Free The Last Knight by Candice Proctor Page B

Damion said with just enough surprised amusement in his voice to provoke a reaction.
He got one. “Not missing,” Hawk Face snapped. “The viscomtesse de Salers simply wishes her future daughter-in-law to travel with a larger escort.”
“Ah. Well, you'd best hurry, then,” said Damion, obligingly drawing the Arab closer to the grassy verge of the road. “Because the future viscomtesse is surely still ahead of us.”
He waited, one hand resting on the pommel of his sword until the knights and servants of the house of Salers were little more than specks on the eastern horizon. Then he said farewell to the talkative Sir Odo and cantered back to deal with Monsieur le Batard d'Alérion.
Whatever relief Attica felt at escaping detection by the men from Châteauhaut-sur-Vilaine vanished immediately at the sight of Damion de Jarnac thundering toward her.
She had no way of knowing what the knights from Châteauhaut had said to him, but it had obviously been enough to enable him to guess that she had deceived him in some way. And one did not lightly deceive a man such as Dam-ion de Jarnac.
Her stomach twisted with fear at the thought. She turned her head, the late-afternoon breeze fluttering the ragged ends of her cropped hair about her face as she stared at the distant hills. She knew an almost hysterical impulse to dig her knees into the roan's sides and gallop off across the fields, not caring where she went as long as she got away from him. She even collected her reins. But then she remembered that the roan she rode was his horse, not hers. And it occurred to her that even though she might have a head start and a fresher horse, she wouldn't put it past de Jarnac and that indefatigable Arab of his to ride her down anyway.
If he didn't simply borrow one of the archers’ crossbows and shoot her as she fled.
Abruptly abandoning all thoughts of wild flight, she considered instead the possibility of throwing herself on the mercy of the nearest merchant and asking for his protection. But when she glanced about at the disinterested, self-absorbed faces of the fat, overdressed Spanish burghers, she knew that no man here would dare to stand up against a knight such as Damion de Jarnac. Especially not for the sake of some unknown woman caught masquerading as a man.
He was almost upon her. Lifting her chin proudly, her heart pounding painfully in her chest, Attica drew the roan onto the grassy verge and waited as the dark knight rode right up to her.
His hand flashed out to grasp the roan's reins below the bit. “Get down,” he ordered, as if he knew how close to flight she'd come. “Now.”
Her gaze focused on the cruel, mean slant of his mouth. Wordlessly, she slid out of the saddle.
To her chagrin, her knees buckled as soon as her feet hit the ground. She couldn't have said whether it was from fear or exhaustion, but she simply no longer had the strength to stand. The grass rose up to greet her, cool and soft and familiar in a world suddenly gone strange and frightening. She made no attempt to stand up. She was aware of de Jarnac on his black horse, looming over her like some evil nightmare, but she kept her gaze fixed on the passing pack horses. He would do nothing as long as the Spanish traders were here.
The Spanish caravan was a long one, but eventually the last steel-and leather-laden mule and the last curious pikeman plodded past. The setting sun caught the dust of their passing as it hung in the air, shimmering in the slanting light like gold. In the distance she could hear the lowing of cattle being driven back to some village for the night. The grass suddenly felt damp through the blue velvet of the dead courtier's surcoat, and she shivered.
She heard the faint scrape of de Jarnac's prick spurs as he swung out of the saddle and stalked up to her, but she kept her gaze fixed on the now empty road. She could not bring herself to look at him.
A long black shadow fell across her. “Stand up,” he said.
Her head tipped back almost of its