Immortal Outlaw

by Lisa Hendrix

  By the time they were ready to ride, he had himself back under control, and he had decided. He was going to take her back and be done with all of them. Then he would go find himself a wench who would be far less trouble. He helped Marian mount, swung up into the saddle before her, and they headed for the road.

  But then came that little slope just before the road, and as the stallion surged up the hill, she had to wrap her arms more tightly around him and lean forward to keep her seat. Her breasts, which had been so temptingly within reach as she’d knelt to kiss him the afternoon before, pressed hard against his back. He’d been aware of them yesterday, but today … today, all the cloth between them seemed to burn away, as though they lay in bed and she held him from behind, as though they were lovers.

  No. He might have her a thousand times, but they would never truly be lovers. They would never, could never, lie in bed together through the night, no matter how much he might want it. He was ending this. He was taking her back. Today. Right now.

  “My lord?”

  “What? ”

  “We are at the road, and I must know. Will you keep to our bargain?”

  “I have not yet decided,” he said, and turned the horses toward Harworth.

  DESPITE THE DRIZZLE that slowly soaked her cloak, Matilda was far happier than she had been the day before. She had rested well and some of Steinarr’s anger had waned, so she found it easier to keep her mind away from his. She could still sense him just beyond the edges, though, so she knew the lust was still there. That was just as well. She needed him to want her; it was all the hold she had over him.

  The faint peal of bells from some distant monastery had just announced Sext when they topped a knoll. Steinarr pointed to the smoke rising at the far end of the vale below. “There. That is Harworth.”

  Matilda craned to have a better look. “Already? You said two or three days.”

  “Depending on how often we stopped. We have not stopped.” He swiveled to toss a word over his shoulder. “Yet.”

  Devil. She kept her eyes firmly on the village. “Then stop, my lord.”

  “You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Only in that it would mean you had decided to hold to our bargain.”

  “Are you certain?” He faced front and started the horses down the hill. “How do you know I won’t tup you a time or two and then take you back anyway? Or leave you somewhere without aid? ”

  Though his words were coarser, he was asking much the same question Robert had, so she ignored the fact that he was trying to rattle her and considered: How did she know? “Because you took the time to bury John Little, and because you dare to ask that question. A man who intended to discard me would not want me to even think of it before he had his way with me.”

  “That may be but—”

  “And because you want far more than a tup or two.”

  He snorted. “You think highly of your wares.”

  Wares? “Not nearly as highly as you do, my lord,” she said tightly, angry at the way he once again called her a whore without even using the word. “Nor nearly so often.”

  “And how would you know how often I think of it? ”

  Because I feel it every time you do, she wanted to shout, but she’d already given away too much in her anger.

  “You are a man,” she said instead. “From what I can tell, men think of swiving every moment they are not doing it.”

  “There you are mistaken,” he said, chuckling. “We think of swiving most especially when we are doing it—at least those of us who do it well. Now, where is the shrine you wish to visit?”

  Where, indeed? The question of Sir Steinarr’s skill—Did he do it well? asked that wicked part of her the priests had sought to tame—was forced aside by her real problem: she had yet to solve the riddle from Headon. With no idea where to begin, she made the most obvious guess. “The church.”

  It was a church much like that in Maltby or in any other village they’d passed through: a simple stone structure at the edge of the village green, with a graveyard off to one side. She stood before the heavy oak door, looking at the carved figures over the lintel: the seven cardinal sins. Appropriately, Lust came first of all, a reminder of her looming downfall.

  Steinarr finished tethering the horses and called to her from the lane. “Go ahead. I will see if I can find someone with bread to sell. And some better ale.”

  “That would be excellent, my lord.” She stepped inside, glad to be able to do this without him watching over her shoulder.

  A few candles threw dancing shadows over the altar and the tapestries behind it. By habit, she started to dip her fingers in the scented water in the font, but stopped. Her sins were too great; she would have to settle with Heaven when this was all over, but she could not bring herself to play hypocrite now. She stepped off to one side, where she could study the church.

