Chapter 20

Morgan scoured the armory as his warriors dutifully prepared for battle. They laced up their cotuns and buckled on claymores, donned helms and took down targes from the wall. All but one.

“Where’s Colban?”

“He was on watch last night, m’laird,” someone called out.

But no one knew where Colban was this morn.

Morgan searched the bedchambers, the courtyard, the great hall. He was nowhere to be found.

More often than not, Colban spent the night between the thighs of a lovely maid. His comely face and convincing grin assured him he seldom bedded down alone. And the black eye and split lip Morgan had given him had probably won him the sympathy of a willing wench.

But damn his hide! Morgan needed him right now. They were about to face a formidable force of knights bent on rescuing their precious clanswomen. And Colban was the only man he trusted to seek out and find the one that was missing.

Which reminded him… He’d promised to feed the two lasses in his bedchamber.

He stole several warm oatcakes from a kitchen maid’s tray as she passed and grabbed a skin of ale off a trestle table. That would have to do.

Most of the servants were too busy stockpiling food and gathering livestock to tend to captives. So he decided to take it upstairs himself.

As he crossed the great hall, young Danald ran up to him.

“M’laird! I found these in the wood.”

The lad had a quiver full of arrows and a longbow looped over one shoulder. He held up a satchel and what looked like a bundle of rags. Could they belong to the missing warrior maid?

Nay, she’d claimed to have come unarmed.

Tucking the wineskin under his arm, Morgan plucked out a length of sheer white linen and held it up.

When he realized what it was—a lady’s leine—he quickly wadded it against his chest.

“Good work, Danald,” he said. “I’ll take them.”

Once the lad scurried off, he set everything on a table to examine it more thoroughly. The bow was light but well-made, the arrows crafted by a master fletcher. There was a leather bracer tucked into the quiver. But neither it nor the quiver had identifying marks. There was no way to determine the weapon’s owner.

Rummaging through the rest of the garments, however, it didn’t take long to realize they belonged to Jenefer. He recognized the soft, earthy scent wafting off of them. Spicy. Sweet. Musky.

He blushed to think he’d been fondling her undergarment.

Clearing his throat, he moved on to the satchel. There were no weapons inside, just crumbs of whatever food she’d packed and a half-full aleskin.

Gathering everything but the bow and arrows, he bounded up the stairs.

Thankfully, Miles had ceased crying. Maybe he’d see if Bethac could slip downstairs to help with siege preparations.

First, however, he’d deliver the lasses’ breakfast and clothing.

When he opened the door, Jenefer was sitting innocently enough on his pallet. But dressed only in his leine, she presented a compelling sight.

Her long, shapely legs dangled over the edge of the bed. Her delicate toes brushed the floor as Morgan entered. And where her knees were slightly parted, shadows hid the treasure he knew was there between them.

She didn’t seem to notice that the breath had been stolen from him.

He used a moment to close the door behind him and gather his wits. Finally he dropped his burden onto the table.

“Breakfast,” he announced. Then he frowned. “Where’s Feiyan?”

“In the garderobe,” she said, jumping up to see what he’d brought.

Apparently she wasn’t going to wait for her cousin. She immediately pounced on the food like a wolf on a coney. She devoured the first oatcake at once. By the way she closed her eyes and licked her fingers, one would have thought she hadn’t eaten for days and was dining on the finest swan.

She washed it down with a swig of ale, then began to demolish a second oatcake. He wondered if she intended to save any for Feiyan.

Feiyan was right. Jenefer did eat like an ox.

But it certainly didn’t show. He’d held her, naked and squirming, against his side last night, and she hadn’t seemed overstuffed in the least.

That memory made him uncomfortably warm, and it reminded him of what else he’d brought.

“Your clothin’, I believe,” he said, offering it to her. “A lad found it in the wood.”