by Meg Cabot
“I’ll see it,” Hugo said, gripping her soft upper arm in fingers of steel. Fortunately, in the cozy confines of the hayrack, there wasn’t much chance of escape. And Hugo’s massive frame took up most of the available space anyway, so she had no choice but to give in, though she did so with the ill grace that Hugo had come to expect from her.
“All right,” she snapped, pulling the tails of her lawn shirt from her braies. “You can look, but don’t touch.”
“I haven’t forgotten our agreement,” Hugo said mildly, with a single raised eyebrow.
He kept his gaze carefully averted as she unwound the silk bandage from beneath her breasts. He’d been relieved to find that his discomfort was lessening, primarily due to the fact that she was no longer pressed up against him. He was still a long way from the relief he needed, but at least the necessity was not quite so crucial anymore. He did not want to run into similar temptations, however, and so stared hard at the darkening storm clouds over their heads until Finnula politely cleared her throat.
Finnula, her face turned primly away from him, lifted her shirt to reveal a mottled green and black bruise just under the curve of her small, round, breast. Hugo bent to examine the wound, and saw with satisfaction that the outer edges of the bruise had faded to a yellowish brown, which meant that it was healing. It might smart, but it wasn’t fatal.
Leaning back, Hugo said complacently, “It’s getting better. Let me bind it again, and I’ll give you a few drops more of the poppy drink—”
“Getting better?” Finnula echoed, her throaty voice rich with disbelief. “But it feels even worse than yesterday!”
“Yes, but it looks much better.” Hugo was slightly stunned at the fact that she’d finally admitted to some discomfort as he wound the strips of his cloak’s lining back around her narrow rib cage. “Besides, you put yourself through quite a trial yesterday, with all that riding and hunting and despising me—”
Finnula turned her head toward him just enough to glare out of the corner of her expressive eyes. “I don’t understand why you’re still here.”
Hugo didn’t understand it himself, but he attempted a lighthearted quip to explain it. “I told you, I’m a knight. It’s my duty to see that maidens are not taken advantage of—”
Finnula snorted, as he’d known she would. “Except by yourself, is that correct?”
Hugo ignored that, tying off the bandage and sitting back, admiring the way his handiwork thrust her tip-tilted breasts toward him.
“Now, breakfast,” he said, feeling enormously self-satisfied, though not at all certain why. “Let’s see how our soup fared overnight.”
He climbed down from the hayrack, then turned to hold his arms out to her. As he might have predicted, she ignored him, climbing down without his aid. Then, as soon as her boots touched the hard ground, Finnula was off, stomping in the direction of a nearby copse. Hugo bent to test his soup. The fire had burned itself out during the night, but its embers still glowed warmly, and Hugo held out his hands, glad for a little relief from the morning gloom. It promised to be a gray day, and unless the light, drizzling rain let up, they’d be soaked through come nightfall.
The soup turned out better than Hugo would have expected. The addition of Finnula’s rabbit carcass thickened it, and lent it a hearty flavor it might have lacked with just vegetables. The herbs from her saddlebags, however, were what made the difference. However frustratingly virtuous she was, Finnula appeared to be as seasoned a traveler as he himself was, packing such necessities that, though small, could make the difference in a meal cooked on the road.
He’d been surprised at the number—and diversity—of provisions he’d found in Finnula’s saddlebags the day before, everything from dried herbs to a hairbrush and comb, and from spare arrowheads to a wrinkled kirtle of the softest linen. Everything in her possession smelled of roses, and he found a number of dried buds in the bottom of her leather saddlebags, which explained why. The contrast between a girl who could hit a hare in the eye with an arrow at fifty paces, and a maid who kept dried rose blossoms in her saddlebags to keep her kirtles smelling sweet, caused Hugo to shake his head in wonderment.
When Finnula returned, Hugo saw that she’d washed in the stream, combing the straw from her hair and scrubbing the sleep from her eyes. The long red mane swayed loose upon her narrow shoulders, and already the light drizzle had collected within the thick curls, each drop sparkling like a diamond. Her cheeks were flushed from the morning chill, and she’d draped her cloak about her shoulders to ward off the cold.
