Stranger in Camelot

by Deborah Smith

  “The hell you do,” he said, his voice becoming lethal. “The worst things you’ve ever had to face were humiliating articles about you and your husband in the newspapers, and parents who gambled away every penny you earned.”

  Her head shot up. “You looked up old articles about me?”

  “Yeah. So I know the truth.”

  “You knew all along!”

  Looking satisfied, he rubbed both hands up and down on his wet torso. “I wasn’t considered one of the best detectives in London for nothing. I’m very thorough.”

  “You pretended that you didn’t know!”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against a wall, then propped one foot over the other. Even naked, with his sex lying against his thigh like a soldier who never stood at less than parade rest, he looked casual. “I assumed you’d tell me eventually. You trusted me. I deserve to be trusted, Agnes.”

  Aggie threw the bag of cookies at him. They bounced off his shoulder.

  Surprise flashed across his face but he quickly subdued it. “Make you feel better?” he inquired.

  “Not even close.” She reached into the grocery bag then hurled a package of bologna at him. He intercepted it with one hand then tossed it aside.

  But the overripe tomato she threw next caught him squarely in the stomach. He winced as the pulpy tomato pieces slid down his belly. The bulk of the tomato fell onto his sex and hung there precariously, then tumbled to the stall’s bed of wood shavings.

  Next Aggie threw a dripping slice of cold watermelon at him. Fierce with dignity, he stopped defending himself and, standing with his feet braced apart, endured the watermelon slice bouncing off his stomach. She followed it with an open cup of vanilla yogurt that splattered white goo on his chest, and finally a bag of pretzels that burst against his hard thighs.

  “Enjoy your lunch,” she told him curtly. “I’ll be back around dark.”

  “You can’t leave me here.” He lunged forward, barely stopping before he choked himself. Only John Bartholomew could look anything but ridiculous covered in food stains. With a roguish beard shadow darkening his jaw, his dark wet hair tousled as if by the turbulence inside him, and his hazel eyes blazing challenge above a mouth set in granite, he hadn’t been humiliated.

  “Oh, can’t I?” she countered. “Watch me.”

  “What are you after?” he asked in a soft, deadly voice. “I deserve your hatred for deceiving you, but not for who I am. Those books belong to me. Don’t forget it.”

  “If it weren’t for my grandfather, they’d have been lost in the war. So they’re half mine!”

  “Bloody hell! If that’s what you expect me to agree to, give up.”

  “Before I found out the truth, I expected miracles from you. Congratulations. You had me believing that chivalry wasn’t dead.”

  “You loved it. All that was left was for me to get a suit of chain mail and a white charger, and you might have loved me. But I was never Sir Miles of Norcross. I was just the modern stand-in, a man who played out your fantasy, and you wanted the fantasy.”

  Stunned, she shook her head weakly. Hadn’t he seen how much she’d cared about him, even when he was brutally human, even that night he’d fought the muggers? “You don’t really believe that. You’re trying to make me feel guilty.”

  “Admit it, Agnes, you used me. You set impossible standards for the ideal man—the only man you were willing to trust. You couldn’t find that man anywhere but in an ancient book. I was an acceptable substitute, but second best.”

  “Do you have any idea what Sir Miles wrote about in his diary?”

  “No.” He scowled. “Forget about that bloody fantasy and talk about your feelings for me. That’s all I need to know!”

  “My feelings for you?” Tears were creeping into her eyes. “You don’t have any right to ask about them. You don’t have any rights at all, at the moment.” She went outside the stall, where she’d piled his clothes and shoes. Grabbing his khaki shorts and their belt, she went back and slung them at him. “There’s a little of your dignity back. That’s all you’re gonna get from me.”

  “That’s enough.”

  “Tonight I’m going to read you some of the words your ancestor wrote. I want to make sure you don’t go back to England without hearing how an honorable man treats a woman.”

  “Lectures don’t go well with captivity.” He pointed at her warningly. “Take the chain off me, or you’ll regret it.”

