She sighed. “Normans are soft. They’re spoiled.” Her eyes slitted spitefully. “And they have no ballocks.”
Helena expected that would chip through the Norman’s cheerful demeanor. Maybe now she’d see his composure crack.
She was wrong.
He chuckled. “Indeed? And how many Normans have you known?”
Her brows converged in a frown. “Your reputation precedes you.”
“You’ve never actually met a Norman then.” His eyes sparkled with amusement. “Before me.”
“What is your point?”
“You do know the Normans conquered the Saxons?”
Her scowl deepened.
“And that your King David calls upon Normans to fight for the Scots?”
She fumed.
“Oh, aye,” he continued, “we’re quite renowned for our—”
“Perfumed hounds,” she blurted out.
“What?” After a stunned silence, laughter bubbled out of him, and though it was at her expense, the sound made the dark cottage seem brighter.
“I know all about Normans,” she grumbled testily. She’d heard tales from Scots travelers who claimed Normans were so soft they couldn’t grow a proper beard, that they dined on nothing but sweetmeats and subtleties, and that they scented everything from their pillows to their animals. It wasn’t difficult to believe, given Colin’s blithe manner, though she noted that the black stubble shading his jaw this morn contradicted at least one of the rumors.
Once the knave’s laughter subsided, the smile he gave her was gentle. “Ah, my lady, you know little about Normans, and you know nothing about me.”
His smile was disarming. She raised her chin defensively. “I know that you’re arrogant and vain and, oh, aye, philandering,” she said, reminding him of his boast.
He winced. “I’m really not philandering. And I do need to dispel that myth for you, my sweet.” He frowned. “At the moment, however, I’m afraid I have a more pressing need.”
She folded her arms in challenge. She wasn’t about to fall prey to one of his tricks again. “Indeed?”
“A pressing need?” he said pointedly, raising his heavy brows.
She stared at him, waiting.
“Bloody hell, wench,” he muttered. “I have to piss.”
Her arms fell out of their fold, and she felt a blush heat her cheeks. Of course. Here was another thing she hadn’t considered when she’d become an abductor. She’d expected she could just tie him up and be done with him until Deirdre arrived. It hadn’t occurred to her that she’d be responsible for his human needs. What would she do now?
As if he read her thoughts, he said, “You could bring me a chamberpot, but since you’ve bound my hands, I might need some…” He gave her a wink. “Help.”
To her annoyance, her face grew even hotter. It wasn’t as if she’d never seen a naked man. By the Rood, she practically lived in the armory, where men stood about in all manner of undress. But the thought of this stranger, this Norman…
“Maybe,” she threatened, “I’ll just let you piss your trews.”
He shrugged an eyebrow. “I suppose you may. But I shudder to think what penance Pagan will have you pay if you treat his favorite knight so cruelly.”
“’Twill not be up to him. He’ll no longer be steward.”
“Hm. So you say.”
Helena’s lips twisted with displeasure. That was another thing she hadn’t anticipated in a hostage—having to listen to his opinions. “Deirdre will come. And the marriage will be annulled.”
“I still need to piss,” he said dryly.
She glowered at him as if he’d intentionally planned this inconvenience. But she knew it wasn’t so.
Inspired, she drew her dagger. “See that knot in the wooden chest?”
Perplexed, he said cautiously, “Aye.”
With a lightning-quick flick of her wrist, she sent the blade skimming through the air to lodge in the exact center of the knot. Then she looked to gauge his reaction.
He whistled low. “Impressive.”
She crossed to retrieve the weapon. “I can pin a coney at five yards,” she told him. “You won’t be that far away, and you’ll never be out of my sight.”
She cut his wrists free, letting him untie his own ankles while she stood with her dagger poised. Then she made him walk slowly out of the cottage to a patch of gorse.
