Three Nights With the Princess Page 10

  “Damn it!” he ground out.

  He felt her flinch, and his mind seized that small involuntary movement that betrayed her outward confidence and self-possession. He searched her huge, luminous eyes and moon-paled features. Hidden within that prickly arrogance and bravado he suddenly sensed something softer, more vulnerable. As the darkness heightened his senses, he became aware of the tension in her body and the shallowness of her breathing. He searched those sensations, interpreting them. Anger? Expectation? Anxiety?

  “You are a cat with very sharp claws indeed,” he said irritably, watching her. “So you think I will not like being scratched and will let you go. Well, you are wrong, demoiselle. You owe me this night and I intend to have it . . . even if I must spend it with a knife at my breast.”

  She looked up into his shadowed eyes, then glanced away, unsure whether she had won or not. He seemed to be forfeiting carnal possession of her . . . but how could she be sure? Only time would—The horrible truth dawned on her: though it had succeeded, her brash gambit had just sentenced them both to a very long and sleepless night in each other’s arms. A whole night of being surrounded by his big body, feeling the weight of his massive arms, listening to his heartbeat, absorbing his heat. She groaned silently. A whole night of waiting for him to pounce on her.

  The silence between them filled with small sounds: the rasp of breathing, the rustling of night hunting birds overhead, the muffled thud of racing pulses. Her body came alive with awareness. Where he touched her skin it seemed to melt, allowing him access to her very nerves . . . becoming a touch more intimate and unnerving than any she had ever experienced. Against the frantic urgings of her better sense, she slid her gaze back to his face and found him watching her with those penetrating eyes.

  He felt her shiver of response and realized that while he could not take what he wanted by force, he might yet take it by persuasion. And just how did he persuade his prickly demoiselle without risking a blade in his belly?

  When he moved his arm, she stiffened. But he ran his fingers over the braid coiled at the side of her head, searching for and finding the ties that held it.

  “What are you—”

  “I will take what pleasure I can, demoiselle. You deny me your body . . . then I will have your hair instead.”

  “My hair? Nay—it is not decent. You cannot—” He hadn’t surrendered after all! She shoved against him, bracing back as far as his arms would allow. She was desperate to prevent him from transferring his alarmingly personal touch to her hair. A woman’s hair was her glory . . . her maiden’s crown . . . the outward link to her most intimate and womanly self. It belonged to a woman’s future husband; a gift, like her maidenhead, to be safeguarded until the one who would own her passions claimed it. And as with all those things, Thera had planned never to yield it to anyone!

  “Such beautiful hair,” he murmured, freeing the braid . . . then inserting his long fingers between the woven strands and dragging them through to the end of the hair. “Silk is coarse beside it.”

  All it would take was a slight twist of her hand and the blade would bite into his skin. But for the life of her, she couldn’t bring herself to turn that handle and sink that cold, merciless steel into his ribs. Higher and higher he worked his fingers through her hair, until the thick strands were tumbling over her shoulder and breast.

  “Ahhh, demoiselle. The ladies of Venice would give a fortune to own such tresses,” he murmured, luxuriating in the feel of it.

  “Give me back this night and you may take it to them,” she whispered furiously, desperate to knit up her frayed defenses. “Think of the profit you could make.”

  He laughed with a resonant rumble that vibrated through the dagger and up her aching arms. “Nay, Venice is too far away, demoiselle, and you are too close and too—”

  Definitely too close, he realized, clamping his jaw shut. And too damned desirable. His body was humming with expectation once again, and his loins were heating at an alarming rate. Her body, on the other hand, was still as rigid as a pike staff. Rising to the challenge of softening her resistance, he shifted slightly, bending his other arm beneath her so his fingers could reach her other braid.

  “Nay—” She jerked her head aside. But there was nowhere to go, and his hands were strong and alarmingly nimble. The other bindings soon yielded to him as well, and he shifted slightly, bringing her hair close to his face and breathing it in.

  “lt smells like roses. And roses suit you, demoiselle.” One corner of his mouth lifted. “Beauty, but with thorns.”

