The Virgin, the Knight, and the Unicorn (BookStrand Publishing Romance)

by Lindsay Townsend

  “Lovely,” she heard him breathe, and she managed to reply, “You, too.”

  He combed his fingers through her hair, loosing her veil and tucking it into his braies when she protested. “You can have it back when you answer my question.” His blue eyes glinted.

  “What question?”

  He smirked at her forgetfulness. “Your quest? Why you, Matilde, a dairy maid, ventured into a forest with a strange knight to find a unicorn?”

  “I had little choice.” After his apology, she felt mean-spirited at the admission. “But, Gawain,” she added quickly, “I do not regret it now.” I have felt truly alive. The more I learn of this man, the more I like him. Her previous certainties, concerning knights and class, were crumbling.

  “I am glad to hear you do not.” He fondled her and her own, hesitant caress of his flanks stuttered. “Good?” he growled, the devil, clearly aware of the impact he was having. He did not stop the languid, circular motions of his fingers across her rump and the heat in her female parts bloomed and flared afresh. “More?” he asked.

  “We should not!” Her protest was almost a howl.

  He smiled. “Do not fear me, Matilde.” Suddenly, he hugged her. “All will be well. Trust me.”

  * * * *

  Matilde was almost beyond herself, her blushing delight a pleasure to witness. He guessed, sadly, what she feared—that he would tempt, use, then discard her. I do not behave in such a brutal fashion. “I would never desert a lass, especially one like this,” he wanted to protest, but the words were nothing. Proof was what she needed.

  “Close your eyes,” he coaxed, loving to see her long, trembling eyelashes. “Do not be troubled. I swear you will remain a maiden, but you shall be easier.”

  She bit her lip, considering, then shook her head, her bright locks tumbling in a cascade of gold. “If you must forgo, then so must I. ’Tis unfair to you, else.”

  Foolish maid, to be so selfless.

  Her rosy flush deepened. “May I …ease you?”

  He tightened his arms about her narrow waist. Visions of sprawling with her on the turf throne and taking her like a stallion besieged him, followed by daydreams of her kissing his manhood, using that clever tongue of hers to twirl and suck and bring him to an earthly heaven.

  My dairy maid could milk me, for sure.

  She gasped and he shook the flights of fancy off, reminding himself anew of her inexperience and tenderness. She was staring down at his braies. “Does that hurt?” she whispered, her eyes widening at the sight of his obvious arousal. “It looks very thick and angry.”

  He knew he should not laugh and stifled a guffaw. Truly, she is a maid, frightened and intrigued together, a fit mate for a curious unicorn. “Do not be troubled,” he began, when he heard the crackle of a snapped twig, hastily muffled.

  Matilde heard, too, and her eyes narrowed at once, her face losing its youthful, open look. Curiously, for he needed her good sense, he missed her shy gentleness then, but there was no time for regrets. We are in danger. He motioned to the left with a hand and she blinked and said clearly, “I am for the pool, then.”

  For an instant, he was afraid she would go right, toward the pool, but instead she dived left, burrowing for the cover he had obliquely pointed out behind a boulder. He was already running right, drawing his sword as he sprinted from tree to tree, going down toward the water, chasing—

  The shadow fleeing a spear’s length from him yelled, its shape resolving into a burly, bearded fighter. The man’s hood ripped back and sunlight flashed on his long knife. An outlaw, Christ’s bones! An outlaw when Lord John assured me there were none. A wolf’s-head, so close to the castle and village. He could have injured Matilde.

  The outlaw splashed into the water and dived, swimming frantically for the far shore. Wasting no more curses or breath on the fellow, Gawain slewed about and pounded back. Matilde!

  She was not hiding behind the boulder. Sweating, his spine cracking, Gawain scanned the woods and animal trails, seeing only a blackbird. Wondering if he dared risk calling her, he blundered past a holly bush and almost fell straight into a pair of smooth, strong arms.

  “I have you,” Matilde whispered against his cheek. “I hid here in the holly, more cover. I have your tunic.” She kissed his ear and released him.

