The Warrior's Maiden (The Warriors Series Book 2)

by Denise Domning

  A moment later he raised himself above her, his forearms braced at either side of her. Although they were stretched into the darker portion of the cave, enough light remained for her to see his face. His expression was impossibly soft.

  “Dear God, but you drive me mad with wanting you.” His voice was hoarse.

  Elianne smiled, cherishing everything about him. If moving beneath him pleased him, then she would please him well indeed. Again she arched beneath him, craving more of the sensation that ever shot through her with this.

  With a gasp he collapsed atop her, then began to move in earnest. His mouth took hers. A magnificent pressure built in Elianne’s womb, the sensation promising the explosion of joy she’d known in the garden.

  His breathing grew ragged. He drove into her. She shook, her body arching up into his at the same time her hands came to force his hips against hers. His movements quickened.

  Starting as a tiny ripple, pleasure grew until it washed over her in great, shivering waves. Elianne cried out, her voice echoing about them, then lost herself in joy. It could have been hours, days, or even years, before pleasure ebbed enough that she could think again.

  Panting, Josce relaxed atop her. His breathing slowed, but his heartbeat was a rapid pound against her breast. He shifted against her, then touched his mouth to hers.

  “‘Lianne, you have said you’ll marry me, but can you love me?” He breathed his question against her cheek.

  Elianne smiled, her hands stroking his back. “I cannot help myself. I think I already love you, and not just because you drive me mad with pleasure.”

  Josce’s chuckle was warm and deep. “You’ll love me better after we’re wed and finally have a bed beneath us. Not that I haven’t immensely enjoyed the strange venues we’ve made use of.”

  As he spoke he rolled to the side, taking her with him as he went. Elianne frowned as what they'd lain upon crackled and crunched with his movement. Scents, sweet, spiced and sharp, filled her next breath.

  “I smell pepper,” Josce said in surprise. “What are we lying on?”

  “I don’t know,” Elianne replied, sitting up beside him.

  More scents flowed into the room with her movement. She placed a hand on what covered the floor beneath them. The material owned the texture and feel of fabric that had been oiled for waterproofing.

  Shifting to sit tailor-fashion beside her, Josce reached out to pull back the end of the greased cloth. A dozen smaller, darker bundles lay beneath it. He lifted one, a tiny sack. As he brought it closer to them the air came to life with a rich, dark aroma ,strong enough to make Elianne catch her breath.

  “Mary save me,” Josce said, new excitement in his voice as he cradled the scented sack in his hand, “but that’s a smell I know. It’s cinnamon. These are the dead spice merchant’s wares! Here at last is the proof I need. Your sire leads these thieves.”

  Josce heard Elianne gag at his words. In concern he shifted toward her. She doubled over, her shoulders shaking.

  “God help me, but he did worse than simply shield the thieves,” she cried in a tight and tiny voice.

  Pitying her, Josce wrapped an arm about her and drew her into his lap. Her head came to rest against his shoulder, her pain hot against his bare skin. He stroked her hair.

  “Do you cry for him?” he asked gently, only now considering that du Hommet’s child might well have some affection for the man who sired her, despite the wrongs her father did to her and others.

  “How can I, after what he’s done?” she replied, sounding heart-sore and broken. “Yet, how can I not? It’s his blood that runs in my veins. For all my years, his life has twined with mine.”

  Catching herself, she straightened, then lifted her head to meet his gaze. Josce recognized the grief that marked her features as akin to his own. And why not? There were many sorts of deaths. For a child to realize her parent was a murderer was certainly one of them. He pushed a stray strand of her hair behind her ear.

  “I see that you ache, but there’s no surprise in your face. Did you suspect he might have done more than simply protect the brigands?” he asked. As she’d done when she comforted him, Josce made his words a quiet statement, lacking all judgment.

  “Aye,” she sighed. “I think I knew it was worse than I cared to confront when my sire did all but kneel before me at our last meeting.” Her lips tightened, then twisted in pain.

