by Jacobs Delle
Leonie fled the hall, her cheeks burning. He did mean to humiliate her!
With that thought, she halted so abruptly that if any man had been running behind her, he would have slammed into her hard enough to knock her down. Nay, Philippe le Peregrine would not shame her. She would shame him.
She could. If she handled it just right.
CHAPTER THREE
LEONIE STOMPED UP the stairs, through the solar, and into the ladies’ chamber, where Ealga stood, wringing her aged hands.
“Oh, must ye?”
“He baited me.” Leonie strode to the corner where she kept the ivorywood bow and quiver of arrows her mother had left behind when she disappeared, long years ago.
“Ye shouldna rise to the bait, girl. ’Twill be your undoing.”
“If it is so, then it is so.” Her chin jutted as she picked up the soft leather quiver, and she paused a moment to finger the feathers of the arrows and slipped the quiver’s strap over her shoulder.
Ealga moaned. Heavily etched wrinkles in her face became deep crevices, and Leonie ached at her beloved maid’s distress. But she could not give in now. If Leonie knew anything about humans, it was that they saw what they wanted to see. One merely needed to be careful. After all this time, not even her beloved uncle knew Leonie’s secret. He only thought her too much like her mysterious mother.
Leonie reached for the ivorywood bow, braced it between her legs, strung it, and slung it over her other shoulder.
“Have a care, lass,” Ealga whined after her as Leonie marched down the stairs, through the hall, and across the inner bailey.
The glow of torches lit the lower bailey. There, her adversary awaited, his powerful legs standing wide, his bow propped at arm’s length. Every inch of him, from his long, straight blond hair to his muscled arms, legs, and torso, proclaimed his arrogant maleness. She sneered. She had not thought a man could swagger while standing still.
His knights lined up on one side of the straw-stuffed manikin, opposite the knights of Castle Brodin. When men took sides like this, there was always wagering. Behind the knights, lining the stone steps and parapets, the folk of the castle milled and buzzed with excitement and cheered her approach. At least she knew she would please them.
Chin high and back straight, abrasively displaying her unusual height, Leonie strode to the Peregrine and stopped, looking him straight in the eye in the very way she had spent all evening trying to avoid. The man responded with a smirk.
He would not smirk long.
She scanned the line of Brodin’s knights and found her favorite. “Gerard,” she called.
Gerard stepped forth. “Your servant, lady.”
She held out bow and quiver. Gerard bowed and took them. Then she whipped the veil off her head, twisted it into a rope, and bound back the wild hair that was always getting in her way.
“You may have the first shot, Philippe le Peregrine,” she said.
“A lady always goes first.”
“But not first before a guest.”
He nodded warily and eyed the straw manikin dangling from the quintain post.
“One in the heart,” he said.
The muscles in his arm bulged as he pulled his powerful bow. The arrow sang through the air.
An excellent shot. Nearly perfect.
“Ah, but that is not the location of a man’s heart,” she said.
She drew an arrow from the quiver. She caressed its stiff feathers, nocked it to the string, and drew the bowstring back as far as her earlobe.
Fly straight, sweet shaft, she sang in her heart to the arrow. The bowstring twanged dully as it was released, and Leonie silently steered it as it flew, to thud into the straw manikin’s crotch.
A low moan coursed through the gathering of men. She didn’t have to look to know more than one man clutched his nether parts.
She turned back to the Peregrine. “You said you would split my shaft, sir knight. I invite you to do it.”
A deeper groan came from the men. Even Philippe le Peregrine looked a little ill. He narrowed his eyes.
“Your claws are showing again, little lioness,” he replied. “You know little of a man’s true heart. I shall split my own arrow instead.”
And if he called her little lioness one more time, she feared she would kick him in the shin.
Nocking his next arrow, he paused and sent her a narrowed look. He drew back, took aim, and let it fly. It whizzed the distance to the manikin and thudded into the straw. Perhaps it shaved the arrow. But it did not split it.
