by Meg Cabot
She was suspicious of him, surely, but what choice did the girl have, so far from home, and in such pain? Hugo felt a sudden and nearly overwhelming sense of anger toward this absent brother, who took such poor care of his womenfolk as to allow them to gad about the countryside, dressed in leather chausses and all but defenseless. He would do more than have words with Robert Crais when he returned to the manor house. Perhaps he might see that he spent a little time in the stockade, as well.
Of a sudden, Finnula capitulated, saying she would taste the medicine—if doing so would “shut him up about it.” Swallowing a rebuke, Hugo hastened to his mount to fetch her the vial in which he kept the foul-tasting stuff. She balked at the smell, then finally allowed two drops to be placed on her pink and pointed tongue. She swallowed, looking unimpressed, and then, with no little urgency, insisted they be on their way.
“For,” she said in her husky voice, “the sun is sinking fast in the west, and we’ve still a long way to go if we’re to get to Stephensgate by nightfall next—”
“And what,” Hugo wanted to know, regarding her seriously, “lies in Stephensgate?”
“Why,” she cried, as if he were the simplest man to have ever walked the earth, “that’s where I live. I must get you back to Mellana.”
“Mellana? And who is this Mellana, who holds my fate so casually in her hands?”
“Mellana is one of my sisters. I promised her I would capture a man for her, so that she could ransom him—”
Hugo was not a little disturbed to hear this. “You mean you do not intend to ransom me yourself?”
She made a moue of distaste, wrinkling her small nose in a most illustrative manner. “Of course not!” She spoke as if he’d offended her by the very thought. “When I have need of coin, I have more sensible ways of earning it.”
At Hugo’s frankly questioning look, she shrugged, then winced when the gesture jarred her sore rib. “I merely bag a deer or two, to sell at the local inn. They always have a demand for venison, and the Earl of Stephensgate’s woods are full of game—” She glanced up at him, her eyes wide at her indiscretion. “Not,” she added, speaking like a child reciting its lessons, “that I kill the earl’s game—that would be poaching. Poaching is very wrong.”
Suddenly the reasons behind her reluctance to meet up with the local sheriff became all too clear to Hugo. But he did not want to raise her hackles, not yet, and so he pretended not to have heard the slip, and said only, “You must love your sister Mellana dearly to go to so much trouble for her.”
“Oh,” Finnula replied, a shadow darkening her light eyes. “Everyone loves her. Mellana is the beauty in the family—” This Hugo found exceedingly hard to believe, for though Finnula’s beauty might not be apparent to all, it would be hard to be outdone. “She isn’t a bit like me. She wouldn’t know how to draw a bow to save her life—she is exceedingly maidenly. Or at least she was, before she met that bloody minstrel.”
“I beg your pardon?”
By way of reply, Finnula merely sighed. “But she does make the nicest beer you ever tasted—”
Hugo laughed out loud at this assertion. Beside him, Finnula shot him an aggrieved look, insisting, “You won’t laugh once you’ve tasted her ale. Mellana has a true gift for brewing—”
“And will I taste her ale?” Hugo wanted to know.
She looked arch. “Oh, I’ll see that you get a tankard or two before Mel turns you loose.”
Hugo smiled down at the frank and open face beneath his, all practicality and—albeit recently restored—good humor, quite unlike any other female with whom he’d ever become acquainted. “And it is for her that you are abducting me?”
“Oh, yes.” Finnula waved a hand in irritation. “I promised her, you see, in a moment of weakness. I was distracted by all the stir over Robert’s wedding—”
“Your brother is marrying?” Hugo wondered if this was excuse enough for the lad’s woeful neglect of his youngest sister’s welfare, and decided it was not.
“Most assuredly, and to the mayor’s daughter. ’Twill be the wedding of the year. Of course, ’tis likely to become a funeral, if Robert finds out about that bloody minstrel—”
“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned that unfortunate person. Whatever did the fellow do to warrant such censure?”
