Warrior's Surrender

by Elizabeth Ellen Carter

  A lump grew in his throat. He never wanted to be the cause of his wife’s tears, only of her passion and her joy.

  “Did Ligulf interrogate you further?” she whispered. “He’s fixed on the notion that Malcolm will soon invade England.”

  Sebastian nodded. He took his wife’s sleep-clenched fists and kissed the knuckles of one hand and then the other before enfolding both in one hand and drawing them to his chest.

  “I know.”

  “He's not the only one. Drefan believes so too. That's what else I needed to tell you. The rebellion of which he accuses you is one he foments himself.”

  Sebastian sighed. “Nothing surprises me about that man.”

  Frey shifted and Sebastian welcomed the weight of her head on his chest.

  “I'm surprised Malcolm continues against King William even as his son is hostage to the Crown.”

  Sebastian stroked Frey’s arm and felt the tension ebb way with the motion.

  “Malcolm has sons aplenty; he won’t miss one.”

  Frey emitted an unladylike snort.

  “Ligulf’s biggest battle,” Sebastian continued, “will be convincing the bishop to bring Northumbria to readiness. The Scots bearing the incorruptible body of St. Cuthbert himself into Durham would be the only way to get Walcher’s attention.”

  Silence stretched between them and Sebastian wondered if Frey had drifted back to sleep.

  “Are you ready?” she said finally.

  For a moment Sebastian wondered whether he should deflect the question with a jest, then decided against it. Frey understood the gravity of his decision; he would not insult her by making light of the battle to come.

  “I am.”

  Frey wound her arms around him.

  “Drefan will not fight fair.”

  “Then trust Gaines and Orlege as my witnesses. They will ensure he doesn't get away with anything underhanded. Besides, I have an advantage Drefan does not.”

  Frey raised her head and looked at him questioningly.

  “I have a very strong incentive to stay alive,” he told her. And, at that, her tears glittered in the firelight and rolled down her cheeks in rivulets of molten gold.

  “I love you, Frey. I think I fell in love with you on that very first night we met. Your courage, your fire, stir in me a passion I never thought possible to experience.”

  “Damn you, Tyrswick,” said Frey, her voice low and harsh with need. “How do you expect me to be brave when you bring me undone? I love you so much, and I am afraid for you. I want to hold you this night and every night until we die old and gray.”

  She spoke on a sob.

  “Please don’t leave me.”

  Sebastian could take no more. He engulfed Frey in his arms and rained kisses across her hair, down her face, until his lips claimed hers, hungry and demanding.

  Frey responded with equal fervor. Her hands caressed him across his back and along his neck before her fingers threaded through his hair and gripped, keeping him with her.

  His tongue mated with hers, dueling for control. He won, shaking off her hands and pinning them above her head with one hand, while the other gripped the light linen night dress. With one swift movement the garment was rent from neck to hem.

  Using his superior strength, Sebastian shifted, holding Frey beneath him. Her night dress opened like a curtain, rosy red nipples crowning the breasts set high and firm on her chest. He took one in his mouth and played with it with his teeth and tongue until she squirmed beneath him, breathily demanding more.

  As he turned his attention to her other breast, his free hand slid between her legs. The slick heat of her drew his fingers unerringly to her core. Two fingers plunged into her again and again, while his thumb stroked her red and swollen bud.

  Frey arched her back in ecstasy, a keening wail accompanying the clench of her inner walls as her climax overtook her.

  He felt alive. He was alive—more than he had been in the two months of Frey’s disappearance.

  Sebastian savored the intensity of his erection, fueled by his wife’s passion. He breathed in the tangy, earthy scent of her arousal and revelled in the feel of her around his fingers.

  And now he experienced the equally desperate need to taste her. And he did.

  The silky curls at the junction of her thighs pleased him with their softness, luring him deeper. Frey cried out again, the rhythmic rocking of her hip stuttered and bucked as yet another orgasm shook her.