  Stunned—he had forgotten he was half-naked—Gawain rapidly dressed within the sheltering branches of the holly. Matilde crouched low toward the shielding prickles, looking out. “Your horse,” she said, not a question, a reminder. She is always thinking.

  He plucked her from the dry forest floor and gathered her close, breathing her in. Relief that she was safe slowly convinced him to release her. He took a step away and touched her cheek, brushing away lichen and a cobweb she had acquired in her rush for the holly. “You are safe?” A foolish question, he knew, but he wanted her to talk. I love hearing her voice.

  “Gawain, are you all right?” She closed the small distance between them and hugged him, burying her face against his shoulder. “I am quite well, truly, but should we not go? Your horse?”

  She shuddered slightly and he realized that she was not so calm, but bravely trying. And thinking of me and mine. “Were you worried for me, sweet?”

  “Of course I was worried! That is an outlaw! He could have spitted you!”

  He held her as she started to squirm, knowing that despite her scratchy responses, she had been alarmed. Worried for me. It was a heady feeling, if he let it be. He did not want to consider the other side of the matter, that she had also been in danger. Matilde and outlaws, hell’s teeth! He broke out into a sweat again and groaned, a tumble of ghoulish images racing through his head of pervious battlefields, all the dead bodies now showing her sweet face.

  “Marry me!” he blurted out.

  She stiffened. “Are you gone mad?”

  For a second time he forced himself to take a step back from her but still clasped her firmly by her arms. “Marry me,” he said again. “You will be safe with me.”

  Matilde regarded him coolly, not as a maiden who has just received a proposal of marriage but rather as a woman at a market, studying wares on display. “Is that important to you, my safety?”

  Gawain discovered he was holding his breath. “Yes.”

  She smiled, color sweeping back into her face, and began to study the dry, cracked earth beneath their feet. “May I think on it?”

  She has not said no, at least. “Of course.” He heard the snuffle of a badger nearby and recalled his mount. He never forgot the outlaws. “We should get back to the hut.” Unless the outlaws have discovered it already. Does she know these fellows are never alone and always in a band? “You stay here. I will go look.”

  Instantly she shook her bright head.

  “You think I would not return for you?” he flared, afraid for a dreadful instant that she might even believe that. Temper, Gawain, temper.

  “Of course not.” She flung his own words back at him, her look of scorn bracing him. She stalked past, her nose in the air, her slap on his bottom startling him—and herself. “Ow!” she exclaimed, rubbing her palm.

  He laughed, taking her other hand in his. “Come, then, we shall return together.”

  It was what he was most at ease with, even with her gruff little grumble. “Your backside is as solid as a cow’s.”

  “Enough chatter,” he warned, glad she was talking, glad to have the last word for the moment. He lifted up a branch of holly for her and they walked out into the wood again.

  But where are those outlaws? How many? Has the one I chased away alerted his company?

  Suddenly, the forester’s old hut seemed many leagues away.

  Chapter 5

  Matilde dealt with Gawain’s astonishing offer of marriage by ignoring it. To her it was no more than the heat of the moment, much as a cow will low and even charge if its calf is in danger. I am useful to him. How could we have a future? He should marry a lady with rich lands. My scraps of land will be nothing
to him and even those are under threat. That is what I should be thinking about, my lands and those of my family, and the danger to them.

  Even so, part of her sighed and wondered at the idea. Stealing with him back through the forest, stepping only where he stepped, avoiding dry twigs, pine cones, and beech mast that would all, according to her knight, crackle and alert their foes, was satisfying. And she was gratified that he had asked her.

  Yet he speaks no word of love. Am I childish to expect any?

  As swiftly as that thought arrived, she fought to dismiss it. Gawain was landless and had to be practical. She was doing him a service by delaying her answer. This way, he could reflect, realize he had made a hotheaded mistake, and say no more about it. For certain, I will not be mentioning it. I would not be so unkind or tactless. It is sweet he felt so much and was so concerned in that moment for my safety that he proposed at all.

