To Tempt a Knight

by Gerri Russell

  Her stomach dropped. She swayed.

  “Don’t you dare fall.” William’s words broke through her panic. “Keep your eyes on the rocks ahead.”

  It wasn’t his words that pushed her forward, but the intensity in his voice that steeled her resolve. She kept moving. She’d reached the two-thirds mark.

  “You’re almost there.”

  Her legs trembled as she pushed herself to continue. When she reached the other side, she sagged to the ground with relief. A glance to the other side of the crevasse told her that William had started across.

  His progress was steady and even. He held his hands out at his sides, balancing himself as he came. Halfway across, an ominous crack sounded—the sound of breaking wood.

  Panic screamed through Siobhan. The wood they had carefully bound together sagged, snapped. William surged forward, almost at a run now. The wood bent downward, threatening to slide into the crevasse on both sides.

  “Hurry!” Siobhan surged to her feet. William dived for the sheer edge of the crevasse. The logs fell away. His big body thudded against the rock. His fingers dug at the ground. His breath came in ragged spurts.

  “Give me your hands!” Siobhan grasped him and pulled back with all her might. Terror wormed icy tentacles through her body. She wouldn’t lose him. She couldn’t lose him.

  A thunderous crash sounded as the bridge hit the rocks. Siobhan gritted her teeth and pulled all the harder.

  Slowly, William inched forward. Silence surrounded them now, thick and oppressive. Beads of perspiration snaked down her temples. Fear clogged her throat.

  “Nay!” Siobhan released her breath in a sharp, angry rush. They’d come too far to give up now. She pulled with all her strength. His body jerked forward. His shoulders cleared the edge of the rock. He used his feet to propel himself up over the ledge until they both collapsed upon the ground panting, trembling.

  “I thought you—” Siobhan buried her face against his chest. Her teeth were chattering.

  “Me, too.” He pulled her close.

  His chest was firm and strong, and she could feel his strength as she lay against him.

  After a long moment, she pulled back. Breathless, she gazed into William’s face. His lips touched hers, and shock trembled through her body. A feeble protest shivered free on a sigh, but she couldn’t summon the wit or the will to make it convincing. Her senses centered on the feather-light pressure of his mouth, on the teasing, taunting appeal of his tongue as it sampled, tasted.

  Her arms tightened around his shoulders. His lips slanted more forcefully against hers, and his tongue slid possessively into the heated depths of her mouth. Her stomach turned to molten heat that slipped downward on each silky, probing caress.

  Her fingers spread across the woolen thickness of his tunic and inched higher and higher until her arms encircled his neck. She pressed eagerly into his embrace, thrilling in the feel of his arms as they enfolded her.

  Her body melted against his. She wanted to move with him, to quench the tension that curled tauter, tighter in her belly.

  He ended the kiss suddenly, breaking away with an abruptness that brought a cry of surprised disappointment from her lips.

  His face was a shadow, but she sensed a shared feeling of surprise. As if he hadn’t expected the rush of pleasure she could feel thundering through his chest.

  “I shouldn’t have done that.” His words were light and casual, yet he held her away from his body as if he didn’t trust any further contact.

  Siobhan felt her cheeks flush. What had just happened? It was as if William had cast a spell over her, had enveloped her so that she couldn’t think or move or even breathe.

  Her lips still burned where he’d touched her. It had been a simple kiss, but that one touch threatened to turn her whole world upside down.

  Chapter Thirteen

  William struggled to breathe. A taste of heaven. That’s what her kisses were. He forced himself to pull back, to sit up and put some distance between him and temptation. What would it be like to lose himself in her?

  He clenched his jaw. He would never know.

  Siobhan’s cheeks flushed scarlet. “Forgive me,” she whispered.

  “There is nothing to forgive,” he said as he scrambled to his feet. “I think it best if we both just forget this ever happened.”

  The color faded from her face. She stood, looking away from him. “Are we safe here from whoever is following us?”

