She heard him rise and take three long strides toward her. He caught her by the shoulders and spun her to face him. His face was grim and sincere. And, God help her, as handsome as a Saint’s.
“If we were wed,” he vowed, “I would never take another woman to my bed. I swear it on my sword and before God.”
She loved and hated the way he made her feel, as if she were cherished silver melting in his gaze. And that was why she had to turn him down. Beneath his regard, she could feel herself turning from a fierce Warrior Maid to Colin’s hand-tamed Hel-kitten.
She consoled herself with the fact that Colin probably felt the same way she did about marriage. She’d heard enough to know that, no matter what he said, he was not a man for whom one woman was enough. Nay, Colin only felt compelled to marry her because he was a man of chivalry, because he was loyal to his vows, and because it was required when one compromised a lady.
But that meant nothing to Helena. She didn’t feel compromised. And Colin was no longer her hostage. She wouldn’t imprison him in a marriage neither of them wanted, just for honor’s sake.
So she forced a flippant smile to her face. “I fear I might be unable to make the same promise.”
He looked at her, incredulous. “You’d cuckold me?”
She shrugged, but she couldn’t maintain her indifference while he stared at her with those beguiling eyes, so she wriggled out of his hold and turned away, picking up a stick to poke at the dead coals on the hearth. “’Tis a new diversion for me, this coupling. I might wish to do…more of it.”
His voice was seductive and threatening all at once. “I assure you, my lady, I’d give you all the coupling you require.” He stole up behind her and murmured against her ear. “I could keep you in bed all night, my wanton witch, and satisfy you so thoroughly you’d be unable to rise in the morn.”
She closed her eyes against a powerful wave of desire. She believed him. Already he’d left her as weak and breathless as a newborn pup.
But she wouldn’t say the words to entrap either of them. No matter how great the temptation, the two of them were untamed beasts who needed to run free, Colin to his bevy of mistresses, Helena to her field of glory.
He cleared his throat. “I am of noble birth, my lady. ’Tis true I am a second son, not heir to my father’s land. But I assure you, I receive ample compensation from—”
She whipped about in anger. “I need no man’s coin. If ever I wed, ’twill not be for silver.”
“Then why do you refuse me?”
That almost made her smile. It wouldn’t occur to the self-assured knave that maybe he wasn’t comely or charming enough. Even if she used that excuse, she knew he wouldn’t believe it. “No man can force me to wed,” she hedged.
He shook his head. “Bloody Scotswomen,” he said under his breath. “I should have known from the moment the three of you fought for the disgrace of marrying Pagan Cameliard…”
Her ears pricked up. “Aye, we did,” she said, locking onto his words. “And we still do.”
“What?”
“I may yet marry Pagan Cameliard.”
“You can’t be serious. It’s been over a week. Your sister has already—”
“He swore he wouldn’t take her against her will. Their marriage may yet be unconsummated.”
He burst out laughing. “Oh, aye.”
She bit her lip. Curse the man, even when he was laughing at her expense, he was as charming as the Devil. “Even if it has been, if Deirdre is discontent in any way, I intend to take her place.” She meant what she said, though she doubted after all this time that Deirdre would be amenable to such a thing.
“Indeed? And if Pagan won’t have you?”
She knew what he intimated. She was no longer a virgin. What would Pagan think of that? But she raised her chin a notch and turned a bit of Colin’s smugness back on him. “I can make him want me.”
This time he didn’t laugh. Indeed he looked as if he half believed her. The glow in his eyes dimmed, turned to disappointment, then silent anger, and finally resignation. He turned aside, limping back to the pallet to finish dressing.
She felt wretched then, for she could see her refusal had hurt him. She sighed ruefully. Deirdre would have been proud of her. For once in her life, Helena had curbed her impulsiveness and thought things through.
There was a long and awkward silence as Colin laced on his boots. Helena combed her tangled hair with her fingers, racking her brains for something to say.