She scowled. “Never mind. Suffice it to say, I made a promise to Mellana before I knew what it was she wanted me to do, and now I am stuck with it, and so are you. I hope you do not mind overmuch. I would not,” she confessed, turning her great gray eyes up at him seriously, “ever have really poked you with my knife. That was all for show. I think I did an admirable job of frightening your squire, don’t you?”
Hugo smiled down at her, thinking her impossibly young, and very naive, that she spoke so confidently and so frankly with him, not knowing the least bit about him. But then it occurred to him that perhaps she did know a bit more than she let on. She had known that he would come to the spring, and she had known that he would look over the outcropping and see her bathing—but how?
When he asked, she shrugged and looked suddenly preoccupied, and busied herself with pulling on her boots, which she’d extracted from behind a clump of violets.
“I knew by the route you were taking that you were familiar with the land,” she confessed reluctantly. “No one who has ever been in this area has not been to the spring, and no one who has been to the spring can resist going again. And besides…Well, you remind me a little of someone, and I met him much the same way as I met you—only not by knifepoint.”
This oblique reference would not be elaborated upon, however, no matter how much he pressed. Eventually, in an obvious attempt to distract him from that line of questioning, she insisted that they be on their way; that if they were not on their way soon complications of grave magnitude would ensue; and would he please turn so that she could bind his hands again?
Hugo looked down at her in disbelief. “I thought we had settled that. I looked after your wound, and you untied me—”
“But I can’t risk your riding away when my back is turned,” she declared staunchly. “Surely, as a soldier of war, you can understand that.”
Hugo stared down at her, unable to think up a reasonable argument in the face of such logic. Then suddenly it came upon him. She was a slight creature, and would do well situated in the saddle before him. He could not very well run away when she was seated right there with him.
He put the suggestion in just such a light, and though she balked at first, he knew it was just for show. Finnula Crais was a young lady who liked having things her own way, and she seemed quite keen on keeping his hands tied behind his back. Hugo wasn’t certain if she considered having his hands tied a means of keeping him from escaping so much as a way of ensuring that those hands wouldn’t wander where they weren’t supposed to. Despite her earlier exhibitionism in the pool, Finnula was not without an inconvenient amount of modesty—quite a surprising trait, Hugo found, in a kidnapper.
Eventually Finnula capitulated, but only after some more grumbling about how she ought to have gagged him from the beginning, and how she’d never in her life met such a verbose knight.
“Aren’t you,” she demanded, every bit as peevishly as Peter might have, as she cautiously loaded his sword and dagger onto her mount’s saddle pack, “supposed to be consumed with brawling and cursing and tossing bits of bone to your hounds?”
“Certainly not,” Hugo declared. “A knight is a paragon of virtue, his sole pursuit that of justice for the good of the realm.”
“Pshaw,” Finnula snorted. “I never saw such a knight.”
“That is your misfortune. I have met many such men,” Hugo lied, “and enjoyed hours of enlightening conversation at their tables.” Generally while dancing girls waved their bosoms in his face, if truth be told, but there was no reason she needed to know that.
Finnula snorted again. “I spent hours at the table of a lord once, and all I heard were belches. And h
e was an earl.”
Hugo stared at her curiously. “What were you doing, dining with an earl?”
“Never mind,” Finnula said, scowling. “You have an unnerving habit of drawing me out. I swear I never saw such a talkative soldier.”
“And I,” Hugo countered, watching disapprovingly as she tucked the trailing ends of her oversize shirt into her tight-fitting braies, “never saw such unmaidenly behavior in all my born days.”
Finnula just laughed, and placing a dainty foot in the stirrup, swung herself expertly into his saddle, the bruised rib apparently not bothering her.
“Well,” she said impatiently, looking down at him. “Are you coming, or not?”
Hugo glanced at the girl’s mare. “And what of your mount? Should we not tie her bridle to Skinner’s?”
“Certainly not,” Finnula scoffed. “Violet will follow.”
Hugo quirked up a single eyebrow. “Violet?” he repeated, with a mocking smile.
“Aye, Violet is her name, and I’d appreciate it if you’d wipe that smirk off your face. She’s as well-trained as any destrier, and better tempered besides. I’ve had her since I was a child, and I wouldn’t trade her for anything.”