Perfect—for her. She might have smiled. But she was of no mood to waste any pleasantry on him. Leonie pulled four arrows from the quiver, one at a time. Three of them she clutched between her third and fourth fingers, just beneath their fletchings, and the fourth she nocked into the string.
“What’s she going to do?” said a voice said from the Peregrine’s side of the shooting yard. “Shoot all four at once?”
She ignored them. And no one from Castle Brodin made a sound. For they knew.
Her mind singing the secret arrows’ song, she drew, aimed, and released. In rapid succession her long fingers flipped the next arrow upward to nestle into shooting position, and it flew. Then the third, then the fourth, so quickly the knights had no time to exclaim between shots. Each arrow found its target: the Peregrine’s first shot flayed, his second beside it split, the arrow lodged in the crotch of the manikin rent in two, and the last, aimed high.
Soar, sweet arrow. Find your mark.
It cut through the rope, and the straw manikin tumbled to the earth.
Leonie lowered her bow and looked around. Not a noise came from anyone. Their mouths hung open.
Then her stomach twisted into a huge knot as she realized her error. Their silence spoke as loudly as a thunderclap. God in Heaven, help me. What have I done? What she had done no man could do. Would they now begin to see her for what she really was—not human? Or worse, spawned of the devil, as Normans believed witches were?
She had to turn it around. Or stall until she thought of something. “Gerard, my arrows.”
Gerard nodded solemnly and walked to the target to pull out the arrows, then returned.
“I am defeated,” said the Peregrine, as softly as if he spoke in the nave of an empty, echoing cathedral.
Leonie swallowed her building fear, but she was well practiced in hiding her secret. She could do it.
“Do not disparage, sir knight,” she said, her nostrils flaring above her honeyed smile. “The secret is in the bow.”
Leonie held out her mother’s ivorywood bow to the knight. She gestured to Gerard and his squire to set up the manikin against the quintain post.
Philippe frowned as he studied the bow’s pale wood and the bronze bands above and below the handgrip. “What manner of wood is this?” he asked. “I’ve never seen the like.”
“I do not know. I am told it is merely ash, treated in some unknown way. I call it ivorywood because it looks to me like ivory.”
He pulled on the string, bouncing it easily. “This is no man’s bow. It is too weak.”
“Aye,” she said. “Fit only for a woman.”
The crowd chuckled lowly. He frowned in response.
“Try it, sir knight,” she said. “Plant the arrow between the dummy’s eyes.”
It was an easy shot for him, but just in case, she sang silently to the arrow, and it hummed through the air to hit its target perfectly.
Leonie drew an arrow from her quiver and handed it to him.
“Now, split the shaft, Philippe le Peregrine.”
The missile flew as straight as she sang it, as if it sought its soul mate. But like no soul mate God ever made, it hit squarely at the nock and split the wood down to the iron point.
“God’s face,” he whispered raggedly.
“Would you care to try again?” She grasped another arrow near its nock as if to pull it out of the quiver.
The way he shook his head was strange and slow, as
if he were dazed. “Where did you get this bow?” he asked. “Who made it?”
“It belonged to my mother. ’Tis said she made it. I only know that it was among her possessions. But she is gone, so I cannot ask.”
“I don’t suppose you’d sell it. Haps, for the price of a king’s ransom?”
She almost smiled. Almost laughed. “Nay. I have very little of her, and I would never part with it.”
Then the urge came over her, wishing she could lay upon him a gaze so devastating it would bring him to his knees with overwhelming need to love her, just to make him suffer. She would have succumbed if it had only been in her power, for she wanted—what? Did she want him to suffer even more than the humiliation of a staggering defeat by a maid?
But it made no difference what she wished. It was not within her power.
A trembling coursed through her arms and hands. Lest it betray her, she bowed an immodestly low, mocking curtsy and spun away. Her heart pounded, rushing blood that clouded mind and vision, screaming at her to flee. Somehow she forced her steps to long, swaggering strides, back through the gate to the inner bailey, to the hall and through its doors.
