“I could not leave him. I got down off my horse, wrapped him in a blanket and rode to the nearest town, where I paid a surgeon to remove, then seal, his leg.” He swallowed, trying not to remember those horrific moments when he had shuddered through every yelped cry of Val’s agony. “There was no other option, if I was to save his life.”
Still, she said nothing.
“I bandaged the stump, bought salve from a healer to mend his flesh. At first, Val could not walk, but he soon learned. He adapted to his new condition. One does, when one has no choice.”
“Mmm,” she said softly, as though she understood—and agreed.
He swallowed down the keen ache of a rare, common bond shared by strangers. His imagination, again, that he was coming to resent. He hadn’t spoken of Val with anyone else. Now he had, and the sense of emotional vulnerability was as uncomfortable as his soggy boots.
“Are you finished, milady?”
“Almost.”
The slight catch in her voice made him turn. She had cleansed her wound, judging by the water’s crimson tint. She’d also donned the dry gown. While the bodice gaped at the neck and the hem dragged on the floorboards, it adequately covered her. Her damp clothes lay in a heap on the floor.
She sat on the chair, one hand gripping the table’s edge as she stretched forward. Her other hand was poised to open his saddle bag.
Rage flared inside him. He stormed toward her.
Eyes widening, she nonetheless flipped back the leather flap. Her fingers had just brushed his spare pair of hose when he reached her, snatched the bag away, and glowered down at her.
“My possessions are forbidden to you.”
“You have the gold cup in there, do you not?” she said, pushing up from the table. Discomfort flickered across her features, but she stood firm. He narrowed his eyes even more, lowering his face until it was a mere breath away from hers. Her parted lips quivered, but she didn’t step back.
Foolish, foolish woman.
He tossed the bag onto the chair. It landed with a thump, the sound ominously loud.
“Answer me,” she demanded. Her bodice gaped a little more. Refusing to deny his voyeuristic inclinations any longer, determined to warn her in a primitive way she would never forget, he allowed his hungry gaze to slide down her face, down over her lips, down to the drooping fabric barely concealing her cleavage.
She gasped and clutched the front of her gown.
“Be forewarned, milady,” he rasped like a man ruled by lust. “Touch my saddlebag again, and there will be consequences.”
Her face paled.
“If you forsake my privacy, I will forsake yours.”
Indignation sparked in her gaze. “How ridiculous to speak of privacy when in this small room there is none.”
A slow, daring grin curved his mouth. “Ah, but I turned my back, did I not, as you bathed and changed your garments? I respected your womanly modesty. I gave you what solitude lay within my power. I could as easily take it away.”
“You would not dare.”
He said nothing, just stared at her. Long enough for the shrieking wind and rain lashing against the tavern to accentuate the tense silence.
“There you are wrong. I would dare.”
Her lips tightened with disdain. “Indeed?”
Her blatant provocation broke the remnants of his restraint. Here, now, this lady would learn her lesson. He was not a man to concede to any woman.
Holding her defiant stare, Brant grabbed his tunic’s hem and yanked the garment up and over his head to reveal the linen shirt plastered to his torso. He tossed the tunic on top of his saddlebag.
Her gaze fixed to his chest. Then, blinking hard, her gaze snapped back to his.
She stood resolute.
A silent, admiring laugh welled inside him. Stubborn, was she? Well, he could be equally so.
He unfastened the ties at the top of his shirt.
Sliding his hands down to the hem, he slowly pulled the garment up over his head, a groan breaking in his throat as the fabric peeled away from his body. Cool air brushed his naked belly and chest.
Wadding the shirt into a ball, he met the lady’s shocked stare. Her face reddened before she jerked her attention away. Her body as rigid as a wooden post, she turned. With careful, unsteady steps, she started back to the pallet.
A hint of remorse stung him. “Wait. I will help you.”
She flicked her hand in dismissal. “I do not want your help. Do not fear. I will not misjudge you again.”
***
Faye lay on the lumpy pallet, covered by a musty-smelling blanket, listening to the wind beat against the tavern’s outer walls. Every now and again, the closed shutters at the window rattled and an icy gust invaded, as though the storm might indeed break past the barriers locking it out.
Strange, that she thought she knew how the raging tempest felt. For in the cloistered chamber in her heart, a storm raged too—a maelstrom of relentless, conflicting emotions that refused to let her exhausted body succumb to sleep.
Only slightly muted by the wailing wind, voices carried up from the tavern room downstairs. Laughter erupted, followed by women’s shrill giggles. With a heavy sigh, Faye tugged the blanket up over her head, careful not to touch the painful gash on her cheek. She rolled over on her side to face the fire.
