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Hastily, Hugh lowered his arms and hoped no one had noticed his disgraceful bid for Edlyn’s attention. “He’s a tough old bird.” He stood dripping until Wharton handed him a linen towel from the supplies already on the shore. “He’ll survive.”

Edlyn pressed on Almund’s back until he vomited up river water. “If he doesn’t, it is your fault,” she scolded. “If you hadn’t been in such a hurry to get across the river at night, this would never have happened.”

Through the haze of his own outrage, Hugh heard Wharton say, “Don’t ye talk t’ th’ master that way! ’Tis not yer place t’ question his commands!”

“If someone questioned them occasionally, mayhap he would think before he made them!” Edlyn answered back, as spirited as Hugh had ever heard her.

In some way, Wharton’s indignation and Edlyn’s anger soothed Hugh. He had made a stupid decision, and he’d hear about it from Edlyn. That was as it should be; a wife claimed the right to educate her husband, and Edlyn clearly had settled into that matrimonial role. “I won’t do it again,” he said meekly, and all conversation stopped.

He looked around at his gaping men. “Well?” He snapped his fingers. “Have you retrieved everything from the river?”

The squires scrambled down the riverbank. With a shout, Parkin and Allyn went with them, and Wynkyn hurried after. Hugh addressed the still-dry Sir Lyndon. “Did everyone escape the river?”

Sir Lyndon opened his mouth, but wasn’t his voice that answered.

“I certainly hope so.” A strange man stood in the shadows at the edge of the road that led away from the landing. “It will make the ransom for you so much more lucrative.”

Hugh swung around in surprise and dismay. A row of swords glinted in the moonlight, and they pointed right at him.

“Who dares threaten the prince’s commander in the west?” Sir Lyndon shouted.

Wharton growled, and Hugh felt the sharp flick of exasperation. How stupid of Sir Lyndon to identify him to this enemy!

A warm laugh from the stranger confirmed Hugh’s unease. “The prince’s commander? I have captured Prince Edward’s commander?”

Hugh’s heart sank as he recognized the familiar voice.

“Hugh de Florisoun himself.” Richard of Wiltshire stepped into the moonlight and gave a flourish of his sword. “It is you, Hugh! It’s been many a year since I’ve had the honor of your acquaintance, but I admire you and your vaulted honor now just as much as I ever did.” His voice turned soft and cruel. “That is to say—not at all.”

“Did they capture everybody?” Hugh sat in the dungeon at castle Juxon surrounded by his men and interrogated them as briskly as if he could see them—which he couldn’t. The sun shone outside, but in this dank and vile cell beneath the very ground, no beam of light had a chance of ever penetrating.

“They got every thing and everybody,” Sir Lyndon answered, sounding dreary and discouraged. “My tent. My armor. My destrier.”

“My wife.” Hugh didn’t appreciate Sir Lyndon’s litany of his lost belongings when Edlyn’s purity and her life were at risk.

“Your wife,” Lyndon agreed, but he said it in such a lackluster one it was clear he didn’t comprehend the magnitude of Hugh’s loss.

If only Richard of Wiltshire hadn’t pounced on them while they were still in disarray from the sinking of the ferry.

“They didn’t get all th’ servants,” Wharton said.

“Well, I’ll be expecting them to besiege the castle and rescue us at once,” Sir Lyndon snapped.

“Shut your yap, London.” Hugh listened to the stunned silence with a sense of gratification. “You’ve given up, and I don’t like that. What kind of knight gives up just because he faces overwhelming odds?”

“One with good sense,” Lyndon answered defensively.

This imprisonment had shown Hugh a new side of his chief knight, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like Lyndon’s easy acceptance of defeat, especially when it had been Lyndon who had failed to set a guard. He didn’t like Lyndon’s attitude about women, and really he didn’t like Lyndon’s disrespect to his wife.

Hugh’s men shuffled and coughed as they tried to make themselves comfortable among the rats and the leavings of other prisoners, and Hugh wished he had started his sojourn in dry clothes, for the dampness of the dungeon seeped through to his skin and shivers racked him periodically. “Where’s Wynkyn?”

No one answered.

“He had orders to watch Edlyn’s sons. Could he have saved them from capture?”

“I didn’t see those lads anywhere in th’ line o’ prisoners,” Wharton said thoughtfully. “M’ lady would have kept them by her if she could.”

“It would have been better,” Lyndon said, “If she hadn’t told Richard she was your wife.”