The insufferable knight seemed actually to be enjoying himself, and that infuriated her.
It wasn’t that she had hoped to terrify her captive, but, as a skillful—and fully armed—huntress, she did expect a little respect.
But this Sir Hugh’s constant teasing showed that he did not consider her a serious threat at all.
She did not feel as if she were the party in control, even though she was the one with the dagger. Her authority had been usurped, first when that pea-headed squire had knocked her flat, and then when she’d had to undo Sir Hugh’s hands so that he could tend to her wound.
That, she reckoned, had been her fatal mistake: not disarming the squire when she’d had a chance. But she’d felt sorry for him, squalling in midair, his arms flailing. She certainly never would have thought he’d have the gumption to hide a knife in his boot, let alone cut himself down. It was a drop of eight feet or more.
But he’d escaped, and she’d paid for her lack of farsightedness.
Surreptitiously pressing on her wounded side and finding it tolerably numb, Finnula supposed she ought to have thanked St. Elias for supplying her with a prisoner with so tender a touch. This Sir Hugh, despite his immense size—and alarming amount of facial hair—had surprised her with his gentleness, probing her sore rib with fingers that soothed. That brief glimpse into his true nature, the side of him that wasn’t armored in cynicism, had been enlightening.
Still, she’d have traded all his sensitivity for a more civil—and less amorous—captive any day of the week.
It wasn’t just his complete lack of fear of her that annoyed Finnula. There was something about the appraising way the knight’s hazel eyes raked her at every glance, the slightly mocking curve of his lips, half hidden beneath that tangle of beard, that unnerved her, made her feel shy. Finnula was not, as a rule, a diffident girl, and she could not understand what Sir Hugh was doing to make her feel that way. She resented him for it. Deeply.
But despite the fact that her plan had not proceeded according to schedule, Finnula had to content herself with the fact that she did, indeed, have a prisoner to bring home to Mellana. True, he was entirely too sarcastic and far too forward for Finnula’s taste.
But he would fetch a fair amount of ransom, enough to replenish her sister’s dowry, anyway, and that was all that mattered. She didn’t have to like him. She just had to deliver him. Intact.
Of course, the hardest part was going to be restraining herself from smacking him. He so roundly deserved to be put in his place, odious lecher. Imagine, pressing that…thing against her like that! The very memory caused Finnula’s cheeks to burn. How was she going to put up with behavior like that for two days and nights? He might find himself trussed like a doe and slung over Violet’s neck if he didn’t watch it.
They had ridden for almost two hours, mostly in silence, except when Hugo asked her probing questions about her family and personal life that Finnula refused to answer, much to his amusement, when the slowly setting sun indicated that it was time to find shelter for the night. Finnula urged Hugo’s mount, which she considered a truly fine beast, much more easily managed than his master, into a meadow that was already purpling in the twilight, and toward a hayrack.
“Our evening’s accommodations?” Hugo inquired, an unmistakably hopeful note in his voice.
Finnula sighed tiredly. She was not looking forward to coping with the ham-handed knight come nightfall.
“It is,” she said, trying to keep a threatening inflection in her voice. “I am acquainted with the farmer who tends this field, and he’s given me permission to stay the night whenever I choose—”
“Generous of him,” Hugo said, mildly. Finnula set her lips.
“In return, I keep his copses free of wolves,” she said, disliking his insinuating tone. Behind her, she heard her prisoner chuckle.
“All I said,” Hugo insisted, “was that it was generous of him—”
“I heard what you said,” Finnula snapped. “Dismount.”
Hugo looked about the meadow, already long-shadowed and growing cold now that the sun was sinking below the treetops along the horizon.
“What, here?” he questioned.
“Yes, here.” Finnula waited until he was on the ground before swinging back a leg and slipping to the grass beside him. Once again, his towering height disconcerted her, and she went to Violet’s side shaking her head, wondering at the fact that giants did indeed still roam the earth.
Reaching into her saddlebag, Finnula drew out a length of rope and turned toward the enormous knight.
“If you’ll just sit there, please, at the base of the hayrack, I’ll secure you.”
Hugo stared down at her uncomprehendingly, his eyes glowing green in the failing light of dusk. “Whatever are you talking about?” he asked, a smile curving up the corners of his generous lips.
Finnula stamped an impatient foot. “I’ve got to build a fire and fetch us some dinner, and I can’t do all of that and keep an eye on you—”
Understanding dawned. Hugo threw back his tawny head and laughed. “So you intend to tie me to a hayrack? Oh, that’s rich.”
Finnula glared at him. “It isn’t amusing. What’s to keep you from escaping while I’m hunting?”
“If you don’t know, I’m certainly not going to tell you,” Hugo declared, still laughing. When Finnula narrowed her eyes at him, he held up both hands, palms facing her. “Nay, don’t give me that look, you hard-hearted wench. I swear to you I’ll stay put. You have my emerald, remember?”
Finnula’s fingers flew to the heavy stone she wore upon her neck. She had nearly forgotten about it, it nestled so comfortably between her breasts. Of course he wouldn’t try to escape, not while something so valuable was still in her possession.
There was nothing, however, to keep him from sneaking up behind her and taking it away by force—but she supposed if he had been intent on doing such a thing, he’d have done it already. God knew he could easily have gotten away after his squire had knocked her senseless. No, as much as she didn’t like to admit it, Sir Hugh Fitzwilliam apparently had some honor. He was the type to see a thing through to the end, if only for the pleasure of laughing at her some more.
“I’ll make a fire,” Hugo offered, reasonably, “while you fetch us something to eat. I’m looking forward to actually seeing these superlative hunting skills about which I’ve heard so much.”