CHAPTER FOUR
AN OATH CLUNG to the tip of Philippe’s tongue, but thankfully got no farther. His gaze was fixed on the twitch of arrogance in the lady’s swaying hips. Even her tied-back rope of impossible curls swung back and forth to the rhythm of her steps.
“I told you,” said the Brodin knight, Gerard. Smirking, he held out his palm.
Philippe fumbled a coin out of his pouch and plopped it into the knight’s hand. The knight snickered.
“It must be magic,” grumbled Michael, adding his coin to the growing pile in Gerard’s hand.
“Nay,” replied Philippe as he frowned, his nostrils flaring with the bitter remembrance. “It lacks the stench. Magic is always evil. This was talent. Did you not see how she handled those arrows? When I return, I vow I will force her to show me that trick.”
Gerard laughed and tossed his newly plump purse to the Brodin knights to divide their booty. “Not magic, but she does deceive you. ’Tis skill and much practice, not the bow. Although it surely is the finest I have ever seen. I have pulled it myself, but it did nothing for me.”
The Brodin knights burst into a guffaw.
“Naught could help you, Gerard,” said one named Ivo. “’Tis a good thing you are a knight. Were you a huntsman, you would starve.”
Philippe handed his bow to his squire and glanced back at where the straw dummy sprawled on the ground. A small shudder passed through him, remembering those shafts to the groin.
Geoffrey clapped a hand to his shoulder. “Do not take it to heart, my friend.”
“She gulled me again. I should have known better. But I thought I could beat her this time.”
“Nay, you gulled yourself.” Geoffrey laughed. “She tried to avoid the contest. She does not like to be thought unwomanly, you see.”
Philippe could not think of a woman more unwomanly. Yet she had an allure that grasped him by the heart. Or by the bollocks, to be more truthful. He counted four times now that he’d had a good view of her enticing backside.
He frowned. The girl was dangerous to him. He needed to get away from the little lioness of Brodin Castle as soon as he could.
“You do her no favors to allow her such freedom, Geoffrey. A husband might beat her for such audacity.”
Geoffrey sighed as he started back up the slope to the upper bailey. “I fear it is in the blood. Her mother was the same, and it did not serve her well. The girl does try hard to please, though. I can only hope Rufus chooses her husband well.”
“Yet who would he choose? I fear for her, Geoffrey.”
“Fulk of Durham, mayhap.”
Philippe’s head jerked up. “Fulk, the Warrior of God? May God help her, then.”
“You do not approve? He is a pious man.”
“He is a mountain of righteous arrogance, and arrogance does not tolerate other arrogance. He will beat her. No man likes to be challenged, and he most of all.”
“You sought out the challenge, did you not? Are there not other men who measure their worth by more than the strength of their arm?”
“Strength is what the world values.”
“Is it? Fine knight though you are, you are replaceable, for more new knights grow to manhood every day. But your way of making peace is unequaled, and Rufus would be hard put to find a man with your wisdom at politics. Nor, if I were king, would I wish you anywhere but where you have been placed.”
“At Bosewood? I did not choose it, nor want it. But I do my king’s bidding.”
“Aye, I know. He could have none more fiercely loyal than you. He values you most for that. You go to Bosewood next?”
“Not immediately. I’ll send my knights ahead, but I have more of the king’s business I must attend first. Business with the border.”
“Truly, there will be trouble, then?”
“Truly. Malcolm will likely go from raiding to invading. But Rufus means to forestall him. If trouble comes, you will need to call your knights and soldiers to arms.”
“I’ll be ready.”
Already the knights of the hall were enjoying another round of ale, toasting to their female champion. At least they approved what she did for their purses. Philippe suspected the servants would be very late in folding away the trestle tables this night. As for himself, he expected a merciless ragging from the king’s knights.
