“Will you tell me your name, ma belle?” he asked, softening his voice even further.
Her lips opened, but the only sound that emerged from her mouth was a harsh croak. Swallowing painfully, she tried again, with the same result. A despairing look crossed her battered face and she began to cry. Deep, guttural, open-mouthed sobs ripped from her throat as she sucked in desperate, heaving gasps of air to fuel them. Hot tears tracked down her dirty cheeks.
Bloody fucking hell. Galvanized into action by the sight of such abject misery, Nicholas bent down and swung her up into his arms. She let out a yelp of pain. “Rolf,” he said, addressing the tall lanky knight hovering at his right elbow. “Make haste to Berwick. Alert Sir Richard.”
Without a word, the knight turned and strode swiftly away through the crisp undergrowth. Vaulting into his saddle, he wheeled his charger and galloped away.
“And Ellen, too,” Nicholas yelled after him. Rolf’s only acknowledgment was a slight wave of his hand before he disappeared over the rise.
The girl’s head dropped onto Nicholas’s shoulder, as if she no longer had the strength to hold it up. Moving with a lithe, catlike grace, the Duke crossed the distance to his own horse in powerful, ground-eating strides, his burly master-at-arms following closely behind him. “God’s blood, Thomas, who on earth would do something like this? She’s little more than a child!”
Thrusting the still-sobbing girl into the older man’s arms, Nicholas mounted his black destrier, Lucifer. Then, leather saddle creaking, he leaned down to take her from his marshal. Resting his forearm on his thigh, he accepted her slight weight, the awkwardness of the movement wrenching another low cry of pain from her lips. Lifting her up, he seated her in front of him, astride the great animal.
His arms came forward on either side of her, holding her upright. Taking the reins from Eric, his squire, he wheeled his mount and urged Lucifer forward with a light touch of his heels, guiding him expertly through the dense undergrowth.
He looked down at the girl in his arms. Even though her head barely came up to his chin, he was suddenly aware that this was no child he was holding, but a young woman. Beneath her pathetic attempt at a disguise, her feminine curves were now patently obvious—the sweet fullness of her ass cheeks riding against his groin, the soft mounds of her generous breasts rising and falling as she struggled to get her sobs under control—Christ Almighty! He felt the cool silk of her glorious hair against his skin as the wind sent the loose strands flying wildly about her head. He bit back a groan. Never, not even in his dreams, had he felt anything so soft and smooth. He wanted to wallow in it, sift the golden strands through his fingers like a miser sifting his gold, and let it cascade over every inch of his skin like a silken waterfall…
Holy Christ. Here he was rhapsodizing about a phantom woman, when the real woman was shivering so hard her teeth were chattering. Hunching his shoulders forward, Nicholas released her just long enough to pull his fur-lined mantle more closely around him so that it partially covered her as well. He tightened his arms over her abdomen, just beneath her breasts, loosening them immediately at her sudden hissing intake of breath. He’d momentarily forgotten the injury to her ribs. Loosening the curve of his arms, he pulled her back against him, trying to transfer some of the heat from his own body into her shivering form. But it was not heat that she needed. Her body was already an inferno, hot enough to melt iron, blazing with the fever that was raging through her.
She was seated partially on the saddle and partly on his lap, her firm, round bottom pressing back against his groin. God’s blood, she feels good! He hadn’t so much as touched a woman in over a year, much less held one in his arms. He’d almost forgotten how good they felt. How soft, and smooth, and curvy. Unable to help himself, he rubbed his cheek against the silk of her hair.
His body suddenly hardened with a need so primitive, so fierce, and so unexpected he was barely able to control his gasp of surprise. He groaned inwardly, aghast at the way his unruly body was reacting to the feel of this soft female riding his thighs. His hardening cock fitted itself neatly between the cheeks of her buttocks, and a wave of shame swept over him.
Sweet Jesu! How could this wounded bit of humanity stir such a carnal reaction in him? He, who had sworn a knight’s oath before God and King to honor and revere women? By the Virgin! What was he thinking? If he didn’t do something to control his reaction to her, someone would have to protect her from him!
Bloody. Fucking. Hell.
