“No one was hurt,” he said. “But we lost Maben’s horse.”
“I saw.”
“We could see ye fighting that brute. We tried to help ye but we were too far away.”
Samarra smoothed her dark hair back, away from her face, realizing there was mud and leaves in it. “What do you mean?”
Howler looked between the lady and their very big captive. “He saved ye, Missy,” he said, pointing to Rhodes. “He saved ye when we couldn’t. He killed the man who was trying to kill ye. He saved ye.”
Samarra looked at Rhodes, seeing a man of humility before her. Gone was the arrogant knight she’d come to know, replaced by a man who didn’t seem particularly puffed-up about what he’d done. As she stared at him, she struggled to remember what, exactly, Howler was talking about – she remembered fighting the big man with a heavy blade and she remembered being struck in the face. Then there was water… her head was in the water and someone was holding her head down. She couldn’t breathe. And then… the next thing she realized, she was standing here looking at Howler and Rhodes.
He saved ye.
It all came back to Samarra in a rush. Now, she remembered everything, from the fight to the blow to the face to the terror of knowing she was drowning. Everything flooded back to her and her knees went weak with relief, with realization. The man she’d captured, a job for hire that had become something more than “just” a job, had saved her life.
Because of him, she was standing here picking leaves out of her hair.
“You… you saved me?” she asked Rhodes, her voice trembling. “Why did you do that?”
Rhodes met her gaze, his features full of honesty. “Because it needed to be done. And because I wanted to.”
“But why?”
“Does it matter?”
She was becoming more emotional, more animated. “Of course it does,” she said. “You could have had your freedom, de Leybourne. If you let that man kill me, then you could have escaped!”
Rhodes shook his head. “It would not have been worth it.”
Samarra had no idea what to say or how to react to such a reverse in the man’s attitude. More than that, he’d displayed great courage in saving her, bound by the hands as he was, and with that awareness she came to understand that Rhodes de Leybourne was no ordinary man, no ordinary knight. Beyond the ego and flirting and insults beat the heart of a hero.
A great and noble knight of legend.
Suddenly, Samarra pulled forth her dagger and ripped it between the length of rope that bound his wrists together. The rope was sliced in half and, instantly, he was free.
“You saved my life and I always pay my debts,” Samarra said, her emotion giving way to her usual serious manner. “Bargain or no, I could not take you to your father in good conscience, not when you could have easily let me die. Get on your horse and get out of here, de Leybourne. Go back to London and forget you ever met me.”
She was deadly serious and Rhodes knew it, but he had no intention of leaving. He had a hint of a smile on his lips as he tugged at the remaining rope around his wrists, tossing the pieces to the ground until there was nothing left to remind him that he’d been bound other than welts on his wrists. Rubbing at the red spots, he glanced up at the sky.
“It is time for the nooning meal and I am famished,” he said. “We are not far from St. Agnes, in fact. As I recall, there is a decent tavern there that serves excellent fare. At least, it did a few years ago. Let us go and see if that still holds true.”
Samarra was looking at him dumbly, her entire body tense with the power of what she was feeling. The situation, and Rhodes’ reaction to the fact that she had released him, had her genuinely baffled.
“W-What?” she stammered. “I do not….”
He cut her off, taking her by the arm and pulling her towards her horse. “We are going to go find something to eat,” he said quietly, lifting her up and tossing her onto her saddle when she couldn’t quite seem to do it herself. “Gather your reins, now. We ride.”
Samarra could hardly believe he wasn’t running from her. Wasn’t that what he’d begged for all along? But now that he was free, he evidently had no intention of leaving. In fact, she watched him walk all the way back to his stallion and mount the beast before her mind was unmuddled enough to speak.
“Are you mad?” she finally demanded. “I have released you, de Leybourne. You are free to go.”
He directed his horse up next to her. “I know.”
He didn’t say anything more than that and her eyes widened, perplexed at his behavior. “Why aren’t you going?”
He reached out and smacked her horse on the buttocks, prompting the steed to lurch forward along the road. “Get along, now,” he said. “St. Agnes should be no more than an hour or two if we move swiftly.”
But Samarra reined her horse back before the animal could move very far. Her expression was full of disbelief as she gazed at Rhodes.
“This makes no sense,” she said. “I am not going anywhere until you tell me why you are not leaving. Isn’t that what you wanted? Isn’t that what you begged for? You saved my life and I am releasing you. I will not hold a man prisoner to whom I owe a debt, no matter what bargain I have made with his father. I do not understand why you….”
Before she could finish, he reached out and pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “You talk too much,” he scolded gently. “Get your horse moving. I will not tell you again.”
“But… St. Agnes is where your father will be waiting!”
“You will let me worry about that.”
Mystified, Samarra didn’t have much choice. He wasn’t leaving her and he wasn’t going to tell her why he wasn’t leaving her. Therefore, she stewed in confused silence, following him all the way into the small village of St. Agnes.
Chapter Seven
The Meadery
St. Agnes
By the time Samarra reached St. Agnes, her head was killing her and she wasn’t feeling very well in general, but at least her confusion had left her for the most part. Now, she was thinking clearly and the biggest thing on her mind was the powerful knight who was riding ahead of her.
