by Meg Cabot
“’Tis going to be a long night.” Hugo sighed. “Long and cold. Think of the comfort we could find in each other’s arms—”
Finnula reached up and, with the heel of her hand, struck the knight soundly in the center of his forehead, sending his head cracking against the leg of the hayrack at his back. Hugo let go of her in his surprise, and Finnula scrambled to her feet, retreating a safe distance in the event that he chose to avenge his smarting skull.
“Don’t make me have to hurt you,” Finnula shouted, holding out a warning finger as Hugo staggered upright, using the hayrack’s wooden frame for support with one hand and clutching his head with the other. “I promised to return you to your squire un-injured if your ransom was paid in full, and it would be a burning shame if I had to deliver damaged goods—”
Hugo simply glared at her, all desire gone now from his face, his eyes a mocking amber once again.
“Remind me,” he muttered, “never again to tangle with a virgin.”
Finnula sniffed primly. “You have only yourself to blame. I never invited your advances.”
“Like hell you didn’t. What was that at the spring, then?”
“That was a trap.”
“Yes, yes.” He waved a hand at her dismissively. “A lure for the ignorant beast. Well, I certainly fell for it, didn’t I? I have to admit that I’m a bit surprised that you, who seem to value honesty so highly, would stoop to such feminine trickery—”
Finnula stamped a foot in the soft grass. “I told you. My sister—”
“Yes, yes, yes.” He rolled his eyes. “Your sister needs the money. What does she need it so badly for, anyway? Did she get herself in the family way?”
When Finnula, stunned speechless that he should have guessed so easily what she’d been trying to keep a secret from him, only stared at him, Hugo threw back his head and laughed mirthlessly.
“So that’s it!” he crowed. “The beautiful Mellana has the face of an angel but the virtue of a trollop—”
Finnula took a half-dozen angry strides toward him. “You take that back!” she ordered him. “How dare you?”
“And this also explains your oblique references to that unfortunate minstrel. He would be the father, then? Well, no wonder the fair Mellana needs money so badly. Does Brother Robert know? I’d wager not—”
Finnula was so furious she could hardly refrain from launching herself at him and throttling his thick, stupid neck. Only the memory of how difficult it had been to extricate herself from his embrace the last time kept her from doing so.
“Mellana is no trollop,” Finnula had to satisfy herself by hissing. “That damned troubadour tricked her!”
“Oh? Tricked her out of her maidenhead? I wish I was more intimately acquainted with a troubadour, that I might learn this trick that causes virtuous maids to so liberally bestow their favors. There’s a certain maid I know who might benefit from such a trick—”
Finnula thought about hurling her knife in his chest, but that seemed a bit extreme. Murder, even of this cur, would only get her hanged.
But she could not possibly endure this man’s company for another twenty-four hours. He was a vile, manipulative, rutting rake, and nothing would make her happier than never having to gaze upon his hairy face again…
“Here,” she cried, reaching inside her shirt and drawing out the cord upon which dangled Hugo’s emerald. She pulled the heavy stone from around her neck and hurled it, with unerring accuracy, into the grass at his feet. “Take the bloody thing back. I release you! You are no longer my prisoner. Take your horse and get gone with you. I never want to see you again!”
So angry that she was almost sobbing, Finnula whirled around, smugly satisfied by the dismay she’d seen on his face, and went to Violet’s side, where she opened her saddlebags, looking for her cloak. While she was there, she noticed that his knife and sword were still tied to her saddle, and she set about undoing the knots that bound them, so that she could hurl them, too, at the churlish knight.
She heard him call her name, in a different voice than she’d ever heard him use before, but she wouldn’t turn around. Instead she shouted, loudly enough to cause Violet to turn down her ears, “I told you, you’re released! Get gone with you! The sight of you sickens me!”
A moment later, Hugo was speaking to her in a gentle voice that sounded only inches away. “Finnula. Turn around.”