  She examined every fixture in the chapel, beginning with the carved stone altar, and ending some while later with the tapestries, which told the story of the Creation in six panels of brilliant stitchery. Squinting in the dim light, she moved from hanging to hanging, studying every inch, every star in the firmament and every creature and plant in Eden, searching for anything that reminded her of her father or of Huntingdon.

  Nothing.

  Hearing footsteps approaching outside, Matilda hurriedly backed away, so that when the door opened, she looked like she’d just risen from prayer. The priest who entered smiled. “Well, who have we here?”

  “A simple traveler, Father.” She came to kneel and kiss his ring.

  “Ah. I wondered at the strange horses outside.”

  “They belong to the noble knight I travel with. He is seeking food for our journey, and I thought to take a few moments in the peace of your church.”

  “A wise use of your time. Go on with your prayers. I have some small duties to attend.”

  Pretending to pray at a roadside shrine was one thing, but playing false inside a church, before a priest, was a different matter entirely. She felt herself color, and was glad the light at this end of the chapel was so dim. “I am done. Father, are there any shrines or Lady Wells nearby? Any Holy sites at all?”

  He thought a moment, and then shook his head. “The nearest is the priory at Tickhill, nearly two leagues, but it is considered theirs, not ours. If the wind was right as you rode in, you may have heard the bells.”

  “We did. There is nothing on Harworth land?”

  “No. Why do you ask? ”

  “Curiosity. And now ’tis satisfied.” She made to leave, but the priest drifted along with her.

  “Where are you bound?”

  “Here and there.” She kept sidling toward the door. “I am sorry, Father, I must go. My lord will want to leave anon.”

  “Travel safely, my child.”

  “Yes, Father.” She bobbed once more and escaped the church before her sins piled on so thick they crushed her. Outside, she quickly circled the church, hoping something on the outside would give her an idea where to look but, again, found nothing.

  She plopped down on a stump not far from the horses, and squeezed her aching head between her palms. She had been so certain that some clear sign would point her in the right direction. Why would Father leave such a poor clue if the answer were not obvious? Perhaps he’d chosen something Robin would know that she didn’t, and she once more wished Rob were well and here. Even if the puzzle wasn’t designed just for him, it would be good to have a second pair of eyes.

  She was about to pull the parchment out again when she spotted Sir Steinarr coming down the road, laden with bags and ale skins.

  There is your second pair of eyes, whispered the same ill-advised voice that had set her on this path to lechery. But perhaps it was right. Perhaps it was time she kept her promise to Robin, to tell Sir Steinarr. With a sigh, she pushed to her feet and went to meet him at the horses. “You got more ale, my lord.”

  “Better ale,” he said emphatically as he lo
oped the cords of the two ale skins over the saddle horn and added the bags to the rouncey’s load. “I also got three days’ worth of maslin bread and a new cheese, so we can save our salted one for the road. Are you done here? ”

  She stared back at the church and shook her head. “No, my lord, not yet. But there is nothing more I can do today. I will have to come back on the morrow.” She made her decision on the spot and blurted out, “I would speak with you, my lord. In private.”

  He looked her up and down once, and something rippled across the day’s calmness, like some unknown beast disturbing the surface of a windless pond. After a long moment, he nodded.

  “The man who sold me the cheese told me of an abandoned cottage on the far edge of the demesne woods that travelers often use with no consequence. Will that be private enough?”

  Private enough for many things. The ripple spread, caressing her like a too-intimate hand. She tore her eyes away from his and found some dirt on the toe of her shoe that required her attention. “Yes, my lord.”

  “As you wish, then. We will go.”

  SHEWANTED PRIVACY, she had it.

  Steinarr stood in the doorway watching Marian, who had laid a fire on the open hearth in the center of the floor and now knelt beside it, diligently trying to get it started.

