‘Aye, it’s me, Tavia, and we’re going to get you out of here.’ He grinned briefly. ‘You can thank me later.’
Gently, he turned her around, pulling her drooping body back against the muscled hardness of his limbs so he could tie the rope around both of them. Her chilled limbs soaked up the warmth from his body. He called up, the sound in his chest vibrating comfortingly against her spine, and then the horse-hair rope tightened, creaking and flexing with their combined weight. Supported by the rope, Benois planted the soles of his feet against the wall of the trap, and began to climb upwards, Tavia cradled in his lap. Slowly, steadily, the circle of light came closer and closer, until at last, they broke up and outwards into the haven of green.
Tavia burst suddenly into the light, tumbling forwards on to her hands and knees, disoriented. Collapsing back, she sat for a moment, blinking, breathing in the cool, fresh air of the forest. Benois pulled himself easily out from the hole, every movement precise, economical. Springing to his feet, he eyed her briefly, frowning, before striding to his horse held by a young boy.
‘Thank you.’ Benois clapped a hand on the boy’s shoulders. ‘I should never have found her if it hadn’t been for your help.’ The boy smiled, especially when Benois placed several gold coins in his hand. ‘Now, begone. I don’t want Lord Ferchar to notice that you, or your horse, are missing. And remember, you haven’t seen us.’
The boy nodded, untying the dog’s lead, the lead that had pulled them to safety, from the bridle of Benois’s horse, and securing the hound before walking off into the forest. Without bothering to raise her head, Tavia guessed that it had been the strength of the horse which had dragged them out of the hole. Benois marched back to the place where Tavia huddled on the ground, his face drawn into lines of concern at her pallor, and the ugly gash on her head. His gimlet eyes, smouldering charcoal in the long shadows of the afternoon, scoured her.
With some effort, she managed to lift her head at his approach. ‘How did you find me?’ She stared up at him, still astounded that he should be here at all. Benois pulled out a piece of white cloth from his wide leather belt. ‘I had this,’ he explained gently, the breeze sifting his hair, ruffling it, making him seem younger somehow. ‘It’s your veil…you used it to bind my shoulder. The fabric carried your scent,’ he added, noting her puzzled expression, ‘so the hound followed your track with no difficulty.’
‘I’m surprised you still had it,’ she uttered, studying the creased and bloodied cloth that hung between his fingers.
He smiled enigmatically, tucking the material down the front of his tunic, unwilling to confess that he had been reluctant to dispose of it; the material carried her perfume, a unique fragrance that he held dear to his heart.
‘And now,’ he said, bending down to swoop his arm beneath her hips, around her back, hoisting her high up against his chest, the hem of her bliaut falling back to reveal her small leather slippers swinging in the air, ‘you come with me.’
Tavia didn’t protest as he set her up on to his saddle, clutching uselessly at the pommel as the horse dipped sideways under her slight weight. But Benois kept one hand protectively at her waist, suspecting from her pale colour that she might fall, as he stuck his toe into the shining metal stirrup and swung his athletic frame on to the horse behind her. Too weary to object as his muscled thighs cupped close around her hips, or to even wriggle forwards to create some space between them, she merely subsided grate fully into the rugged haven of his chest. His arms came about her, expertly con trolling the reins to manoeuvre the animal out from the hostile under growth.
The sunlight, dappled under the trees, fired coppery sparks over Benois’s chestnut hair, stippling the bouncing motion of the horse’s mane with light. The damp earth on Tavia’s fingers began to dry out, and itch. She brushed at the loose soil, suddenly aware of the state of her nails, her hands, streaked with grime and blood. Pain pulsed through her temples with the steady jolt of the horse, and, without thinking, she raised her right hand to probe the wound annoyance.
‘Don’t touch it!’ Benois seized her fingers, drawing them down again. His large, steady fingers remained over hers. ‘Your fingers are so dirty, they might infect the cut. Don’t worry, I’ll clean it up later.’
‘I tried to climb out,’ she ventured, by way of explanation.
‘I don’t doubt it,’ he murmured. ‘You’re not the sort of maid who would accept such a fate so easily.’
‘The walls were so steep.’ A shudder squeezed her chest as she remembered. ‘I did give up in the end.’