She stood two yards back while he turned away to untie his trews, jerking them down enough to relieve himself. What made her blush wasn’t the loud trickle upon the sod. Nor the fact that a Norman pissed on Scots soil. What flushed her cheeks with warmth was the small measure of hip he revealed as he did so, firm with muscle and the same tawny color as the rest of him, and the brief glimpse of his cock nestled in fine black curls as he fastened his trews again. And what truly unnerved her was the fact that the forbidden sight made her heart race.
Prickly with distress, she prodded him back to the cottage at the point of her dagger.
“I’m grateful, my lady,” he said with a sardonic grin as they passed through the door. “I’m sure Pagan will be lenient with you for your kindness.”
She frowned as she sat Colin on the floor to tie his hands behind him, then secured one ankle to the base of the bedpost so he couldn’t wander far.
“Perhaps if you found something more for me to eat,” he suggested, “Pagan would be even more merciful.”
She didn’t tell him that was exactly what she’d planned. She didn’t appreciate his manipulation. And she really didn’t relish the possibility that he might be right, that Pagan wouldn’t ransom him after all. The wretched man had sown seeds of doubt in her mind, and now she couldn’t shake the suspicion that they might be sentenced to this hovel for longer than she’d anticipated. Worse, Deirdre might be forced to tell Pagan where they were, and he’d come for her himself.
Such dismal thoughts dogged her from the cottage to the patch of brush fifty yards away, where she crouched beside a narrow trail of bent grass, dagger in hand, waiting for a coney to appear.
As far as Pagan was concerned, she was a traitor to the King. And now she’d complicated matters by holding his man hostage. If things didn’t work out the way she’d planned, if conniving Deirdre refused to annul the marriage, which was likely, considering she’d sacrificed herself for Miriel, then Helena would be held accountable for her misdeeds. And one of those misdeeds was treason.
Despite fingers made shaky with doubt, Helena managed to kill breakfast within an hour. When it came to coneys, she was the best hunter at Rivenloch. And now, she thought as she flung the limp carcass over one shoulder and hefted the pail she’d filled earlier at the stream, at least one of her problems was solved.
In the cottage, while Colin watched her from his spot on the floor, she made a fire on the hearth and skinned and cleaned the coney, skewering it on a dead branch she’d picked up in the forest. Soon the aroma of roasting meat filled the room, and her belly began to growl in earnest.
As she held the coney above the fire, she reflected again on her options regarding Colin and Pagan and the King. Even if the worst possible thing happened, if Deirdre refused the annulment and Pagan retained his stewardship, surely he wouldn’t do something as rash as executing the sister of the bride. Satan’s ballocks! She’d been drunk. That was obvious. And she’d done what she’d done in defense of her sister, not in defiance of the King. Surely anyone with half a brain…
“Pardon me.”
She glanced over at Colin. A furrow of worry lined his brow.
“The coney,” he said. “’Tis too near the fire.”
He was right. She’d absently let the branch droop too low. She lifted it again.
Still staring at the flames, she murmured, “The other night, the night I came into your chamber, you know I was besotted.”
“Oh, aye, well and truly besotted.”
“So besotted I shouldn’t be held accountable for my actions.” At his silence, she leveled her g
aze at him.
A slow, calculating grin bloomed on his face. “That depends.” Then he glanced sharply at the fire. “Take care!”
She pulled the coney up out of the coals. It had a black smudge on one side, no more. Fat dripped onto the fire with a sizzle. She tried to focus on the hearth. “You wouldn’t execute me.”
Colin gazed at the breathtaking Scots warrior, fascinated by the curious blend of strength and vulnerability in her bearing. She hadn’t asked a question. She’d made a statement. But clearly it was triggered by uncertainty.
She had cause to doubt him. He’d made some awful threats the night he’d waylaid her, threats about keeping her on a leash until he was ready to hang her for treason.
It was tempting to assuage her fears, to confess that he’d spoken in the heat of the moment, to let her know he was anything but brutal when it came to women. And yet it better served his purposes, considering that he was currently at her mercy, to make her believe he was capable of anything.
“You should be executed,” he said, “if you refuse to do as the King wills.”
“But you wouldn’t hang me.”
He didn’t answer, captivated by the sight of her lovely profile against the flickering fire.