Abruptly, he planted his feet on the ground and stood up. “Let’s go.”
Startled, she snagged her finger in a curl. “Go?”
“Back to Rivenloch.”
“Now?” She frowned. “But your leg…”
“Is well enough.”
“’Tis hardly healed.” An inexplicable fluttering started in her heart, akin to panic.
“I can’t run, but I can walk well enough.”
Her mind grasped at excuses. “What if the English attack us again? You’re hardly fit to fight.”
“I can defend you if need be.”
“’Tis too soon.” She turned her back on him and began mindlessly rearranging the cooking pots, confounded by her own reluctance to leave. What was wrong with her? Why would she not wish to return home? It wasn’t as if this hovel in the middle of the woods was so idyllic.
And yet in some ways, it was.
The two of them had shared much here—stories, suppers, kisses—and a part of her didn’t want that adventure to end. If they returned to Rivenloch, she would go back to her predictable life of bland oatcakes and sisterly squabbles and keeping her father from harm.
“’Tis time,” he said brusquely. “Indeed, we’re long overdue. And the longer you wait, the less likely Pagan will be amenable to your…arrangements.”
She bit her lip, wishing she’d never mentioned marrying Pagan. Now, like a clumsy falcon, she’d been caught in her own jesses. “On the morrow then. Surely one more…”
Her words trailed off as he pierced her with a gaze as fierce and cold as a Highland winter. “I won’t sleep one more night with another man’s wife.”
After the first mile through the chill fog, every step was an agony for Colin. Pain knifed into his thigh as if the sword wounded him again and again. And yet it wasn’t half as painful as the stabbing in his heart when he thought about Helena coupling with another man.
Had he been just a plaything to her? A diversion? Did she have no feelings for him whatsoever?
He recalled his own first tryst. It was with a kitchen maid, a woman eight years his senior. Yet while he lay recovering upon her bosom from the wonder of his first joining, his heart had been so full that for weeks afterward he believed the sun rose and set upon her.
Likewise, he’d never bedded a virgin without leaving her awestruck. Grateful. Adoring. Indeed, he sometimes had to wean the lovesick maids from his affections, for they oft confused physical pleasure with the leanings of the heart.
But not Helena.
She apparently felt nothing for him. Not amazement. Not gratitude. Not even fondness.
He frowned. Maybe he was wrong about the fondness. After all, she did have her arm around him, and she was helping him hobble along the path.
Maybe, he consoled himself, it was only that she remained firm in her resolve to marry Pagan. Perhaps her sense of duty overpowered all other emotions.
He intended to find out. That was the reason that, despite the bite of pain in his leg, he was determined to return immediately to Rivenloch. Surely once Helena saw that Pagan and his bride were happy—and he’d wager half his silver they were—she’d reconsider his offer of marriage.
He hoped so. He’d spent a long time thinking about it last night as the damsel lay curled against his side.
His indiscretion had been but a tiny part of his decision to ask her for her hand. After all, there were at least a dozen noblewomen, Norman and English, who would have leaped at the chance to become his wife.
He hadn’t realized it till now, but he’d grown bored with maids who sighed over his sweet praises and swooned into his arms. Helena of Rivenloch was an exotic island in a sea of willing wenches, a woman so fierce and yet so feminine, innocent yet self-assured, brutally honest yet kind of spirit. She excited and surprised him at every turn, keeping him sharp and on guard. Like a pinecone tossed on the hearth, she burned in a bright flash of fire and passion, spitting out curses like sparks, threatening to set the world ablaze. But once the embers died down and the fire cooled, she had the tender heart of an angel.
Only a woman so special could convince him to abandon his beloved bachelor’s life, whether or not he’d compromised her, and he knew it.
So he’d drifted off to sleep with a smile on his face, dreaming of their happy life together, the suppers he would cook for her, the babes she would give to him, and the tales they would tell the dozen little warrior children at their feet.
But she’d dashed those visions with one word this morn. Nay.