  The cottage the man had sent them to was of the old type, partly dug into the earth. It was chill and damp, as such dwellings always were—undoubtedly why Marian was so anxious to get the fire going that she was lighting it herself—but the wattle and daub half walls were sturdy and the thatch roof solid enough to keep the rain out for the night. Sitting in a quiet glade a good league from the village, it was also as private a place as could be found outside an anchorite’s cell.

  Marian, however, had yet to say one word about whatever matter she supposedly wanted to talk about. Instead, she had busily set about gathering wood and then, while he had seen to the horses, had laid this fire that now consumed her attention—as she consumed Steinarr’s. As she struck the flint over and over, her bottom bobbed enticingly beneath her gown. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.

  She knew it, too. The longer he stared, the more self-consciously she worked and the more she bobbed. Clearly, it was deliberate. And clearly, she had wanted the privacy because she intended to offer herself to him again.

  What wasn’t clear was whether he was going to let her succeed this time.

  He shouldn’t. He should take her back, the way he’d planned to. But his senses were already full of her from the ride—the press of her body against his back, the uneven whisper of her breathing at his shoulder, a drift of silken hair against his jaw, the roses in her cheeks as he had helped her off the horse—and he wanted more. He wanted to bury himself in her, inhale her, devour her. What would she taste like? A vision of her spread before him on the furs, ready for his mouth, floated up before him.

  She gasped and missed the flint entirely.

  “What is it? ”

  “I … Nothing, my lord.” She struck again, clumsily, the firesteel stuttering along the flint without drawing a single spark.

  “ ’Twill be a cold night if you keep at it that way.”

  She sat back on her heels, staring at her hands. “I have never been good with a flint and steel.”

  “Let me do it.” He tore his eyes off her backside long enough to toss the packsaddle on top of the other gear in the corner, then squatted beside her, arranged the char-cloth at the top of the flint, and quickly struck three fat sparks, one of which caught. He tipped it into the tinder, and in moments had a nice little blaze going. “ ’Tis in the wrist.”

  “You make it look so easy,” she said as she knelt there, feeding sticks to the growing flame. “So does Robin.”

  Curse it, she was thinking of the bastard in the same breath as she thought of him. Why was he torturing himself over this perverse woman, when what he needed to do was be rid of her? The problem was, he wasn’t sure he had it in him to turn her away, and stubborn thing that she was, she would continue coming at him until something made her stop, just like she had in Maltby.

  Like in Maltby …

  Now why hadn’t he thought of that earlier? Ari was right. Crudeness would drive her off. He could be crude. Very crude.

  “’Tis time you learned how to keep warm.” Before she had a chance to move, he shifted in behind her, wrapped his arms around her, and pressed the flint and steel into her hands.

  “First you settle the steel into the furrow properly.” Knees wide, he slid forward so his rapidly hardening cock rested in the groove between her buttocks, took her hands in his, and fitted steel and stone together. “Now, nice strong strokes.”

  Pretending not to hear her gasp, he guided her through the strike, letting the sparks fly off into nothingness as their bodies rubbed together in similar fashion. She tried to squirm away, but he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her back even more firmly, and put his lips by her ear. “Of course, before you begin in earnest, you should always make sure the tinder is properly laid. The sparks need a nice, soft place to land. Make up the bed, Marian. Or would you rather I take you like this? ”

  CHAPTER 9

  LIKE THIS?

  Matilda’s body tightened and heated all at once, an echo of the confusion in her mind. For the life of her, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to go through with this for Robin’s sake or for the sake of her own sinful curiosity … or if she wanted to go through with it at all.

  “Well?” He tugged off her headrail and tossed it aside, then slid his hands down over her thighs and began drawing her gown up. She felt his member pulse against her as though it had a life of its own. Liquid heat pooled between her thighs. Where did she want to be when she took him into her the first time?

