As he leaned back against the closed door, letting his gaze roam with sensual languor down her body, her heart pounded hard with desire.
“Come, husband,” she beckoned. “I grow cold.”
He came at her call, warming her with his gaze. And his touches. And his kisses. Indeed, before long she thought she would burn for want of coupling.
And then she heard a scratching at the door.
She tried to ignore it. After all, anyone who would interrupt a bride and groom on their wedding night had to be either stupid or mad. She buried her face against Colin’s neck, bathing him in kisses.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
She sighed against his ear, hoping to drown out the sound. But she could tell by the stiffening of his shoulders he heard it, too.
“Now what?” he hissed, exasperated.
The scratching grew more persistent, and this time it was accompanied by a whine.
Helena’s lips quivered with repressed mirth. “’Tis the hound.”
“Lucifer’s ballocks! What does he want?” He broke away in aggravation and snatched open the door. “What do you want?”
The dog looked up guiltily, and Helena couldn’t help but laugh at the comic sight. “Oh, Colin, put the poor beast out of his misery before he dies of shame.”
Colin drew his dagger and sliced the pungent wreath from around the hound’s neck. The dog shook all over once, ridding himself of whatever scent remained, then happily wagged his tail and trotted off.
Colin sheathed his knife and closed the door once more. “Now. Is that everything?”
Helena scanned the room. “There are still the silk sheets.”
“Those?” One corner of his mouth lifted in a seductive grin as he sauntered near, then pulled her into his embrace. “Those can stay.”
THE END
KNIGHT’S PRIZE
The Warrior Maids of Rivenloch, Book 3
Dedication
For
My son Dylan…
who shares with me a love of swords,
the Super Bowl,
the guilty pleasure of action movies,
and who convinced me that what romance novels
really needed were great fight choreography
and ’splosions.
Special thanks to
Melanie, Helen, and Lori,
who kept my chin up.
Acknowledgments
A heartfelt thanks to…
“America,” Kathy Baker, Brynna Campbell,
Dick Campbell, Richard Campbell, Carol Carter,
Lucele Coutts, Lynette Gubler, Karen Kay,
Heath Ledger, Natalie Portman, Lauren Royal,
Betty and Earl Talken, Shirley Talken;
My elite street team sales force:
Ana Isabel Arconada, Terra Codack
Mariah Kathleen Crawford, Joelle Deveza, Diane Dunn,
Marguerite Hembree, Etta Miller, Lois J. Miller,
Heather M. Riley, Sandra M. Schaeffer,
Leslie Thompson, Jodi Villanueva;
And everyone who plays “Savage.”
Chapter 1
THE BORDERS, AUTUMN 1136
“He is coming,” Sung Li said.
Miriel’s eyes widened, and she stumbled out of her last taijiquan posture. She glanced anxiously about the chamber. “Who?”
Miriel was always on guard now. Since the Knights of Cameliard had insinuated themselves into the household of Rivenloch Castle by marrying her older sisters, she never knew when a Norman warrior might barge into her bedchamber.
“The Night,” Sung Li replied mysteriously, continuing with the measured taijiquan poses, moving with a youthful grace that belied the wrinkled face and long snowy braid, shifting slowly from left foot to right, then arcing like a bow being drawn.
But Miriel’s tranquility of a moment before was irreparably shattered. “What knight?” she hissed.
Sung Li spoke serenely. “The Night that comes to swallow The Shadow.”
Miriel scowled, her tense shoulders relaxing. So Sung Li was only being intentionally obtuse again. True, the old servant’s prophecies were usually accurate. But sometimes Miriel’s wise and wizened companion seemed impossibly inscrutable and inevitably chose the most unfortunate times to deliver the darkest omens.
Miriel shivered out her rattled nerves and resumed her exercises, shadowing Sung Li in their private daily ritual. Beyond and below the open shutters of the keep, the first slender spears of sunlight pierced through the Scots woods.
