An Outlaw's Honor

by TERRI BRISBIN

  “Here now, sit here,” he said, offering her the other chair that was positioned closer to the brazier.

  He held the cup of wine fortified with a drop or two of the juice of the poppy up to her lips and tilted it until she swallowed some. Martel had made it up for Thomas to ease the pains and aches of the constant injuring and bruising left by hours of practice these last few months. He used it sparingly, but it would help the lady’s distress right now.

  Another sip and another, and soon the shivering eased a bit. He left the cup in her grasp as he tossed the blanket around her shoulders. Thomas stirred the burning embers to force them to give up a bit more heat. Midsummer or not, the air cooled quickly once the sun set, and a chill already filled the tent.

  Turning to face her, he crouched down across from her and waited. After a few more sips emptied the cup, she held it out to him.

  “Are you better now?”

  She nodded.

  “Did he hurt you?” He held his breath, believing he’d been in time. When she did not reply, he whispered again. “Did he hurt you, Annora?”

  “Not in that way.” Her slender hand moved to her neck.

  “How so, then?”

  Chapter Nine

  His voice in that deep, soft, concerned tone worried her more than when he yelled or taunted her. Or when he laughed. She met his gaze then. Eyes the shade of the darkest trees met hers. She nearly forgot his question when he stared at her so.

  “Where are you hurt, lass?” He stood then and moved closer. This time his gait was not that of a predator as his approach had been at their first encounter. Nay, this time, he resembled one coming closer to a terrified cornered creature that would bolt for freedom at any moment. Was she that?

  “My neck is bruised, I fear,” she said. Untying her cloak, she lifted one side of it. Without her veil in place and with most of her hair yet caught up in the braid that Margaret had crafted earlier, her neck was bare to him. Without a looking glass, she could not see the extent of it. “Is it badly injured?”

  If she admitted the truth of how she felt, Annora would have to say that the wine he’d offered her had warmed her and eased whatever pain she might be feeling from the brutish grasp of le Govic. The dastard had grabbed her from behind and pulled her from the lane into that hovel, holding his other hand over her mouth so she could not scream.

  He’d kicked the door loose and forced her inside. His strong fingers had dug into her shoulder and neck as he tried to force her to his will. She’d tried to scream and fight him off, but he was too strong. Too rough. She closed her eyes at that memory.

  If Thomas had not come back...

  If Thomas had not found her...

  She dreaded the very thought of that brutality and knew in that moment what her life would be if her father’s man won this challenge. So, Thomas’s gentle touch on her shoulder startled her. She’d been so caught up in the memories of the attack that she’d not heard him.

  “Aye, you will wear the mark of his hand there,” he said. His soft tone now was not what she expected to hear as he lifted his fingers and walked away. The man came back with a cool cloth and, after easing her gown out of the way, he placed it on the worst of the injury. “I have some liniment I use when my horse is injured that would work on it, but I suspect you would be insulted by such a thing.”

  She laughed then, surprising herself and him. She noticed that the edges of his eyes crinkled, and the corners of his mouth lifted in the first genuine smile that she’d witnessed from him.

  “I am quite horrified, sir, that you would offer something used on your horse to me.” She was not completely serious or even a bit outraged by his words. His almost-kind offer made to see to her injury was unexpected.

  “As my dear, departed lady mother would be if she heard me do so,” he said as he crouched beside her once more. “Somehow, Lady Annora, you seemed more practical and less frivolous than other ladies to whom I speak. I but considered its practical uses and not its true purpose.”

  “But a horse liniment, Sir Thomas? Truly?”

  “Mayhap I should have hidden its origin from you? Proclaimed it a wondrous cream for the skin from...France?”

  She smiled then, relaxing for the first time since the attack. Or so she thought until her hands began shaking and she could not stop them.

  “Here now, lass,” he said as he moved closer. Tugging the ends of the blanket tighter around her, he began to rub her arms briskly. “Tis not an uncommon reaction to a battle.”

