Margaret Moore - [Maiden & Her Knight 03]

by All My Desire

  But they didn’t move, because at that moment, Sir Connor came striding through the door. They watched as his wife’s face lit up even more than it usually did when he returned, all of them just as hopeful that Isabelle had been found, alive and well.

  They also saw him grimly shake his head.

  Her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped about them, Isabelle sat huddled in the center of the Norse ship. The Gascon sat a little ways off, still cross-legged and comfortable, eating some bread and cheese. She was very hungry, but she was certainly not going to ask anything of him, or anyone else on this cursed ship.

  The Norse crew chewed on salted fish and drank from skins as they rowed without speaking. Their oars also made very little noise as they rose and dipped. It was no wonder they had proceeded as far inland as they had without being seen. In addition to the silence of their passage, the walls of the villages along the river were set back in case of spring flooding, and tonight the river was barely lit by a sliver of a moon.

  Her lip curled with disgust as she regarded Osburn snoring softly in the bow, his wineskin cradled to his bosom like a lover. He was a vain fool who probably did nothing more than drink, wench and complain about his servants. She suspected he was never without a wineskin nearby, as some men were rarely without a sword.

  She glanced back at the stern. Ingar held the steering board to guide the vessel. He must have the eyes of a cat; no lanterns were lit, and yet they stayed in the center of the river. Wrapped in a cloak against the chill night air, DeFrouchette stood beside him like a great, black bird of prey.

  Connor was a powerfully built man, too, but there was always a lightness about him, no matter how terrible the times, as if he radiated honor and chivalry. If this DeFrouchette radiated anything, it was a brooding, bitter anger that had been festering for years.

  The Gascon rose, then sat down beside her, crossed his legs and held out a loaf of coarse brown bread. “Will you eat, my lady?” he asked in a whisper. “I am sure you must be hungry. It is not the finest of fare, and I know you are used to better, but it is the best we have to offer.”

  She was tempted to shake her head and refuse. However, if she was going to escape, she would need the strength to do it. “Thank you,” she said, likewise whispering as she accepted the bread and took a bite.

  It was good, and she was glad she had agreed.

  She slid her companion a glance. “Do you know where we are going, or is that to be kept a secret from me?”

  He frowned. “I do not know exactly.”

  She couldn’t tell if he was lying. “I assume Lord Oswald will be there to greet me?”

  “Non, he will not.”

  She nearly sighed with relief, except that she realized the Gascon might wonder why she would be relieved about anything—and, indeed, why should she be? She was still in great jeopardy.

  Her gaze drifted back to DeFrouchette. He seemed almost a part of the ship, swaying with its motion.

  “You do not have to fear him, my lady,” the Gascon said. “He has never hurt a woman in his life, and he means it when he says you are to be treated well.”

  She gave the man a skeptical frown. “How many others has he abducted?”

  “You are the first.”

  “Then whatever he has done before may not influence how he treats me.”

  “He is a good man.”

  “Who takes women from their homes.”

  “For ransom,” the Gascon protested, as if that absolved him of wrongdoing. “Do not knights take their fellows for ransom?”

  “In battle or tournaments. But your master isn’t a knight, and neither am I.”

  “No, no, he is not. Nor is he my master. We are friends, and my friend was to be a knight.”

  “He is hardly worthy to be a chivalrous knight if he steals a woman from her husband.”

  “He failed because his father was killed, my lady.” The Gascon inched even closer and lowered his voice more. “His father had promised to name him his heir, and see him knighted if he learned the arts of war. So despite many trials, he did. He was on his way to England to show his father when he heard the man was dead—killed by another who was given all that might have been his. Imagine how it would be if you had one goal in your life and worked and suffered for it and then—poof!” The Gascon brushed his palms together, then spread his hands. “Gone, and through no fault of your own.”

  “That hardly gives him leave to kidnap me,” Isabelle said, refusing to feel any sympathy for thwarted ambitions.