  He nodded. “They would have to cross the crevasse as we did, or hike around to cross above the waterfall. Even if he does manage, we’ll have had a long head start.”

  “Then if you’ll excuse me…” She strode past him. “Where are you going?” he asked, stunned by the sudden shift in her mood.

  “I’d like to spend some time alone.” Siobhan stalked across the rocky ground, heading for the base of the waterfall.

  He watched her go, the pain of rejection tightening in his chest. He dashed his fingers through his hair and turned away. It was idiotic to feel hurt. He didn’t even know her, not really. And perhaps some time apart would help him keep perspective.

  He had taken vows, and one of those was of celibacy. He had to keep that at the front of his mind every time she tempted him…

  Yet the more he tried to justify why he should not feel the pain of rejection, the more the sensation swamped him. He did know her, for she was very much like himself—independent, isolated and terrified of making herself vulnerable.

  William moved to where he’d dropped his saddlebag. He hoisted it over his shoulder. While she had her time alone, he would hunt for their supper. If he stayed busy, he could keep from thinking of her…of how good her lips felt against his, of her soft skin. He’d known from the moment he saw her that there could be nothing between them, but something had drawn them together despite his attempts to stay neutral.

  Despite it all, something had developed between them.

  They had joined forces to escape de la Roche, successfully translated her father’s cryptic notes, taken their meals side by side, argued the benefits and drawbacks of going after the Spear. They’d hiked through the hillsides of Scotland and made it through treacherous moments, helping each other. These past few days they had shared a joint purpose that had forged the tentative bonds of friendship.

  Friends. The word had a precious quality to it. William turned to look once again in the direction Siobhan had gone. One didn’t abandon one’s friends. He had to go after her and apologize. For what? Kissing her?

  He sighed. Nay, he had wanted to kiss her in that moment more than he wanted to draw breath. He wanted to kiss her still. But he couldn’t bend to his own desires again. It would be unfair to them both, to their friendship.

  Feeling more in control of himself and his thoughts, he hurried down the path toward the waterfall. Suddenly, fresh fish seemed a very tempting supper. His steps were light as he stepped across the thick moss that grew alongside the pool at the base of the waterfall. Lush, green foliage surrounded the embankment. Birds flitted overhead and settled in the boughs of the nearby trees, their song lending tranquility to the scene. Squirrels skittered from branch to branch in an endless search for food.

  William paused. The sunbeams were bolder and broader here, exaggerating the brilliant greens of the leaves and ferns, silvering the surface of the water and glistening like pearls around Siobhan’s naked torso.

  His body hardened at the unexpected sight. He stood absolutely still. His gaze drifted to the shoreline, to where her cloak and gown lay along with a shift of fine white linen, two woolen socks and her half boots. He hitched a breath as his gaze moved back to the woman in the water. She’d twisted toward the mist the falls generated. Long strands of red hair curled down her back, dripping against skin that gleamed like freshly sculpted marble.

  She reached up and combed her fingers through her hair to remove a bright shower of excess droplets onto the water’s surface. She released a long, refreshed sigh that was pa
rt satisfaction, part ecstasy.

  He must have made a sound low in his throat because she suddenly twisted toward him, her hands coming up to cover her exposed breasts an instant before she dipped below the water’s surface.

  For a moment they stared at each other without further sound or movement. Her eyes commanded most of his attention as she stared at him with a mixture of betrayal and wide-eyed innocence. “What are you doing here?”

  He blinked. “I came to fish.” His voice sounded raw to his own ears. “What are you doing?”

  “I wanted to wash off the dust.” The look in her eyes shifted to annoyance. “Please turn around,” she commanded.

  He pivoted and dropped his gaze to the moss beneath his feet. He heard soft splashes of water behind him, then the whisper of fabric as she dressed. All the heat they had just shared during their one kiss returned tenfold. The weight of his mail suddenly became stifling.

