“Put away your sword!” he said sharply. “It’s your husband.”
She didn’t do so quickly enough for his taste and, incensed at her hesitation, he drew his own weapon and knocked her blade aside.
“Whose throat do you plan to slit, my bloodthirsty lady?”
She glared at him. “Any who would come upon my back,” she said meaningfully.
He lifted the corner of his lip slightly, and then grew serious. “There are renegades about. It’s not safe to come here alone.”
She tossed her head proudly. “I can defend myself.”
“So I see,” he said, gesturing to the air around them. “Your foe seems to have fled.”
“I can defend myself.”
He stared at her. Someone had obviously disillusioned Cambria about her abilities. She was overconfident, a dangerous thing in a knight. She needed a lesson in humility.
“Come, warrior wife. I’ll make you a wager,” he said.
She eyed him warily.
He tossed his sword to the ground. Then he pulled out a small dagger from his belt. “I’ll wager you cannot defend yourself against me.”
“Against that?”
He nodded.
She looked him over. “You have no armor, no shield.”
“Even so,” he said with a bow.
She pursed her lips, but her eyes flickered eagerly.
“Come,” he beckoned. “I’ll give you three chances. I’ll wager you…a kiss. If I win, you must give me a kiss.”
Cambria smirked. “And if I win?”
His lip curved up. “You won’t.”
Cambria’s brow clouded with spite. “If I win, I never have to kiss you again.”
He shrugged. “All right. Done.”
Cambria planted her feet wide, the sword poised before her. Swiftly, with good balance and aim, she came at him. But she let her shield dip, and he used that advantage to dodge the blow and move in close, ending with the point of his dagger at her throat.
“That’s one,” he told her.
Cambria flinched in embarrassment. How the devil had he seized the advantage so swiftly? Perhaps it was only luck. She backed angrily away from him.
“You’d do better to simply defend yourself,” he suggested. “A bad temper is your worst enemy. Losing control of it is a mistake common to novices.”
That infuriated her. How dare he call her a novice? She’d held sword in hand from the age of five. She’d show this cocky knight the extent of her abilities. Her speed and agility had always amazed her father. She knew if she could slip under his arm unexpectedly, she could catch him unguarded. She swept up her sword and flexed her knees in preparation.
Holden drew her attack with a threatening jab. She feigned with her shield and came from beneath with her sword, a move that usually surprised her opponents. But he took no apparent notice. His dagger flitted about her like an angry wasp deciding where to sting. She swatted at it a dozen times, but never made contact. Vexed, she lowered her shield and swung recklessly at his head.
One hard blow from the haft of his dagger knocked the sword from her grasp. He crossed his blade against her neck.
“Two,” he whispered.
Cambria was fuming now. How could she lose to a man armed with only a dagger? She retrieved her sword and braced herself again. “Come,” she snarled. “Come!”
Holden shook his head, but raised the dagger again. She waited for him to make the first move. When he did, it was so sudden she had no time to raise her shield. The dagger teased the hem of her tabard, then the buckle of her belt, then the locks of her hair, threatening every part of her.
“Use your shield!” he commanded.
His criticism infuriated her. She began slicing wildly at him, but to her frustration, not a single stroke landed on anything save the empty air.
Then, to add insult, the rogue tossed the dagger to his left hand, fending off her attack with the dexterity of a juggler.
Holden could have continued, but he was eager for his prize. He unleashed a greater measure of his power, pummeling her from all sides with the flat of the blade. While she was distracted, he wrenched the sword from her with one easy movement, and then tore her shield away with a second pass.
Cambria stood with her jaw slack, staring at her hands, wondering how they’d come to be empty.
“Three,” he said, tucking his dagger back into his belt.
She was gaping at him. He recognized that look. He’d seen it before in the young lads who frequented the tiltyard, lads who worshiped him and would later weave overblown tales for their friends about the great Wolf de Ware and his mighty sword arm. But he’d never thought to see such reverence in Cambria’s eyes. It made his heart beat faster.
