Warrior's Surrender

by Elizabeth Ellen Carter

  “Surely Baldwin wouldn’t be so careless of his own hide as to repeat the same crudities in front of one of my men?”

  “What we witnessed speaks for itself, don’t you think?” Larcwide shrugged. “Now the question is what the baron will do.”

  Sounds on the staircase meant the opportunity for private conversation was at an end.

  “Will you speak to Orlege?” Frey asked. “I will speak to the baron.”

  Larcwide nodded his agreement before rising from the stool as the monk and Sebastian entered. Frey made eye contact with Larcwide once more and gave a slight nod. Larcwide left the library.

  Seizing the opportunity to control the direction of the conversation, Frey spoke first.

  “Brother Abbot, I wish to convey my deepest regret over the action of my man-at-arms. I can assure you it will not happen again, and I will speak to him immediately.”

  Frey halted her speech on observing the look the abbot gave to the baron.

  Frey gave Sebastian her full attention and dread welled in her.

  “Orlege is no longer here,” he told her. “I’ve sent him back with Gaines and two other men.”

  Frey was incensed. “You have no right!”

  Sebastian’s answer was measured, but anger clung to each word.

  “I have every right to deal with my men as I see fit.”

  “I no longer answer to you, Lady Alfreya.”

  Orlege’s words wounded, but Sebastian’s delivered a death blow.

  He pressed the point.

  “They are my men, are they not? You were a witness to their oath of loyalty three days ago, were you not?”

  Frey acknowledged with a curt nod, then said, “But it is still my responsibility to see they are treated justly.”

  “Do you have reason to believe the baron is unjust?” interjected the abbot.

  Frey forgot he was in the room.

  “No,” she admitted.

  “The circumstances that bring you to us are unusual to say the least. Even before your arrival I have made no secret about the concern I have for your welfare,” Brother Ranulf said.

  “I have sent a messenger to London asking the Crown to find a husband for you. Perhaps the man to whom you were pledged still lives.”

  Frey looked at him with desperation.

  “Have I no choice in this matter? I have heard of such places as double monasteries where men and women share the same orders. I wish for Brice and I to go to one of those.”

  Brother Ranulf shook his head with some sympathy.

  “Those houses no longer take new initiates,” he said. “The matter is truly out of my hands. Despite your father’s intentions, he did not declare Brice as his heir, which means you are Alfred’s only legitimate claimant.

  “The Crown will want to see you safely wed to a Norman. England is still home to a number of malcontents who would use you, willing or not, to produce an heir to contest Tyrswick.”

  Frey never before considered her sole value lay in the sons she could produce.

  “Surely as a nun, I…,” she began.

  The monk again shook his head.

  “Kidnappings are still rife, and your beauty as well as your bloodlines would be enough temptation. Under those circumstances, we believe the most satisfactory arrangement is to have your brother train here as a scholar until he has decided whether or not to take holy orders.”

  Brother Ranulf paused, waiting for Lady Alfreya to process his news.

  “Obviously, I cannot stay here until someone returns with news from London,” she said.

  “Very true. That is why the baron generously offers you his protection and his home until then. You will depart on the morrow.”

  “I understand,” answered Frey mildly.

  Oh yes, she did understand. The kiss in the stables, isolating her from her men-at-arms, added up to only one thing in Frey’s mind.

  It would be a cold day in hell before she would let Sebastian use her the way Drefan had.

  If Larcwide remained in the room, he would have known her change in demeanor boded no one any good. But he was not here and the abbot did not know her. So, while he probably congratulated himself on a job well done, Frey turned to look at Sebastian, silently hurling epithet after epithet in a rage that grew stronger by the second.

  As though he could hear her, Sebastian’s lips quirked into a brief, mocking half smile.

  Ah, the taste of those lips on hers in the stable—soft, full, and tempting. Did the man take a sadistic delight in her predicament?

  Aware she was the focus of both men in the room, Frey kept her eyes fixed on Sebastian’s face and dipped to a low curtsey.

  “I hope to one day repay the baron’s generosity,” she said.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  With the sound of morning activity behind her, Frey stealthily brushed past ferns still dripping with dew to make her way to the brook. She could hear it babbling not twenty yards from where they camped on their first night since leaving the abbey.

  Frey had shared her news with Brice the previous afternoon and she left the infirmary unsure what had pleased him most—the fact he was to stay at St. Cuthbert’s or that she was to marry.

  During the first day’s ride, Frey determined to avoid Sebastian as much as possible and stayed close to Larcwide who, to her surprise, was mounted and armed with a short sword.

  It proved not difficult to avoid the baron. They had departed St. Cuthbert’s Abbey without him just as the bells tolled to mark Terce, the third hour after dawn. He caught up with them when they stopped at noon and then rode ahead with his knight until the day’s light evaporated.

  Two tents had been erected for that evening’s rest and, with quiet economy of words, Sebastian told her she would be sharing the tent with him. Frey swiftly looked at Larcwide.

  To her surprise and dismay, the older man never looked up, instead continuing with his meal of mutton, with which they had been provisioned by the abbey.