  With urgency that had more to do with his thoughts of Siobhan than the heat of his body, William unfastened his cloak, then his scabbard, and tossed them to the ground. His tunic, mail hauberk and quilted aketon followed, until he stood on the shoreline in only his braies.

  “What are you doing?” Siobhan gasped as she looked up to see William disrobing. As she fastened the last hook on her gown, he raced past her and dived into the misty water with barely a splash.

  She waited breathlessly for him to reappear above the water’s surface. Several heartbeats passed before he jutted upward, like a fish jumping for bugs. The sound of his laughter rippled across her as she watched him glide through the water.

  He stopped by the shore, close to her feet. “Refreshing,” he breathed, as he perched half in, half out of the water.

  Her earlier anger had vanished along with the dust that had covered her body. “You, sir, have a very curious way of fishing,” she said a bit more tartly than she intended.

  He simply smiled at her. The blond hair at William’s temples glistened with tiny beads of moisture. She watched as droplets fell on his broad shoulders. The slash on his shoulder had healed—she could no longer see the stitches. No doubt he had removed them himself. In another week the mark would be nothing but a thin white line cutting through his tanned flesh. With his tunic and chain mail removed, Siobhan saw the hard, sinuous muscles in his arms and across the breadth of his chest.

  With another laugh, he pushed himself backward, sending ripples of water up against the shore as he crashed back into the pool. He swam to the base of the waterfall and ducked his head into the spray before returning once again to the nearby shore, where he reached up to an overhanging tree branch and snapped off a limb. He stripped the bark back and worked the end into a point with a small dagger he had withdrawn from the waist of his braies, before he headed back to the falls.

  She tried to look away, but found she could not. He possessed deadly grace and the power of a lynx, and Siobhan was just as keenly aware of the danger as if she were sitting in the open, and his prey. He thrust the stick down, then jerked it back. A fat silver trout writhed at the end of the stick.

  He moved to the rocks and, taking the fish in both his hands, looked into the trout’s eyes. He said something she couldn’t hear, then brought the fish’s head down against a rock. The trout lay still.

  A moment later he returned to the shore and set the fish gently down upon the moss. “I told you I meant to fish for our supper.”

  “So you did.” She drew a sharp breath when she realized he meant to dress. She looked away as he pulled his aketon on over his wet skin. Nervously, she set to plaiting her hair. She needed something to distract her from the man who had stolen all her focus from the moment they had met.

  “All clear,” he announced a moment later. He was near enough that she could smell the sunshine and sweet water on his skin. She looked up to see beads of water glittering in his hair, dropping onto the dark fabric of his tunic and dampening it so that it clung to his broad shoulders in darker patches. Her dizziness returned, though not from the wound at her temple. She steadied herself with a slow, deep breath.

  “Come, ma chérie.” He offered her his hand. Siobhan felt the heat of his eyes appraising her. “From the water I saw the perfect spot for us to make camp tonight.”

  Ma chérie. The endearment echoed softly in her ears. She took two steps forward and accepted his outstretched hand. “We don’t have to keep moving?”

  “For tonight, we are safe in this little oasis.” His fingers closed tightly around her smaller ones. He bent to retrieve his saddlebag, their cloaks and the fish, then led her along the water’s edge to a glen covered in a thick blanket of moss. At the back of the clearing, a wall of rock stretched several feet overhead. The clearing was outlined by row after row of bracken. The area was perfect, warm and protected and surrounded by nature’s beauty.

  “It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “This setting reminds me of the stories my father told me about Avalon, King Arthur and his knights.” A smile came to her lips. “Avalon would have been a paradise such as this.”

  “Your father told you many stories?”

  “Oh, yes, all the time. About King Herod and Odysseus and Hippolyta, and so many others. I loved listening to his stories. They made me long for adventures…like the one we are having now.”

