by Meg Cabot
They had ridden for almost two hours, mostly in silence, except when Hugo asked her probing questions about her family and personal life that Finnula refused to answer, much to his amusement, when the slowly setting sun indicated that it was time to find shelter for the night. Finnula urged Hugo’s mount, which she considered a truly fine beast, much more easily managed than his master, into a meadow that was already purpling in the twilight, and toward a hayrack.
“Our evening’s accommodations?” Hugo inquired, an unmistakably hopeful note in his voice.
Finnula sighed tiredly. She was not looking forward to coping with the ham-handed knight come nightfall.
“It is,” she said, trying to keep a threatening inflection in her voice. “I am acquainted with the farmer who tends this field, and he’s given me permission to stay the night whenever I choose—”
“Generous of him,” Hugo said, mildly. Finnula set her lips.
“In return, I keep his copses free of wolves,” she said, disliking his insinuating tone. Behind her, she heard her prisoner chuckle.
“All I said,” Hugo insisted, “was that it was generous of him—”
“I heard what you said,” Finnula snapped. “Dismount.”
Hugo looked about the meadow, already long-shadowed and growing cold now that the sun was sinking below the treetops along the horizon.
“What, here?” he questioned.
“Yes, here.” Finnula waited until he was on the ground before swinging back a leg and slipping to the grass beside him. Once again, his towering height disconcerted her, and she went to Violet’s side shaking her head, wondering at the fact that giants did indeed still roam the earth.
Reaching into her saddlebag, Finnula drew out a length of rope and turned toward the enormous knight.
“If you’ll just sit there, please, at the base of the hayrack, I’ll secure you.”
Hugo stared down at her uncomprehendingly, his eyes glowing green in the failing light of dusk. “Whatever are you talking about?” he asked, a smile curving up the corners of his generous lips.
Finnula stamped an impatient foot. “I’ve got to build a fire and fetch us some dinner, and I can’t do all of that and keep an eye on you—”
Understanding dawned. Hugo threw back his tawny head and laughed. “So you intend to tie me to a hayrack? Oh, that’s rich.”
Finnula glared at him. “It isn’t amusing. What’s to keep you from escaping while I’m hunting?”
“If you don’t know, I’m certainly not going to tell you,” Hugo declared, still laughing. When Finnula narrowed her eyes at him, he held up both hands, palms facing her. “Nay, don’t give me that look, you hard-hearted wench. I swear to you I’ll stay put. You have my emerald, remember?”
Finnula’s fingers flew to the heavy stone she wore upon her neck. She had nearly forgotten about it, it nestled so comfortably between her breasts. Of course he wouldn’t try to escape, not while something so valuable was still in her possession.
There was nothing, however, to keep him from sneaking up behind her and taking it away by force—but she supposed if he had been intent on doing such a thing, he’d have done it already. God knew he could easily have gotten away after his squire had knocked her senseless. No, as much as she didn’t like to admit it, Sir Hugh Fitzwilliam apparently had some honor. He was the type to see a thing through to the end, if only for the pleasure of laughing at her some more.
“I’ll make a fire,” Hugo offered, reasonably, “while you fetch us something to eat. I’m looking forward to actually seeing these superlative hunting skills about which I’ve heard so much.”
Finnula looked down at the length of rope in her hands. She so wanted to tie him up, and gag him, too, and spend a few hours in pleasant obliviousness to his presence. His aggressively male presence was grating. But there was no hope for it. She needed only to endure him for another forty-eight hours. Forty-eight hours was nothing. With any luck, she’d spend at least sixteen of them asleep.
If she could sleep in the presence of such a man.
Shrugging, Finnula went back to Violet’s side and put away the rope, taking her bow and quiver from the saddle instead. She tried not to pay attention to the fact that she could feel her prisoner’s eyes boring into her the entire time her back was to him. What was it, she wondered, that so constantly drew his eyes to her? It wasn’t possible that he could still be attracted to her, not after she’d spent almost the entire afternoon being unpleasant to him.