He laughed to himself. Although he had thought he might win this time, he had many times bragged to his men it was a woman who was the finest archer in all England, perhaps in all Christendom. He just had not known she would drub him so badly.
Something about it made his soul tingle. Perhaps if he were not a man cursed.
But he was.
The stifling heat still lingered in the solar. Only a whiff of breeze passed through the lancet window, not even enough to stir the bed curtains, but out beyond the castle walls the black branches and leaves swayed quietly against the bright moonlit sky.
Beside her sleeping cousin, Leonie lay in her thin chemise atop her covers. She could not sleep. She could not shake the thoughts of the Peregrine from her head.
She rose so quietly the bed’s ropes did not creak, and padded silently across the ladies’ chamber. The door to the solar groaned on its massive metal hinges. She hesitated, but seeing Claire did not stir, Leonie skimmed through the solar and out its door into the night.
The cool shaft of night air lapped at her face and sent long, pale tendrils of hair dancing around her cheeks, relieving the stickiness beneath her chemise as she descended the steps. Even the stone felt cool to the bare soles of her feet. Soon she landed on the paving stones of the upper bailey, strangely deserted and nearly silent, save for an owl’s hoot and the chittering of the nightjar. In the distance, the rush of water hissed over the rapids in the beck.
She had no destination, only a need that drove her through the dark gloom of the upper gatehouse to the lower bailey, lit by a moon so full her Fae sight was unneeded. The breeze tickled her skin, yet a hazy mist trailed at her feet like an eager litter of puppies. A September fog, though it was hot August. Wind and fog did not meet in such a way.
From the fog appeared the straw manikin, swinging from a rope at the quintain like a criminal hanged. An arrow protruded from its crotch like a limp shaft. Yet it was reversed, the triangular iron head dangling down.
The manikin was a man. The golden-haired Peregrine, his flesh silvered by the moonlight. The arrow shaft became erect, thick, long, and hard.
“You wound me, lady.” She knew his voice, for its low rasp had spoken to her in many dreams.
“Nay. You are whole.”
“Not whole.”
The man stood before her, not hanging from the rope.
“You should not wander alone at night, lady.”
“I am safe. It is my uncle’s castle.”
“You will never be saf
e.”
That was true. It was why she would never run, but also why she would never say it.
“What is it you want, lady? Do you seek a forfeit?”
“You did not pay the last one. Why should I ask one of you this time?”
“Is that what you want, lady? A kiss?”
She felt the hot flush growing on her face, flooding her body, for she was of the Faeriekind and her blood ran hot. Only human women had to be taught to know man-pleasure.
She turned to face him and was lost in the dark honey depth of his eyes. His lips looked hard, yet soft, as they parted and revealed the white tips of his teeth.
She licked her own lips as she raised a finger to trace the artful curves of his mouth. His tongue touched to her fingertips. She closed her eyes and felt the touch of his lips to hers, like the light caress of a feather.
“What do you want, Leonie?” his ragged voice asked. “Do you want more?”
“Aye,” she whispered.
Cool breeze and hot flesh tormented her shoulders as the loose chemise was pushed down. Roughened hands slid around her breasts, lifted them, and rubbed her virgin nipples between finger and thumb. The heat in her body grew, like sharp tendrils coiling downward, jabbing like strokes of lightning at the ache of passion growing inside her.
“Do you want more?” whispered the Peregrine.
“Aye.”
The baggy chemise drifted past her thighs and vanished as if it melted into the air. Her moonlight-silver skin touched the Peregrine’s sun-tinged flesh, felt the hardness beneath its surface, great corded muscles and the rippling male planes of his chest.
His hand slid between her legs and up, to find that strange nub that housed passion. It had no name as other body parts did, not like an arm or leg, nor even a shaft. But it was like a shaft, excited, swollen, aching, begging for the touch of his hand.
“You would be a man, but you would have a woman’s pleasures? You are unseemly. You play the man and you play the whore. But you are neither, nor are you what you should be. Nay, lioness, you shall have no pleasure from me.”
