He lifted one hand to tangle it in her hair.
“Stay away from me, you…you cur!” she cried. “I am a de Mont—“
The beggar’s lips came down on hers before she could finish. His kiss was deep, demanding, and his chin rough and foreign against her cheek. For a moment she was too stunned to resist. Then her head cleared, and she began to struggle in his confining embrace. She tried to scream, but his mouth cut off the sound. This couldn’t be happening, she thought distantly.
Not with a peasant.
Not her first kiss.
She pushed against the firm wall of his chest and tried to twist in his arms, but he held her fast. The kiss seemed to last forever. To her growing dismay, her breath quickened, and her heart began to beat erratically against her throat at the place where his thumb rested. Then, all at once, he pulled back. For one instant, as she looked up into his smoky eyes, he looked as dazed as she felt.
Duncan was dazed. Never had a kiss felt so right to him, so perfect.
“Oho!” El Gallo bellowed, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You said she had the pox!”
Duncan’s voice was ragged. “I am a…a jealous man. Would you not have said as much?”
The crew hushed in apprehension, awaiting their captain’s response. The silence grew uncomfortably long. Then El Gallo’s eyes crinkled, and he burst out laughing. He slapped his thigh. “But of course!”
The laughter seemed to bring Linet around. Duncan had let his arm creep casually across her shoulders. But a silent battle ensued now between the two of them as he let his fingers dangling suggestively above her breast.
“Eh, Frenchman!” a black-bearded, sly-eyed fellow beside El Gallo said. “In my country, it is a sign of courtesy to share one’s good fortune.” He fingered the buckle of his belt. “I would not mind a piece of this treasure.” He took a bold step forward.
Duncan felt Linet tense beneath his arm.
But El Gallo stopped the reiver short, whacking the man’s belly with the flat of his dagger. “In your country, Diego, it is a sign of courtesy to respect the property of others.” He motioned the man away.
Duncan resisted the urge to scoff. Since when did a reiver respect the property of others? Still, he thanked El Gallo with a subtle nod of his head. The captain wasn’t stupid. He might be greedy. He might be twisted. But he wasn’t stupid. Until he held Philip’s gold in his hands, he’d have to appease Duncan.
“Wench,” Duncan barked out, “bring me a trencher.” He swatted her enthusiastically on the backside.
He should have been prepared for her reaction, but nothing could have readied him for the speed at which she swung around with her fist, slamming it into his stomach. All the air went out of him. He coughed once and turned ashen.
“Ay, Madre de Dios!” a man yelled. “There’s fire in her.”
“Fire that begs to be quenched!” Duncan replied, forcing out a laugh to cover his pain. His eyes watered. He gripped the top of Linet’s shoulder tightly.
“Come and have a bite, my friend,” El Gallo called from beyond the mainsail, his mouth full of cheese. “You’ll need your strength with that kitten, eh?”
Duncan nodded vaguely. The last thing his bruised stomach wanted was dinner. Nonetheless, he pressed Linet with a firm hand toward the food.
Linet wasn’t about to cooperate. She was a de Montfort. De Montforts followed no one’s orders save the king’s. She pushed against her captor, intent on standing her ground, no matter what manner of threat the rogue concocted.
But a whiff of something sweet, something irresistibly familiar, changed her mind. An orange. The black-bearded reiver was biting into an orange. And there was a whole basket of them.
Her mouth began to water. She realized she hadn’t eaten since morning. Suddenly she was ravenous. She let the beggar lead her forward, and then reached out to snatch one of the fruits for herself. But before she could, the beggar reined her in abruptly beside him.
The words he bit out were for her ears alone. “I vow you’ll regret that blow one day, my lady. But for now, you’ll do precisely as I command.”
She squirmed in his close hold.
“Unless, of course,” he added, “you wish to be their last course for supper.”
