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The Warrior's Princess Bride
Meriel Fuller
Indulge your fantasies of delicious Regency Rakes, fierce Viking warriors and rugged Highlanders. Be swept away into a world of intense passion, lavish settings and romance that burns brightly through the centuriesA feared mercenary… Benois le Vallieres, the legendary Commander of the North, is ruthless in battle. He feels no emotion, so feels no fear. But when he rescues a feisty yet vulnerable maid from danger, she manages to get under his skin like no woman before… …and his princess bride Tavia of Mowerby is no one – a peasant who survives on her courage and crossbow alone.But when her royal blood is discovered, only marriage to Benois can keep her safe. She has his fearsome protection and his passionate desire, but will she ever melt his frozen heart?


‘Nay!’ she whispered, but her own heart contradicted her, thumping deceitfully with excitement. His lean head dipped down, his lips seeking hers.
‘Aye,’ he replied, a rough certainty threading his voice.
Hunger kindled in her belly, a hunger she had never before experienced—yearning, craving… for what? As the sensuous curve of his mouth brushed hers, she wanted to scream out loud with joy at the exquisite touch.
Cursing her traitorous limbs as they curved sinuously into his muscular frame, she seemed incapable of resisting, her body melting to a burning pool of liquid beneath his touch. The heady smell of him enveloped her: a sensual delight of horse and woodsmoke that plucked at her senses, promising more, much more.
Meriel Fuller lives in a quiet corner of rural Devon with her husband and two children. Her early career was in advertising, with a bit of creative writing on the side. Now, with a family to look after, writing has become her passion… A keen interest in literature, the arts and history, particularly the early medieval period, makes writing historical novels a pleasure. The Devon countryside, a landscape rich in medieval sites, holds many clues to the past, and has made her research a special treat.
Recent novels by the same author:
CONQUEST BRIDE
THE DAMSEL’S DEFIANCE

THE WARRIOR’S PRINCESS BRIDE
Meriel Fuller

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

THE WARRIOR’S PRINCESS BRIDE
Chapter One
Dunswick, Scottish Borders, AD 1157
‘God preserve us! They’re coming again! Run and save your souls!’
Tavia of Mowerby wheeled around in astonishment as frightened screams broke from the far side of the market square.
‘Keep going, Tavia!’ Noticing her lack of movement, her father growled at her, the fleshy lines of his face mottled purple in the early morning light. ‘We’ll not make any coin if the cloth is still in the cart!’
He had woken her before the sun had risen, shaking her shoulder roughly before pulling her up from her wooden pallet, glowering at her as she stirred the embers to life, put on the pot to boil the water. He was never in the best of moods on market day, especially as her mother had been too ill to make the journey into the city this week. ‘But…what is happening…?’ Tavia’s fingers stilled once more on the smooth nap of the material before she caught her father’s scowl. She lifted the bolt of cloth hurriedly from the ox-cart on to the trestle table, the brilliant hues of blue, purple and green glowing in the sunshine. She still remained awed by the process that turned the matted coats of their humble collection of sheep into such beautiful cloth. Pulling a length of the roll out across the trestle, she allowed it to fall in gentle pleats in order to show the cloth’s drape to the best advantage. Her father nodded grimly at her actions; it was the closest he would come to approval.
Glancing up, high up to the thick stone walls that encircled the city, Tavia could see the soldiers of King Malcolm, resplendent in their green-and-gold surcoats as they fanned out along the walkway, or crouched in the turrets of the gatehouse, arms bent back as they drew their bows. A frisson of fear shot along her veins. Something was not right.
Her father answered the worried look in her wide blue eyes with a brisk shake of his head. ‘It’s nothing, it’ll be another false alarm, just like all the others,’ he grumbled. ‘Ever since Henry took the English throne, this town has run scared. Bunch of lily-livered mice, the whole lot of them!’
‘It’s no secret that King Henry wants these lands back…’
‘And what would you know of it, girl?’ Coughing roughly, Dunstan spat on the greasy cobbles. ‘Malcolm has promised that Northumbria will remain in Scottish hands. We have nothing to worry about.’
Tavia eyed the hunched positions of the soldiers between the grey stone battlements, her eye dropping down to follow the scurrying townspeople as they nipped down alleyways, flicked behind shut doors. Usually at this hour, the marketplace would be crowded with people, merchants and tradesman, eager to do business with the people of Dunswick. Carts would jostle for space, merchants would argue over the best places to sell their wares, and the sound of music and laughter would fill the air. Now all she could hear were warning shouts, shouts renting the tense hush of fear.
Tavia made a determined effort to draw some strength from the waxy solidity of her father’s face. At nearly sixteen winters, the young king of Scotland, Malcolm, had done little to inspire his people, people who had been used to the wise and powerful hand of King David. It had fallen to Ferchar, earl of Strathearn and regent to Malcolm, to assure the people that the border lands with England were safe.
An arrow, lit with flame, hissing and spitting, thumped into the pile of woven fabric. ‘Sweet Jesu!’ Dunstan hauled himself up on the table, grabbing at the arrow with his bare hands. ‘Save the fabric!’ he bellowed at Tavia. She grabbed at the top layers to pull it into a heap on the ground, watching the beautiful colours shrivel and scorch on the cobbles. What a shame. All her mother’s hard work disappearing in a moment. She caught her father’s arm. ‘We need to leave,’ tis not safe.’
‘Nonsense, I’m not going to pass up an opportunity to make coin, my girl. We need every penny we can get.’
‘Aye, but with no custom,’ tis hard to make anything at all.’
Her father’s eyes reddened with anger. ‘Just watch your lip, maid, or you’ll see the side of my hand.’
‘At least let me go and see what’s happening.’
Dunstan shrugged his shoulders. ‘If you must,’ he agreed, grudgingly, grunting heavily as he reached down to gather up the ruined, singed fabric from the cobbles.
The smell of burning filled her nostrils as she ran towards the gatehouse, past town houses where the shutters had been closed. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the thatched roofs on a row of cottages, alight, flaming, thick, charring smoke flowering into the sky. The sturdy leather of the soles of her boots gripped decisively on the slippery cobbles, as she leaped over the street’s central ditch stinking with dirty water. At this time of year, as the weather started warming up to summer, the city began to reek with the foul smells of so many people living in one place. How different it was to her family’s simple cottage on the hillside, a few miles outside Dunswick. There, she could breathe in the sweet, fresh air, hear the lambs bleating on the fells behind her and drink the sparkling cold water from the stream.
Reaching the walls of the gatehouse, she placed one hand against the cool stone to catch her breath, leaning over slightly. Shouts above her drew her gaze upwards, and she backed away, panic slicing her innards. Sweet Jesu!
Starkly delineated against the pale blue of the sky, the white frothy cloud, the hulking figures of the enemy could be seen, climbing over the tops of the walls. The red-and-gold surcoats of Henry II, the English king, flashed menacingly as more and more of his men piled over the battlements. Swords clashed, echoing in her ears; men grunted with exertion as they fought for their lives. She jumped backwards, horrified, as a soldier’s body landed with a tremendous thump, inches from her feet, blood seeping through the metallic skin of his chainmail as he sprawled across the ground, arms and legs at hideous angles. A dragging weakness invaded her legs, and she swayed slightly, a sick taste in her mouth, before dropping to her knees beside the man, wondering how she could help him, touching the cold metal of his hauberk gingerly.
‘Get out of here, maid!’ Tis not safe!’ Another soldier jerked her up by her shoulder and shoved her back in the direction of the marketplace. ‘Save yourself, maid. It will not be long before they’re in here. Save yourself!’
‘But this man…’ She gestured at the soldier on the ground.
‘Was dead before he fell,’ the man replied bluntly. ‘We’re no match for these English devils. Now make haste!’
She ran then, sheer panic forcing her to move her limbs, to head for a place of safety. Too late to run home, the city was surrounded. Her breath came in great gasps as she fled along the narrow city streets, urging her muscles to work harder, faster. No time to warn her father; she just hoped he had managed to hide himself. Too bad her crossbow was still in the cart in which they had travelled to town; she had only thrown it in at the last moment, as another form of protection on their journey. If only she had it with her, then she could find a high spot and pick these barbarians off one by one.
The shouts at her back were gaining on her, intermingled with the distinctive thump of a battering ram on the solid wooden gates. Twisting her head back, she almost screamed out loud at the sight of the red-and-gold garbed soldiers, mounted on huge gleaming destriers, cramming into the other end of the narrow lane. They must have come in from another entrance!
‘God have mercy on me!’ Tavia whispered, ducking away to the right. Blood pumped uncontrollably behind her ears, in her brain. She bolted down an alleyway, hoping her direction would lead her away from the English, would yield up some place she could hide, could creep into until this nightmare was over.
And then she saw it. Her sanctuary, rising up before her, the one building that no enemy would dare to attack or desecrate with their barbarous ways. The church. Sobbing, half with relief, half with the effort of running so fast, she stumbled up the smooth, level steps, her toe tangling in the long hem of her bliaut. She wrenched the bulk of her gown away, her movements jerky with agitation, and climbed higher. The church would be her salvation. The great door of coarse oak yielded under her slight weight, and she fell into the dark haven, breathing in the heady smells of incense and balsam. Running along the aisle, she fell on her knees at the simple wooden altar and prayed for her life.