“I won’t,” Finnula declared hotly. She let first his sword, then his dagger fall to the earth, and enjoyed the cry of dismay he gave as each finely crafted blade clattered onto the grass.
Clutching her fur-lined cloak to her chest, as if the thick garment were protection against the wrath of a knight, she declared, to her saddle, “I want you to go away and leave me alone.”
“I can’t do that,” Sir Hugh said.
There was no question that he was standing directly behind her now. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck, where her braid had fallen over one shoulder, and the heat emanating from his body warmed her back.
“What do you mean, you can’t do that?” Taking a deep breath, Finnula turned around to face him, a little startled to find that he really was standing even closer than she’d suspected, literally just inches away. With his back to the firelight, his features were unreadable, and Finnula bit her lower lip. Oh, she’d been a fool, a blind, bloody fool, ever to have agreed to this undertaking. When she got home, she’d slap Mellana silly, pregnant or not.
“I can’t leave you alone out here in the middle of nowhere,” Hugo said, with quiet dignity. “Don’t you know that there are cutthroats and footpads all over the countryside, looking for foolish maids like yourself to prey upon?”
Finnula snorted disdainfully. “Like Timmy and Dick? Let them try. I’d relish another chance to tangle with those two—”
“Worse than those two. Believe me, Finnula, you’ve been lucky up until now—”
“Lucky?” she sputtered, incredulously. “To have gotten myself saddled with the likes of you? Not likely!”
Hugo went on as if she hadn’t interrupted. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I thought harm had come to you. After all, I am a knight.” The wry grin, slightly lopsided, returned as he added, “’Tis my duty to protect the innocent, and I suppose that means you, despite your excellent aim.”
Finnula lowered her gaze, hoping that despite the fact that the firelight was full on her face, he could not see her blush. Why, oh why, did the slightest compliment from him cause her to redden like a milkmaid?
“I’m sorry I called your sister a trollop,” Hugo went on seriously, in his deep voice. “Please forgive me. It was uncalled for. Now, as I am traveling in the same direction that you are, I do not see, prisoner or no, why we should not ride together. I promise to keep my hands to myself. You’ll have to forgive my momentary lapse. You are, however, very distracting when you are indignant.”
Without another word, he dropped the heavy emerald around her neck once more, letting the pendant fall with a thump between her breasts. Finnula looked down at the stone as it winked in the firelight.
What in heaven’s name was she to do now? How was she to be rid of him? He was like a boy she’d known years and years before, who’d followed her for days until she’d finally had no choice but to jump on him and rub his face in the dirt until he promised to leave her alone.
But she’d never be able to get the best of Sir Hugh Fitzwilliam, not physically, anyway. She’d tried being unpleasant, she’d threatened violence, she’d even turned down an invitation to share his bed, albeit a straw one. But nothing had worked. What ailed the man?
“I’ll see to tomorrow’s breakfast,” Hugo said, interrupting her mutinous thoughts. He left her to go and kneel beside the simmering pot hanging from the spit he had rigged. “You get ready for bed.”
Finnula simply stared at him, astounded. She had released him, and yet he wouldn’t go! What kind of man was he? A stubborn one, anyway. She was going to have to think
long and hard of a way to be rid of him. Perhaps, if she rose early enough, she could simply slip away, and be gone before he woke. Yes, that was an excellent plan! She could be leagues away before he even stirred!
But then she’d have failed her mission for Mellana. That thought sobered her, even as she yawned from a tiredness she had not known she felt. If she did manage to shake off this clinging knight, who, in the name of St. Elias, was she going to hold hostage next? No, much as she didn’t like to admit it, she needed this knight. She glared at him, as he, seemingly oblivious to her antipathy, salted his soup. Lord, how he irritated her! Stubborn, stubborn man!
