Moments later, he settled her before him on the horse and headed for the cave. Her body was warm—soft and altogether too feminine for comfort. Despite the events of the past two days, her hair smelled of lavender and she seemed to have no qualms about being near him. She relaxed against him the same as she had yesterday, adding to his discomfiture.
“Why did the two of you become friends?” he prompted when they had gone a short distance and Gwyneth was not forthcoming with any answers.
He felt her cringe as if she did not wish to discuss this topic. “We are close to the same age,” she said.
Jared tightened his arms around her, wishing he could squeeze answers out of her, but he tamped down his impatience. He had frightened her enough and now needed to work on building trust between them so they could forge a life together.
“Why did you leave the feast? I gave you the book and you ran out.”
A deep flush began to creep up her neck. Interesting. He touched her neck. She shivered.
The horse picked its way through the trees. Jared found the thin trail that led by the river in the direction they needed to go. Water bubbled over rocks nearby.
“I left the feast because—” She paused, toying with the ends of her hair.
“Go on.”
“'Twas a long time ago,” she hedged.
Their bodies swayed with the rhythm of the horse’s hooves and he could feel the gooseflesh on her arms. Instinctively, he pressed her close to him.
Gwyneth took a deep breath.
In her mind, she was back at the feast. Somehow that day, long forgotten, had been layered over this one.
She remembered the stares of the women, remembered the boasting of her father, of how Brenna had made breastlike statues of the pink salmon.
The hurt swelled in her chest and she felt her pride slip away. Any moment she might break apart and begin to cry. If Jared laughed, it would crush her. She twirled a lock of her hair round and round her hand.
While the reasons for leaving the feast were not nearly so dangerous as confessing her crimes, emotionally it put her even more on edge. She did not wish to tell this man of her issues with her family, or how she had been despised, hated by the women, and how the men leered at her. Of the memories that the brank had stormed into her mind.
She lifted her chin, wishing she could blink her eyes and make Jared disappear. He did not. But he did not press her to answer either.
She turned her face aside to count the branches on the passing trees. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Surely they would reach the cave soon. Then she would come up with a plan to be rid of him.
Jared said naught. His patience was even more disconcerting than his anger.
Seven. Eight.
The silence was punctuated by the horse’s hooves crunching across leaves and it grew heavier with each step as if one of them should say something. Anything.
Nine.
“I remember the look in your eyes that day. You were hurt,” he said at last, so softly it startled her.
“The"—she twisted so that she could give him a sideways frown—"minstrels. The bloody minstrels would not be quiet.”
“You left the feast because the music was bad?”
“Not exactly.”
He held the reins with one hand and traced the back of his fingers down her arm with the other. A disconcerting trail of heat followed in their wake.
She stiffened, facing forward again in a tight line. “I mean, yes, exactly, that was the reason.”
“No, it is not, Gwyneth. The truth.” His arm wrapped around her upper arm. Possessive. As if to say that all of her, even her private thoughts, belonged to him.
She drew in a breath to quell her racing emotions. Birds twittered and frogs chirped beside the river.
“Tell me.” His voice was strong, smooth, seductive. Compelling.
“The women were mean to me,” she blurted before she could stop herself. Her face felt hot. What a nitwitted reason.
“I see.”
She blinked, disconcerted by his calm acceptance of her explanation.
Though he still held her firmly, his arms seemed to relax.
Even her ears felt hot now. She should be accustomed to gossip, not be some awkward child who cared about the petty remarks made by silly girls. And, yet, inside her, punctuated by today’s parade while wearing a brank, she once again felt like a gangly adolescent.
Shaking off her unease, she squared her shoulders boldly. She was that girl no longer. She was Gwyneth of Windrose and she would act thus. Men lusted after her. Women were jealous. She had practiced and studied and learned the art of seduction so that she could twist things to her advantage. Right the wrongs and injustice in a world controlled by men. She had a duty to the imprisoned women.
No feeling sorry for yourself.
No feeling sorry for yourself.
Her heart was untouchable. It had to be. She would bend Jared to her will as she did other men.
The cave was just ahead. Two large oaks partially concealed the entrance of it.
Jared drew the horse to a halt and swung down. His hands spanned her waist, warm and large, and he helped her down.
Their eyes clashed as she slid down his body. She licked her lips. His gaze moved to her tongue and she saw tension from across his shoulders.
Ah. Something she was familiar with. A reaction she could use to steer the conversation back to a safe subject.
Carefully, she drew her finger down her neck in a practiced gesture. Men find female necks erotic, or so Irma’s lessons had gone.
A flash of heat lit his green eyes. Their bodies were close enough that she felt the slight swell betwixt his legs, but he looked at her as if she’d just grown a horn out the top of her head. “Why are you trying to seduce me?”
“To distract you from your questions,” she said boldly, seeing no reason to hide her thoughts.
His body stiffened so quickly that he pushed back. His fingers touched her chin, lifted it. “Gwyneth of Windrose, how did you become so efficient at seduction that men do your bidding for only a glance?”