Anger seized him as he thought of her, alone and frightened, at the bottom of the animal trap. ‘You kept your head, Tavia.’ He struggled to keep the emotion from his voice.
A thought gripped her; she half-twisted in the saddle. ‘You’re not taking me back, are you? You’re not taking me back to Dunswick?’
‘Not a chance,’ he promised, grimacing at the trembling in her body. ‘We ride to Langley’s castle, over the border. He’ll give us shelter, food.’
Reassured, Tavia shifted against him, vaguely aware of the panic that bubbled furiously at the edges of her sanity. ‘I thought no one would come for me,’ she blurted out suddenly. ‘I thought I would be left there…to die.’ Her voice rang with such a hollow, bereft note that he relinquished her hand, and brought his arm around, across her chest, hugging her close to him.
‘I would have found you, Tavia. I would have razed those woods to the ground to find you.’ A flare of passion furrowed the melodious timbre of his speech.
Tavia closed her eyes, savouring the feel of the man at her back, his strong arm around her, the warm play of sunlight on her face.
‘Why?’ she ventured, suddenly.
‘Why?’ he shot back, his tone un guarded, raw. ‘Because—’ Benois stopped. Because I love you. I need you. The words, shocking, vivid, burst into his brain. The silence shivered in the air between them. He knew he had to give her some explanation. ‘Because I do not wish to see you married to Ferchar,’ he supplied finally, knowing that now was not the time to tell her of his plan, not now, when she was tired and hurt.
The breeze washed through the woodland canopy above them, sending a gentle sighing through the leaves. The shadows from the trees danced over their faces, the strong light throwing the bark on the wide trunks into an intense pattern of tiny creases and whorls. A sparrowhawk, body motionless, head turning in rapid succession of movement, yellow eyes hunting prey for his fledgling chicks, only heard the horse’s approach at the last moment. The white patches on his neck flashed as the large bird lifted off silently from the high branch, the dark bars of colour across his chest distinctive against the green of the forest.
Tavia followed the sparrowhawk’s dipping, swerving flight through the trees, its odd guttural chattering warning its mate of the humans’ presence. Even through the foggy layers of her exhausted mind, she knew Benois hadn’t answered her properly. A tiny part of her brain pleaded to go no further, to stop questioning him, and relish that sheer joy of just being within the circle of his arms. He had made it perfectly clear at Dunswick that he desired her, but was unable to give her anything more, preferring to resume his duties with King Henry and ride south.
‘Then I suppose I should say thank you,’ she mumbled. ‘Because if you hadn’t come to look for me…well, then…’ The sentence, unfinished, faded into a half-gasp, as she realised that if he hadn’t cared enough to look for her, then she would have died. ‘You saved my life,’ she said, finally, picking nervously at the thick soil under one of her nails. ‘Ada really wanted me to die.’
‘She wanted Ferchar for herself,’ Benois replied crisply, ‘and nothing, nobody, was to come between her and her marriage, not even the discovery of a long-lost half-sister.’ He ducked his head to avoid a low over hanging branch, inhaling the sweet scent of Tavia’s hair as his chin brushed the crown of her head. They fell silent, listening to the rhythmic sound of the horse’s hoof beats as he carried them south through the trees
. The track had become easier to negotiate, running wide, clear through the forest, the earth hard-packed and dry.
As they emerged from the woodland, the land opened out before them, a wide river valley stretching horizontally before their eyes, with steep, rounded hills rising high into the bright, blue sky beyond.
‘The border,’ Benois announced, his eyes combing the range of hills before them, seeking the best possible route forwards. ‘We need to go up there, Tavia. Can you make it?’
‘Aye, I can,’ she said, with more fortitude than she felt. She could crawl up on her hands and knees if that’s what it took to escape Ferchar’s clutches.
In the slanting shadows of the late afternoon light, a warm hush fell across the land, broken only by the plaintive call of the curlews. The tops of the hills were flushed with a pinkish hue, an indicator of the indestructible granite stone that had formed the smooth curves.