  “It was a small chore he begged me to do for him. He claimed it was easily done, that it wouldn’t take me far from Coneytrop. He told me that by doing it for him I would help him expose those who had murdered your kin. Yet, how could he know where this proof was, unless he participated in that murder?” The sweep of her hand indicated the spices. “And here we are in the middle of that very chore.”

  Then her expression hardened. “Seeing this, I understand why he panicked when I refused him. If these were discovered here in this hidden place, he would be surely and completely damned. The existence of this cave isn’t known outside of Coneytrop.”

  She drew a shaken breath. “Aye, and there was no one better than I for him to ask to remove these. Nor would I have lived long after doing his little chore. He couldn’t risk my continued existence. He knows I’m not the sort to hold my tongue when I see injustice done. You see, to save himself from the fate you promised him, he planned to publicly betray the man who put these here for him.”

  Josce frowned at this. “What makes you think anyone but your sire put this here?”

  A brief and scornful laugh escaped her. “My father can’t swim. Even if he could, or manage the climb down the wall, he’s too fat by far to come inside.”

  At her words, Josce leaned a little until he caught a glimpse of the entrance. She was right. He’d had to shove himself through the doorway, and he owned none of du Hommet’s bulk.

  As Josce considered that, he realized what he’d overlooked by keeping all his thoughts and suspicions focused on Reiner du Hommet. What the sheriff had done he hadn’t done alone. Now as Josce pondered who might have aided du Hommet in his thievery, all the fragments of what he’d learned in the past week congealed into a whole. In that instant, and as if it had lain there waiting for him to finally turn his gaze upon it, the identity of one of du Hommet’s cohorts rose before his inner eye.

  Sir Adelm was a slender man. The captain was also the man who’d accompanied du Hommet to the priory to greet Lady Haydon, when by all rights it should have been one of the deputy sheriffs. Why would du Hommet choose his captain over more highly-placed men, unless something bound them one to another? Josce’s mouth tightened. There were two things that could tie men so closely: trust and distrust.

  Out of the recesses of his memory came the way the sheriff’s captain had twice eyed him the way one might assess a potential adversary. And in Coneytrop’s hall had Sir Adelm confronted him. Then the captain had used his words like weapons, seeking out any advantage he could find. Ah, but the keystone to all this was that Sir Adelm had been seen near the battle site that day.

  A fierce joy took light in Josce. He would have it all, ‘Lianne, his vengeance and his life. All he need do was carry these spices to court and lay them, along with the tale of their discovery, before the king’s justices.

  Aye, but before he reached London, he’d have to reach Coneytrop and Haydon’s men. Of a sudden and because what he’d found was so vital, reaching that farmstead seemed the more difficult journey. Josce came to his feet, his arms around Elianne urging her to stand with him.

  “Come, my heart, it’s time we left this place.”

  Not but a quarter hour later, Josce was once again dressed, his sword now fastened on over his tunic, and leading his horse and Elianne down the hill. Hanging from his saddle was his precious proof, the oiled cloth making a stiff sack when tied shut with his tunic’s belt. Although they walked in silence, Elianne a few feet away from him, as had happened at the priory their paces matched.

  Once again savoring that strange intimacy Josce g
lanced at the woman he meant to wed. Elianne’s expression was hollow, her arms crossed tightly across her midsection. Hoping to ease a little of what ached in her, he stretched out a hand in invitation. At his movement, she glanced from his fingers to his face, then with a small smile put her hand in his. As Josce closed his fingers around hers, he smiled at the sensation. By God, but there was nothing about this woman that he didn’t value.

  With that thought, he pulled her close to his side. With a sigh, Elianne leaned against him, winding one arm around his waist. Josce draped his arm across her back to keep her close to him. So she would stay for all the rest of their lives.

  Returning to Coneytrop was a simple matter of following the base of this hill. They circled it until they met with the rutted path that led from Knabwell’s road to the sheriff’s home. From there they wended their way to the hamlet.

  Dust rose from their footsteps as they walked along the road. The raucous call of a crow was the only sound. Josce frowned and glanced out at the hamlet’s fields. Scythes and sickles lay discarded in the nearest stand of wheat, while none but the geese worked their way through the recently harvested plots. The open doors of the hovels lining the road stared back at Josce like empty eyes, even as chickens and pigs milled in peaceful domesticity before them.