Her freshness made Hugo wonder what kind of sight he looked, with his unkempt hair and beard. He was going to have to do something about his appearance at some point, since occasionally he caught Finnula staring at him in dismay, a reaction he was not at all used to. Normally his looks engendered glances of admiration from comely women, not curled lips.
“Here,” Hugo said shortly, when Finnula approached. He thrust the warm pot of soup in her hands, along with a wooden spoon he’d dug out of his own saddlebags, and the vial of the poppy syrup. She struggled to keep from dropping everything, looking up at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Two drops,” he advised, as he stalked toward the stream. “No more.”
A glance at his own reflection in the stream revealed what he suspected. He looked like a crazed old hermit. Despite the fact that there wasn’t hint of white in his fine gold hair, he looked a decade older than his actual age. There was nothing he could do about it now, however. He couldn’t very well shave in the rain, though he did his best to brush out his beard and shoulder-length hair. He didn’t know why it mattered to him, what this eccentric miller’s daughter thought of him, except that she attracted him like no other woman he’d ever met. He supposed that was just because he knew he couldn’t have her. Forbidden fruits were always the best, or so he’d been told.
When he returned to the hayrack, Finnula glanced up at him, the spoon poised at her lips, and if she noticed his attempt at grooming, her face didn’t register it. Instead, she said, indicating the pot, “This is good. Do you want some?”
Hugo did, and he took the pot and spoon from her, hunkering down in what little shelter the hayrack provided from the drizzle. “’Tis a miserable day,” he announced, between bites of the stew. “What say you we find an inn and spend it before a nice, roaring fire?”
Finnula had been administering her drops of painkiller, her tongue extended to catch the ruby liquid. After she’d swallowed, making several dramatic faces to indicate to him her dislike of the stuff, she said, with a wrinkled nose, “I would say nay.”
“Just like that? No consideration?”
“I considered it.” Finnula shrugged. “And dismissed the idea. I have to get to Dorchester by nightfall—”
“Why?” Hugo demanded. “What’s the hurry? Is Mellana starting to show?”
She gave him a sour look, and passed the vial back to him. “Nay, nothing like that. Only if I’m gone too long, Robert gets suspicious—”
“Suspicious of what?” Hugo lifted an eyebrow. “Seems to me the sister he ought to be worried about is the one waiting back home at the hearth—”
“Aye,” Finnula conceded, with surprising bitterness. “Robert never has paid Mellana much mind. I’m the one he always frets over. Mellana never gives anyone any trouble. I’m the one the sheriff is constantly threatening to imprison.”
“Perhaps if Brother Robert had minded Sister Mellana a little more, she wouldn’t be in the position she’s in now.”
Finnula looked up at him appraisingly, as if he were a deaf-mute who had suddenly begun to speak. “Aye,” she said. “That might well be true.” Then she sighed, lifting a wave of rain-heavy hair from her eyes. “But be that as it may, I’ve still got to get at least as far as Dorchester today, so I can make it to Stephensgate by tomorrow. I’d best be off.”
“I?” he echoed. “I’d best be off? Aren’t you forgetting someone?”
She cocked her head to one side as
she regarded him sarcastically. “No, I’m not. You’re not coming with me.”
“What do you mean?” Hugo felt cut to the quick. “I’m still your prisoner, am I not?”
“You’re not. I released you last night, remember?”
He felt absurdly disappointed. He’d hoped she’d forgotten about last night. “But what of Mellana?” he asked quickly. “How will she scrape together enough money for hops and malt without my ransom?”
Finnula glared at him, then bent and, to Hugo’s surprise, took the empty pot from his hands. The argument appeared to be over, but he wasn’t certain who had won. Without another word, she turned and traipsed down to the stream. He supposed she considered it an even labor exchange—he made the stew, and she washed the pot. The domesticity of the gesture moved him, however, because Finnula was not someone he could picture performing household chores like a goodwife. What was going to happen to her? he wondered. She was of marriageable age, after all. She could not possibly hope to find a husband who would approve of her hunting and her leather braies and her extended trips across the countryside. Not unless, he supposed, she married someone who was wealthy enough not to require his wife to perform housekeeping.