She’d been watching that silver-arsed horse for the better part of an hour and a half, hypnotized by the swaying of the beast as she relived every single moment of her life since the moment she first met Rhodes de Leybourne. She remembered thinking when she first met him how he was different from any man she’d ever met, how he treated her differently and with a kindness she’d never before known. A knight of his caliber had every reason to treat her like dirt, because she was in a sense. Her family name had meant something, once, but it didn’t any longer. Now, the name le Brecque stood for cutthroats and thieves. It was something that had never concerned Samarra until now.
Until she met Rhodes.
Now, she was in a world of confusion and misery – confusion over who she was and what she’d become in life, and misery over meeting a man she could never hope to have. As their small group entered St. Agnes and came to a halt at a large tavern called The Meadery, Samarra was simply going through the motions. She didn’t even really know why she was here. If Rhodes didn’t want to leave her, then perhaps she needed to leave him simply to keep her dignity intact. She would send his father’s money back to him without an explanation. Samarra never believed there was a job she couldn’t handle but, in this case, Rhodes de Leybourne proved to be too much, on many different levels.
The Meadery was a two-storied establishment that was the biggest one in the village, but the structure was an oddity. The ground level was a massive common room with a wooden floor because a second level, a sub-ground level, had been dug below it into the side of the hill that The Meadery was situated upon. There were more people down in the sub-level and there were also sleeping rooms there, dug like caves into the side of the hill.
It was a loud, unusual place, smelling of smoke and of the earth that comprised the floor and walls of most of
the structure. Rhodes had Samarra by the arm as he led her into the establishment, her men drifting in behind them.
At midday, the tavern was about half-full so they had their choice of tables for the most part. As Rhodes pulled Samarra over to a table near the only window in the entire place, he turned to her men and pointed to another table that was nearby. It was clear that Rhodes wanted to be alone with Samarra, and her men reluctantly did as the big knight indicated. Settling down at another table several feet away, they immediately began calling for the tavern wench.
Big, handsome Rhodes didn’t even have to summon a wench – the one nearest to them drifted in his direction in spite of an entire table of dirty, rough-looking men that were calling for her. As Rhodes pulled out a chair for Samarra and practically shoved her into it, the wench sauntered up and smiled at him.
“What’ll it be, good lord?” she asked.
Rhodes plopped down on the chair next to Samarra. “What kind of fare are you offering today?”
The wench braced her arms on the table, leaning forward to give Rhodes an ample view of her cleavage. “Fresh fish,” she said. “Cook roles it in flour and fries it. We also have fruit pies, mince pies, cabbage pottage and a fish stew.”
Rhodes ignored the cleavage she was trying very hard to show him. “Bring it all,” he told her. “And bring your finest mead. You will also bring food over to those fools who are desperately trying to gain your attention.”
He indicated the table of Samarra’s men and the wench could see that the big knight had no interest in her soft breasts. Disappointed, she looked over at the table nearby, men who were still waving her over. “Are they with you?”
“They are.”
The wench simply nodded and headed off to the kitchens to bring forth the food. As she scooted away, Rhodes turned to Samarra.
“And you,” he said. “I would imagine you would like to wash that filth off of you.”
He pulled a leaf out of her hair, tossing it to the floor, and Samarra looked down at herself. She was stained with the dirty water that had nearly claimed her life.
“Mayhap later,” she said. Then, she eyed him. “I do not understand why we are here. Did you not hear me tell you that your father would be waiting here for you?”
Rhodes nodded. “I heard you.”
“Then why did you come?”
“Does it matter? Isn’t it enough that I am here?”
“But why?”
He sighed faintly; he supposed, in a sense, she deserved some answers. It was because of her that he was here, after all.
“Because it occurred to me that if I do not come to St. Agnes, with you, you will have broken your bargain with my father,” he said. “I should not like for you to appear dishonorable in his eyes. One of us being dishonorable to a bargain is quite enough.”
Samarra was rather touched that he would be concerned for what might be perceived as her lack of honor. “You mean your resistance to the marital contract?”
“I do, indeed.”
She watched him as he rubbed at the red welts her ropes had left on his big wrists. “Then what will you do when he comes?” she asked. “He told me you were to meet your betrothed here so that you could both travel to the caves and touch the bloodstains upon the walls. Do you now intend to go through with it?”
Rhodes stopped rubbing the welts on his wrists and looked at her. “Nay,” he said flatly. “I was hoping to speak with my father one last time to try and convince him to dissolve the contract.”
Samarra found herself gazing into his big, blue eyes, perhaps a bit dreamily. “But you could have run when I released you and you would not have to do any of this,” she said. “Your father wants you to marry this girl, so strongly that he hired me to ensure you upheld his bargain. I do not believe that speaking to him one last time will convince him to change his mind. You are at St. Agnes, where he wanted you to be. If you did not intend to go through with it, then why did you come here?”
“I told you why.”
“But I still do not understand why you should be concerned with my honor over your freedom.”
