Her companions turned to look, too, and Cordelia gave a glad cry. “It is Alain!”
“Nay, it is Geoffrey!” Quicksilver kicked her horse into a canter, crying, “Well met, my love!”
The other women rode quickly after her, toward the lone man who looked up at them in pleased surprise.
Quicksilver reined in, leaping off her horse and throwing her arms around his neck with a glad cry.
“Away, lady!” Cordelia cried in anger. “Would you have my prince for your own, then?” She dismounted and stalked toward Quicksilver and Alain.
Allouette dashed past her, crying, “Stand away from my Gregory! Is not his brother enough for you?”
“Brother?” Cordelia cried, scandalized. “I should say I know my brothers well enough, and Alain is surely neither of them!”
All three women fell silent. Quicksilver loosed her hold on the young man and stepped away, turning an appalled glance to her companions. “Do you not see Geoffrey?”
“I do not,” Cordelia assured her. “It is Alain, by the troth he plighted me!”
“I see only Gregory!” Allouette protested.
“Nay, sweeting,” Geoffrey said, “can you doubt me, then?” He slid his arm around Quicksilver’s waist and stepped close. “Ah, you are so fair, so bright, the loveliest of Nature’s wonders! Nay, it has been far too long since I have seen you, touched you, felt your breath on my cheek . . . my lips . . . nay, I shall die of famine if I have not your kiss . . .”
Quicksilver’s gaze was drawn to his almost against her will. She stood rigid, finding herself unable to step away but unwilling to step toward her lover.
With good reason. “Will you not embrace me?” he mourned. “Ah, lack-a-day!” He released his hold and stepped toward Cordelia. “Fairest of the fair, surely you will greet me with love to answer my own!”
Cordelia trembled, unable to believe that the others could not see Alain as clearly as she—and as thoroughly unable to move as Quicksilver had been.
Alain stepped closer to her, caressing her cheek, tilting her face toward his own.
Cordelia managed to speak through lips that felt as though they were melting. “Alain . . . you were never wont to speak of love before others . . .”
“But you are before others,” he said, gazing down with a look of such tender passion that she had to fight her own feelings to doubt him. “You are before all others, and are the sweetest blossom on the tree of life!” His lips lowered over her own.
“No!” Cordelia wrenched herself free, feeling as though the movement tore at her heartstrings. “I’ll not kiss a man who but moments ago sought the lips of another!”
“Must I be left lorn?” Alain mourned, and impossibly turned from her toward Allouette. “The earth breathes where you walk, and its breath forms the greatest beauty in the land! Oh lady of wondrous form and fairest face, surely you will not turn from me as these others have done!”
“Oh Gregory, how could I deny you anything?” Allouette didn’t step forward either, but her head tilted up, eyes half-closing, lips parting, full and moist . . .
“Noooo!” Cordelia remembered Allouette’s attempts to seduce Alain, and all the rage and anger of those moments boiled up within her. She leaped forward, hands hooking to tear at the other woman.
Alain moved to place his body between them, breathing, “One kiss, only one kiss! For that do I starve, do I thirst, do I burn! Give me the honeyed moist sweetness of your lips, I pray!”
“He is mine!” Cordelia cried.
“Nay, mine!” Allouette spun to seize Quicksilver’s sword, whipping it out of the scabbard—then froze, staring at the blade in her hand. “What am I doing?”
“You are coming to me!” Gregory held out his arms. “Forgo that whetted sliver and ponder my prayer! Ah, fair flower, you must not deny me!”
But the ringing of steel triggered Allouette’s memories of knives in the dark, aimed toward the very women who now glared at her in loathing. It was like ice water in her face, waking her from a trance, and she turned her back on the young man, crying, “Deny you I shall, for you cannot be Gregory if you are Alain!”
“And cannot be Alain if you are Geoffrey!” Quicksilver snapped, reddening.
“He cannot be any of them!” Cordelia cried. “But how can he seem to be all three?”
“Because all women are beauties, and you three most of all!” Alain protested. “Does not each of you deserve your heart’s desire?”
“She certainly seemed to think so.” Quicksilver cast Allouette a venomous glare.
Allouette’s gaze snapped up to the warrior woman and anger rose over the tide of self-loathing. Allouette demanded, “Have you nothing to say to the woman who steals your sword?”
The hot flush that spread over Quicksilver’s cheeks told her that she had struck home, for the sword is a warrior’s pride and its loss a huge blow to self-esteem. Allouette braced herself for attack—but Quicksilver only set her fingers to her lips and blew a whistle so shrill that it made Allouette drop the sword to clap her hands over her ears—and Quicksilver snatched it up, point six inches from Allouette’s throat. “Easily gained, more easily lost.”
Geoffrey winced. “I am hard by, my sweet. You need not whistle me up.”
Quicksilver felt as though she were a compass needle and Geoffrey a magnet trying to draw her away from her true course—but she kept her gaze turned away from his face, glaring at a magpie in a tree. “It is not you whom I summoned.”
“Whom then?” Geoffrey stepped into her line of sight. “Surely you do not summon another man, you who are the very soul of loyalty, as true as you are lovely, as true as my love for you! Whom do you summon?”
Hoofbeats pounded up in answer and a horsehead interposed itself between Quicksilver and his face. She leaped up onto the mare’s back with a feeling of relief, calling, “Mount, ladies! There is something wrong in this, for one single man cannot be all three of our loves! Mount and ride away!”
“Away?” Geoffrey mourned, stepping toward her, hands outstretched in supplication. “Ah, will you desert me, then? I, who hunger for you, who burn for you, who live only for the touch of your gentle hand, the taste of your sweet lips!”
Cordelia forced her head away. “You have right in this, for Alain would never speak of the touch of my hand or the taste of my lips in front of others!”
“Your hand and lips?” Allouette cried in indignation. “Wherefore should Gregory speak so of his sister? It was to me he spoke!”
“It was not Gregory, but Alain!”
“It was neither,” Quicksilver said, her tone a whipcrack. “Mount and ride, ladies, for whatever sorcery’s in this, it seeks to lure us to our dooms!”
Cordelia’s head snapped back as though she’d been slapped. She turned to her horse and mounted, trying hard to ignore Alain’s blandishments, and turned her mare’s head toward the slope down which they had ridden.
“Oh fairest of the fair, do not leave me lorn!” Alain called to her—and Geoffrey to Quicksilver, and Gregory to Allouette. Already standing in the stirrup, she wavered, turning back to look at his sweet, fair face, so strong yet so vulnerable . . .
“Mount, lady!” Quicksilver’s voice seemed like cold water in Allouette’s face. “Whatever it is, it is not your Gregory—nor my Geoffrey, nor Cordelia’s Alain. Mount and ride for your life—and your love!”
Allouette hooked her right knee over the saddle horn and sat back, trembling, as she clucked to her mare. The sweet animal began to move away, back up the track, while Gregory called after her in despair, “Nay, do not leave me! The sun hides its face when you are gone, the night swallows me, clouds of fog enshroud me . . .”