  She stared at him, panicked by the strange push-pull going on in her. Where force would have failed, his unexpected gentleness and the vulnerability of her own overtaxed senses combined to weaken her resistance against him. She had no inner defenses to deal with such feelings or with the turmoil they created in her. Her only hope was to put anger and distance between them!

  “You, on the other hand, smell like a stable without a shovel,” she said, curling her nose. “And there is enough grease in that disgusting pelt on your face to oil a pair of cart wheels.”

  His hand clenched around her hair and his eyes narrowed furiously. She could feel his chest swelling so that it pressed harder against the blade and braced for the worst, but, deep inside, she was less afraid of his anger than she had been of his unbearably personal touch.

  He made a grating noise through his teeth and released her hair as if it were indeed full of thorns. Then after a moment of sizzling silence, he jerked his arms from her and rolled onto his back to stare angrily up into the night sky.

  “Go to sleep,” he snarled.

  It had worked! He had let her go! She sagged with disbelief and, after several moments, rolled onto her back too, still clutching the dagger with both hands. As moment followed moment in the quiet darkness, her tension slowly began to subside. She stared up at the pale half-moon overhead, feeling every stone beneath her hard bed and aching from the day’s exertions. Exhaustion stole over her.

  She strained to keep her attention fastened on him, to stay awake and wary. In desperation, she reverted to her habit of counting things: the number of hours left until dawn . . . the number of belches Saxxe Rouen had emitted while eating . . . the number of miles they had yet to travel to reach Mercia . . . the probable number of months it had been since Saxxe Rouen had taken a bath. But always, by the time she reached twenty-seven, she had settled into a lulling, rhythmic cadence and felt her eyes growing heavy.

  She chose a new subject and tried again and again as moment was linked to moment and soon an hour had passed. Halfway through a second hour, she had acquired a whole new appreciation of the concept of “eternity.” She had to stay alert, had to be prepared. He was unpredictable. He was treacherous. He was—she heard his shallow, regular breathing—he was finally asleep.

  Her sense of release was overwhelming. Her eyes drifted shut, and though she tried valiantly to reopen them, the effort was too much. She slid into blessed, comforting darkness and did not hear the stones grate and sinews groan, later, as Saxxe rolled onto his side, against her.

  In the intervening hours, both his irritation and his desire had drained, leaving him cooler and better able to think. With his eyes fully adjusted now, he could make out her features in the moon glow. He propped up on one elbow, watching the rise and fall of her breast and searching the torrent of hair around her shoulders. She seemed younger, somehow. Softer. More womanly. For the tenth time that day, he wondered who she was. Thera of Aric. He sorted through the names of the French noble houses he had once been required to learn. Aric was not among them.

  What he did know of her both tantalized and puzzled him. She was obviously of noble birth, used to the finest of everything. And in the last two days she had been thrust into the worst the world had to offer . . . abduction, near rape, loss of her possessions. Any other demoiselle would have long since dissolved into helpless sobs. But she screamed and fought and bargained and demanded....

  His gaze
slid down her moon-brightened gown to the steel dagger she held. He scowled and sat up, touching the blade, testing her reaction. When she did not waken, he gently pried her cold, cramped fingers from the blade hilt. It was Gasquar’s dagger. He plunged it into the sand at the edge of the blanket with a rueful smile. She was resourceful, his fierce little cat.

  But then, inexplicably, his eyes were drawn back to her hands, which even in sleep had continued to clutch that blade hilt with desperation. And for some reason he recalled the odd look in her eyes earlier, the hint of vulnerability and inner struggle. Those impressions now came together. Deep inside, she was also frightened.

  The insight both surprised and annoyed him.

  “Dieu, Rouen,” he growled softly, running a hand through his tangled hair. “You have to think, don’t you? You cannot leave well enough alone. You always have to peek in the box . . . see what is inside. And before you know it, you are up to your stubborn neck in trouble again.” He took a deep breath and steeled himself.

  “She is none of your concern, this treacherous little witch. Twice you have saved her precious hide, and what do you have to show for it? Sneers and insults, a blade at your belly, and a night of being roasted on the flame in your own loins.”