  “Perhaps not, but then suppose a man seeks you out and says, ‘If you do what I ask, I will see that the French king makes you a chevalier—a knight—and gives you an estate in Normandy. If you do this simple thing, you will be rich, too.’ What then would you say, my lady?” He waved his hand in an exaggerated gesture of refusal. “Merci, but non. I cannot accept the dearest wish of my heart. I must not act against the man who killed my father and stole what was to be mine, not even if it will restore to me what was lost.”

  This was not the first time she had heard someone tell of Oswald offering revenge and retribution. He had tried to use Connor’s grudge against King Richard to turn Connor into a traitor. However, there was one very significant difference between Connor and this DeFrouchette. “If your friend is an honorable man and so worthy to be a knight, he should have refused.”

  “Obviously, my dear Lady Allis, he is not,” Osburn declared, sitting heavily beside her.

  She had been so intent on her conversation with the Gascon that she had not noticed Osburn awaken, or come toward them.

  “Speak softly, Norman,” Ingar growled from the stern, “or you will wake the whole countryside.”

  Osburn sniffed, but when he addressed the Gascon, he did so in a whisper. “Go away, Dennis. I wish to talk to the lady.”

  The Gascon looked about to refuse, but then he shrugged and rose. “Den-ee,” he muttered. “My name is Denis.”

  Isabelle got to her feet. “If you will excuse me.”

  She had no idea where she was going, except away from him. She would rather be back in the stern with DeFrouchette than have this man stinking of wine near her.

  “No, I do not excuse you,” Osburn said, roughly pulling her down beside him. “Come, come, my lady, if you can talk to Dennis here in such a confidential manner, you can speak with me. I’ll share my wine.”

  “I don’t want any wine.”

  Osburn leaned close, and his breath was nearly enough to make her gag.

  “I was wrong,” he said after taking another gulp of wine. “You are beautiful, even more beautiful than my father said.” He shifted closer. “No need to be so nervous. I want to be friends.”

  Isabelle regarded him with all the scorn she felt as he laid his hand on her shoulder. “You must be mad if you think I could be anything but your enemy.”

  “Some men like women who put up a bit of a fight,” Osburn murmured as he dropped the wineskin and turned toward her. “It’s exciting knowing that a woman doesn’t really want you. It will make it all the sweeter when—”

  He yelped as he was lifted upward, so that he was suspended in the air, his feet dangling, barely touching the deck. Like a dog with a rat in its teeth, DeFrouchette shook him by the collar.

  Isabelle scrambled to her feet. She sidled backward and to the left away from De Frouchette and Osburn; Ingar stood on the right side of the stern. The Norsemen nearby continued to row, but they watched the confrontation with avid interest.

  “She is not here for your pleasure,” DeFrouchette snarled. “Leave her alone, or you will have to answer to me.”

  “Put me down,” Osburn gasped, his face reddening, his arms flailing helplessly as he tried to free himself, “or you will have to answer to my father.”

  DeFrouchette shook him again. “Not until I have your word you will not touch the lady again.”

  “I-I promise!”

  With a scowl, DeFrouchette let him go. Osburn staggered uprig
ht and straightened his rumpled clothes as if trying to restore his lost dignity. “For a bastard, you have a lot of gall.”

  “So do you, for a man who takes few risks,” DeFrouchette answered, his voice low but stern and harsh. “The woman is mine, not yours. I went to Bellevoire and got her. Your father paid for this ship and this crew. What have you done, except get drunk and sleep?”

  Osburn put his hands on his hips. “I command here, DeFrouchette, not you. You are in my father’s service, and since I am his son, you will obey me!”

  “I am not in your father’s service, nor am I in yours. I have made a bargain with him, and thus far, I have done what I swore to do.”

  “I represent my father!”

  “Quiet!” Ingar ordered from the stern.

  “You be quiet!” Osburn cried. He waved at the dark country all around them. “There’s nobody around. Do you see any lights? Hear any dogs barking?”

