He looked at her finally then, his eyes alight with emotion. With…with tears.
Her heart contracted.
Her brother—who led scores of men into battle, who feared nothing, who stood against the greatest foes and came out victorious—studied her now, his eyes swimming with tears.
“I could have lost ye, Ena.” His voice broke and he hung his head, putting his fingers to his eyes and pinching away the tears. “I saw that bastard fighting ye and I thought…” He shifted his attention from her to somewhere across the room and was quiet for a long moment. “Ye’re all I have left.”
Whatever verbal lashing she had expected, dreaded, would have been far more welcome than this. The emotional onslaught cut her deeper than any retribution he could have exacted. She put her hand to her chest, but it did not stem the ache flowing within.
“Bran.” She reached for his shoulder.
He flinched from her, his eyes dry once more, his expression stern. This was the Bran she knew.
“What ye did was foolish, Ena. Ye undermined my authority in front of my men and ye put yerself at risk.”
A bit of blood seeped through his dingy linen sleeve.
“Bran, ye’ve been injured.” She reached for it, but he pulled away again.
“Aye, struck by an English bastard when I thought ye were going to be run through.” He stared sharply at her. “This is why I dinna want women going into battle with us. No’ because ye’re no’ strong, but because it keeps the men from focusing on their own fights out of fear for those they love.”
Bran had been injured because he was distracted. Because of her.
She curled her hand into a fist so her short nails bit into her palms. Even the man she’d fought against had let his weapon lower once she’d cried out in a voice that was distinctly feminine. He’d even taken care in disarming her with a move that had not left so much as a red mark upon her skin.
My dagger. Irritation nipped at the back of her mind. She’d lost her bloody dagger.
“I promised to keep ye safe,” Bran said, his tone softer. “I will always keep that promise.”
“Ye were a lad,” Ena said through the tension in her throat. “We were both bairns.” She reached for his injured side once more. “Come, let me see to that.”
He lifted his arm and held it aloft from her outstretched hand. “Dinna put yerself at risk again, aye?”
She sighed, the heavy exhalation a mix of resignation and disappointment and hurt. “Aye.”
But even as she said it, her heart was not behind the vow. Not while Bran was still at risk. How could she not do something to help?
Reiving was always a game of loss and recovery as much as it was about theft. Renault rode over the Scottish border under the cover of darkness with ten other Englishmen. It was likely all they’d need to reclaim some of their cattle as well as steal a few of the Scot’s livestock.
Renault, however, would not be joining the reivers. Instead, he would be spying on the Scots for the English Middle March Warden. The Earl of Bothbury had personally assigned him with reporting details of the land, the number of residents, the weapons they kept.
It was a task Renault had been handling for months with each border town in Scotland. He noted homes, castles, defenses, fortifications; whatever might be useful to Lord Bothbury.
While the earl had not specifically promised to do so, Renault knew if he pleased the warden, he might one day be offered a coveted position as castle guard. Such a position would afford him the opportunity to live high up in the Kershopefoot Castle and wear the bold red livery that would proclaim him as one of the earl’s men.
He recalled seeing those men when he’d been a lad—a scrap of a beggar on the street, a nobody so insignificant he was virtually invisible. Someone had commented on the soldiers when they passed, saying those men deserved respect for they were men of honor.
That phrase had stuck in Renault’s mind. Men of honor. He’d been an orphan with nothing, whose dreams didn’t exist beyond the next day.
Ever since that moment, he’d known he wanted to be one of the warden’s men. And now, for the first time in his life, he was so damn close.
The clouds cleared away from the moon, leaving its satiny white glow to highlight the terrain in front of Renault and the ten English reivers. It was challenging to travel thus. They could see well enough, aye, but with no shadows to blend into, they were left exposed and at risk of being caught.
Thus far, they had encountered no Scotsmen, which only confirmed Renault’s suspicion—the reivers were most likely on another raid in England. If they were fools enough to return to the same village, this time they would find an army waiting.