Finnula looked down at the length of rope in her hands. She so wanted to tie him up, and gag him, too, and spend a few hours in pleasant obliviousness to his presence. His aggressively male presence was grating. But there was no hope for it. She needed only to endure him for another forty-eight hours. Forty-eight hours was nothing. With any luck, she’d spend at least sixteen of them asleep.
If she could sleep in the presence of such a man.
Shrugging, Finnula went back to Violet’s side and put away the rope, taking her bow and quiver from the saddle instead. She tried not to pay attention to the fact that she could feel her prisoner’s eyes boring into her the entire time her back was to him. What was it, she wondered, that so constantly drew his eyes to her? It wasn’t possible that he could still be attracted to her, not after she’d spent almost the entire afternoon being unpleasant to him.
But he didn’t even have the grace to look away when she caught his stare on her hair, and, glaring at him challengingly, she quickly braided the mess of auburn locks, and tossed the plait over her shoulder and out of sight.
Hugo just smirked, as if her contrariness was charming. She glared at him some more.
“I hope you’re partial to rabbit,” she said irritably. “Because that’s all you’re getting for dinner.”
Hugo bowed as if she’d said she’d be preparing boar in a delicate mushroom sauce. Fuming, Finnula whirled away, and began trudging toward a nearby thicket, muttering to herself. What was it about this infuriating man that kept provoking her? Normally she had the most steady of tempers. Normally it didn’t bother her at all when people smirked at her: Isabella Laroche smirked at her regularly, and it had never irritated her a bit. But something about being the object of this man’s amusement was very annoying indeed.
Stalking a particularly cunning hare in the half light calmed Finnula somewhat. She ignored several females for fear that she’d leave their little ones motherless, and went for a male instead. She dallied a bit, enjoying her time away from her lecherous prisoner, letting her prey escape several times before finally ending the chase by sending an arrow clean through the hare’s brain. He never knew what hit him.
After skinning him expertly with her knife, Finnula washed her hands in a nearby brook, where she also paused to fill her water flask. By the time she returned to the hayrack, half hoping she’d find that Sir Hugh had cleared out, taking his smirks and insinuations with him, she found that he’d managed to start a fire and even had a pot of something bubbling merrily over it.
Hugo looked up from the small cauldron, from which the unmistakable odor of shallots was emanating. The sun had set, and except for the glow from the fire he’d started, the meadow was entirely in shadow. The firelight made his bone structure, which was difficult to see beneath the bristling beard, more pronounced, and Finnula realized, with a slight sinking feeling, that her prisoner was actually passably good-looking. Irrationally, this discovery annoyed her.
“I see you’ve been going through my belongings in my absence,” she said coldly.
Hugo shrugged, salting his soup with a pinch from the bag of spices Finnula kept in her saddle pouch.
“Get to know one’s enemy, I’ve always said.” He smiled, supremely unconcerned by her irritation. “You’ve got quite an arsenal of cooking implements. I threw some of the turnips and shallots in here. You don’t mind, do you? I figured that by adding the rabbit’s carcass and letting the pot simmer overnight, we’d have a good, thick soup come morning.”
Finnula tried to hide her surprise. Here was a man, a man, who knew how to cook? Why, Robert didn’t know a turnip from a parsnip. Curiosity overcame her dislike of him, and Finnula asked bemusedly, “Where did you learn how to cook?”
“Ah,” Hugo sighed, stirring his concoction with a stick he’d stripped of bark. “It wasn’t always safe to eat the local food in Egypt. I saw many more men fall to illness brought on by consuming rancid meat than I saw fall by the scimitar. We learned to prepare our own dinners, cooking them in our helmets, most times.” He chuckled at the memory. “Of course, that could prove dangerous as well, when one of us forgot last night’s dinner was still in his headpiece, and went to put it on without first checking inside—”
Finnula couldn’t help laughing at his wry expression. He grinned up at her, then lowered his gaze to the hare she’d skewered on a clean branch.
“Ah, the main course.” Rising to his full height, the knight approached her, all of his attention focused on the rabbit she’d killed. He bent to take the skewer from her, closely examining it, then lifted his gaze to hers appraisingly.
“A clean shot,” he said, the admiration in his voice evident. “You did this with that short bow?”
Finnula fingered her weathered bow, uncommonly pleased by the compliment, small though it was. Whatever ailed her?
“Aye,” she said, unshouldering her quiver and showing it to him. “’Tis all I need. A long bow is too much in the way. Besides, I’ve no need to pierce armor—”
Hugo flexed the bow experimentally. “Finely crafted. You made it?”
“Yes.” Amazingly, Finnula felt her cheeks suffuse with color. His regard pleased her far more than it ought. What did she care what he thought of her? He was just a knight, and not a very chivalrous one, at that. He was nothing to her.
Of course, it was one thing to be admired for one’s looks, which one couldn’t help, and quite another to be complimented upon one’s skills. Finnula took infinitely more pride in her hunting abilities than in her appearance.
Speaking quickly to hide her embarrassment, Finnula pointed out a notch she’d carved into each one of her arrows, a notch she claimed extended the curve of the arrow’s flight.
“But,” Hugo said, scrutinizing the violet-tipped projectile, “while it might lengthen your shot, it also makes your arrows highly distinctive.”
Finnula shrugged, not understanding his meaning straight away. “Oh, aye, but it seems to work—”
“And Sheriff de Brissac hasn’t yet learned how to identify your handiwork?”
