Innocent's Champion

by Meriel Fuller

  Black lashes fanned down over pale cheeks, thick lashes spiked with delicate drops of water, diamonds clinging to velvet feathers. Her face was a delicate oval, devoid of any colour. A small sigh escaped her lips; she moved her head restlessly against the hot grass. Beside them, crickets clicked and whirred.

  ‘Come on,’ he ordered briskly, cupping his hand around one narrow shoulder, shaking her gently. Faced with the barely conscious maid, he felt awkward, at a loss as to how to treat her. He spent most of his time in the company of other soldiers, pitting his wits against the elements and the enemy. It was a harsh life, unforgiving, but infinitely preferable to lounging around at the royal courts, flirting with the ladies and eating sweetmeats.

  But now, one of those ladies lay prone at his feet, her small-boned frame pillowed in the lush, verdant grass. He hadn’t the faintest idea what to do with her. She was of noble stock; her hair was elaborately styled and her clothes were of silk, intricately embroidered; expensive gemstones studded her jewelled belt. A couple of pearl buttons at her neck had come adrift; the gaping fabric exposed a frantic pulse beating against her throat: white skin, translucent, fragile. His eyes tracked down to her mouth, the beautiful full curve of her bottom lip, stained with a delicate rose colour. His senses jolted, a warm feeling curling across his midriff. He frowned.

  ‘Wake up!’ he said, louder this time. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’ How had he even managed to become caught up in this mess? He should have ignored the shouts, turned his back on the situation. Henry would be along in a moment to see what was keeping him. He swallowed the thought that the maid was fortunate not to have been killed; if she hadn’t fallen, he would have run her through with his sword, thinking her to be a man. She was lucky to be alive.

  Her eyelids fluttered open; she observed him hazily for a moment. Her eyes were blue, enormous in her oval face, the lilac-blue of forget-me-nots. Limpid eyes, stunning.

  Desire surged through him. Shocked, he sat back abruptly on his heels, tamping down the lurch of pleasure, annoyed with himself, annoyed at his body’s response. With her hair dishevelled and her gown askew, the maid was a mess, with a shrewish tongue as well, if her reaction to him in the river was anything to go by. And yet his body had responded to her like a callow youth in the first flush of romance. He was at a loss to explain it.

  Her gaze sharpened, turning to an expression of sheer terror, her pupils dilating in fright as she remembered where she was, who he was. She opened her mouth.

  ‘No!’ He held up his hands, palms flat. ‘No, please don’t scream. Not again. I told you I’m not going to hurt you!

  Spine pressed back into lumpy ground, Matilda focused on the stern lines of the man’s face, the forbidding slash of his mouth, his tousled hair. He looked like a Viking of old, a barbarian who had waded in from the longships, raiding and ransacking everything in their path. An expanse of grey metal plate covered his huge chest; his arms were covered in flexible chain mail. Impenetrable eyes, the colour of rain-washed granite, bore into her.

  Breath punched from her lungs in fear; she shook her head from side to side. ‘No, I…don’t…believe…you,’ she managed to stutter out. The cold stickiness of her clothes seeped into her bones. ‘You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?’ Her voice rose, wobbling, on a wave of shrill hysteria.

  To her surprise, the man lifted his chin and laughed. The sun caught the rich wheat colour of his hair, augmenting the vigorous strands to shining gold. ‘Believe me, if I was going to kill you, I would have done it by now.’

  Well, that was reassuring. Lying prone and limp beneath his intimidating perusal, Matilda glared at him, chewing at her bottom lip, unsure. She needed to sit up, stand up and face him, eye to eye, but right at this moment, a debilitating weakness sapped her strength, made her muscles floppy. What was the matter with her?

  ‘What were you playing at, shooting at us like that?’ Kneeling at her side, the man spoke with the cool, modulated tones of the nobility, and his clothes, despite being travel-worn, were of good quality.

  ‘You attacked us!’ she hissed, trying to stop her teeth from chattering. Pressing her hands back into the grass, she struggled into a seated position. It was a mistake. With this hulk of a man right next to her, his rough-hewn features and exquisitely carved mouth were on a level with her own, too close! She shifted her hips, straining her body backwards to create a bigger space between them. His nearness unsettled her. ‘You attacked defenceless women, attacked our knights, our servants!’