Behind her, the door swung back violently on its hinges, the harsh noise bouncing menacingly through the high vaulted spaces of the building. Sweat slicked Tavia’s palms as she clasped her hands tightly in prayer, her eyes closed. Every muscle in her body stretched with trepidation, with fear. If she didn’t look around, then it wouldn’t be real, it would all be a horrible dream.
A boot in her back kicked her prostrate on the altar steps. The pain radiated out from her spine, bruising her delicate skin. Shocked, aghast, scrabbling on her hands and knees, she tried scrambling to her feet, only to be kicked back down again, harder this time. She bit her lip, wanting to cry out at this brutal treatment, not wanting to give them the satisfaction. How dare they treat her so!
Still prone, she twisted her head. Five or six English soldiers stood over her, faces shadowed by metal helmets, the long nose-pieces obscuring their features. The memory of the soldier falling to her feet at the gatehouse shot through her mind. Rage, boiling rage, rose in her gut. ‘How dare you!’ she hissed, pushing one flat palm against the stone floor to lever herself up. ‘How dare you defile the sanctity of this church!’ The soldiers exchanged mock-innocent, wide-eyed looks, and guffawed. One leaned down and grabbed a fistful of her bliaut at her waist. Through the fabric, his knuckles ground into her flesh as her head jerked back with the ferocity of the movement.
‘Only if we kill you,’ the soldier ground out, the warm stench of his breath wafting over her face. ‘And we have no intention of doing that…yet.’ He threw her back, her head knocking against the side of the altar. ‘Geraint, you first.’ He gestured to the younger soldier at the back. ‘And make it quick…the rest of us want a piece, too.’
Geraint frowned at the older soldier, his manner hesitant. ‘But…le Vallieres said…’
‘He’ll never know…’ the older man snarled back, scratching absentmindedly at a day’s growth of beard. ‘Don’t you think we deserve it?’
Tavia began to shake, her body trembling all over. Her mind jumped and stuttered as she fought to make sense of what was happening. Never before had she felt so completely violated, so vulnerable. As the nominated soldier stepped forward, she forced her brain to think coherently, to think of a way out! Her fingers clung to the side of the altar, a thick, carved oak chest, covered with a linen cloth and, on the top, a heavy silver cross, ornately carved with an intricate filigreed design. As the soldier approached, she propelled her frightened body upwards, making a desperate grab for it. A blade hissed as her fingers curled around the weighty silver, as she swung it round with all her strength, aiming for the soldier’s head. He ducked and the cross sailed past the man’s helmet, landing with a deafening crash on the flagstones.
‘Feisty wench,’ a soldier muttered.
‘You might need some help with that one!’ another teased.
The young soldier grabbed the thick rope of her hair at the back of her neck, yanking her head back. The cold point of his dagger pushed at the delicate skin covering her windpipe.
‘We can do this one of two ways, maid.’ His narrow face gleamed with runnels of sweat, the filth of battle. ‘The easy way or the difficult way. Either way, the outcome will be the same. Your city burns around you, your townspeople have fled. There is no one to save you.’
‘I would rather lose my life than lie with the likes of you!’ Tavia spat out. But nerves made her voice quaver with fear.
‘Enough!’ Incensed, the soldier dropped the dagger, jabbing the toe of his boot into the back of one of her knees to send her flying backwards on to the stone. Her head thumped against the floor. Momentarily dazed, she watched as he lifted the hem of his mailcoat, ripping off his leather gauntlets to fumble with the belt of his trousers. Nausea rose in her stomach as she closed her eyes. Was this really to be her fate? To be raped by English soldiers and left for dead?
From the top of his chestnut destrier, Benois le Vallieres surveyed the devastation around him with a dispassionate eye. His men had done their job well. The reeking smell of burning thatch filled the air, air that moments previously had been filled with soldiers’ screams and shouts. Now the streets were empty, the townspeople trembling behind their flimsy doors, watching, wondering what the English would do next. Few had been killed in this attack; Henry’s intention was merely to frighten the young King Malcolm into some form of discussion about the ownership of these border counties. And, of course, Henry had hired his most trusted mercenary to carry out the mission, and would pay Benois well if the young Scottish king agreed to a meeting.
Benois rolled his huge shoulders forward, trying to ease the tension that pulled along the back of his neck. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept in a soft bed, or laid his head on a linen pillow stuffed with sweet-smelling herbs. At night he slept under canvas, alongside Henry’s soldiers; his meals were lukewarm and often unpalatable, if there was food at all depending on whether the supplies had reached the soldiers. But these hardships mattered not to him. He relished this relentless way of life: the remorseless pace of the marching; the continual harassing of the northern counties that fired his blood, and drove away those darker thoughts that he tried so desperately to forget.
A scream rent the air. Fingers gloved in leather curled around the reins as the stallion beneath him skittered on the cobbles. Benois pushed his toes against the stirrups, raising himself in the saddle to pivot his long, lean body this way and that, trying to locate the source of the sound. He had believed all his soldiers to be out of the city by now, but he could hear guttural shouting, the noises of a scuffle coming from over to his left. He dismounted in a single, stealthy movement, dropping to his feet with barely a sound, leading his horse along a narrow, shadowed passageway to a church. Loosening his hold on the reins, he strode up the steps, pushing one large fist against the iron-studded door to throw it open.
The ribald laughter hushed immediately. His men, Geraint, Arnaud, Jean-Paul, gaped back at him, jaws dropping open, forming a mute tableau of surprise. And below them, spreadeagled on the floor, a maid. His heart jerked in shock, in anger.
‘Let her go.’ His order, sharp and commanding, rapped out from the doorway. The young soldier’s hands fell away from his belt. His dagger slipped from nerveless fingers, its blade clattering against the stone floor. Silence, laced with thickening guilt, cloaked the church. Benois’s frame filled the doorway, a giant silhouette against the daylight, his broad shoulders almost touching the sides of the arch, long legs spread wide across the threshold.
‘Get out.’ Benois stepped to one side, folding his arms impassively over his chest.
The soldier closest to Tavia bent down to pick up his knife. ‘You’d better say your prayers now, virgin,’ he whispered. The soldiers scuttled out, heads hanging, shamefaced as they passed their commander.
As he turned to follow his men out of the church, his mouth taut and white with rage, Benois glanced back at the maid lying under the north window. In the dim light, filtered through the narrow arched slits, he could just make out the slender figure crumpled up against the altar, the stark whiteness of her face like a ghost against the grey backdrop of stone. Although her eyes were open, she made no move to scramble for cover, or to hide. Benois frowned, irritated by his own uncustomary behaviour. He didn’t have time for this now, but if his soldiers had gone too far…?
His men were descending the steps, blinking in the bright sunshine, their guilt evident by their shuffling steps, their mumbled excuses. Instinct told Benois to leave the maid; he had already given the order to retreat, and his soldiers would be gathering beyond the gates of the city, ready to ride back to Chester. And yet it was he who had given the command for no bloodshed in this attack on the city, no raping and pillaging. There was something in that still, pale face that made him hesitate, causing him to spin on his heel and stride up the aisle, pulling his gloves off decisively as he approached the altar steps.
The maid was of peasant stock, judging from her clothes. Her booted feet stuck out from a bliaut ragged with patched-up holes. The dress bagged around her thin frame like a sack; it had obviously been made for someone far larger than herself. The linen scarf that covered her hair had fallen back in the scuffle with his men to reveal her dark wine-red hair.
Her light blue eyes stared past him, unfocused, as he bent over her, unsure what to do. Since fighting for Henry, he had tended to avoid the company of women, finding physical pleasure only in his swift visits to whores, and now, he, Benois, most feared commander of Henry’s northern battalions, had no idea what to do next.
He patted her on the cheek. Nothing. Seizing her by one shoulder with his great hand, he shook her, not gently. No reaction. He began to shake her a little more. Suddenly she began screaming hysterically, like a wild woman, a banshee—a high-pitched screeching like an animal howling in pain. He winced, pulling back slightly, trying to retreat from the noise that threatened to blow his eardrum.
‘Get away from me…you…barbarian!’ she stuttered the words out, a piercing wail, jerking upwards from her prone state to shove her hands up towards his chest, trying to push him away. She struggled against him, throwing her shoulders back and forth, trying to dislodge his hold. He dropped his grip on her shoulder immediately, sitting back abruptly on to his heels.
‘Easy, maid. I have no wish to hurt you,’ he muttered, amazed by the luminous quality of her skin, the beauty of her face, set in a perfect oval.
She focused on him then, shaking with horror, her wide cerulean eyes lit with fear. Tears welled in the corners, threatening to spill over, and her hands flew to her face, as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. Tears bubbled through her fingers, dripping over the fine bones of her hands, splashing to the floor in great, dark spots.
Benois shifted uncomfortably. His calf muscles began to cramp in this crouched position. She seemed to be in one piece; maybe he should just go.
‘You’re inhuman,’ the maid blubbed out. She jabbed a finger in the direction of the door. ‘Those men…were inhuman!’ Her whole body quivered with terror.