He winced as he stumbled over a root on the path and was forced to lean heavily upon her, a bolt of fire shooting up from his knee to his hip.
“Let’s rest,” she said, straining under his weight.
“I’m fine.”
“I’m not,” she countered, though he knew it was a lie for his sake. The wench had the stamina of a warhorse. She wasn’t even breathing hard.
“Very well. But only for a moment.”
She helped him to a fallen log. They sat on its mossy side, and though Colin was loath to admit it, it was a great relief to have the weight off his leg.
“Why are you in such a bloody hurry to get back?” she asked him bluntly.
“Why are you not?” Disappointment and discomfort made him irritable. “I’d think you’d be eager to win Pagan’s heart.”
She picked at the tree bark. “’Tis not a thing that can be rushed.”
“What, seduction?” He chuckled humorlessly. “It certainly didn’t take you long to wrap the mercenaries around your finger.”
She scowled. “I wasn’t looking to wed the mercenaries.”
“Oh, aye. You only sought to bed them.”
“I did not!” she snapped. “I sought to distract them so I could save your ungrateful arse.”
“Save me?” he smirked. “For what? The ransom!”
“That’s not true!”
Bitterness made him speak too freely. “But before you bartered me for your new bridegroom, you thought you’d taste what you’d be giving up.”
Her jaw dropped. “I suppose last night was entirely my fault?”
“Maybe if you’d told me you were a virgin…”
“Maybe if you hadn’t assumed I was not..!” Her voice rang out in the quiet wood, startling a bird from its perch.
“How was I to know,” he sneered, “the way you minced and pranced and preened before those English bastards?”
She grabbed him by the front of his tabard and hauled him close. “I do not mince, you philanderer.”
“Once and for all,” he bit out, “I am not a philanderer.”
What happened next happened so quickly that Colin had no time to move. While he glared into Helena’s eyes, her gaze flitted up over his head, widening, and then, in one fluid movement, she stole the dagger from his belt and yanked him down toward her lap so she could fire it over his head.
He heard the thunk of the blade lodging in wood and then a man’s gruff voice.
“Bloody..!”
When he wrenched loose from Helena’s hold, he saw she’d pinned a man to a tree by the sleeve of his sword arm not five yards away. For the moment, the man couldn’t brandish his sword, but already he rocked the knife back and forth, trying to dislodge it, and by the gleam in his eyes, he wouldn’t hesitate to use either weapon against them.
“Shite!” Colin hissed. Helena had just disarmed him, and she had the only other weapon. He reached his hand out behind him. “Give me your knife.”
“Nay.”
Cursing her under his breath, he swept his arm back, intending to at least keep her behind him, out of harm’s way. But she was no longer there. She’d sprung to her feet and was already advancing on the man.
“Nay!” His wound pulsing, he struggled to his feet.
“Where did you get that sword?” she demanded of the man.
He didn’t reply, only wriggling the dagger all the faster as she approached.
“Answer me!”
“Tell her!” Colin yelled, fearing it was the only way to keep her from getting within striking range before Colin could reach him.
The man’s eyes shifted to him, and he sneered, “One o’ yer countrymen. I didn’t ask ’is name, just killed ’im and took ’is blade.”
Mother of God, ’twas another Englishman. Had the entire English army invaded Scotland?
Helena strayed closer, too close. “That’s Mochrie’s sword, you whoreson.”
Colin’s heart leaped into his throat. “Helena, get back!”
“Not until I reclaim this good Scots steel from this English bastard.”
Colin had no idea who Mochrie was, but apparently some matter of honor stripped all reason from Helena. She drew The Shadow’s knife and held it to the man’s throat. “Drop it.”
The Englishman instantly seized her wrist with his free hand, forcing the blade away from his throat. Colin intended to step in then, grab her around the waist, and drag her backward, the sword be damned. But before he could take a step, she drove her knee hard into the man’s ballocks, and with a weak groan, he released both the sword and her wrist.