His words hit her like a dash of cold water. She scanned the faces around her, faces of predators—toothless grins, gluttonous eyes, foreheads slick with sweat, chins slimy with grease. She shuddered and relaxed marginally against her captor. At least, she thought, glancing down at the hand that yet clamped her arm, there was no observable grime beneath the beggar’s nails.
He maintained a smile for the reivers’ benefit, but his voice was clipped as he murmured into her ear. “You’ll serve me—bring me bread, cheese, an orange, a cup of ale. You’ll fetch me these before you sit down for your own supper, and any time my cup grows empty, you’ll fill it. Do you understand?”
Who did he think he was? she wondered, incensed that he’d command her as a lord would a servant. Her body fairly vibrated with ire. But she knew she had no choice in the matter. Unless she wanted to become the crew’s plaything, she had to obey him.
“Aye, my lord,” she muttered sarcastically through her teeth. Scowling fiercely, she gathered his supper, juggling the orange atop the bread in one hand, cheese and ale in the other. When she presented the food to him, he didn’t so much as give her a nod of acknowledgment. He behaved as if he were accustomed to being served. She longed to pour the ale down over his head.
Instead she tore off a hunk of her own hard bread with her teeth, wolfing it down with a piece of cheese as if it were her last meal. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. She hardly tasted the orange. The strong ale made her head buzz pleasantly, mercifully numbing her to the humiliation of serving a peasant.
When she rose to fill her cup for the fourth time, the beggar halted her.
“Come, wench!” he announced loudly. “I don’t wish you too drunk for what I have in mind. The food has only whetted my appetite.”
Before she could argue, he stood and with one hand wheeled her around and into the wall of his chest. He pulled back on her hair with one hand and pressed her hips to him with the other. Then, with no further warning, his head descended to her upturned face, and his mouth captured hers in a sensual devouring.
His kiss was all-encompassing, blotting out sight and sound and reason. It left her breathless. And naturally, the ale made her slow to resist him. It must have been the ale, she reasoned, for it left her weakened to the point that she swayed into his embrace.
Duncan felt as if a lance had struck him dead center. He’d expected resistance. He’d braced his body for the wench’s struggles, tightened his stomach against her inevitable pummeling. But the soft petals of her mouth opened beneath his. Need surged inside him, and he found welcome in her embrace, welcome and danger. Bloody hell, he felt as if he’d leaped upon a runaway steed. He just hoped to God he’d be able to rein it in once they were alone.
He did intend to get her alone. He had to tell her the truth—how he meant to rescue her and turn El Gallo over to the authorities in Flanders. How he would turn Normandy upside down to find Sombra, the eel that had slithered from his grasp, bring him to justice and rescue Harold. How he’d help her find her way to the de Montfort castle and deliver her straight into the arms of her grateful kin.
She’d thank him then. Once she understood. Once he got her alone.
If he could only get her to stop kissing him.
The reivers had begun a rhythmic chant, drunkenly encouraging him to dare more. Steeling himself, he finally broke free of the little wanton’s grasp, holding her away from him by the shoulders. At arm’s length, her senses seemed to return. She shook her head as if shaking off the remnants of a dream.
“You will make her pay, eh, Frenchman?” one of the crewmen asked.
“Doncella, with that purring of yours,” another chimed in for her benefit, “he will end up owing you change!”
&nbs
p; Linet blanched. Purring? Surely she hadn’t been… She drew a deep breath to tell them just what she thought of their taunts, but the beggar squeezed her shoulder in warning. She bit her tongue and waited for him to rise to her defense.
He answered smoothly in English. “It will take many nights of purring and screaming and begging for mercy before she can begin to pay me back for the fortune she stole.” His fingers idly caressed her chin.
Her jaw dropped. What in God’s name was the knave doing? She felt as if, in the midst of a storm at sea, the piece of wood she’d clung to had turned out to be rotted away and sinking fast.
“I wish she had taken my family fortune!” one sailor cried.
“For your family fortune,” his friend chortled, “you would be lucky to get a peck and a tickle!”
Then El Gallo roared with laughter.