It did not occur to Finnula that her prisoner wasn’t any more stubborn than his captor. Instead of heeding his advice and preparing for sleep, she went silently round to the back of the hayrack and climbed inside it, sinking knee-deep into the soft hay. From that height, she could watch him, and she did that for a while, wondering what sort of knight he was, that he possessed what could, at times, be such a gentle manner, yet such grizzled looks. Surely he would not be half so bad looking if he shaved. Was he hiding from something—or someone—that he let his face get covered so with bristles?
After a few moments of such musings, Finnula thought she might be more comfortable lying down, and so she leaned upon her side, careful of her bruised rib, the hay beneath her pliant and sweet-smelling. Perhaps, she thought, watching Sir Hugh as he stirred his soup, he was escaping from an unhappy love affair of some sort. Perhaps the emerald really had been given to him by a sultan’s daughter, as a love token. Most likely her father had not allowed the two of them to wed, being of separate faiths. She wondered if Sir Hugh had attempted to escape with the princess, and if the sultan had found the lovers out, and dragged them back to the palace for execution. Sir Hugh might have barely escaped with his life. No wonder he’d been so opposed to having his hands tied behind his back. Perhaps it brought back painful memories of the sultan’s dungeon…
Fingering the gem, Finnula rolled over onto her back to blink at the stars. They shined as brightly as the emerald, yet their light was cold, whereas when she looked down at the jewel around her neck, she saw a sort of fire in its center—not unlike the fire she had seen in her prisoner’s eyes when she’d looked up at him, after they’d kissed. Did Sir Hugh’s eyes burn that way after he kissed any woman, or was that fire for her, and her alone?
Turning her head, she stared at her prisoner through the slats of the hayrack. He was still puttering with his soup, pointedly not turning those green eyes in her direction. The fire bathed his face in a warm yellow light, bringing out, in sharp definition, the strength in his jawline, the lean spareness of his aquiline nose, the sensuous curves of his full lips. It was unnerving to recall the sensations those lips had aroused in her when they’d kissed. To look at him, one wouldn’t suppose he’d be capable of rendering an otherwise sensible woman so giddy with desire. She would certainly never have thought it possible. Otherwise, she would have picked an entirely different quarry.
Finnula was not at all confident she would be able to turn down his advances a second time. No, she was going to have to make a break for it.
This was an encouraging thought, and she concentrated upon it happily until, despite all her intentions to the contrary, sleep overtook her.
Still, the last image that she saw before she drifted off was that of her prisoner, kneeling thoughtfully by the fire. She couldn’t even rid herself of his memory, which seemed to be burned onto the backs of her eyelids. Fie!
Chapter Seven
Lord Hugo Fitzstephen, seventh Earl of Stephensgate, looked down at the girl curled against his side and wondered how in the hell he had ever gotten himself involved in this ridiculous charade.
He had been in tangles aplenty in Jerusalem, many of them dangerous, more than a few of them purely lascivious.
But he could not remember ever having dealt with a virgin before, and the multifaceted problems this presented were threatening to overwhelm him, in more ways than one.
For one thing, when he’d wakened moments before in the hayrack into which he’d crawled late the evening before, careful not to jar the deeply sleeping Finnula, he’d found that the girl had rolled over in the night and snuggled up against him for warmth. Her curvaceous backside was pressed against the front of Hugo’s braies, her back molded to his chest, her soft cheek resting upon his outflung arm. It seemed as if her small body had been created apurpose to fit against the curve of Hugo’s. She slept beside him as comfortably—and as soundly—as a wife of long standing.
Hugo could not honestly say he was comfortable, however much he enjoyed the feel of her against him. The problem appeared to be that he was enjoying Finnula’s close proximity a little too much. That part of him which most desired her touch was stiffer than on any morn of recent memory, and was anxious for relief.
But last night, Finnula Crais had made it perfectly clear that such relief was not to be found in her corner. It wasn’t a question, Hugo knew, of her not desiring him. He was well-versed in the art of seduction, and he had tasted desire on her lips. Finnula was a woman with deep, as yet unplumbed, reservoirs of passion.
But—most likely because of what had happened to the conniving Mellana—exploring those depths was not an option.