The pallet rustled when she moved. Lying beside the man—Angeline’s wretched kidnapper—on a makeshift bed of blankets, Val’s little ears pricked up. He gave her a curious glance before his eyes drifted closed again. With a sigh of his own, he went back to sleep.
Faye tried to ignore the supine figure of the knave who had taunted her earlier with his brazen masculinity. Anger still prickled in her veins from his crude threat. Yet, shame upon her, she couldn’t keep her gaze from drifting over him.
He lay on his back, eyes closed, his dark, tousled head pillowed on his saddlebag. A patched blanket covered him from mid-waist to the tip of his bare feet poking out from the blanket’s hem. Before stretching out on the floor, he had donned clean garments. His others lay spread out on the hearth tiles beside her shift, gown, and mantle. The arrangement of rumpled clothing looked oddly intimate.
A tingly flush skittered over Faye’s skin. She snapped her gaze away. Far wiser to look at something else. Anything else.
The firelight dancing on the walls.
The light gleaming on the stoneware bowl on the table pushed into the corner.
The texture of the door panel.
How shameful that her gaze returned to him.
Beneath the blanket, his chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. One broad arm lay draped across his abdomen. The other stretched out alongside his body, within grabbing reach of a dagger. He’d told her the weapon was for their protection, in case a drunkard decided to climb the stairs and challenge the door’s rickety bolt.
How tempting to believe the knave really was concerned about her safety. In truth, she doubted he cared for much more than the gold she felt quite certain he’d stowed in his bag, and his little dog who looked upon his scarred countenance with such doting adoration. The rogue had no doubt chosen to rest his thick skull upon the wretched bag so she couldn’t search it during the night while he dozed.
Faye glowered at him, the embodiment of cold-hearted, treasure-seeking selfishness. The body of a ruthless ruffian.
A magnificent body, though, ’twas.
A betraying awareness warmed her belly when she remembered the muscled perfection of his torso kissed by firelight. Very different to Hubert’s flaccid softness. Unfair, mayhap, to compare her aged husband’s physique to this warrior knave’s. Yet, where Hubert’s belly was rounded with age as well as indulgence, this man’s was as firm as polished stone. Where Hubert’s skin was ashen from lack of physical exertion in the sun, this rogue’s glowed with a bronze luster.
If she squinted, just a little, against the fire’s light, she could again imagine him
standing there, as bold as sin—
“You are not able to sleep, milady?”
Shock raced through her. His eyes were open.
His keen gaze fixed upon her face. His hair shifted across the saddlebag while his head tilted slightly to one side. A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth. Did he know the traitorous thoughts that had almost materialized in breath-snatching glory in her imagination?
Heat burned her cheeks. Inwardly scolding herself for blushing, she said, “The storm is fierce tonight.”
“Aye.”
His assessing stare didn’t waver. Across the expanse of floorboards, his gaze seemed to hold a silent command, compelling her with its brilliant intensity to stare back.
Never would she let herself fall under this insolent knave’s sway.
Nudging the blanket farther up under her chin, she said, “You cannot sleep either.”
His shoulders moved in a faint shrug. “I do not sleep much, even when the heavens are quiet.”
“Why not?” A rather personal question, but any insight into this knave’s mind was certain to come in useful.
Even before her words faded, a hint of danger, of a tortuous, soul-deep secret, shadowed his features. Then it vanished, and his mouth eased into a crooked grin. “There are far more interesting ways to spend the night hours than sleeping.”
His husky tone left little doubt as to what he was referring.
The intimate, physical joining of a man and a woman.
What Hubert, too, had sought in the darkness, with awkward fumbles and almost apologetic gropes. A chill shivered through Faye, followed by the crushing need to press her palm to her belly. To remember the cherished joy that had been good about her marriage.
Her hand trembled.
The knave’s voice cut through the haze that seemed to have crept into her mind. “I have shocked you.”
Shaking her head, she curled her fingers into her gown, over her abdomen. “I am not a maiden. I know of what you speak.”
“Of course you do. You are a widow.”
Faye frowned. Her head might pound like a blacksmith’s anvil, but she couldn’t remember telling him she was once married. She didn’t discuss such matters with strangers.
Had she rambled on about her private life after the blow to her head? How utterly mortifying. “How . . . do you know I am widowed?” she asked.
For the faintest moment, self-condemnation deepened the lines around his mouth, as though he realized he had made a grievous error. Then his hand drifted in a lazy wave. “A man can tell if a woman is a virgin.”
Ha! Did he now try to thwart her suspicions with such an outrageous statement? Curiosity nagged. Mayhap she hadn’t been utterly witless after her injury, after all. “How, pray tell? Surely there is only one way”—she ignored her burning face—“to determine a woman’s innocence.”
