Then the two stallions charged, their nostrils flared, their ears flat. Their heads bobbed above the roiling dust, and for a heartbeat, Helena could see the mad cast of their eyes, blinding them to everything but the mare. The thunder of the advancing hooves rumbled the earth beneath Helena’s feet. She squinted against the choking dust rising before her and lifted her sword high to battle the huge beasts.
At the last instant, the stallions spooked. They screamed and pulled their heads back, their feet scrambling on the loose ground for purchase. Dust boiled up in confusion. The beasts were so close she could feel their hot, chuffing breath. Their legs stabbed at the sod all around. A shrill, angry neigh rent the air. The last thing she saw was a pair of enormous, shaggy hooves pawing at the sky before they descended toward her.
Chapter 23
Something slammed Helena to the ground. The fall knocked the wind from her with all the force of a tumble in the joust. For a moment she lay as helpless as a stunned fly. But she was accustomed to falling. She regained her wits quickly, ducking her head protectively beneath one arm and groping blindly for her sword with the other.
Just as her fingers closed around the hilt, rough hands wrenched her to her feet, hauling her through the rubble. Her long skirts tripped her, but the brute who’d pushed her to the ground gave her no quarter. She twisted and fell to one knee, and searing pain streaked through her wounded thigh. Still her abductor yanked her onward.
At last she emerged from the bowels of churning dust to safety. Spitting a stray lock of hair from her mouth, Helena faced her captor. Pagan. His peculiar expression—as if he wished simultaneously to weep and wring her neck—froze the words of indignation in her throat. He looked furious and terrified and bereft, all at once.
Within moments, the mare was caught and led off the field. Several knights moved in to soothe the stallions with gentle voices and easy gestures. Willie was pulled to the fringes of the list, where he sat with his head between his knees. Yet Pagan still clung to her, trembling so violently that Helena wondered if he would explode with rage. Even after the stallions were captured and the dust settled, he refused to loosen his grip on her.
“Colin!” he bellowed.
Helena glimpsed Colin at the opposite side of the field, a naked blade in his hand, a look of simultaneous horror and rage on his face. He came to Pagan’s summons, but Helena noted he never sheathed his sword. By the Rood, maybe he intended to slay Pagan.
She wouldn’t let him, of course. Deirdre, for all her faults, adored Pagan. The least Helena could do was protect him for her sister. So when Colin came with his blade flashing, Helena broke free of Pagan’s hold, placing herself between them, and faced Colin with her own weapon.
Before Colin could launch an attack, Pagan bit out, “Take her off the field. Tie her up. Lock her up. Put her in chains if you have to. But see that she doesn’t stray onto my lists again this day.”
Helena’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. His lists? Lucifer’s ballocks! She’d just held her own with her sword in these lists. She’d just won the archery contest. And she’d saved Willie’s life.
She was tempted to turn and focus her attack on Pagan. But Colin was still the one with the sword.
Then Colin snarled, “With pleasure,” and Helena felt as if all the breath drained from her lungs.
God’s bones! Were the Normans joining forces against her? In her own castle?
Colin made a grab for her, and she knocked his hand away with her sword arm, making it clear she’d brook none of his tyranny.
“Don’t make a spectacle, Helena,” Pagan muttered behind her.
“If you think for one moment I’ll go peaceably, then you know nothing about the Warrior Maids of Rivenloch,” she retorted.
“Damn it, wench!” Pagan hissed. “’Tis for your own safety.”
“Don’t be ridic—”
“Put away your sword,” Colin commanded.
“Don’t tell me what to do! Not in my own—”
“Drop it.”
Incensed, she swung the blade up, bringing the tip to Colin’s bare throat. She heard at a distance the crowd’s collective gasp.
Colin’s eyes were as dark and cold as the grave, but beneath their glacial depths lurked a profound and bitter melancholy, an emotion that made her blade waver as she held him at bay.
When his sword clanged in surrender upon the ground, it startled her.
“Colin?” Pagan asked, incredulous.
