest that had caused him to say it—though she seemed to remember a few compliments of the night before ...
Still ...
Alain had always hated to lose, she remembered that well enough from their childhoods, though he had learned how to pretend a better grace as he grew older ...
"The leaf that flutters from the tree cannot be lighter than your step!"
"The summer's sky cannot be more clear than your eyes!"
"The cherry's blossom must pale when set against your cheek!"
"Nay, for those blossoms are your cheeks!"
Cordelia looked from one to the other, soaking up the compliments as they settled about her. She knew better than to trust either of them, or to think that they really meant it—but she might as well enjoy it while it lasted. She decided that there was definitely something to be said for competition.
Behind her, her brother was looking decidedly grumpy. "What do they see in her? Surely she cannot have grown into a beauty in the space of one day!"
"Oh, it is only as Alain has said," Delilah answered, disgusted. "A brother can never see his sister's beauty." She turned toward him, a wicked notion coming into her mind.
"Perhaps that means that only brothers can see truly." Geoffrey looked at her for a moment, trying to make up his mind whether or not to be offended. Then he decided to give Cordelia a little of her own medicine. "You have never had a brother?" he asked.
"Nay—only my sister." A shadow crossed her face. Geoffrey spoke quickly to erase the thought. "Then I must fill his place, and see you as you truly are.",
For a moment, she seemed discomfited, even alarmed; but it was only a flicker. Her eyelids drooped, and a slow, lazy smile curved her lips. "Come, sir! Did you not see me truly last night?"
"What, by moonlight?" Geoffrey breathed. "Or by starlight? Nay! Surely only the light of the sun shows us as we truly are."