by Sarah Hegger
A rude noise floated back to her.
“I will grant you, your mount has a longer stride and looks to be powerful, but Striker here has more heart than most horses I know, and I ride much lighter in the saddle than you.”
“You ride like a sack of oats.”
His rudeness sparked her ire. “I have an excellent seat.”
“You have a reasonable seat for a woman.”
“I am a woman!”
He tossed his head back on a bitter laugh. “Aye, and I know it, all too well.”
Kathryn spurred Striker closer to Roger. “And what do you mean by that, anyway? I am the best rider at Mandeville, men included.”
“Against a knight of even middling skill you would be unseated in a heartbeat.” He dug his heels into his horse and widened the distance between them.
“Why are you so grumpy?” Kathryn called after him. She had the sense this had naught to do with her riding.
“Grumpy?” He whirled in his saddle, a dark cloud over his features. “I am not grumpy, my lady, I am angry.”
“My mistake.” She preferred when he called her Kathryn. All this “my lady” nonsense made him sound pompous and boring. “Why are you angry?”
“I do not wish to speak of it.” Now, he sounded like a blasted monk.
“So you will merely sulk instead?”
He stopped his horse. His back went even more rigid.
Well, at least she had broken through some of the ice.
He turned to her. His scowl left scorch marks in her tunic. “Have you given no thought to the position in which we now find ourselves? A position that is in every way thanks to you.”
Kathryn shrugged, because, nay she had not. Indeed, she knew not to what he referred. “What position?”
Wind ruffled his hair, a muscle jumped in his jaw. “You. Me. Alone on the road.”
Is that the burr up his ass? “It does not mean anything. I trust you.”
“You trust me?” He opened and closed his mouth, grew a little pink and puffed up his chest. “That is not the blasted point.”
“Then what is the point?”
“The point is, Lady Kathryn.” He dragged out her name as if it pained him to utter it. “You are an unmarried woman, presumably chaste—although anything is possible with you—alone with a man who is not related to you.”
“What do you mean presumably chaste?” Kathryn dug her nails into her thigh before she smacked his smug face. How dare he even hint otherwise? Granted her manners could be a mite free at times, but that was no reason to assume she was a whore.
“Well, are you?”
“I refuse to answer that.” Kathryn tried for a cool retort but she burned hot enough to bash him about the head.
“Very well.” He nudged his horse closer. “Regardless of that, people will assume that you are no longer that way when this journey is over. It will ruin your chances of a good marriage.”
“I told you, I do not intend to marry.”
“Do not be simple.” Jamming a fist on his hip, he frowned. “Of course you will marry, but not if word of this adventure gets out. Your future husband will want to be sure he marries a virgin bride.”
“My future husband can go hang himself, and so can you for that matter.”
He laughed, an ugly, grating sound. “Well, thanks to you, Lady Kathryn, it looks like your future husband and I are one and the same man.”
“Nonsense! You will marry Matty.”
“What if we do not find Matty?”
“We will.”
“What if we do not?”
“We will.”
He growled and sneered at her.
Something unraveled in Kathryn’s gut. A mist dropped over his features, and her breath grated loudly. “If that is what is worrying you, let me set your mind at rest. I will not marry, and I for certain will not marry you.”
“You may not have left yourself any choice. Or me, for that matter.”
“I do have a choice. I do.” Kathryn heard herself shouting, but didn’t seem able to stop it. She wanted to punch the smirk of him, and damn the consequences.
“Do not be a child.”
Her father’s voice rang in her ears. It lit a fire in her belly hotter than scalding and Kathryn planted her hands on Roger’s chest and shoved with all her might.
Roger’s eyes widened, moments before he toppled backwards off his horse with a shout.
Kathryn leapt off Striker, ducked around Roger’s prancing destrier and pinned her tormentor to the ground. Blood pounded hard at her temples. All the years of her father’s insults melted into this one inferno. “Do not call me names. I am not a whore or a child or a simple girl.” Her fists scraped on the metal of his hauberk. “I will never be subject to another man. Never again. Not you, not my father, not anyone. Do you understand me?”
“Aye, Kathryn.” He caught her fists in his and held on. “I hear you because you are sitting on me and bellowing it at me.”
“Good Lord.” She scrabbled off him and away. She hugged her knees to her chest and dropped her head onto them. Her loss of temper scalded her shamefully. Never had she behaved thus. Not since she had been a child had she lost her temper so thoroughly. God, he must think her mad.
“Kathryn?” His voice came from right beside her. “Look at me.”
She shook her head. She might never look at him again.
“Look at me,” he said, firmer this time. Strong fingers gripped her chin and turned her to him. “I apologize for calling you names.”
He apologized to her? Kathryn wanted to crawl inside herself and never come out.
“It was churlish of me.” He stroked her cheek. “I was in a temper and I misspoke myself.”
“I should not have done what I did.” Her shame fit like too-tight armor.
“It was a mighty shove you gave me.” With a rueful grimace, he chuckled. “It has been some time since I was unseated.”
“Verily?”
“Verily.” He winced. “But my ass remembers the pain well.”