But now that Sung Li had cast a stone into her pool of calm, rippling her meditative poise, Miriel’s movements grew awkward.
What did that mean—the night that comes to swallow the shadow? A cloudy evening? A harsh winter? Another invasion by the English? Or could it mean something more…personal?
Lost in thought, Miriel wobbled and wavered and lost her balance, coming down hard on one bare foot.
“Curse it all!” She crossed her arms, blowing a stray tendril of dark hair out of her eyes. “How can I concentrate when you deliver such ominous tidings?”
Sung Li broke from the pose long enough to turn an amused, smug look upon her. “A true Master would not be distracted, not even by—”
“A dragon breathing its fiery breath upon his head,” Miriel finished in a mutter. “I know. But you could have saved it for later.”
Sung Li finished the last extended movement, bowed respectfully toward the sun, and then faced Miriel with a solemn expression. “Later is too late. The Night is coming soon.”
A slip of a breeze drifted through the window just then, bringing in the crisp October air. But the preternatural chill that shuddered Miriel’s bones had nothing to do with the season. How could night be coming soon? It was scarcely dawn.
Their gazes met, and Miriel thought she’d never seen her xiansheng, her teacher, look so grave. It was as if those ancient black eyes bored into her soul, seeking out her weaknesses, weighing her worth.
Sung Li at last took hold of Miriel’s forearm in a surprisingly firm grip. “You must be strong. And brave. And clever.”
Miriel slowly nodded. She didn’t always understand Sung Li, who spoke often in riddles, but there was no question the warning was serious.
Then Sung Li released her abruptly and, as if nothing had happened, resumed the role of Miriel’s maidservant, donning a roughspun kirtle over the loose hemp garments worn for taijiquan, pulling on stockings and slippers, then selecting a deep azure surcoat for Miriel from the great pine chest at the foot of the bed.
Miriel frowned, slithering into the soft wool gown while Sung Li dutifully turned away. The two of them had kept many secrets since the day five years ago, when Miriel had purchased from a traveling merchant three lethal weapons from the Orient—nunchakus, a pair of sais, and a Chinese servant.
Sung Li had insisted on being purchased. It was Destiny, the curious peasant had sagely proclaimed. And at thirteen summers old, Miriel wasn’t about to argue with Destiny.
Her father, Lord Gellir, hadn’t approved, nor had her older sisters, Deirdre and Helena. For a long time, the denizens of Rivenloch turned disparaging Scots glares upon the wee foreigner with the strange eyes and impertinent tongue.
But they’d grown accustomed to Sung Li now, and no one questioned the presence of the white-haired maidservant who clung as tightly to Miriel as a duckling to its mother.
Of course, if they’d known that the wee old woman was actually a wee old man, if they’d known that he devoted most of his hours with Miriel teaching her the fine art of Chinese warfare, and if they’d suspected that under his tutelage, Miriel had blossomed from a timid child into a fierce combatant to rival her warrior sisters, they might have taken exception.
But as Sung Li was fond of saying, The greatest weapon is the one no one knows you possess. Certainly no one suspected meek, innocent, docile Miriel of possessing the skills to kill a man.
“Hmph.” Sung Li was staring out the window, his narrow white b
rows furrowed.
“Hmph, what?” Miriel fastened the silver girdle at her hips and wiggled her feet into her leather slippers.
“A knight arrives.”
Miriel tensed instantly. “The Night that comes to swallow The Shadow?” Knees bent, arms raised, she was ready to fight this very moment, whether against a human foe or the dark forces of nature.
Sung Li turned on her with an annoyed scowl, then shook his head. “You are like a child today, starting at your own shadow.” He left the window and began tidying the chamber, clucking his tongue. “It is only a common knight.”
Miriel lowered her hands and fired a scathing glare at the old man, a glare wasted on his back. A child. She was weary of being called a child. By Sung Li. By her father. By her sisters. She was not a child. She was a woman full grown.
