by Lynn Kurland
As he thundered along the way after the lone horseman, he came to a conclusion: Jessica Blakely had passing fair skill with the beast. Either that or he’d just managed to choose the slowest horse in the garrison.
But he had ridden his share of horses as well and was determined Jessica should not escape him. By the time he drew alongside her, he and his mount both were frothing at the mouth. He could have stopped Horse with a whistle, of course, but he wanted Jessica in full possession of her senses when he shouted her deaf. He grabbed Horse’s reins and brought both animals to an abrupt halt. Jessica dismounted with him and that certainly wasn’t by her choice.
He took her by the arms and bared his teeth at her until he could muster up something foul enough to express his intense displeasure.
And damn the wench if she didn’t look as displeased to see him as he was her.
“Cease with that expression!” he shouted. “You’ve no cause to do aught but drop to your knees and apologize for stealing my horse yet again!”
“I wasn’t stealing,” she returned hotly as she jerked away from him. “I was borrowing.”
“I should have you hanged all the same,” he snarled. “This is thrice I have been forced to retrieve my horse from your vile clutches. And why is it, mistress, you feel the need to snatch my poor beast each time?”
Damn the woman if she didn’t pat Horse in a most proprietary manner and look at the beast with a great amount of unwarranted affection.
“Because he likes me,” she said, looking back at Richard coolly.
Bloody useless beast with no sense, Richard thought immediately, but he didn’t say as much. He found, quite suddenly, that his powers of speech had deserted him. And as quickly as he’d become mute, he’d also become feebleminded, for ’twas all he could do to stand there with his hands limp by his sides and stare at the woman before him.
She was blowing her hair out of her face in the same way she had been the night before. It was possibly the single most fascinating thing Richard had ever seen a woman do, and to be sure he had seen them do a great many things. Why this moved him, he couldn’t have said, but it did.
The other thing that was even more distracting was Jessica’s stroking of his mount’s neck. It was a gesture of genuine affection and it stirred in him some long-disused portion of his black heart and left him wishing she might put her hand on his head and comfort him in like manner.
The realization of what he was torn between—lust and apparently the desire to crawl back as near to the womb as he could and be mothered until he smothered—was almost enough to send him fleeing the other way.
He cast a baleful eye heavenward and wondered what saint was toying with him in such a manner.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way,” Jessica said, removing the reins from his unresisting fingers. “I’m off to your brother’s castle. Will your horse find his way home, or will you need to send someone after him?”
“Wait,” Richard said, snagging his reins before Jessica absconded with not only his horse, but his wits as well, “you are not going to Hugh’s.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Nay, lady, I will not permit it.” He took a firm grip on himself and mustered up what he hoped was a stern frown. “You’ll return back to the keep with me and await King Henry’s arrival.”
She shook her head. “Haven’t got the time.”
“I daresay you’ve all the time you need,” he said, “and I am certain the king will be interested in seeing you. Unless,” he said, remembering his deliberations with himself as to just who Jessica might truly be, “unless you are not overanxious to see him for some reason.”
She remained silent but her eyes gave everything away. He decided at that moment that whatever else she was, Jessica Blakely was not a good liar. He had no trouble now looking at her sternly.
“If you have misled me about your kinship to him . . .”
She stuck out her chin. “I never claimed to be anything to him. Warren assumed it.”
“And you allowed him to assume as much,” he said flatly. “’Tis nothing short of lying and for that you should be . . . well, you should be—”
“Drawn and quartered?” she asked tartly.
He could not fathom whence she mustered up her irritation. By the saints, she was the one caught in transgression, not he!
“The priest should decide your penance,” he said, deciding not to tell her that he had no priest and likely wouldn’t unless one desperate enough to endure his foul moods could be found. He took a firmer grip on both sets of reins and folded his arms over his chest. “If you are not kin of Henry’s, then to whom do you belong? Where is your sire?”
“Dead,” she said calmly. “Gone two years now.”
“And your dam?”
Jessica swallowed hard and began to blink very rapidly. Richard watched as she folded her arms over her chest.
“My mother is so far away, she might as well be dead,” she said quietly.
Richard watched in horror as her eyes began to fill with tears. Ah, not tears! By the saints, how he hated tears!
He suppressed the urge to wring his hands. He watched Jessica weep and felt completely helpless. He shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to another, praying for some sort of inspiration.
And then, as if his hand had taken on a life of its own, it reached out and thumped her awkwardly on the shoulder.
“There now,” he said, hoping with all his might that she would stiffen her spine before he was called upon to render further aid. “No need to weep.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” she said, her eyes beginning to leak even more enthusiastically. “I am beginning to wonder if I’ll ever get home.”
“Ah,” Richard said helplessly, “ah, surely there is no need for such lack of hope—”
“For all I know, it is hopeless!”
His feet began to twitch. Richard heartily agreed with them and wished he’d never taken any knightly vows, for if he hadn’t, he would have turned and fled, and thought himself well escaped.