  He drew his knees up and rested his arms on them, trying not to notice how alluring she looked in the moonlight . . . with her hair all tumbled around her shoulders. He could ill afford the stirring she caused in his loins. There was something else he wanted, something far more important than merely easing a flesh ache. And how damned close he had come to forgetting it, with her lying soft and desirable against his pleasure-starved body!

  She was a noble lady; beautiful, well-born, and wealthy. She could never be more to him than an opportunity to line his purse with silver . . . perhaps enough for a small piece of land. And to receive that reward, he would have to return her to her long-suffering and overindulgent father, undamaged and intact.

  “A meadow, an orchard, and. a stream,” he murmured, like an incantation meant to keep the demons of passion at bay. “Just think of what a reward might buy . . . sweet grass and wildflowers . . . pears and apples so plentiful they bend branches down . . . cool, clear water trickling by. Just think of a hearth and a bed of your own.”

  The chilled air swirled around his bare shoulders, and he recalled her cold hands and pulled his fur cover up and over her. In that movement, his knuckles brushed her hair and he picked up a lock of it, rubbing it between his fingers and thinking of cinnamon and Saracen sugar. Then he caught himself, groaned irritably, and let the hair fall to her shoulder.

  “If you had the sense God gave an onion, you would let her find her own way back to her rich father and his bags of—”

  Of hard silver coin . . . spendable profit. Was he going to let a woman’s sharp tongue and a troublesome bit of heat in his loins ruin his best chance for real coin in years? Like hell he would. And what would happen tomorrow morning when her “debt” was paid and he had no further claim on her? She had already rejected his generous offer of “help.”

  “Cross that river when you come to it, Rouen,” he muttered furiously, lying back down, then sitting up briefly to drag a musty blanket over his bare chest. “If she won’t listen to reason, you can always tie her up.”

  Chapter Six

  Thera roused with a start in the first gray wisps of dawn light. She pushed up stiffly on one arm, feeling sore and chilled and damp. Her hair hung in clumps around her shoulders, and the feel of it hanging free shocked her. A moment later she was jarred further by the sight of Saxxe Rouen sprawled, half naked and half covered, on the dew-covered pallet beside her. Peeling the furs from her shoulders, she melted with relief at the sight of her undisturbed gown and surcoat.

  It was time to go, before he awakened and found some other excuse to hold her against her will . . . like deciding she might be worth a fat ransom. Pushing back the cover, she crept quietly from the pallet and found Lillith curled up in her cloak on a blanket by the cold firestones. She was startled awake by Thera’s hand over her mouth, but quickly understood her gestures for silence and nodded.

  They almost had their horses saddled when Saxxe Rouen started awake. Thera heard his growl of surprise and knew it would be mere heartbeats before they were discovered. “They’re awake!” she called quietly, inserting her foot into the stirrup and hopping to gain enough leverage to mount.

  “Gasquar!” She heard Saxxe Rouen’s roar and with a frantic glance over her shoulder, she saw him untangling himself from his blanket and scrambling to his feet. She kicked her horse into motion and went racing down the hillside and across the wide, treeless slope below the small cliff, with Lillith not far behind.

  They rode hard for a while, racing over hills and around thickets of trees, heading straight for the hills Saxxe Rouen had pointed out the evening before. Time and again, Thera glanced back over her shoulder, expecting to see him bearing furiously down on them. But there was only the chilled, gray landscape behind them.

  After a while, they found themselves by a clear, rocky stream at the bottom of a steep valley. They dismounted to water their horses and fill their empty stomachs with water. She caught Lillith staring at her disheveled hair and scowled at her.

  “Don’t ask,” she commanded irritably, tossing the soft mass over her shoulder.

  “I didn’t say a thing.” Lillith sniffed, moving behind Thera to drag her fingers through Thera’s hair and restore some order to it. She felt Thera shiver at her touch and her eyes widened. “I don’t see any bruises.”

  “Bruises?” Thera stiffened and turned partway.