  The man was a drunken fool, Alexander thought as anger boiled within. A spoiled sot, a brat foisted upon him, and he had no right to go within ten feet of—

  “Where is she?” Alexander demanded as he realized Lady Allis was nowhere to be seen. She had been back near Ingar only moments ago, obviously getting as far away from that sot as she could—but where was she now?

  “Ingar, she was in the stern, near you,” he said, striding toward the back of the ship.

  “I was not watching her. I have enough to do to guide the ship and with you arguing fit to call down the Valkyries—”

  “Oh my God!” Osburn wailed like a helpless child. “We’ve lost her!”

  “Not yet, we haven’t.” A sound reached his ears, a splash different from the ones made by the oars. “Damn the woman, she’s gone over the side.”

  “Rest oars!” Ingar ordered as Alexander scanned the dark river and banks behind them.

  The Norsemen stopped rowing, leaning on their oars so that they would act as brakes, but they could not stop the ship immediately.

  Osburn stumbled toward Alexander at the gunwale. “Can you see her? Where is she?”

  There was real panic in his voice, and Alexander knew it was not concern for the lady’s life that caused it.

  “I’ll find her,” he vowed as he wrenched off his boots and threw them on the deck. He tore off his tunic and tossed it aside.

  “You cannot just jump into the river!” Denis protested, hurrying to his side. “You will drown!”

  The ship, already on an angle from the extra weight, rocked more, making the Norsemen sitting on the side curse. Denis quickly moved back toward the center.

  Alexander put his hands on the gunwale. “I can swim.”

  Denis didn’t know of the days Alexander had spent by the miller’s pond in his childhood, catching frogs to supplement the meager fare his mother could provide.

  Alexander dropped into the frigid river, which was deeper than he expected. The cold water hit him like a slap, nearly paralyzing him, but he got his legs to move and rose to the surface, gasping for air. Fighting the cold as he treaded the water, he pressed his lips together to keep them from chattering and listened again.

  There! He could hear her wading toward the bank.

  With long, strong strokes his body cleaved the water as he headed toward the sound. He stopped once more to look and listen, and was rewarded with a brief flash of white on the bank. Her gown was red, but she was probably wearing a shift beneath and had gathered up the sodden skirts to run. A few moment’s later, soaked and shivering in the chill night air, he scrambled up the slippery slope after her.

  Once more he looked and listened, holding his breath. He saw a stand of trees not far off. If he were in her place, he would make for that.

  With strides as swift as his swimming, and searching for another flash of white, he ran toward the trees.

  He nearly cried out with triumph when he saw the telltale white. Picking up speed, but mindful that he was on unfamiliar ground, he reached the trees. Now he could hear her raspy panting and stumbling footfalls as she tried to run.

  Thank God she was obviously too tired to run fast. That might be the difference between catching her and having her elude him.

  For an instant, he actually considered letting her go. She had displayed courage and fortitude, and he admired that.

  But if he let her go, he would have no prize to ransom.

  He heard a thud and a cry. She must have tripped and fallen, and he was silently thankful.

  There she was, clambering to her feet.

  She was not wearing the red gown. She wore only her thin white shift, now muddy and soiled. Her sodden hair hung limply to her waist.

  He grabbed for her but missed. Afraid she was going to escape him again, he threw himself at her, tackling her and falling with her onto the soft, muddy ground. She gasped and squirmed, but not with the power and energy she had demonstrated before.

  His arms around her, his hips pressed against hers, she lay beneath him with only the damp silk of her shift between them. Her puckered nipples pressed against his naked chest and her body moved beneath him like a wanton lover as she struggled.

  Although he knew that was not so, his desire awoke nonetheless, and his already boiling blood grew heated with a different flame. An impulse primal and possessive surged through him and he bent his head to cover her mouth with his.

  He half expected her to bite or scratch, but she did nothing. She suddenly lay still and let him kiss her. She yielded to him—or at least stopped fighting him.

