Dragon's Knight. Catherine Archer

of her toes—startlement.

      He bowed, not meeting her gaze now, and Aislynn turned back to open the chest. She found herself speaking too quickly. “As I told you, we have searched everything. Though there are hundreds of renderings, none of them gives any hint of where Christian might have gone.”

      With the lid thrown back, the few sheets of parchment, which lay on top of Christian’s best garments, were revealed. “These are most recent of those we found. All the others are over there.” She pointed across the room toward another larger chest against the gray stone wall. “They were obviously made before his return to England.”

      She could feel the heat of Jarrod Maxwell’s body as he bent over her. He seemed to have forgotten that awkwardness of a moment ago as he looked more closely at the drawings.

      Aislynn swallowed hard, a shiver racing through her. Taking a deep breath, she moved back carefully so as not to actually touch him while giving him a better view. Sir Jarrod, thankfully, did not appear to note her reactions, which was a relief of great proportions. For they only seemed to grow more inexplicably extreme by the moment.

      She watched as the dark knight reached out to take the top drawing, holding it close as he studied it, frowning with obvious concentration. Curiosity overcame her reluctance to be near him, and she leaned in to look at the drawing. She was forced to rise up on toe tip to see it clearly.

      Noting her action, Jarrod Maxwell looked down at her. “You are very small,” he commented as he held the drawing lower, seeming unaccountably pleased at his observation.

      Finding no explanation for why this would be so, Aislynn determined to ignore it. She had never been particularly troubled by her size. It had in no way prevented her from doing anything she wished to do. She turned her attention to the rendering.

      She had seen it before, of course. It was done in charcoal, as were all of Christian’s renderings. In it a man lay upon a bed, his face creased with pain and sadness. In the corner of the parchment was drawn the form of the dragon brooch. Out of the corner of her eye, she looked to where Sir Jarrod had thrown his cloak upon the end of the bed, recalling that he had worn it his when he’d entered the hall.

      Aislynn knew from Christian that it was Sir Jarrod who had had the brooches made and that their friend Simon Warleigh had one as well. Although it had seemed odd that her brother would draw the brooch on the corner of the page, neither she nor her father had been able to assign any particular significance to it.

      Jarrod’s gaze continued to hold obvious concentration as he looked from the drawing of the sick man to the brooch and back again.

      Aislynn could not stop herself from asking, “What is it? Do you find something of significance there?”

      The knight turned to her with an expression of intense concentration. “I am not sure, but the man in the drawing is a soldier who came with Isabelle and Simon when they left Dragonwick some weeks ago. He was injured in his efforts to help Isabelle and Simon escape from Kelsey.”

      Aislynn heard the barely suppressed rage in his voice as he said the name Kelsey. Through her brother, she knew what ill Kelsey, who had murdered The Dragon, had wrought, and also of the anger that seethed inside the three men who had fostered together. But she noted a depth of venom in this man that went even deeper than that which Christian had displayed.

      She listened as Jarrod went on, his voice now softened by regret. “Though we thought the wound was not serious, Jack became ill and died. Christian, although he knew him little, spent much time at his side. Seeing Jack so ill, and knowing he had meant only good in helping Isabelle and Simon to leave Dragonwick, made me want to vent my wrath on Kelsey all the more.” His jaw clenched tightly. “And that I can not do, for Simon and Isabelle’s sake. We are too closely watched by King John, who was not pleased to have been coerced into setting Simon free.”

      Aislynn knew that it had been Christian who had convinced two very powerful nobles to speak on Simon’s behalf, virtually blackmailing the king into setting him free. She wondered if Sir Jarrod had any notion of how much he revealed of himself with this tale. Clearly he had a great capacity for ire and a love of vengeance, yet he tempered them for the sake of those he loved.

      Again, Aislynn was moved by the bond between the three men, though she was not surprised to learn that her brother had sat with the dying man. She had been quite young when Christian had left Bransbury, but his kindness to injured animals about the demesne was well remembered. She had missed his gentleness, his warmth, when her father was so locked in his grief over his wife’s death. Though she had understood as she grew older that a young man must foster and become a knight, she had never stopped hoping that he would return to Bransbury—that they would be as a family.

      Christian’s return had made her dreams a reality, for a time. But now they were once more in a state of loss. She would leave no avenue unexplored in her desire to have Christian home.

      Yet she could not see what this drawing might have to do with her brother’s disappearance. Puzzled, she watched as Sir Jarrod quickly leafed through the other drawings, setting them into the chest before going back to the first one, the one depicting the man who had died.

      Again she asked, “What is it that you see?”

      He shook that dark head. “I am not certain. There is just something. Somehow it seems that Christian may be saying that the brooch, The Dragon, is connected to Jack.”

      “But even if that is true, I do not see what it can have to do with Christian’s being gone. Perhaps the man simply made him remember past times at Dragonwick.”

      The knight raked a hand through his thick hair, taking a deep breath and setting the drawing aside. “Perhaps you are right, Lady Aislynn.”

      The sound of her name on his lips brought her back to an instantaneous awareness of all the feelings she had been attempting to deny. Her gaze came to rest on the lean line of his jaw, the curve of his heavy black lashes, the suppleness of his mouth.

      A strange heat moved in Aislynn’s belly. At that moment Sir Jarrod turned his black fathomless eyes to her, his gaze as deep as the darkest night and just as unreadable. Aislynn could not move, could not even breathe properly, for her chest felt…

      Suddenly realizing that she was staring at him, Aislynn feared that all that was going on inside her would be revealed in her eyes. Deliberately she focused on the fire, the stone floor, the open door. Anywhere but on the dark knight.

      Good heavens, had she gone mad?

      Her brother was missing. That was the knight’s only reason for being at Bransbury. Even if he were interested in her, it would not be appropriate now. Even if she were not engaged, which she was. Even if her marriage was not significant to the peace on her father’s lands, which it was.

      The sound of slow footsteps approaching in the hallway outside made her cast her gaze to the doorway. Her father appeared there. He came forward into the room, taking in the fact that Jarrod was holding her brother’s drawing in his hands.

      He looked to Aislynn and she said, “Sir Jarrod wanted to know if he might look through Christian’s things and I said yes.”

      Her father nodded. “That is well, for I have said he might have free rein to do whatever he thinks might aid him.” He moved to examine the drawing. “I too thought there might be some hint here yet I can see nothing. What is your opinion?”

      Jarrod shrugged. “I see what you see, my lord.”

      Her father sighed and made a slicing motion. “Enough for this night. You have journeyed far and must rest.” He turned to Aislynn. “The pot did fall and must be replaced, Aislynn, but we have made use of another. The water will be ready shortly.”

      Aislynn felt her cheeks heating again. She had completely forgotten the broken pot, which was certainly unusual for her. She took great joy and pride in the overseeing of the keep.

      Her father went on, unaware of her discomfort. “You will be abed before you know it, Sir Jarrod.”

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