The Last Knight by Candice Proctor

confusion.
She realized she must have dozed, because to her surprise she found herself staring at the timber and wattle and daub facade of an inn that stood at a crossroads just outside the dark wooden palisade of some town. The gates of the town itself had long since been shut and barred against the night. But welcoming light and the enticing scent of roasting meat and good soup spilled from the inn's opendoor. Attica's stomach rumbled loudly, reminding her just how long it had been since she'd last eaten.
“Smells good, doesn't it?” Sergei said, from so close beside her that she realized he must have been pacing her, watching carefully, ready to catch her if she started to slip from the saddle.
She turned her head to smile at him. “Yes, except …” Her gaze traveled beyond the squire to de Jarnac, who slid out of his saddle with an enviable ease that told her he could have ridden through the night without pause. “Why have we stopped here?” she asked as the knight came at her out of the darkness.
“Because you look as if you're about ready to topple off that horse,” he said dryly. “Let me give you a hand down.”
He started to reach for her, but she touched her heel to the roan's side to send it dancing away. “I can keep going,” she insisted.
She heard his grunt of disbelief. “I doubt it,” he said, stepping back to plant his hands on his hips in that way he had that caught strangely at her breath. “Besides, I lied. We're here because the horses need a rest and I'm hungry. Now get down.”
He would have turned away then, but she stopped him by saying hotly, “We can't stop; you know that. I must reach Laval in time to send a warning on to my brother.”
De Jarnac swung to face her again, his head tipping back as he grinned up at her. “Sweet Jesus. You're as worrisome as a woman. I've more than enough time to reach La Ferté-Bernard before anything happens. And I'll be of far more use to Henry when I get there if I haven't half killed myself on the road.”
She stared at him. “You? You are going to La Ferté-Bernard?”
“I told you I'd see your warning delivered. But right now I'm going to have myself a good supper and drink a horn of wine in a gesture of thanks to poor old Sir Odo, who is probably camped at this very moment in some damp meadow full of quarrelsome Spanish merchants and dreaming wistfully of milk-fed lamb and big-titted whores.”
Attica had never heard of Sir Odo, but the casual reference to whores conjured up alarmingly lurid images that caused her to sit bolt upright in the saddle. “Whores?” she said with a gasp. “ Whores? I … I do not think I wish to stay at this inn.”
De Jarnac was already turning away from her, his gaze scanning the upstairs windows as he said, “Stop fretting, lordling. The inn might be full, but I ought to be able to get a private chamber for us. I won't make you sleep in the attics with the riffraff.”
At the words private chamber , Attica's stomach did a curious flip-flop. She threw herself off the roan so fast, her wobbly legs almost collapsed beneath her. “No, wait,” she cried.
But he had already disappeared through the door of the inn.
Some quarter of an hour later, Attica stood rooted to the doorway of the private chamber, the dead courtier's saddlebags clutched to her bound breasts like a shield as she let her gaze drift around the low-ceilinged room with its freshly whitewashed walls, its close-shuttered window, its glowing charcoal brazier adding a warm red hue to the golden flickering light of the cressets.
“Not a palace, I admit,” said de Jarnac, kicking off his boots. “But at least it's surprisingly clean.” He unbuckled his sword and tossed it onto the bed while Attica made an incoherent gurgling sound in her throat.
Oak framed and hung with crimson-dyed linen, the bed was wide—wide enough to sleep five, which it doubtlessly often did. She knew she should consider herself lucky to be given even this limited amount of privacy. After all, she could have