  Sebastian was unashamedly erect and it took all the willpower he possessed to stop him from plunging into her sweetness. As if sensing his restraint, Frey’s thighs spread wider in invitation, her legs sliding down his back, urging him upward.

  The need to be fully joined overwhelmed him, and he entered her in one swift motion. She called out his name and with her inner muscles held him to her. He had no idea where he ended and she began.

  They were one. One in body and one in spirit.

  He held himself still and stroked Frey’s face, softly urging her to open her eyes. Soft dark lashes opened to reveal the deep blue beneath.

  “Look at me, Frey, look at me as I make love to you,” he whispered, echoing the words he spoke to her when she first came to him that night, afraid of Drefan, afraid of him.

  Her lips parted and the kiss she offered was sweet and warm. Frey teased him, nuzzling him before offering chaste kisses along his stubble-coated chin. The red heat of his passion softened to a warm glow that filled his entire being with peace and belonging. Then she squeezed her inner muscles slowly and provocatively. Sensation shot directly to his groin and he eyed her. Frey wore such a sweet expression as she kissed his temple, he wondered whether the contact had been accidental.

  Then she did it again, holding him firm for a beat or two before relaxing, then squeezing.

  “Wench.”

  He barely recognized the husky voice as his own. He rocked his hips once and Frey moaned wantonly.

  “Mmmm, but I’m your wench,” she answered, squeezing him again.

  Then, it was too much. Sebastian thrust into her again and again, the sounds of her encouragement driving him hard. His own release, long denied, hovered on the brink until Frey cried out her passion once more and he tumbled over the precipice.

  * * *

  Frey stretched full length beneath the sheets. The fine linen rubbed against her naked flesh, reawakening parts that had been thoroughly and pleasurably used not once but twice during the night. The scent of Sebastian lingered although he did not tarry abed.

  He had kissed her awake in the half-light period before dawn and made love to her again before leaving to consult with Gaines and Orlege on protocol and tactics for the battle tomorrow.

  “Dear God, please don’t take him away from me,” she pleaded softly.

  Sebastian had left word not to disturb his wife, and Frey didn’t bother to call for her maid; she was quite capable of dressing herself and needed this time in solitude. Every fiber of her being urged her to stop him and recant the demand for a trial by battle, but she did not.

  She would not.

  Frey knew as well as he did the only way to be rid of Drefan and his threat for good would be to fight. Drefan had nothing to lose. And he must face retribution, in this life and the next.

  First, the “misfortunes” that dogged Alfred’s campaign, which saw Brice nearly lose his life and did cost Diera hers, then enlisting Heloise in the plot to undermine Frey’s marriage to Sebastian. Her own abduction…

  Even a warrior of superior skill can be defeated on the battlefield if his mind is bested first.

  The letters.

  Frey worried her lip. Had Sebastian discovered them? Did he know they were false?

  The need to find him and assure him of her love was overwhelming.

  She dressed swiftly.

  Robert waited at the door in his knight’s livery and informed her gravely that he, along with Talbot, would be her escort and guard at Durham Castle.

  The past
few months had altered both young men; they seemed to have grown taller and their physiques had broadened. No longer carefree youths, both were now serious young men for whom, she later learned, Larcwide’s death bore hard. Frey wasn’t sure if the change was to be celebrated or mourned along with her old friend.

  They escorted her from the suite of chambers and into the Great Hall to break fast.

  As she sat, another six men she recognized from Tyrswick left their places and surrounded her table.

  Now, this was too much.

  “Robert…”

  The young man who just three months ago would have quailed at the censure in her voice, crossed his arms and planted his feet.

  “My orders are explicit, Lady Alfreya. Your life above all others.”

  Frey ate without further comment while she inwardly warred.

  She was a capable woman, a warrior herself who chaffed under the protective detail her husband demanded. Yet to protest now would be a potentially fatal distraction for Sebastian. A slow count to ten helped somewhat.