  “A battle?”

  He drew her closer and held her in a warm embrace. She could smell the scent of him as she rested her head on his shoulder, allowing his soothing motion to continue.

  “Aye. You faced down a dangerous opponent and walked away. This,” he rubbed once again to ease the shivers that raced through her, “is your body’s reaction to facing that danger.”

  “Has yours reacted like this?” Did men, knights, warriors, experience this, too, or was it just for weak women to endure?

  “Nay, mine was nothing so tame as this. After my first battle, when I saw killing so close that I could smell it, I heaved my guts out in the grass. Several times. Loudly and in plain sight of my lord and his men.” He laughed, and the sound of it rumbled through her as he held her. “I was not alone, for battle and death causes many brave people to crumble afterwards.”

  Annora sat quietly in his embrace then, letting his warmth and strength seep into her. For one moment, a brief one, she felt safer than she’d felt in so long. The tears fell before she could control them.

  “Come here,” he whispered. “’Tis over now.” He slid her off the chair and onto his lap as he sat back on the floor there. “You are safe now.”

  “Unless I am discovered outside of my chamber. Unless my father learns I was here in the camp. Unless le Govic’s attempts to have his way with me become common knowledge.” She sighed then and whispered the one true danger she faced. “Unless le Govic wins.”

  “’Tis my turn to be insulted,” Thomas said. “Not one of those included being held like this by the dangerous Sir Thomas of Kelso, called Brisbois as he is descended from the king’s torturers. And one of the ablest knights to enter a field or battle.”

  His good humor eased many of her fears. In each encounter with him, he had tried to intimidate her, or to make advances, or to prove his attractiveness or prowess. Here, now, he was simply trying to make her feel better. She sat up and stared at him.

  “Why are you being kind to me?” He looked away but not before she saw the confusion there deep in his gaze. “Why save me at all?” Annora pushed back to stand and removed the now-warm cloth from her neck. “Why did you leave Mistress...er...that woman to follow me?”

  “The better question is, why were you spying on me? Standing outside my tent, disturbing my privacy?” he asked back without answering her questions.

  He stood and crossed his arms over his chest and waited on her answer. If she was beginning to think clearly, the shock of that attack was easing. He was still furious enough to tear le Govic apart, but Thomas would have to direct that ire into their coming jousts. Now, he watched her stand tall and regain herself.

  “I came here to discuss an arrangement with you.”

  Of all the things Thomas thought he would hear those words were not it. His body reacted in all sorts of inappropriate ways to the possible meanings of the word. Tamping the rush of heat in his blood, he cleared his throat.

  “What kind of arrangement?” he asked. Even he noticed the change in his voice as his body hoped it was right.

  She glanced away for a moment and then back at him. The expression in those remarkable eyes changed from moment to moment, exposing a myriad of emotions to him.

  Hope. Fear. Confusion. Temptation. Panic. Arousal.

  One and then another flashing as she tried to control herself after making such an offer. She looked around the tent, staring for a long time at the pal
let in the corner, before nodding in the other direction.

  “May we sit?”

  “Of course,” he said, pulling the more distant chair closer to the other one and holding out his hand for her to take it. “Would you like some more wine?” She walked over to the one that had been farther away and chose that one. The urge to laugh as he recognized which chair she’d chosen nearly overwhelmed him. “Plain wine.”

  He poured some into two cups and brought them over. When he caught her glance examining his body from the belt down and then glancing at the chair, he knew she’d seen as much as he’d suspected. After handing her one cup, he pulled a stool over from near the table and used that instead. ’Twould be a cruel taunt if he sat in the one where Corliss had begun to pleasure him. Cruel to the innocent now across from him and cruel to himself for he would spend the entire time trying not to think on it.

  “Tell me of this arrangement you seek.” He took a long swallow of the wine and waited.