But he didn’t even have the grace to look away when she caught his stare on her hair, and, glaring at him challengingly, she quickly braided the mess of auburn locks, and tossed the plait over her shoulder and out of sight.
Hugo just smirked, as if her contrariness was charming. She glared at him some more.
“I hope you’re partial to rabbit,” she said irritably. “Because that’s all you’re getting for dinner.”
Hugo bowed as if she’d said she’d be preparing boar in a delicate mushroom sauce. Fuming, Finnula whirled away, and began trudging toward a nearby thicket, muttering to herself. What was it about this infuriating man that kept provoking her? Normally she had the most steady of tempers. Normally it didn’t bother her at all when people smirked at her: Isabella Laroche smirked at her regularly, and it had never irritated her a bit. But something about being the object of this man’s amusement was very annoying indeed.
Stalking a particularly cunning hare in the half light calmed Finnula somewhat. She ignored several females for fear that she’d leave their little ones motherless, and went for a male instead. She dallied a bit, enjoying her time away from her lecherous prisoner, letting her prey escape several times before finally ending the chase by sending an arrow clean through the hare’s brain. He never knew what hit him.
After skinning him expertly with her knife, Finnula washed her hands in a nearby brook, where she also paused to fill her water flask. By the time she returned to the hayrack, half hoping she’d find that Sir Hugh had cleared out, taking his smirks and insinuations with him, she found that he’d managed to start a fire and even had a pot of something bubbling merrily over it.
Hugo looked up from the small cauldron, from which the unmistakable odor of shallots was emanating. The sun had set, and except for the glow from the fire he’d started, the meadow was entirely in shadow. The firelight made his bone structure, which was difficult to see beneath the bristling beard, more pronounced, and Finnula realized, with a slight sinking feeling, that her prisoner was actually passably good-looking. Irrationally, this discovery annoyed her.
“I see you’ve been going through my belongings in my absence,” she said coldly.
Hugo shrugged, salting his soup with a pinch from the bag of spices Finnula kept in her saddle pouch.
“Get to know one’s enemy, I’ve always said.” He smiled, supremely unconcerned by her irritation. “You’ve got quite an arsenal of cooking implements. I threw some of the turnips and shallots in here. You don’t mind, do you? I figured that by adding the rabbit’s carcass and letting the pot simmer overnight, we’d have a good, thick soup come morning.”
Finnula tried to hide her surprise. Here was a man, a man, who knew how to cook? Why, Robert didn’t know a turnip from a parsnip. Curiosity overcame her dislike of him, and Finnula asked bemusedly, “Where did you learn how to cook?”
“Ah,” Hugo sighed, stirring his concoction with a stick he’d stripped of bark. “It wasn’t always safe to eat the local food in Egypt. I saw many more men fall to illness brought on by consuming rancid meat than I saw fall by the scimitar. We learned to prepare our own dinners, cooking them in our helmets, most times.” He chuckled at the memory. “Of course, that could prove dangerous as well, when one of us forgot last night’s dinner was still in his headpiece, and went to put it on without first checking inside—”
Finnula couldn’t help laughing at his wry expression. He grinned up at her, then lowered his gaze to the hare she’d skewered on a clean branch.<
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“Ah, the main course.” Rising to his full height, the knight approached her, all of his attention focused on the rabbit she’d killed. He bent to take the skewer from her, closely examining it, then lifted his gaze to hers appraisingly.
“A clean shot,” he said, the admiration in his voice evident. “You did this with that short bow?”
Finnula fingered her weathered bow, uncommonly pleased by the compliment, small though it was. Whatever ailed her?
“Aye,” she said, unshouldering her quiver and showing it to him. “’Tis all I need. A long bow is too much in the way. Besides, I’ve no need to pierce armor—”
Hugo flexed the bow experimentally. “Finely crafted. You made it?”
“Yes.” Amazingly, Finnula felt her cheeks suffuse with color. His regard pleased her far more than it ought. What did she care what he thought of her? He was just a knight, and not a very chivalrous one, at that. He was nothing to her.
