One Winter Knight

by Townsend, Lindsay

  Her best chance at life lay in front of her. The sword is too far away from the sleeping man to be of use in a surprise attack. Only a mad man would sleep with his sword out of reach. Of course, only a mad woman would creep into his camp to steal his horse and his sword.

  But the gems. She needed them in case Scotland wasn’t far enough…or safe enough.

  “Even if the sheriff finds you, he cannot kill you. You are noble. All you have to do is tell him, and—”

  “I would rather hang than be revealed. Watch my back. This will not take long.” Alais slipped the scrip from around her shoulders and handed it to Johanna, then eased forward as the moon scuttled between clouds.

  Anxiety flushed hot beneath her skin, burning brighter with each step. Johanna could laugh and say, “God will provide,” before slipping into a sacristy and stealing a gold cloth. Alais envied her faith, however misguided. Life was too dark and too grievous for her to believe heaven bothered with desperate women when all of England was ignored. Between the old king’s daughter and his nephew, Stephen of Blois, who usurped the throne twenty years ago, internal politics were bloody. And the only time the nobles agreed, it was to condemn the weakest member of their fraternity.

  The common people mumbled that Christ and his saints slept. Alais knew He did. The nobles warred. Commoners hanged. And families like hers, those unwilling to take a side in a family fight, were dispossessed and left to ruin.

  She pushed aside her thoughts. Memories and musings were useless. Life required quick, decisive action. Moving to the edge of the camp, she watched the man, who slept unguarded and unarmed, a careless, easy target.

  The horse was to her right, restless but not spooked.

  The sword was three steps toward the fire—and the man.

  The moon moved from behind a wall of clouds, and Alais almost changed her mind. Even in the dim light, the man was impressive. Strands of dark hair covered his face, but the hard line of his mouth seemed angry even in sleep. His mantle obscured most of his legs, hips and body. One arm was tucked under his head. The other rested against his chest. He shifted slightly in his sleep, giving her a clear view of his hand. Long fingers, thick wrist, rough skin.

  She was daft, as Johanna often so accused. Surely, it was insanity to even contemplate what she was doing, much less to actually do it. From the looks of the man before her, he was someone better left alone.

  She thrust aside that thought, too. If she and Johanna were going to avoid their own hanging, they needed the horse and the sword.

  Chapter Two

  Using the same moon to study her, Grym suppressed a laugh. He should be annoyed, if not furious. After all, a thief was creeping into his camp. Only a fool of a thief would sneak up on him in the dark.

  But this one was, by far, more pleasing to look upon than any other he’d encountered.

  If she thought a man’s tunic and cloak hid her comeliness, she needed a new silver plate. Her face provided the perfect canvas for her large eyes and halo of silvery curls. Her attire, befitting her occupation, was a shadowy black, providing a flattering contrast to the eyes and bright hair. The loose-fitting tunic might hide the narrowness of her waist, but the flare of her hips and the swell of her breasts were only accentuated by the worn material.

  That he, the Earl of Warfield and possessor of the most-in-need-of-repairs keep within fifty leagues, was playing bait to get a closer look at her was beyond laughable. Pathetic was the word he thought William had used.

  He listened for William’s movement as he crept through the brambles to circle behind the thieves, but in a tribute to his uncle’s training, his friend made no sound.

  The moon moved past the line of clouds, casting the woods in a silvery light as she confidently came toward him.

  Would she be so bold in bed?

  The thought broke free before he could trap it. His body tensed with want. The fire suddenly burned too hot. He blew out a breath to cool his inner toughts.

  The thief stilled. Her chest rose and fell in an alluring rhythm as she listened. Had she sensed the change in his thoughts, or the direction his blood ran? He drew breath slowly, willing every muscle, every nerve to relax.

  She moved forward another step. Through half-closed eyelids, he observed the sprite edge toward him as if seduced by the thing she feared most. There was something impressive about this woman, something beyond the vernacular of her station.