‘Did they hurt you?’ Benois frowned. Scanning her neat figure, he could find no evidence of attack, no reason why this maid should weep so much. The noise of her crying made him feel graceless, inept. It was a long time since he had offered a woman comfort, sympathy, and he wasn’t about to start now.
‘Nay.’
The single word was enough for him. Benois sprung to his feet, eager to leave, his huge, bear-like frame towering over the forlorn, seated figure. He was reluctant to spend time dabbling in pleasantries with a peasant girl. At his movement, she turned her large, aquamarine eyes up to him. The glossy wings of her hair parted over her forehead, forming a shining auburn frame to her terrified expression. ‘They hurt me,’ she added, ‘but not in the way you imply.’
‘Good.’ He nodded curtly, his tone matter-of-fact, abrupt. ‘Then, as you appear to be recovered, I will bid you good day.’
Tavia’s eyes widened, chips of sapphire staring at him in puzzlement, as if unable to comprehend his words. ‘Recovered…?’ Her voice rose a couple of notches as she struggled to speak. ‘Are you completely insane?’ She tilted her head back, pointing at the thin line of blood trickling down her neck with one grimy hand. Her pink fingernail quivered against her pale skin.
Benois shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ve seen worse.’ He clamped his lips together in a furious line. His soldiers were trained, professional men; men who should have known better.
Tavia viewed the man in astonishment, unbelieving as to his remorseless words. He stood before her, this barbarian of a man, without a hint of apology for his men’s actions. In the half-light, she could decipher no hint of his visage, except for his mouth, clamped firmly into a cruel, thin line. The silver metal of his helmet covered his head, the glittering skin of his hauberk shone out from beneath a short cloak of ermine, lined with red silk. The fine wool of his tunic bore the colours of Henry II, two lions embroidered in heavy gold thread across the breadth of his chest.
She folded her hands together in her lap, trying to still their trembling. Her voice, when it emerged, was a low whisper of condemnation. ‘So you don’t care one jot that your soldiers chased a woman into a church, kicked her down to the floor and threatened to rape her at knifepoint?’
No, he didn’t care. ‘Those men will be punished.’ His answer was terse. Why did he even offer this woman an explanation?
‘I thought I would be safe here,’ she murmured. Tavia tipped her head back, the cut on her throat smeared red across the graceful line of her neck. ‘But they followed me, pursued me, like I was their quarry…’ Her voice wavered as she fought back fresh tears, fighting to maintain some sort of composure. ‘Your men are animals.’
The lick of contempt in her tone squeezed his chest. ‘Aye, they are,’ he replied grimly. The tiny metal loops of his chainmail glittered as he reached down from his lofty height to help her up. His extended hand loomed before her, tanned and sinewy, the fingers surprisingly fine and tapered for such an oaf of a man. She didn’t want to accept his help, but the strength had run from her legs like water.
‘Come on,’ he said, irritated. ‘I haven’t got all day.’
The curtness of his tone stung her and she sneered at his hand as if it was a piece of rotting meat. ‘I don’t need your help,’ she lobbed back at him. ‘Just leave me!’
With a grunt of annoyance, he seized her wrist, hauling her roughly to her feet, before turning on his heel, and sweeping out of the church.
Tavia leaned shakily against the altar, blood pumping furiously through her veins. She closed her eyes for a moment, shuddering with relief, tracing her palm tentatively. Her skin still burnt with the force of the man’s grasp, the imprint of his hand. But something was amiss. His palm had not been smooth against her own, but ridged and dented as if the skin had been through a mangle. A touch she would never forget.
Chapter Two
Tavia jerked awake, her heart banging out a jittered rhythm. Through the hazy layers of consciousness, soldiers continued to chase her through the church, a pair of ferocious slate-grey eyes leading the pursuit. She blinked rapidly, trying to dispel the frightening image, peering into the gloom of the cottage that was her home. Reaching out to touch the cool, gritty dampness of the stone wall beside her, her fingers shook with the comfort that she was finally safe. Her journey northwards from the city had been beset with anxiety, her muscles tensing at every creak from the trees, every sighing whisper through the grass, her mouth dry with the thought that the English would return. Once dark had fallen, she had crept through the narrow alleyways and side streets before running swiftly over the rough moorland to the farmstead.
A low moan from the pallet on the other side of the cottage drew her attention. The straw in the linen pillow rustled beneath her hair as she turned her head from the wall to look over at the huddled form. All she could see of her mother was a strand of silvered hair coiling out from the top of the blanket, the rest of her slender figure hidden by the covers. Tavia chewed on her lip, fervently hoping her mother would be better this morning. She had awoken many times in the night to the sound of her mother thrashing about on the mattress. When Tavia had gone over to try to settle her again, her mother had pinned her with a wild, disorientated gaze, scarcely recognising her own daughter.
‘What! Still lying a-bed, chit?!’ Her father pushed himself through the doorway, scattering raindrops as he pulled off his hat. He strode over to Tavia’s pallet in the corner, grabbing at her shoulder through the thin stuff of her linen chemise, wrenching her upwards. ‘Time you had the pot on!’
Tavia shifted into a sitting position. She hunched her knees upwards, drawing the frayed woollen blanket up to her chest, clutching her arms about her calves. She rubbed her face with her hands, trying to eradicate the tiredness around her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Father.’ She murmured an apology, having no wish to argue with him while her mother still slept. Normally, she rose with the dawn, lighting the cooking fire in the middle of the cottage, and starting to make the big cauldron of porridge for when her father came in from the fields.
‘If you don’t rise now, I’ll give you something to be sorry for,’ Dunstan growled. Leaning over, he pulled sharply on her long braid that fell like a glossy dark red rope down the centre of her slim back.
‘Ouch!’ She rubbed her scalp, turning wide eyes up to him.
‘Up!’ Dunstan spoke abrasively, jerking his thumb in the direction of the unlit, blackened hearth.
Tavia shook her head, trying to clear her mind and concentrate on her chores. Throwing back the covers, she swung her feet to the floor, pushing her toes into leather slippers. The toggle had broken off the right-hand shoe, making it difficult to walk in. She fumbled for her underdress, folded neatly on a stool beside her bed, silently thanking her mother for saving the fine piece of wool to make the garment. It was the one item Tavia owned that came close to luxury, and she relished the feel of the soft wool against her skin. Wearing this underdress, her bliaut, made of a cheap, coarse weave, did not aggravate her skin. She dragged the heavy gown over her head, fastening it on each side with leather lacings.
‘Where did you run to yesterday?’ her father asked gruffly, as Tavia finally placed a steaming bowl of porridge before him. She folded her arms over her chest, unwilling to tell him the full events, unwilling to hear on her own lips that she had never been more frightened in her whole life.
‘I went to the church,’ she muttered. ‘I thought it would be the safest place.’ Her top teeth nibbled at the rounded fullness of her bottom lip.
‘Well, you could have thought to come back and help me with the ox-cart.’ Her father shovelled a spoonful of porridge into his mouth, his beady, red`rimmed eyes roving over her slim frame, almost with disgust. ‘I had a devil of a time trying to reach home on my own.’
‘I wanted to make sure it was safe before I left the church,’ she explained hurriedly. She turned back to the fire to hide the fear in her eyes, remembering how she had stared as the wide oak door had closed behind the soldier, that giant of a man, and how she had stood, frozen, unable to move, for a long, long time.
‘More,’ Dunstan commanded, shoving the empty, porridge-spattered bowl over the uneven planks of the table. She ladled the white, sloppy mess into the bowl and handed it back to him, grateful for the small routine chores that made her feel normal again, grateful for her father’s familiar rough treatment of her.
‘We’ll travel to Kelso on the morrow, take the wool there,’ her father announced suddenly, belching. ‘I made no coin yesterday because of the attack.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘And I expect you to stay with me this time.’
Tavia whirled around, the spoon in her hand spattering white gobs of porridge on to the brown earth floor. ‘But, Father, it’s not safe!’ She quailed at the thought of travelling to town again. ‘All these attacks!’
Dunstan brought his fist crashing down onto the bare, worn planks. ‘You’ll do as I say, girl! I always knew you were lily-livered, just like that useless piece of womanhood lying over there.’ He poked a finger at her mother’s limp form on the pallet.
Tavia jutted her chin in the air, placing the spoon carefully down on the table and moving to her mother’s side, resenting her father’s accusation. She touched her mother’s forehead; the icy coolness of the skin came as a shock after her mother’s high temperature in the night. Tavia frowned. What was the matter with her? Suddenly her mother lurched upwards, her body snapping wildly from one side to the other, as she crossed her arms over her chest to claw at her shoulders with desperate fingers. ‘Get them off me! Get them off me!’
‘Shh! Calm down!’ Tavia whispered, sitting down on the side of the pallet and trying to draw her mother’s body into the circle of her arms.
‘My whole body is itching, it’s on fire,’ Mary moaned. Tears gathered in the corners of her wide blue eyes, as she concentrated on her daughter. ‘Help me, Tavia, please.’
Tavia jumped up, shocked at the deterioration in her mother’s condition and whirled around. ‘She needs a physician, Father. She can’t go on like this.’
‘Costs money,’ Dunstan spat out through a mouthful of porridge. ‘And coin is one thing we do not possess.’ He glared at her, the flesh on his face pinched and blotchy. ‘If only you had made more effort with Lord Greaves, then all our troubles would be over. We’d be living the life of a noble family if only you’d wedded him.’