“I have seduced no man.”
“But you have—”
“I was a virgin when we married,” she protested.
“Because it suits your purpose to pit one man against another.”
Indignation flashed inside her. “You have no concept of the lot of women—of the unfairne—”
“You were going to tell me the story of yourself and Irma,” he interjected, cutting her off.
So, back to that! She licked her lips, determined to distract him from his inquiry, but inside she felt more like a petulant girl than a temptress.
He was stoic. Unaffected.
She stretched languidly, awaiting the familiar male reaction, for the signs that he was distracted from his questions.
Naught. No reaction at all. As if he did not even notice. She could have been a tree stump.
Annoyed, she lifted her chin. “I disliked the music, the women were mean, the men leered at me, and I wanted to walk alone,” she said sharply.
“Men still leer at you. You twist it now to your advantage and welcome their stares so that you can control the situation. Just as you promoted Ivan to fight for you and you tried to control this conversation by licking your lips to distract me.”
For a split second, the judgment in his voice felt as if he’d ripped away every shred of pride she had and stuck a knife in her gut.
She coughed to hide her reaction and flicked her hand in what she hoped looked frivolous and carefree. And innocent. As if she had no idea what he was talking about. Her hair bounced.
“Then you stretched your body and moved it pleasantly against me.”
Heat climbed up her neck.
Untouchable.
She needed to be untouchable.
Like ice.
She hardened her jaw. Irma had spent many hours teaching her to walk, to flip her hair just so, to place her hand just there—pr
acticing so she could get what she wanted.
Nay, what she needed!
What he said was true, but how else was a woman to survive in a world where men held all the power? He had no right to judge her.
“I was young, unused to the stares of others. It was intended that I was to be married, so I thought to run from the relationship.”
“Run?” He slid his finger down her sleeve and toyed with the delicate little roses on the embroidered trim around her wrist. No doubt he could see and feel her pulse pounding. She took a step back, but he followed her, stalking her every move.
“You gave me that book and I thought I might learn how to read—be more than just a pawn in men’s games. ”
His finger pads against her skin disconcerted her. The sensation was soft and rough at the same time. She was used to touching men—sometimes on the arm, sometimes on the shoulder—but never did they dare to touch her.
“So is it normal for you to run from suitors?”
She took another step away from him. “Apparently so.” “Ah.”
His body was too large, too close, and it seemed as though he could see into her brain.
She shifted slightly away from him, from the fingers that grazed her skin and made her feel even more undressed than his eyes did.
“How many times have you been scheduled to be married?”
She clamped her lips. Her private matters were none of his concern.
A throbbing pain began on her left temple; she pressed it with her palm, thinking desperately of how to change the subject, to gain control of the conversation.
She squirmed to get free, but that brought her into even more intimate contact with his body. Unbidden, her nipples tightened, betrayed her.
He grinned. Grinned! The blackheart!
“What are you laughing at?”
“I only wish to keep your overwhelming desire for me in mind for the future.”
“My overwhelm—” Outraged, she lifted her chin.
He looked pointedly at her swollen nipples with a wolfish grin. “'Tis obvious you want me.”
“I do not. ”
His gaze flicked back to her face. “So, how many offers of marriage have you had?”
Her temple throbbed harder as he switched from one subject to the next with lightning speed. What an irksome man.
“Several.” She rubbed her forehead. “I do not wish to speak of this.”
“But I do.” There was a long pause. “So, how many offers?”
“'Tis not your concern.”
“Four?” he pressed.
Heavens! The numbers ran into the double digits. A shaming amount.
Why on earth did he want to know this? Something about his judgmental gaze made her feel as if she’d somehow shown up naked for Mass.
She shuffled her feet, drawing a figure eight in the leaves with her toe.
“Seven?”
She squirmed, then wanted to kick herself for doing so. What right did he have to condemn her! Facing him squarely, she asked, “Why are you no longer a monk? Did they kick you out of the monastery for asking questions which were none of your concern?”
A glimmer of pain touched his eyes and then was gone. He shrugged. “It was not the life for me.”
“I see,” she said, trying to match his tone of condemning judgment.
“Have you had nine offers of marriage?”
A pox on him and his bloody questions.
“I have not counted them.” But she had. Twenty-six offers of marriage and she had managed to manipulate her way out of each of them. So, why did this man’s assessment of it bother her so? He was a man like all others. Nay, he was even worse: a monk who had repudiated his vows, been found unworthy of God.
Never care about a man’s opinion, Irma had instructed. They are mindless dolts who care only about their fleshly desires.
But, although ‘twas obvious that Jared desired her, he did not seem particularly inclined to act on that. He appeared to be in complete control of himself.
She flipped her hair over her shoulder in an effort to distract him, get him to lose some of that iron control.
His mustache twitched downward as he gave her a look of searing disapproval. As if he were an abbot rather than a man who had been tossed out of a monastery.
