by Sarah Hegger
Beatrice remounted.
Garrett studied how it was done. He would hack off his arm before he let either of them know he couldn’t ride. He approached the horse.
It stared down its long nose at him.
“Hello, Badger.” He put one foot in the stirrup.
Badger shifted away.
Garrett was forced to hop after it.
Badger shook his head and whickered softly, as if the bloody thing was chuckling at him.
Beatrice and the boy were looking at him. They were laughing at him.
Humiliation crawled up his neck and lifted his hackles. He hopped closer to the sodding horse.
Badger shifted again. Slightly farther away this time.
Garrett yanked his foot from the stirrup to keep from falling on his face.
“Badger is a bit tricky,” Beatrice said. “Let Tom take him.” The sympathy in her voice exacerbated his shame.
“Here, take Parsley.” Tom dismounted.
“Nay.” Garrett stomped after Badger.
The overgrown donkey shook his head and trotted away.
Right toward Tom, who grabbed Badger’s reins.
The horse turned obediently toward him.
“I will ride Badger.”
Garrett’s words fell on deaf ears as Tom swung his leg over Badger’s back. The hell horse stood still as a post for the other man to mount.
“Ride Parsley.” Tom’s eyes glittered down at Garrett. “We do not have all night.”
Garrett stalked toward Parsley. Tom would pay for the insult. And as for Badger? He glared at the horse. The first, the very first opportunity he got, the bloody horse was dog meat.
Chapter 9
Garrett’s ass ached and his balls were bruised black and blue. All through the night and, barring a short rest to break their fast and water the horses, all day, he’d sat on this bloody horse. Beatrice stayed slightly in front of him, as they went east.
The road stayed empty as it followed the sheer drop of the cliffs to the ocean below.
He envied Beatrice’s absolute ease in the saddle. He also admired the way her shoulders tapered to a waist so tiny he could span it with his hands, before flaring to the sweet curve of her hips and ass. It was all that kept him from obsessing about the pain in his own saddle.
Soon, he’d be able to explore with more than his eyes. The prickle of sensation at his nape warned him Tom had his eyes on him again. He was a leery one, Tom. Like a bad-tempered weasel, he watched Garrett constantly. What ever he said, Tom listened keenly, narrowing his eyes as if assessing every word.
“Look.” Beatrice turned her head to appeal to him. Her cheeks were flushed with enjoyment. “Do you see that tree? I swear I have never seen one quite that size. Have you?”
It looked much like any of the countless trees they’d passed since the sun had risen. “The tree is large.”
“See how the branches are perfect for climbing?” Beatrice clasped a hand to her throat, enraptured by a blasted tree.
Garrett wanted to shake his head.
Beatrice talked, almost constantly. He’d not noticed that about her before. Mayhap because he’d kept her mouth busy when she was with him. Everything she saw required commentary. Every new sight became a thing of wonder that needed to be chattered about at great length. Were the hills not the most wondrous green? Had he or Tom ever seen a sky so blue or as endless? What was that bird? Was that a rare blossom?
Tom had the knack of knowing which of her pronouncements required a reply and when Beatrice was happy to burble on to herself. Garrett hadn’t mastered Tom’s trick yet. Every time she turned to him, her face alight with her new discovery, he couldn’t stop his response. This would earn him a beaming smile before she was off again.
They kept a tough pace and Garrett struggled to keep up. It was getting harder to hide as the miles wore on.
Beatrice, however, thrived. Her big aqua eyes sparkled like gems, her cheeks rosy with excitement. It caused an odd twinge in his chest. Or the twinge could be a result of not chewing his bread properly when they’d stopped to eat. Except it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation. It was like the sun on your back, warm and comforting.
She turned to talk to Tom.
Those two were thick as pease pottage. There was the sort of ease between them that came of years of knowing each other. It irked him. The couple didn’t mean to exclude him, but there were times when neither of them would complete a thought before the other took it up. Not that Tom said much. He left the speaking to Beatrice, which suited the lady perfectly.