  “You can spend the whole afternoon thinking about tonight. Enjoy yourself.”

  “This plan of yours won’t do a damned bit of good. I don’t care what my glorious ancestor thought about honor and chivalry. He never had to deal with a red-haired witch who chained men to barn walls. He’s a fantasy built up in your imagination. I was never him.”

  She felt as if she were being torn apart. Every muscle in her body was clenched with control. Her voice quivering, she told him, “Two weeks ago I met the most gentle, caring, patient man I’ve ever known. He didn’t come from my imagination and I didn’t find him in a book. But you’re right—he wasn’t real. I’ll never see him again. I’ll look at you and think how much I miss him.”

  The fierce expression on John’s face told her she’d upset him more than she’d ever expected. “You can keep me chained up in your barn, Agnes. You can give me your lectures. You can try to humiliate me. I grant you that. But I’ll make you think you’ve got a tiger on a leash by the time I’m through. If you’re determined to believe I’m a bad man, I’ll show you how bad.”

  “You only have a radius of about four feet to be bad in,” she retorted, pointing at the chain. “So I’m not too worried.”

  His slow, slit-eyed smile almost unnerved her. “You’ll worry,” he promised.

  John spent the long, hot afternoon sitting on the floor with his arms propped on updrawn knees and his head leaned back against the wall. Lost in anguished thought, he was only dimly aware of the chain dragging at his neck. Sweat snaked down his torso. He wadded the shorts up and used them as a pillow. If Agnes thought he was self-conscious about his body, she was wrong.

  His legs and rump were plastered with wood shavings. He looked at himself, at his skin itchy with food residue despite the washing he’d done with the jug of water, at the shavings stuck in his body hair like large pieces of confetti. What Agnes had done made him furious. But more than ever he knew why he wanted her.

  Only Agnes Hamilton would have had the sheer gall to do this to a man. He loved that outrageous part of her personality. He loved her, and knowing that he’d probably lost her forever made him want desperately to turn the calendar back two weeks and start over.

  Hello, I’m John Bartholomew, and I’m going to make you fall in love with me, just as I am—not a gentleman, but also not a liar. And the books be damned.

  But she wouldn’t have wanted him then, would she? He could have had any number of women who’d have been thrilled with him as he really was, but he’d had to pick the only one who wanted a reincarnated knight of the realm.

  That hurt. He wouldn’t let her see how much.

  The late afternoon shadows made his pulse quicken. She’d be back soon, with her lectures and her pride. He had to shake up her attitude and make her admit that there’d been times, especially in bed, when she hadn’t wanted a gentleman at all.

  He picked up his long leather belt, looped it through the buckle, and began plotting.

  Nine

  She hadn’t expected him to be quiet and attentive. Was it possible he’d decided to listen, really listen? As Aggie hung an electric light and its extension cord in her corner of the stall she watched him from the corner of her eyes. Her stomach was in knots and every muscle in her body hummed with tension. Her eyes were grainy from crying all afternoon.

  He was stretched out on his side, facing her, with his head propped on one hand. He’d cleaned himself up and put on his shorts. When she’d come into the stall after feeding the mares, he’d given her a thumbs
-up and said gruffly, “Sexy outfit, Madame Warden.”

  Her floppy red sundress was faded and had a permanent horse-liniment stain on the skirt. She’d meant it to be comfortable, and she didn’t think its loose, square bodice showed enough of her breasts to be considered sexy. While she sat down in the corner and tucked her bare feet under her, she kept eyeing John cautiously.

  “Just shut up and listen,” she ordered.

  He raised a hand, palm up, as if inviting her to put chivalry in his grasp. Then he stretched his arm along his side and idly hung the hand over his hip.

  He’s too relaxed, a tormented little voice warned in the back of her mind. But she wanted to believe he wanted to please her, that he felt a little sorry for using her to get close to the books.

  Aggie set the stack of notebook pages in her lap and unclipped them. “Your ancestor loved his wife dearly,” she began.

  “The marriage was probably arranged by their parents or guardians. Most were, back then.” John didn’t sound belligerent, just factual.