  She stopped and turned from him, giving him a view of her backside and her intention. His sword.

  His sword?

  By God’s bones, what was this woman thinking? There was a horse not ten feet from him, and she was going after his sword. His horse could take this bawdy little thief as far from here as she could ride, and she wanted his sword.

  His grandfather had given him that sword.

  Coldness crept over him, chilling his humor. Lust disappeared.

  Obviously, the woman had other business here besides pilfering a few coins from a carelessly placed pouch. Fighting had made life cheaper for the common people, but she would find him a lot harder to kill than most of her victims—even if he was oft a fool for a comely face.

  Chapter Three

  Alais reached for the most marvelous sword she had ever seen. Two emeralds winked at her from the pommel, set between three dark and alluring sapphires.

  Her fortunes was about to change.

  Iron wrapped her wrist. The ground shifted. Air whooshed out of her lungs. She blinked and realized she was on her back. The sleeping man—now very much awake—stretched over her.

  The fool was bigger than she’d thought.

  His shoulders blocked the moon’s light. His arm, bent at the elbow, trapped her hands over her head. The hand on her chin could snap her neck like a twig. God’s gold, the sword had been within each the whole time.

  The sheriff baited a trap, and she’d walked into it.

  Gritting her teeth, she jerked, freed one arm, and swung. She struck his cheek, freed her other arm. Punched his throat. With a growl, he rolled them away from the fire, and Alais found herself face-down in the snow with the warrior’s knee on her back. One hand was trapped beneath her, the second held in place over her head by one hand. She was helpless. If he decided on rape or murder, all the dirty tricks her brother had so patiently taught her would be useless.

  She inhaled, or tried. His weight kept air from her lungs.

  Breathe!

  Panic flooded her.

  Breathe! You are not dead yet.

  “Sguir.”

  His fierce, incoherent word was colored with a strange accent. She had no idea what he had just said, but managed to free her right hand. Striking out with her elbow, she hit something soft. He grunted. She scrabbled against the ground to get from beneath him. His palm flattened against her back and pushed.

  Oomph! Her chin met the ground, and he shouted the incomprehensible word again.

  “I do not understand barbarian,” she yelled back.

  With what sounded like an oath, he rolled her over, yet kept her pinned to the ground with his body. She looked into his eyes for a fraction of a moment and realized she was twice the fool. He seethed danger like nightshade gave off poison.

  “Saxon?”

  “Norman.”

  He pushed a curl from her forehead. “Ye are wild-born, regardless of who claims to have sired ye.”

  Alais met his eyes in surprise. The barbarian’s English carried an ever-so-slight burr that sounded like honey tasted, although it was at odds with the rest of him. His eyes blazed brightly enough to burn greed from a king. His grip never lessened, and his knee put almost enough weight on her thigh to break a bone if she moved.

  “Be calm. I will no’ harm ye.”

  “I will hurt you if you do not let me go.”

  His response was to lift a brow questioningly.

  Somehow, he stood and jerked her to her feet without loosening his grip. She glanced down the length of him. He wore only braies and a fine li
nen shirt underneath his cloak. He lacked the tunic, surcoat and other accroutrements of Norman dress. His cloak had been dyed to blend with the surrounding hills and woods, not garner attention. His shirt loosened at the neck for sleep revealed part of his chest. His skin looked bronzed in the firelight, as if he were accustomed to working the fields, but he wasn’t one for fieldwork. No, this man might go into battle bare-chested, if not completely naked like the ancient warriors of this land, but he did not tread behind a plow.

  She forced her gaze back to his face. The smile in his dark eyes suggested he knew her thoughts. She straightened to her full height, which barely reached his shoulder.

  “’Tis no’ many thieves bold enough to creep into my camp.”

  “I am no’ a thief.”

  “For a Norman, ye are a poor liar.”

  “For a Norman? What do you mean by for a Norman?”

  “’Tis well known all Normans are thieves, liars, and murderers.”

  “And yet, you live.”