“Would you?” she asked, turning to him with eyes like liquid emeralds.
With every fiber of his being, he longed to shout nay and ease her anxiety. But her uncertainty was the best tool of negotiation he possessed.
“I would have to weigh the evidence,” he said. “Consider the circumstances. Measure your remorse. Calculate future menace.” With a sniff, he added, “And much depends upon the manner in which I am treated in your keeping.”
She looked disgruntled at his response. He suspected she didn’t much care for being kind to a Norman. But now her own fate relied upon it.
“I haven’t treated you badly,” she said in her defense. “I haven’t hurt you. I gave you the pallet while I slept upon the floor. I let you go off into the woods to piss. And I’m cooking your breakfast.”
“Burning,” he corrected as gray smoke rose from the underside of the roast.
“What?”
“Burning my breakfast.” The coney flared up with a flash of light.
She turned in time to see the dry stick crack in half and the carcass plop onto the coals, igniting like a ball of Greek fire. “Shite!”
Before he could shout a warning, she reached into the fire and yanked the roast out. In her haste to unhand the hot thing, she dropped it to the floor, then smothered the flames with one of the coverlets.
The carcass was incinerated beyond recognition.
Still, when it was cool, Helena picked up the thing and tore off a haunch, offering him a bite.
He wasn’t sure he should be grateful. After all, it was barely palatable fare. But he was a gentleman. Courtesy prevented him from telling her, as he tore off a piece with his teeth, that the burnt exterior was bitter, the interior stringy and nearly raw.
“Mm.” But he feared his face revealed the truth, for as he chewed and choked down the tough morsel, he couldn’t suppress a shudder of distaste.
She snorted and tore off a haunch for herself, and though she tried to pretend it was perfectly delicious, she, too, gagged on the meat.
“I suppose you could do better.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.
He smiled to himself. Of all the absurd traits she’d endowed him with, she’d missed the one that was oddly true. “Didn’t you know? Normans are the best cooks in the world.”
Chapter 5
Helena looked at him with such skepticism that he laughed out loud. “Come, come. You believe I—what was it—perfume my hound and sleep in a silk bed, and yet don’t think I can cook?”
“’Twould seem a Normanly trait,” she admitted in a mutter.
“I’ll make a bargain with you. Since you’re so adept a hunter, you bring me game, and I’ll roast it properly for us.”
She glanced at the burnt carcass in her hand, considering his offer. “’Tisn’t a trick?”
“I’m as ravenous as you are.”
After a moment, she tossed the ruined roast onto the fire and brushed the black char from her hands. “Very well.” She whirled to go back outside, paused, then wheeled back to shake a warning finger at him. “But know this. I am not out of hearing. If someone arrives, I’ll know it. You won’t have time to sob to anyone about how I’m mistreating you.”
“Sob? I don’t sob.”
She arched a brow of disbelief, then turned to go.
“Oh,” he said, “I’ll need a bit of wild onion to go with that.”
She stopped in her tracks.
“And rosemary if you can find it.”
She stiffened. “Would you like some spun gold while I’m out?”
He ignored her jibe. “And if you happen upon a patch of borage or mint…”
She spoke over her shoulder. “This had better be worth it.”
He grinned. She’d be surprised at what a Norman could do with but a few herbs. After all, ranging the wilds of England and France, waging war, and living on little, one learned to be creative.
As Helena slammed the door behind her, Colin, for the first time since he’d arrived, actually hoped rescue wouldn’t come too soon.
She’d been gone almost an hour, during which time Colin entertained himself—at first by visually examining the entire cottage until he had every knothole and crevice memorized, then by humming ballades that Pagan’s squire, Boniface, oft sang at supper—when a curious sensation gripped him that stopped him in midsong. Silently scanning the room, he could see nothing had changed, and yet a sort of prickling awareness crept up his spine, a sense that something was different. Strange as it seemed, he was almost convinced a knothole had moved or a spider had suddenly vanished from its web. For one fleeting moment, he wondered if the place was haunted by spirits.
