by Meg Cabot
She was conducted by the still prattling innkeeper’s wife to a pleasant bedchamber with a well-lived-in look, in the center of which a crude wooden tub had been placed. That then, Finnula realized, was her luxurious bath. But upon closer examination, she saw that the water was clean and steaming hot, and that the bath would be deep enough for her to sink into up to her neck. Perhaps it would be luxurious after all. She assumed that it was Mistress Pitt’s own bath, since there was no way such a large amount of water could have been boiled so quickly.
“There’s scented oil for you, m’lady, and some soap, and clean cloths to dry yerself with, and plenty o’ water—don’t you worry about rinsin’ your hair, Peggy’s on ’er way with two more buckets. You’ll be wantin’ my ’elp out of your wet things, won’t you?”
But when Mistress Pitt began tugging on Sir Hugh’s cloak, Finnula shook her head and backed away, her heart hammering hard within her chest. Just imagine what the old woman would say when she discovered it was Finnula Crais for whom she’d sacrificed her own bath!
“Ah,” Mistress Pitt said, with a twinkle in her eye. “You are a shy one. Your ’usband wasn’t exaggeratin’, then, was ’e, lamb? Well, never you mind. I was shy meself, me first few months of marriage. Didn’t let me ’usband see me naked for over a fortnight. But that’s just plain foolishness in your case, m’lady, since any soul can see you’re pretty as the flame on a candle. Ah, ’ere’s Peggy with the rest o’ your water—”
A young girl Finnula didn’t recognize hurried into the room, her plain face very serious as she hauled in two more steaming buckets of water. These she left by the side of the tub, and, bobbing a clumsy curtsy at Finnula, the serving wench fled, to Mistress Pitt’s apparent approval.
“Well, that’s all then, if you can manage yerself.” Mistress Pitt indicated a bolt on the back of the bedchamber door. “No one ever slips this far back into the ’ouse, but just to be safe, slide this bolt into place after I’ve gone. No one’ll disturb you. They’re a rough lot, but good-’earted. Mostly.”
Finnula uttered a few quiet words of thanks, which seemed to please Mistress Pitt very much, since the woman beamed as she left. Mistress Pitt did not beam very often, and Finnula supposed she was happy that the clientele of the Hearth and Hare was moving up a notch. At this rate, the Pitts would be entertaining royalty soon!
As soon as the proprietress had left, Finnula slid the bolt on the door into place and threw back her hood with a sigh of relief. So much fuss for a bath and a bed! If Finnula’d had her way, they’d be sleeping under a lean-to, using their saddles as pillows and the rainwater to wash in.
Still, she thought, when she slipped into the hot water of her bath, she had to admit Sir Hugh had been right. This was entirely more civilized. And if one had the money, why not? Finnula wondered precisely how much money Sir Hugh had in his possession. It seemed to be an awful lot, for a simple knight. Then again, he was heir to some kind of estate, or so his story of his brother had led her to believe. And he’d been in the Holy Land for quite a long time. Finnula’s parish priest had told his congregation stories of the treasures that were to be found in Egypt and the lands surrounding it, tales of tombs filled with gold and jewels. Finnula wondered if Sir Hugh had ever stumbled across one of those tombs. She wasn’t at all certain she now believed his tale about the emerald he’d given her being a gift from a sultan’s daughter. She was quite sure that if she were a sultan’s daughter, she could easily find someone more attractive than Sir Hugh Fitzwilliam upon whom to bestow her most treasured jewel. Although if he’d ever kissed her, Finnula could see how the princess might be swayed in his favor…
Though it was lovely to simply soak in the wooden tub, the water quickly cooled, despite the bright fire on the hearth a few feet away. Besides, Finnula was hungry, and looking forward to some of Mellana’s ale, which she knew the Hearth and Hare stocked. Quickly employing soap and sponge, she washed, even giving her hair a thorough scrubbing, then rinsed with the water from the buckets Peggy had provided.
Toweling herself off with the linen cloths Mistress Pitt had left for her, Finnula began to feel like a human being again. She couldn’t bandage herself, but she found that upon examination, her wound was healing, the bruise not so florid, the skin no longer so tender to the touch. She pulled the kirtle back on, and was wrapping one of the linen cloths around her wet head in a sort of turban when there was a timid knock at the door.
