Lady's Ransom (The First Argentines, #3)

Ransom urged Dappled to greater speed as he raced back to the fortress of Glosstyr, his heart afire with the news of Claire’s unexpected arrival. Sir Thatcher rode alongside him, the two of them charging down the road with a handful of other knights who’d been summoned as impromptu bodyguards. Before they reached the castle, Ransom saw men in Gaultic armor carrying the banners of war.

After closing the distance, he reined in, signaling his group to do the same, surprised to find Lord Tenthor of Legault approaching him on a massive black-and-gray destrier with streaks of white war paint across its neck and withers.

“Aye, Lord Ransom it is!” cried Tenthor when they drew near. “I’d heard of your ugly brute of a horse. But nothing can match the hideousness of mine!” He laughed, and the beast tossed its mane as if disagreeing with its rider’s sentiment.

“You’ve come at a perilous hour,” Ransom said. “I’m grateful for it.”

“I’m ready to bash in some Occitanian heads,” said Tenthor with a grunt. A wicked-looking hammer hung from his saddle strap. “Just point the way.”

“How many came?”

“The queen sent five thousand of us,” said Tenthor with a proud smile. “We’ll make short work of Estian’s rabble. Where would you like us on the field, my lord?”

A thrill filled Ransom’s chest. “Words fail me right now, Lord Tenthor.”

Tenthor nodded. “I’ve not forgotten the service you did me, Lord Ransom. Now get thee to the castle and greet your wife. Just tell me where I should assemble.”

“The duke of the North is on the left flank. You’ve got the right,” Ransom said. “Wait for orders in my command tent atop the hill.”

“I will do so,” said Tenthor. He looked around the landscape in the fading light with an appraising eye. “I’ve not been to Ceredigion since I was a boy.” He grinned. “You can keep it.”

Ransom gave him a salute and rode through the man’s ranks until he reached the castle proper. The heaviness that had pressed on him for days lifted. It felt like he could breathe freely again. His brooding worry about Claire had shifted to hope, like a dull rock overturned to reveal a shiny surface.

After dismounting in the bailey, he was met by a page who told him Claire had gone up to their room with Dearley, and the two were awaiting his arrival. Ransom thanked the boy and told Sir Thatcher to stand ready. His sense of anticipation was almost painful as he marched through the halls. The castle was still churning with life, and the late arrivals had changed the mood drastically. Soldiers smiled and shared the news with each other as Ransom passed them. He jogged up the stairs, and not even the weight of his armor could slow him down.

When he reached his room, the door was already open. The mood in the room seemed perfectly congenial, Dearley and Claire talking as friends would. That boded well.

When he appeared in the doorframe, Claire turned, and his heart stuttered in his chest at her beauty. The torchlight from the wall sconces illuminated flashes of red in her hair and cast flickering light on her expression—wary but not upset. She, too, was nervous about this meeting.

“My lady, I’ll bid you farewell,” Dearley said. “You’ve saved us. I’ll put the prisoner down in a cell in the dungeon for now.”

“Thank you, Dearley. It’s good to see you again.” Claire’s soft accent made Ransom’s throat go dry. He could only gaze at her, rendered silent by the crashing surf of feelings inside him.

As Dearley passed, he gave Ransom a hopeful smile and said, “I’ll give you as much time as possible,” then left and shut the door quietly behind him.

For a moment, Claire just studied Ransom, as if he were a puzzle she wished to solve, and then she rushed forward, and they embraced. He couldn’t believe he was touching her again. She trembled, and he wished the barrier of armor weren’t between them. He wanted to be vulnerable at that moment. Not a knight on the brink of war.

She looked into his eyes and lifted a hand to touch his jaw. “Your beard is trimmed and scáthanna! What did you do to your hair!” Her fingers swept back to graze his neck. He’d almost forgotten his brief trip to Pree. “You look a different person, Ransom. How am I supposed to take that?”

“None of that matters,” he said. “What truly matters has not changed.” And because he needed to touch her hair, those brown-and-red strands that had always delighted him, he reached behind her neck and ran his fingers through it.

She let him toy with her hair for a moment before pulling away. “Are you surprised that I came?”

“I’m astonished,” he said. “I thought you were attacking Bayree.”

“That’s what I wanted everyone to think. I came to help you fight Estian, that miserable wretch. Glosstyr is mine as well as yours. I will defend it.” She looked him in the eyes again, a bracing look that showed her worry. “Will you be honest with me? I can bear the hurt so long as I know you’re being honest.”

Worry trembled inside him. Would she ask for truths the Fountain had bid him not reveal?

“I will . . . if I can,” he said.

“Have you been having an affair with the Duchess of Brythonica all along?” He saw her hands clench, but not in a combative way. She was preparing to be devastated.

“No, Claire. Never.”

She closed her eyes slowly and opened them again, searching his face. “Honestly? There is no need to lie to me. I can bear the truth. Although I don’t trust Lady Alix’s words, they had a feeling of unshakable truth when she spoke them. The more I’ve thought on it, the less I’ve believed it, and yet . . .”

He stepped closer. “I swear it by the Lady of the Fountain. I am faithful to you.”

“But there is something between you. A loyalty that binds you.”

“Yes, but it is not what you fear. I swore an oath to protect her son. To protect Brythonica. But I cannot say much more about that without violating it.”

She expelled a slow breath. “Your eyes tell me you’re being sincere. I struggle with trust, but I know you have no reason to lie to me. I believe you, Ransom. And I know you only sent a knight to take that book out of worry for me. You were right. There was something strange and uncanny about it. I’m glad she took it.”

He couldn’t express how much her words meant to him. “I don’t ever want to be estranged from you, like Devon and Emiloh were.”

Claire gave him a sad smile. “Neither do I.”

“And the boys? They’re safe?”

“They are being guarded at the hunting lodge,” she said. “The poisoner can get into and out of my family castle rather easily, it seems, but it is guarded more strictly now. Still, I thought they’d be safer at the lodge.”

Gratitude and relief surged within him, waves washing over a parched shore.

She came to him again, enfolding him in her arms and leaning up to kiss him. The pressure of her lips against his awoke memories that stirred his blood and nearly made him weep. He clutched her to him, amazed that she was there. The broken world felt like it could be fixed at last. And he kissed her harder, more urgently.

“I’ve missed you,” she breathed in his ear.



The gentle sound of the crashing surf came from the open window. The torches had burned low, but candles now brightened the dark room. The night was still young, but there was much to speak about, much to share.

“How did you figure out our letters were compromised?” Ransom asked, offering her a drink of wine from the pitcher that had been brought in by servants along with their shared meal.

“I kept noticing the disturbed seals,” she answered, accepting the goblet and sipping from it before setting it down. Her hair was a little tousled, and he liked it that way. “I began to suspect that one of your mesnie had betrayed us. Someone besides Guivret. I told Lord Toole about my suspicions, and he said it would be useful to find out who it was by placing misinformation inside our letters. I also suspected that my journal had been compromised. Those were the only two places where I shared information that could be stolen.”

“So who was it?” Ransom asked.

“Sir Axien,” she answered with a sad smile.