My Lady's Treasure

by Catherine Kean

  He stared at her lips. Yester eve, as he lay on the tavern floor, listening to her breathing, he had dreamed of kissing her. Craved it with an intensity that stunned him, for he had tasted many women. Yet, she was as tempting as treasure itself.

  He trailed his thumb over the backs of her captive fingers. So soft and fair, her skin. Like fine linen sheets, worn smooth in the wind and sun.

  She inhaled a sharp breath and tried, again, to pull her hand loose. Her mouth quivered. “I will tell you but one last time,” she said. “Let me go.”

  “Or?” he taunted.

  “Or I will keep the threat I made in the tavern. I will scream as though you mean to draw and quarter me. ’Twould not bode well for you, knave, to be found in my chamber.”

  What a cunning little scheme. One, indeed, with merit. Yet, such trickery would never succeed.

  Softening his tone to a sensuous drawl, he said, “’Twould bode ill for you as well, milady. I will say I am your lover, and that you invited me to your chamber.”

  “Never!” she gasped.

  Again, his thumb swept across her skin. He savored the anxious little twitch of her fingers. “I can be very convincing, when I want to be.”

  “No one will believe you. I am a widow—”

  “Who has been alone far too long,” he murmured, drawing her resistant hand to his lips. He pressed a lazy kiss to her knuckles.

  She squirmed. “Cease!”

  “Your pleasure is my greatest wish, milady. If you scream, I shall tell those who rush to aid you that ’tis so.” He winked. “All will believe you screamed because of pleasure.”

  “Even Torr?”

  Brant tensed. The startling question revealed she had seen him and Torr talking. “Aye,” he said, even as he wondered the dangerous permutations of her witnessing them together.

  She breathed in. Her lips parted.

  Damnation! She was going to scream.

  “Nay,” he snapped. Yanking her against his body, he slid one hand into the silken mass of her hair, while his other arm pressed to the small of her back.

  His lips closed over hers, swallowing the cry as it broke in her mouth.

  Her smothered scream turned shrill and outraged. She stiffened in his arms. Fought his hold. She clamped her lips tightly together, resisting the brush of his mouth. If he stopped plying his lips over hers, even to snatch a breath, she would shriek to bring the chamber’s wooden trusses crashing down upon his head.

  There was only one way to tame this defiant lady. He must stir the simmering passion he had sensed within her when they lay in the tavern room with the storm raging. He would transform her anger into a seductive, all-consuming magic.

  The wenches had told him time and again that they enjoyed his kisses.

  He had never been one to decline a worthy challenge.

  Still kissing her, he nudged her backward, step by tiny step. She resisted, tried to hold firm as he propelled her against her will, yet a slender woman like she could not hope to deter him. With a muted thud, her bottom bumped against the door. The rough-hewn wood grazed the backs of his fingers in her hair as he pressed her firmly against the panel.

  Another scream, this one tinged with frustration, rumbled in her throat. She struggled anew. In answer, he flexed his hips against her womanly softness. She shuddered. Her cry trailed off to a whimper.

  With his tongue, Brant traced the seam of her lips. This close, her floral scent seemed to wrap itself around him, as potent as a veil of faerie mist. Her hair slipped like the finest silk through his fingers. Trailing his thumb against her downy nape, he marveled at her enticing softness. His hands yearned to feel more. To explore what she denied him.

  Shifting his arm at her waist, he drew her slightly forward, then skimmed his hand down to touch her bottom. Her mouth opened on a shocked gasp. His greedy tongue slipped into the wet warmth of her mouth.

  She moaned.

  The helpless, awe-filled sound shook him. An answering moan burned inside him, breaking free on a guttural groan which voiced every frustration in his aching body. He deepened the exploration of his tongue, pressed himself even closer to her. And, in answer, her hands slid up his thighs and under his shirt. Her fingers brushed his naked skin.

  Ah, God!

  Her hesitant touch wreaked more havoc than the teasing of a skilled whore. Desire raced hot and urgent inside him, sweeping him up in a torrent of sensation. He could hardly breathe. Like a man possessed by a fey spell, he had only one coherent thought: to have her.