He’d stopped sulking around the time he noticed Tom was no more adept in the saddle than he. From the pained grimace on the boy’s face, Garrett guessed Tom ached almost as badly as him. It cheered him immeasurably. It also proved impossible to hold onto his anger in the face of Beatrice’s relentless enthusiasm.
She turned and smiled at him.
He forgot the pain. His mouth tilted up in answer. She had one of those smiles. It invited you to join in. The moment was over in a blink, and she turned away. It was the strangest thing. He hadn’t thought her beautiful when he first engineered their meeting. Not plain, precisely, but her face was too strong and the lines too definite for feminine beauty. As the days had passed and their meetings grew more numerous, however, he started to notice other things. Her smile, for instance. Beatrice smiled with her entire being. It lit her from within. Her eyes, too, drew him in. They changed constantly. It was like watching the quick flowing current through a stream. Her eyes reflected the ceaseless ebb and flow of her thoughts.
He wanted to catch up to her and Tom, but the evil-tempered thing he rode didn’t respond to his urgings. It had taken him hours to recover from his humiliation over the horse. It wasn’t sensible, his anger. He understood, but it mattered not a whit.
You should have been fostered and trained as a knight. His anger always sounded like his mother. As a lad he’d stood and watched the knights ride by. Like all boys, his heart had swelled with dreams. Impossible dreams, as he’d discovered. His mother was unable to let it lie, either. Always, she insisted he was robbed of what was his by birth.
Garrett grunted. His by birth? What a jest. His father was a traitor, his mother a whore. All that was his by birth was betrayal and swiving.
“Did you say something?” Beatrice turned around once more.
Tom snorted.
“Nay.” He forced a charming smile. “I was merely enjoying the view.”
“Oh.” Beatrice took a moment to catch his meaning. She flushed bright pink. “Oh.” She grinned.
Tom muttered and shook his head.
Garrett met the boy’s hostile stare. He held it until Tom looked away. He truly hoped he wasn’t going to have to do something about the overgrown clod. Even he paused at the notion of having to make Tom vanish.
“Should we stop for the night?” he called.
“In a short while.” Beatrice waved her arm through the air. “It is a fine day for riding and we are making excellent time. We should press on until dark. Do you not agree?”
“As long as you are not too fatigued.” Garrett swallowed some very nasty words. Words he would wager neither Beatrice nor Tom had heard in their lives.
“You are sweet to be concerned for me.” A small dimple danced in her right cheek. It appeared only when she smiled. “But I am much heartier than you would think.”
Garrett gave her a slow smile and filled it with sensual promise.
It brought instant color to her cheeks. The dimple appeared again.
Jesu, it was an effort to be charming all the time. At least with women such as Lilly, one didn’t have to exert oneself. But the seduction of a gently reared virgin was an exercise of an entirely different kind. Only the end result was the same. Garrett’s eyes strayed over Beatrice’s luscious lines.
“I thought London was more to the North?” Tom interrupted his viewing.
“It is
,” Garrett replied. Tom was boy enough not to toss a knave, like himself, into the nearest hedgerow and yet, man enough to recognize he should. “But if you can make the road bend in that direction, we would all be grateful.”
And that should’ve been the end of it.
Except Beatrice cocked her head, a certain sign she was thinking. She stopped suddenly and Garrett’s horse almost plowed into the back of hers.
“Perhaps we should go across country?” She indicated the landscape to their left. This close to the sea it was still a series of gently undulated dips and rises; farther on it would get more wooded and rugged.
His seat throbbed in sympathy.
“I do not think we should.” Tom rescued him.
Beatrice thrust her chin out. “It will save all sorts of time.”
“Aye,” Tom said. “If we do not get lost, and if we do not run across brigands or worse.”