“I apologize for that.” Her breathing grew labored with him so close. “And for the punching, and all of it. I cannot think what came over me.”
“And I take back what I said about your riding. You ride better than most men I know.”
Nobody had uttered a sweeter compliment to her. Ever. “You mean that?”
“I mean that.” He winked, and then stood. Holding out one hand to her, he brushed off his chausses with the other. “Come on then. We need to find your sister.”
* * * *
Roger sat across the fire from Kathryn as they ate. The girl consisted of one puzzle piece within another, within another. She had surprised the piss out of him when she pushed him off his horse. He had seen men in rages like that before. He understood that heart-deep anger that flew well beyond any reason.
But what would cause such anger in Kathryn?
She brought to mind a cornered animal. The thought of Kathryn with that weight of fear within her sat sour in his belly. From her first wide, sunny smile, Kathryn breathed fire and light into the world about her. Truth be told, the first time he had seen her he had stood a moment, struck dumb by the sight of her charging across the bailey with her sword drawn. Braid streaming out behind her, lovely face awash with the pure pleasure of riding at the quintain.
Matty possessed all the serenity and demureness of a lady born. Kathryn burned elemental, raw, and she drew him in an inexplicable way.
Now, she dug into her meal with gusto, biting off strips of dried meat as if eating the finest fowl. The girl threw her mighty spirit into every endeavor of her life, which is what made the darkness he had glimpsed today doubly disturbing. “May I ask you something?”
She glanced at him. One cheek bulged with her dinner.
“Is it just me you refuse to marry, or any man?”
She chewed and swallowed just ahead of a rich, throaty chu
ckle that took his head to a forbidden place. “Nay, it is just you.”
Vixen! A man could never grow bored with this much spirit. “Anything particular about me?”
“Your great big feet.” She gestured with her bread crust. “Never could abide a man with big paddles at the end of his legs.”
He returned her smile. The moment hung sweet between them. “If you were to marry, what sort of man would that be?”
“What are you with all the questions, an old woman?” The wretch rolled her great, melting brown eyes at him.
“Just curious.” He shrugged as if her answer held no importance. “I thought my sore ass had earned me an answer.”
She gave that some thought and then nodded. Laying her bread aside, she sighed. “It is not about the man, so much as it is about marriage.”
He waited, a trick his mother employed to wicked effect.
“Marriage, for a woman is the end.” She slashed the air. “Unless they marry a kind man, or one so besotted with her he allows her freedom, she becomes his chattel. To do with as he wills.”
“And yet you want this for your sister?”
“Matty and I are very different.” Firelight created dark pools of her eyes. “Matty is soft and delicate and fragile. She needs a man who can shelter her, and care for her.”
Flattered she’d chosen him for the task he nodded. “And you do not?”
“Nay.” She snorted and grabbed her bread. “When you marry Matty, and take my mother to live with you, I shall be off into the world to seek my fortune.”
She had his future all planned for him. Not only had she selected his wife, she had his mother by marriage settled beside his hearth as well. He thought of asking how many children he could expect.
However, Kathryn’s plan for her future made him go colder than death within. Kathryn out in the world, on her own, would dangle like bait for every sorry cur with an evil intent. He worked to keep his reaction concealed before he spoke. “Where will you go?’
“France.” She wiped her fingers on her tunic. “I hear they have more tournaments there, and a person could earn their way through their winnings.”
Dear God, her innocence terrified him. Men who lived by the sword stood only a small step higher than grave robbers. Between now and his marriage, he needed to find a way to change her mind. “You will need more training.”
“Aye.” She grimaced. Wood popped in the fire and threw a shower of sparks. “Only it is not easy to find someone to train me.”
“I could train you.” See that. His family thought William had the sharp mind.
She rocked forward and beamed. “You would?”
“Aye.” He shrugged. “If you proved yourself worth training.”
“Why would you do such a thing?” She stilled, and scrutinized him.
“I like you.” He opted for the truth. “I want to see you well prepared.” And while doing so, he would make damn certain he found the sort of man she could not resist. If he had to scour every keep in the land to do so. Kathryn deserved a man above others, one who would never seek to crush the light in her spirit or the fire in her veins. She needed a man who would understand and appreciate the precious gift Roger handed him.
Chapter 8
Roger woke. Dark pressed in from all sides.
The horses whickered and shifted.
The total absence of sound rang like a bell. Kathryn!
Where she had lain, her blanket lay crumpled on the ground.
“Now, we do not want no blood.” A man stepped out of the forest, tall and unkempt. He kept a crossbow trained on Roger. “Get his sword.”
Another man appeared to Roger’s left. Wide through the shoulders this one bore the stamp of the group muscle.
Damn! How had he not noticed a second man in the trees?
Then a third man stepped into the small ring of flickering light made by the fire. He darted forward and kicked Roger’s sword beyond the firelight.
A fourth man slid into view, also armed with a crossbow pointed at Roger’s chest.
This one looked as if he knew what to do with it. As ragged as the others, his posture keen and alert, but his eyes gave him away. The eyes of a man who had met death, and lost his fear of it.