  Oh yes, she would complain all right, but the day after tomorrow, when she would demand Sebastian take her home to Tyrswick, where she would have the run of the Keep and the freedom to ride and hunt across the moors without requiring a small army of guards.

  She could wait.

  A Castle Durham page tapped Talbot on the shoulder and drew him away from the table to whisper something in his ear. With a lift of his chin, Talbot alerted Robert, who rose also. The two young knights spoke in hushed tones before Talbot turned back to the page. He pressed a coin in his hand and the lad scampered off.

  “What’s amiss?” Frey asked on Robert’s return. His face was grim.

  “Not here, my lady. Let’s walk along the terrace.”

  Out of the Great Hall, they walked out into the inner bailey, a space easily as large as the entire footprint of Tyrswick Keep. In the center of the bailey, in preparation for tomorrow’s spectacle, carpenters were erecting tiered stands to overlook a post and rail enclosure, measuring twenty feet by thirty feet in area.

  Frey gave it a reluctant sidelong glance as she was hustled across the open courtyard through another wing of the castle complex until they reached the terrace lawns sitting high above the River Wear.

  Not a word had been spoken since they left the hall, and Frey’s patience was at an end.

  “Not another step farther until you tell me what’s going on, and I mean now, Robert.”

  The young knight drew his fingers through his hair in a nervous gesture that belied his air of confidence.

  “Two bodies were found floating downstream this morning. Do you know who they might be, my lady?”

  Frey frowned.

  “A man and a woman tied together,” Robert continued. “Their bodies might have been weighted by rocks but had broken free. The woman was—”

  “Stout, past her middle years, with red hair; her husband gray haired,” she interrupted.

  “You did know them?”

  “Mistress Duignan and her husband. They kept me guarded but were as much misled by Drefan as others. They were kind to me,” Frey answered softly. “Another crime to lay at Drefan’s feet. So what are we to do?”

  “Nothing.”

  Frey started. She hadn't heard Sebastian come up behind her until he spoke.

  He was stripped to the waist and sweat-soaked, his dark hair curled slightly at the nape. He was her magnificent warrior.

  He accepted a cloth from Duncan, who followed in his wake, and wiped the worst of it from his arms and neck.

  “They will have to wait their justice on the morrow, when Drefan goes to meet his maker.”

  “We thought it best to let you know as soon as we heard the news,” Talbot offered.

  “You did right, lad,” he said as he accepted his tunic from Duncan and finished dressing.

  “You three help Orlege and Gaines with the equipment. I’ll escort Lady Alfreya.”

  When they were alone, Sebastian reached for Frey’s hand. Her fingers curled around his larger ones. She swallowed. This would be one of their few moments alone before tomorrow. Now was her chance to ask about the letters. Frey screwed up her courage.

  “When Drefan took me, he told me about replies to letters I was supposed to have written.” She paused and waited, hoping Sebastian would interrupt to tell her he spotted the ruse from the first.

  He did not.

  “I never received those letters…I wrote letters…damn it, this is coming out all wrong.”

  His moss-green eyes regarded her cautiously and she started again.

  “I love you, Sebastian, and I would never play you false—have never played you false. I wrote the letters before I knew you. Every assumption I ever had about you was wrong.”

  He answered with a slow grin.

  “I know.”

  Frey stamped her feet. “Then why did you let me run on like a gowk!”

  Sebastian’s grin broadened.

  “Because a man never gets tired of hearing his wife admit she was in the wrong and that she loves him.”

  That earned him a scowl. Sebastian laughed.

  “And you should be nicer to Gaines from now on because he was the one who stopped me acting like a—what was the word you used, a gawk?”

  “Gowk. It means fool.”

  “I found the letters and, yes, for a time I did believe you'd played me false, until Gaines pointed out that no woman, regardless of the contempt in which she held her husband, would ever leave without taking her clothes and jewelry.”

  Frey was still put out.

  “So I should be grateful for Gaines’s poor opinion of women generally?”