  Her tongue met his. She jumped, suggesting that despite being a widow, such contact was new to her. He slid his tongue around hers, coaxing. She responded, thrust for thrust. Her fingers pressed tighter to his flesh, dug into his ribs, tried to draw him even closer. As if together, they could become one, dynamic entity.

  He delved deeper, ravishing her mouth, exploring every sweet recess and hollow. Her tongue followed him in the arousing assault. He coaxed, and she coaxed him back. Bewitchment flavored her kiss, for the more he tasted her, the more he craved.

  His body shook with the hunger tearing through him. Never had never experienced such desire. If he did not stop now …

  He drew his fingers from her hair. Setting both hands upon her hips, he stared down at her flushed face. She looked back at him with glazed eyes, her lips reddened from his kisses. A fleeting image of her sprawled in rumpled sheets, smiling after passionate lovemaking, flashed through his mind. Anticipation skipped over his skin like sparks cast from a sorcerer’s wand.

  “Milady,” he whispered.

  She blinked. The passion in her gaze vanished, as if it had never existed. “Oh, mercy,” she rasped.

  The self-condemnation in her voice hit him like a blow. He could not keep from flinching, even as he chided himself for letting her affect him so.

  “Was my kiss so terrible?”

  Her gaze darkened with mortified fury. “’Twas the most vile kiss to have touched my lips.” With a startled gasp, she yanked her hands out from under his shirt.

  He missed the warm press of her fingers—but he would eat his saddlebag before he admitted that to her. Instead, with a bawdy chuckle, he nudged his thighs against hers. “I vow I am the first man to have kissed you properly, milady.”

  “What arrogance!” she hissed between her teeth.

  “I only speak what is true. Your husband never showed affection to you in such a way, did he?”

  Her face turned scarlet. If he did not know better, he might have thought her a virgin, naïve as to the intimacy between men and women. Yet, she had been married. While he could not claim to have known Hubert Villaux, no man could take this lady as his wife and not be tempted to lie with her.

  One of her hands thrust between their bodies to fist into his tunic. “You have no right to speak of my husband,” she bit out.

  “If he did not kiss you properly”—Brant closed his hand over hers—“then he was a fool.”

  Puzzlement flashed in her eyes.

  “A woman like you,” he murmured, caressing her wrist, “deserves a man who will teach her the art of good lovemaking.”

  A disbelieving snort broke from her. “You are that man?”

  “I vow I am.”

  She shook her head. Then, she inhaled sharply.

  “Hellfire!” Brant’s lips clamped down on hers again.

  She screamed beneath his imprisoning mouth. Her head jerked from side to side, but he matched her frantic movements, refusing to let her dislodge him. As she squirmed against the wood panel, she yanked her hand free. Her elbow hit the door with a thud.

  She grimaced, then whimpered.

  Just as Brant was about to raise his mouth away, to ask if she had hurt herself, she tensed. Thud, thud, thud echoed as she pummeled her fists against the door.

  Silently cursing her ingenuity, and hoping no one had heard, Brant locked an arm around her waist. Still kissing her, securing her head with his other hand, he lifted her off the floor. Her hips tilted
flush against him.

  “Mff!” she screamed against his mouth. She kicked at his shins. Clawed at his tunic.

  Smothering a laugh, he turned. His gaze fell to her bed. Draped in a patched woolen coverlet, it beckoned, only a few paces away.

  The image of her lying amongst mussed sheets flooded his mind again. An undeniable temptation. Ignoring her struggles, he carried her to the bed. The ropes creaked as he set her down, forcing her with his advancing body to lie back. He lowered himself onto her, thigh to thigh, belly to belly. Ah, but she felt wondrous beneath him.

  Her legs thrashed. She swatted at his sides. A moan broke from her, different from her earlier cry. This time, he heard panic.

  Hesitating, he lifted his mouth away.

  “Stop!” she gasped. “Please.”

  Did she think he would ravish her? Of course she would believe him capable of such a despicable act. “I will not violate you. I promise,” he said.

