Free A Knight to Desire by Gerri Russell Page A

to allow Brianna and Abigail to enter. "Go on into the common room. We have mincemeat pies and roasted lamb."
    They needed food that would be easy to carry. "We'll take four pies, two skins of ale, and apples if you have them, please?"
    The woman nodded and left the two of them alone in the empty common room. An odd sensation fluttered across the back of Brianna's neck. She scanned the empty chamber. Even for a small town, it was unusual for the inn to be vacant at suppertime.
    Brianna sat in a chair near the hearth to wait. With her gaze on the door, she gripped the hilt of her sword.
    "There's no need for that." A frown pulled down the corners of Abigail's lips as she sat down next to Brianna.
    Brianna opened her mouth to speak, then paused as she heard something odd from outside. If she didn't know better…
    A dagger whizzed past the right side of her head, narrowly missing her.
    Abigail shrieked and dropped to the floor.
    Before Brianna could unsheathe her sword, the door slammed open and a body dressed in a green tunic and black breeches rolled to the floor.
    Four long steps took her across the room where she rested her blade at the man's exposed neck, only to find him already dead.
    A heartbeat later, Simon stepped through the door with his dagger in his hand. "We must leave now."
    "De la Roche's man?" Brianna asked.
    "It has to be. We must keep moving. That is our best defense until we know more."
    Abigail joined them. Her face paled as she gazed at the man slumped in the doorway. "What about the food?"
    Simon bent down and hoisted the dead man over his shoulder. "Our hunger won't matter much if we are dead." He vanished into the darkness of the inn yard to return a moment later without the man.
    Brianna shut the door to the inn, then she and Abigail strode toward the horses Kaden held for them at the center of the yard. Silently, they mounted and under the cover of darkness, left town.
    As they made their way through the dark forest, Brianna couldn't stop the frantic beating of her heart. Who was this de la Roche? He'd sent men to attack them twice now. Would more follow? How did the Frenchman know where the four of them were? Did the man follow them as well?
    Suddenly the burden of what Simon had asked of her settled around her shoulders. How many more men or women would die before she could identify who or what de la Roche had become? Her visions would tell her. "Please," she whispered into the night. "Let me sleep."
     
    De la Roche frowned as a torch, illuminating the buxom woman he'd paid to set his trap, came toward him, revealing his hiding place on the far side of the inn yard.
    A few more days of drinking from the Grail and his shattered leg would be fully healed. Then he could challenge Lockhart and all the Templars himself. Each day he grew stronger, the damage to his body improved and the pain was less crippling.
    "They left in a hurry," the woman cried. Her face was pale and her expression void of the friendliness with which she'd first greeted him. "I tried to make them stay. I did everything you asked."
    De la Roche pulled his brown robes around him and stepped out of the shadows.
    The woman stopped an arm's length from him, quivering. "They killed your man."
    At her fear, his anger faded and a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. She was only an innkeeper's wife, yet the effect his presence had over her was everything he'd ever hoped for. It was about time someone saw him the way he saw himself — powerful and indestructible. The woman's fear was palpable. To him it was as heady and as intoxicating as the finest wine in France. "Did you poison their pies and their apples?" he asked, his voice hard, filled with the power that ran through his veins.
    Her face became ashen. "They left without the food."
    Joyeuse swung free of his scabbard, and displacing a mere whisper of air, cut her down.
    She dropped to her knees as her face contorted with pain. "Milord…" The words faded into the night as she