This was the one to watch.
“What do you want?”
“We’ll take your purse and them horses,” the first man said.
Roger rose slowly, keeping his hands well in sight. He raised his voice until it carried into the dark. If Kathryn hid nearby, hopefully she would hear him. “You know the penalty for horse theft?”
The dangerous one snickered. Roger would wager he had more than horse theft to his name. A scar split the man’s face in half across the bridge of his nose. Somebody had tried to top him like a boiled egg. He held his crossbow loosely, his finger poised, unlike their leader who had a stranglehold on his weapon. The other two stayed back, knives clutched in their fists.
Roger kept one hand high as he said, “I am going to untie my purse now. Nobody get nervous.”
The scarred one stilled.
Roger shook his purse. The clank and jangle of coins drew all attention in that direction. Except the scarred one. He knew, first you eliminated the threat, and only then did you grab the spoils.
Something flew past Roger’s nose.
A cry cut off in a wet strangled gurgle. The scarred one stared, dagger wedged deep in his throat. He listed and went over like a felled tree.
The leader loosed a crossbow bolt.
It missed Roger by a hair and thudded into a tree trunk behind him.
The two knifemen lunged for him.
Roger snatched the dagger from his boot. He was going to beat her ass black and blue, right after he thanked her for saving him.
Yelling, Kathryn leapt into the light. One lightning fast kick separated the leader from his cross bow.
The idiot dropped to his knees and scrabbled after it.
Kathryn dealt him a thundering blow across the back of the head with her sword hilt.
Roger’s attackers paused, distracted by her shout.
Roger made short work of the first with a fist in his face that sent him wheeling into a sturdy elm. The last man stepped away from Roger, his gaze darting between him and Kathryn. His fist tightened around his dagger.
“Do not.” Roger stepped closer. “I will snap your neck like a twig.”
“Like a twig,” Kathryn said and closed on the man.
Roger motioned her back.
She tossed him a mutinous glance.
“Turn about and leave.” Roger told the remaining attacker. “And I might forget what your face looks like.”
The man eyed him for a long moment. He whirled and darted into the trees.
Roger stood, his heart still banging like a drum, sweat breaking out all over him. “Of all the dangerous, unplanned, ill-timed…”
Kathryn knelt beside the dead man, the one with the scarred face. Pale and shaky, she touched the trickle of blood on the man’s waxy cheek.
“Kathryn.” Roger approached her.
“I killed him.” She turned her white face up to him, silently pleading with him to tell her it was not so.
With his last breath, he wished he could do that for her. Roger crouched beside her. The first kill cut the deepest. No matter the situation, or how justified, taking a human life carved a trench through a person’s soul. Would he could have spared his brave shield-maiden this.
“You did what you must.” Clumsy words from a man who had no finesse in these matters.
“But he is dead.” She frowned at her bloody finger.
“Aye, sweeting.” Her pain eked from her. Taut enough to snap, she held herself rigid. Within he howled to hold her, take the bad thing from her. Yet he sensed he could not touch her. Like a wild thing, she might strike out. “Taking a life is never easy.”
“I did not think.” She hunched her shoulders. Her fi
ngers dug into her thighs. “I just threw the knife, and I was glad it hit him, but now…”
“Now you are wondering if there is aught you could have done to keep him alive?”
She nodded, her hair making a silky whisper against her tunic.
“There is nothing you could have done, sweeting.” He handed her a kerchief to wipe the blood from her hands. “Whatever the outcome here tonight, it would have involved death. His. Mine. Yours. The die was cast the moment they stepped into the clearing.”
His kerchief bunched in her fingers. “But they only wanted the horses and the purse.”
“Nay.” He took the kerchief and cleaned her fingers. “They could not have left me alive. They knew the penalty for stealing from a lord. Those men came here tonight with murder in their hearts.” His big hands seemed rough and too large against hers. “You saved me.”
“I did?”
He would have perjured his immortal soul with a lie for her. “Aye, you did. This man is no stranger to violence.”
Kathryn dragged in a ragged breath. Standing, she shook her head. “What do we do now? Bury them?”
“Nay.” Roger rose. “Now we see if they have anything useful and worth keeping.”
Kathryn shuddered and stepped away from the body. “You mean touch them?”
“Aye.” A war waged within him. Not three hours past, she has sat here and blithely announced her plan to live a violent life. Now, after one swift death, she looked as if she might lose her dinner. Father would have given a sharp lesson and forced her to handle the bodies. “See to the horses, I will take care of this.”
Chapter 9
Kathryn woke well rested the next morning. Her fear the attack would haunt her into the remaining night proved groundless.
Roger let her lead the next day and they made Cecily’s home, Castlereagh Manor, shortly before midday. At her insistence, they camped a little way from the manor and waited. Cecily took her walk in the afternoon, at the same time every day, prevented only by inclement weather. As the day had dawned clear and fair with only a trace of chill, Kathryn remained confident they would be able to intercept her.
Kathryn led a grumbling Roger from their camp closer to the manor gardens.