“Brigands or worse, Tom?” Beatrice laughed.
Garrett liked the husky sound.
“What could be worse than brigands?” she asked.
“Cut throats.” Tom reddened. “Murderers, desperate characters, villains…”
“I get your point, Tom. And we will stay upon this road until it leads us where we want to go. Only”—she frowned at him and Tom—“could we not go a bit farther. I need to get to my father.”
“We will need to rest.” Tom reined in. “And we should not push the horses. They need to carry us a long way.”
Beatrice stroked her horse’s neck.
Garrett admired the lines of the horse Beatrice rode. Sleek and powerful, the mare seemed to read her rider’s mind. Garrett still couldn’t see how Beatrice controlled the horse’s movements.
Parsley stumbled over a small stone in the road, jarring his aching bits. The stupid animal needed a more permanent sort of rest.
“We will stop soon.” Beatrice moved off down the road.
Garrett cursed and trundled along behind.
Shortly after sunset, they stumbled upon a large encampment of some twenty people. The group was meanly dressed with heavily laden carts.
Tom grumbled suspiciously.
For once, Garrett was inclined to agree with him.
Beatrice would not be dissuaded. She agreed to let Tom hold her purse for the night, but there was safety in numbers, she insisted.
She had a point and Garrett gave in, but he would stand watch through the night. These were not the times to be too trustful of strangers.
Chapter 10
The smell of roasting meat made Beatrice’s stomach rumble appreciatively. Voices murmuring over the fire were reassuring. Around their camp, the forest pressed closer. Tree limbs, twisted into ghostly shapes by the shadows, rose against the night sky. The moon hovered above it all, flirting in and out of fickle clouds. It was the first time she’d spent a night outside of the keep. The night pressed against the borders of their tiny camp.
Garrett sat with his back against a tree, apart from the group. The starkly handsome lines of his face were set severely. She’d never seen him look so serious. Despite everything they’d shared, they were nearly strangers. She wanted to unravel the mystery of him, strand by precious strand. Like why he could look so grave one minute and the next, like his mind was full of naughty thoughts. And the pouch about his neck, the one he touched often. What was in it, and what did it mean to him?
Tom didn’t like him. He didn’t say anything, but Tom was easy to read. He watched Garrett as if he expected the other man to bite.
Garrett rose to the challenge, every time.
It made her uneasy, the tension between them. That aside, she was enjoying her adventure. Garrett said they would reach London before week’s end. There would be time for her father to ride hard for home. Being without the castle walls was also liberating. There was no lurking voice of experience to click their tongue at her and correct her behavior.
Garrett didn’t care if she behaved like a lady. As if sensing her gaze, he looked up to where she sat with some of the women on the far side of the fire. Their eyes met. Awareness tingled along her skin.
A slow, hot smile spread from his eyes to his full mouth.
A hot flush crept over her cheeks.
“Is he your man?” one of the women asked. Thank the Lord for the faint light cast by the cook fire. Her cheeks must be red.
“Nay.” Was Garrett her man? She wasn’t sure. He touched her like he might be.
Cackling, a woman elbowed her. The woman’s face was thin and streaked with dirt, as if they’d been traveling for some time. Her age was hard to gauge. Her features were drawn but she moved as if she were younger. “I would watch myself.” The nudger went again with her pointy elbows. “Or one of us might take that sort of trouble off your hands.”
The other women chuckled with her and Beatrice grit her teeth. Not bloody likely.
Several women eyed Garrett. A couple pairs of eyes lingered over Tom. It was Tom, for the love of God. She didn’t see it.
“How did you manage to get two lads at your side?” another woman asked. “Most of us are struggling to find half a one.”
It was true. The males in the group of travelers were older or children. No men of the ages between.
“Where are your men?”
A woman with graying hair checked the rabbits spitted over the fire.
The travelers didn’t have much food. Garrett had been lucky setting his traps. Tom had added some of their supplies to a communal meal.