“Son of a…” she muttered, retrieving the sword. This Mochrie must have been a friend, for at the edges of her angry gaze, sorrow burned. She turned on the Englishman. “How many of you are there?”
The man was doubled over, in too much pain to reply.
Then she locked eyes with Colin. “I’d wager gold he’s a scout.”
Colin nodded. The man’s tabard was too fine for an outlaw. This was some noble’s man.
With a scolding glance that told her he’d brook no argument, he snatched The Shadow’s knife from her and approached the Englishman. With his free hand, he seized the man by the hair and forced his head back, then placed the knife point against his throat. “What’s your name?”
“Wat. Walter.”
“And who is your master, Walter?”
The man only grimaced in response.
Colin added slight pressure to the knife, letting a drop of blood well upon the point. “His name.”
“Lord Morpeth.”
“How many travel with you?”
The man shrugged, as much as he could with one arm pinned to a tree and a knife at his neck. “Don’t know.”
Most men-at-arms couldn’t count past ten. “As many as your fingers?”
A snicker escaped the man.
“More?” Colin asked.
“Aye.”
“As many as five men’s fingers?”
The man managed a smug sneer. “As many as the stars.”
Colin doubted that, but the fact that Lord Morpeth had sent a scout ahead meant it must be a contingent of considerable size. And if it was an army of any note, the commander would have heard of Cameliard.
“Heed me well, Wat,” he bit out. “This land is under the protection of Sir Pagan Cameliard. If your master disturbs one stone of one castle in this realm, he will do battle with Cameliard’s knights.”
The man’s eyes widened in recognition. Now Colin would let him go, counting on the fact that he’d pass the dire warning along to his English lord, thereby avoiding warfare.
He hadn’t counted on the man panicking.
As he lowered the knife, Walter reached across and finally snagged the dagger from the tree, coming across with a back slash that Colin had to dodge to avoid. But in lunging back, Colin twisted his ankle and fell to one knee. His stitches pulled, and acid pain raced up his leg. As Walter made a return pa
ss of the dagger, Colin raised the knife to block the blow, but the slim blade was no match for the larger weapon.
Walter’s third thrust headed straight for Colin’s heart.
Chapter 17
When Helena saw Colin drop to his knee, time seemed to slow to an impossible lassitude. Icy sweat broke across her brow. A gasp of dread filled her lungs. A scream formed in her throat. A thousand amazing thoughts bombarded her in the space of an instant.
Colin couldn’t die. Not here. Not now.
Not after she’d nursed his wound with such diligence.
Not after he’d held her in his arms all night.
Not when it was her fault all of this had come to pass.
He couldn’t die.
She loved him. God help her, she loved him.
A sudden, fierce, impulsive instinct to protect Colin pushed her free of the prison of lethargy and made every muscle spring to life. Her heart pounding, her face grim, she raised Mochrie’s sword.
By the time Walter lunged forward, her blade was already waiting for him. Before the point of his dagger could touch Colin’s chest, the English scout half impaled himself upon her weapon.
As irrational and determined as a mother guarding her babe, she didn’t hesitate to finish the grisly task. With a jerk of her shoulders, she thrust him through the rest of the way.
His eyes rolled as the life drained out of them, but it seemed a gruesome eternity before he fell at last with a gurgle and a sickly thud into a puddle of his own blood.
Colin struggled to his feet. Wasting no time, he wrenched the sword from the dead man’s belly, wiping the blade upon the grass to clean it. Then he pried the dagger from his lifeless fist. At last he faced her, his mouth sagging open in wonder. “You saved my life.”
But Helena had no time for his gratitude. She staggered off to lose her breakfast in the bushes.
By the time she’d braced herself enough to return to the scene, Colin had rolled the victim beneath the brush and spread dirt over the bloody trail. “We should make haste to Rivenloch,” he said.
She nodded, grateful he didn’t mention the slaying further. She was still trembling. It wasn’t often she had to kill a man.
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