A Knight to Remember: Good Knights #2
Page 31
“A good man? Then it wasn’t him I saw fighting fer Pembridge? An’ it wasn’t him I saw try t’ kill ye?”
“But he repented his behavior.”
“Ye’re too soft.” Now Wharton chided him. “Wasn’t it him yer sons say opened th’ postern gate t’ th’ enemy?”
“Allyn and Parkin told me they couldn’t be sure.”
“Perhaps not before th’ battle, but now th’ evidence sure looks gruesome. I wouldn’t have trusted him t’ turn me back—or me wife’s—t’ him again.”
“I’m flattered.” Edlyn looked down to veil the amusement in her gaze.
“No need fer that, mistress.” Wharton’s sour face would have sucked the juices from a peach. “I don’t know why th’ master wants a woman as stubborn as ye, but I do his bidding always.”
“Except that you do not trust me when I say Sir Lyndon was willing to try again!” Hugh said, exasperated.
Wharton shrugged. “I knew ye’d take his part, but it doesn’t matter. He’s dead, an’ there’s no use in arguing.”
And after all, Hugh knew better than to think Wharton would admit to slipping a knife through Sir Lyndon’s ribs. “Well,” he muttered to himself. “’Tis done now, and I cannot undo it.”
Indeed, he didn’t know if he wanted to. Wharton was right. Hugh would never have trusted Sir Lyndon again, and if Sir Lyndon had lived, there would have been nothing but grief between them.
“Other than a tendency t’ trust where trust is not warranted, th’ master is good at what he does. Why, he cleared out half o’ th’ rebel army even before th’ battle was joined.” Slyly now, Wharton asked, “How was it ye did that, master?”
Hugh wasn’t offended by Wharton’s teasing, and he gladly gave credit where credit was due. “’Twas a trick my wife showed me.”
Edlyn’s eyes grew round and pleased. “Really?”
“I’m not a stupid man,” Hugh said. “Twice I saw you win out over great odds by using the means available to you. I decided I could do that as well.”
To his horror, big tears welled into her eyes.
Crying! She was crying! He didn’t know anything about crying women. Hell, if he could have, he would have run. Instead he said, “Hey! I was giving you a compliment!”
“I know. It’s just that”—she pulled a strip of bandage out of her bag and wiped her nose—“this is the first time I’ve been sure you approved of me.”
“Approved of you?” Hugh tried to raise himself and found her arms wrapped around his shoulders. “What do you mean, approved of you? I’m in your bed every chance I get.”
“I don’t want to hear this.” Richard started humming loudly.
“In my bed? So what?”
“So what?” He couldn’t believe she’d said that.
“What happens in bed is not what’s important.”
Apparently Richard hadn’t been humming loud enough, for he stopped so abruptly it proved he had heard her. Wharton stood frozen. Hugh stared at his wife’s tearstained face, and in the silence the men fumbled to comprehend this evidence of female simple-mindedness.
Faced with three incredulous men, she said, “Well, it isn’t. It’s the affection and trust between a man and a woman that’s important. You weren’t happy when you left the bed the last time we shared it.”
“I’m covering my ears,” Richard called, and he wrapped one pillow over his head in a slow motion that coddled his broken ribs.
All Hugh remembered about sharing her bed was the driving need to master her, the satisfaction when he did so, and the smug knowledge that she’d mastered him as well.
She must have read his face, for she said, “You weren’t. You were angry because of that shift you wanted me to return to Richard.”
Richard lifted the pillow a little. “That’s a lie! I never gave her a shift.”
Having Richard listen to a private discussion between him and his wife was like the scratch of a wolf’s claws on granite, and Hugh snapped, “You should cover your ears better.”
With elaborate circumspection, Richard rolled so they could see nothing of him but a mound of rugs.
“One of your men did.” Edlyn spoke to the mound, and the mound groaned. “And Hugh wanted me to send it back.” Now her gaze dropped to the floor, and she looked as shy as a maid. “I tried to catch you the morning you left to give it to you.”
Right then, Hugh truly knew he didn’t understand women. “To give it to me?”
“Aye. As a token from me to carry into battle.”
He remembered the sight of her, silhouetted against the morning sky, waving at him. “Was that the white flag you used?”
“White flag?”
“To signal your surrender.”
“I didn’t surrender!”
“I saw the white flag.”
She thrust her chin forward in exasperation and pushed a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. “I will never understand men. I just told you—”
“What were you going to tell me?”
“What?”
“What were you going to tell me when you came running with that shift?”
Her expression of embarrassment entertained him.
“Heh, heh.” Wharton gave a most dreadful cackle. “She’s starting t’ comprehend she can’t fool ye, huh, master?”