Of course, it was one thing to be admired for one’s looks, which one couldn’t help, and quite another to be complimented upon one’s skills. Finnula took infinitely more pride in her hunting abilities than in her appearance.
Speaking quickly to hide her embarrassment, Finnula pointed out a notch she’d carved into each one of her arrows, a notch she claimed extended the curve of the arrow’s flight.
“But,” Hugo said, scrutinizing the violet-tipped projectile, “while it might lengthen your shot, it also makes your arrows highly distinctive.”
Finnula shrugged, not understanding his meaning straight away. “Oh, aye, but it seems to work—”
“And Sheriff de Brissac hasn’t yet learned how to identify your handiwork?”
Comprehension dawned. Suddenly uncomfortable with the shift the conversation had taken, Finnula took the quiver from him and turned her attention to dinner. “I’ll rub this fine fellow with some herbs,” she said, deliberately changing the subject. “With any luck, he should be done in half an hour—”
Hugo chuckled. “I see. Your troubles with the shire reeve aren’t any of my business?”
Finnula sank to her knees by the fire and industrially began applying a layer of spice to her kill. She kept her eyes on her work, hoping that the red glow of the firelight hid her blush. “I have no troubles with the sheriff,” she said nonchalantly. Then, flicking a quick glance in the knight’s direction, muttered, “None that he can prove, anyway.”
Hugo joined her on the hard ground, his joints popping in protest as he lowered his massive frame to the grass. He sat far enough away that their thighs were not exactly touching, but close enough that the chance of such contact occurring was a distinct possibility. Finnula regarded him nervously as she set the rabbit roasting over the flames, but all he did was lean forward, his broad shoulder suddenly blocking out all the firelight, and give his soup a stir.
“I see,” her prisoner said, his deep voice inflectionless. “But all the man would need is a single shaft—”
“I don’t leave my arrows lying about,” Finnula said matter-of-factly.
“But surely you’ve missed from time to time—”
Finnula sniffed. “I don’t miss.”
“You can’t always hit your mark, not every time—”
That stung. “I do,” she snapped. “You think that because I’m a woman, there is something lacking in my skills as a hunter? I’ll have you know that I’m the best shot in all of Shropshire. I have a golden arrowhead at home that I won at the Dorchester Fair to prove it—”
“I’m just saying that everyone misses now and again—”
“I never miss. I strike to kill, not maim.” Finnula glared at him resentfully, forgetting to rotate the skewered meat. “There aren’t any does roaming about the earl’s lands with my arrows in their flanks. What I aim for, I kill.”
It seemed to her that Sir Hugh took an intense interest in his soup all of a sudden. He dashed in a few pinches of the same herbs that Finnula had rubbed into her hare.
“And this earl, the one whose game you’re poaching—”
Too late, Finnula realized her mistake, and she quickly bit down on her lower lip. When was she going to learn to keep her mouth shut? Verily, this knight was able to draw her out with the ease of the slyest village gossip.
“I didn’t say I was poaching,” Finnula grumbled.
“Didn’t you?” Hugo’s deep voice rumbled with amusement. “I believe you mentioned that that was the root of your troubles with Sheriff de Brissac.”
Scowling, Finnula turned the skewer. She realized, as the aromas from the soup and the meat began to fill the air, that she was hungry. She hadn’t had a bite to eat since the inn in Leesbury.
“It’s not poaching, exactly,” she explained reluctantly. “The game I kill never actually leaves the earl’s demesnes—”
“What do you mean?” The look he shot her was uncomfortably sharp. In the firelight, his changeable eyes had gone yellow as amber. “What in God’s name do you do with it?”
The intensity of his gaze was unnerving, and Finnula lowered her eyes, her throat suddenly dry. Using her free hand, she fumbled with the water flask that hung from her side, but Hugo passed her a flask of his own.
“Try this,” he said shortly.
Finnula lifted the skin to her lips, only to pull it away a second later, feeling as if her lips were on fire. Gagging, she turned accusing eyes up at her prisoner.
“Are you trying to poison me?” she demanded, when she could find her voice.