‘We should reach Langley by night fall,’ Benois announced. ‘We can move faster over this open ground.’ Tightening his arm more securely about her waist, he kicked the horse into a trot. Tavia blanched at the sudden pain searing through her temple, the unexpected, jolting pace sending spirals of agony through her skull. She gripped desperately on to Benois’s forearm, the honed, interlacing muscles hard against her sweating palms as she tried to control her breathing. Her skirts, snatched by the wind, whipped out and back along the animal’s flanks, the hem flapping wildly against Benois’s braies. Nausea scratched at the parched lining of her gullet; she swallowed frantically, hoping she wasn’t going to be sick.
‘Tavia?’ Benois, shouting above the air rushing noisily past them, felt her body weaken against him. He yanked on the reins, hard, slowing the animal to a walk, before leaping off, moving round so he could see her face. A grey pallor cloaked Tavia’s skin as she looked towards him. ‘I don’t feel very well,’ she mumbled, her muscles screaming at her as she fought desperately to remain upright in the saddle.
‘I can see that.’ Benois cursed. ‘Come, you need to rest for a while.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled, as he reached up to lift her swaying figure down from the saddle, folding her into his lean frame as soon as her feet touched the ground. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m not normally like this.’
He smiled at her forced, practical tone as he half-carried her over to a large granite outcrop. ‘I don’t suppose you’re normally thrown down a hole and left to die,’ he said, settling her down on a cushiony mound of grass, so she could lean her head back against the craggy stone. Fetching his leather flagon from the horse, he held it up to her mouth, urging her to drink. The cool, refreshing water trickled down her throat, going some way towards restoring her equilibrium. Benois drew the flagon away, securing the vessel with a wide, circular cork.
Tavia laughed, some of her colour returning as the pounding in her head began to recede. ‘Nay, I suppose you’re right.’
His rapier eyes were on her, checking, assessing. Her face, marred by the dried-up rivulets of blood from the wound on her head, seemed to be returning to its usual colour, a faint pink beginning to seep across her cheeks. ‘I’ll clean your wound when we reach Langley’s castle.’ He leaned forwards to push a strand of hair, rigid with blood, away from her face, concern shad owing his features.
‘I can do it myself,’ she announced, trying to inject a thread of strength into her voice. ‘You don’t need to bother with me once I’m there.’ Her voice sounded detached, wary.
‘Aye, I do.’ His voice, a liquid balm, played with her senses like sweet music.
She angled her head to one side, a puzzled smile on her lips. ‘I can’t under stand it, Benois, why you’re doing this for me. You couldn’t wait to be rid of me since…since…’ She pursed her full lips together, cheeks flaming at the vivid memory of their limbs entwined in the lush green vegetation of the woodland floor.
‘Since we lay together,’ he finished for her, impassively, watching her closely. His eyes sparked with desire, silver threads shot through granite. ‘I thought it would make things easier for you if I was gone from your life. Mayhaps I was wrong.’
Tavia studied the ground, shoulders hunching beneath the linen cloth of her bliaut, endeavouring to attach some meaning to his words. The rounded neck, slashed to a midpoint between her collarbone and her chest, sagged forward with the movement, hinting at the shadowed depth between her breasts.
‘Wrong? Are you saying that you made a mistake?’ She pressed her palm against the damp ground, the tough grass prick ling against her skin.
‘I’m a soldier, Tavia. I have lived my life by the sword since the age of nine. I never thought I would live any differently.’
‘It takes courage to change,’ she replied slowly, warily, thinking she was probably misinterpreting his meaning.
‘Aye, it does,’ he agreed. ‘And you have more of that than anyone I know.’ He wound his strong fingers around her own to assist her upwards. ‘Come, we need to keep going.’
‘Do you think Ferchar will come?’ Tavia asked hesitantly. Hand sliding from his, she rubbed it against her cheek, self-consciously, leaving a smear of dirt.
‘Without a doubt,’ Benois con firmed, starting to turn away in the direction of the tethered horse.
‘Then what’s the point?’ Tavia flung her hands out towards him, persuading him to turn back, to look at her. ‘What is the point in me running and running? I’m in the same situation in England as I am in Scotland.’
‘Not exactly. In England, the Scottish king and his regent have little power.’
‘So he’ll just take me back again.’
‘Not if you belong to another.’