Someone like himself, for instance.
Shaking his head, sending a fine spray of rainwater droplets flying, Hugo berated himself. What was he thinking? He could not, would not marry Finnula Crais. Marry the miller’s daughter? His father would turn over in his grave. No, Hugo was going to marry a wealthy widow and add to the Fitzstephen fortune and estate. The only thing Finnula Crais could provide him was children—who’d inevitably be carrot-topped—and game for dinner every night.
Upon her return from the stream, however, Hugo couldn’t help offering to allow her to tie his hands again, in the hope that she’d take him prisoner once more, an offer at which Finnula turned up her nose. She further dismissed his suggestion that they both ride on his steed, as they’d done the day before, to better ward off the cold and rain from each other. She pointed out, with no little sarcasm, that he was no longer her prisoner, and therefore she didn’t need to keep him from escaping. In fact, he was free to ride away whenever he chose, and she’d wish him well.
Hugo knew it was absurd, but he was chagrined. He’d looked forward to once again sharing a saddle with her. She was a pleasant companion, when she wasn’t whacking him in the head with the heel of her hand. She never bored him. Her contrariness was a relief from the fawning attentions he normally received from women of his acquaintance.
“What I don’t understand,” Hugo said, when they’d finished cleaning up their campsite and were mounted and moving away from the hayrack, “is how you’re going to provide your sister with the financial assistance she requires now that you’ve released me.”
Finnula was hunched beneath the fur trim of her cloak, blinking against the drizzle. She seemed to be pointedly ignoring him, except when he thrust himself directly into her line of vision. “God’s teeth,” she swore, though whether at him, the rain, or his reminder, he wasn’t certain. “I don’t know. I suppose I’ll have to find someone else.”
“Someone else?” Hugo guided Skinner closer to her mare’s flank, not certain he’d heard her correctly. “Did you say you’re going to have to find someone else?”
“Aye.” Her profile, what he could see of it above the cloak’s fur collar, was grim. “Though I don’t know where I’ll find another as promising as you. Isabella Laroche has apparently already held every man in the vicinity hostage at least once. I’m afraid their families won’t pay a second time. Not handsomely, anyway.”
Hugo nosed his destrier closer to Violet’s head. “Who are you considering? Because I’d like to make a suggestion.”
“Oh?” She looked at him, her slender eyebrows raised questioningly. “This ought to be interesting. And what might your suggestion be?”
“Don’t use the same lure you used with me. You have a reputation to think of, you know. You can’t go around allowing the entire male population of Shropshire see you in your altogether. It will make it difficult to find a husband, when the time comes for you to marry.”
The smile she quickly suppressed was not lost on him. “Oh? That’s your advice, is it?”
“It is. And I suggest a younger man than myself.”
“Ah,” she said knowingly. “You found the role of hostage too rigorous for a man of your advanced years, did you?”
“I most certainly did not,” Hugo snapped, stung. “I meant only that a younger man might be more manageable, and less apt to make trouble for you.”
“Less apt to make advances, you mean.”
“I didn’t say that—”
“You didn’t have to. Your concern for me is touching, Sir Hugh, it truly is, but I believe I am capable of making my own selection as far as future hostages go—”
“If I might be of assistance, you needn’t hesitate to ask.”
“Thank you, but I believe that this undertaking is traditionally a purely female concern. Your assistance will not be required.”
Hugo was not put off by her dismissive tone. “If you would allow it, I’d gladly offer my squire, Peter, for your next hostage.”
She looked at him, wide-eyed, before she burst out laughing. Hugo glared at her, failing to see anything humorous in the offer.
