Free Fairest Of Them All by Teresa Medeiros

only hope he took her feeble grunt as one of assent. It took little imagination to envision a future as Eugene’s wife. Once age began to fade her beauty and some pert thirteen-year-old with supple breasts and an opulent dowry caught her husband’s lascivious eye, she had only a headlong tumble down the castle garderobe to look forward to.
    As the marshal introduced the new challenger, three men-at-arms rushed out to gird Eugene in plates of armor so bright they seemed to reflect the fires of the forge that had molded them.
    This time her father’s blessing rang with righteous conviction. “Fight with honor, gentlemen, and show mercy to your opponent!”
    As Eugene drew his burnished sword to face Gav-enmore, Holly wished she hadn’t pared her beautiful nails to the quick, giving her no choice but to nibble the tender skin of one knuckle.
    The men circled each other like wolves warily scenting the blood of a fresh kill. Holly might have been more intrigued by the spectacle had she not known that the victor would have every right to make her his next morsel. Gavenmore outweighed Eugene by at least two stone, but de Leggef s slender grace offset the advantage. He darted like quicksilver, parrying each of the knight’s mighty swings until their blades clashed in a deadly symphony.
    Holly winced as Gavenmore took a blow to the helm that would have staggered a lesser man. A roar of approval went up from the crowd. She scowled at them. Eugene wasn’t particularly popular, but they’d have probably cheered Satan himself had he volunteered to trounce the Welshman and uphold the precious English honor not one of them had been willing to defend.
    A downward slash of Eugene’s blade drew a dark bloom of blood on the Welshman’s hose. He gazed down at the wound in patent disbelief.
    Eugene tipped back the faceplate of his helm. “Shall you yield?” he invited with a sneer. “I fear hacking you limb from limb might offend my bride’s delicate sensibilities.”
    Holly didn’t realize she was holding her breath until Gavenmore drew off his helm altogether and cast it away. His crooked smile was a dazzling flash of white against his swarthy beard. Shaking sweat from his eyes, he said, “ Tis not the lady you should fear offending, sir, but me.”
    With that fair warning, he charged, roaring like an enraged bull. Holly would have been hard pressed to say who was subdued most effectively—Eugene or the crowd. Here at last was the savage berserk they had all feared. The knight’s fierce press gave Montfort no choice but to squander his every move in retreat and his every swing in deflecting the giant’s relentless blows.
    The onlookers lapsed into dismayed silence, but when Gavenmore whacked Eugene on the ear in a flat-sided blow that would probably leave the baron’s smug ears ringing for a fortnight, Holly jumped to her feet, cheering wildly. Realizing abruptly that everyone was gaping at her, including her ashen-faced papa, she sank sheepishly back down, wishing for the protective veil of her eyelashes.
    The knight kept swinging. Eugene kept retreating. His shiny helm went sailing as he tripped over his own windmilling legs and fell to his back in the straw. His sword dropped from his hand, landing only inches from his fingertips.
    Holly peeped through splayed fingers as Gavenmore pressed the tip of his broadsword to Eugene’s bobbing Adam’s apple, wondering if anyone had bothered to tell the Welshman that this was not to be a contest to the death.
    “Shall you yield, sir?” His steely voice lacked the scorn Eugene had displayed in his own request.
    After a moment of agonizing hesitation, Eugene lifted his gauntleted hands, palms exposed in the time-honored signal of surrender. “I yield.” His voice was hoarse, as if he were choking on his own blood. Or his own pride.
    A single cheer went up from the far end of the list Holly saw Gavenmore’s lone man-at-arms, jumping up and down and waving his battered hat in the