“I can’t do it,” Colin explained. “I won’t cross swords with a…with a pregnant woman.”
Helena sucked in an astonished breath.
“What?” Pagan reeled in surprise.
Colin’s gaze was bleak as he stared at her, and said clearly, “I won’t endanger Lord Pagan’s child.”
“My…” Pagan began, completely taken aback. Then he stepped between the two of them, his arms crossed. “Is this true, sister? Are you with child?”
She wanted to deny it. After all, the man she loved, the man who was responsible for the child, didn’t even believe it was his. But her eyes filled inexplicably with tears, and her throat clogged until she couldn’t speak.
“Damn it, Colin!” Pagan said. “I know what you think, but ’tis impossible.”
Still Colin’s face was shrouded in mistrust. It broke her heart, and she cursed her emotions of late, that refused to be mastered. She felt a stray tear trickle down her cheek.
With a vicious snap, she lowered her sword. Then summoning up all her pride, she turned to the crowd, her eyes glittering and her chin lifted.
“I thank you, people of Rivenloch, for your support. But my wound pains me now, and I must retire to the keep.” At their cries of disappointment, she added, “Have no fear. I vow I will return on the morrow to even greater victory.”
Then she returned the sword to its owner and marched from the field, smiling through her tears and waving at the spectators.
Colin’s heart quivered in his chest like a virgin’s knees. Sweet Lord! When he’d beheld Helena facing the steeds with sword in hand, glaring at them as if they were dragons and she, St. George…
His gut gave a sickening lurch as he thought how close that sweet body had come to being mangled, how close the sparkling light in those emerald eyes had come to being extinguished. And he realized the wretched truth. Despite her sins, despite her betrayal, and despite all reason, Helena of Rivenloch was more precious to him than life itself.
Aye, she was willful and stubborn. She was reckless and rebellious and untamed. She’d hurt him deeply, more deeply than any woman ever had. But she’d also kindled the fires of his heart and stirred his blood with her passion and pride and impulsiveness.
And now he was a man cursed, a hostage of her heart.
“Follow her,” Pagan told him.
“You follow her,” Colin said bleakly.
“Shite!” Pagan hissed.
He grabbed Colin’s arm, and they made as casual an exit as they could manage from the field to the relative privacy behind the stable.
“I didn’t touch her. I swear it.”
Colin didn’t want to have this conversation. It was too painful to listen to Pagan’s lies. And he was lying. Deirdre knew it. Helena had confessed as much. God’s bones, Colin had seen them with his own eyes.
“Colin, listen to me. ’Tis Deirdre I love. And only her.”
Colin’s rage bubbled up. It was vile enough to be deceived by a woman. But to be betrayed by his oldest friend… “You may love only her,” he sneered, “but ’tis Helena you swive in the wood each morn.”
“Do not insult me with unfounded accusations!”
“Unfounded? I’ve seen you, you bastard. I’ve seen you.”
“What, Colin?” Pagan barked. “What have you seen?”
It was too painful to recount. Colin’s mouth turned downward in a grim frown of defeat, and he started to turn away.
But Pagan wouldn’t let him go. He seized him by t
he front of his tabard. “What have you seen?”
Bitterness consumed Colin. “You know what I’ve seen.”
Pagan shook his head. “You’ve seen nothing.”
“I’ve seen enough,” Colin snarled, daring Pagan to deny him. “You go off into the woods together every morn.”
To his surprise, Pagan nodded. “Aye. We do.”
For a long while the two of them only glared at each other, and a muscle began to tic in Colin’s jaw.
Finally, Pagan asked, “And then?”
An ugly image filled Colin’s mind, and he viciously broke Pagan’s hold on his tabard. “You son of a—”
“And then?” Pagan repeated.
Over Pagan’s shoulder, Colin saw Deirdre approach. Despite her earlier violence toward him, he realized she, too, was but a victim. He had to spare her the details of Pagan’s sin. He muttered low, “You let your desires get the better of you.”
“Nay, I let her desires get the better of me.”