Hugo had the grace to look sheepish. “I apologize. ’Tis only ale, though I admit it’s a bit on the strong side. I would have thought that the sister of a beer maker would be accustomed to the vagaries of brewing—”
“Aye, but I thought ’twas water you were offering to me. Besides, this isn’t ale. ’Tis dragon’s milk. You bought it in London, I wager?”
Hugo inclined his head. “Guilty as charged.”
“I thought as much. Whoever sold you this stuff let it sit too long, and now it’s strong enough to turn the hair of the dog.”
Annoyed that he had seen her sputtering reaction to the ale, Finnula took a long drink of the offensive stuff, just to prove that she was no lily-livered maid. Though her eyes watered, she managed to swallow several mouthfuls, then delivered a watery smile to her companion as she returned the flask.
“My thanks,” she said hoarsely.
Hugo took the flask and said, “The earl’s game. What do you do with it, if you don’t remove it from his demesnes?”
Provoking man. Finnula winced to herself. He could not be swayed from this topic, no matter what she tried. There was no hope for it. She was going to have to tell him. She had only herself to blame for arousing his suspicions.
“You have to understand that the earl—the late earl, Lord Geoffrey—passed away over a year ago, leaving the estate in the hands of his bailiff—”
“This Lord Geoffrey didn’t have an heir?” Hugo did not dare to look at her. He kept his gaze on the roasting meat on her skewer.
“Oh, aye, there’s an heir.” Finnula snorted disgustedly. “Only he’s nowhere to be found. Got himself captured gallivanting about the Holy Land, not unlike yourself—”
“Gallivanting!” Hugo echoed beneath his breath, but Finnula heard him, just the same.
“Aye, well, you can’t call it much more than that, can you? A sorrier display of masculine stupidity I never did see.” She shot him a sly glance from beneath her eyelashes. “Did you know him, perhaps? Lord Geoffrey’s son, I mean. Geoffrey, Earl of Stephensgate—”
Hugo pointed to the meat. “You’d better turn that. It’s burning.” After Finnula rotated the skewer, he said, “And so since Lord Geoffrey’s son can’t be located, the estate has lain lordless for a year?”
“And a little more. And the bailiff, one Reginald Laroche, Lord Geoffrey’s cousin, he and his precious daughter live in the manor house—” Finnula was about to add, And a finer pair of selfish pigs you never saw, but restrai
ned herself, remembering that her prisoner was not a stranger to Shropshire, and might very well know Reginald Laroche.
But apparently his acquaintance with the bailiff was either nonexistent or passing, because he asked, curiously, “This Laroche isn’t performing his duties to your satisfaction, I take it?”
Finnula turned the meat, hunching her shoulders uncomfortably. She knew she should not complain about her betters, but somehow, though she herself was just a miller’s daughter, she could not help thinking that she could do a better job of managing Lord Hugo’s estate than that wet hen Reginald Laroche.
She felt her prisoner’s elbow in her side. It nudged her tender rib, and Finnula let out an involuntary cry that caused the knight to look down at her, his shaggy blond eyebrows raised in surprise.
“I only meant to offer you another swallow,” he said, holding up the flask of ale. “I’d forgotten about your rib. I’m very sorry. Is it still sore?”
Finnula eyed the leather flask. “Aye. But nothing that a drop or two more of that dragon’s milk won’t cure.”
Chuckling, Hugo passed her the sack, and Finnula choked down a few more mouthfuls before handing it back to him and wiping her lips with the back of her hand. The ale was terrible, true, but it warmed her insides as much as the cheerful fire was warming her outsides.
In fact, despite her bruised side, Finnula was feeling quite nice, with the quiet night settling all around them like a blanket, and the stars twinkling coldly overhead, and their dinner cooking so aromatically before them. Her companion wasn’t even annoying her that much anymore. He seemed to have adopted a less abrasive demeanor, and hadn’t smirked at her in over half an hour. Perhaps she would actually begin to enjoy his company before the end of this trip…
“So this Laroche,” Hugo prompted her, as if their previous conversation hadn’t been interrupted.