The homes in Castleton were more scattered than those in Renault’s village and the heavy smoky scent of burning peat lingered in the air. Several pele towers dotted the landscape; one of them doubtlessly held the stolen cattle.
The pele towers were admittedly a clever way of keeping livestock safe. A round stone building with small windows and only one barred entrance. A second floor with a removable ladder protected people from being slain in an attack. The pele towers could be breached, but not easily, and they were nearly impossible to burn. The fortifications were so ingenious that several villages in England had begun to copy the design. Renault had even gone so far as to suggest it to the Earl of Bothbury, who had taken it under careful consideration.
The men around Renault broke away at the first tower, while he rode on through the quiet village. It was dangerous being on his own, but the hour was late, and most people would be asleep. He’d finished gathering what was needed, preparing to return back to England, when the bleat of a goat caught his attention.
He stopped his horse and strained to listen. It came again, a lone warbling call. This time, he located the sound from behind the whitewashed wall of a stable.
Renault had the information he’d set out to find, or at least how the simple huts were laid out in the village with a ready count and an estimation to the number of people who resided within. Might as well bring a fat goat with him in addition to the information.
He followed the sound and found a heavy wooden door affixed to the stable. A swift push confirmed it was secured from within. Locks were too costly for these people. No doubt someone had latched it from inside.
No matter, even that was easily navigated.
He jumped up and caught his weight on the frame of the door. With one arm, he awkwardly patted the back of the door, found the latch and released it. The door swung open with him still attached.
“Stealing this goat might be the verra thing that gets ye killed.” A woman’s voice broke the silence.
He dropped from the door and spun around, dagger in hand.
“Is that my dagger?” the woman cried indignantly.
He looked up and found the dark-haired woman from the previous night standing in front of him. Ena. Only this time, she wasn’t draped in a shapeless gambeson and her hair wasn’t bound away from her face. Nay, it fell down her back like a cloak of black silk, sweet waves so glossy, it made his fingers long to skim over such lovely tresses.
Her eyes flashed at him, long lashed and passionate. She wore only a simple nightdress, a white shift that caught the moonlight behind her and limned the shape of her body in a sensual shadow. Narrow waist, slender thighs, flared hips, full breasts.
God’s teeth.
“Get yer eyes back in yer skull before I pluck them out.” She put her hands on her hips. “And give me back my bloody dagger.”
She stood before him with her vengeful beauty, a mischievous fairy who had blended the loveliness of a woman with the strength of a warrior for an intoxicating blend of temptation unlike anything Renault had ever before known.
“Tell me your name.” He already knew it. He’d heard the man call out to her. Her husband?
He hoped not.
“When I see ye in hell, I’ll share it with ye.” She held out her hand.
�
�Are you married?” he pressed.
She scoffed and extended her outstretched hand closer to him.
He eyed the saucy minx. “If I give this dagger to you, you’ll kill me.”
“If ye keep it, I’ll kill ye to get it back.” She shrugged. “Either way, it willna bode well for ye.”
He slipped it into his belt, securing the blade in a sheath, and reached for the lead on the goat. If he’d been hoping for a fat beast to deliver to his people, he was wrong. The scrawny thing would barely feed a child. He doubted it even gave milk anymore.
He pulled at the lead and the goat strode forward on spindly legs, revealing a tabby cat snoozing lazily in a corner of the small stable.
The unarmed woman in her underclothes took a step closer, casting her completely in the silvery glow of moonlight and revealing creamy skin and a generous, rosy mouth. “Leave Maribel be.”
Maribel?
“After all the cattle you helped to steal?” He tsked. “Looks as though you should have killed me when you had the chance.”
Her cheeks flushed with color. “I shouldna have hesitated. I should have killed ye the way ye murder the Scottish, without mercy, filled with blinding hatred.”