  She felt ennobled at her silence, but at the same time disappointed. What would it be like for Gawain to love me?

  He was so easy to care for, that was the difficulty. He did not talk much, but he pointed out interesting things—jays to admire, tasty mushrooms to pick, strangely-shaped tree roots—and he now listened to her. The giddy rush of feeling she experienced each time he smiled would diminish over time, she knew, but his smile was still honest and true. Yes, he was quick-tempered, but so was she. I could not stand to be any time with a man who is surly and who will not argue when he is displeased.

  Five steps ahead of her, Gawain slowed and crouched. She copied him, glad he had his back to her so she could admire his tall, sinewy shape, his lissome way of moving. He stopped, glancing round, and she saw the shine of his eyes and his white teeth as he grinned at her.

  “We are in luck,” he mouthed slowly. “I can see my horse, still cropping hawthorn. No one else has been there,” he added, in a normal voice.

  He turned, about to rise, and she launched herself, scampering and sliding on the grass, colliding with him before he could go on. She clapped her hand across his mouth and bore down hard, trying to use her slight weight to keep him from gaining his feet.

  “Wrong!” she hissed, jerking her head toward the roof of the hut she could just see above the fern fronds. “Listen!”

  He had pulled her to him and they were a sprawl of limbs, but to her immense relief he was still. She risked removing her hand from his lips.

  “You will owe me for that,” he whispered and she nodded agreement—anything so he would stay hidden and not move. He scratched at his bristly chin, a gesture of surprise, she guessed, and now he cocked his head, clearly listening hard. The warbles and tweets of the woodland continued about them, all without alarm. His eyes darkened. “Explain.”

  I wonder if he grows a beard, if it is brown or red, and if it curls, like his hair?

  Swiftly, appalled at her irrelevant thought, Matilde said quietly, “Your horse is unnerved. If he were a cow I would say he was frightened.”

  Gawain stared at her. Another, less laconic man might have been more polite and asked what she meant, but he simply shook his head and demanded, “What?”

  “Look at his ears, the way he twitches, the way he stops and starts in his grazing.”

  Gawain continued to look at her. “I know my own horse.”

  “Please, Gawain, I know animals!” Fearing he might see her watching him as a challenge, a battle of wills, Matilde lowered her head. “Please, sir,” she whispered.

  * * * *

  He touched her face. Her cheeks looked hot but she was clammy, nervously biting her lip. He glanced at his horse, then looked more carefully. Matilde is right, the bay is on edge. The great, glossy stallion ate slowly, with many stops as it shook its mane. The horse also pawed the ground. Why is he agitated? That bay of mine has ridden in parades with less obvious concern. And how did I miss it?

  The last was simple. He had wanted to hurry to the hut, pick up their things, and speed Matilde back to the castle, where she would be secure. That explains my carelessness and haste, and Matilde dealing with beasts explains her noticing my mount’s agitation, but why is my horse acting in this way?

  “Caltrops,” he said aloud.

  “What are those?” Matilde whispered.

  “Evil devices, put in grasses, to injure horses and men.” He might have smiled, for here, finally, was something she did not know, but there was too much danger to be merry. “My horse might sense those, or a trap.”

  Trap she understood, and her face paled. “The outlaws? There are more of them? And they wait for us inside the hut?”

  “More likely some inside, more outside.”

  “What do we do?” she whispered.

  Now he did not feel at all like smiling. “There is no ‘we,’ Matilde. ’Tis too uncertain, too dangerous for you. How many are there? I cannot tell. But these will be desperate men.”

  Urgent, concerned, she tried to block his way again. “What would they have done to us?”

  Pity for her willed him to be silent, but she was clever and would never accept less than the truth. “Killed and despoiled me. Raped and sold you.” Taking advantage of her brief stillness, he shuffled past her and tugged gently on her arm. “Come. Let me take you home to your people. Once I know you are safe, I will return for these wolf’s-heads, with dogs.”