  She tasted of wine and wealth, of all the things he wanted and didn’t have. She smelled of flowers and a life of prosperity and gentility he could only dream about. She was everything that he had ever yearned for, all the promises his father had made and not kept, here in his arms.

  He loosened his hold with his right hand so that he could caress her. Her skin was more silken than her shift, softer than goose down, more wonderful than velvet. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, the words drawn out of him as he brushed his hand over her breasts.

  She sucked in her breath and trembled.

  “I will warm you, my lady,” he murmured as he leaned down to kiss her again.

  She shifted, and he felt her hand meander lower. Her fingers grazed his thigh, then moved between his legs. Closing his eyes, he held his breath, delighting in her light and gentle touch.

  God’s wounds, she wanted him, too. Why, he didn’t know or care. All he knew was that he craved this woman as he never had another.

  She pinched his inner thigh.

  He cried out at the sudden, intense pain and, wincing, rose and tugged her to her feet.

  Trembling violently, her lips blue, she raised her quivering hand as if she would strike him.

  He caught hold of her wrist and forced her hand down, which took more strength than he would have guessed.

  “It will take more than that to get away from me.”

  “Then I will do more, any chance I get.”

  “Including trying to drown yourself?”

  “I wasn’t trying to drown myself. I was trying to get away from you.”

  “Where’s your gown?”

  “The bottom of the river, where I would have been if I hadn’t got it off.”

  “Where you might have been anyway,” he growled. “But you are captured again, my lady, so come along and stop this useless nonsense.”

  She stood her ground, and, although she could hardly speak for shivering, she managed nonetheless. “It will not be useless if it works.” She crossed her arms and straightened her shoulders. “You claim that you were deserving of a knighthood before your father’s death. Prove that you have the honor of a knight, if not the title, and leave me here. Tell the others you couldn’t find me. They won’t blame you, and I will never tell anyone who took me.”

  “I will not leave you here, benighted and freezing and wet,” he said just as firmly, willing his own body not to shiver in the cold. “And I will not give up my prize so easily.”
<
br />   “Then it is just as well your father died before you could be knighted, for you do not deserve that honor.”

  He stiffened as if he had turned to stone, then reached out and hauled her close, so that he could see her face despite the darkness. “Listen to me, my lady, and listen well. Do not ever again presume to tell me how an honorable person behaves. You played my father like he was a lovesick lad and betrayed him. You were his promised wife, by your own word, and you let another man love you.” He put his other arm around her, so that he held her to him in a strong embrace. “Do you think to move me with your talk of honor and knighthood? That is gone from me forever, and you helped make it so. I was willing to overlook your part in it, except to make you the object of the ransom, but so help me, my lady, if you do not stop this foolishness and try to escape again, I will… I will…”

  “What?” she demanded, arching her back to get as far away from him as she could, still defiant, still bold. “What will you do? Kill me?”

  He shook his head, and in the darkness of the night, with her in his arms, longing exploded within him. “I do not want your death, my lady. I would have you alive. Very much alive.”

  He captured her mouth in another fiery kiss. Need and passion combined with his anger to create an even fiercer hunger.

  With a curse that would have made a soldier blush, she shoved him back and turned to run again.

  With a curse of his own, he caught her by the waist, the blood still throbbing through his body, hotter than a smith’s forge.

  “Kiss me again and I’ll kill you!” she cried, her shout rousing the birds in the nearby tree. “Touch me again and I’ll… I’ll strangle you!”

  “Do not tempt me to see if you could succeed, my lady,” he said, his voice a harsh rasp. “Or perhaps I should let you try.”

  He resisted the urge to cup her breast in response to her challenge although he could easily imagine the soft weight of her, warm in his palm, his thumb brushing across her pebbled nipple. Instead, he stroked her cheek.

  “Well?” he asked softly as she stood motionless. “I have touched you again. Why don’t you try to strangle me?”

  “I have reconsidered.”