His eyebrows raised. Intense quietness lagged, underscored by the wind gusting outside. With his blatant lack of a reply, the silence mocked.
“You cannot tell a woman is virgin by merely looking at her,” Faye said.
He smiled. “I do not have to undress her, either.”
Cheers erupted from the downstairs tavern room, followed by clumsy footfalls on the stairs. In the ensuing rowdiness, she heard a woman’s throaty laughter, low and enticing. The wind outside moaned.
Shivering again, Faye pressed her fingers tighter to her belly. The barrenness there ached. She would rather hear the knave’s voice, coax him into more conversation, as dangerous as it was, than lie awake, tormented by her thoughts.
Despite the sensual way he’d threatened her earlier, she did not fear he might be seduced by their conversation into ravishing her. If he’d intended to force her into intimacy, he would have done so before now.
Carefully shifting up on one elbow, she gave him a pointed look. “What gives an innocent woman away? I am curious to know.”
“You expect me to tell you my secrets, milady?”
An answering, wry smile tugged at her lips. “You seem a man of a great many secrets. You will have plenty left, if you divulge only a few.”
“Very true.”
Their gazes locked. Heady anticipation slipped through her, capturing her in a strong, sensual magic.
What fascinating secrets lay hidden in his smoldering gaze: the reason his handsome face bore a terrible scar; the names of all the warriors he had vanquished in the frenzied heat of battle; and all the women, both innocent and experienced, he had artfully seduced into his bed.
Footfalls stomped on the stairs, then the landing floorboards. Someone approached: a man and woman, judging from the murmurs.
The spell shattered. Faye looked away.
Val leapt to his feet. Ears pricked, he stared at the door and growled.
Drawing in an unsteady breath, Faye willed her pulse not to pound with such reckless excitement. When had she lost all common sense? How could she speak so coyly with Angeline’s kidnapper? If the couple hadn’t come up the stairs, what might she have said, or done?
The barest sound alerted her that the knave rose to a crouch. He snapped his fingers. Val instantly quieted.
Staring at the door, the man reached for his dagger and slipped the glinting blade from its leather sheath.
The floorboards outside the door squeaked.
Tugging the bedding around her, Faye sat up straight. She fumbled with the blanket, desperate to grasp enough to shield her face if need be.
His expression taut with concentration, the knave moved swiftly to the door, the knife in his hand. He pressed his back to the wall and looked poised to attack. His tunic outlined the broad planes of his torso, while his snug hose revealed the impressive musculature of his legs and thighs.
How sinful that a primitive mewl roused somewhere deep inside her.
Something bumped against the door. The bolt rattled on its hinges.
With a gasp, Faye pressed her face into the blanket. The wool grazed her wound, and she bit her bottom lip to stifle her cry.
A man cursed in the hallway outside. “Oh, me lovely. Me lovely.” Footfalls thudded again, this time retreating down the corridor.
Another thud.
A groan of pleasure.
Followed by a rhythmic—
Oh, dear God. The man and woman were coupling. In the hallway. Against the wall.
Heat scorched Faye’s face. She felt the knave’s gaze upon her, but couldn’t look up from the blanket to meet his stare. She simply could not!
Faye fell back on the pallet, rolled over to face the wall, and wrapped the blanket tightly around her head to cocoon herself in darkness. Her belly lurched like a boat on a rough lake. Mercy, she should not have lain down so quickly.
Through a blur of pain and nausea, she heard wood squeal against wood. The knave had pushed the side table against the door. Val’s claws ticked on the floor. Then, silence.
Val and his rogue master must have lain down on their bed of blankets.
Did she dare peek to see for certain?
She couldn’t. Not with . . . that . . . going on in the hallway.
“Are you all right?” The knave’s voice, laced with humor, reached her, muffled through the cloth covering her ears.
“I . . . I want to sleep now.”
Shutting her eyes tight, blocking out the muted noises as best she could, Faye begged for the encroaching darkness to overwhelm her. A merciful escape.
On a throb of pain, shadows rushed into her mind.
Escape . . .
She woke to the sensation of being smothered. She coughed. Batting her sleepy hands, she tugged the blanket from her face and gulped in breaths of fresh, cool air.
As the muzziness cleared from her mind, she became aware that the storm no longer railed outside. The cacophony in the downstairs room had quieted. Nor could she hear the fire burning.
Turning slightly on the pallet, she glanced toward the hearth. T
he blaze had died down to one charred log.
The knave’s bed was empty.
Expecting to see him standing in a shadowed corner, she glanced about the room.
She was alone.
He had expected her to slumber on. He’d probably taken Val for a walk.
Medieval Rogues Page 37
