Her placid tone astonished him. “Have you finally given up?” he asked, not willing to believe that was true.
“I will not give you the satisfaction of a struggle.”
“Then you have surrendered.”
She gave him a look of utter scorn. “To you? Never.”
Wherever she got her astonishing courage, he had had enough of Lady Allis—her words, her haughty manner, her reminders of his detested parent, even the desire she inspired—and they had lingered too long in this place as it was.
His hand grasping her right arm, he started back toward the ship, all but dragging her. When she stumbled and nearly fell, he tugged her close, then put his arm beneath her knees and lifted her into his arms. She was trembling, either from cold or fear or both, and surely she could have no strength left—
Kicking, she pushed hard against him.
Was there no end to the ways she could try his patience? “I can go faster carrying you, my lady,” he said grimly, ignoring her kicks and slaps. “It will be this way, or over my shoulder, as I did before. You choose.”
Held captive in his arms, shivering and exhausted, Isabelle wanted to tell him to go to the devil. But in truth, she was freezing and at the end of her strength. She could not walk another step, and although she would rather take her chances of dying from exposure, he was not going to leave her. She had no choice but to let him carry her back to that ship.
In silent acceptance of the inevitable, she put her arm around his neck to steady herself and tried not to notice how the warmth from his body warmed her, too. She would not think of that heated kiss even if she had sensed more of yearning in him than domination or control. Alexander DeFrouchette was her enemy, and there could be no forgiveness for what he had done.
Chapter 5
“Oh, thank God! Thank God you’ve got her! She’s not dead, is she?” Osburn cried from the bow of the ship when he spotted Alexander trudging toward the river, his prize limp in his arms.
She had been like that since they had left the stand of trees, her arm lightly about his neck, her head against his chest. The slow rising and falling of her breasts made him wonder if she had fallen asleep from sheer fatigue.
He tried not to notice how good she felt in his arms, as if she belonged there. That was surely as false a notion as her apparent surrender when she lay beneath him, when she had been lulling him into carelessness.
And how she had! The sensation of her lips against his had immediately made his plan, the ship, the ransom—everything except her—recede from his mind. She was everything he had ever yearned for, and everything he could ever desire. She was the most beautiful woman in the world, and when she seemed to be responding, or at least no longer fighting, he had never known such pleasure and excitement.
All a sham, of course. His mind could not blame her; indeed, he could almost admire the strategy. But despite the pleasure, in his heart he wished he had never touched her. It would have been better not to have a taste of the forbidden fruit of a noblewoman’s lips and body beneath him—especially hers. He already had enough cause to envy Sir Connor.
As for what she was doing now, if she was not really asleep, he wouldn’t be surprised to discover she was merely resting while planning another escape. What her plot might be, or when she might act upon it he couldn’t begin to fathom, but he would never underestimate her again.
Either way, he was pleased to note that she was no longer trembling, and he felt warmer, too.
“Why don’t you answer?” Osburn called out. “Is she dead or not?”
“She is not dead,” he answered, speaking only as loudly as he thought necessary for Osburn to hear him. There seemed to be no habitation around them, but surely it was not wise to shout.
The lady’s arm tightened about his neck, and she slowly raised her head, perhaps in answer to Osburn’s questions, or because he had awakened her. “I can walk the rest of the way. Put me down.”
It was not a request but a command, and he immediately tightened his hold on her. “No. If you do not like your method of conveyance, my lady, you have only yourself to blame, for this is the only way I can be certain you won’t run again.”
Her voice dropped to a low whisper, intimate in the darkness. “Allow me a little dignity in front of Osburn and those Vikings.”
“You did not stand upon your dignity when you went over the side of the Norseman’s ship.”
Her voice became softer yet. “Please.”
It had been a very long time since a woman had whispered in his ear. The last had been his mother, telling him again and again who his father was and how great a man and how they must be prepared for his return, which would surely be soon. That he must try very hard to be worthy. Even as the months and years had passed, every night it was the same deluded litany.