Comprehension dawned. Suddenly uncomfortable with the shift the conversation had taken, Finnula took the quiver from him and turned her attention to dinner. “I’ll rub this fine fellow with some herbs,” she said, deliberately changing the subject. “With any luck, he should be done in half an hour—”
Hugo chuckled. “I see. Your troubles with the shire reeve aren’t any of my business?”
Finnula sank to her knees by the fire and industrially began applying a layer of spice to her kill. She kept her eyes on her work, hoping that the red glow of the firelight hid her blush. “I have no troubles with the sheriff,” she said nonchalantly. Then, flicking a quick glance in the knight’s direction, muttered, “None that he can prove, anyway.”
Hugo joined her on the hard ground, his joints popping in protest as he lowered his massive frame to the grass. He sat far enough away that their thighs were not exactly touching, but close enough that the chance of such contact occurring was a distinct possibility. Finnula regarded him nervously as she set the rabbit roasting over the flames, but all he did was lean forward, his broad shoulder suddenly blocking out all the firelight, and give his soup a stir.
“I see,” her prisoner said, his deep voice inflectionless. “But all the man would need is a single shaft—”
“I don’t leave my arrows lying about,” Finnula said matter-of-factly.
“But surely you’ve missed from time to time—”
Finnula sniffed. “I don’t miss.”
“You can’t always hit your mark, not every time—”
That stung. “I do,” she snapped. “You think that because I’m a woman, there is something lacking in my skills as a hunter? I’ll have you know that I’m the best shot in all of Shropshire. I have a golden arrowhead at home that I won at the Dorchester Fair to prove it—”
“I’m just saying that everyone misses now and again—”
“I never miss. I strike to kill, not maim.” Finnula glared at him resentfully, forgetting to rotate the skewered meat. “There aren’t any does roaming about the earl’s lands with my arrows in their flanks. What I aim for, I kill.”
It seemed to her that Sir Hugh took an intense interest in his soup all of a sudden. He dashed in a few pinches of the same herbs that Finnula had rubbed into her hare.
“And this earl, the one whose game you’re poaching—”
Too late, Finnula realized her mistake, and she quickly bit down on her lower lip. When was she going to learn to keep her mouth shut? Verily, this knight was able to draw her out with the ease of the slyest village gossip.
“I didn’t say I was poaching,” Finnula grumbled.
“Didn’t you?” Hugo’s deep voice rumbled with amusement. “I believe you mentioned that that was the root of your troubles with Sheriff de Brissac.”
Scowling, Finnula turned the skewer. She realized, as the aromas from the soup and the meat began to fill the air, that she was hungry. She hadn’t had a bite to eat since the inn in Leesbury.
“It’s not poaching, exactly,” she explained reluctantly. “The game I kill never actually leaves the earl’s demesnes—”
“What do you mean?” The look he shot her was uncomfortably sharp. In the firelight, his changeable eyes had gone yellow as amber. “What in God’s name do you do with it?”
The intensity of his gaze was unnerving, and Finnula lowered her eyes, her throat suddenly dry. Using her free hand, she fumbled with the water flask that hung from her side, but Hugo passed her a flask of his own.
“Try this,” he said shortly.
Finnula lifted the skin to her lips, only to pull it away a second later, feeling as if her lips were on fire. Gagging, she turned accusing eyes up at her prisoner.
“Are you trying to poison me?” she demanded, when she could find her voice.
Hugo had the grace to look sheepish. “I apologize. ’Tis only ale, though I admit it’s a bit on the strong side. I would have thought that the sister of a beer maker would be accustomed to the vagaries of brewing—”
“Aye, but I thought ’twas water you were offering to me. Besides, this isn’t ale. ’Tis dragon’s milk. You bought it in London, I wager?”
Hugo inclined his head. “Guilty as charged.”
“I thought as much. Whoever sold you this stuff let it sit too long, and now it’s strong enough to turn the hair of the dog.”
Annoyed that he had seen her sputtering reaction to the ale, Finnula took a long drink of the offensive stuff, just to prove that she was no lily-livered maid. Though her eyes watered, she managed to swallow several mouthfuls, then delivered a watery smile to her companion as she returned the flask.
“My thanks,” she said hoarsely.
Hugo took the flask and said, “The earl’s game. What do you do with it, if you don’t remove it from his demesnes?”
Provoking man. Finnula winced to herself. He could not be swayed from this topic, no matter what she tried. There was no hope for it. She was going to have to tell him. She had only herself to blame for arousing his suspicions.
“You have to understand that the earl—the late earl, Lord Geoffrey—passed away over a year ago, leaving the estate in the hands of his bailiff—”
“This Lord Geoffrey didn’t have an heir?” Hugo did not dare to look at her. He kept his gaze on the roasting meat on her skewer.
“Oh, aye, there’s an heir.” Finnula snorted disgustedly. “Only he’s nowhere to be found. Got himself captured gallivanting about the Holy Land, not unlike yourself—”
“Gallivanting!” Hugo echoed beneath his breath, but Finnula heard him, just the same.
“Aye, well, you can’t call it much more than that, can you? A sorrier display of masculine stupidity I never did see.” She shot him a sly glance from beneath her eyelashes. “Did you know him, perhaps? Lord Geoffrey’s son, I mean. Geoffrey, Earl of Stephensgate—”
Hugo pointed to the meat. “You’d better turn that. It’s burning.” After Finnula rotated the skewer, he said, “And so since Lord Geoffrey’s son can’t be located, the estate has lain lordless for a year?”
“And a little more. And the bailiff, one Reginald Laroche, Lord Geoffrey’s cousin, he and his precious daughter live in the manor house—” Finnula was about to add, And a finer pair of selfish pigs you never saw, but restrained herself, remembering that her prisoner was not a stranger to Shropshire, and might very well know Reginald Laroche.