  Aggie flipped a page and read softly, “ ‘I have never owed so great a debt as to your father, for sending you to me all those years ago, dear Eleanor. What had once been a duty to me was immediately a joy, the second I beheld you. And when I learned you felt the same, I thought my heart would burst with happiness.”

  John lifted his brows in a gesture of acceptance. “They were lucky. But what has this got to do with me?”

  “He was wonderful to her. And she adored him. Listen.” Aggie read, her voice trembling, “ ‘And though my deceptions had you wondering if our marriage was nothing but a means to gain land and power, you know now that all my gentleness was no sham. I loved you from the start, though you didn’t want to hear it, fearing it was a lie.”

  “You’re saying Sir Miles wasn’t as honorable as he seemed, eh?”

  “No, I’m saying he never wanted to hurt Eleanor, no matter what the original reasons were for him wanting to marry her. From what he wrote, he had political reasons, at first. Eleanor’s father was a Norman count with connections to the King of France. But Sir Miles fell in love with Eleanor, also.”

  “Are you saying I’m not like good old Sir Miles, because I wanted to hurt you? No. Never. You don’t want to believe it, that’s all.”

  Aggie turned more pages, searching her grandfather’s translation through tear-filled eyes. “Why don’t you stop making pointless remarks and simply listen?” She cleared her throat. “ ‘I am doomed, sweet Eleanor. I am betrayed, and doomed. I will die here in this tower, without ever seeing you again. But keep our children safe and tell them that I love them, and you, and have them tell their children, and every generation after that, so every soul you and I create for centuries to come will know the power of our love.”

  John was silent, this time. She looked at him, her eyes burning. In the shadows his face was unreadable, but he was very still. “He died,” she whispered. “But his and Eleanor’s love didn’t die. That’s what’s inside you. That’s what I wanted you to know. You’re carrying something precious inside you. You weren’t meant to dishonor it.”

  “I haven’t,” John said in a low, emotional tone. “I came to get those books, but not to ruin your life.”

  “Oh, John,” she said in despair, and covered her face with both hands, “Don’t make excuses for what you wanted.”

  She dumped the note pages off her lap and stretched her feet out in front of her, her toes curled as if even they were drawn up in her misery. She bent over and cried softly into her hands.

  “Agnes, don’t. Please.”

  John’s voice was throaty. She looked up, uncertain. He lay on his stomach, still facing her, his chin on the back of one hand. He held out a hand, palm up again, beckoning to her. She studied the distance between her toes and his hand. Nearly an arm’s length separated them. He couldn’t touch her, even if she wanted him to.

  She moved a few inches to the right, not liking the confusion that churned in her. Crossing her feet at the ankles, she leaned back against the barn wall, wiped her face roughly, then reached for her grandfather’s notes, to begin reading again.

  John moved his outstretched hand so fast, it was only a flash on the edge of her vision. He jerked hard on something in the wood shavings. A loop of smooth leather caught Aggie’s heels. In the same motion he snapped his hand forward, and the loop flipped over her feet. He jerked again, and it cinched tight around her ankles.

  Everything happened in no more than two seconds.

  Aggie screamed as he rose to his knees and threw his weight backward, with both hands wrapped around his end of the leather strap. His belt! she realized frantically. He’d made a loop of his belt, buried it in the wood shavings, and waited to catch her like a rabbit in a snare.

  “Come here,” he commanded in a growling tone. “Let’s really talk.”

  He pulled her to him smoothly, despite her fierce wiggling and the way she dug the heels of her hands into the stall’s bed as brakes. When he clamped both hands on her ankles she knew she couldn’t escape.

  While she yelled incoherently and tried to get her balance enough to sit up, he bound her feet with the belt and snugged it tightly. “Come here,” he said again, with more authority.

  Latching his hands under her knees, he dragged her protesting, writhing body into his corner as if he were a lion dragging a deer into his den. She finally managed to shove herself upright, but he caught her forearms and hoisted her off balance again. She lurched sideways in his powerful grip, and suddenly he had her pinned on her back.