This woman, unlike his mother, was proud. He could admire that pride, for he had seen what a lack of it could do. If he were in her place, might he not appreciate any consideration that allowed him to retain some self-respect?
But he was reluctant to do as she asked. She certainly couldn’t run if he was carrying her.
Yet surely she must be too weary to try to escape again, and so tired that he could catch her again if she did.
He halted and let her slide to the ground, trying to ignore the pleasure of her body brushing against his. He fought not to notice the sensation of her shift riding up, knowing her long, slim legs must be exposed. He steeled himself against the sensation of her breasts moving slowly down his naked chest. He pressed his lips together to prevent himself from kissing her again.
She was an object of trade and nothing more. She could never be anything more. He would not throw away the plan and all it was to accomplish because of a wayward, fleeting desire, no matter how powerful it seemed. Desire did not last, and it left only anguish in its wake.
When she was steady on the ground, she lifted her brilliant eyes and gazed at him steadily. “Thank you.”
Her simple words struck at the wall around his lonely heart. But they could not do more than dent it, for it was of ancient making and strengthened by a bitterness no woman’s words softly spoken could overcome. “For your own safety, I want your promise as the wife of Connor of Bellevoire that you will not try to escape again.”
Wrapping her arms about her body, she nodded. “You have my word as the wife of Connor of Bellevoire that I will never try to escape from you again.”
“What are you waiting for?” Osburn demanded from his place in the bow. “Get her aboard.”
“You are summoned,” she said evenly.
She made it sound as if he were Osburn’s lackey.
Scowling, he followed her as she carefully waded out into the river toward the ship floating a few feet from the bank. The Norsemen’s oars were still in the water, holding it as steady as possible. Ingar waited at the side of the ship, and another man held the tiller. Not surprisingly, Ingar looked furiously angry.
Once she was at the side, Alexander came behind her to lift her into the ship, but she gave him a warning look over her slender shoulder.
“I will not have you put your hands on me again.”
Her words were like another slap, one of many she had given him this day. But this one hurt the most, and it mended whatever breech in his self-defense her whispered request had made.
Ingar snorted with disgust. “Lift your arms, woman,” he ordered.
She obeyed, and with no sharp retort. Ingar hauled her, dripping, onto the deck, paying no heed to her once she was on board.
“You, into the ship,” he said just as brusquely to Alexander.
As Alexander clambered inside, aided by two of Ingar’s crew, the Norseman jerked his thumb at Osburn. “This one has probably roused the entire countryside with his lamenting and shouting. I did not come here to be killed.” He glared at Isabelle. “No woman is worth this much trouble,” he grumbled before he strode to the stern and grabbed the tiller from the other man.
; Now that the lady was aboard, Alexander expected Osburn to approach her. He didn’t. He simply sank down in the bow and lifted his ever-present wineskin to his lips.
The lady made her way to the center of the ship, where Denis was standing with a blanket at the ready. With a few quiet words, he offered it to her. She accepted it, enshrouding herself before sitting with her back to the mastfish, a T-shaped support for the mast when it was raised.
Ingar gave the order for his men to commence rowing. Alexander moved swiftly out of their way, joining Denis a few paces from the lady.
Ingar set a brisk pace. Obviously well trained, his men rowed with swift, silent strokes, sending the ship shooting down the river like an arrow from a bow.
Denis plopped himself down and offered Alexander another rough woolen blanket that, like the Norsemen, smelled of salted fish and ale. The blanket around his shoulders, Alexander pulled on his boots and noted that Denis had brought his swordbelt and tunics there, too.
“Merde, I thought you had lost your senses, Alexander, jumping over the side like that!” Denis quietly exclaimed as they both leaned back against the yard and furrowed sail. “I swear I have aged ten years.”