  Sebastian laughed and folded Frey into his arms.

  “Yes, my love, I’m sorry to say that you should.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  The blare of trumpets called the crowd to order. Outside the arena, a crier addressed the crowd, outlining the rules of engagement.

  In the center, Sebastian stood fully armored. Facing him stood Drefan, equally protected. Although only his eyes were visible, the malice in them was unmistakable.

  Lumley stood between them.

  “The law is quite clear that I am to inform you of the rules before the contest,” he informed both men.

  “As each of you are noblemen and each has brought suit against the other, you are both deemed to be plaintiffs.

  “This matter will be ended in one of three ways. The first is to cry ‘craven, I am vanquished.’ The man who cries craven will forfeit land and title and will be banished from Northumbria. The second is with your lives. If each man remains undefeated at sunset, then the matters under consideration here will be considered satisfied.

  “Are these rules understood?”

  Beneath their armor, both men gave curt nods.

  Lumley paused.

  “By coin toss you will decide on choice of weapon—staves, swords, cudgels, or battle axes.”

  “Heads goes to the baron of Tyrswick, tails to Lord Drefan d’Aumont of Angou.”

  As the morning sun broke over the tops of the trees and a cock crowed in the distance, the gold coin in Lumley's hand glittered.

  Sebastian watched the coin as it spun in the air and dropped with a soft thud into the dust.

  “Your choice, Lord Drefan.”

  “Swords.”

  The call went forward, and, from the far edges, two men came running to the center, each with broadswords. The earl assiduously examined both before allowing the two men to claim their weapons.

  Sebastian welcomed the feel of the steel in his hand. His blade was well weighted and perfectly proportioned.

  “May God defend the innocent,” Lumley told them.

  Sebastian and Drefan followed him to the rail. The earl took his place next to the bishop of Durham, who sat on a cushioned campaign chair three levels up on a tiered grandstand.

  On the same row, Frey stood, and Sebastian’s heart beat a little faster. She was
dressed in Tyrswick colors again. Woven through her hair, a length of silk in vivid red. She met his eye without reservation and without tears as he knew she would. His pride burgeoned with her show of courage.

  William Walcher stood, and the crowd stood also as he delivered a short prayer for the souls of both men. He ended the benediction as Lumley had.

  “May God defend the innocent.”

  Another blare of trumpets and the battle began.

  Drefan attacked first.

  Sebastian raised his arm and let his shield take the blow, moving as he did so away from the rail.

  The blow from the blocked cut reverberated up his arm and across his back, and every nerve was alive to the sensation. He swiftly counterattacked, right-left aiming at Drefan’s shoulder. The first blow met with the clash of steel that rang loudly, the second with a dull thud as sword struck shield.

  A further downward swinging cut was intercepted by Drefan’s sword. Shields clashed as the two men pushed each other apart.

  Sebastian lunged, aiming for the center. Drefan jumped back and countered with a swipe of his shield.

  The first half hour reminded Sebastian of the drills he had mastered as a squire—attack, parry, thrust, attack, parry, thrust—as he worked to identify Drefan’s weakness.

  So far he displayed none. He was a competent, disciplined fighter.

  The sun rose higher in the morning sky and along with it the heat. Sweat trickled down Sebastian’s back. The fabric cuffs in his tunic absorbed the sweat at his wrists.

  There was no question they were evenly matched.

  This would be a war of stamina.

  * * *

  Frey had watched tourneys aplenty, was familiar with the cut and thrust of swordplay, and so had been put out when Friar Dominic pressed a rosary of simple wooden beads into her hands at the beginning of the morning.

  She had little time for ladies who cowered and shrieked at the sight of male physicality on powerful display, nor patience with the women who tsked-tsked and spoke knowingly among themselves about masculine brutality.

  Why, in the past, she'd even had a discreet wager or two on a favorite champion, but today was different. Her investment was not in coin, but in the life of the man in the center of the judicial list, fighting for his very existence.