  It had the look of a battle scene, the folk all gone into hiding. He glanced ahead of him. The farmstead’s wall rose up, the curve of that expanse hiding Coneytrop’s gate, although the opening lay a quarter mile farther on this path.

  “Where is everyone?” Josce asked Elianne.

  She roused herself from her painful thoughts to look about her. “I don’t know,” she replied in surprise.

  “By God, you’ll open these gates this moment!” Even though it came from Coneytrop’s distant gate, Reiner du Hommet’s burly shout was loud enough to shatter the day’s quiet.

  Elianne’s head snapped up, her eyes wide. She stopped stock still. “Mary save me, but I forgot that he had come.”

  His hand at his sword’s hilt, Josce halted, tense, his ears straining. The clank of shields hanging from saddles rose above the sounds of stamping, snorting horses. Du Hommet hadn’t come to his home alone or unarmed to demand entry.

  “What are you doing back here? Didn’t you hear me when you came the first time this day? I will not open this gate to you.”

  Josce relaxed. That scorn should fill Nick of Kent’s sharp reply meant his father’s master-at-arms didn’t believe du Hommet any threat.

  “I think me you’ll change your mind,” du Hommet shouted back, sly triumph filling his voice. “See what I managed to chase down?” Horses nickered and snorted as if the mounted men around the wall’s bend shifted. The rumbling of masculine shock followed.

  “Are you mad?” Nick shouted out, no longer sneering. “What cause have you to hold our men as your prisoners? Free them now, unless you want war with Haydon on your hands.”

  As Josce understood who it was that du Hommet held, he released Elianne’s hand. Turning to his horse, he opened the knots on his saddle pack. His rolled cloak opened enough to reveal the chain mail wrapped within it. There wasn’t time to arm. The best he could do was prepare to swing his sword. He pulled his steel-sewn gloves from his pack.

  “If you want your men, then open the gate and give me my daughter. Only then will I release them to you. Defy me and I vow I’ll spill their blood,” the sheriff shouted back.

  Cold rage curled its hand around Josce’s heart. He shoved his hands into his gloves. At Coneytrop’s gate Haydon’s men howled in protest. Beneath it ran another chord of masculine voices, the tones of concern filling the sound.

  Elianne leapt to his side and clutched his arm. “What are you doing?” Her voice was barely louder than a whisper.

  “What I must,” Josce retorted, wishing he had his shield. Without its protection he would be vulnerable, indeed. Gloves on, he turned to look upon the curve of the wallahead of him, his thoughts beginning to narrow into battle readiness.

  “You would defy me?!” Although outrage and surprise filled the sheriff’s voice, the volume of his words suggested that it wasn’t at Nick that he threw them.

  A grim smile twisted Josce’s lips as he understood. Du Hommet’s own men were counseling their better to caution. Josce lifted himself into the saddle. As the sheriff’s stolen spices bounced against his leg, myriad scents escaping it to perfume the air, he glanced at Elianne. Her face was white with fear as she looked at him, her hands now clasped as if in prayer.

  “Oh Lord help me. You mean to face them alone,” she cried at a whisper.

  “‘Lianne,” Josce started, only to fall silent as Nick once again raised his voice.

  “Du Hommet, listen to your men,” Haydon’s master-at-arms shouted out. “You cannot be so foolish as to threaten Haydon. Now release our soldiers and leave before you do aught that you’ll later regret.”

  Again, Josce looked at the woman he’d hoped to wed. The possibility that he might not survive to give her his vow woke only to be crushed under the demands of duty. “‘Lianne, I am the one who sent Haydon’s own into the arms of my enemy,” he told her gently. “I have no choice. I must free them.”

  “It’s all of you who’ll regret this,” the sheriff shouted to the troop who held his home from him. “I am the lord high sheriff of the shire.” Arrogance, outrage and desperation all tangled in his tone. “Now, you’ll do as you’re told and open this godforsaken gate. Give me my daughter, or I vow before you and God that I’ll do as I said and kill these men.”