Instead of asking who it was, since Finnula was afraid the person might recognize her voice, she slid back the bolt and opened the door a fraction of an inch—keeping her hunting knife, which she clutched in her right hand, out of sight.
But it was only Peggy, who curtsied nervously and said, “Me mistress says to see if you be needin’ anythin’.”
Finnula shook her head, feeling the turban slip. Peggy saw it, too, and said, brightening a little, “I could comb out yer ’air, if ye be needin’ it. Mistress says I’m right talented wi’ a comb.”
This seemed like a harmless enough concession, since Peggy didn’t know her, and Finnula waved the girl into the room, then bolted the door behind her.
Peggy was as good as her word. She set to work on Finnula’s hair with the focused concentration of a metalsmith, and though she wasn’t gentle, she managed to tame the wet curls, smoothing all the tangles and finally patting the thick mass into a long, single braid down Finnula’s back.
“There,” Peggy said, her satisfaction at a job well-done evident.
And she got up from the bed upon which they’d been sitting and went to Mistress Pitt’s trunk, from which she removed a small, jagged piece of glass that she presented matter-of-factly to Finnula.
“It’s a looking glass,” Peggy explained reverently, in the event that Finnula did not know what to do with it. “It cost a fortune. ’Tis the only one in the whole of the village.”
Finnula had only rarely caught a glimpse of her own reflection. With her wet hair dragged back so severely from her face, she expected to look a fright, but she saw in the dark glass that a few curls had already dried and were frizzing around her forehead and ears in snaky tendrils, framing her heart-shaped face and lending it a softer look than she was accustomed to. Finnula nodded and handed the mirror back to the girl, who restored it to its place of honor in Mistress Pitt’s trunk, then turned and said, “Mistress says I’m to take ye to yer room, now.”
Finnula almost laughed at the girl’s serious expression, but instead she thanked her, recognizing that the child was desperately hoping to please her. Gathering up Sir Hugh’s cloak, Finnula pulled the hood over her head and followed the child up a back stairway, the sounds of laughter and masculine conversation drifting up from the taproom.
Peggy paused at a door at the end of a corridor and tapped shyly. A gruff voice barked at her to wait a moment, and Finnula was amused to think that they’d interrupted Sir Hugh in a moment of privacy at the chamber pot.
But when the door was flung open a second or two later, she realized it wasn’t Sir Hugh they’d interrupted at all, but a much younger, much handsomer man.
Only half dressed, the clean-shaven stranger stared at her with Sir Hugh’s unmistakable greenish-amber eyes, but the face of someone else entirely. His strong, squared jaw was all that a knight’s should be, his chin clefted and broad. The mouth was familiar, but far too attractive to be Sir Hugh’s, the lips full and sensual. They were lips that promised things, things Finnula had only just recently begun to understand. Were those the same lips, she wondered, that only a few hours ago had clung to hers so tenaciously? No, it wasn’t possible—
He had a neck thickly corded with tendons, and a broad, muscular chest crisply matted with tawny hair that tapered down to a point above his flat stomach before widening again as it approached the loosely tied laces of his braies. But it was his arms Finnula’s gaze kept returning to. Bared, they were golden in color, like his eyes, like his long, loose hair, but so sinewed and muscular that he looked capable of lif
ting the heaviest of bows, and shooting with it, too.
But this was the face and body of a man years younger than Sir Hugh! Why, this man was no older, surely, than Finnula’s brother, Robert, who at barely six and twenty, was considered a prime candidate for marriage. And this man was handsome—breathtakingly handsome, a magnificent male specimen, one that would have made Isabella Laroche weak at even the thought of spending the night with him. Indeed, the sight of him sent Finnula staggering back until she hit the wall, which she gripped tightly with moistened fingers, her breath suddenly shallow.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured faintly, unable to tear her gaze from the stranger’s arms, which she couldn’t help picturing wrapped around her own body. “We must have the wrong room.”