But apparently his acquaintance with the bailiff was either nonexistent or passing, because he asked, curiously, “This Laroche isn’t performing his duties to your satisfaction, I take it?”
Finnula turned the meat, hunching her shoulders uncomfortably. She knew she should not complain about her betters, but somehow, though she herself was just a miller’s daughter, she could not help thinking that she could do a better job of managing Lord Hugo’s estate than that wet hen Reginald Laroche.
She felt her prisoner’s elbow in her side. It nudged her tender rib, and Finnula let out an involuntary cry that caused the knight to look down at her, his shaggy blond eyebrows raised in surprise.
“I only meant to offer you another swallow,” he said, holding up the flask of ale. “I’d forgotten about your rib. I’m very sorry. Is it still sore?”
Finnula eyed the leather flask. “Aye. But nothing that a drop or two more of that dragon’s milk won’t cure.”
Chuckling, Hugo passed her the sack, and Finnula choked down a few more mouthfuls before handing it back to him and wiping her lips with the back of her hand. The ale was terrible, true, but it warmed her insides as much as the cheerful fire was warming her outsides.
In fact, despite her bruised side, Finnula was feeling quite nice, with the quiet night settling all around them like a blanket, and the stars twinkling coldly overhead, and their dinner cooking so aromatically before them. Her companion wasn’t even annoying her that much anymore. He seemed to have adopted a less abrasive demeanor, and hadn’t smirked at her in over half an hour. Perhaps she would actually begin to enjoy his company before the end of this trip…
“So this Laroche,” Hugo prompted her, as if their previous conversation hadn’t been interrupted.
“Oh.” Finnula sighed. She supposed it didn’t matter if she bad-mouthed the earl’s relative to this man. Though there was a slight chance that Isabella, who had an uncanny ability to sniff out an eligible bachelor from leagues away, might find a way to wrangle herself an introduction to the knight, it was unlikely Sir Hugh would ever meet her father.
“Reginald Laroche seems to feel that the dues owed to Stephensgate Manor ought to be nearly twice what they were when Lord Geoffrey was alive,” Finnula explained. “So instead of working three days in His Lordship’s fields and four in their own, the peasants are forced to labor six days for Laroche, leaving only one for themselves. But that’s nothing to compare with the tallages Laroche has instituted. I think it’s done, don’t you?”
Hugo had been staring at her intently, his hazel eyes yellow again in the firelight. She had to wave the skewered meat over the flames to get his attention.
“Does this look done to you?”
He tore his gaze from her face and glanced at the roasted rabbit. “Yes, it’s done,” he said, and, taking the stick from Finnula’s hands, Hugo began to blow on the sizzling meat. “The tallages,” he said, between breaths, his eyes, in his thickly bearded face, bright as the stars above. “He’s raised the tallages, has he?”
Finnula wasn’t certain she liked her meat blown on by anyone excepting herself, but she shrugged with good grace and contented herself with another swallow from her prisoner’s flask. She really was feeling much better.
“Aye, raised the tallages by a third, and that, coupled with the extra three days’ labor, well, it’s caused a bit of bad feeling amongst the serfs.” She accepted the hunk of rabbit Hugo passed to her, and, holding it in both hands, took a ravenous bite. “Hmmm,” she said, though the meat was still too hot to eat comfortably. “That’s good.”
“Haven’t the serfs complained to anyone?” Hugo demanded, his own mouth full of roast rabbit.
“Oh, aye, to Sheriff de Brissac. He’s a good man,” she admitted grudgingly, “for all he wants to imprison me, but there’s naught he can do. Reginald Laroche had Lord Geoffrey in his pocket even before the old man died. He’ll inherit, if Lord Hugo never returns from the Holy Land, and may God help us then.”
Finnula wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and looked at her companion, then regretted it. The knight had bits of rabbit meat in his beard. She supposed he couldn’t help it, his beard being so bushy, but it was really quite unattractive, and she couldn’t understand why he hadn’t shaved upon reaching England. Perhaps, she thought, her overactive imagination working furiously, he had a weak chin, and needed the beard to even things out.
Her prisoner seemed oblivious to the state of his facial hair, however. “So what you’re telling me,” he began, stabbing a finger at her for emphasis, “is that this Laroche is slowly starving the people of Stephensgate?”
“Well, the serfs, anyway,” Finnula amended. “My brother, and the other free folk in the village, aren’t hurting too badly. It’s the peasants who farm for His Lordship who are suffering the most—”
Hugo had quit chewing, and was staring at her so intently that Finnula began to feel uncomfortable again. There was something so familiar about his eyes, but for the life of her, Finnula could not say what it was. She rarely visited Caterbury, but she supposed it was possible she had met one of his kinsmen there. Or perhaps his uncles or cousins had stopped in Stephensgate to sample Mellana’s brew. It really was quite famous, and on Tap-Up Sunday each October, the only day she could sell it legally without a license, the mill was crowded with men who’d traveled miles just for a taste of Mellana’s beer.
“So you are killing the earl’s game,” Hugo said slowly, his deep voice a rumble, like distant thunder, “and giving it to his serfs, so that they don’t starve.”
Finnula’s eyes widened, and she nearly choked on the piece of rabbit she’d just swallowed. “What?” she cried, giving herself a thump on the chest, then regretting it when she jolted her rib. “What did you say?”
