Free Leigh, Tamara by Blackheart

listened to Gabriel. Though fear demanded he throw down his sword and surrender, honor said not. He was a knight, not a coward. To the death, then, and with him as many as could be taken. "For God and King Richard!" he cried, and launched himself at the nearest Muslim.
    Flesh! He had the man's flesh. The infidel's howl of pain stirring with his companions' shouts of anger, Bernart swept his sword again. He fought them, however many there were, but proved no match.
    A blade landed to the mail of his shoulder, next to the muscle. He tried to hold the cry, to keep it from his lips, but the next slice of the sword loosed it. But the blade did not pause at his thigh; it went deeper—to that place wherein man differed from woman.
    The pain! He screamed—piercing sounds that sounded as if they'd sprung from a woman's lips. Then, slowly, darkness, his last thought of sweet Juliana, who awaited his to return to England to make her his wife.
    With a hoarse shout, Bernart sat straight up. Where was he? The street in Acre that he had made crimson with the spilled blood of his manhood? The stinking cell where he had prayed every hour of every day for death? At last his eyes adjusted to the darkness, revealing the familiar corners of the chapel.
    He shuddered and collapsed back upon the bench. He should have died at Acre. If not that he was of the landed nobility, valued for ransom or trade, he would have bled to death. Instead, physicians had tended him and, after long, agonizing weeks, had pronounced him healed. During the long days and nights that followed, his only companion had been his tortured thoughts, which had brought him to the realization that Gabriel was to blame. For everything.
    Bernart sat up and wiped the perspiration from his brow. It was a long time since he'd had to endure the dream in its entirety. Always Juliana awakened him. But not this night. This night she was with Gabriel. He stilled. Was the deed done? Had she returned to the solar? He hurried from the chapel and flung open the door of their chamber.
    A flickering torch revealed her auburn head upon the pillow. It was done.
    He closed his eyes. Though he ought to be pleased with the prospect that a son might be planted in her womb, it was anger that rose in him. He closed the door, strode past the chamber where Gabriel had pleasured himself between Juliana's thighs, and descended the stairs to the dimly lit hall. Here, tournament guests, household knights, and servants littered the floors and benches, their slumber marked by snores, grunts, and mutterings.
    Bernart crossed to the sideboard. He shouldn't drink.... He lifted a pitcher of warm ale, filled a tankard, drained it, filled it again, then ascended the dais and dropped into the lord's high seat. Though it was rest his sleep-deprived body needed, anger held his eyes wide and turned his thoughts to tomorrow's battle. And the revenge that would be his.

Chapter Five
    The chamber was beginning to lighten when Gabriel opened his eyes. Although he usually rose in advance of the dawn, he did not hasten from bed. Something playing about the back passages of his mind, he looked beside him. He was alone. Naught unusual about that, but still there was a vague sense of loss.
    Like an elusive dream, remembrance of the night past teased his consciousness—advancing, receding, advancing again. He grasped at the memories, tried to hold them long enough to make sense of them.
    Silken thighs. Full breasts. Quivering flesh. Something very... sweet. Merely a dream? Conjured by his drunken mind? Nay, a woman had come to him last eve, but not Nesta, as she'd promised. Who, then? Which of the wenches in Bernart's hall had taken the other woman's place? When Gabriel could not put a face to his night visitor, he concluded it must have been dark when she'd come to him. What had she called herself? Again, naught, for she had not spoken a word—leastwise, none he could recall. Not that it mattered. He reminded himself of the