Alexander felt he had aged more than that. This venture, which had sounded so simple when Lord Oswald had proposed it, was turning out to be far more complicated than he had ever dreamed.
Rather like the lady.
“I had to get her back,” he replied. “It’s a damn good thing she didn’t drown.”
“Oui, of course,” Denis agreed.
Alexander lowered his voice to a whisper that the grunting, sweating Norsemen couldn’t hear. “I’m going to keep watch tonight. I don’t trust Osburn, or these Norsemen. I wouldn’t put it past them to kill us and sell her, if they thought they could get away with it.”
“But Lord Oswald has paid them well, I’m sure.”
“I hope he has paid them enough.”
Denis gravely nodded. “With the amount of wine he has drunk, Osburn will probably pass out, but I think you are wise about the Norsemen, especially now that they have seen her … like that.”
“Yes, I think Ingar was very serious about her worth as a slave.”
“And he is right. Mon Dieu! Such beauty and such spirit! I swear, my friend, that if she were to produce a sword and try to take command of the ship, I would not be shocked.”
Alexander sighed as he moved his belt and scabbard close beside him. “Neither would I, although she has given me her word she will not try to escape again.”
Denis’s eyes widened, and he sat up straighter. “Truly? Her word?”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe she will not. Normans hold their honor very dear, or so I have been told.”
“I suppose.”
Denis hugged his knees. “Why do you not rest now, and I will let you take the second watch? You must be very tired after chasing her all over the riverbank.”
Alexander gratefully slid lower, so that his head was resting against the furled sail as he closed his eyes. “Thank you, Denis.”
Something pushed against Alexander’s back. He was on his feet in an instant, his scabbard in his left hand and the hilt of his sword in his right. The weapon was half out of the scabbard before he was even fully awake.
Several of the Norsemen were staring at him, as surprised as he was, in the breaking daylight.
“There is no need for alarm. We are just in the way,” Denis quickly explained from where he stood off to the steering board side. “They want to raise the mast and set the sail.”
“Oh.” His heartbeat still as rapid as a wren’s wings in flight, Alexander shoved his sword back into the scabbard, then joined his friend. His prize huddled near the prow, cloaked in the blanket, watching the Norsemen set about their task. Also in the bow were two of the Norsemen. They held a stay attached to the top of the mast, ready to help haul it upright. They were so close to her that she was as good as guarded.
Loose and tousled, her hair made him think that she, too, had just awakened. Her eyes were a little puffy from sleep, yet they shone with a sharp awareness of where she was and what had happened to her.
She met his gaze with undisguised hostility, but all Alexander could think about was the fact that beneath that blanket she was very nearly naked, clad only in that gossamer-thin silk shift that hid so very little, especially when it was damp. Aided by the memory of the kiss last night, his desire burst instantly, vibrantly to life.
Trying to subdue his unwanted craving, he forced his attention to Osburn, who lay near her, the wineskin at his feet. It looked as if he slept where he’d fallen.
“Oui,” Denis said as he straddled one of the vacated sea chests. “He has not moved. A drooling man, even one so delightfully attired, is not a pretty sight, is it?”
Alexander gave his friend a sardonic little smile of agreement as he sat astride the sea chest to his friend’s right. “You didn’t wake me to take the second watch.”
“You were sleeping as peacefully as a newborn babe, and I said to myself, ‘Denis, he has earned a good rest, and you can sleep later.’ She did not awaken until the Norsemen ordered her out of the way, too. Otherwise, nobody went near her.” Denis’s dimples appeared. “They were whispering about her all night, though. They think that although she is beautiful and they wouldn’t mind making love with her, they agree with Ingar. She is not worth the fight she will surely put up.”
“I didn’t know you could understand them.”
Denis grinned. “I understand enough of the words and the way they said them.”
Alexander turned his attention to the activity on the ship, and how far they had come from Bellevoire. They had left the river, and, although they were close to shore, they were definitely at sea, which explained why Ingar was setting the sail.