“Dead,” said the woman. “Dead or gone to war, which is as good as dead.”
There was no war that she knew of. Sir Arthur had spoken of a battle somewhere in France called Bouvines, but Beatrice hadn’t paid much attention. She wished she had. It had certainly made her father furious. Godfrey had also spoken of it the night she’d overheard their conversation. “Is the war not over?”
“Bloody kings and their wars.” An older woman folded twig thin arms across her rough wool tunic. “There is no end to the wars. Richard and his crusades marching off to fight the bloody infidel when he should have stayed home and taken care of his own people. Might have lived longer and we would not have this whoreson on the throne.”
Beatrice’s mouth dropped open in shock. The woman spoke of their king. Not at his angriest would her father speak thus. “But Richard carried the word of our Lord to the heathen.”
Hard faces with weary eyes stared at her and she shut her mouth. She must have erred in some way.
“Try feeding that to a starving child,” the thin woman said.
It was treason to speak thus. Yet nobody around this fire thought it strange. At home, folk would express their anger, but it was done quietly, as if it shouldn’t be heard.
“Quiet down now, Mother.” A younger woman handed the older woman a heel of bread. “Does no good to be getting yourself bent out of shape. For all he is a bad one, King John, you will only knot your stomach, and there is no reason when we have bread today.”
Beatrice swallowed her questions. She didn’t want to appear stupid or ignorant. She wanted to know, though. Tom wouldn’t have the answers. Garrett. He would know. Garrett knew everything about the world.
She excused herself and got to her feet. Stepping carefully, she wove through the clusters of people.
Garrett watched her approach. His gaze heated, lingering on her face and drifting over her body.
When he looked at her thus, it went to her head, like the time she’d drank too much wine at Christmas. Only, this headiness didn’t make her want to laugh at everything.
“Good evening, my lady.” He sketched her a mock bow.
Beatrice looked down at her boy’s chausses and laughed. My lady, she was not.
With a gentle tug, he brought her to sit beside him. A nightjar rattled from the forest, clear in the still night. The light from the fires cast deep shadows over his face.
She basked in his fixed regard, like sh
e was the only woman in his world. She prayed it was true, because he was the only man in hers.
“What troubles you?” He traced the skin between her eyes with his finger. “When you are worrying something in your mind, you always frown so.”
He knew her well enough to read her expressions. It warmed every part of her.
“May I ask you something?” Beatrice shivered beneath the light touch.
“You may ask me anything, sweeting.” He curled his fingers around hers.
She hoped he meant that. “Why does everyone hate King John?”
He straightened, his chin dropping to his chest. “What?” All traces of the lover left his face.
The rapid change made her uneasy, adrift. Like she sat beside a total stranger.
A heartbeat later, a sensuous smile transformed his face.
It warmed the slight chill inside her.
“Sweeting.” He raised her fingers to his lips, his mouth hot against her knuckles. “Let us not talk of King John on a night like this.”
Pleasure slid across her skin.
The nightjar fell silent and the soft pop of the wood fire drifted over. The night wrapped around them.
“This is a night for more important things.” He edged closer, his thigh solid and strong against hers.
“What things?” She held her breath, waiting. Would he kiss her? She desperately wanted to be kissed.
A woman laughed.
She started. They weren’t alone. Best to return to her purpose in seeking him out. Tom mightn’t be able to see them, but from the cook fire, the women would have a clear view of her and Garrett.
Beatrice eased her leg away. “I want to know why the women here are angry with the king. I always thought the people loved their king. He is ordained by God, after all.”
Garrett’s lip twisted. “That is what the king wants you to believe.” He took her hand. “Let us talk of something else. Or not talk at all.”
It was difficult to stick to her purpose when he played lightly with her fingers. He raised them one by one to his mouth.
She disengaged her fingers. “I know, in part, why my father has gone to war with him. But why do they hate King John?”