  ‘Not me, not us.’ He shook his head, blond hair falling across his temple. The hood of his hauberk, which he wore beneath his breastplate, gathered in glittering metallic folds behind his head, emphasising the corded strength of his neck. ‘We heard the screams and came running. You’re fortunate that we did, otherwise something worse than falling in the river might have happened to you.’ His piercing grey eyes swept the length of her shuddering body, from her glossy silken hair, past her neat waist, to her diminutive feet in soft leather slippers peeking out from beneath her gown.

  Matilda flushed, heated colour flooding her cheeks beneath his diamond stare. His eyes were like silver coins. She tilted her chin downwards, setting her mouth in a fixed stubborn line. The insinuation was unmistakable and she hated him for it. ‘It would never have come to that,’ she stated, trying to inject some confidence into her voice, drawing her spine up straight. ‘Someone would have stopped them, either our knights…or me.’

  ‘You?’ He tilted his head to one side, a small smile playing across his generous mouth. His tanned skin was flushed from the sun, emphasising the taut hollows beneath his high cheekbones. ‘But you were floundering in the river.’

  ‘Only because you made me fall!’ Her voice rang out with accusation. ‘You’re on my gown,’ she croaked out irritably, tugging at her skirts. ‘Can you move, please?’

  Gilan looked down at his knees planted firmly in the expanse of blue, very wet, velvet silk. He didn’t move. ‘Is that all you have to say for yourself? Most people would be thanking me, and my men, for what we did back there.’

  ‘You nearly drowned me, or have you forgotten?’ She folded her arms high across her chest, trying to keep her shivers hidden from his predatory gaze.

  He quirked one eyebrow at her. ‘Forgive me, my lady, but from the way you lurched back from my hold, I think you were trying to drown yourself.’

  ‘I thought you were one of them,’ she mumbled, plucking at a loose silver thread that had come adrift from the belt around her ribcage. Her fingernails were pale pink, like the polished interior of a shell.

  ‘What were you thinking of, shooting like that? You had a perfect hiding place, why did you not keep quiet? Wait until those men had gone?’

  Her blue eyes flashed up at him. ‘Because I wanted to help. I could help. I can shoot as well as any man.’ Hands pooled in her lap, Matilda laced her fingers together, trying to stop them trembling.

  Gilan raised his eyebrows at her bold words, surprised. Why, he had never heard a woman speak thus, with such a sense of pride in her own ability. She was a good shot, too, he thought grudgingly, remembering the hiss of the arrow past his head. He narrowed his eyes suddenly, noting the telltale shake of her shoulders beneath the countless pleats of her bodice, the blueness around her lips.

  ‘You’re freezing,’ he announced bluntly. ‘Do you live hereabouts?’ Rising swiftly to his feet, he stepped off her gown. Matilda pulled at it hurriedly, gathering the voluminous folds around her slim legs. Why did he not just go away? He made her feel vulnerable, exposed, as if her own efforts had all been in vain. He towered over her, big shoulders blocking out the sun, dark blue cloak swinging down to his knees, emblazoned with small golden fleur-de-lis.

  Golden fleur-de-lis? Her heart flipped dangerously, warning her, a small pucker of skin pleating between her dark eyebrows. ‘Do you ride with the king?’ />
  He grinned down at her pale, worried face. ‘No, the complete opposite. I ride with the man who intends to push him from the throne.’

  ‘Henry of Lancaster,’ she whispered.

  ‘Correct.’ Gilan nodded. Insects buzzed and whirred in the tall grass, the sound soporific in the pressing heat of the afternoon.

  Matilda’s heart lurched, fear scything through her. She would have to be careful. They would all have to be careful. Katherine and her husband were staunch supporters of King Richard, and by association with them, so was she. She was certain Henry of Lancaster would not take kindly to such a kinship, so the sooner she was away from this man, this formidable stranger, the better. She lifted one hand to her forehead and pushed distractedly at the silver net which seemed to drag lopsidedly over one ear.

  ‘I said, do you live hereabouts?’

  Really, he talked to her as if she were a dim-witted peasant! But with her flesh prickling uncomfortably with river water, and her mind fuddled by his overbearing presence, she was finding it difficult to concentrate. She breathed in deeply, trying to gain some control over her tattered senses. ‘Yes, yes, we do. We were on our way home when we were attacked.’