  Her breath warmed his chin as she stared up at him, her eyes huge against her ashen skin. “A promise made by a knave,” she answered, so quietly he almost did not hear.

  “Milady, I have only one purpose with you, and ’tis not to bed you.” With gentle fingers, he brushed a strand of hair from her bottom lip. She trembled. How foolish, that he longed to see passion in her eyes again. Even more senseless, he yearned to prove his own reassuring words a lie.

  Bedding her would be his sweet reward for the torment she had caused him that morn. ’Twould slake his desire still screaming for release. Yet he, unlike many other men, would never take a woman against her will.

  She still stared up at him, clearly uncertain. He should rise, allow her to sit up, but somehow, the feel of her beneath him held him spellbound.

  “How can I believe you when … I don’t even know your name? Indeed, knave, who are you?”

  A treasure seeker, his conscience whispered. A man on a vital quest. He could not speak the words. If he did, she would demand to know why.

  “You”—she went on, her voice a mesmerizing wisp of sound—“are akin to a dark, restless phantom. You are nameless, dangerous and … a woman would be ill-advised to place her trust in you.”

  Brant frowned. He, a restless phantom? Nameless? Dangerous? Indeed, there was more than a seed of truth in what she said. If he did not heed his inner cry for caution, that truth might grow roots and crack the mortar of his solitary existence.

  What Lady Rivellaux thought of him should not matter. Did not matter. Once he had the gold cup, he had no reason to ever see her again.

  Yet a tiny part of him—the part that wanted so badly to challenge her opinion of him—convinced him to give her some measure of a reply.

  Looking down at her, he managed a careless smile. “I am no phantom, milady.”

  “Not true. You are plagued by a haunted soul. Tormented by misdeeds, mayhap.”

  God’s teeth! He forced a disparaging laugh. “Your imagination misleads you, milady. If you must know, my given name is Brant.”

  “Brant,” she repeated, clearly committing his name to memory. Triumph flashed in her eyes. She seemed delighted to have wrested the information from him.

  He struggled not to grin. He was an idiot to appreciate that cunning look. Neither should he relish the way his name sounded when she spoke it.

  “Are you a knight?” she asked. “How do you know Torr? How—”

  Brant scowled, for already he had told her too much. He touched his finger to her mouth, and her words died on a startled inhalation. “No more questions. I want the cup, milady.” His finger, of its own will, trailed along her silken bottom lip. “Where is it?”

  Resolve tightened her features. “You cannot have it.”

  “I must have it.”

  She turned her head away—a blatant refusal. His finger slid down her chin to brush without threat against her neck.

  Blowing an exasperated sigh, Brant bowed his head. His hair draped across her jaw before he pushed away from her, ending their physical contact. The bed ropes creaked as he sat beside her, impatience uncoiling inside him like a length of rope.

  If she would not give him the goblet, he would simply have to take it.

  Moments ago, when he entered her chamber, she was bending over her linen chest—the most obvious place for her to put the chalice. She would not like him rummaging through her personal effects, but she left him no choice.

  Brant refused to accept even the tiniest pinch of guilt. She had not hesitated to go through his saddlebag, despite his stern warning.

  He rose and strode to the linen chest. Behind him, he heard the bed groan as she sat up.

  “Brant!”

  He raised the linen chest’s lid. Silk gowns in vibrant reds, blues, and greens, some with intricate embroidery, shimmered inside—a treasure trove of luxurious clothes. A faint scent, shockingly familiar, rose from the garments. He froze. His head spun as Elayne’s flirtatious laughter echoed in his thoughts.

  He gritted his teeth against the unwelcome memories. These were Lady Rivellaux’s possessions. Why, then, did he think of Elayne?

  Footfalls came up behind him. He ignored the lady’s approach. Stooping, he thrust his arms into the gleaming mound of garments, lifted them, then tossed them onto the floorboards.

  “Fie!” she muttered. She stood just out of his reach, her hair a tousled mess. Staring down at the discarded finery, she folded her arms across her gown—a very plain garment compared to the riches he had deposited near her feet.