“Don’t act the innocent with me, little miss.” The thunder in Hugo’s voice was not so distant now. “That’s how you can truthfully say the game isn’t leaving the earl’s demesnes. It’s all lining the stomachs of the peasants who work the land—”
Finnula took another sip of ale, just to ease the digestion of the slightly stringy hare. She wasn’t certain, but it appeared that Sir Hugh was upset about something. Since it did not seem wise to have such a very large man angry with her, she tried fluttering her eyelashes, which she’d seen Isabella Laroche do any number of times when caught in the glare of her father’s disapproval.
“Had I not,” Finnula said meekly, “they would have starved this winter. It was very cold—”
“Hell and damnation!”
Hugo’s abrupt exclamation so startled Finnula that she nearly dropped her gnawed half of the rabbit carcass back into the fire. She watched in amazement as her prisoner did exactly that, flinging the meat to the ground and then climbing to his feet. He took several strides into the dark meadow, only to return a few seconds later, his large hands balled into fists at his sides.
She could not understand why a man who was a stranger to Stephensgate should be so disturbed by the mistreatment of its serfs, and so assumed that his anger was directed at her, for her flagrant disregard of poaching laws. The penalties for poaching were quite severe; those caught illegally hunting a lord’s game could forfeit a hand or a foot for it, and it was not unusual for a poacher to pay for his crimes with his life.
Finnula instantly began to regret that she had ever opened her mouth about her hunting practices to this stranger. For all she knew, he could be some agent sent by the king to investigate the mysterious disappearance of game in Fitzstephen Forest. Why the king should take any interest whatsoever in Fitzstephen Forest, she could not imagine, but clearly, that was the only explanation for Sir Hugh’s strange behavior. If Sir Hugh was even his name.
Finnula wasn’t certain how to proceed. She supposed a girl like Isabella would have started to cry, using tears as a weapon against this large man’s wrath, and had she been able to, Finnula would have feigned repentance. But she was not sorry for what she’d done, and she’d be damned before she acted as if she was.
So she merely slid what was left of her dinner into the pot hanging over the fire, since her appetite had abruptly left her, and waited quietly for the large man to vent his anger, bowing her head against the inevitable, but muttering rebelliously beneath her breath.
But when the barrage of accusations did not come, Finnula grew restless, and glanced up at Hugo just once before swiftly lowering her gaze. He was standing some feet away, his arms folded across his broad chest, his tawny gaze inscrutable, but most definitely fastened upon her. Finnula thought it might be wise to provide as small a target as possible for his rage, and so despite the discomfort it caused her side, she brought her legs up to her chest and circled them with her arms, resting her chin on her knees and gazing mutinously into the flames.
When Hugo finally spoke, the thunder was entirely gone from his voice. Instead, he sounded tired, and Finnula supposed that for a man his age, that wasn’t so unusual. He had, after all, had quite a long day.
“Why did you do it?” he inquired.
Finnula was surprised by the question. As often as Robert had railed at her for poaching, he had never once bothered to ask her why she did it. That this stranger should put the question to her was really quite odd.
She looked at him, craning her neck to see his face, but his features were all in shadow, he stood so far from the fire.
“I told you already,” she said. “If someone hadn’t done something, they wouldn’t have lasted the winter. There wasn’t enough food in their stores, what with the high tallage set by Laroche—”
“But why you?”
Finnula frowned, looking away from him, back at the fire. She certainly couldn’t tell him the truth. But she could tell him part of it, anyway.
“God gave me a gift.” She shrugged. “It would be a sin not to use it. That’s what my mother used to say, anyway.” When he said nothing, she supposed he wasn’t satisfied with that explanation, but it was all she was willing to give. She thrust out her chin obstinately, refusing to utter another word.
“You risk your life,” Hugo said slowly, “for serfs.”
Forgetting her resolve to be silent, Finnula corrected him tersely. “To you, perhaps, they are serfs. To me they are friends, people I’ve known my whole life, family almost. If their lord will not care for them, I will. ’Tis the right thing to do.”
When he made no reply to that, Finnula pushed back a loose tendril of hair that had fallen over one of her eyes and glared at him, though he still stood in shadow and she wasn’t at all certain he was even looking in her direction.
“You can’t prove anything, you know,” she said with reckless indignation. “Any more than Sheriff de Brissac can produce a shred of evidence against me. Ask any single one of Lord Geoffrey’s serfs. They’ll not say a word. So you can just go back to King Edward and tell him that if there is a poacher in Fitzstephen Forest, you couldn’t prosecute for want of proof.”
She was trembling by the time she got through with her speech, but not with fear. Good God, no wonder he’d been so amicable about being held hostage! He’d been hoping to goad her into a confession—and he’d succeeded, to a certain degree. But he still hadn’t any evidence.
“What in the name of God are you talking about?” Hugo demanded, stomping back toward the fire in his enormous boots. He sank down beside her, took the flask from where she’d leaned it against a leg of the hayrack, and, unstopping it, took a few noisy gulps.
When he took the container away from his lips, the gesture made a smacking noise, which Hugo followed by wiping his mouth on his sleeve. His gaze was green-eyed now, Finnula noticed. It was disconcerting how his eyes were constantly turning different colors.
Finnula glowered at him, hoping to intimidate with her sadly unchangeable gray irises. “I know who you are.”
Hugo looked taken aback. For several seconds he simply stared at her, his mouth moving strangely, before he finally echoed, in a voice that was too hearty by half, “Who I am? What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play games with me,” Finnula snarled. He seemed more amused than alarmed by her ire, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her from delivering the lecture he so roundly deserved. “I think it’s disgraceful, you taking advantage of me in such a manner. After all, I’m nothing but an innocent maid. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
Hugo laughed outright. “Maid you might be, Finnula Crais, but I have serious reservations concerning your innocence. Point in fact, your method of distracting me at the Spring of St. Elias—”
Finnula flushed hotly at the memory, but refused to be distracted by embarrassment. “That is neither here nor there. When my brother finds out, you can count on him complaining to the king about your ill treatment of me—”
“My ill treatment of you?” Hugo’s golden eyebrows slanted upward in disbelief. “Was it not I who was trussed, as you so delicately put it, like a pig? Was it not my life threatened at knifepoint?”