Quickly, before Deirdre could hear, he hissed, “You would blame this on Helena?”
“Aye,” he declared, then amended, “mostly. ’Twas she who insisted we meet each morn. But not for swiving, you great fool. For sparring.”
“What?”
“Sparring. We practiced with the blade. That’s all.”
“You expect me to believe—”
Deirdre had drawn close enough now to hear him. “Sparring?” she said over his shoulder.
Pagan cringed.
Her mouth was agape. “You were…sparring…with my sister?”
Colin frowned. To look at Deirdre’s wounded expression, one would think sparring a worse crime than fornication.
Pagan let out a shuddering sigh. “Colin, you meddling knave. Now see what you’ve wrought?”
Tears filled Deirdre’s eyes, and Colin’s scowl deepened. Were all Scotswomen so mad? The possibility of Pagan’s adultery had moved Deirdre to irritation, but the fact that her husband had sparred with another woman…
“How could you?” Deirdre asked forlornly.
Pagan’s shoulders drooped with guilt as he turned toward her. “I didn’t mean to, my love. I lost my head. She caught me in a moment of weakness.”
Colin looked from one to the other. This was sheer lunacy. But as they continued to converse, Deirdre in hurt tones, Pagan in placating ones, a tiny bud of hope began to sprout in Colin’s chest.
Maybe they were telling the truth.
Maybe Pagan and Helena had only been sparring. But for the sake of Deirdre, unable to fight because of her condition, they’d kept their practices a secret to spare her feelings. Maybe Pagan hadn’t bedded Helena, but only crossed swords with her. Which meant…
His heart pounding, Colin left the couple to their negotiations. He had to catch Helena before she did something else foolish. After all, she carried a babe now…their babe.
Curse the wench! She must have known all along it was theirs, and yet she’d said nothing to him. Instead, she’d sparred with Pagan, fought in the tournament, ran between charging horses, knowing she endangered the child. Did the reckless maid have no care for her own flesh and blood? Sweet Mary, did she hope to lose the babe?
Hurt and rage welled inside him. By God, he’d do as Pagan had commanded—tie her up, lock her up, put her in chains, whatever it took to ensure she could not endanger herself or the child.
It didn’t take long to find her. Though she’d left the field with long, proud strides, now she favored her injured leg, hobbling slowly across the courtyard. The sight served to soften his fury, if only for a brief moment. Though part of him wanted to thrash her for her recklessness, part of him longed to scoop her up in his embrace.
A rush of emotions coursed through him with all the turbulence of a stormy sky. Relief and rage and tenderness. Frustration and impatience and adoration. Lust and anger and guilt. But mostly, God help him, fierce love. He loved Helena. And whether that meant sweeping her gently up in his arms or brutally tossing her over his shoulder, he knew that love was the cornerstone of every other emotion pulsing through his veins.
As he loped up, drawing even with her, she angrily wiped the remnant of a tear from her cheek, and snapped, “I don’t want your apology. Leave me alone.”
“I’m not offering an apology.”
He bent and captured her behind the knees. With a mighty heave, he hoisted her into his arms.
She fought him. “Put me down!”
Colin walked toward the keep.
“You miserable Norman!” She squirmed in his grasp.
He kept walking.
“Let me go!” She pounded at his shoulder. “Or I’ll summon the knights of Rivenloch!”
He continued walking. It didn’t matter if her entire army came forward to murder him with pikes and poles. What he did was for her own good and his sanity. He carried her all the way, ignoring her protests, across the sward toward the keep, through the great hall, up the steps, to her bedchamber. And not a single Rivenloch soul intervened to stop him.
By the time they crossed the threshold of her bedchamber, Helena had pummeled several bruises into his flesh, and yet he knew he was incapable of laying a violent hand on her. It was just as well. He doubted a thrashing would have much effect on her anyway. Not when being nearly trampled to death by horses hadn’t curbed her foolhardiness.
But his wrath hadn’t cooled in the least. He set her upon her feet and gave the door a satisfying slam.