Duncan held onto Linet as tightly as he dared, but it was all he could manage to keep her from bolting overboard. The reiver captain leaned toward him and gestured Duncan closer.
“I like you, Gaston,” El Gallo decided in a loud whisper. “Eh,” he confided in Spanish, his voice slurred by drink, “how would you like to use Sombra’s cabin? You wreak your revenge on the wench now, eh?”
“Now?” Duncan choked out. His mind raced. Why would El Gallo make such an offer? And how was he going to get out of it? He glanced at Linet, who was desperately trying to decipher El Gallo’s sloppy Spanish.
The captain shrugged, but there was a queer hunger in his eyes. “Sombra has some…toys…that can be quite amusing. Go on.” He nudged Duncan.
Duncan drank from his cup to buy time. Something wasn’t right. It looked as if he and Linet were going to get that solitude he desired, but the circumstances couldn’t have been more suspect. With great misgiving, he nodded to the captain. “Your hospitality is overwhelming.”
Linet didn’t like the sound of their voices. She looked nervously from one man to the other. The beggar rose suddenly to his full height, a head taller than she was, his ominous eye patch making him look particularly villainous.
“Come,” he commanded.
She locked her knees.
“Come with me,” he warned her, glancing with obvious unease at the witnesses around him.
She wasn’t going to budge.
Then, before she could naysay him, he bent and tossed her over his broad shoulder, turning her world upside down.
She shrieked, and a great cheer went up.
After that, it was all she could do to keep from falling as her wretched captor strode purposefully across the deck.
“Unhand me!” she cried.
Her face burned as the beggar raised a hand to her bottom, steadying her for the climb down into the cabin. She batted frantically at him, but he seemed undeterred, continuing to clutch her where he willed. At last he stepped through the hatch and into the candlelit cabin, securing the door after them with one hand.
When he pivoted, Linet got her first glimpse of the den of the infamous Sombra. Blood-red brocade was draped everywhere, its luxurious folds making an odd canopy in her inverted perspective. An enormous bed nearly filled the cabin. A fat candle on a stand flickered near one sloped wall, lighting up an assortment of leather and iron devices that looked to Linet like instruments of torture.
She would have screamed in horror had the beggar not tossed her abruptly onto the bed. The breath was knocked out of her, and for one awful moment, she couldn’t speak, much less scream.
Suddenly he was there, over her, too near. As he bent close, she could smell the musky ale on his breath mingled with the other—a mysterious, masculine scent she’d tasted before in his kiss. She could feel the heat emanating from his body, sense the sheer strength of his limbs as he placed one arm at each side of her head. She felt like a trapped animal.
“Thank God you’re safe,” he said softly.
“What?” What game was he playing now?
Duncan had little time to explain. “Sombra jumped ship. He took Harold with him. If I’m ever to find—”
“Harold? But what—“
He put a finger to Linet’s lips to silence her and listened for sounds outside. A low creaking behind the wall told him what he feared—El Gallo had an observation room off Sombra’s cabin. One of the several knotholes in the wood-paneled room was probably fake. The reiver captain intended to watch.
Duncan sneered in disgust. Quickly, before Linet could speak, he clapped a hand over her mouth and placed his lips close to her ear.
“Listen,” he whispered. “You must trust me.”
Her struggles proved she didn’t trust him at all.
“I’m trying to protect you.”
She squirmed even more.
“We are in my arena now,” he said under his breath. “You are going to have to trust me. You must do exactly as I tell you. This is going to require a bit of playacting.” He murmured, “I want you to scream.”
He slowly removed his hand from her mouth. He never dreamed she’d refuse. She glared at him with mutinous eyes, but made no sound.
“Scream,” he repeated. “Loud.”
“Nay,” she bit out.
He gaped at her. She was positively mad. Surely she knew they would have to be convincing for his plan to work.
“El Gallo is watching,” he muttered.