  With a gasp, Elianne whirled in the direction of Coneytrop’s gate. Her hands were clasped as if in prayer. “Oh, please God, don’t,” she said in a low voice.

  Du Hommet’s second demand for his daughter was all the reminder Josce needed. Not even to rescue men he’d put in harm’s way could he let the woman he loved out of his protection, not when her life would be the forfeit. Aye, but saving Elianne from her sire greatly complicated matters. Du Hommet stood between them and Coneytrop’s front gate. Reaching the postern meant making a far too time-consuming circle around the farm. Unacceptable, when his men remained captive. Yet Josce meant to expose himself to du Hommet in order to win their freedom. He couldn’t do that and keep Elianne at his side.

  Or, could he? The answer to this puzzle meant an even more foolish gamble than riding disarmed across the shire. What Josce intended was a mad dash with a naked back and only the hope that Haydon’s army would catch him in time. But what choice had he?

  Shifting in his saddle, he untied his pack. He threw the cloak and the expensive armor contained within it into the verge alongside the path. Costly, the armor was, but it also weighed four stone. If he survived what he planned, he could retrieve it. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t need it.

  Elianne whirled on him. Panic sparked in her eyes. “He means to kill your men. What he does to them he’ll do to you. He’s not alone, nor is he an honorable man. If you challenge him, he’ll set his men on you rather than meet you sword-to-sword.” New fear filled her. “God help me, I must hide. Should he see me with you, he’ll believe, rightly so, that I’ve betrayed him. He’ll be beyond enraged, and seek your complete destruction.”

  Josce’s laugh was harsh and low. Now there was a defense he could use. Blind rage in a warrior could do as much damage as another man’s sword. He thrust out a hand to the woman he loved.

  “Mount astride behind me, ‘Lianne,” he commanded.

  “Are you mad?!” she cried.

  At Coneytrop’s gateway, a man’s furious shout rang out. The cry rose into a screech of pain, then dropped into abrupt silence. Raging screams followed, as Haydon’s men cursed the sheriff for doing murder.

  Dark fury woke in Josce, bringing with it the state he sought before a battle. His world constricted until all he saw was the work that lay ahead of him and the blood that must be shed. As always, it brought with it an icy emptiness that consumed all emotions.

  He snatched Elianne’s ha
nd, meaning to pull her into the saddle. She resisted.

  “Mount.” To his own ears the word sounded distant, as if he were far from himself. Her eyes widened, but she did as he told her. Even before she was settled, he urged his horse toward the bend in the wall.

  “Fasten yourself as tightly to me as you can,” he warned her as they rode, “and don’t release me, no matter what.”

  Without hesitation Elianne did as he bid and pressed herself against his back, her arms clutched about his waist. Josce walked his horse around the wall’s curve, then drew it to a halt. From here, there was about a furlong to the farmstead’s doorway. Rising above the wall top at either side of Coneytrop’s gateway, he could see the heads of a dozen of Haydon’s men, the shafts of the ladders on which they perched jutting up above the last line of stone.

  The sheriff sat upon his horse before that same gate, a dagger in his hand. Du Hommet was dressed for war, wearing his mail, although he’d forgone his helmet and coif on this hot day, baring his white hair to the sun. Twelve soldiers rode with him, the men dressed in vests of steel-sewn leather, helmets on their heads and their shields dangling on their arms. To a man, their swords were yet sheathed.

  Josce’s gaze dropped to the body sprawled upon the roadbed, one of Haydon’s soldiers. Perrin and the other two knelt beside him as blood drained from the man’s slashed throat, soaking into the earth as he died.

  At this gruesome reminder of what had been done to his sisters, Josce once again lost himself to the needs of vengeance. Ah, but this time he did so knowing he could swing his sword with impunity. It was war the sheriff had just declared on his father’s house.

  Josce loosed a piercing whistle to call all attention onto him. Defender and attacker alike turned their heads in his direction. He lifted the bundle of cloth that contained the spice merchant’s wares, then kicked his horse into a turn, so the sheriff was sure to see that his daughter rode with his enemy.