Hugh never took his eyes off Edlyn as he spoke. “Wharton, shut your maw and get out.”
“Aye, master.” Wharton inched toward the door sideways, like a crab easing its way toward the sea.
Richard had crept around in the bed so that he could stick his head out of the covers and listen.
Hugh wanted to throw them both out, but Edlyn was as nervous as a half-tamed falcon and just as flighty. He dared not take his concentration off her.
She moved her lips in a parody of speaking and finally squeaked, “I was just going to say that you should stay alive.”
“Every one of your husbands has brought you nothing but grief.” Maybe a man could understand a woman if he worked hard enough—and lived long enough. “Why would you want me to stay alive when your life would be so much easier if I died?”
Pulling the jumble of rag bandages out of her bag, she started to rewind them. “I wish no man ill.”
He rubbed his broken collarbone with a grieved expression.
Glancing at him, she said, “You’re not gulling me. I know what you’re trying to do.”
“What?” With gentle fingers he explored the scabs and bruises that covered his face.
She wound faster. “You’re trying to make me think you’re in agony so I’ll tell you what I was going to say.”
“You could have told me that morning when I was leaving. Why can’t you tell me now?”
“Because then I was afraid you might die, and now—”
He winced when his fingers pressed on a particularly painful bruise.
“Now you’re only in danger of me killing you.” He put on a pathetic face, and she sighed in exaggerated disgust. “I wanted to tell you that you’d won me.”
He snatched at her hand and got a fistful of linen strips. In disgust, he threw them away. They caught on the rough skin of his palms, and he cursed until Edlyn took the bandages away from him and put them carefully in her bag. She took his hands in hers, and he thought, for just a moment, that this was her sign of surrender. Instead she looked at his blisters with an exclamation of concern. “Did you get these from your sword work?”
“Edlyn…”
She reached into her bag. “Just let me put some ointment on them and wrap them up.”
“Edlyn, I love you.”
She froze.
He was appalled. He’d just blurted it out, in front of Wharton and Richard, without planning or poetry or song. He could have said, “You are the wife of my soul.” Or “Beloved, you are more beautiful than the sun in all its glory.” Lovers said things like that. He’d always thought it stupid, but the women seemed to like it, and he wanted Edlyn to be happy.
&
nbsp; If he’d had the time to think, he could have come up with some nonsense, but suddenly it had just seemed unfair that she had to declare her love before he did. After all, she’d loved before and seen that love treated like goose droppings. That was the reason, he knew, for her backward-stepping caution and for her fierce defense of her own heart.
So now he’d insulted her with blunt speaking, and he had to try to mend his mistake.
He mumbled. “Robin said it better, didn’t he?”
She pressed her fingers to his mouth. “Robin was most eloquent, but then Robin said it to so many ladies.” Smoothing his lips with the ball of her thumb, she said, “I like your version better.” She leaned forward until she could replace her thumb with her lips, and her breath caressed him. “I think that when we have rebuilt Roxford Barn, we should go out and enact a girlhood fantasy of mine.”
“What fantasy is that?” Talking like this was a kiss made audible, and he cherished the movements, the warmth, the anticipation of more silent—and more passionate—kisses.
“Of you. And me.” Careful of his breaks and bruises, she stretched herself along his length. “Locked in an embrace.”
Two bodies could not get closer, but he felt a niggle of dissatisfaction. With his hand on her chin, he pushed her head up and looked into her eyes. “I say you waved a white flag.”
“It was a shift.”
“It was a sign of surrender.”
“It was a token of love.”
That was it. That was what he had waited to hear. “Which I would have taken.” He tightened his grip around Edlyn. “At least I have you safe.”
Wharton’s gaze met Richard’s, and Wharton grinned. He didn’t blame Richard for looking appalled. He didn’t want to stay for this pottage of love words either. Too bad Richard couldn’t leave.
Wharton walked to the door. Richard glared balefully.
Hugh touched Edlyn’s lips. “And I have your love.”
Edlyn slipped her hand over Hugh’s heart. “As I have yours.”
As Wharton shut the door behind, he heard Richard make muffled gagging noises.
The couple on the floor didn’t notice.
About the Author
Christina Dodd’s novels have been translated into ten languages, won Romance Writers of America’s prestigious Golden Heart and RITA® Awards, and been called the year’s best by Library Journal. Dodd is a regular on the USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and New York Times bestseller lists. The Barefoot Princess is the second book in her classic new series, The Lost Princesses, following her enormously popular novel, Some Enchanted Evening.
Christina loves to hear from fans. Visit her website at www.christinadodd.com.
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Credits
Cover art by John Ennis
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A KNIGHT TO REMEMBER. Copyright © 1997 by Christina Dodd. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books™.
ePub edition January 2006 ISBN 9780061746352
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