“Nay,” Peggy insisted truculently. “’Tis the right room. Mistress told me—”
“No,” Finnula said, feeling color rush into her cheeks. “No, there must be some mistake—”
The handsome young stranger looked down at the serving girl and grinned, but there was no amusement in the gesture. “See what happens?” It was Sir Hugh’s voice, but coming out of a man who was no more Sir Hugh than Finnula herself was. “A fellow shaves, and his own wife doesn’t recognize him. Come along, sweetheart—”
Snaking out one of those long, well-formed arms, the stranger took hold of Finnula’s wrist and yanked her from the wall, propelling her across the hallway and into his embrace. Confused, Finnula flung up both her hands, and found them pressing down upon thick chest hair and warm muscle. Craning her neck, she looked up into what were unmistakably Sir Hugh’s eyes.
“Hullo, love,” he said, those golden eyes twinkling wickedly. “All cleaned up now, eh?”
Finnula’s bemusement was quickly turning into another emotion altogether. Fear. She had been worried before that she might be unable to resist Sir Hugh if he attempted to seduce her. Now that worry turned to full-blown alarm as she inhaled the unfamiliar fragrance of clean man, felt the brand-new sensation of bare flesh beneath her fingertips, heard his quick intake of breath when the tips of her breasts accidentally skimmed his furred chest.
That was it. She was getting out, while she still could.
Panicking, Finnula tensed, preparing to back away and follow Peggy downstairs with a lame excuse about having forgotten something. Then, once in the stables, she was going to saddle Violet and head for home, rain or no rain.
But some of her panic must have radiated to Sir Hugh, because he tightened his grip on her arms and pulled her even closer to him, so that her cheek was crushed to his bare chest, her eyes just inches away from one flat, brown nipple, half hidden in all his chest hair. The sight of it caused her even more alarm, but though she struggled to be free from him, he hung on, speaking calmly to Peggy, as if there wasn’t a half-wild woman in his arms.
“Thank you very much for your trouble, my dear,” he said, placing a coin in the child’s cupped palms. “My wife needs a good deal of looking after.”
Peggy agreed, gazing piteously at the struggling bride. “Mistress says she’ll get over it,” Peggy assured him, and the knight thanked her again, as politely as if he’d been addressing a queen.
As soon as the girl was out of earshot, Hugo leaned down and hissed in Finnula’s ear, “What the devil is the matter with you? You nearly ruined everything—”
Finnula could think of nothing but escaping the touch of his bare chest, and with another frantic motion, she was free, leaving him holding nothing but his own cloak.
But somehow, she’d ended up on the wrong side of the door! Instead of being out in the corridor, where she could have made her escape, she was inside the bedchamber! And there, she could see all too clearly, the trappings of her seduction had already been laid.
A roaring fire snapped upon the hearth, while a small table, set for two, basked in its glow. A thick bearskin covered the floor, and the bed, wide enough for three, was piled high with down-filled pillows and comforters. Expensive wax candles lent a romantic air, since they weren’t needed in the strong glow from the fire, and the room was rich with the odor of roasted meat, which sizzled in a covered pot upon the table. Turning, she saw her braies and blouse hanging on a peg near the hearth, lending a coziness to the room that belied what she knew was inevitably going to occur within it.
“What’s gotten into you?” Hugo demanded, closing the door and sliding the bolt home. The sound of the metal lock clanking was the one, Finnula knew, that sealed her doom.
“You looked scared as a cat out there,” he grumbled, going to the bed and seizing a white lawn shirt that had been lying atop it. “What’s the matter? Did Mistress Pitt recognize you?”
He pulled the garment over his head, and Finnula was given a tantalizing glimpse of the thick, golden patches of hair beneath his arms. The skin there was not so tanned as the rest of him, and looked silken, like the lining of his cloak.
Abruptly, Finnula’s knees buckled, and she sat down hard upon the hearth.
His head appearing through the shirt’s opening, Hugo eyed her, his long, blond hair a damp tangle about his handsome head. “Are you all right, Finnula? Your side bothering you again? I’ve never seen you so quiet,” he commented, scrutinizing her amusedly. Walking toward the low table, he hefted a tankard and passed it to her. She took it without thought, hoping he wouldn’t notice her trembling fingers.