For a long while, she only gawked at him, awestruck. Then she said, “It’s true, isn’t it? You’ve never lost. You’ve never met your match.”
“On the contrary, madam. I believe I have at long last met my match.”
His blood was already heated from their skirmish, and to see such naked admiration from his enemy, this enemy, fueled his desire.
“Lady,” he said in a voice just above a whisper, “beware how you gaze upon me, lest I forget the limits of our wager.”
Cambria blinked. Had she been staring at him? She swiftly glanced away, too late to hide the truth. Nervously, she licked her lips. There was still the wager to pay.
He was standing too close to her. She could hear the gentle rasp of his breath. Did he have to look at her like that, speak to her that way? His eyes were as deep and green as a loch, and his voice was like coarse ale, rough and intoxicating.
She steeled herself to pay the wager with as much dignity and as little ado as she could muster. She forced her gaze to his, determined he’d not outstare her this time.
It was a grave error. Her breath ragged, her blood warm, she was pulled to him like water to a wick. He moved closer, close enough to feel the heat emanating from his body, close enough to see the rims of his teeth between his parted lips.
Holden was thrown for an instant by the spark of desire in her eyes. He should cast water on that cinder, douse it while it was yet harmless for both their sakes, but he felt his own passion rising, and he was reluctant to arrest it.
Cambria shivered. She remembered the taste of his mouth, its warmth, its sweetness. That mouth was her undoing. Before she could stop to think of the terrible mistake she was making, she lifted her head, drew near enough to feel his breath upon her face, and gave him his due.
Holden returned her kiss, tentatively at first, drawing her out, then with more assurance. Her skin was soft and yielding, and she tasted like wild honey.
Cambria felt drawn to him with a curious hunger. His lips were doing things to her—teasing her, then beckoning her, and finally feeding voraciously on her, as if he meant to consume her soul. She clutched at his shoulders, clinging to him with a fervor she’d never known before, and her own need amazed and frightened her. She was losing control. Passion swirled around her, like a whirlpool tugging her from safe harbor. And she wanted it, wanted his kiss, his touch.
He parted her lips and let the tip of his tongue delve between them to trail fire across her tongue. She shivered, wondering how his lips would feel upon her neck, her shoulder, her breast. She wondered how they would feel lower, in the secret spot that swelled and yearned even now…
Nay! With a sudden panicked cry, she shoved him from her, staggering back. Her face turned to flame. Bloody hell, what was she doing? What was he doing to her? He was an Englishman, for God’s sake…
Still, her lips tingled from his kiss.
The brute had once tied her to his bed…
But his eyes were as dark and smoldering as warm coals.
He’d held her hostage and practically forced her into marriage…
But his hands were like silk upon her flesh.
Nay, damn him! He was responsible for her father’s death!
She drew back her fist and plo
wed it into his face, hard.
Holden caught the blow on his cheek. It knocked his head around, stunning him for a moment. By the time he collected his wits enough to yell after her, she was halfway to the castle, tears streaming down her face, cradling her throbbing knuckles.
Holden took out his frustrations on the quintain in the tiltyard, tearing the straw-stuffed dummy to shreds.
He should have known better. Cambria was nowhere near ready to concede the battle. Lord, what was wrong with him? His own astonishing lack of control left him feeling foolish. Not since he was a lad had he felt so incapable of subduing that beast in his trews.
And she’d struck him! Not the chiding slap he’d grown used to in his youth when he’d taken a few too many liberties, but a close-fisted, hard-swung punch. Ballocks! How was he going to explain a bruised cheek earned the day after his wedding?
He spurred Ariel hard across the field and drove his lance at the quintain so fiercely that it spun like a child’s toy and broke.
From the haven of the solar, Cambria shivered as she witnessed Holden’s violence in the practice yard. Her knees grew weak. Had she actually dared to strike him, that fierce warrior dispatching knight after knight on the field below?
She swallowed reflexively as he turned his well-muscled steed, and the two thundered across the field as one beast. How like his horse he was—lean and firm and powerful. She remembered how dangerous those arms felt around her. Her heart quickened at the vivid memory.