Lord Greaves! Tavia recalled the bent, arthritic creature at least twice her age, eyeing her covertly in the marketplace on several occasions. He had been the last in a long line of potential husbands lined up by her father, rich woollen merchants who visited the stall on a regular basis, men who showed an interest in the weaver’s daughter.
‘He didn’t like the colour of my hair,’ Tavia replied, sweeping her father’s dirty bowl and spoon from the table, and plunging them in a pail of cold water to wash them. She scrubbed viciously at the clots of sticky porridge, the icy water stinging her hands.
‘And not just that,’ Duncan added. ‘Just look at you, so thin, scrawny. Men want women with a bit of flesh on them; they want sons, all of them. You don’t look fit to breed, girl.’
Tavia’s eyes darted to the gloomy corner as her mother moaned, restless on her pallet. ‘Surely we must have a few coins saved?’ She turned to her father in despair, the cloth between her fingers dripping on to the packed earth floor.
‘Nay! I told you! Can’t you use some of your herbs on her?’
‘Nothing is working.’ Tavia shook her head, thinking of all the different tisanes and poultices she had made up for her mother over the past few days. ‘Nothing works.’
‘Slut can die for all I care,’ Dunstan muttered into his beard.
‘What did you say?’ Tavia gaped at him, incredulous, unbelieving at the savage words she had just heard. Tossing the cloth into the pail, she stepped over to the table, thumping it with her small wet fist to get her father’s attention. ‘How dare you speak about my mother…your wife…in such a way? We need money, Father, and we need to send for a physician… now…today.’
Her father smiled, a narrow, mean curling of his lips. His pale, watery eyes were blank. ‘You’ll get nothing from me. Either of you.’
Tavia leaned her head against the ridged, nubbled back of a tree, and sobbed, hopelessness ripping through her chest like a knife blade. Speechless with anger at her father’s words, she had fled the cottage, seizing up her crossbow from behind the door before heading for the small thicket of trees in the corner of the sheep pasture. How dare he! How dare he treat them both like this? Refusing to lend her the coin to fetch a skilled physician that her mother so desperately needed! She took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to think practically, fingers curling around the smooth stock of her bow as it rested upon the ground. There must be another way.
Needing to steady her anger, she unwound the white veil from her hair, tying the cloth around the tree trunk. Firing her crossbow had always calmed her, channelling her vision on the target in front, slowing her breathing. Oft-times, when she found her father’s temper too much to bear, she had come out to these woods, sending arrow upon arrow into the trees; constantly honing her skill made her feel more secure. Indeed, it was because of her father’s behaviour that she had learned to shoot; the urge to protect her mother, and defend herself, had become paramount in her life. She had never needed to use the bow against him…not yet, anyway.
Placing the knot in the centre of the trunk to form a makeshift bull’s eye, she paced back over the open ground, away from the thicket, her wide skirts flaring over short, sheep-nibbled grass. Determination clouded her delicate features, small lines of strain etched around her mouth. Yesterday, she had felt so useless, so unable to defend herself in the face of those English barbarians; she couldn’t let something like that happen again. Her chest constricted with the memory. How stupid she had been to leave her bow in her father’ cart; if the weapon had been at her side, she could have picked them off, one by one, including him, that barbarian leader, the man with midnight eyes.
From the leather satchel slung diagonally across her back, she drew out one arrow, tipped with white goose feathers. She placed the crossbow on the ground, upending it so the curve of the weapon faced downwards. Putting her toes either side of the stock kept the weapon steady, so she could draw back the sinew cord and hook it over a notch at the top of the bow.
Slotting the arrow into the central groove, Tavia raised the bow to eye level, willing herself to concentrate, to focus on the target. Her sight narrowed on the knot, the tied ends of the veil fluttering either side of it. Her fingers sought the lever underneath the bow, the lever that would lower the notch and release the cord, which would in turn send the quarrel into the target. Taking one deep breath, she squeezed.
The arrow flew straight, its iron tip landing in the middle of the knot with a dull thud. In a moment, she had re-armed the weapon, sending another, then another arrow straight to the centre of the target.
‘When you’re done with wasting your time out here, mayhap you’d get your backside in the house, girl! There’s work to be done!’ Tavia jumped as her father’s strident tones cut through the stiffening breeze as he lumbered over the field. Her shoulder muscles tensed as she lowered the crossbow and turned.
Dunstan eyed the three arrows in the target, then spat derisively on the ground, his face ugly with lines of hostility. ‘Wasting your time out here with that damned thing!’ His mouth curled down with miserable resentment.
‘It’s no waste if it saves my life one day,’ she replied mutinously, resisting the inclination to take a step back from her father’s scowl, ‘or the life of another.’
‘It’s no use unless you’re a man,’ her father cackled. ‘With a skill like that you’d earn good money.’ He nodded towards the arrows pinning the linen knot to the bark.
Behind her, a slight breeze sighed through the treetops, like water running over stones. ‘What are you saying?’ Tavia asked, her tone careful.
Dunstan laughed nastily. ‘King Malcolm’s worried. He’ll pay anything for good marksmen. With these attacks from the English, he’s losing longbow men every day. Soldiers armed with a crossbow are far more effective.’
‘So how does one become a bowman for the King?’ She made a huge effort to keep her voice level, calm.
Her father peered at her suspiciously. ‘He holds a weekly contest. Any competent marksmen can turn up and have a go. If the King and his commanders think anyone is any good, they’ll sign you up immediately.’
‘And how much does he pay?’
‘Nine pence a day.’
Tavia’s eyes widened. ‘A small fortune!’ Her heart began to pound.
‘One that we’ll never have if we stand here prattling all day,’ Dunstan said roughly. ‘Come, girl, there’s work to be done.’
The imposing walls of Dunswick Castle stretched up high from a craggy promontory of basalt rock, towering above the patterned roofs of the town. The thick buttresses, constructed of huge square blocks of stone larger than a man, seemed to grow up out of the rock on which the castle perched to form an intimidating, impressive defence.
Shielding her eyes against the bright April sunlight, Tavia followed the wheeling flight of the crows as they circled in the air currents above one of the four corner towers. The screeching of the birds, a sad and lamenting lilt, did little to boost her confidence. Hesitating on the main bridge that led into the town, she swallowed, her throat tightening with an unusual dryness. She picked unsteadily at a loose patch of pale green lichen on the flat stone that topped the bridge wall.
When she had arisen that morning, long before dawn had spread its faint light through the hills and dales, she had felt composed, beset with iron-clad determination about the task she intended to undertake. Dressing hastily in some of her father’s cast-off clothes, discovered at the bottom of an oak coffer, she had started the fire and porridge so as not to draw her father’s anger. As long as he was warm and could fill his belly, then he would not think to question his daughter’s whereabouts. Planting a light, farewell kiss on her mother’s brow had only served to strengthen her resolve; with dismay, she noticed the skin on her mother’s hands had erupted into savage blisters.
Now, as she yanked the hood low over her delicate features, she wondered about the success of her proposed endeavour. When her father had spoken about the contest to find more crossbow men for the King, he had no knowledge that his words, spoken with derision, had given her a solution to finding the money to pay for a physician’s visit to her mother. She would enter the competition, disguised as a young boy, and hopefully be picked as a good shot. Once in the service of the King, she would earn enough in a sennight to hire a competent physician. Only then would she leave and return to her home in the hills.
The outer bailey thronged with people, a profusion of noise and colour. Green-and-gold tunics clashed with ladies dressed in sumptuous gowns glowing in a vivid array of colours. Rich cloaks of fox, ermine and bear contrasted strangely with the drab hues of the peasant clothes, some not more than rags hanging off a thin frame. Backing into the wall of the bailey, Tavia spotted a set of steps to her left and she leaped up, grateful for the easy vantage point. From here she could see the raised platform, tented with a heavily embroidered linen, on which the nobility sat. The fresh-faced King Malcolm, his bright red hair glinting in the sunlight, sat next to his regent, Ferchar of Strathearn. Tavia remembered the outcry when Malcolm’s father, Earl Henry, younger brother to King David of Scotland, had died before he could succeed to the Scottish throne. Luckily, King David had arranged for Ferchar to manage the affairs of the state until Malcolm reached an age when he could take full responsibility.
A huge, round archery target had been set up in front of the dais, and already men were taking their place behind the rope line, lifting their bows and shooting. Some attempts drew guffaws of derisive laughter from the crowd of onlookers; others received cheers of admiration. Tavia sprung down from the steps, relishing the comforting bump of her crossbow slung over her back, and started to make her way through the mêlée, heading for the straggling queue that had formed behind one of the castle soldiers.
‘Name?’ the soldier asked, scarcely looking at her when she had finally shuffled her way to the front of the queue.
‘William of Saxonby,’ she lied, trying to keep her voice as low and as gruff as possible.
‘Bit young, aren’t you?’ The soldier laughed, showing a full set of rotten teeth. ‘Does your mother know where you are?’