  “The bed, my lord.” She had to wait for him to release her and shift back before she could rise. Her feet felt very far away, as though she’d had too much wine, and she had to think to make them carry her over to find the bedding.

  “Use my furs as well as your blanket,” he said, unbuckling his belt to lay his sword aside. “You will need a good cushion beneath you. I am known to ride a woman hard.”

  He was trying to frighten her for some reason, but he did want her. She clung to that certainty as she pulled his roll of furs from the pile and started plucking at the knot. “What I need is your assurance that after you … ride me, you will keep your word and help me complete my journey.”

  “You already have that.”

  “I would like it again.”

  “Would you now?” He rose and came over to take the furs from her. He opened the knot with a quick yank, then shook the furs out and tossed them down on the earthen floor, near the fire. “Then I would like something as well. I would like to see whether your favors are worth my trouble. Perhaps your body is misshapen and covered with wens beneath that gown.”

  Wens? She lifted her chin proudly. “That is the chance you take, my lord. Just as I take the chance that your tarse is as crooked as your soul.”

  His mouth twitched in amusement. “’Tis straight and strong, as you will likely soon learn. However, you bargained only for my arm and my horse, not my tarse. ’Tis your body that is in question, and I will see it before I decide whether you are worth breaking my vow to that puppy you call cousin. Bare your breasts.”

  “What!” She stepped back so quickly, she hit her head against the cruck frame. “Ow.”

  Steinarr caught her around the waist and steadied her. His expression softened a little as she rubbed at her head. “Are you hurt?”

  She probed gently at her scalp. “I don’t think so. No.”

  “Good.” The determined glint returned, shunting aside the glimpse of tenderness, and he pushed her back against the wall next to the cruck and leaned into her. “Now where were we? Ah, yes. You were going to show me your teats, so that I may see whether you stir me sufficiently to get good use from you.”

  “Oh, I stir you well enough, my lord. The proof is at you
r crotch.”

  Not that she needed to feel him pressed up against her to know his desire. Despite her efforts to keep well inside herself, away from his heat, it still seeped in, warming her blood until she had to fight down an urge to work her hips against him and see if it would ease the ache.

  “That? ” He glanced down to where their bodies touched, and he ground against her lewdly, as though he were the one who knew what was in her mind. “That is merely the first swelling of interest. What any man would feel with any woman writhing against him.”

  “I am not writhing,” she said between clenched teeth.

  “You should be, if you want to excite me.” He dragged his hands up her body, lingering over her breasts to let his thumbs circle the crests. Desire lurched within her. He slowly lowered his mouth to hers, skimming a taunting kiss over her lips. “Writhe, Marian. Show me how you will move as I slide into your quaint.”

  Crude as they were, his words freed her, gave her leave to do what she so yearned to do anyway. She pushed her hips forward, moving against him, seeking some relief for the incredible need that mounted up in her. Her need or his, it didn’t matter. It just was, powerful beyond her ability to resist. His lips crushed down over hers with a searing kiss that stole her breath. She lifted to him, and his answering growl only made her move more aggressively, working against him, shifting until she found a way to make his hardness rub perfectly against the place that ached. Not enough. She curled her leg around his and pulled him closer. He began to buck against her, helping her find the relief, and she moaned.

  His tongue plunged into her open mouth, matching the rhythm of his body against hers as pleasure and need and burning lust built within her. She knew what he was doing. She wanted what he was doing. She pulled away from his kiss just long enough to say it, and her eyes met his.

  “Take me.”

  The words echoed in Steinnar’s skull, driving out all other thought. Take her. Take her now. In one motion, he lifted her and spun her down on to the furs. He grappled with her gown, dragging it up, while her hands worked as frantically, shoving his shirt up to reach for the tie to his braies, then dragging them down. Freed, he fell on her. She lifted her hips, searching for him, and suddenly he was pressing into her and she was crying out and there was a moment’s resistance that almost, almost, made his mind return.