As she watched, he swung a blunted mace forward with such force that his Gavin opponent was catapulted backwards from his mount, landing with a deadly thud on the sod. She gasped, digging her fingers into the cold stone of the sill. Had the Wolf killed one of her men? The lad lay silent, still as a winter pond.
Before his steed had even skidded to a halt, Holden leaped from its back. He dropped the mace, tore the helm from his head, and rushed to the boy, falling to his knees in the dust. Cambria watched as he gingerly lifted the lad’s shoulders and removed his helm. The boy’s slack face was as pale as cream. She clasped her hand over her mouth in horror.
The Gavin men gathered round, concern etching their brows. Holden ignored them, riveted instead on the lad in his arms. He patted the boy’s cheeks and said something to him she couldn’t hear. As he lay limp across Holden’s knees, the ominous hush stretched like a drawn bow. Cambria held her breath.
Then the boy gasped, filling his lungs with a loud rasp that reached across the silence all the way up to Cambria’s window. The men chuckled in sheepish relief, and Holden tousled the lad’s hair as if he were a favorite nephew. Half sick with worry and relief and disgust at men’s deadly play, Cambria reeled from the window, collapsing back against the cool rock wall.
When she recovered enough to look again, Holden was sparring on foot with her knights, guiding their sword thrusts, shouting encouragement, blocking their advances with a crossed blade. He’d lined them up in two rows, an arm’s width apart, and at Holden’s command, they advanced in unison. She narrowed her eyes. Never had her force appeared so well ordered, so formidable.
Now the Wolf tossed aside his sword and threw down his helm, facing them bare-headed and bare-handed but for a shield. She straightened, a queer prickling at the back of her neck. What arrogant game was this?
Six of them attacked at once, and her eyes widened. Was the man mad? Mere weeks ago, they would have called him enemy. Now he dodged their assault single-handedly with nothing but a chunk of leather-covered wood, leaving his bare throat as a target for their blades.
She anxiously fingered her own throat. She’d been close enough to the Wolf to see the pulse of his lifeblood. Invincible warrior he might be, but he was as mortal as any man. Why would he leave himself so vulnerable?
The answer came reluctantly to her mind.
He was a man of honor. Only true honor would make a man so foolish. He believed in chivalry, and he expected it from the men he battled, even the Scots.
She picked at a crack in the wall. If honor came so naturally to him, how could he have been a part of her father’s betrayal and murder?
The answer was clear. He had not been a part of it.
The Wolf would not scheme to take a castle by wiles—he would storm it by force. The Wolf would not intrigue to gain an alliance—he would command it. And above all, as she’d begun to sense, the Wolf would never have…
She closed her heart against the truth, wanting to blame him, needing to hold onto her hatred like a knight needed his sword, but already she felt it slipping inexorably from her grasp, bit by thwarting bit.
Holden hadn’t killed her father.
Cambria shut her eyes. In some corner of her mind, a burden lifted, and she no longer felt so torn between vengeance and…and that other emotion that tugged at her heart like a puppy on a leash, the one she couldn’t quite define, the one that made her throat go dry when he stood too close, that left her scarcely able to breathe when his lips touched hers and quickened her pulse as she remembered the feel of his strong hands. She had no name for it, this feeling that, cleared of polluting revenge, seemed as new and awkward as a colt on its first legs.
But it was there, buried deep within her soul, a queer stirring of pride perhaps, as she looked down again at her brave husband, who had somehow managed to knock every one of her knights to the ground like skittles on a bowling green.
So caught up was she in her reverie that she didn’t hear Katie enter the solar.
“Ah, there ye are,” the maid trilled.
Cambria started back guiltily from the arrow loop, all too aware of her face’s glow.
“Why, lass,” Katie began, “whatever..?” The maidservant made her way over to the opening and peered below, a knowing smile curving her lips. “Ah, he’s a fine fighter, your lord, is he not?”
Cambria shrugged.
“And I’ll wager ye might be havin’ second thoughts about that bargain ye made.”