  He grinned. “I found a wolf-pup as snappish as ye once. Wolves have teeth to back their snarling. Do ye?”

  Alais bit back the urge to bare her teeth as he lifted his head slightly, studying her carefully. His grinned widened, a smile she would not trust.

  “So, Norman, what is yer name?”

  “My name is unimportant.”

  “True enou’,” he said, with a slight shrug. “William?”

  A noise from the edge of the firelight shattered hope Alais hadn’t known she held. A man dragged Johanna toward the fire. She stomped her heel against the booted foot of her captor, but he only twisted her wrist higher on her back. She winced and went up on her toes.

  “William, there is no need to manhandle the girl,” the barbarian said.

  “Why not?” the other man asked with a laugh. “She would slit me from gullet to groin if I but loosened my grip. ’Tis you they want. Women always want you, but this is a new way to gain your attention. Wait, ’tis not new. Did not the Lady of Severn creep into your—”

  “I do not want his favor.” Alais tried to jerk free again, earning a laugh from the man called William. He was almost as large as the barbarian. His hair looked fair in the scant light and his eyes looked the same shade as faintest gray in the light, but everything else about him matched the tonelessness of a winter’s night. “We just wanted to borrow a little of your fire, to be warm.’Tis a hard night.”

  “Aye, ’tis.”

  “Then you will share your fire?” Johanna asked.

  “Oh, I will do ye better, thief.”

  “We are not thieves,” Johanna said.

  “Tie her hands, William. ’Tis time we continue on our way. If we are gone much longer, our guests will raise their pennant over my tower.”

  “Are you truly such a barbarian?” Alais demanded. “’Tis akin to murder to leave us tied up in the woods with the storm that is coming in.”

  He grinned again. “Then ’tis good ye are coming with me.”

  Chapter Four

  “I have found her!”

  Jean de Mont yelled and several heads turned toward him as he paced before the fire in the far end of the hall. Shadows and gloom hovered around him, making him feel spied upon. He glanced around the room, at the servants, the soldiers, his mother.

  The real question was, who did not watch him.

  His mother looked up from her needlework. “I do not care if it was the Virgin Mother herself,” she said in a voice corrosive and cold, reminding Jean once again why he hated her. “You do not shout it in this hall like we are peasants.”

  He stopped mid-step and gave her a glare hot enough to ignite wet wood. “You will be glad of this news, Mother. Our fortunes will soon change.”

  “You have been gone for weeks on a simple errand that should have taken no more than days. And the news that has reached this castle does not gladden me.”

  “I found her—the Roundtree woman.”

  “Whoever you saw is a chimera. She died in the fire years ago.”

  “Mother—” The expression that flashed over her face stopped him cold. Her eyes glinted sharp and deadly in the firelight. Jean ducked his head. His mother’s heart was as cold as her voice, filled with suspicion and greed and dissatisfaction. Her eyes held perpetual disappointment, and nothing he did changed them. “She did not die.”

  “You let her escape all those years ago?”

  “I did not let her go.”

  “But she escaped all the same. I’m aware of your preference for unwilling women, but I did not realize you were fool enough to give into it when it could cost us dearly. She was no simple peasant girl free for the having. Where did you find her?”

  “I saw her at the Crossroads Inn.” He hadn’t been sure when he’d glimpsed her fleeing the stable, but she’d been at the hanging. He’d recognized her then.

  “She saw you?”

  “’Tis no matter that she did. I can get her. We can—”

  “You are six times the fool. Kill her. Quietly and quickly, or all we have will be lost.”

  “But we—”

  “Your father is dead. Your half-brother is now de Mowbray and wed. We have no use for the girl.”

  “I am not wed.”

  “And you will not be until you have land. Even then, you could not hold her or defend her against those who would use her as we would. And I suspect she can name you as Warfield’s killer. Kill her. I have worked too hard to give you—”

  “You have worked? You are not the one who slit the throat of Robert of Warfield.”