With a sniff of disdain, she moved to the window to peer out for herself. There was a knight on horseback cresting the rise above Rivenloch. He was in full battle dress, chain mail and surcoat, a wise choice, since a stranger alone could make fast foes in the wilds of Scotland. As he rode down the hill toward the castle, the silver helm beneath his arm caught the light of dawn, glinting like fire.
She couldn’t make out the crest upon his brown tabard or see him clearly, not with the shaggy mane of chestnut hair that obscured his face and reached almost to his shoulders.
“Who do you suppose—” She looked around to Sung Li, but the elusive servant was already gone, probably on his way to filch the best bread from the kitchen for his mistress’s breakfast before any of those ravenous Normans could take it.
Miriel returned to the window. Maybe the knight was a guest arriving early for Helena’s wedding. He paused then, halfway down the rise, to scan his surroundings. As his gaze swept across the castle, Miriel felt an uncharacteristic shiver of trepidation skitter up her spine. She ducked reflexively behind a shutter, out of sight.
After a moment, scolding herself for her cowardice, she peered out again. The knight had changed course. He now reined his mount into the dense forest that surrounded Rivenloch.
Miriel frowned. That was most irregular. Why would a strange knight travel all the way to the remote keep of Rivenloch, only to swerve at the last moment into the woods?
By the Saints, she intended to find out. He might be up to some mischief. And with Deirdre and Helena distracted by their Norman lovers, someone had to keep an eye on the castle defenses.
Her sisters believed that Miriel had sealed up the secret exit from the castle, the one at the back of her workroom beneath the keep, after Rivenloch’s soldiers had made use of the tunnel to defeat the attacking English army last spring.
But Miriel had done no such thing. That passageway was too useful to close off. After all, it was the only way Miriel could leave the keep without being under the constant scrutiny of her overprotective siblings.
So she’d hung a tapestry over the entrance, pushed her desk against the opening, and piled up books of accounts to obscure the passage. It was little trouble to move them out of the way whenever she needed to escape…as she did now.
It was still early. Later, Helena would need her to help with wedding preparations. But Miriel could spy upon the stranger in the woods for a bit and steal back to the castle before anyone was the wiser.
She smiled grimly to herself. It was clandestine adventures like these that relieved her of both the boredom of managing the castle accounts and the oppression of playing the helpless little sister of the Warrior Maids of Rivenloch.
Rand la Nuit sensed he was no longer alone in the forest. It wasn’t that the intruder made a sound or exuded a scent or even cast a shadow. But years of training as a mercenary had honed Rand’s senses to a keen edge. By the faint prickling at the back of his neck, he felt sure he was being watched.
Could it be The Shadow, the outlaw he was hunting?
He casually eased one hand over the pommel of his sword and strolled to the far side of his horse, placing the beast between him and where he guessed the intruder to be. Then, hunkering down as if to check the horse’s girth, he peered beneath the beast’s belly, scouring the bushes for some trace of a trespasser.
Aside from a few wraiths of steam chased from the wet oak trunks by the warm glare of the rising sun, the misty copse was silent. Branches of lush cedar drooped in slumber. Thick ferns stood like quiet sentinels. Not a beetle stirred the leaf fall.
He frowned, finally patting his horse’s flank and rising again. Maybe it was only his imagination.
Still, he’d always trusted his instincts. Just because he couldn’t locate the threat at this moment didn’t mean it wasn’t there. He’d keep one eye on his surroundings and one hand on his blade as he searched the woods.
He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for yet. All he’d been told when the Lord of Morbroch hired him was that the outlaw he sought was a man who worked alone, an elusive thief who roamed the forests of Rivenloch.
The task had seemed simple enough at first. In Rand’s experience, robbers were seldom clever. It would be an easy matter to locate the fellow’s hideaway, take him by force, and convey him to Morbroch for judgment.
But when Rand learned how much the lord and several of his neighboring barons were willing to pay him to catch the thief who had lightened their purses, he began to wonder if it might not be so simple an undertaking after all.