Tavia chose to ignore the soldier’s taunt, pretending to turn her full attention to the contestant about to shoot. The man, wearing a coarse woollen tunic of dull grey over a pair of well-worn braies, stood well over six foot; an impressive figure despite his tattered garments. Handsome, too, Tavia decided, studying his side profile covertly. As the man raised his bow, pulling back the arrow with ease, the hood of his tunic fell back slightly, revealing chestnut hair as sleek as sable. Angular cheekbones highlighted the raw beauty of his face, the proud, straight ridge of his nose, the up-tilted corner of his mouth.
A rose tint of embarrassment flooded her cheeks, and she ducked her head guiltily, ashamed at her overt perusal of the man. She needed to remember why she was here, not become entranced by another contestant! Besides, she usually showed no interest in the opposite sex, or, rather, they showed no interest in her. Despite her father’s obvious attempts to marry her off to some rich suitor, the initial attraction of her physical beauty was quickly overshadowed by her wilful, determined manner. Inwardly, she cared not one jot. It bemused her completely that anyone should be enamoured of her, let alone want to marry her; men oft regarded her flagrant red hair as a curse, or even the sign of a harlot, and her scrawny frame was just too lean for most men’s tastes.
The man released his arrow, letting it fly towards the target, where it landed, a few inches wide of the bull’s-eye. Hah! He might appear to be a masterful shot, she thought, but I would best him any day. She watched as he pulled his hood sharply over his head once more, striding over to pull his arrow out of the target. Tavia frowned. Was there something familiar about the man? Surely she would remember meeting someone who was quite so huge? A debilitating weakness swept through her knees as the man turned back, heading straight for her. His massive frame drew alongside, and, in a hazy bubble of disbelief, she studied the slippery cobbles intently, willing him to pass by, to ignore her.
‘Good fortune, young man.’ The giant grabbed her hand to shake it. ‘I hope you have better luck than me.’
In that fleeting, terrifying moment as he had turned back from the target she had known who he was. His grip had served only to confirm his identity. The noise that surrounded her receded, as his hand curled around hers, the furrowed scarring on his palm scorching her own. Tipping her chin, she sought his face within the woollen shadows of his hood, the glint of those feral slate eyes, the forbidding mouth.
‘Nay,’ she whispered. ‘Not you.’
The hold on her fingers tensed at the sound of her voice, then tightened like a vice.
‘Come on, lad! There’s plenty more waiting to shoot. Get a move on!’ The soldier behind her shoved her forward.
She yanked her hand sharply downwards, releasing his grip. What in Heaven’s name was he doing here? He, the enemy, showing his face at the royal Scottish court? She wanted to shout and scream, declare his identity to the whole castle, but if she did that, her own true identity as a woman would be discovered, and her chance to enter the contest would be lost.
His right hand shot out, wrenching at the material of her sleeve, pulling her back, whipping her around to face him. His voice, low and melodious, reverberated around her—a threat. ‘I know you.’
Chapter Three
His words, clipped and toneless, sent a freezing chill of terror through Tavia’s veins. Her heart pounded against the wall of her chest as she jolted round to face the blunt features of the soldier who had urged her on. ‘Guard!’ Her voice emerged as a pathetic squeak as she squirmed uselessly against the man’s fierce grip. The wavering tone of her speech did little to attract the soldier’s attention, especially as the crowd had become restless, bored with waiting for the next contestant. Clearing her throat, she tried once more. ‘Guard! Arrest this man! He is an enemy of…oomph!’
A muscled arm squeezed the end of her sentence away, as it swept around her midriff and lugged her backwards, crushing her into a solid length of body. Before she had time to even consider fighting back, the man had spun her around so violently that she almost lost her balance, her head crushed into the massive wall of his chest.
‘I think my little friend is jesting with you!’ The calm, measured tones floated over her, sending a flicker of anger propelling through her veins.
‘Ugh…!’ she growled into the coarse fabric of his tunic. A heady scent of earth mingled with horse rose from his torso, the heat from his skin penetrating the loose weave easily, warming the skin on her face.
‘Can’t take any sort of competition, I’m afraid,’ the man was explaining. ‘I’ll take him home.’
The brazen insolence of the man! Her fear began to drop away, to be replaced with a wild, boiling rage. She swivelled her shoulders ineffectually within the powerful hold of his arms, first left, then right, desperate to break the imprisonment, but to no avail. Lifting one foot, she stamped down hard, feeling a small sense of gratification as she made contact with a set of toes.
‘Enough!’ he ordered, releasing the clamp of his hand on the back of her head.
‘Let me go!’ she stuttered out against his chest. ‘I can’t breathe!’
In reply, he swung her off her feet, throwing her over his shoulder carelessly, like a sack of grain. One hand crushed into the back of her knees, preventing any movement of her lower body while her head bumped painfully against the breadth of his shoulders. The blood rushed to her head, prickling uncomfortably behind her eyes, as she heard the crowd laugh and chortle, thinking they were witnessing some long-standing argument between friends. How could she convince them that he was not who he seemed? That he would probably slay them all in their beds if given the chance! The rapid pace of his stride prevented her from even lifting her head to scream out, her head bouncing against his spine like a wooden puppet.
At his back, the man carried three arrows stuck into his wide leather belt, the feather ends of which threatened to tickle her nose. In a moment, she realised her opportunity. As the man ducked slightly, as if avoiding a low lintel, she tugged on one of the arrows, very, very slowly.
‘Now,’ he murmured, ‘who in God’s name are you?’ He bent down, sliding her slender frame back over his shoulder to set Tavia on her feet, as she tucked the arrow that she had pulled from his belt behind her back. The scent of hay filled the air, a fragrant aroma of summer grass mingling with the more acrid, earthier smell of horse manure. He had brought her into the castle stables! In the half-light, the shadowed angles of his face appeared dangerous, menacing, his rapier-like gaze shining like chips of ice as he studied her. Though her legs trembled, a volatile mixture of fear and anger bubbled inside her, driving her on.
‘How could you forget?’ she shrieked at him like a banshee, bringing the arrow around from her back to drive it into his shoulder.
The iron point, glinting dully in the sepulchral gloom, never touched his flesh. With astonishing speed honed from years of fighting, he wrenched the weapon from her hand, casting it away into a heap of straw. She felt herself gripped, twisted violently, her right arm pushed up into the small of her back.
‘You’re hurting me!’
‘Tell me who you are!’
‘My name is Tavia of Mowerby—now will you let me go?’
The hands dropped immediately, his gruff voice genuinely surprised at the high, lilting tones. ‘You’re a maid?’
He shoved the hood from her face, his lean fingers grazing the soft red sheen of her hair. The pale marble of her skin gleamed with an angelic luminosity, the ethereal nature of her features emphasised by the low-grade wool of the hood that now gathered in heavy folds about her neck. Her eyes, huge orbs of sapphire, threatened to drown him in those deep pools of blue. He sucked in his breath, feeling the weight of guilt descend on his chest. It was she. The maid from the church. The maid who had haunted his dreams for the past sennight, the image of that slender wraith sprawled before the altar pricking his hardened conscience with spirals of concern. More than once he had caught himself wondering what had happened to her.
‘Do you know me now?’ Her voice held a low challenge, but he could tell from her rigid stance that she was afraid of him. Why did she want to goad him so much? It made him want to laugh. The top of her shining head barely reached his shoulder, and, he reckoned, casting a swift glance over her sylph-like frame, that his body weight was nearly twice hers.
‘Aye, mistress, I do remember you, more’s the pity. What in God’s name are you doing here?’
‘I should be asking you that,’ she replied, looping her arms defensively across her chest.
‘And dressed as a lad.’ The flint grey of his eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’
‘None of your business, soldier.’
‘It became my business when you almost shouted my identity to the whole castle.’
‘Well, it serves you right. You didn’t reckon on me being here, did you? Sorry if I’ve managed to scupper your plans.’ Tavia jabbed the words back to him, annoyance fuelling her speech. ‘What were you planning to do? Murder our king in cold blood?’
Her impassioned speech seemed to roll off his shoulders. ‘Since when did you become the King’s personal bodyguard?’ He smiled, the well-defined edges of his lips tilting upwards, making him appear younger.
A tiny frisson of excitement threaded through her veins. She shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to experience such strange feelings when she was trying to appear confident and in control. But without his helmet, the intimidating coat of chainmail, all those hideous trappings of war, he appeared softer somehow. She chewed at the corner of her lip, shaking her head slightly. What was the matter with her? Mother of Mary, this man was English, the enemy! She needed to alert the castle guard, have him arrested… But how, when his huge frame blocked the only way in and out of the stables?
‘Since people like you started attacking our towns, firing our houses, raping our women.’ Her condemning tones pulsated around the stable in answer to his goading question. ‘Who in the hell are you?’
‘My name is Benois le Vallieres, at your service.’ He nodded his head briefly, a scant interpretation of the more formal bow.
‘I have heard that name before,’ Tavia replied slowly, astonished, the beat of her heart starting to race. One hand flew self-consciously to the nick at her throat, nervous fingers touching the small cut.
He shrugged his shoulders, his eyes narrowing as he followed her movement. ‘No doubt. I am the Commander of the North. For King Henry’s soldiers.’