  There was no alternative and, although well used to sharing her sleeping space with others—her father and brother most recently—Frey found she had not rested well with Sebastian de la Croix lying just an arm span away.

  For a start, the man was huge. Although the tent was his own, it somehow seemed too small with him in it. She slept with her stiletto at hand but, as she thought about it now, strapped to her thigh, it didn’t offer her much comfort.

  She lay awake for some time, waiting for his touch that never came. After a long while, Sebastian’s slow, even breathing indicated he was asleep and lulled her into a restless slumber of her own.

  Frey had to get away to find a moment’s solitude, and she took her chance now, while their party was having a morning repast and breaking camp.

  The sun lit the rest of Frey’s path as it emerged from behind a passing cloud. Through the small clearing in the trees, she could see the light dancing playfully over the water, which chortled merrily as it slipped, splashed, and tumbled over rocks on its way downstream.

  Kneeling on the grassy bank, Frey dipped her hand into the water, feeling the pull of the current through her fingers. Cupping her hands to capture a generous mouthful, Frey drank quickly, relishing the sweet coldness as it traced down her throat. Another scoop washed her face thoroughly.

  With a quick glance back to the camp, listening intently to the sound of men talking and the occasional jingle of metal as tents were dismantled and horses resaddled, Frey calculated she had time to quickly wash. Perhaps now she could be rid of the feeling that Sebastian had touched her all over yesterday, even though he only actually touched her once and that was when aiding her into the saddle. With him so close, even the air in her nostrils didn’t feel like her own.

  Frey quickly unlaced her boots and then the bodice of her kirtle and placed both on the grass beside her. Her chemise undergarment was actually her father’s own tunic, and the cream linen fell in soft folds to just above her knees.

  She stepped down into the water
and hissed as the cold liquid swirled about her legs. Once acclimatized, Frey sluiced water up and down her legs and thighs, where goose bumps rapidly formed. She unlaced the chemise and shimmied the fabric down her arms where she tied the sleeves around her waist at her back and tucked the hem over the secured fabric.

  The sun felt wonderful on her skin, bringing warmth from the top of her head down her shoulders and arms to her back and breasts. Frey stretched her arms heavenward, drawing a draught of sweet air deep into her lungs before bending to stretch her fingertips into the water and began washing away the previous day’s worth of travel. Her nipples puckered and grew hard from the chill of the water.

  A cloud scudded across the sun, plunging the glen into shadow. Frey halted her ablutions and listened. The birds still twittered, the sound of the camp at work still echoed through the trees, but her instinct told her something was amiss.

  “Do not stop on my account,” an amused voice instructed her from behind.

  Frey jumped and turned swiftly to find Sebastian standing by her abandoned boots and kirtle, his arms folded, standing at ease. Dressed in black boots, dark green hose that fit snugly over his muscular legs, and a gray tunic, he looked ready to ride.

  Frey glared up at him and, with fumbling fingers, struggled to untie the sleeves of the shirt to cover her nudity. Her anger bloomed as she realized the whore's-son-bastard found her predicament amusing.

  She managed to set the hem of the chemise down to her knees and stepped up onto the bank.

  “Have you looked your full, yet?” she sneered.

  Frey glared as Sebastian raised his eyebrows, registering mild surprise. What did he expect her to do? Scream? Faint? Hardly. Living in close quarters with her father’s men over the past six months had long disabused her of any notion of privacy.

  The tension from yesterday’s interview at the Abbey, then sleeping so close to Sebastian needed a release, so she turned her anger on the man she deemed responsible for it.

  Frey stretched out her arms, fully exposing her naked front. “Well go on, look! Don’t skulk behind trees like a callow youth. Be a man.”

  Sebastian’s eye flickered across her form before returning to her face.

  “Get dressed,” he said through gritted teeth before turning his back to her.

  Frey allowed herself a small smile of triumph. Sebastian looked murderous.

  Good.

  Frey turned her back and worked at the sleeves again until she felt the knot slacken. She pushed the sleeves back up to her shoulders and tightened the laces on the neck when she was grabbed from behind and slammed violently against a man’s hard, broad chest.

  “Just be careful when issuing orders, princess. Some men aren’t content with just looking,” Sebastian hissed in her ear.

  Frey shuddered, but it wasn’t all in fear. Misinterpreting her movement for a struggle, Sebastian tightened his bear hug. Her arms were pinned to her side.

  “Let go of me, you Norman dog,” Frey demanded.

  “Living too long in the company of soldiers has coarsened you,” he told her. “It has also made you forget men can be very, very dangerous when their base natures are not in check.”

  Frey stilled herself, trying to quiet a flash of panic, and waited for Sebastian’s next move. She gravely miscalculated this man. He could take her now, even slit her throat where she stood, and there would be no one to gainsay him.

  Believing Frey to be quiescent, the baron loosened his grip and she used the slack to reach under the hem of the shirt for her knife. Sebastian was quicker, trapping her hand. As she struggled, he stepped forward, forcing Frey’s legs to buckle.

  “Yield!” he ordered. Frey continued to struggle.

  “Yield to me.”

  By the time her knees hit the ground, he had liberated the stiletto from its sheath and tossed it aside on the grass, out of reach.