Apparently, the denizens of Rivenloch didn’t mind their local outlaw. To them, he was only the subject of fireside tales and jongleur’s songs. Even knowing the scoundrel had relieved numerous traveling noblemen of a vast quantity of silver, they made no effort to capture the man. Nor did they welcome the interference of outsiders.
Thus Rand would have to work in secret beneath the noses of one of the most formidable forces in Scotland, the Knights of Cameliard. The Norman knights had come last spring to take command of the Scots castle, and already they’d routed a huge force of rogue English lords who’d tried to lay siege to Rivenloch. If they wished, they could easily prevent one paltry mercenary from capturing their beloved outlaw.
So Rand would have to be clever.
He needed three things: a believable pretext for coming to Rivenloch, a reason to linger there, and access to the intimate workings of the keep. The Lord of Morbroch had offered him a solution that would provide him with all three—he would pretend to come courting one of the Rivenloch daughters.
Of course, if Rand could catch the robber before he even arrived at Rivenloch, there would be no need for deception.
He scanned the path again for signs of inhabitation—footprints, discarded bones from a meal, remnants of a fire. The sooner he could find some clue as to the thief’s whereabouts, the sooner he could quit this place and collect his reward. But all he sensed as his gaze ranged the woods was that eerie feeling that he was being watched.
He’d been searching for some time when his ear caught a new sound intruding upon the silence of the forest. Footsteps.
It wasn’t the stealthy passage of a thief he heard, but the purposeful approach of a pair of men.
He’d expected as much. Rivenloch’s guards had likely spotted him as he’d approached the castle, and now they’d come to investigate the stranger lurking in their woods. They’d find him in another few moments.
He needed to act quickly. He stepped to the side of the path and casually began to whistle. Hefting his chain mail, he unlaced his braies. Then he swiftly yanked them down and began to relieve himself upon a bush.
A sudden loud gasp sounded directly above him. His heart bolted. His whistle suddenly turned to air. He ducked and almost missed the bush as his gaze flew to the cedar branches over his head.
Shite! He couldn’t see anyone, but someone was there. Nearly on top of him.
And, he realized in wonder, by the sound of the gasp, that someone was distinctly female.
But the shrubbery along the path was already parting to make way for the approaching men. There was no time to confront the naugh
ty spy concealing herself in the tree.
“Wicked lass,” he softly chided, casting a fleeting grin up toward the concealing foliage.
Then, shaking his head, he resumed whistling and returned unabashedly to his task. The way he looked at it, if the sight of a man pissing offended the maid, she deserved as much for her mischief.
Miriel was appalled—not by the man’s rude display, though it was most audacious and disconcerting, but by the way she’d gasped.
For five years she’d ranged these woods, as silent as mist, as invisible as air. Thanks to Sung Li’s guidance, she could make herself imperceptible, even to the keen-eyed owls that inhabited the trees. She could flit from branch to branch as nimbly as a squirrel and blend seamlessly into the foliage.
How the stranger had startled such a loud gasp from her, she didn’t know. True, she’d never seen that part of a man before, but for anyone raised around animals, his anatomy wasn’t exactly a surprise.
Worse, she’d almost caught her breath again when he’d peered up in her direction with that smug grin. Not because she feared he could see her, which he couldn’t, but because his handsome face—that strong jaw, those curving lips, the unruly hair, the perplexed furrow between his brows, and those dark, sparkling eyes—literally took her breath away.
“Good morn!” The familiar booming voice of Sir Rauve coming through the brush almost toppled Miriel out of her perch. She watched as the giant black-bearded Knight of Cameliard, dogged by young Sir Kenneth, tromped forward, one cautious hand on the hilt of his sheathed sword.
“Good morn!” the stranger called back cheerfully. His voice was rich and warm, like honey mead. “Pardon me,” he apologized, making a show of hauling up his trews. “Just taking care of a bit of business.”
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