“How you can be so indignant when ’tis you who are a sneak and a liar, I’ll never know. I don’t ken how you sleep at night.” Leveling a narrow-eyed glare at him, she hissed, “Men like you are no better than the worms crawling below our feet this very instant—”
Hugo looked down, expecting to see the ground littered with night crawlers. “I apologize, demoiselle,” he began carefully, “if I have done aught to offend you—”
“Offend me!” Finnula laughed humorlessly. “Oh, arresting me will be an offense, all right. An offense against all that is sacred in this land—”
“Arrest you?” Sir Hugh’s astonishment, which Finnula was certain was feigned, was nevertheless so convincing, she almost believed him. “Why would I arrest you?”
“Oh!” she cried, leaping to her feet at the cost of sending shooting pains through her side. “And still you play dumb!” She stabbed an impatient finger at him. “Are you not an agent of the king, sent here to root me out?”
To her surprise, her prisoner threw back his tawny head and laughed, long and loud. This reaction was so unexpected that for a moment, Finnula could naught but stare at him, openmouthed. He continued to laugh for some minutes, so uproariously that Finnula, who appreciated a good joke but disliked being the butt of one immensely, grew impatient.
“’Tis not amusing,” she insisted.
But Hugo could not stop laughing. In a fit of pique, Finnula crossed the few feet of grass that separated them, until she stood over him, hands on her hips, her eyes snapping as hotly as the flames of the fire.
“Aye, that’s right,” she snarled. “Laugh all you want. We’ll see how amusing you find it when my brother gets hold of you. He’s got fists as big as flour sacks, you know, and he won’t take it kindly if you bring me back to the millhouse in shackles.”
This only succeeded in making the lion-maned knight laugh harder. Finnula stamped an impatient foot.
“I’ve got brothers-in-law, too, four of them, and Bruce is the village butcher. His arms are thicker than tree trunks—”
Before she realized what was happening, one of Sir Hugh’s own arms, which, while not thicker than tree trunks, were among the longest and most muscular she’d ever seen, snaked around her legs. In the next second, he’d knocked her sharply in the backs of the knees, buckling them, while his other hand closed over her wrist, pulling her down into his lap. Finnula could not stifle a yelp of surprise.
But before she’d had time to recover herself from the ignominious tumbling, before she’d had a chance to notice that his lap was not the most unpleasant place she’d ever been, being, among other things, rather warm, though uncomfortably hard in places, Finnula lifted her head to complain about this rude treatment…
…and found her protest silenced by a pair of very determined lips.
Finnula had been kissed before, it was true, but the few men who’d tried it had lived to regret it, since she was as swift with her fists as she was with a bow. Yet there was something about these particular lips, pressing so intently against hers, that caused nary a feeling of rancor within her. Indeed, what she felt instead could hardly be described, it was so foreign to her. But it was most definitely enjoyable, of that she was certain. She could not even bring herself to bite the audacious knight, she so enjoyed his caress.
He was an excellent kisser, her prisoner, his mouth moving over hers in a slightly inquisitive manner—not tentatively, by any means, but as if he was asking a question for which only she, Finnula, had the answer. Now there was nothing questioning at all in his manner; he’d launched the first volley and realized that Finnula’s defenses were down. He attacked, showing no mercy.
It was then that it struck Finnula, as forcibly as a blow, that this kiss was something out of the ordinary, and that perhaps she was not in as much control of the situation as she would have liked. Though she struggled against the sudden, dizzying assault on her senses, she could no sooner free herself from the hypnotic spell of his lips than he’d been able to break the bonds with which she’d tied him. She went completely limp in his arms, as if she were melting against him, except for her hands, which, quite of their own volition, slipped around his brawny neck, tangling in the surprisingly soft hair half buried beneath the flung-back hood of his cloak. What was it, she wondered dimly, about the introduction of a man’s mouth against one’s own that seemed to have a direct correlation to a very sudden and very noticeable tightening sensation between her thighs?
Even in her heightened state of arousal, Finnula was not unaware of the fact that her prisoner seemed to be suffering a similar discomfort. She could feel that part of him which earlier she’d so foolishly mistaken for a knife hilt, pressing urgently against the softness of her hip. He had let out a low moan, smothered against her mouth, when she’d slid her hands around his neck, and now, as his need for her chafed against his braies, his strong arms tightened possessively around her. Callused fingers caressed her through the thin material of her shirt, and she realized they were moving inexorably close to her breasts. If she let him touch her there, what with the strange feeling she was experiencing between her legs, she’d be lost, she knew.
And she had to stop him, because she was no Isabella Laroche, who was loose enough to enjoy without compunction the lewd attentions of men she did not love or had any intention of marrying. She was Finnula Crais, who had a reputation to uphold. Granted, that reputation was not exactly a flawless one, but it was all she had. Besides, she would not end up in the same situation as Mellana, for whom she’d gone to all this trouble in the first place…
And then those strong, yet incredibly gentle fingers closed over one of her breasts, the nipple of which was already pebble-hard against the heat of his palm.