  Sebastian dragged Frey up by the elbow. His sensuous mouth a thin, hard line. His eyes raked over her body slowly and brazenly. Frey felt more exposed than when she was nearly naked. Awareness of his masculinity hummed through her. Reflexively, she licked her lips.

  “Don’t ever let me catch you exposing your ample charms to either your men or mine,” he warned her, the threat all the more potent for having been spoken softly.

  Did that apply to himself too?

  In a fleeting moment, images of them together flickered through Frey’s mind before she squelched them firmly.

  Sebastian broke the spell by ending eye contact, glancing instead at her abandoned boots, kirtle, and knife.

  “If you're not fully dressed and following me by the count of twenty, I’ll put you over my knee.” He turned and stormed back to the camp.

  Frey did as he ordered and rushed behind, appearing at the camp slightly flushed.

  The baron glared at her, his mood as black as his mount, which stood ready saddled for the day's ride.

  Larcwide and the other knight exchanged mutually surprised glances before hastening to complete their tasks.

  Frey mounted her own horse without attempting explanation.

  * * *

  Sebastian knew he set a brutal pace, not sparing anything except the horses, as the party of four made their way toward Tyrswick Keep.

  He longed for home and the routine it afforded. In less than seven days, his world had been upended thanks to Lady Alfreya.

  What a mess, he thought.

  He knew Gaines believed he had taken leave of his senses and even more so ever since the discovery of her body.

  No one, not even the king himself, knew the reason why Sebastian so readily accepted Tyrswick in the isolated wilds of Northumbria.

  Sebastian could have asked for a more advantageous title closer to London or one with prestige on the Welsh border, but he wanted the north where the smell of the heather and the brine of the North Sea air would remind him of a beautiful brave girl with the flaxen hair and bright blue eyes.

  She had looked like an angel in the midst of that hell of burning buildings and anguished screams. Her courage saved her brother on that night too.

  He kept their brief meeting as a treasured memory for years, then made his home here with no expectations of seeing her again. The girl was most likely wed, dead, or otherwise in exile, he had reasoned with himself.

  Whenever he sought feminine company, her blue eyes and soft, berry lips filled his thoughts as he plunged himself into willing flesh. It had been nothing more than a harmless fantasy a country boy from Normandy could indulge himself in.

  But when the brutalized body was discovered, his fantasy crashed into a mean reality. The young woman wore a small gold ring engraved with interlocking squares.

  Sebastian and his men spent days riding from village to village, fruitlessly inquiring if any young women were missing. When Friar Dominic confirmed the ring was marked with the Tyrswick cipher and would only be worn by someone of status, Sebastian insisted the earl's daughter be buried in the crypt, befitting her rank.

  Despite obvious misgivings, Friar Dominic agreed to perform the rites out of loyalty and friendship to the baron.

  Sebastian alone mourned her and could tell none the reason why.

  If it was known he had allowed a rebellious Saxon earl to escape the harrying, then his own loyalty to King William would be suspect.

  He could never allow that to happen. There were too many ambitious young knights waiting for such regal displeasure with an incumbent. They would circle like jackals for a taste of their own title and lands.

  And now, just six days ago, he learned the woman—the fantasy—he loved was not dead. As she stood before him that late afternoon, he didn’t know whether to rejoice or throw up.

  The girl he remembered from Durham had blossomed into a woman more beautiful than his memory could conjure. She was alive and whole, with a fiery and passionate spirit that resonated with him.

  The living nightmare of seeing the other girl’s brutalized body, believing it to be her, could
begin to recede, but now the question was what to do.

  It was clear that Frey did not recognize him as her savior that night in the hay barn. Instead, he was just one of the many Norman invaders who destroyed her home.

  The abbot was right. Frey needed to wed, for her own security as much as for England’s.

  Sebastian came close to offering for her during the interview yesterday. Twice he had tasted her lips and felt her soft curves beneath his fingers. The thought of someone else enjoying her filled him with an unreasonable fury.

  Then this morning, seeing the unclothed perfection of her body hardened his resolve.

  As well as other parts of your anatomy, he chided himself.

  Sebastian de la Croix had a reputation for being an intelligent and measured man, never one for letting his passions rule his head. To the best of his knowledge, he had only ever done one impulsive thing in his life.

  Now he was about to do another.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Frey was certain Sebastian smirked when he looked back at her.

  And why shouldn’t he? She must look like a gawping fool.

  Her only consolation was that her own quick glance at Larcwide revealed his eyes equally wide and jaw equally slack.

  This was not the Tyrswick they knew.

  She recognized little of what existed in her father’s time, of the long-house she called home. It was gone and in its place was a stone tower, four stories tall, seemingly hewn from a single rock.

  Tyrswick had grown from just an isolated selection of thatch-roofed timber outbuildings by the tributary on the River Tyrs, to a tidy little village that even boasted its own flour mill.

  On recognizing the baron, villagers paused in their field labors and rushed to the road to wave. From somewhere in Sebastian’s surcoat, a fist full of coins emerged. He tossed them a safe distance away from his horse and the local children whooped and hollered as they scrambled for the coppers.