Flustered, Cambria turned on her, her scarlet skirts twirling about her like storm-tossed roses. “How dare you speak of such things!”
Katie appeared unruffled by her tone. “I nursed ye when ye were but a bairn, lass. Ye may be the wife of a lord now, but I remember when ye soiled yer linens with the rest o’ them. The day I may not speak my mind to ye is the day I’ll leave.”
Cambria chewed at her lip, duly reprimanded.
“Ah, lass, why do ye torture yerself so? He’s a good man and not unpleasant to look upon. I’ve heard it bandied about that the de Ware brothers are more than capable between the sh-“
“He’s an Englishman!” Cambria reminded both Katie and herself. But the words felt strangely flat and meaningless on her tongue. “I won’t suffer him to touch me.” She closed her eyes against the clear memory of their kiss only this morning.
“Malcolm is most certain your lord had no part in the deception that killed your father,” Katie confided, pulling a rag from the pocket in her surcoat. “I’d wager ye’d know the truth as well, if ye’d listen to yer heart. Another of his men, perhaps, a betrayer, but not the lord himself. He’s a man of honor. He’d never resort to such treachery. Ye’ve seen the loyalty he inspires, even in our own folk.”
Cambria had seen it. The Gavin knights had never fought so well as they did under the lord’s painstaking hand.
“But ‘tis of little matter now, I suppose.” Katie sighed, wiping the dust from the table with her rag. “He’s off to the battlefield in two days’ time.”
Cambria’s heart skipped a beat. “The battlefield?”
Katie nodded. “He’s commanded a fortnight’s provisions for fourscore o’ soldiers.”
“Where are they going?”
“Oh, la, I don’t know, just that the lord bid me make preparations.”
Cambria’s mind raced forward as Katie left the room. Conflicts were numerous along the Borders—cattle raids and the like—but that was too large a company for a mere Border dispute. Nay, this had to be all-out war betwe
en the Scots and the English.
She moved toward the arrow loop a last time to peer down at her husband. He sparred viciously now with Sir Guy. His blade sparked against his opponent’s, and she shuddered as she thought of Robbie and Graham and Jamie facing the likes of the Wolf on the battlefield.
It didn’t take long for word to slip that King Edward himself had called Holden to fight. Cambria heard the servants buzzing about it in the kitchen. This meant that it would be a decisive battle. She dreaded what the outcome would mean for Blackhaugh and her clan.
Listening furtively in the passage beside the knights’ quarters, she learned that the men would be traveling north to join the king. As the knights emerged from the room, trudging toward the list for field practice, Cambria hid herself in the stairwell. Finally, thinking all of them had gone, she prepared to step from her place of hiding.
Passing by so closely that she felt the breeze of his movement, Sir Owen swept by her, unseeing, into the knights’ quarters and proceeded to sharpen his sword on the grindstone there. She released her captured breath and studied him through the crack of the door.
He wasn’t alone. Emerging from a shadowy corner of the room was an English serving wench. Mousy hair concealed her face as she sauntered up to Owen’s side, clinging to him, running brazen hands over his chest as he worked. Cambria nestled back against the wall.
The girl simpered, “I don’t want ye to go to war.”
“Don’t fret about me, Aggie. I’ll watch my backside.”
“I’d like to watch your backside for ye!” she said cheekily.
“I’ll bet you would, Aggie,” Owen snickered.
Cambria peeked at them again. She tried to get a good look at Aggie, but the girl had her back to Cambria.
“Why can’t I go, too, my love?” she pleaded, moving her hands around to the front of Owen’s body, stroking the bulge that was beginning to form beneath the waist of his surcoat.
Cambria was disgusted by both the tawdry display and the fact that she was watching it like a naughty child, but she was afraid to move lest she be discovered.
“Oh, Aggie,” Owen moaned, letting the grinding wheel wind down and extracting her hands from his body. “There will be time for this when I come home, and then, my sweet, you and I are going to be wed.” He curled a lock of her stringy hair around his finger. “This castle will be ours.”
Knights of de Ware 02 - My Warrior Page 15