Tearing her mouth away from his and placing a restraining hand against his wide chest, Finnula brought accusing eyes up to his face, and was startled by what she saw there. Not the derisive smile or the mocking hazel eyes she’d become accustomed to, but a mouth slack with desire and green eyes filled with…with what? Finnula could not put a name to what she saw within those orbs, but it frightened as much as it thrilled her.
She had to put a stop to this madness, before things went too far. “Have you lost your reason?” she demanded, through lips that felt numb from the bruising pressure of his kiss. “Release me at once.”
Hugo lifted his head, his expression as dazed as a man who’d just roused from sleep. Blinking down at the girl in his arms, he gave every indication of having heard her, and yet his hand, still anchored upon her breast, tightened, as if he had no intention of releasing her. When he spoke, it was with a hoarse voice, his intonations slurred.
“I rather think it isn’t my reason I’ve lost, Maiden Crais, but my heart,” he rasped.
Finnula snorted at this. He looked, to her, like a man who hadn’t lost anything more serious than his judgment. “Do you think I’m a simpleton?” she demanded. “That I’ll swoon at your pretty words and beg you to take me?” She laughed without humor. “Not bloody likely.”
“’Tis going to be a long night.” Hugo sighed. “Long and cold. Think of the comfort we could find in each other’s arms—”
Finnula reached up and, with the heel of her hand, struck the knight soundly in the center of his forehead, sending his head cracking against the leg of the hayrack at his back. Hugo let go of her in his surprise, and Finnula scrambled to her feet, retreating a safe distance in the event that he chose to avenge his smarting skull.
“Don’t make me have to hurt you,” Finnula shouted, holding out a warning finger as Hugo staggered upright, using the hayrack’s wooden frame for support with one hand and clutching his head with the other. “I promised to return you to your squire un-injured if your ransom was paid in full, and it would be a burning shame if I had to deliver damaged goods—”
Hugo simply glared at her, all desire gone now from his face, his eyes a mocking amber once again.
“Remind me,” he muttered, “never again to tangle with a virgin.”
Finnula sniffed primly. “You have only yourself to blame. I never invited your advances.”
“Like hell you didn’t. What was that at the spring, then?”
“That was a trap.”
“Yes, yes.” He waved a hand at her dismissively. “A lure for the ignorant beast. Well, I certainly fell for it, didn’t I? I have to admit that I’m a bit surprised that you, who seem to value honesty so highly, would stoop to such feminine trickery—”
Finnula stamped a foot in the soft grass. “I told you. My sister—”
“Yes, yes, yes.” He rolled his eyes. “Your sister needs the money. What does she need it so badly for, anyway? Did she get herself in the family way?”
When Finnula, stunned speechless that he should have guessed so easily what she’d been trying to keep a secret from him, only stared at him, Hugo threw back his head and laughed mirthlessly.
“So that’s it!” he crowed. “The beautiful Mellana has the face of an angel but the virtue of a trollop—”
Finnula took a half-dozen angry strides toward him. “You take that back!” she ordered him. “How dare you?”
“And this also explains your oblique references to that unfortunate minstrel. He would be the father, then? Well, no wonder the fair Mellana needs money so badly. Does Brother Robert know? I’d wager not—”
Finnula was so furious she could hardly refrain from launching herself at him and throttling his thick, stupid neck. Only the memory of how difficult it had been to extricate herself from his embrace the last time kept her from doing so.
“Mellana is no trollop,” Finnula had to satisfy herself by hissing. “That damned troubadour tricked her!”
“Oh? Tricked her out of her maidenhead? I wish I was more intimately acquainted with a troubadour, that I might learn this trick that causes virtuous maids to so liberally bestow their favors. There’s a certain maid I know who might benefit from such a trick—”
Finnula thought about hurling her knife in his chest, but that seemed a bit extreme. Murder, even of this cur, would only get her hanged.
But she could not possibly endure this man’s company for another twenty-four hours. He was a vile, manipulative, rutting rake, and nothing would make her happier than never having to gaze upon his hairy face again…
“Here,” she cried, reaching inside her shirt and drawing out the cord upon which dangled Hugo’s emerald. She pulled the heavy stone from around her neck and hurled it, with unerring accuracy, into the grass at his feet. “Take the bloody thing back. I release you! You are no longer my prisoner. Take your horse and get gone with you. I never want to see you again!”
So angry that she was almost sobbing, Finnula whirled around, smugly satisfied by the dismay she’d seen on his face, and went to Violet’s side, where she opened her saddlebags, looking for her cloak. While she was there, she noticed that his knife and sword were still tied to her saddle, and she set about undoing the knots that bound them, so that she could hurl them, too, at the churlish knight.
She heard him call her name, in a different voice than she’d ever heard him use before, but she wouldn’t turn around. Instead she shouted, loudly enough to cause Violet to turn down her ears, “I told you, you’re released! Get gone with you! The sight of you sickens me!”
A moment later, Hugo was speaking to her in a gentle voice that sounded only inches away. “Finnula. Turn around.”
“I won’t,” Finnula declared hotly. She let first his sword, then his dagger fall to the earth, and enjoyed the cry of dismay he gave as each finely crafted blade clattered onto the grass.
Clutching her fur-lined cloak to her chest, as if the thick garment were protection against the wrath of a knight, she declared, to her saddle, “I want you to go away and leave me alone.”
“I can’t do that,” Sir Hugh said.
There was no question that he was standing directly behind her now. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck, where her braid had fallen over one shoulder, and the heat emanating from his body warmed her back.
“What do you mean, you can’t do that?” Taking a deep breath, Finnula turned around to face him, a little startled to find that he really was standing even closer than she’d suspected, literally just inches away. With his back to the firelight, his features were unreadable, and Finnula bit her lower lip. Oh, she’d been a fool, a blind, bloody fool, ever to have agreed to this undertaking. When she got home, she’d slap Mellana silly, pregnant or not.