And yet if she continued to curl against him like this, that option was going to have to be explored, because he wasn’t at all certain how many mornings he could endure like this. He supposed when they reached Stephensgate tomorrow, he could seek out relief from the village whore—was Fat Maude still in business? he wondered. Surely by now she’d have retired, and someone younger would have set up shop.
But wait. No. He was lord of the manor now, and earls didn’t seek their pleasure from village prostitutes. His father had certainly had consorts, but he hadn’t shared them with the rest of the men in Stephensgate. No, that was it. Hugo was going to have to find a mistress, problematic as such an undertaking would surely prove. Mistresses required homes of their own, since they were generally demanding and therefore unpleasant to live with for long periods of time. And one was required to give them handsome gifts of jewels and money. But this was no problem, since Hugo had plenty of both.
What he didn’t have was the time. If what Finnula had been telling him last night was the truth—and he couldn’t imagine Finnula telling anything less than the strictest truth—Stephensgate Manor had been left by his father in sorry shape, made sorrier since the old man’s death by his imprudent choice of a bailiff. Hugo knew his cousin Reginald Laroche well, and could easily imagine that the man was stealing from the estate funds. A little for himself, a little for the village mayor, in order to look the other way, understand, and soon Laroche had a healthy pot of gold to retire with upon the return of His Late Lordship’s heir.
How the man could starve serfs, however, was beyond Hugo’s comprehension. The families who had worked the fields of Stephensgate Manor for decades deserved better than Hugo’s father had ever offered them, his tallages being among the highest in Shropshire. But to have that ridiculously high sum made even higher by a man who meant only to line his own pockets—well, Reginald Laroche was going to have some explaining to do when Hugo returned home, and much of it was going to be done from the stockade.
The last thing Hugo wanted to do was come home to place of dissension. But if that was how it was to be, he would cope.
Installing a mistress would necessarily have to wait until all these other matters had been attended to. How much simpler, Hugo sighed, looking down at his dozing companion, it would be if Finnula Crais were not quite so maidenly, and a little more willing to wriggle out of those temptingly tight leather braies…
A large drop of rain fell out of the leaden sky, which had long ago pearled with dawn and then clouded over, and landed smack against the side of Finnula’s oddly patrician nose. She woke with a gasp, one hand flying to her face, the other curling around her knife hilt.
Hugo lay perfectly still,
praying she wouldn’t notice the swelling in his braies, and when those wide gray eyes turned upon him, filled with sleep and surprise, he wore his best mocking smile.
“Good morning,” he purred, in his deepest voice. “I trust you slept well. Were you warm enough?”
Finnula’s gaze flew from his face, down the length of his body, and then to her own. Startled, she raised accusing eyes, her fine eyebrows slanted downward, and her sensual lips curved into a frown.
“Don’t look at me,” Hugo said, quickly holding up both hands, one of which was hampered by the fact that her head was still resting against the curve of his biceps. “I had nothing to do with it.”
With a smothered groan of fury, Finnula sat up, a host of un-pleasantries poised upon her tongue, Hugo was certain.
But before she could get out the first ripe curse, her face paled, and she clutched her side.
Hugo was instantly contrite. He was well-aware that his squire had caused her an injury, and her tolerance for pain was remarkable. Amusing as she was to tease, Hugo preferred a sparring partner who was not doubled over in agony.
“Is it bad?” he asked gently, then chided himself for the question. Of course it was bad.
Finnula looked up at him, her eyes crackling with fury and almost the same color as the gray sky overhead. “Oh, no,” she said, obviously lying. “’Tis fine.”
“Let me see it,” Hugo commanded.
She shook her head, straw falling from her long auburn hair, which overnight had come loose from the braid into which she’d twisted it. “Nay,” she said. “I told you, ’tis fine—”
But Hugo was insistent. Too many times, he’d seen men ignore minor wounds, only to have them fester and eventually kill, when they should have healed harmlessly.