Mercy. Other men tripped over their feet when she so much as looked at them for too long, but it seemed that Jared scorned her attention.
Nay. Not scorned. He noticed her as much as other men, but he did not stammer or blush. She twisted a strand of her hair round and round in her fingers and flipped it again.
“If you keep doing that, you might hurt your neck.”
She frowned at him.
His legs were braced apart and wide shoulders bespoke power and control. He stroked his goatee, running his thumb back and forth across his chin. She recalled how he had been the only man to look at her face rather than her cleavage all those years ago at the feast. He looked at her as if he were more interested in actually knowing something about her than any flirtations she did.
“Eleven?”
She tried to nod, but he must have caught the look in her eyes, for he seemed to peer directly into her brain and she knew he would know if she lied.
“More?”
It had been years since anyone made her feel awkward.
He tapped his chin, his long fingers ruffling his goatee.
Her patience snapped. “Twenty-six!” She should be proud of her conquests, but somehow he made her feel ashamed, embarrassed of them. In her mind, she saw the dejected, hurt looks men had given—of how she’d flirted with each of them, batted her eyes, flipped her hair, but turned them down with a flat no. She hadn’t wanted to hurt them, but in her heart she knew she had. Some had given her baubles, some scarves, other small favors. These she always kept, sold them and used the coins to buy more women out of prison. She had reasoned that she had good motivation to use the men—after all, it was generally a man’s fault that the women were imprisoned in the first place.
Jared gave a low whistle. “Twenty-six offers of marriage and you stole a man from a brothel to gain a husband.”
That, too, had been a sacrifice for her women, but Jared would not care about such things. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Do not remind me.”
Abruptly, his hand covered hers and pressed it to the flat bars of the brank. A not-so-subtle warning. “Watch your tone. I am not one of the men you toy with and toss away heedlessly. You belong completely and wholly to me, and you will speak respectfully.”
She swallowed past her pride. “Grant pardon, my lord.”
“Did you and Irma poison any of them?”
She slid her foot against the cave’s rock. “Nay.”
“So I was the only one offered that possibility?”
A shame that she had not allowed Irma to follow through. She smiled sweetly. “Best to watch your food.”
His hand tightened atop hers. “Best to watch your tongue.”
She lifted her chin but kept her voice level. “Yes, my lord.”
Their gazes locked.
“We must go soon.”
She glanced around at the walls of the cavern. “Why are you living in a cave?”
“To keep people from finding me.” His shoulders hunched forward.
A wave of apprehension swirled over her. Something dark lurked just beneath his skin. Something frightening. What sort of man had she bound herself to?
“Who is looking for you?”
He opened his mouth to speak, then, apparently changing his mind, closed it. Her heart iced as she gazed into his green eyes.
He was an enigma. A stranger who now owned her.
“What do you mean that people are looking for yo—”
His hand sliced through the air, cutting her off.
The sound of hooves crunched leaves. His shoulders tightened.
“We must go.”
Chapter 18
The sun drooped in the sky the same
as Gwyneth’s shoulders drooped on her body as they headed for her dower lands. Jared’s chest had been in close contact with her back for what had seemed like hours. In every moment of that time she had felt his every flinch, his every breath, his every motion. His scent—the enticing smell of outdoors and leather—toyed with her senses.
Most of the day, Jared had plied her with question after question about Irma and the brothel, and she was tired from fending them off.
Aeliana flew overhead, following them, and Gwyneth envied her freedom to fly.
The horse, too, was exhausted. It swayed rather than walked, and reminded her of a large, sluggish boat with torn sails.
She wriggled to one side, wanting to lurch from the slow-paced mount and hide in the woods from her captor. The skin beneath Jared’s large hand tingled and her slight wiggle pressed his fingers even closer to the curve of her breasts.
The sun sank and the treetops glowed purple. Her eyes felt gritty, and she longed for a bed.
In typical manner, Jared seemed to be in no hurry to rush along and Gwyneth found herself torn between resentment at their slow pace and fascination that a man could be so patient with a horse.
Her father would sometimes beat his mount so hard with a crop that hair would fly off its haunches.
Spying a patch of green grass, the stallion veered to one side. Jared gently led it back to the middle of the road, disallowing their mount from stopping, but he did not prod the horse to speed up.
“'Twould be faster if we walked,” Gwyneth groused with another resentful look at Aeliana’s freedom to soar. At this pace, nightfall would be upon them afore they reached her castle.
“You wish to walk?” Jared asked.
She shifted slightly. The movement brought his hands even more into awareness, of how his long fingers and wide palms grazed her ribs. Masculine hands.
The heat radiating from him was oppressive, and once again she cursed her bad choice of husband.
Husband. Lord. Master.
Irritation flamed into anger at each familiar turn, at each bend of the road that brought them that much closer to her dower lands. Jared should have been long gone, not bringing her like a prisoner to her own properties.
Her properties. Not his.
Defiant Page 16