‘Then what are you doing here?’ she uttered, her voice shrill. An icy clamminess invaded her palms. God in Heaven! Benois le Vallieres! One of the most feared soldiers in the country. She had heard her father, and other townspeople, talk about him. Not just a soldier, she remembered them saying, but one of the Brabanters, notorious mercenaries who showed no loyalty, but fought for anyone who would pay the most.
He raked one hand through his brown, feathery locks. The cloth of his tunic strained over the bunched muscles in his shoulder. ‘Just having a look,’ he replied.
‘Just having a look!’ she squeaked back at him. ‘You expect me to believe that!’
‘Aye—’ he took one step closer to her ‘—I do.’
‘Don’t you threaten me,’ she warned. ‘Move back!’ She placed one hand on his chest, trying to force him backwards. He didn’t budge.
A roar rose up from the crowd outside, followed by excited cheering. Tavia knew her opportunity to enter the contest was slipping away, and the longer that this soldier, this Benois le Vallieres, kept her in these stables, the less likely she would be able to take her turn.
‘Let me go,’ she pleaded. ‘You don’t need me.’
His eyes glittered over her, frankly assessing, sweeping sensually down from her curiously coloured hair to the rounded toes of her leather boots. A slow-burning coil of delight ignited in her stomach, but she quashed it away smartly.
‘Oh, what a surprise!’ she taunted him, trying to appear confident, although reedlike fear quaked her voice. ‘I suppose I should expect nothing less from the likes of you! Have you come to finish what your soldiers started?!’
Benois glared at her in disbelief, then threw back his head and roared with laughter. ‘You think I’m interested in bedding the likes of you? A common wench from the fields with barely an ounce of padding on her? You couldn’t be more wrong!’ He surveyed her coolly, tucking the arrow she had filched back into his belt. ‘I was merely thinking that, if I let you go, the first thing you’ll do is run out there and tell them who I am!’
‘Oh!’ Tavia’s face reddened slightly as she smarted from his insult. Taking a deep breath, she tried to recover her equilibrium. ‘Nay, you’re wrong. I’ll just carry on as if nothing has happened.’ She nibbled on a nail.
‘You expect me to believe that?’ he countered wryly.
‘You have to.’ Tavia took one pace closer to him. ‘You see, I have to take part in that contest.’
‘Why?’ he demanded, his attention snared by the rounded slenderness of her hips emphasised by the narrow fit of her braies. How could he ever have mistaken this maid for a lad?
‘Because I need to become a crossbow man for the King’s army,’ she replied, exasperated. ‘And if you don’t let me go now, I’ll miss my chance!’
Amusement bubbled in his chest at the severity of her expression, and he sighed deeply, narrowing his eyes to scrutinise her slim frame. Did the maid really think she could get away with something like this? That she could best a man in a contest? ‘Then I suppose I’ll have to trust you,’ he said. ‘But you’ll have to promise that you won’t give the game away.’
Tavia was already nodding. ‘I swear.’
‘You’d better put this back on, then.’ He reached around to pull her hood back over her head, his fingers grazing her cheek with a touch of fire. ‘It might increase your fortune.’ He didn’t sound hopeful.
‘I don’t need fortune,’ she shot back. ‘I rely on my skill.’
He raised one dark brown eyebrow at her boast. ‘I’m glad you hold yourself in such high esteem,’ he murmured. Hands on her shoulders, he pushed her gently out of the stables. She blinked in the daylight.
‘And remember, if you break your promise,’ he whispered softly in her ear, his breath caressing her skin, ‘you’ll have me to deal with. And believe me, it would not be a pleasant experience.’
Hands still shaking from her encounter with that barbarian, Tavia took her place once more in the queue shuffling slowly forward over the damp, slippery cobbles. She deliberately kept her head lowered, staring resolutely at the toes of her leather boots, unwilling to give Benois le Vallieres, should he still be watching her, any reason that she would give him away. She prayed ardently that the Scottish guards would have enough intelligence to stop him at the gate, and question him as to his identity, but, with a sinking heart, she knew Benois le Vallieres would outwit them.
When her turn came, she strode up to the rope line, slinging her crossbow forwards from the back of her shoulders, and pulling an arrow from the leather satchel at her waist. Placing one arrow carefully in the central groove of the bow, she raised the sights to the target, trying to keep her breathing slow and steady. Releasing the catch underneath with a slow squeeze of her fingers, the arrow flew straight and true, hitting the red circle painted in the centre of the target. The crowd cheered; there had not been many that morning who had managed to shoot so well.
Tavia glanced up at the dais, searching for some sign of approval from the royal observers, and saw the young King clapping, smiling at her. Lord Ferchar, the regent, rose to his feet, motioning for her to go and stand with the other men who had come through this first contest. As she nodded at him, she realised with a jolt that he meant for her to come and join him on the dais. Fetching her arrow and climbing the few wooden steps on to the platform, she hoped that Benois le Vallieres was not watching. He might think that she was about to break her promise to him.
‘You shoot well, young man.’ Ferchar, his grey hair grizzled and straggling, came forwards, as Tavia bowed low to the royal party.
‘Thank you, my lord,’ Tavia said hesitantly, unsure whether she was allowed to speak or whether she had to wait until someone asked her a direct question.
Ferchar curled his lips into a tight smile, and continued. ‘Unfortunately, what has escaped most people’s notice has not escaped mine.’ A sharp gust of wind sent the colourful flags that decorated the dais flapping erratically. Tavia wrapped her arms about her as an icy coldness engulfed her body.
‘Oh?’ Her voice emerged as a croak.
‘The fact that you’re a maid,’ replied Ferchar, reaching up with gnarled fingers to flip her hood back. King Malcolm gasped audibly, half-rising from his wooden chair, all thoughts of watching the contest forgotten.
‘Look! Ferchar, she looks just like…’ The end of Malcolm’s sentence trailed into insignificance as he appraised Tavia’s slender proportions.
‘I know,’ Ferchar replied.
Tavia remained silent. She hadn’t the faintest idea what they were talking about.
‘It’s your hair,’ Ferchar continued. ‘Well, there are other things as well, but it’s mainly your hair.’
‘I can cut it off,’ she gabbled in response. ‘I’ll blend in with the soldiers; they won’t even suspect that I’m a maid.’ She couldn’t let her mother die!
‘Why would you want to do that?’ Ferchar rapped out. ‘Nay, you mistake me, girl. There’s something I’d like to ask you. A favour, if you will.’
Tavia nodded, wanting him to continue. Malcolm, his round face jovial, smiled encouragingly at her, although it was obvious that he had no more idea than she about what Lord Ferchar would say next.
‘As a maid, you could never be in the King’s army, you know that.’
Tavia shuffled uncomfortably.
‘But there is something you could do for us.’ Ferchar raked his arrogant gaze over the threadbare state of her clothes. ‘And we would pay you handsomely, more than a humble bowman.’
‘Tell me,’ she whispered, a flicker of hope springing to her breast. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that she had been discovered after all.
‘First of all, who was that man who carried you off?’ Ferchar glanced down into the bailey, as if trying to catch sight of him. ‘Was he your husband?’
‘Aye,’ she lied easily. ‘He didn’t want me to go ahead with the contest.’
Ferchar laughed, the smile not quite reaching his eyes. ‘Quite right. A man should assert his marital rights. But if he hadn’t caused such a diversion I might not have noticed you.’
She clasped her hands together. ‘What would you have me do?’
‘Have you noticed your likeness to the King’s sister, Ada?’
‘In truth, I have never met her, my lord.’
‘Then follow me.’
Ferchar leaned over the front rail of the platform and ordered the soldiers to hold the proceedings, before striding off the platform in the direction of the main castle building. Hesitating slightly, before catching the more encouraging, friendly face of King Malcolm, she darted after the flowing cloak of the regent.
After the brightness of the day outside, the great hall of the castle seemed wreathed in gloom. A fire smouldered listlessly in the huge fireplace, sending out great gasps of smoke across the hall, which was deserted apart from one figure sitting at the top table. Tavia blinked her eyes, trying to accustom them to the dim interior.
Still walking forwards, Ferchar raised his hand, gesturing towards the girl who nibbled at a piece of bread. ‘Ada of Huntington,’ he intoned, by way of introduction. ‘The King’s older sister.’
They had reached the dais. ‘Come over here, my lady, if you please,’ Ferchar addressed Ada, as he climbed the steps, indicating that Tavia should follow him. ‘There’s someone I wish you to meet.’
With regal poise, Ada swivelled around in the carved oak chair before rising gracefully. She lifted one hand to adjust the veil of diaphanous silk, anchored with a heavy golden circlet, pulling it away from her face. Her bliaut, sewn with exquisite precision to flatter her slender figure, was of pale green silk, elaborately embroidered about the hem with an intricate design of flowers and leaves. Self-consciously, Tavia smoothed her grubby hands down the front of her tunic before tucking them behind her back.
‘Now, do you see what I see?’ Ferchar addressed her. ‘Just look at the princess!’
Tavia frowned. See what? ‘She’s very beautiful,’ Tavia admitted as Ada approached them, and smiled.
‘She looks just like you,’ Ferchar said, exasperated, ignoring her whispered admiration. ‘Once we clean you up and put some decent clothes on you, I doubt anyone could tell you apart.’
‘But why would you want to do that?’ Tavia replied, aghast, sceptical that anyone should compare her to this breathtaking beauty.