  “’Twas the elder brother who should have died first, you idiot. He is the one who is a danger to us, not the drunken fool that was Robert. All you did was announce our intentions.”

  “The order of their death cannot matter.”

  Margaret de Mowbray lowered the piece of material on which she worked. “’Tis all that mattered. The younger son was no threat. The elder is as dangerous as Matilda’s young son. If you want more than a horse and a few coins upon my death, you will make it your own. Your father has three older sons, and this estate is only for the remainder of my life. You lack the ability and the charm to gain the patronage of a powerful man or an heiress, but Warfield is unimportant enough to either side. If you take it, even you will be able to keep it.”

  “Your faith in me warms my heart, Mother.”

  Chapter Five

  Revenge didn’t protest the addition of the thief on his back, but the saddle was not built for two. The thief sat more on his lap than on the saddle, her legs draped over his. The arrangement was uncomfortable and his reaction to her discomforting. His father had always said Grym had a weakness for the vulnerable that would get him killed one day. Robbie had teased him for having the kind of heart that caused Grym to bring home lost and wounded animals, or people.

  His heart was not what moved him now.

  The wind whipped her tangle of curls around her face. No woman he knew would chop off her hair, yet the shortened locks were beguiling. He touched one, twining it around his finger. Heat and her scent washed over him, reminding him of the heath after a storm, or bed clothes after a night with a woman.

  His blood turned feverish, and he inhaled.

  The woman in front of him stiffened, as if feeling the results of his thoughts. “What are you going to do with us?”

  He had no idea. The thief was either in his custody or under his protection. His head demanded the latter; the heat in his blood, the former. She was a thief, probably driven into the woods to avoid the fate of all outlaws. Extending hospitality to an obvious criminal would cause no end of problems, personally and politically. And he would have to set a guard over what few valuable items remained to his house if she roamed the keep freely.

  Still, he could not honorably leave her here in the cold to be prey for whatever creature found her.

  Yer heart will be the death of ye, my son.

  Ignoring the echo of his father’s words, he glanced at the woman
sitting so stiffly before him that he could probably slip a mace between. “Why were ye out on a night like this?”

  “’Tis a fine night for a ride.”

  “Aye, ’tis. Except ye were on foot. Does the sheriff seek ye?”

  “Why would he?”

  “I saw a group of riders on the road earlier. He was with them.”

  The thief turned toward him, as if to confess something, then remained silent.

  Her face was slightly more square than oval, and fragile-looking despite the strong chin and prominent cheek bones. In the moonlight, her skin was as colorless as a winter rose and her eyes looked dark and fathomless. But he imagined they were gray…as gray as the storm rolling in from the west, as gray as the sword that had defended his home, Warfield, for eight generations. Though, unlike the storm or the sword, her eyes burned with pride and passion; and a wildness that he had only seen before in the natives of the remote corners of Scotland swirled in their depths.

  He scowled at his fanciful thoughts and shifted, trying to find a position less filled with temptation. “Why did ye try to steal my sword?”

  Annoyance flitted over her expression, and he almost laughed. The thief looked more like a mischievous angel, one who’d snuck away from heaven to explore the earth and lost the path back.

  “Ye never could have used the sword to kill me.”

  “If I desired your death, I would find a more comfortable way to deliver it than sneaking into your camp in the middle of winter. I detest the cold.”

  “I have always heard poison is a woman’s weapon.”

  “So have I.” A hint of a smile lifted her mouth.

  She has dimples. Absurdly happy with that discovery, he nudged his horse into a faster pace.

  “You know these woods well.”

  “I should. I spent the first ten years of my life roaming them.” But the woods and the road had changed during the half-decade he spent in Scotland. The road, never heavily used even in times of peace, looked abandoned. Weeds grew in the lanes and saplings crowded the edges. The troubles in England seemed to have emptied the countryside. How many people were like his brother, sent to an early grave? Robbie had had a brother powerful enough to ensure a burial mass and prayers and justice for his murder. Most of the dead went unmourned and unburied.