  “Of course, not all men—” Lillith bit her lip and frowned. “But I thought, being a barbarian, he would be—” She halted, flushed, and began to weave Thera’s hair into a loose single plait that began at her shoulders. “As soon as we reach Thomas Rennet’s, I’ll see you have a good warm bath. I’m sure you’re sore as—”

  “Sore?” Thera frowned, then her eyes widened as she realized what Lillith meant. The consequences of a first mating were not unknown to her; she had received a thorough education in all things pertaining to the life of her people. Lillith believed she had actually . . .

  “Lillith Montaigne, I shall say this only once,” she said emphatically. “He is a vile, loathsome barbarian. I did not go to his blankets willingly . . . and once there, I surrendered absolutely nothing to him. There was nothing for you to count.”

  Lillith tucked her chin, looking chastened, but as Thera turned back to her horse, she mumbled: “Your hair says otherwise, Princess. And, whether you enjoyed it or not, you made the bargain. And I have to count it.”

  Moments later they were splashing through the rocky shallows of the stream. As they started up the other bank, Thera looked up to the hilltop ahead and jerked her horse to a halt, putting out a hand to stop Lillith.

  On the crest sat a group of men on horseback, watching them. There were at least half a dozen, all wearing black. With a blink and a squint, Thera could make out mail hauberks . . . swords and pikes. Her stomach contracted. Black. They were garbed and armed just like the soldiers yesterday.

  The one in front pointed to her and said something that set the others laughing. She looked down at her white gown . . . so visible. So visibly rich. Her heart gave a convulsive lurch in her chest and she wheeled her horse, crying out: “Ride, Lillith! Ride!”

  “W-where?” Lillith managed to shout as she too jerked her horse around and dug in with her heels.

  Where indeed? There was no time to think, only to act on raw instinct. They were up the first hill and down, with the sound of hooves thundering behind them, before Thera realized where her instinct was taking her. They had only one hope . . . only one place to go....

  * * *

  Saxxe had stood with his fists clenched and his chest heaving, watching Thera of Aric racing off across the mist-shrouded hills. She was gone. And with her went all of his hopes for a fat profit. The realization made him as surly
as a bear roused in winter. He muttered and snarled as he strapped on his cross braces, belt, and daggers, then kicked his blankets into a messy, dusty roll. Gasquar watched with a scowl as he packed up his own furs and went to saddle his horse.

  “Are you angered because the night was so bad, mon ami . . . or so good?” he said with a wry chuckle, breaking the fierce silence.

  “She’s a witch . . . with the face of an angel and the tongue of an adder,” Saxxe declared, throwing his sleeping roll down beside his horse. “A temptation conjured by the Devil himself to beset and confound mankind. Naught but trouble. We’re well rid of her.” He spread a felt saddle pad on his mount’s back and paused, glaring off in the direction she had ridden. “There is never a profit in rescuing demoiselles in distress. If I forget that hard-won bit of wisdom again, Gasquar—for God’s sake, take a club and beat some sense into me.”

  Gasquar laughed softly, listening to Saxxe’s fury and reading in his curt, hot movements the unquenched fires still smoldering in his loins. So he had not taken his pleasure of the fiery demoiselle after all. Gasquar shook his head in both sympathy and disbelief. To have had such a creature in his blankets all night without enjoying her . . . it would ruin any man’s temper. “Come, mon ami, have a bite of food. A full belly helps you forget the hunger in your loins.”

  As they sat down on the stones to devour a handful of oats, the rumble of distant hooves broke in on them. They exchanged looks of surprise and straightened to scan the nearby terrain. Suddenly two riders, bent hard to their mounts, appeared over the crest of the hill on the far side of the valley. Saxxe shot to his feet, shading his eyes.

  White . . . a blur of white was visible on one horse.

  “Dieu—It’s her,” he declared, his scowl deepening as he strode toward the edge of the cliff. As Gasquar joined him, the cause for her mad flight appeared on the crest of the hill behind her. Horsemen—a hasty count yielded half a dozen—armed and riding hell-bent after her. “Damnation!” Saxxe roared. “Didn’t I tell you? Here she comes—with trouble on her tail yet again!” But Gasquar saw Saxxe’s face lighting with a devilish grin.