“I can’t leave you alone out here in the middle of nowhere,” Hugo said, with quiet dignity. “Don’t you know that there are cutthroats and footpads all over the countryside, looking for foolish maids like yourself to prey upon?”
Finnula snorted disdainfully. “Like Timmy and Dick? Let them try. I’d relish another chance to tangle with those two—”
“Worse than those two. Believe me, Finnula, you’ve been lucky up until now—”
“Lucky?” she sputtered, incredulously. “To have gotten myself saddled with the likes of you? Not likely!”
Hugo went on as if she hadn’t interrupted. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I thought harm had come to you. After all, I am a knight.” The wry grin, slightly lopsided, returned as he added, “’Tis my duty to protect the innocent, and I suppose that means you, despite your excellent aim.”
Finnula lowered her gaze, hoping that despite the fact that the firelight was full on her face, he could not see her blush. Why, oh why, did the slightest compliment from him cause her to redden like a milkmaid?
“I’m sorry I called your sister a trollop,” Hugo went on seriously, in his deep voice. “Please forgive me. It was uncalled for. Now, as I am traveling in the same direction that you are, I do not see, prisoner or no, why we should not ride together. I promise to keep my hands to myself. You’ll have to forgive my momentary lapse. You are, however, very distracting when you are indignant.”
Without another word, he dropped the heavy emerald around her neck once more, letting the pendant fall with a thump between her breasts. Finnula looked down at the stone as it winked in the firelight.
What in heaven’s name was she to do now? How was she to be rid of him? He was like a boy she’d known years and years before, who’d followed her for days until she’d finally had no choice but to jump on him and rub his face in the dirt until he promised to leave her alone.
But she’d never be able to get the best of Sir Hugh Fitzwilliam, not physically, anyway. She’d tried being unpleasant, she’d threatened violence, she’d even turned down an invitation to share his bed, albeit a straw one. But nothing had worked. What ailed the man?
“I’ll see to tomorrow’s breakfast,” Hugo said, interrupting her mutinous thoughts. He left her to go and kneel beside the simmering pot hanging from the spit he had rigged. “You get ready for bed.”
Finnula simply stared at him, astounded. She had released him, and yet he wouldn’t go! What kind of man was he? A stubborn one, anyway. She was going to have to think long and hard of a way to be rid of him. Perhaps, if she rose early enough, she could simply slip away, and be gone before he woke. Yes, that was an excellent plan! She could be leagues away before he even stirred!
But then she’d have failed her mission for Mellana. That thought sobered her, even as she yawned from a tiredness she had not known she felt. If she did manage to shake off this clinging knight, who, in the name of St. Elias, was she going to hold hostage next? No, much as she didn’t like to admit it, she needed this knight. She glared at him, as he, seemingly oblivious to her antipathy, salted his soup. Lord, how he irritated her! Stubborn, stubborn man!
It did not occur to Finnula that her prisoner wasn’t any more stubborn than his captor. Instead of heeding his advice and preparing for sleep, she went silently round to the back of the hayrack and climbed inside it, sinking knee-deep into the soft hay. From that height, she could watch him, and she did that for a while, wondering what sort of knight he was, that he possessed what could, at times, be such a gentle manner, yet such grizzled looks. Surely he would not be half so bad looking if he shaved. Was he hiding from something—or someone—that he let his face get covered so with bristles?
After a few moments of such musings, Finnula thought she might be more comfortable lying down, and so she leaned upon her side, careful of her bruised rib, the hay beneath her pliant and sweet-smelling. Perhaps, she thought, watching Sir Hugh as he stirred his soup, he was escaping from an unhappy love affair of some sort. Perhaps the emerald really had been given to him by a sultan’s daughter, as a love token. Most likely her father had not allowed the two of them to wed, being of separate faiths. She wondered if Sir Hugh had attempted to escape with the princess, and if the sultan had found the lovers out, and dragged them back to the palace for execution. Sir Hugh might have barely escaped with his life. No wonder he’d been so opposed to having his hands tied behind his back. Perhaps it brought back painful memories of the sultan’s dungeon…
Fingering the gem, Finnula rolled over onto her back to blink at the stars. They shined as brightly as the emerald, yet their light was cold, whereas when she looked down at the jewel around her neck, she saw a sort of fire in its center—not unlike the fire she had seen in her prisoner’s eyes when she’d looked up at him, after they’d kissed. Did Sir Hugh’s eyes burn that way after he kissed any woman, or was that fire for her, and her alone?
Turning her head, she stared at her prisoner through the slats of the hayrack. He was still puttering with his soup, pointedly not turning those green eyes in her direction. The fire bathed his face in a warm yellow light, bringing out, in sharp definition, the strength in his jawline, the lean spareness of his aquiline nose, the sensuous curves of his full lips. It was unnerving to recall the sensations those lips had aroused in her when they’d kissed. To look at him, one wouldn’t suppose he’d be capable of rendering an otherwise sensible woman so giddy with desire. She would certainly never have thought it possible. Otherwise, she would have picked an entirely different quarry.
Finnula was not at all confident she would be able to turn down his advances a second time. No, she was going to have to make a break for it.
This was an encouraging thought, and she concentrated upon it happily until, despite all her intentions to the contrary, sleep overtook her.
Still, the last image that she saw before she drifted off was that of her prisoner, kneeling thoughtfully by the fire. She couldn’t even rid herself of his memory, which seemed to be burned onto the backs of her eyelids. Fie!