“This should loosen that tongue of yours a little,” he said, with jovial ease. “It isn’t dragon’s milk this time, but something they call Mel’s Brew. Your sister Mellana, I take it?”
Finnula put the wooden tankard to her lips and tasted the ale. It was Mellana’s, all right. Just the feel of it in her mouth set her a little more at ease. At least something in this room was familiar.
“I thought that came off rather well, didn’t you?” Hugo smirked, seating himself upon one of the low stools that Mistress Pitt had set up around the table and helping himself to a crusty roll. “They didn’t suspect a thing. I told you they wouldn’t. You don’t look anything like the Fair Finn. In fact, you clean up rather nicely, considering.”
She stared at him owlishly. “Considering what?” She was surprised to find that her voice was quite steady.
“Well,” Hugo said, clearing his throat. “Considering what we had to work with, I mean. A wrinkled kirtle, a brush and comb, and look at you. A knight’s lady. You could easily pass for the wife of an earl, for all that—”
Finnula nearly dropped the tankard. Did he know? How could he know?
But no, he wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to her, just picking at the pot of cheese in the center of the table, oblivious to her nervousness.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, lifting lids and peering into pots. “Because there’s a lot of food here. That looks like stewed venison. One of yours, I presume. And there’s glazed carrots, and roasted turnips, and plenty of bread, and that looks like parsnips, and—”
Finnula asked, keeping her voice low to hide her fear, “Why did you shave?”
He looked up at that, and Finnula wished she’d kept her mouth shut. She wasn’t at all comfortable with his bright gaze upon her, and the comic twist to those sensuous lips didn’t soothe her much, either.
“Why did I shave? Because I was tired of looking like a demented hermit. Why? Don’t you like me like this?”
Finnula took a long gulp of ale. “You’re assuming,” she said, with some of her old asperity, after she’d swallowed, “that I liked you before.”
“True,” Hugo agreed, with a chuckle. He speared a turnip with his knife and bit into it. “But I did rather get the feeling that you liked me, back there, at Farmer Fairchild’s barn.”
Finnula blushed hotly, and was glad that the heat from the fire disguised her high color. “I thought you were much older,” was all she said in reply.
“Did you? I suppose I looked it. But you sound disappointed.”
She shrugged, and reached over to pick at the glazed carrots.
“You are disappointed.” Hugo set down his tankard with a thump and stared incredulously across the table at her. “God help me, you liked me better before, beard and all!”
Finnula, careful not to look at him, shook her head. “No, you look quite nice without a beard,” she said politely.
What she did not add was that without the beard, he looked like someone whom she’d have given a wide berth, back when she’d been hunting for a hostage. One did not want to hold for ransom someone who looked as dangerously handsome as he did. No, such a kidnapping might lead to all sorts of complications. In fact, it already had. Look at the situation she was in now! She was having dinner with—sharing a room in an inn with!—a man who was so good-looking that she wanted to leap across the table and devour him. This had been a slight concern before, but now…now she had to hang on tight to her beer tankard to keep herself from doing so.
“I’ll be damned,” Hugo said, and she did not think she was mistaking the mournful expression on his face. “You liked me better with a beard.” Then, brightening, he shrugged. “I’ll grow it back.”
Finnula raised her eyebrows. “I hardly think we’ll be seeing that much of one another,” she said mildly, “once you’re ransomed.”
He stared at her. “I see,” he said, in an offended way.
“I mean, I hardly ever travel as far north as Caterbury,” she hastened to explain, pausing as she ladled herself a serving of Mistress Pitt’s stew that she knew she’d never finish. “And I don’t expect you’ll have a lot of time for traveling to Stephensgate, what with managing your father’s estate.”
“No,” Hugo said, his gaze downcast. “I suppose you’re right.”
Finnula could not understand what ailed the man. Did he really think they could be friends after this? Why, she had a good many male friends, but none of them looked like him. She couldn’t possibly be friends with a man that good-looking. She wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything except how very much she wanted to kiss him. He was either completely oblivious to the effect his looks were having on her, or dense as a board.