Thoroughly disgusted with himself, he looked down at her again. She was still, slumped back against him, limp as a rag. And he realized that she had lost consciousness. His lips thinned, turning his mouth into a grim slash across his face as he spurred his horse to an even faster pace. His erection softened as fury once again tore through him. Woman, child, it matters not. She’s been beaten so savagely, it’s a miracle she’s still alive.
His eyes narrowed. He hoped she stayed alive, at least long enough to tell him who had done this to her. Because he needed to know what kind of bastard would dare to beat a woman so viciously. Because when I do find out who he is, I’m going to kill the son-of-a-bitch! A grim smile lifted one corner of his full, sensuous mouth. His eyes glittered in anticipation as he galloped toward Berwick Castle, his ancestral home.
* * * *
Nicholas Herron stood in his solar, looking down at the motionless figure barely making a mound in the center of his bed. A tiny scrap of broken humanity, she tugged at him, irresistibly calling to something deep in his soul.
Well over six feet tall, he had the broad shoulders and the hard, muscular body of a fighting knight, honed by years of intense training and hard combat. His face was a fascinating study of planes and angles, polished by the firelight into a high bronze relief of a pagan warrior. His hawk-like nose flared arrogantly above full, sensuous lips and a black mustache. His firm, strong chin was clean-shaven, except for a small, neatly trimmed goatee, giving him a slightly diabolical look. He was dressed all in black—black chausses, black tunic, black mantle, and thigh-high black leather boots. Even his hair was black. Thick and shaggy, it fell across his forehead and brushed against his neck. Black eyebrows arched like ravens’ wings above slate-gray eyes. Eyes that were, at that moment, as stormy and turbulent as a gale-tossed sea.
Eyes that watched as Ellen, his old nurse, dabbed a soft wet cloth to the cuts, encrusted with dried blood, all over the girl’s face, neck, scalp, and hands. She dipped the cloth into a pan full of warm water and wrung it out. The water turned red.
“Mary!” Ellen turned to the young chambermaid hovering near the doorway. “Run to the kitchen and tell them we need more hot water. Buckets of it!” The girl ran off as Ellen hollered after her, “And be quick about it!” Even as she spoke, the elderly, heavyset woman snapped her fingers and a groom materialized at her elbow.
Picking up the heavy pan of bloody water, he carried it over to the open window and slopped the contents over the sill to cascade down the castle’s outer wall, falling into a deep river gorge over a hundred feet below.
Ellen shuffled somewhat stiffly over to the enormous fireplace along the back wall of the solar. Bending forward with a grunt, she retrieved a blackened kettle from a tripod, whose iron legs were buried in a pile of hot embers. She poured a stream of clean, hot water into the now-empty pan.
The young groom lifted the heavy pan again and, without spilling a drop, carried it back over and set it down on the bedside table.
Ellen dropped the cloth into the water and wiped her hands on her blood-stained apron. Then she lifted one corner of it to dab at her sweaty face, shining like a moon through the opening in her wimple. Beneath the apron, her plain, gray linen gown was also spotted here and there with blood. “All right now, laddie,” she said, turning to Nicholas and making shooing motions with her hands. “Out ye go. I’ll be taking these filthy clothes off of her and I don’t need ye standing around gawking and getting in me way. Ye can come back when I’m through cle
aning up the rest of her and she’s decently covered.”
When Nicholas didn’t move, she sighed impatiently. “Off with ye now, Yer Grace,” she said, a trace of asperity in her tone. “In spite of what she’s wearing, this is a high-born young lady. She’ll not be thanking me for allowing ye to see her in a state of immodesty.” Holding one hand to the girl’s forehead, she clucked her tongue. “Poor little mite. She’s burning up with fever. ’Twill be a miracle, if she survives the night.” Bowing her head, she crossed herself with a plump, beringed hand.
Nicholas stared down at the young woman, still dressed in her filthy, stinky boys’ clothes. Mercifully, she had remained unconscious throughout the long, arduous ride back to Berwick Castle. She hadn’t stirred as he’d carried her into the Keep, through the great hall and into his solar. She hadn’t uttered a sound through Ellen’s gentle ministrations.