  The stubborn little wretch remained where she was, crouching close to a flowering elder bush, looking like an angry wood-elf. He snapped his fingers and she shook her head. “Fire!” she hissed. “We can drive them out. I am good with a sling.”

  To prove it, she fished inside her patched tunic and brought out a very serviceable-looking sling. “Will our lord not reward you for capturing such men?”

  What a surprising, amazing wench she is. A sling! Perilously, Gawain wavered between laughter and tears for an instant, touched by her sheer determination. Her excitement was beguiling, but he knew the risks. The thought of booty or a reward no longer appealed to him, not if it put Matilde in danger. “What if there are a dozen?”

  Cautiously, she raised herself a little from her crouch, watched his horse for a few more moments, and then dropped back to the ground on her knees. “No. Your horse would be going mad if there were so many strangers.”

  She made sense, but again he shook his head. “We try another way.” He put up a hand as she was about to answer. “You know your skills, I know mine. You stay here and wait, understand?”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Creep along and find myself an outlaw. There are ways and means to get a man to talk fast, and I know most of them.” Which was one compelling reason why he wanted her to remain where she was. There were some things he preferred she did not witness. “That will be one less wolf’s-head to deal with and we shall know better what we face.”

  Realizing he had half agreed to her wild plan to take on the wolf’s-heads now, without reinforcements or even dogs, Gawain stifled a snort. Is this wise, good tactics, or am I trying to please her? One thing he did know. He trapped her wrists, dragged her to him, glared down into her face. “Stay.” He tried to put as much venom and force as possible into the order. “Return to the holly and stay there, yes?”

  He must have looked fierce, for her eyes flashed and then she lowered her head.

  “Go first,” he commanded. “I want to see you safe. Believe me,” he added in a gentler way, “I will fight better knowing you are safe.”

  “Yes, sir…Gawain.”

  He allowed her that pertness and watched her slide away in a crouch, watching even after she had vanished, and he listened closely. Only when he was satisfied that Matilde was back at the holly did he stir.

  He drew his knife and sped lightly off, moving away from the hut before spearing in. Now, let me find a lurking thief and surprise him, the bastard. Lay a trap for my girl and me? You are the loser.

  * * * *

  Within the holly bush, Matilde automatically swept a space for herself and Gawain and then stopped, wondering what she
was doing. She could hear, see, and smell nothing alarming, but would she know if she did? I have not seen men battle, only brawl. Her brother Robert thought violence a sin, but he was in holy orders. How else can Gawain deal with outlaws? I wish I could help him. Perhaps I have been foolish, returning here and leaving him to carry out his plan, but I did want to please him. He said he would fight better without me. That gave her a glow of pride and at the same time a pinch of hurt. I wish I could help.

  She backed away from where she had wormed into the holly and sat with her back to the tree. Closing her eyes, she prayed and said a good-luck charm for Gawain. Had I some cows to herd, I could have made them stampede the hut and all the evil men inside and out of it.

  “Please let him be safe,” she said aloud, scrambling now to her knees and praying afresh. “Please, please, let Gawain be unharmed.”

  A rank, musky scent caught in the back of her throat. Matilde pulled herself up by an inner holly branch and shuffled beneath the shaded part of the tree. With ice-cold hands, she fumbled for her eating knife and brought it from her belt. The stink of a man who has run hard or fought grew worse. And it is not Gawain. She knew that instinctively, just as she knew to keep facing in the direction of that rank, unwholesome stench. But where is Gawain?

  The holly tree exploded, and a huge, dark figure burst in on her, yelling. The outlaw, as grizzled and bearded as a wolf, grinned and swayed from foot to foot, effectively blocking her escape. “Here, bitch, I shall not hurt you.”

  With arms wide and crook-fingered, he lunged and she slashed with her knife, catching her blade in his cloak. He tweaked the cloth hard and the feeble weapon bounced on the ground between them. He leered at her, pus seeping from one of his eyes. The other eye was puckered and closed.

  “I can cure your blindness,” Matilde said hastily. She snatched a handful of dirt and hurled it at the wolf’s-head, just as he charged at her again.