“What’s wrong with Peter?” he demanded. “He’s my charge. I’ll gladly pay whatever ransom you ask for him—”
“I can hardly be assured of that,” snickered Finnula. “Why, your squire is even more tiresome than you are! I’d have to keep him bound and gagged, just to keep from killing him myself, and I sincerely doubt that anyone, including you, sir, would ever pay money to get him back—”
Hugo didn’t much appreciate being called tiresome.
“Besides,” Finnula went on, oblivious to his ire. “Your Peter’s the one who wounded me. I’d hardly be likely to take him hostage. He might murder me next time. Chivalry is one thing you’ve yet to teach your squire, sir.”
“Who will you kidnap next, then?” Hugo demanded hotly. “Some brawny-armed smithy, who’ll be so smitten with you that he’ll probably follow you about like a puppy even after he’s ransomed?”
Hugo was relieved when she didn’t point out that that, in fact, was what he himself was doing. “And what would be so wrong with that?” Finnula inquired.
“If that’s how you see yourself, nothing’s wrong with it, I suppose. I can’t picture you as the wife of some thick-chested blacksmith, but if that’s the future you’ve chosen for yourself, I shan’t try to stop you.”
Finnula laughed, the bell-like sound sending ripples up and down Hugo’s spine.
“I’m looking for a hostage, not a husband,” she reminded him with an infuriatingly condescending smile. Giving Violet a gentle kick in the sides with her heels, she trotted a few yards ahead of Hugo and his mount, her horse’s footing amazingly steady on the mud-slicked track. “Besides,” she called gaily over her shoulder, “you oughtn’t speak so contemptuously of blacksmiths. They perform many vital functions in the community. I’d be honored to be married to a smithy.”
Hugo rolled his eyes derisively, mimicking her. “‘I’d be honored to be married to a smithy,’” he murmured, loud enough for her to hear. “We’ll see how honored you feel when you’re fat with your thirteenth brat and your husband the smithy is just rolling in from the local tavern, stinking of beer and ordering you to make him supper. Oh, yes, we’ll just see how honored the Fair Finn feels then.”
When she didn’t turn her head, he could not help adding, “But then, the stink of beer oughtn’t offend your sensitive nostrils, since it’s probably a smell you’re uncommonly accustomed to, what with your sister the brewmistress—or should I say, brew-matron?”
Finnula gave Violet another kick, and suddenly, she was cantering away at a pace that, in the mud and rain, probably wasn’t wise. Hugo urged his destrier to follow, the bigger horse less sure of his footing in the foul we
ather. It was some minutes later that Finnula, glancing over her shoulder and seeing that he still followed, allowed her mount to slow. When Hugo caught up, he was winded and resentful.
“That was a damned fool thing to do,” he accused her, between breaths. “What were you thinking, putting your horse in jeopardy like that? She could have slipped and broken a leg.”
Finnula didn’t say anything. She had pulled her hood up over her head to shield her hair from the rain, and he could see only the tip of her pointed nose.
“Not speaking to me, eh?” Hugo observed, wiping rainwater from his forehead. “Hit a bit close to the mark, did I, calling your sister a brew-matron?”
Finnula turned her furious gray eyes toward him.
“Why won’t you leave me alone?” she demanded. “Why do you hang about, insulting and mocking me? I gave you your freedom, I told you to go. Why do you persist in tormenting me?”
“For one thing, you still have my emerald. For another, I wonder why you persist in believing a lie?” he countered.
She turned her attention back to the muddy road before them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“This sister of yours, this Mellana. She’s using you.”
Finnula flicked a rain-soaked tendril of hair from her eyes. “She is not,” she said loftily. “I can’t imagine what you mean.”
“You know exactly what I mean. You’re too intelligent, Finnula, not to know. She tricked you into embarking on this ridiculous mission. She’s the one who got herself pregnant, and yet you’re the one who’s riding around in the cold and rain with a strange man while she’s safe and snug at home. And you say she isn’t using you?” He laughed shortly.
Finnula glared at him. “She’s my sister,” she said, through teeth that almost, but not quite, were beginning to chatter from the spring cold. “Sisters do things for one another. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I think I understand all too well. I had a brother, you know.”
That got her attention. She blinked at him. “Did you?”