  ‘We?’ He raised one dark blond eyebrow.

  ‘My sister and I.’ She clapped her fingers over her horrified mouth. ‘Oh, Lord… Katherine!’

  Gilan arched one thick blond eyebrow, the tanned skin around his eyes crinkling. ‘There’s another one of you?’

  ‘I have to fetch her!’ Bending her knees, Matilda struck both feet firmly against the ground, struggling against the wet, sticky material in an attempt to rise.

  ‘Allow me.’ His voice curled over her, a low, seductive rumble. Leaning down, he seized her icy fingers in his bearlike grip, catapulting her upwards in one swift movement. There was nothing gentle about his offer of help: one moment she was sitting on the ground, legs outstretched before her, the next she was on her feet, teetering dangerously at his side. His fingers remained around her hand, steadying her.

  ‘You can let go now,’ she said, her voice prim. Anything to remove his compelling touch from her body. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You don’t look fine.’ He studied the shadowed patches beneath her eyes, noted the rapid pulse beneath the skin of her neck. ‘You look like you’re about to collapse in a heap.’

  ‘Well, I’m not,’ she snapped, wrestling her hand away from his hold. ‘I’m stronger than I look.’ She caught the supercilious raise of his eyebrows; he didn’t believe her! ‘I need to find my sister, that’s all. I told her to hide when those men came and not to come out until I called her.’

  ‘Call her, then.’ His silver eyes scanned the tumbled-down tower, the lumps of stone covered with moss and lichen, the dense forest of trees behind, and he sighed. How long was this going to take?

  Chapter Three

  Matilda ran a slender finger between her neck and the high collar of her gown, trying to relieve the uncomfortable sensation of wet fabric against flesh: an unconscious movement. In the strong heat of the afternoon, her looped-up hair dried rapidly, curling tresses pulling against silver hairpins. She attempted to pat some of the pins back into place, to adjust the net that held her hair in place. She supposed she must look awful.

  Lifting her chin, she called out to her sister. Her clear, bell-like tones cut across the torpid languor of the afternoon. ‘Katherine!’ she shouted, holding up her weighty skirts so she could manoeuvre over the stones. ‘You can come out now, we’re safe!’ Or safer than we were, she thought, casting a hunted, sideways glance at the stranger. The knight rode with Henry, Duke of Lancaster, a man who had the potential to make their situation far worse.

  ‘Do you think she might have run into the forest?’ Gilan suggested. The maid’s hair, silken and lustrous, sagged precariously. Hairpins stuck out at all angles from the plaited rolls on each side of her head. He wondered what her hair would look like when it was unpinned. Would those curling ends brush against the enticing swell of her hips?

  Matilda twisted around to face him. ‘She is incapable of running anywhere… Katherine is pregnant, you see.’

  ‘Ah.’

  She sensed the irritation running through his lean, muscled frame. He stood there with the stance of a fighter, legs planted firmly in the swishing grass, cloak spilling down over his shoulders, the dark blue fabric framing the burnished steel of his breastplate. Beneath the armour he wore a hooded tunic, a thin material that reached the middle of his thighs, split at the sides for ease of riding. Driven into a leather belt around his hips, the jewelled hilt of his sword flashed in the sun. The formidable power of his body was plain to see; she was in no doubt that he was a force to be reckoned with. She had to get rid of him before he realised they supported King Richard, before he had a chance to punish them for that loyalty.

  Glancing across to the packhorse bridge, she saw with relief that all the servants were safe, the gang of ruffians driven away. Even the soldier who had fallen from his horse was propped up against the litter, conversing quietly with the other household knight, hand pressed up hard against his bloodied shoulder.

  Matilda drew herself up to her full height, which annoyingly, seemed only a shade above this disquieting man’s shoulder. ‘Please don’t let me, let us, keep you from anything,’ she intoned formally. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded jerky, too precise. ‘I’m sure there is somewhere that you would rather be.’

  ‘There is.’ He inclined his head to one side, a gesture of agreement. ‘But the laws of chivalry prevent me from leaving a damsel and her sister in distress.’