A commotion at the door alerted him that Sir Richard Martin, the castle’s barber and surgeon, had entered the room followed by Rolf Torgesson, Nicholas’s best friend and first knight. A man in his midforties, Sir Richard was short, stocky and grim-faced, with a no-nonsense demeanor. He wore a floor-length brown woolen robe trimmed with fur at the hem and at the cuffs of his long, hanging sleeves. A close-fitting brown leather hood, tied beneath his chin, covered his balding head.
Approaching the bed, he leaned over the girl and gently lifted the lid of each swollen eye in turn, moving her head back and forth to inspect her injuries more closely. With gentle fingers, he probed the gash on her scalp that had bled all in her hair, matting it close to her head. His hand slid down her arm and lifted first her right hand, then her left. Frowning at the deep, bloody cuts circling each wrist, he straightened.
“Remove her clothes at once,” he ordered. “Her injuries are most grievous—as if someone used a battering ram on her.”
Ellen moved to the head of the bed. “Out, Yer Grace,” she ordered again, grabbing the loose end of the tattered woolen scarf wrapped around the girl’s neck. “We have no need of yer assistance. Nor yours, Mr. Rolf.” She started to unwind the scarf.
Nicholas clapped Rolf on the shoulder and the two men turned to leave.
“Sweet Mary, Mother of God!”
They’d barely taken two steps before Ellen’s choked cry stopped them dead in their tracks. Nicholas turned around just in time to see the old woman crossing herself again. Her hand, he observed grimly, was shaking. Biting back a curse, he strode back over to the bed and looked down.
God’s blood! They had removed her coarse tunic, baring her torso from the waist up. Her ribs were a livid mass of deep purple bruises. Bite marks on her breasts were red and swollen and hot to the touch, a sure sign of infection. And, judging from the dark bruises ringing her neck, someone had very nearly succeeded in strangling this young woman. The bruises on her neck were so dark, they were nearly black. Individual finger marks stood out in sharp contrast to the pale translucence of the surrounding skin.
“Ved alle guder!” Rolf muttered, touching his fingertips to his forehead before touching them to his lips.
Nicholas’s lips thinned into a hard slash. His eyes were a seething black cauldron of rage. He had been foolish, nay, stupid, to think that her only wounds would be those visible on her face and hands. “Remove the rest of her clothes now,” he ordered in a deadly voice. “I care not how high-born she is. I will see everything that bastard did to her. And when his name is revealed to me, I will end his miserable life! This I swear upon my oath as a knight.”
* * * *
“Calm yourself, Nick, you’re wearing a trench in the floor.” Never one to move when he could be still, Rolf Torgesson sat slouched in his chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. Rolf, a twenty-nine-year-old Danish knight-errant, had been Nicholas’s best friend and closest companion for the past five years, having sworn fealty to the young English knight for saving his life from a band of outlaws in Lincoln Forest. He was tall, taller even than Nicholas, and thin, with long, lanky arms and legs. His normally fair skin was deeply tanned, almost nut brown, even beneath his clothing, because he liked to practice his combat maneuvers out in the tiltyard, stripped to the waist even in the coldest weather.
His beautifully shaped head was completely bald, except for the long, thin, drooping mustache beneath his aristocratic nose and the neat, four-inch-long goatee hanging from the point of his chin, both so blond they were nearly white. Piercing blue eyes, the most arresting feature in his long, thin face, peered out from deep caverns created by the prominent bones of his cheeks and brows. A golden hoop earring dangled from the pierced lobe of his left ear. Except for his vest and leggings, which were made from the snow-white fur of an Arctic bear, he was dressed all in brown leather—jerkin, breeches, and a capelet with a hood and a long, hanging liripipe. Behind his back, the pommels of twin swords rose above his shoulders, sheathed in a specially designed baldric.
Ignoring Rolf, Nicholas paced the length of the small antechamber located adjacent to his solar, both hands slicking his shaggy black hair back off his face. A deep scowl marred the perfection of his features.