“And you think the Scots are different?” He chuckled and strode around her with the goat.
“I’m warning ye now to leave Maribel be.” Her voice was laced with the threat. One he would not be heeding.
Which was why the punch to his head should have been expected.
3
Ena was a fighter and always had been–back all those years ago when death threatened to claim her and starvation plucked at her mortality. Now was no different, when she had nothing more than her fists and spirit to defend poor Maribel.
The Englishman shook off her blow. Strong. Determined. Usually those were traits she respected in a man. Except that no Englishman would ever be respectable in her eyes.
She reached for Maribel’s lead, but he drew it away from her.
“Damn ye.” She lashed out at him once more.
Once more, he evaded her blow. She’d knocked him down the night before. She could do so again, then grab Maribel’s lead and bring her into the hut, locking them both securely inside. Moggy hadn’t been a bit of help, the lazy beast. To think Ena had been the one to beg Bran to keep her when she was a bony kitten nearly frozen to death.
“My name’s Renault, in case you wished to know.” He grinned at her, as if they were at a festival rather than fighting over a goat.
Ena swept her leg toward his. He sidestepped quickly.
“You can’t get me with the same trick twice.” He laughed in a way that was more entertained than threatened by her.
Little did he know, he’d played right into her hand. She shoved with him so much force that he staggered back, right into Maribel’s lead, which he held taut. In the end, he tripped himself.
Ena clambered over the top of him and grabbed the rope holding Maribel from his hand. She threw it out of his reach. “Run, Maribel,” she cried.
The goat blinked, lowered her head to the close-cropped grass and nipped at the tender blades.
Renault flipped Ena over in that brief blink of an eye, pinning her to the cold, dewy ground with the weight of his body. The scent of leather and horses clung to him and mingled with the damp earth.
He framed her slender arms with his large hands so she could not struggle. “I won’t fight you,” he said.
“Ye’ll rape me instead?” She glared up at him, steeling herself for what would come next. She’d heard enough stories, seen enough victims, to know what Englishmen did to women they trapped.
“Nay.” He pulled back slightly, not enough for her to escape, unfortunately. “I would not so much as kiss you unless you wished me to.”
“I willna ever wish ye to.”
His hands were firm as they held her in place, but not painful. The heat of his body seeped through his clothes and her thin sark, offsetting the chill of the ground.
“I’m sure you’ll change your mind.” He winked at her. Actually winked at her.
Were her hands not pinned down, she would have slapped him across his fine-featured face. She hated his congenial, flirtatious demeanor, as if they were friends rather than enemies. And he was her enemy. Every Englishman was.
“I assure ye, I never will,” she vowed. “And the next time I see ye, I will kill ye.”
He gazed down at her, studying her face with an intimate closeness she didn’t care for. His breath held a spicy scent that wasn’t unpleasant and there was a softness to his gaze she didn’t want to find intriguing.
“You’ll change your mind,” he said, cocksure of himself. “Even after I steal your goat.”
His hand fumbled at his belt and her heart stopped mid-beat. He had lied. He did mean to rape her.
In that fraction of an instant where she remained frozen in place by fear, he could have taken her. But it was not her body he wanted. Instead, he lifted her dagger high into the air and brought it down swiftly.
She tensed and waited for the bolt of pain to tear through her. He leapt off her and grasped Maribel’s lead where it lay next to her hoof as she grazed.
He offered Ena a courtly bow. “Until next time, my beauty.” With that, he ran off at an easy gait with Maribel cantering after him, mouth still grinding at a bit of grass.
Ena tried to push up, but something caught at her sark, keeping her in place. A glance at her hips confirmed the dagger had not pierced her body at all but the blade had instead plunged into the earth, pinning her garment to the ground.
With a growl of anger, she grasped the hilt and yanked it from the dirt, freeing herself. She scrambled upright and dashed after him, ignoring the rocks and thistles jabbing at the soles of her feet.