But ’twas as if her eyes knew what his feet were about, for they began to pour forth a torrent of tears. Richard patted himself frantically but felt no spare cloth there to use to dry her off. He groped about in his head for something to say that would stem the tide. He latched onto the first thing that came to mind.
“I’ll see you home myself,” he blurted out.
Oh, by the saints, he was a babbling fool!
“No matter the time it would take,” he continued, deepening his own grave. He cursed himself thoroughly, but he’d begun the digging. No sense in not finishing the task. Perhaps his words might have some effect and he would escape more of this feminine, watery scourge. In truth, no journey would be too long if it would mean he could be free of it.
She began to laugh. “You could,” she said, “take all the time you have during the rest of your life and it still wouldn’t be enough time to get me home.”
Well, that was the most foolish thing he’d ever heard. He’d traveled extensively and knew a great deal about distances and the time required to cross them.
“I am not as ignorant as you might think,” he said stiffly.
She shook her head, wiping her eyes. It took several moments, but she seemingly mastered her womanly emotions. She gave him something approximating a smile. “I never said you were.” She looked at him with wet cheeks and very red eyes. “It’s just I don’t think anyone can get me home but me. I’m not even sure I can do it.”
Nothing she was saying made any sense to him.
“Why will you not accept aid?” he asked. “I do not offer it lightly.” Nor with my full wits, he added silently. Then again, he hardly should have been surprised. Since the moment he’d clapped eyes on her, he’d found himself doing and saying the most ridiculous things.
Jessica studied him silently for a moment, then she shook her head. “I appreciate the offer. I imagine it really would be a sacrifice for
you.”
He frowned. It sounded like a compliment, but somehow he suspected there was something less than complimentary about what she’d just said.
“But you can’t help,” she finished.
“And you cannot return to Merceham by yourself,” he said. “Or perhaps you have forgotten your last encounter with my brother?”
“I’ll just avoid him.”
Richard shook his head. “Know you nothing of England, lady? Even with scouts as poor as his, he would know within minutes that you had set foot on his land. And I can assure you, his welcome would not be something you would enjoy.”
“I have to try,” she said, and to his mind she sounded overly stubborn about something that seemed completely absurd to him.
“To return home by frequenting Merceham? I cannot understand what difference that makes.”
“It makes a difference. Trust me on it.”
He pursed his lips. “After you have stolen my horse three times now, once from under my very backside? You’ll forgive me if I am less than eager to trust you.”
She sighed deeply. Richard was relieved to see she was seemingly becoming aggravated. That was much easier to tolerate than a trough full of tears. He had the feeling that her tears were an unusual occurrence anyway. He’d seen her under very trying circumstances and not once had she resorted to them, as he’d seen other women do. Perhaps she was more troubled by being away from her home than he’d thought.
“Look,” she said, “I’d tell you that I’d just walk, but that wouldn’t be honest because I don’t think I’d make it all the way to Marcham, or Merceham, as you call it, intact.”
“In this much at least, we are in agreement—”
She looked behind him and sighed lightly. “Well, I suppose I won’t be going anywhere now. It looks like your guard has come along.”
Richard cast a look over his shoulder at the guard in question. They’d taken their bloody sweet time about reaching him.
“I guess you’ll want your horse back now,” Jessica said.
“In a moment,” Richard said. There was no time like the present to chastise those who were supposed to be guarding his life. He dropped the reins to the horses and walked toward his men that he might more fully glare them into shame. He reminded himself as he approached that he was indeed grateful enough for their discretion and their protection, though at the moment he was hard-pressed to produce any feeling of affection for any of them, especially his captain, who was wearing that smirk again.
“What?” Richard demanded.
John merely shook his head and smiled. “She rides very well.”
“What?” Richard turned to see his horse’s rump now far in the distance. “Damn that woman!” He glared at his guard. “Go home, the lot of you. You’ve been no help to me thus far. I can’t see how you can help now.”
They didn’t argue. Richard mounted his borrowed horse and turned it toward Merceham. He could hardly believe Jessica had made off with his mount yet again. It would be the last time, if he had to tie her up and haul her back to the keep himself.
And he would have his answers this time. He had no idea why she was so fixed upon returning to Merceham, but ’twas a foolish and shortsighted idea. Wherever her kin were, they could be sent for. His earlier offer aside, he truly did not have time to escort her to Hugh’s, nor did he have time to guard her whilst she went about her business. She would just have to come home with him.
Assuming he didn’t have her drawn and quartered—which he wouldn’t, of course, for ’twas a messy business indeed, though it was powerfully tempting—for yet again making off with his mount!
9
Jessica kicked Richard’s horse into a full-out gallop. Behind her she heard a faint “damn that woman!” and knew her chance to get ahead of him would be short-lived.
The time, though, had come to stop messing around and get down to business. She had to get back to Merceham and the only way to do it was to get there on a horse. Maybe she could outride Richard all the way there, hop off his horse, and be back in New York before he could strangle her.