Rhodes opened his mouth to speak but the wench had returned with a big pitcher of mead and two cups. She set it on the table in front of them and Rhodes took the pitcher and poured a full measure for both him and Samarra. As the wench headed over to the table where Samarra’s men were demanding she pay attention to them, Rhodes picked up his cup.
“Drink,” he instructed Samarra. “You need it.”
Samarra already had the cup in hand, lifting it to her lips. It was black mead, or honey mead blended with black currants, and it was very strong. But after the first sip, she realized how thirsty she was and downed nearly the entire cup purely out of thirst, regardless of the strength of the drink. Rhodes was right; she needed it.
Rhodes, however, was watching her with raised eyebrows. The drink was strong, even for him, and he watched her as she poured a second cup and nearly drained that one, too. When she went to pour a third cup, he put a hand on her fingers to stop her.
“Easy,” he said quietly. “The drink is very strong. You are well on your way to becoming drunk quite quickly.”
Truth was, Samarra could already feel the alcohol in her veins, the warmth filling her belly and radiating outward into her limbs.
“I do not care,” she said flatly. “I deserve to be drunk. For almost losing my life in a bog, being drunk is the very least of my worries. It is a celebration. In fact, it proves to me that I am alive.”
Rhodes watched her down about half of the third cup, knowing she was going to become very drunk, very fast, if she kept this up. Without saying another word to her about it, he waved the wench over from the other table, asking for boiled fruit juice to cut the mead with. When Samarra heard him, she frowned.
“I will not have you telling me how to drink,” she said. “No one tells me what to do.”
Rhodes tried not to grin. “I cannot imagine they do.”
“Then why are you cutting my drink?”
“Because you are drinking it too fast. If you are not careful, you will make an arse out of yourself.”
She sat back in her chair, scowling at him. “I have already made an arse out of myself.”
“How?”
“Because I permitted an outlaw to nearly kill me.”
“There is no shame in that. He was bigger and stronger than you are, but you gave him a gallant fight. I saw it.”
She didn’t like that answer. “I was weak,” she muttered, taking another big gulp of her drink. Now, she was really starting to feel the alcohol. “I was weak to let him best me so that you had to rush to my rescue. If it had not been for you, I would be dead.”
Rhodes patted her hand simply to quiet her down because her voice was becoming loud. “It was of no matter,” he said. “You would have done the same for me.”
She took her nose out of her cup and looked at him. “You are right,” she said. “I would have. And do you know why?”
“Why?”
She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Because I admire you, de Leybourne. You are a noble knight and I did not realize that until now. You are a great man of great deeds. I will wager that your liege is sorely missing you right now.”
Rhodes was encouraged by her words; they touched him. “That sounds like flattery to me,” he said. “You must admire me a great deal to tell me such things.”
She nodded. “I do,” she said sincerely. “I admire you and I also like you. You have been kind to me in a way that not many have been. In fact, I cannot remember the last man who was as kind to me as you have been. Even when you thought I was a whore, still, you were kind to me. You suggested taking me to London. Now I want to go with you to London and see the marvelous plays you have spoken of, but if you marry this wench you have been promised to, then I will not be able to. You have said so yourself.”
Rhodes watched her as she poured herself more mead, spilling some of it on the table. H
e should have stopped her but, in truth, he didn’t want to; it seemed that alcohol loosened the woman’s tongue and he was hearing things from her he’d never heard before. This serious, professional, and deadly young woman evidently had a great many thoughts that she kept to herself. She was revealing her heart, something Rhodes had seriously wondered about, and he liked what he heard.
He liked it because he was having much the same feelings about her.
“I would not dare disappoint such a lady,” Rhodes said, his voice soft. “If you want to go to London, then we shall.”
“But what about your wife?”
“Who is to say that I will not marry you? That way, we can go to London and do a great many things, and it will not matter, as you shall be my wife.”
Samarra’s dark eyebrows lifted with great surprise. “Your wife?”
“Is that such a terrible idea?”
She was clearly shocked. She nodded. Then, quickly, she shook her head. “How can you say such a thing?” she demanded. “It is cruel to suggest it!”
His grin broke through. “Why is it cruel? I am serious, Samarra. I would not jest on a subject as serious as this.”
The shock on her face grew, then faded, replaced by a distinct expression of misery. “You are mad!”
“I am quite sane.”
“Drunken lunacy!”
“I assure you, I am sober and sane.”
She didn’t believe him. “But… I told you who I am,” she said, tears forming in her great hazel eyes. “My brother is the leader of Poseidon’s Legion. My father was also a pirate. My family name stood for something, once. It did not always stand for the dregs of our society. But that was before poverty and desperation took hold after King Edward stripped my ancestor of his lands over one hundred years ago. Once, we had wealth and station. My ancestor, the one who angered Edward II, was Baron Newlyn. His lands stretched from St. Agnes all the way up to Newquay. But everything was taken from him so our family resorted to do whatever they had to in order to survive. You are a great and noble knight, de Leybourne. It would not be fitting for you to marry into such a family.”
Poseidon’s Legion Page 40