  The lady tripped over words several times before finding the ones she sought. “First, pray tell me what you gain from your king if you win this challenge?” she asked. “Wealth? Prudhoe Castle? Me? Anything else?” The becoming blush that crept into her cheeks just then made him want to lean closer and feel that heat against his mouth. She shook her head then and changed the question. “Do you plan to marry me if you win?”

  “That is bold, my lady. Is it not your place to watch and wait and accept the outcome as determined by your father and my king?”

  “Is that what you are doing, Sir Thomas?” she asked. Tossing back the last wine in her cup, she stood and walked over to the table. The cup landed with a bit of a bang on the surface as she turned to face him.

  “I ask in good faith, sir. Although I hear this and that about you, about the challenge, about my possible future, I would rather know what is coming then guess about it. I would rather prepare for it. Especially if...” She stopped then and looked at him. “I pray you, tell me what you gain.”

  Thomas hesitated, unsure he wanted to give her what she asked. Did she truly want this knowledge for her own use, or was she yet her father’s pawn? She pressed on when he did not speak.

  “Will he forgive your treason? Wipe the stain from your name and honor?” She was daring to confront him with that.

  “I am no fool, lady. I would not hear his offer until that was accomplished.” Not completely true, however, she did not need to know the details of the manner in which the deal was made. “Besides, how could I be here with that crime of treason being held against me? No truce would allow me that.”

  “Forgive me, sir, for my accusation.” She entwined her fingers and held her hands before her. He wanted to reach out and ease the tension in them. When he thought she had softened in her approach, she straightened her shoulders and relaxed her hands. “So, you are now once more in his good graces. What else do you stand to gain by this when you yet risk so much?”

  “Risk?”

  “Life and limb. Reputation on the field. Horse. Armor. Gold?” She’d just reminded him in specific detail of everything he could lose, and all he wanted to do was take her and kiss her until she could no longer speak. “Pray tell me.”

  “The castle is the king’s.” He shrugged. “I know not why it is important to him, but it is. He is relentless in his desire to claim it.” He drank the rest of his wine. “And you are to be mine.”

  “If all you receive as a prize is me, then you win little,” she whispered. “Again, I ask you—do you plan to marry me if you are the victor of the challenge?”

  She pushed him. Her words were as much a challenge as the official one made by his king to her father. Did she wish to marry him? A traitor, former or no. A man unworthy of trust. A man who would sell his very soul to the highest bidder. Or was this only to gain knowledge for her father’s use?

  His delay in answering did just that—for she nodded slightly, understanding he would not, and returned to sit in the chair, considering what this meant. Words to ease her concern, words to appease her, words to explain all sat on his tongue, urging him to let them loose. But Thomas had learned the danger in sharing too much the hardest way—by losing all he had and all those he loved. No matter that he liked her. No matter that he wanted her. No matter... He would not expose his reasons to her. Her words startled him then.

  “So, you will seek a wife elsewhere if,” his raised eyebrow stopped her then, “when, when you win. And since we know le Govic has lost every wife he has taken and now seeks another presumably for the same purposes, then the possibilities I face are to live as your leman or,” she paused, “or when he tires of me, die as his wife.”

  Though it was the truth, it turned his stomach to be spoken of in such a plain manner as this, and that she equated him with le Govic. She knew of the fate of le Govic’s wives back on his father’s lands. How she’d learned such things, he did not ken, but she had. Le Govic was a clear danger to her life and limb while he himself was a threat to her virtue and honor and future.

  Yet, was Thomas any better a choice? Even without a wife to claim yet, he did not plan to marry her. Oh, he wanted to have her, but as he’d come to realize in the last days as he’d prepared for his upcoming battle, marriage was not part of it. Marriage could not be.

  After regaining his lands and titles, he needed a well-connected marriage to renew and expand his family in Scotland. Through his mother’s claims and kinship to several powerful clans in the north, he could make an alliance that would see him return his family to its rightful place of honor. His sons would further that with their own marriages. All would be well again for the Brisbois family for generations to come.