‘Oh, Benois! Stop it! Stop talking in riddles!’ Frustration coursing through her bones, Tavia stamped her slippered foot against the short, tufted grass. ‘What do you mean “belong to another”? I belong to no one!’
‘I mean,’ he enunciated patiently, ‘that he can’t take you back to Scotland if you are married.’
Her eyes widened, doubtful. ‘But, Benois, who on earth would marry me?’
The wind, gaining strength as the sun began to set, grazed a ruddy colour across his high, sculpted cheek bones. The glowing light re in forced the shadowed indent beneath the sensuous arc of his bottom lip; she longed to touch it. Against the brilliant blue of the sky, he loomed above her, his hard, powerful frame impassive, formidable. ‘I would,’ he said simply.
Chapter Eighteen
Palms scrabbling the rock behind her, seeking balance, Tavia’s mind tilted crazily with the full implication of Benois’s words. The sunlight burned brightly behind him, throwing the front of his broad frame into shadow, but she screwed up her eyes anyway, attempting to read his expression. Unsure how to react, she laughed un steadily. ‘Nay, don’t jest, Benois.’ Her voice rushed out, quavering with feeble surprise.
He took a step forward, turning slightly so his sculpted features moved into the light. His eyes narrowed, darts of quick silver energy. ‘No jest, maid.’ His heady, masculine aroma flared over her as he reached around her to clasp her hand, almost peeling her rigid fingers away from the granite slope. ‘Come, let’s talk as we ride.’
Allowing him to lead her, Tavia stepped un steadily over the ground, uneven in places, the hem of her bliaut scratching against the stiff, bleached grass. Hands firm around her waist, he boosted her up into the saddle once more, springing up behind her in one effortless motion. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, twining the reins around his hands, the thin strips of leather threading through his tanned fingers, ‘we’ll only go at a walking pace, but it will make us slower.’
Tavia scarcely heard his explanation. How could he talk so easily about the speed of the horse, when they had been talking of marriage just moments earlier? Her mind still reeled, hopelessly trying to clutch at some constant, some strand of reality that she could hold on to, be safe.
‘You must be completely mad,’ she uttered, suddenly.
‘I beg you
r pardon?’
She plucked at a loose thread on her girdle. ‘You must be completely mad to want to marry me.’
His laughter rumbled against her spine. ‘Probably. But as far as I can see, I’m the only solution to your problem right now.’
Heart plum meting, she chewed her bottom lip as reality sloshed over her. He made the whole thing sound like a business transaction. How could she have ever considered that it would be anything else between them? The fledgling hope in her chest, hope that had known life for a few brief moments, faded away. He spoke of marriage as a solution, as a way out for her, and not what it could have been, a binding contract between two people who loved each other. He certainly didn’t love her, he never had, and he never would.
She hitched her shoulders up, deliberately keeping her tone level, offhand. ‘And what if I refuse?’
He gave a short bark of laughter. ‘I credited you with more wit than that, Tavia. You need to find a husband, and you’ll need to find one quickly before Ferchar shows up.’ His chest pressed against her back, heating the tense muscles that pulled at her backbone, as the destrier began to climb the steep incline at the base of the border ridge. His breath grazed the sensitive lobe of her ear as he leaned into her. ‘And I haven’t exactly noticed a queue of suitors to your door,’ he whispered pointedly. She wrenched her head away, annoyed, as he chuckled.
‘I don’t want your pity!’ She drew herself up, erect, proud, a position difficult to maintain as the horse’s broad back sloped away alarmingly beneath her.
‘I don’t pity you, Tavia,’ Benois replied, trying not to laugh out loud at Tavia’s attempts to keep her body away from touching him. ‘But I do want to help you.’ Besides, he thought, I don’t want anyone else to have you.
‘Help? Have you so little belief in me that you think I can’t survive on my own?’
He gazed down at her soft hair, itching to caress it. Over the past few days, this woman had proved her inner strength to him time and time again. ‘You are a survivor, Tavia, there’s no doubt about that. You’re a brave, courageous woman—’ his praise flowed over her ‘—but this time, you need my help. I can protect you.’
The Warrior’s Princess Bride Page 23