“I don’t care if the whole world—”
He didn’t let her finish. Before she could utter another lethal word, he swooped down upon her like a falcon on a mouse, claiming her lips with his own. He captured her pounding fists against his chest with one arm and nudged her jaw open so he could deepen the kiss. Then he let his tongue lash out, let it lap full across hers, and he felt her gasp into his mouth.
Her arms went slowly limp beneath him, and to his astonishment, she answered him with a tentative stroke of her own, which made desire rip through him like an arrow. Forgetting all else for a moment, he cupped her face in his hand to explore the sweet recesses of her mouth more fully.
The creak beyond the wall reminded him of his purpose. He pulled away abruptly and gazed incredulously down into Linet’s passion-softened eyes. Whatever this looked like, it certainly bore no resemblance to revenge. How was he going to convince El Gallo that the wench despised him when her desire was so painfully obvious? He had to do something fast to allay El Gallo’s suspicions.
He squeezed his eyes shut, bent close to Linet and whispered, “Forgive me.” Then he became vengeance-seeking Gaston de Valois. “You will pay for what you stole from me, harlot!” he shouted. “Pay with your own flesh!”
Before she could assimilate what he was doing, he grabbed hold of the neck of her shift with both fists and ripped the laces loose. Then he plunged his hand beneath the open garment, seeking and finding the soft, full treasure within. Surely, he thought, Linet’s shocked expression and her scream of outrage would satisfy El Gallo, convince him that Gaston was indeed taking full payment for the insult the wench had dealt him.
What he hadn’t counted on was his own reaction.
He glanced down at the lovely, pale skin of her throat, her delicate shoulders, the innocent curve of her breast. A pang of guilt joined the desire flooding his body. Suddenly he knew he couldn’t share that sight with anyone, least of all a lecherous sea reiver. Let the captain simmer—he’d do the rest in the dark.
With one arm, he hauled up his kicking, pummeling captive and started for the wall of shackles and lashes that Sombra evidently used for his own perverse pleasure. Linet shrieked as he plucked what looked like a horse’s bridle and a whip from the wall.
Then he snuffed out the candle.
CHAPTER 9
Linet’s mind screamed. It seemed she’d leaped from the claws of danger straight into the jaws of hell. The last thing she saw before the room plunged into darkness was the one-eyed beggar towering over her, brandishing his iron and leather devices like a devil set on taming a wild beast.
He was mad. That was it. How else could he have been kissi
ng her one moment and threatening her the next? The beggar was stark, raving mad.
She had to get away.
Blindly she floundered on the bed, seeking escape. But the voluminous coverlets prevented her. She scrambled to her knees, only to find herself engulfed in the arms of her antagonist. She flailed and kicked at him, using every trick she’d learned watching street urchins as a girl. But the superiority of his strength was inevitable.
Duncan swore as his captive’s fist connected with his ribs. Damn the wench, she was like a wild kitten in his arms, clawing and scratching everywhere she could. He’d bear the wounds of battle in the morning.
He tumbled her to the bed again, dropped the harness onto the floor, and murmured against her hair. “I won’t hurt you. I just want you to scream when I tell you.”
“Nay,” she gasped. The cursed wench was still determined to defy him at every turn, to stretch his patience to the limit.
“You little fool,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m supposed to be ravishing you!”
She swore and wriggled anew.
He sighed, exasperated. The reiver captain was listening at the wall like a naughty boy at a brothel. If she didn’t cooperate soon…
“Stubborn wench,” he hissed. “Don’t you realize it’s a matter of life and death?”
But her petty oaths and irate struggles would never convince El Gallo that she feared for her life. He was going to have to take drastic measures. At last capturing her arms, he pressed her down upon the bed with his own weight. With an evil laugh, he unfurled the whip.
“This is for the coin you stole!” he cried.
He raised the lash high. He could hear Linet’s shuddering intake of breath. Then he dashed his arm down, cracking the whip smartly on the floor. The loud snap startled a cry from Linet. He chuckled as if savoring his victim’s pain.
“And this is for the jewels!”
Knights of de Ware 01 - My Champion Page 12