“This is where you’ll spend the rest of the tournament,” he bit out, stabbing a commanding finger at her nose. His voice was hoarse with emotion, but he managed to keep it steady. “You may occupy yourself here with needlework or sleeping or gazing out the window, for all I care. But you won’t come to the lists.”
She looked at him incredulously. “Do not deign to dictate to me! You are neither my husband nor my lord nor my commander.”
“That shall be remedied soon enough,” he assured her. “Now, do I need to chain you to the bed, or will you stay here on your word of honor?”
“What do you mean, remedied?”
“I have no intention of letting you bear a fatherless child.”
Helena clenched her jaw. This was precisely why she’d resisted commitment of any kind. Just because she carried his offspring, the overbearing Norman thought he could dictate to her.
Still stinging from his mistrust and jealousy, she spoke with flippant cruelty. “What makes you think the child would be fatherless? You said it yourself. Pagan is the babe’s father.”
To her astonishment, he shook his head. “I am the babe’s father. And you know it.”
She bit her lip.
An almost indiscernible sorrow crept into his smoldering eyes. “Or were you never going to tell me?”
She swallowed hard, then turned her back on him. She didn’t want him to see the faltering in her resolve. She dug her fingers into the ledge of the window. If only she didn’t love him… If only she could harden her heart against him… Damn the Norman! He’d put her in exactly in the state she least wanted to be—cornered, vulnerable, powerless.
“I won’t be forced into marriage,” she warned him. “I am a Warrior Maid of Rivenloch. I refuse to be some man’s chattel.”
“I am not some man.” He grabbed her elbow and wheeled her toward him. “I am the man who loves you. Who’s planted a babe in your womb. Who’s asked for your hand countless times. Who’s been more faithful to you than a husband.”
“Faithful!” she scoffed. “What about you and Lucy Campbell swiving in the buttery all those morns?”
“I wasn’t swiving her.”
She smirked.
“I swear it on my spurs. I was teaching her to cook. To please you.”
She narrowed her eyes. Dinners at Rivenloch had seemed more palatable of late.
And yet that changed nothing. Colin might have cared for her pleasure once, but now he wanted to control her. She broke free of his hold and began to pace in agitation, a
s restless as a caged wolf.
“You do not wish to please me now,” she charged. “You would take my sword from me. Keep me from my own lists. Change me from a fierce warrior to a…a whimpering wife.”
“Nay.”
“Men only wish to tame women, to subdue them, to conquer them.”
“Nay.”
“You have even now threatened to chain me to the bed.” Helena didn’t mean to rant on and on, but once begun, she couldn’t stem the tide of her grievances. “You men are not content until you’ve wrung the very spirit from a woman, made her meek and weak-willed, molded her to your pleasure, reduced her to a waddling, lazy, docile pet. Just as Pagan has done to Deirdre.” She gasped as she realized what she’d blurted out.
“I wouldn’t call Deirdre docile or weak-willed.” He touched his nose, wincing at the bruise her there. “At least not to her face.”
He was partially right. Deirdre wasn’t completely subdued. But then he hadn’t known her before she’d been altered by marriage. “She used to be fierce,” she remembered, “independent, uncompromising. Pagan changed her.”
“And you think she did not change him as well?” Colin scoffed.
Helena narrowed her eyes.
“Before Pagan married Deirdre,” he said, “he was strong, controlling, always sure of himself.” He smiled briefly. “Rather a worm at times.” He shook his head. “Now he’s as malleable as lead. ’Tis your sister who has tamed her husband.”
Helena frowned. “Yet ’tis Pagan who has seized control of Rivenloch,” she argued.
“Only by the King’s command and your father’s bidding.”
“He’s forbidden Deirdre to fight.” She crossed her arms smugly.
He nodded. “As he would any of his knights not in perfect fighting form.”
She cocked her chin upward. “She can’t even make her own decisions without seeking his permission.”
“And he makes none without seeking hers.”
Her scowl deepened. She didn’t believe that for a moment. Men accustomed to leadership never relinquished it. Colin didn’t understand. How could she make him see?
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