Hugo smiled at the loyal indignation in Finnula’s voice. “Since you were a child, eh?” He laughed. “And what are you now, pray? You look hardly a week past your sixteenth birthday.”
When Finnula pressed her lips into a thin line, obviously determined not to allow him to goad her into losing her temper, and haughtily tossed her long hair back behind her shoulders, he laughed again. She was a little fireball, this Finnula Crais, and he was going to be hard put to keep his hands off her. Perhaps he should have allowed her to truss him up again after all.
Grinning, Hugo swung himself into the saddle behind the indignant girl, and started to reach around her narrow waist for the reins, but received a sharp slap on the backs of his hands for his efforts.
“I will hold the reins,” Finnula informed him tersely, and, indeed, she’d already gathered up the leather leads in her gloved hands. “There’s no use you holding them. You don’t even know the way.”
Hugo shrugged and placed his hands on the girl’s hips, liking the velvety feel of her leather braies beneath his fingers.
This time, he received an elbow in the midriff for his trouble.
“God’s teeth, woman,” he cursed, clutching his middle. “What was that for?”
“If you can’t keep your hands to yourself, I’ll tie them behind your back, I swear I will.”
Finnula had turned in the saddle to glare at him, and in doing so, her pert backside pressed against the front of Hugo’s braies, causing a reaction so immediate and unexpected that Hugo was momentarily nonplussed by it. Shifting so that she would not become aware of it, Hugo wondered at the instantaneousness of his body’s response to her touch. What was wrong with him? The girl was attractive, yes, but it seemed as if every pore in his body was crying out for her touch. This was not how he usually responded to a beautiful woman. Usually he was master of himself, and his very self-restraint was what drove women into his arms. No beautiful woman could stand being ignored, and that was the trick in attracting them. Ignore her, and she will come.
But how could he ignore this girl when every fiber in him was twitching to strain her to him? How could he ignore her when the soft fragrance of her wildly curling hair was constantly in his nostrils, the memory of her slim thighs tightening around his waist constantly in his mind? And he didn’t think it would matter if she were seated in a saddle before him or at a table in a tavern twenty leagues away; Finnula Crais, like a splinter, had worked her way beneath his skin with remarkable speed, and digging her out, he realized, was going to be no small task.
Shaking his head, aware that those gray eyes were fixed on him curiously, he clenched his teeth and tried to will himself to relax. He couldn’t let her know the devastating effect she had on him.
But it was already too late. The sooty lashes lowered over those silver orbs, and Finnula demanded, staring below his belt suspiciously, “What is that?”
“What is what?” he inquired loftily.
“That,” she said, and there was no mistaking what she was referring to when she wedged her hip up against it and lifted accusing eyes to meet his mortified gaze. “Is that a knife hilt? Do you have a weapon beneath your belt you didn’t tell me about?”
Was the girl serious? He could tell by the angry set of her mouth that she was, that she honestly had no idea what lay beneath a man’s chausses. Again, he felt a spurt of irritation against Robert Crais, for letting this child gad about the countryside in such ignorance. Surely one of those married sisters would have told her the facts of life—and yet she seemed truly annoyed that he had not surrendered to her his most prized weapon of all.
Hugo wasn’t at all certain how to proceed. He had no experience whatsoever with virgins. And this one was armed. The very thought of what she might do when he unveiled the hard object about which she was making such a fuss made his blood run cold. She seemed to have no compunction about wielding that blade at her waist—
“It isn’t a knife hilt,” Hugo said finally, unable to keep wounded dignity from creeping into his voice. After all, it was considerably larger than a knife hilt.
“Well, what is it then?” Finnula demanded. “I can’t ride comfortably with that thing poking at my back.”
Hugo opened his mouth to reply, hesitating because he was uncertain exactly how to phrase what it was he wanted to say, and was relieved to find that no further explanation was required. Suddenly Finnula’s cheeks flooded with color. Her eyes widened, and her jaw dropped. Yes, one of those five sisters had spoken to her about the facts of life. It seemed that this was the first time, however, she’d chanced upon an occasion that required her to put that information to practical use.