But she wasn’t quick enough. He reached his horse some feet away, leapt deftly into the saddle and took off at a gallop Maribel was somehow able to match. Running to her own death.
The small goat made milk, but only barely. Not enough to placate an Englishman, no doubt. She would be good for little more than roasting. The image of Maribel skewered on a spit flashed in Ena’s mind and made her legs pump more vigorously over the ground.
“They’ll kill her,” Ena cried out with the last gasp of her breath.
The Englishman didn’t even slow.
Angry tears blurred her vision, but she continued to run despite the futility. She kept on until her muscles quivered with exhaustion and the horse slipped away in the growing distance.
Defeated, she sagged to a stop and limped her way back to the cottage, the pain of her feet dwarfed only by the ache of losing Maribel.
Once home, she closed the empty pen from within, drew a sleep-warm Moggy into her arms and entered the hut through the door connecting to the stable. There, she tended to her injured feet and made sure the fire did not go out. Despite her best efforts to remain strong, tears continued to well in her eyes at the ache of her loss. Even Moggy seemed to understand Ena’s hurt and stayed in her lap for the entire night, a fuzzy ball of body heat and comfort.
Bran did not come home until the sun had risen on the next day. Ena regarded him from where she sat by the fire with Moggy in her lap, noting the exhaustion bruising the skin under his eyes. She had to tell him about Maribel. And she hated herself for it. For her failure. A knot of emotion lodged itself stubbornly in her throat.
“Bran, I…” She shook her head. She’d practiced all night how to tell him about Maribel without crying, without confessing her encounter with the Englishman.
Renault.
“It’s about Maribel,” she said miserably.
He gave a weary nod. “Ye let her out of her pen. Aye, I know.”
“She didn’t escape, she…”
He chuckled and ruffled Ena’s hair affectionately. “That little beast would never willingly leave yer side. She’s waiting for ye by the door.”
Ena started. Maribel had returned? When? How?
Ena bit bac
k her questions and sliced off for Bran a bit of precious smoked ham she’d found at the market the day before. While he ate and readied to sleep a bit before starting his day, she slipped out of the hut. Maribel was exactly where Bran had stated—beside the front door.
The goat lifted her amber eyes to Ena, soft with adoration, jaw working at a juicy wad of grass. Ena opened her mouth, but there was no point in speaking, in asking why Renault had returned the goat to her.
“Maribel,” she whispered.
The goat bleated back and nudged her velvety nose against Ena’s hand. Through some miracle, Maribel was back home.
It was risky going to Scotland in the light of day. But then, with the way the border between England and Scotland blurred and English and Scottish alike got stuck on opposing sides, Renault would not stand out as sorely as he would deeper into Scotland.
Experience had taught him as much.
He strode through the market, ignoring the cries of the vendors around him: woolen cloth to protect one from the weather, nails from a beady-eyed man who claimed they would resist bending, alewives with their watered-down ale. None of it interested Renault. He’d learned a long time ago to set aside creature comforts and focus on a specific task.
And right now, that meant tallying the number of residents who attended market day. How many men, women and children in total and how many appeared to be armed.
Attending the market was no more dangerous than going to Ena’s hut the night before to return the goat. He hadn’t intended to do so, not until her last desperate cry that her pet would be killed. Ena wasn’t wrong. In the end, he couldn’t bring himself to allow her goat to be sacrificed, especially as thin as the poor beast was.
If he were being honest, he’d admit he hoped to gain favor with the lovely Scottish warrior. He’d never had difficulty melting women with his charm. Until Ena.
Even as he strode through the market, several women smiled at him in appreciative notice. One had even been so brazen as to wink at him.
As if she had been summoned from his thoughts, she appeared on the other side of the market street. Her gown was a dun homespun cloth that hung around her frame and her hair was bound back in a simple braid. She held a basket on her forearm as she made her way down a line of vendor’s stalls.
Ena’s Surrender Page 2