  A shadow of pain passed through his eyes, only to vanish a moment later. He released her fingers and handed her both of their cloaks. “Arrange these next to the rock wall while I gather wood for a fire.”

  He remained oddly silent as he set about making a fire. Had she said something to upset him? “William?”

  “Please, Siobhan, let the matter rest.”

  Silence fell between them. It didn’t take long before a fire blazed in their encampment. As the sun faded against the western horizon, the warmth of the flames kept them comfortable. Tendrils of smoke curled in the air. The savory scent of roasted fish filled the air, and the sound of the wood as it popped and crackled brought a sense of peacefulness.

  Siobhan sat on her own cloak and pulled William’s over the top of her. They would have to sleep side by side tonight to stay warm. The thought sent flutters through her stomach.

  William stood by the fire, slicing thick, juicy portions of the trout he’d caught into two bowls. When he finished, he turned toward her and offered her a bowl, his expression once again clear. “What did you say to this fish before you—?”

  “Killed it?” he finished her sentence for her and shrugged. “I thanked it for its life, and bid it to rest in peace.”

  That wasn’t what she’d expected a warrior to say. “Is it easy for you to kill?”

  He came to sit beside her on top of the cloaks. “Killing is never easy, whether man or beast.” Something in his manner shifted, became more mournful. He gazed blindly at the flames. Despite the fact that she wore the bandage about her head, it was he who looked broken in that moment.

  She reached for his hand, folding her fingers around his larger ones. To her surprise he didn’t pull away. Instead, the tension left his body. He leaned against the stone at his back.

  She longed to understand more about who William was, and why he’d been so sad moments before. “I am sorry for my outburst earlier,” she said between bites of fish. “I don’t truly want to be alone.”

  “We have that in common.” He chewed thoughtfully.

  She eyed him curiously. “Why are you alone? Where’s your family?”

  He set his bowl aside. “Dead a score of years and more.” His brow creased, as though weighing how much to tell her. “They were murdered by my uncle on the night I fled Stonehyve Castle forever.”

  “Stonehyve? That’s not far from here.”

  His jaw tightened. “I know.”

  “You were a lad when you left. Have you had contact with your uncle since?”

  “Nay. He and his men were certain I died the night of my uncle’s assault. I’ve never disproved that notion.”

  “Have you ever wondered what it w
ould be like to go back? To challenge your uncle as an adult?”

  “I have no wish to risk the lives of others to take back something I let go of long ago. Nothing will ever bring my parents back to me.”

  She knew that feeling all too well. “I used to pray for my mother’s return, especially when things were difficult between my father and me.” The pain of yet another parent lost tightened her chest. She forced herself to take a slow, even breath. Her father was still alive. He had to be. They would find him.

  When she felt more in control of her emotions, she continued. “Eventually, I accepted that she was gone. When I was old enough, I started to take over the household duties. My father was always so cautious about our servants. He didn’t trust easily. Now I can understand why.”

  “He had much treasure to protect—a young daughter and countless artifacts from all over the world.”

  Siobhan could not stop the smile that came to her lips. There was something infinitely pleasurable about being compared to the treasures of the world. “You are kind to say so.”

  “ ‘Tis not kindness. Only truth.” He released her hand and stood. “Treasure needs protecting.” He smiled down at her. “Would you like to learn how to protect yourself with a sword?”

  “Very much.” She set her bowl aside.

  He helped her to her feet, drew his sword and handed it to her.

  She accepted the weapon. Instantly, the tip dipped toward the ground.

  “You will never win a battle fighting your opponent’s boots. Lift the weapon higher, toward the body’s core.”

  Siobhan tightened her grip and brought the tip up toward William’s waist. The weight of the weapon tugged at her arms, but she strained to do as he’d asked.

  He frowned. “We’ll need to find you a small sword or perhaps a rapier as soon as possible. Meanwhile…” He moved behind her, pulling her against his chest. His hands came out to wrap around hers where they rested on the hilt.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Aye.” Her voice hitched.