  “You do not care for costly clothes?” he said, not bothering to temper his sarcasm. He reached into the chest again. “Within, there is a fortune in silk.”

  “I know.” The catch in her voice made him pause to look at her. “They belonged to Torr’s wife, Elayne. He gave them to me after she died. He said ’twould please him if I made use of her gowns, for he did not want them to go unworn. They would only be ruined by moths.”

  So the garments were Elayne’s. No wonder his thoughts had strayed to her.

  “You do not wear them?” he asked.

  Sadness in her gaze, Faye shook her head.

  Brant tossed aside more garments, including gossamer-sheer chemises and silk hose. How odd Lady Rivellaux, an impoverished widow, did not make use of the finery that looked tailored to the latest fashions. Beautiful, vain Elayne would have demanded no less.

  “You probably think I am foolish not to use her clothes,” the lady said, her tone barely above a whisper. “Elayne was taller than I am, so the gowns would need some adjusting. Torr said he would pay for the alterations as part of his gift to me. A most generous offer. Yet, I simply cannot bring myself to wear what was hers.”

  As Brant took one last armload, he wondered if there was something more to her story. In his travels, he had seen enough facets of humanity to know few women would resist such luxuries—unless they had a very good reason.

  She made no attempt to elaborate. Nor did she try to stop him searching through her belongings. Mayhap she had accepted, at long last, that he would not be deterred. That he would only leave when he had the gold cup. She must be eager to see him go.

  An odd regret slashed through him, for after he had the goblet, he would likely never see her again. A ridiculous remorse. ’Twas best for both of them.

  Brant dug through the remaining items in the chest. His fingers brushed a cloth bag. Something solid was inside. When he picked up the bag, objects inside clinked together. Frowning, he parted the drawstring at the top.

  “Nay!” the lady cried, lurching forward. “’Tis only stones and—”

  Brant emptied the contents onto the pile of gowns—an assortment of river rocks, two bits of gnarled wood, as well as a grubby toy sheep. Stitched from woolen fabric, its round eyes were embroidered with blue thread. A blue ribbon encircled its neck.

  He shook his head at the odd collection. “You did not want me to find these?”

  “They are Angeline’s,” the lady said, as if that explained all. Her eyes bl
azed with anguish and outrage.

  With two fingers, he dangled the well-worn sheep in the air, its head pointing toward the floorboards.

  “A ewe,” she said, “which came with a little lamb. ’Twas made for Angeline by one of the local villagers.”

  “I see.” Gesturing to the stones and wood, Brant said, “These, too, were gifts?”

  Her chin thrust up. “Treasures of their own kind.”

  Brant blew out a disbelieving breath. Only a complete simpleton—or a child—would cherish stones and a toy sheep. He tossed the ewe onto the mounded gowns. “Your friend has peculiar taste, milady.”

  When he turned back to the chest, his foot nudged the garments. One of the stones tumbled off the pile. The lady darted after it.

  “’Tis only a rock,” he muttered.

  She snatched the stone from the floorboards and whirled to face him. With near reverence, she cupped the brown-gray stone in her palm. “Angeline was very proud of these. She collected them herself, and I promised to keep them safe for her. And so I shall.”

  “Mmm,” he said, half listening. Dragging his hand one more time through the chest, he choked down bitter disappointment. He turned to face her. “The goblet is not here.”

  She quirked a slender eyebrow. “Imagine that. Now that your curiosity is satisfied, mayhap you will put the garments back in the chest and leave.”

  He set his hands on his hips and glared at her. “Damnation, milady. Where is it?”

  Pointing to the lavish gowns, she said, “Take them. Have them all, in place of the goblet.”

  “I want the gold.”

  Desperation gleamed in her eyes. “The clothes will fetch a good price at a town market. Take them and be gone from here. I beg you.”

  “Nay.”

  A sound like a sob broke from her. “Take them, now, before I—”

  The rest of her words became a blur of sound. As he glanced back at the linen chest, his gaze traveled over the whitewashed wall.

  The mortar was missing from around one of the stones, which jutted out slightly further than the others.