Four of the brawnier Norsemen put the mast into the slot for it in the keel. Aided by the two pulling on the shroud, they levered the mast upward hand over hand, walking toward the slot until it settled into place with a thud. The raised mast swayed a moment, but the mastfish kept it from tipping backward, and an oaken block was slid into place to hold the other side of it steady. Then, the yard and furrowed sail were attached and the sail unfurled, the white square catching the quickening breeze. Except for the lines at the bottom of their sail, there was no other rigging. It was a simple, if heavy task, done with quick efficiency by Ingar’s men.
Finished, they sprawled on the deck between their sea chests and fell asleep at once—except for the two who scowled at Alexander and Denis, clearly not pleased by the other men’s temporary possession of their sea chests. Alexander and Denis quickly rose and went back to the center of the ship, where they sat down. The lady, Alexander noticed, stayed where she was.
“Ingar says we should arrive after midday if the wind holds,” Denis remarked as he reached for a wineskin. He offered it to Alexander. “It’s water, not wine. I think Osburn has finished all of that.”
“I don’t suppose Ingar mentioned exactly where this fortress is?” Alexander asked as he took a drink. The water was not very cold, and it tasted leathery, but he was glad to wet his throat.
He had accepted Lord Oswald’s word that the place where they would hold the lady was safe, secure and secluded, but after yesterday, he was not nearly so willing to take the man’s promises at face value.
“No, only that it is somewhere in Glamorgan, in the south part of Wales that Prince John used to rule.” Denis shook his head. “The wilds of Wales.”
“He wanted her far from home so that her husband couldn’t find her.”
“Then he has chosen well,” Denis agreed.
“How did you sleep, Norman?”
Alexander and Denis both looked up to see Ingar towering over them. Grinning, he swept his cloak out behind him and crouched opposite them.
“Well enough,” Alexander replied. He decided to take this opportunity to ask some questions, since Ingar seemed in a jovial humor. “Is the location
of this fortress of Lord Oswald’s truly a secret?”
“You have not seen it, or who guards it, or you would not wonder,” Ingar replied. “It is not much of a fortress, yet he has hired Brabancons for a garrison, so I expect that anybody who does discover it does not live to tell about it.”
Alexander tensed and Denis stared. The Brabancons were the fiercest mercenaries in Europe, men infamous for their greed and cruelty. They would kill anyone—man, woman or child—who stood in their way. They were so notoriously vicious that both Richard and his father had banned them from England.
Lord Oswald was Richard’s enemy, so it should come as no shock that he would use such men, yet the hiring of Brabancons was something Alexander had not expected.
“He pays for the best men for the job,” Ingar said, obviously amused by Alexander’s reaction to the news of the mercenaries. He reached out for the wineskin and took a gulp. Wiping his lips, he belched, then said, “You and I are proof of that, ya? I am the best captain of the best crew in the western seas and you are skilled at stealing.”
Annoyed, Alexander rose. “I am not a thief.”
His gray eyes twinkling with a sly certainty that angered Alexander even more, Ingar straightened so that they were eye to eye. “Not an ordinary one, of course. I should have said kidnapper.”
“I was destined for knighthood and it was for that I trained.”
Crossing his arms and genuinely puzzled, Ingar raised a thick blond brow. “Why would you waste your time and skill with that? Chivalry is for boys playing at war, not men who can really fight.”
“I don’t expect a Norseman to understand.”
“That does not mean he cannot fight,” Denis said, leaping to his feet as well as his friend’s defense. “He once held off an entire village all by himself.”
Ingar looked so impressed, Alexander decided he wouldn’t clarify that the villagers had, for the most part, been armed with sticks—except for the butcher with the cleaver.
“I thought he would be good,” the Norseman said. “I would gladly welcome such a man into my crew, Norman, if you wish to fight to good purpose.”
Margaret Moore - [Maiden & Her Knight 03] Page 6