Ferchar reached out to grasp Ada’s hand, his manner soothing as he patted her white fingers. ‘The Princess is in danger,’ he explained. ‘We’ve had information that the English plan to kidnap and hold her to ransom in exchange for Northumbria and Cumbria. We need to take her to a safe place and in order to do that we need to create a diversion. You, my dear, will be the diversion. You need to lure the English spies away from this castle long enough for us to smuggle Ada out of here.’
‘But…’ So that’s what le Vallieres was doing here! Was he planning to kidnap Ada right in front of their noses?
‘It’s obvious you can defend yourself—’ Ferchar’s tone held an ingratiating lilt ‘—and we would pay you handsomely.’
An image of her mother, lying frail and listless on a grubby mattress, entered her mind. ‘I’ll do it,’ she agreed.
Chapter Four
‘Thank you for helping us like this,’ Ada’s lithe figure sprang lightly up the stone stairs that spiralled up inside one of the castle turrets. ‘Ferchar’s been afraid for my safety for some time, but, with all the English watching the castle, he couldn’t work out a way of carrying me to safety.’ Tavia caught the note of admiration in the princess’s voice when she talked about Ferchar and wondered at it—was there more to their relationship than at first appeared? She felt slightly ashamed; Ada made it sound as if Tavia were helping them out of the kindness of her heart, as a friendly favour, but the grim reality was that she needed the money, and she needed it fast.
‘I’m just pleased that I could be in the right place at the right time,’ she replied, cautiously, following the princess’s graceful ascent. Beside Ada’s delicate beauty, she felt every inch the peasant that she was, especially dressed in these shabby boy’s clothes. ‘But I’m not certain you will be able to make me look like you.’ Tavia eyed Ada’s elegant lines dubiously, the seductive sway of her gown, the glittering jewels at her slim throat.
Stopping on a wide, curving landing, Ada swung round, the fine twirling embroidery on her bodice catching the light from the flame of a single torch, slung into an iron bracket on the wall. The shadowed space highlighted the deep red of her hair, drawn into two braids that fell either side of her head. ‘You really have no idea, do you, Tavia?’ she questioned, laughing. ‘I will find a piece of silvered glass, and we will put our faces side by side, and then you will see how alike we are. Once you are bathed and dressed, I would challenge anyone to notice the difference.’ Placing one hand against the uneven planks of an oak-studded door, Ada pressed inwards. Light flooded out into the gloomy stairwell, illuminating the shrouds of cobwebs draping from the angled ceiling. Following the princess into the brightness, Tavia almost gasped in delight.
The southernmost tower of Dunswick Castle housed the women’s solar, where the ladies of the royal court, wives of the high-ranking soldiers who had sworn fealty to King Malcolm, spent their days. After the drab grey stone of the castle bailey and the stairs, the room swelled with rainbows of bright fabric and laughing chatter. Everywhere Tavia looked, the bright, jewel-like colours of the ladies’ gowns filled her senses.
In one corner, a lady sat at a loom, fingers busy as she pushed her wooden shuttle back and forth through the many-stranded warping threads, weaving a fine cloth resplendent with muted hues of purple and green. Other women held drop spindles, almost hidden in the voluminous folds of their skirts, drawing single threads from fluffy pieces of woollen fleece bunched in their hands.
As the ladies noticed Ada’s presence, they rose and curtsied one by one, each murmuring ‘my lady’ before resuming their work. If they noticed the similarity between the grubby boy in scruffy peasant garb and the luminous beauty of their princess, then they made no comment, displayed no change in their expressions.
‘My ladies,’ Ada introduced the group of women to Tavia with a wide sweep of her hand. Heads bowed respectfully towards Tavia, and she smiled back, somehow glad of their silent discretion. She had entered a world totally unknown to her, a world of luxury and riches, so completely at odds with the harsh minutiae of her own daily life, that the temptation to be completely absorbed by the fine details of this noble lifestyle nudged strongly at her heart. She was here for the coin, she reminded herself sternly, coin that she would earn, and then escape, to run back to her cold, dry little life in the hills.
‘Beatrice will find you some suitable clothes.’ Ada indicated an older woman, who placed her embroidery in the willow basket at her feet, before looking Tavia up and down, assessing her size, her frame. ‘She needs to look like a princess…like me,’ Ada stated, as Beatrice sighed, rising to her feet, her bones creaking with the effort.
‘She’s shorter than you, my lady,’ Beatrice muttered in a guttural accent, before limping off through an open doorway. ‘But I’ll see what I can do.’
‘And a bath as well, please, Beatrice,’ Ada called after the woman, flashing a quick half-smile of apology at Tavia. ‘She grumbles, but she has a heart of gold,’ Ada excused Beatrice’s gruff behaviour. ‘She looked after me as a child.’
‘I must look dreadful,’ Tavia tried to excuse her own appearance. ‘I daubed mud on my face before the archery competition. To make myself look more like a boy,’ she added, catching Ada’s bemused expression.
‘You’re very brave,’ Ada whispered. ‘I don’t think I’d ever have the nerve to do something like that.’
Tavia shook her head, remembering the nauseous churning in her stomach that she had experienced before walking through the castle gates. ‘I don’t consider myself to be brave. Sometimes circumstances force you to do these things.’
‘But your husband…?’
‘I have no—’ Tavia stopped suddenly, remembering the lies she had told Ferchar, that the English soldier, Benois le Vallieres, was her husband. ‘Ah, yes,’ she muttered, lamely.
‘He didn’t look too happy when he led you away.’ Ada linked her arm through Tavia’s and led her towards the window embrasure, away from the knot of industrious ladies. ‘What did you say to him to change his mind?’
‘I beg your pardon, my lady?’ Confused, Tavia scrabbled to make some sense of the princess’s words. How in Heaven’s name did she know all this?
Ada laughed. ‘I watched everything from an upstairs window; he’s a handsome fellow, your husband.’
‘Aye, and very lenient, once you know how to handle him.’ Tavia smiled, hoping that she would never have to ‘handle’ that man again. Two encounters had been more than enough for her.
‘Then I hope I am as lucky as you seem to be in your marriage.’ A secretive coyness spread across Ada’s face. Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Which may be sooner than everyone thinks.’
‘Oh?’ Tavia replied, vaguely.
‘I feel like I can tell you this, Tavia,’ Ada spoke in a hurried undertone, excitement making her stumble over some of the words. ‘You’re a stranger, yet I know we will be friends, and I know I can count on your discretion…?’
The question hung on the princess’s lips, warranting some sort of answer. Tavia felt awkward, unwilling to be drawn so quickly into the princess’s confidence. Aye, at this first meeting, she liked the maid, but friends? It was too soon to make that judgement. A quiet desperation lurked around Ada’s eyes, her neediness like an empty bucket that Tavia doubted she could fill. Not knowing how to reply, Tavia smiled lightly.
‘Ferchar will be my husband. He loves me, dotes on me…and I love him.’
‘I’m happy for you.’ Ada’s words meant nothing to her.
‘He’s so strong, so decisive, a natural leader.’ Ada’s voice rose a notch, hissing slightly with undisguised elation. ‘Why, he even picked out this gown for me this morning!’ She smoothed her hand over the soft wool of her skirt.
‘He makes a good regent,’ Tavia agreed, startled by Ada’s curious dependence on Ferchar.
‘He’d make an even better king!’ Ada blurted out, then clapped a hand over her mouth, before clutching weakly at Tavia’s sleeve. ‘I’ve said too much. Forget my words, Tavia!’ She glanced hurriedly around the room, checking to see if they had been overheard.
So that explained Ferchar’s over-protectiveness of the Princess Ada, thought Tavia. He wanted the maid for himself, for a wife, and wanted to keep her safe. He had obviously already gained Ada’s undeniable loyalty; the girl appeared infatuated with him, despite him being at least twenty winters older than her.
‘Your words are forgotten, my lady,’ Tavia replied brightly. ‘Do not think on it again.’
Underneath the magnificent wooden arches of the great hall at Langley Castle, Benois stabbed his jewelled eating knife into a piece of cured ham and put it between his lips, chewing thoughtfully. Below him, in the main body of the hall, his soldiers ate alongside the peasants that worked in the castle fields, hungrily devouring the huge platters of food that seemed to emerge continually from the kitchens.
‘Ah, Benois, back already!’ Lord Langley, a well-known supporter of King Henry, bounced up the stairs to the top table. ‘How are you enjoying our hospitality?’ He slapped his friend companionably on the back.
‘It’s much appreciated, Langley.’ Benois leant back in his chair. ‘After all those nights spent in cold tents with less than agreeable food, I thank the Lord that you are on our side.’
‘And fortunate that I own a castle on the English side of the border that’s not many miles from Dunswick.’ Langley grinned, lifting a slice of chicken on to his plate.
‘That, too.’ Benois laughed, the taut skin of his face stretching over his high cheekbones.
‘So, what did you find out? They obviously didn’t realise who you were.’
‘Hmm! I was lucky. Although one person did recognise me.’
‘Who on earth? No one knows you in Scotland!’
‘No one, it seems, apart from one completely annoying, interfering, god-forsaken maid!’ Benois replied. A pair of blue eyes shining from a luminous, pearl-like face swam into his memory. ‘She nearly wrecked the whole plan!’