  His hair was quite an incredible colour, thought Matilda. Pale gold, like washed sand on a deserted shoreline. The strands glowed in the sun with a bright star’s incandescence. A heated flutter stirred her stomach, coiling slowly; she ducked her eyes, toeing the ground with the damp, squishy leather of her slipper.

  ‘Oh, I don’t believe in all that chivalry nonsense.’ She waved one white hand at him airily, attempting to keep her tone light, practical. ‘Katherine doesn’t, either. Look, our servants are fine, and I think our knights will live. So we really don’t need you any more. Thank you for what you’ve done, and…and everything.’ Her sentence trailed off at the end, lamely.

  He was being dismissed. Gilan watched her hand flick through the air at him, as if she were shooing away a fly. A small, insignificant fly.

  His eyes gleamed. ‘I’ll help you find her, at least.’

  Matilda’s shoulders slumped forwards, a visible sign of defeat. Why did she object to his presence so much? Most women would be clinging on to him by now, weeping on his shoulder about the outrages of their attack, begging him to help, but this maid? Once she had realised he was no threat to her, her whole demeanour moved to the defensive, indicating in no uncertain terms that she wished him to disappear.

  ‘Don’t feel you have to,’ she tried once more. Her voice was limp.

  ‘I want to,’ he lied, knowing this would annoy her even more. Her abrasive manner intrigued him; he couldn’t remember a woman being quite so stubborn, so ungrateful, as this pert-nosed chit. His lips twitched at the disgruntled set of her shoulders as she turned away from him, intending to head into the woodland behind the tower. His fingers reached out, snaring the soft flesh of her upper arm, stalling her. ‘I suggest you remove your cloak. The wet fabric will slow you down,’ he said.

  Matilda whisked around, glowering at him, then wordlessly raised both hands to the pearl-studded clasp at her shoulder. Her frozen fingers struggled with the intricate fixings.

  ‘Here, let me,’ he offered, exasperated, tough fingers dealing quickly, efficiently with the stiff fastening. One rough knuckle brushed the sensitive skin of her neck, below her ear, and she gasped out loud. A sweet, looping sensation plummeted straight to her belly. Astounded by her response, she staggered back, her
mind draining of conscious thought. Her breath disappeared. The cloak slithered down her back, over her slim hips, pooling into loose folds around her ankles.

  ‘There,’ he announced. ‘Now we can get on with the business of finding your sister.’

  Hating the man at her side, this stranger who dogged her steps, who refused to go away, Matilda strode into the woodland, her skirts swishing angrily through the drifts of spent cow parsley, across collapsed bluebell stalks, sweeping her gaze across the shadowed green beneath the spreading beech, searching for the blotch of colour that would be Katherine.

  ‘She’s wearing a red gown,’ she chewed out grudgingly. The sooner they found Katherine, the sooner this horrible man would be on his way. Her hand crept up to the spot below her ear, still throbbing from his touch, amazed at her reaction to him. Her fall into the river had obviously shaken her up more than she realised. Men did not often have the power to affect her in such an adverse manner.

  ‘Easy to spot, then,’ Gilan replied mildly. For some reason he could not explain, he was quite enjoying himself at the maid’s expense. Something about the chit drew him, her truculent manner maybe, the fact that she didn’t want him around. It intrigued him, made him determined to linger, despite knowing that Henry would be wondering where he was.

  ‘There!’ Matilda pointed.

  Braced by a large trunk, Katherine’s ebony head lolled against the ridged bark. Her eyes were closed, her mouth partially open. A faint snore emerged from between her lips.

  ‘She’s asleep!’ Matilda blurted out in surprise, working her way steadily through the undergrowth towards her, arching brambles snaring the fine silk of her gown. How could her sister have possibly fallen asleep, with all that had been going on? ‘I think you should stay here.’ Matilda held up her arm to prevent Gilan moving any farther forwards.

  A tightly buttoned sleeve, unbelievably tiny small pearl buttons, encased her narrow wrist, the material reaching to her knuckles. Her ringless fingers wagged bossily in front of his face and he wondered again at the temerity of the maid. What or who gave her the right to order him about like this? She was obviously unmarried, so had no protection or guidance from a husband. But maybe her father or a brother had been so lax or indulgent in her upbringing that it had given her a misguided sense of her own authority.