Turning quickly away, Finnula seized the reins, breathing a horrified “Oh!”
Hugo’s discomfort was dissipating, but his amusement over the way it had unsettled Finnula mounted as the girl’s cheeks turned an ever-deepening shade of red.
“I’m afraid that it’s a natural reaction to your proximity, demoiselle,” he said, delighting in her mortification. “Perhaps you haven’t encountered such a strong response in any of your previous prisoners—”
Finnula’s voice was so soft that he had to lean forward to hear her reply.
“I’ve never done this before,” she whispered. “You’re the first man I’ve ever—I’ve never—” She broke off, obviously frustrated. “Oh, bloody hell,” she swore, and gave Hugo’s horse a pretty vicious kick in the sides. “Just keep it to yourself, or I’ll…I’ll cut it off!”
Grinning, Hugo sat back in the saddle, well-contented with the way his day was proceeding. Who would have thought, when he’d wakened that morning in a hayrick with straw in his hair and dew in his clothes, that by evening he’d be the prisoner of so winsome a captor?
It amazed him to think that all those years ago, when he’d left England, he’d ridden right by his father’s mill, and given nary a thought to the possibility that years hence, the thatched roof might house so delectable a distraction as a Finnula Crais. He was going to enjoy his homecoming considerably more than he’d ever expected, thanks to this redheaded Valkyrie in the saddle before him, ignoring him so pointedly.
He chuckled delightedly to himself, not caring if the girl thought him mad.
Chapter Six
The insufferable knight seemed actually to be enjoying himself, and that infuriated her.
It wasn’t that she had hoped to terrify her captive, but, as a skillful—and fully armed—huntress, she did expect a little respect.
But this Sir Hugh’s constant teasing showed that he did not consider her a serious threat at all.
She did not feel as if she were the party in control, even though she was the one with the dagger. Her authority had been usurped, first when that pea-headed squire had knocked her flat, and then when she�
��d had to undo Sir Hugh’s hands so that he could tend to her wound.
That, she reckoned, had been her fatal mistake: not disarming the squire when she’d had a chance. But she’d felt sorry for him, squalling in midair, his arms flailing. She certainly never would have thought he’d have the gumption to hide a knife in his boot, let alone cut himself down. It was a drop of eight feet or more.
But he’d escaped, and she’d paid for her lack of farsightedness.
Surreptitiously pressing on her wounded side and finding it tolerably numb, Finnula supposed she ought to have thanked St. Elias for supplying her with a prisoner with so tender a touch. This Sir Hugh, despite his immense size—and alarming amount of facial hair—had surprised her with his gentleness, probing her sore rib with fingers that soothed. That brief glimpse into his true nature, the side of him that wasn’t armored in cynicism, had been enlightening.
Still, she’d have traded all his sensitivity for a more civil—and less amorous—captive any day of the week.
It wasn’t just his complete lack of fear of her that annoyed Finnula. There was something about the appraising way the knight’s hazel eyes raked her at every glance, the slightly mocking curve of his lips, half hidden beneath that tangle of beard, that unnerved her, made her feel shy. Finnula was not, as a rule, a diffident girl, and she could not understand what Sir Hugh was doing to make her feel that way. She resented him for it. Deeply.
But despite the fact that her plan had not proceeded according to schedule, Finnula had to content herself with the fact that she did, indeed, have a prisoner to bring home to Mellana. True, he was entirely too sarcastic and far too forward for Finnula’s taste.
But he would fetch a fair amount of ransom, enough to replenish her sister’s dowry, anyway, and that was all that mattered. She didn’t have to like him. She just had to deliver him. Intact.
Of course, the hardest part was going to be restraining herself from smacking him. He so roundly deserved to be put in his place, odious lecher. Imagine, pressing that…thing against her like that! The very memory caused Finnula’s cheeks to burn. How was she going to put up with behavior like that for two days and nights? He might find himself trussed like a doe and slung over Violet’s neck if he didn’t watch it.