The chamber was sparsely furnished, just a sturdy wooden table and four wooden chairs. No carpets or tapestries or cushions softened its austere, utilitarian appearance. The only light was provided by the dying fire in the fireplace and some candles in the middle of the table. No matter. He didn’t need light for this.
He had called for a meeting of his most trusted advisors. In addition to Rolf, they included Thomas Parsons, forty-nine years old, his burly master-at-arms, and Sir John Lowden, his bailiff, a dignified man of fifty-seven years. The young Duke, himself only twenty-seven, trusted these three men with his life and considered them friends as well as councilors.
Nicholas had held the title of Duke for only six months—ever since his father’s sudden, unexpected death from a freakish accident. Roger Herron had been thrown from his horse while out hunting with a group of his friends. Apparently suffering no ill effects from the fall, other than the embarrassment and humiliation a renowned horseman would naturally feel in the wake of such an untoward event, he had walked around for the rest of the day talking and laughing. He had partaken of a hearty evening meal, imbibing freely of hippocras, the spiced French wine he loved so much. His only complaint had been a slight headache just before going to bed.
He was found dead the next morning, his pillow covered with the blood that had poured from his ears, mouth, and nose during the night.
Nicholas had been away from home, fighting with King Edward III in Crecy, France. He and his cadre of sixty loyal knights had just finished quartering the battlefield, searching for any survivors. The courier carrying the news of Roger Herron’s death had ridden through a blood-soaked field littered with the corpses of thousands of French knights, infantrymen, and Genoese crossbowmen, straight up the slight rise to the windmill the English king had just successfully defended. After giving the courier a hot meal, a tankard of ale, and a fresh mount, King Edward had immediately sent the battle-weary young Nicholas home to claim his inheritance. At Nick’s insistence, Rolf had remained in France a few more days to help Edward finalize plans for his next campaign, the siege of the French port of Calais. Then he had sailed back to England on the first available ship.
Fortunately, Nicholas had returned home to find Berwick prospering, despite his father’s neglect, thanks to the capable administration of Sir John Lowden, who had served the Herron family for many, many years.
The door opened and the two men he and Rolf had been waiting for walked in. Nicholas raised his hand to stop them from bowing in recognition of his new rank. “Nay, gentlemen, we do not stand on ceremony in this room. We are all equals here.” He still had not become accustomed to everyone bowing to him as they had his father. He looked from one solemn face to the next. “Well?” he demanded, anxiety making his voice a little more forceful than he’d intended. “Have you been able to find out anything about her?
”
“Naught,” Thomas Parsons spoke up. He was a giant of a man, dressed in chain mail over a quilted gambeson and covered with a woolen surcote bearing the Herron coat of arms. “No one knows who she is, nor has anyone ever heard of a girl with hair the color of burnished copper—which seems impossible on the face of it. Hair that extraordinary should have ballads written about it.”
“Mayhap you should write one, Thomas,” Nicholas teased, knowing all about Thomas’s secret passion for the chivalric love poems of Christine de Pizan.
Thomas merely scowled at Nicholas, giving a jerk of his bearded chin. “How old would you say she is?”
“Older than I originally thought,” Nicholas replied, nearly blushing at the memory of his body’s reaction to those soft, feminine curves as he’d held her against him. “She’s no child, even though she’s barely bigger than one. She’s a woman grown, possibly seventeen or eighteen.”
“She is tiny,” Thomas agreed, remembering the slight feel of her body as he’d held her in in his arms. “Hell, my fourteen-year-old Alice is bigger than this girl.” He ran his hand over his bushy beard. It was full of tiny braids that had been plaited there by his sweet little nine-year-old Isabel, who had painstakingly woven tiny pink ribbons and bows throughout them. A man less secure in his masculinity might have removed them. Thomas would sooner cut off his right arm than undo one single braid or ribbon. He wore them as if they were badges of honor—a symbol of his bravery in battle.
“Everyone is tiny compared to you, Thomas,” Nicholas pointed out wryly. He closed his gray eyes briefly as his thoughts turned to the injured young woman lying in his solar. Thomas was right, she was tiny. It was a miracle she had survived her ordeal thus far, although the fever raging through her slender body just might claim her still.
Dark Warrior (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 2