While the air around him seemed to shimmer expectantly, he thought he saw something flicker past the gap in the shutters. But when he cocked his head to look, it was gone.
He swallowed back the sudden dread that a wolf might lurk outside, looking for a way in, that Helena might be in danger out there. He quietly twisted against his bonds, mentally cursing the wench for leaving him so helpless.
But while he studied the narrow crack of light, waiting for whatever was outside to pass by again, he never detected the figure that somehow mysteriously materialized within the cottage. When he finally glanced toward the hearth, he drew in a shocked gasp and scrabbled backward, colliding with the bed.
“Shite!”
How the man had come to be in the cottage he didn’t know. He’d appeared as if by magic. And now Colin knew whereby the thief had gotten his name.
The Shadow.
He was slight in stature and clad head to toe in black. His legs were sheathed in black cloth. His hands were gloved in black leather. Even his head was swathed in black wrapping, which was tied at the back, leaving only one tiny gap for breathing and two small holes for sight. He wielded no weapon, but it was possible he hid something in the elusive folds of his surcoat.
While Colin might have been startled, he wasn’t afraid of the intruder. Of all the horrific tales Helena had told about the notorious outlaw, none of them had featured mortal injury. And though The Shadow had slipped into the cottage with unearthly stealth, he was clearly human.
When Colin’s heart calmed, he asked, “What do you want?”
The Shadow ignored him, instead studying the interior of the hovel, much as Colin had for the last hour. So Colin used the moment to study his foe in turn.
The man moved across the floor without a sound. His boots must have been made of very supple leather, for his steps were as fluid as a wildcat’s. Like a well-trained warrior, he held his arms slightly up and away from his body, ready to grapple or to move in any direction in the blink of an eye.
The Shadow returned to the smoldering fire, depositing a black satchel beside the hearth. H
e crouched beside the three-legged stool, eyeing the burnt roast, and then picked up something from the floor, a single long strand of hair. Helena’s. Turning and rising in one graceful movement, he stretched the strand between the thumbs and fingers of his hands, holding it out to Colin in askance.
To protect Helena, Colin said, “She’s gone. She won’t be back before nightfall.”
Satisfied, The Shadow let the strand fall.
Then he wasted no more time, drawing near to discover the pouch of coins Colin wore upon his hip, silver he’d won gambling from Lord Gellir.
But The Shadow had apparently overlooked the fact that one of Colin’s legs was free. As soon as the thief began to tug on the leather pouch, Colin swept his leg out to trip him.
What happened after that Colin could only recall in a blur. Somehow The Shadow jumped over his swinging leg, then seized Colin’s ankle, giving his leg a sharp twist and turning him instantly over on his belly. As he planted a foot on Colin’s back to anchor him there, Colin yelped, the twisted knee of his bound leg strained nigh to breaking.
Then, to his amazement, as he cursed in pain, The Shadow bent close, wagging a scolding finger in his face.
“All right,” Colin wheezed in surrender. “All right.”
The varlet lifted his foot then and nudged him back over, releasing the strain on his knee. As Colin exhaled in relief, The Shadow withdrew a tiny knife from his surcoat and cut loose the satchel of coins. Maybe it was best Colin hadn’t succeeded in overcoming the robber. That knife was honed to a parchment-thin edge.
Colin would have sworn The Shadow gave him a gloating wink before tucking the bag into the front of his surcoat. Then with a deft flip of his wrist, he sent the tiny blade flying across the cottage. Colin followed the knife’s path as it thumped into the wood of the shutter, its black haft quivering when the blade came to rest.
By the time Colin looked back, the outlaw had vanished again. Only a subtle flicker of light in the room, the swiftly shifting shadows on the floor, made him realize that somehow, defying the earth’s pull, the man must have escaped through a gap in the roof.
For several moments, all Colin could do was stare in amazement. Listening to Helena’s tales of the elusive Shadow, he’d thought them an exaggeration. But now he’d witnessed just how slippery the robber was. It was no wonder he’d never been caught.
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