  Aggie hissed at him and struggled desperately, but above her his calm, dark eyes were set in an unyielding frown. He angled a long, hard leg over her twisting legs and lay down on top of her.

  His weight effectively smothered her movements, though he wasn’t hurting her, she realized in amazement, even with the hard grip of his hands on her wrists. With his face so near hers that she felt his breath on her mouth, he said in a low, steely voice, “If you really think I’m so bad, you ought to be afraid of me now.”

  “I’m not afraid of you,” she retorted, her breasts straining against the pressure of his arms as she tried to catch her breath. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll ever trust you again.”

  “You’ll trust me, Agnes. By God, you will admit that I’m not a criminal, at least.”

  He rolled her onto her stomach in one swift motion, as if he were flipping a log. When she dug her hands into the bedding and tried to scramble away he clamped one hand to her shoulder then sank the other into the back of her thin cotton sundress.

  She gasped with shock when he ripped the material to her waist. “My dress!” she cried furiously. It wasn’t that she cared about the dress, but she couldn’t believe what he was doing.

  “I’ll buy you a new one,” he said in a gritty voice.

  Aggie tried to clench her arms to her chest, but he tugged the dress down to her elbows, then pried her arms down and jerked the dress to her hips. She wriggled forward as if she were a beached fish, but her movements only helped him work the dress down her legs and over her bound feet.

  Rage filled her as she felt the balmy night air on her bare skin. She was wearing nothing but white cotton panties under the sundress.

  “Now we’re equally exposed,” he told her. He clamped his hands around her waist and pulled her to him again. She twisted to face him and swung at him with one hand.

  He grabbed her wrist, whipped his other arm around her so that her free arm was pinned by her side, and pressed her down on the bedding again. This time his naked torso was against her bare breasts. He wore only the shorts, and without the belt they hung so far down his belly that she could feel most of him against her outer hip.

  When she drew her knees up and arched her back to fight him, he wrapped his leg over her again and hugged her into the curve of his body. She couldn’t tell if he was aroused or not; she couldn’t think clearly enough to notice. Aggie was practically spitting at him and making gut
tural fighting sounds in the back of her throat.

  “Stop it,” he ordered. “I want to talk, not growl at each other.”

  She glared up at him and grew silent, though she continued to flex and squirm. His mouth was a hard thin line, and his eyes were nearly black with emotion as they met hers. But now that she was so close, she saw something else in his gaze. Unmistakable sorrow.

  “Do you think I’m capable of hurting you?” he asked. A muscle popped in his jaw. When she bit her lip and refused to answer, he shook her gently. “Agnes, you know I’m in control of you now. You know I can do anything I want to you. Do you think I would?” His hand tightened on her wrist. “Do you really think I’m capable of that?”

  “No!” The word flew out of her before she realized she was going to say anything. It had a ragged, fervent sound. A sound of complete conviction.

  She felt him tremble. His reaction quieted her as nothing else could. Stunned, she watched his expression soften a little. Was there relief in his eyes?

  Aggie felt tears of confusion sliding down the sides of her face. “No,” she repeated, her voice breaking. “I don’t think you could hurt me in any physical way. I can’t even picture it. There! Are you satisfied? That doesn’t mean I trust you in any other way.”

  “Thank you for that, at least. Thank you.” He shut his eyes and bowed his head over hers, almost touching his forehead to hers. She began to break apart inside, and chided herself for being such an easy mark. No apology of his would make up for what he’d done, the glib way he’d made her fall in love with him when all he’d wanted was to find out if she had Sir Miles’s books.

  When he looked at her again, his expression was stern. “I didn’t intend to hide anything from you when I arrived here. I fell into a trap because I wanted to learn more about you. I couldn’t have told you the truth and then expect to become your friend. Too much was at stake.”

  “Money,” she retorted, her body stiffening with new anger. “You wanted to make sure nothing stood in the way of you getting those books, because they’re valuable.”