She studiously ignored the fact that it had taken three days to get to Burwyck-on-the-Sea. That was different. They’d been riding slowly. She was going to ride very fast.
She kept telling herself that even as she heard Richard’s curses coming increasingly closer, carrying with them, no doubt, a very annoyed medieval lord. At least he wasn’t whistling anymore. She wasn’t sure she wanted another flight over his horse’s head.
She saw him draw alongside her and held tightly to the reins. She wasn’t sure how he intended to stop her this time, but it wouldn’t be because she’d been stupid enough to let go of the wheel, as it were.
And so it took her by complete surprise when she saw him make a flying leap from his horse to hers. She was even more surprised to find he hadn’t knocked both of them off. The reins became a moot point, because apparently all it took to communicate his wishes to his horse was a knee or two in the ribs.
She felt him relax and she turned to put her hand in his chest to push him off.
“Do not,” he growled. “That will not work with me a second time!”
He jumped down and didn’t give her much choice but to dismount right along with him.
“Why do you continue to do this?” he demanded. “Have you no sense at all?”
“It’s a long story—”
“Hugh won’t leave enough left of you to return home, I can assure you of that,” he continued, as if he hadn’t heard her. “I am past fathoming why I care what happens to you. It must be concern for Horse. Aye, that’s it.” He reached out and patted his horse for good measure.
Jessica rubbed her hands over her face and wanted nothing more than to curl up with a nice blanket in front of a warm fire and have a very long nap. There was no way to explain her situation without having Richard think she’d lost her mind. Just trying to come up with a good beginning was almost too exhausting to contemplate.
“’Tis obviously a womanly preoccupation you have with this idea,” he announced. “Perhaps you can be forgiven for not being able to think on something else.”
“Think on something else?” she echoed. “There isn’t anything else to think on!”
“You don’t need—”
“Don’t,” she said, gritting her teeth. “Don’t tell me what I need. You don’t know the first thing about it.”
He frowned fiercely at her and she wondered if he might be considering the possible outcome of strangling her. Then he seemed to master that impulse, because he only pursed his lips and appeared to be mentally counting to ten, not a hundred.
“I have a thought,” he said, sounding as if he were summoning up all the patience he possessed. “Why don’t you tell me your sorry tale.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
She could have sworn she could hear his teeth grinding.
“After the se’nnight I’ve just passed,” he said tightly, “I am nigh onto believing anything. Tell me how you came to be on Hugh’s land.”
“You’re sure?”
A muscle began to twitch in his cheek. Jessica took that as a good a sign as any.
“All right,” she said. She took a deep breath. She could hardly believe she was about to spill her guts to a medieval baron while standing in the middle of a field with two panting horses for company, but maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised by anything. She never should have accepted Archie’s invitation. She could have been sitting in her nice, roomy warehouse of an apartment pounding out some Bach on her piano. She could have been sipping Red Zippy tea and contemplating what to have for dessert. She could have been wearing warm socks instead of a pair of Richard’s tights that seemed to want nothing more than to pool around her ankles.
But all that would have meant missing out on even just the sight of the irritated man standing in front of her scowling ferociously.
There was something almost charming about him
when he scowled.
She put her hand to her forehead. Too much time traveling had obviously had an adverse effect on her common sense. What she needed was a rich accountant who would work lots of overtime and leave her alone to compose on the eleven-foot Grotrien he’d bought her to put in her custom-built music room.
A man who couldn’t listen to her without patting his sword every now and again as if he intended to use it on her if she took too long was not the man for her.
“Your tale,” he prompted.
“Yes, well,” she said, wondering just what he would believe and how far she should go before she found herself being used as kindling. She took a deep breath. “Actually, I was standing in a friend’s garden trying to get away from a man I had been dating—”
“I knew it,” he said grimly. “I knew there was a hapless fool involved.”
“Well, thanks so much for the vote of confidence, but the hapless fool was me,” she replied crisply.
He grunted, but didn’t say anything else.
“Anyway, as I was saying, I was out in the garden, trying to find some peace, and I decided that what I really needed was a gallant, honorable knight to carry me off on his white horse. So, I wished upon a star.”
He blinked. “You wished upon a star.”
“Yes. One minute I was in the garden, wishing for someone with a little chivalry to come along, and the next moment I was standing in your brother’s fields.”
He pursed his lips. “Then your wishing went awry. You certainly found no chivalrous soul—”
Don’t sell yourself short, she started to say.
“—in Hugh,” Richard finished.
She was somehow not surprised that Richard didn’t think himself in the running. Perhaps he had a better idea of his shortcomings than he thought.
“Yes,” she said dryly, “you’ve certainly got a point there.”
“But how is it that you went from the garden to Hugh’s fields? Were you so consumed with your looking into the sky that you didn’t mark the distance you crossed?”
Jessica shook her head. “I didn’t walk anywhere. I was just standing there. One minute I was in one place, the next I was in . . . ah . . . another,” she finished, realizing she had probably just said too much. It certainly sounded wacky and who knew what Richard would think of it. She hazarded a glance up at his face.