  For, if he won, there would be no dowry offered for Annora by her father or his family. No matter how much he might want her in his bed, marriage to her would not offer the necessary alliances or wealth to help his cause or to claim his heritage. No, he would not, could not offer marriage to her.

  First, though, he must win before any of this could be considered.

  “I would like to know that there is an ending to this that leaves me alive and well,” she began, her voice gaining strength with each word, “So I offer myself to you.” She let out a breath after those shocking words. “If I must suffer your attention, I will do so, but only until you marry elsewhere. Then I will leave.”

  He'd been ignorant of so many things in his life. He’d never realized his father had involved them in a traitorous plot against King William. He had not thought he would survive the imprisonment he’d suffered. And never in his wildest imaginings did he think to hear a lady such as Annora de Umfraville both offer herself to him and insult him in one small string of words.

  He wanted to laugh aloud at her audacity. Then, he wanted to shout denials that she would never have to suffer his attentions. Mostly though, he wanted to cheer her for having the practical nature that she did. She stood there, not begging, but trying to bargain her way to a small measure of control where she had none. Most women never controlled their lives or fortunes. He owed her the honor of a reply.

  “Are there other demands you would make, my lady?” he asked. “Now would be the time to speak of them.”

  “I pray you, do not mock me, sir!” she said through clenched jaws. “I am negotiating for my life and my honor.”

  “I do not, my lady. As I have recently been involved in making such an arrangement of my own, I wish all the conditions to be clear before any agreement is reached.”

  She let out a breath and took in another. “First, I would want this to remain between us. Let them believe we are to marry until after we leave this tourney,” she said slowly without meeting his eyes. “I would prefer to finish this with my dignity intact.” Then, raising her gaze to his, Annora looked at him and waited for his assent.

  “I do not intend to humiliate you, my lady. No one here need know of our arrangement if we come to one,” he said softly. And, in truth, he had not intended such a t
hing. Once the deed was done, he would return to Scotland and the king swiftly for the restoration of his titles and more, and he would think about the rest once that was done.

  “There are a few other items to discuss then. I would like a small settlement when ’tis over and done. I expect my belongings to be mine and to go with me when I leave. And—” She did not finish this last one. Her gaze left his and stared at something over his shoulder.

  “And? Come now, lady, do not lose courage now, for you are bargaining like the boldest merchant I have seen in my life. Aye, the fishmonger at Gracious Hill’s docks cannot claim to be superior to your skills. If you please, your next requirement?” Thomas was enjoying this too much. To hear such a woman speak so plainly, and all the while exposing more to him than she realized, was something he’d never experienced.

  “And I would want you to take no others to your bed while you...while I am...during...this arrangement.”

  Annora continued to amaze and even shock him with every word she spoke. Her face was now the fiery red color of last evening’s sunset.

  “Do you understand what that means, Annora?” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back, enough to emulate his earlier position in the chair but not enough to fall off.

  “Aye,” she said. Then her white teeth worried the edge of her lower lip, and she shook her head. “Nay, in truth, I do not,” she whispered.

  “It means that I will have only you, but I will have you. I will have you any time, any place and in any manner I desire. And as many times as I want.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “I could marry days after the tournament, if a suitable wife is found when my title and lands are returned by the king, or it could take years. Either way, you will be mine to satisfy my needs.” He took her shoulders and drew her in. “Mine and mine alone.”

  His body raged at him to make that having happen now, right now, right here. Struggle for control he must, for Thomas would not give in. Was he trying to frighten her? Aye. She must consider the cost she would incur if he agreed. Would she ever suffer at his hands? Nay. Neither would he hold back once she was his. Though it rubbed him harshly that she was viewing life in his arms and in his bed as terrible a fate as one as le Govic’s wife would be, he was filled with a sense of...pride?...as she made her case to him.