‘But how in God’s name did she know you?’
Benois sighed, breaking off a chunk of bread from the round loaf on the table. ‘The maid was captured by my men in our earlier raid on Dunswick. I caught them just in time. She remembered me from then.’
‘Unlucky,’ Langley surmised. ‘But you still managed to avoid being caught.’
‘Aye, although the wench nearly stabbed me with one of my own arrows. The woman is a termagant!’
Langley tipped his head back and roared with laughter. ‘I like it. The magnificent Brabanter mercenary floored by a woman.’
‘Nearly,’ Benois corrected, smiling. He remembered the supple feel of the girl’s body against his own as he had wrenched the arrow from her hand, crushing her easily into him, stopping her struggles.
Langley observed him closely. ‘From your expression it seems the encounter was not entirely unpleasant.’
‘It was certainly surprising.’ Benois grimaced. ‘It’s not every day you find a woman wanting to become a royal bowman.’ He tucked his eating knife back into his belt. ‘Or boasting of her expertise as if she were a skilled marksman.’ He wondered how she had fared in the contest.
‘She sounds perfectly intriguing,’ Langley replied. ‘I should like to meet her.’
‘Unlikely. Once they discover she’s a woman, she’ll be sent packing.’ Why did he even care? He pushed his plate away, annoyance creasing his brow. Why did the infuriating chit suffuse his thoughts so?
‘So what did you find out?’ Having loaded his plate while standing up, Langley flung his rather portly frame into the carved oak chair next to Benois, grabbing a hunk of bread to chew ravenously. ‘Lord! I’m starving.’ Crumbs of bread scattered over his chin and down the front of his tunic.
Benois traced one fingertip along the polished wood of the table. ‘The Scots intend to spirit Princess Ada away from Dunswick tomorrow morning, so that we have no chance of kidnapping her.’
‘And your plan is…’
‘To be there before they leave.’ Benois’s lips curved up into a slight smile. ‘The King and his regent were discussing the plan right above me, as I was waiting to shoot.’ He shook his head, ‘You’d think they would be more careful.’
‘Do you think the plan will work?’
Benois angled his head on one side. ‘I’ll get the Princess, if that’s what you mean. But whether it will persuade Malcolm to hand over the lands…well, I’m not so sure.’
‘King Henry has ordered it…and the young Malcolm adores his older sister. I swear he would so anything for that maid.’ Langley picked up a pewter jug of honeyed mead.
‘That may be so…’ Benois watched the shiny liquid slide into Langley’s goblet, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘We’ll just have to wait and see. But I, for one, see no joy in looking after a weeping, pathetic princess for weeks on end.’
‘It won’t come to that.’ Langley hefted the jug in Benois’ direction. ‘Do you want some mead?’
‘Nay…thank you.’ Benois placed his extended palm over the top of his pewter goblet. ‘I have water to drink.’
Langley thrust a hand through his wayward blond hair. ‘You intrigue me, Benois. In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you touch a drop of drink. Are you a monk, or something?’
Benois’s fingers stiffened imperceptibly around the stem of his engraved goblet. A muscle jumped in the tanned skin of his cheek. ‘It’s a long story,’ he replied at last, letting out his breath from his lungs slowly. He picked up the goblet and took a long, cool gulp. ‘There’s just one thing I need you to do for me, Langley.’
‘Name it.’
‘You need to come with me and my men to kidnap the princess. I have no idea what she looks like.’
Away to the east of Dunswick, the land rolled away as a mass of undulating hills topped with purple heather and smooth slopes, a much gentler contrast to the high, barren crags and windswept moorland to the north of the city. Fastflowing rivers, the water leaping and twisting around jagged rocks and stones, intersected the velvet green of the hills. Red deer roamed the countryside, seeking shelter in the forests of oak and birch, before fleeing as a herd across pastureland at the slightest scent of danger.
The day was warm, holding the promise of summer within the cloudless blue sky. Above Tavia’s head, sunlight shafted through the pale green canopy of the trees, highlighting the dark sentinels of trunks below. Gritting her teeth, Tavia balanced precariously atop the docile roan mare, clutching ineffectively at the bunch of reins at the horse’s neck, trying to concentrate on the soft, rhythmic plodding of the horses’ hooves in the spongy vegetation beneath. Her thigh muscles ached already, and they had only been travelling for a short time.
Ferchar had insisted that she rode. Princess Ada was well known for her excellent horsemanship, and it would look strange if she rode in an ox-cart, or was carried in a covered litter. Luckily, her horse seemed happy just to follow the horse in front. It seemed as if once she had agreed to Ferchar’s proposal, he had insisted on a great deal of things. In the past day, he had schooled her in the ways of being a Scottish princess, reeling off strings of facts and family members that he obviously expected her to remember.
Tavia sighed, taking in a deep breath of the pure forest air. At least she appeared as a princess, although she felt awkwardly formal in the Princess Ada’s clothes. Next to her skin, she had been allowed to wear her own threadbare linen chemise; apart from that, everything else had been replaced. Her stockings, spun from the finest silk thread, caressed her legs as she wiggled her toes in shoes of the softest, most pliable leather. She thought of the thick, unyielding leather of her old boots, boots that let in the cold and water when she plodded through the hillsides after her father, tending to the sheep or working in the garden. Her underdress was of wool, dyed a lichen green, and fitted her body like a second skin, the tight sleeves emphasising the fragility of her arms. The bliaut, laced tightly with leather strings on each side of her waist, was dyed a darker green with long, teardrop-shaped sleeves that hung to the ground. It was these sleeves that would be her undoing, Tavia decided. Unused to such trailing appendages, she continually tripped over them, much to the amusement of King Malcolm and his sister, and to the disgust of Ferchar.
The soldier in front raised his arm, halting the entourage. He leaned forward, dismounting clumsily, as if he, too, were suffering from being in the saddle too long. Tavia frowned. Ferchar had obviously picked the most incompetent soldiers to accompany her on her journey to nowhere, to give the enemy more chance of kidnapping her. The situation would have been laughable if she hadn’t been so scared.
‘Let’s rest a while here,’ the soldier announced gruffly.
Tavia’s horse plodded gracefully to a halt, without her needing to do anything. She was about to slither down from the back of the animal, when another soldier appeared at her side to help her down. She had almost forgotten—she was a princess. Her legs nearly collapsed beneath her as her feet touched the ground, and she clutched on to the soldier for a moment, before sinking gleefully down on to a cloak that had been spread out over the damp earth.
‘How many?’ Langley whispered, his broad, affable features obscured by his steel helmet.
Supporting the rangy length of his body against the ribbed bark of a trunk, Benois flung himself back against the tree before answering, ‘Four, maybe five.’ He held a finger to his lips. Somewhere, high above them, the distinctive sound of a cuckoo resounded through the forest. Moving swiftly and decisively, Benois climbed back to where Langley and the rest of the English soldiers waited in the trees. The harsh lines of his face lightened into a smile.
‘I had no need of you after all, Langley. My apologies for dragging you out. The princess sits amongst those rough soldiers like a rose amongst the thorns. She should be easy to pluck.’
‘Then let me have the honour of escorting her,’ Langley requested. ‘You are not renowned for your chivalry around the fairer sex.’
Benois agreed without hesitation. ‘I grant you that, Langley. Though why you spend your days in courtly inanities is beyond me.’
‘Because it’s enjoyable, maybe?’ Langley raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re so caught up in your missions for Henry, that you don’t give yourself time to relax, indulge in banter with the ladies, or give yourself any time to think.’
‘That’s just the way I like it.’ Benois’s voice held a guarded quality.
Langley shook his head, uncomprehending. His friend was so different from him; the decisive mind, the quick restless energy that drove Benois to accept more and more assignments from the English King, sat in complete contrast to his own more relaxed behaviour.
‘You know me, Benois,’ he said, looping his fingers into the reins to steady his horse as the animal pawed the loose ground beneath its hooves, ‘much prefer the fireside to the saddle.’
‘Then let’s get this over with,’ Benois suggested, vaulting on to his horse, and beginning to urge his black stallion down the narrow path that led to the bottom of the valley, and the glade where the princess sat. ‘And remember, you take the princess and ride with her back to your castle. My men and I will hold off the soldiers, to give you time to flee with our prize.’
As the bloodcurdling shouts reverberated up and down the valley, Tavia threw the leather flagon to the ground and sprung to her feet. This was it! Her heart began to pound with anticipation, nerves, she knew not what. The distinctive red-and-gold surcoats of the English soldiers flashed in the sunlight as they careered haphazardly down the slopes, nostrils flaring on the horses as the animals snorted with excitement. Instinct told Tavia to run, but she stopped herself, remembering Ferchar’s words. Act like a princess, a lady, he had urged her. Act like a simpering fool, more like, she sputtered under her breath. What normal person wouldn’t want to bolt when faced with barbarians such as these?
‘Get behind us, my lady!’ begged the older soldier who led the party. Tavia moved back dutifully, amazed that the soldiers who escorted her had no idea that she was not the princess. She felt almost sorry for them as she watched them draw their swords, the metal blades winking as they braced themselves for the attack.
And then she saw him. Oh, mother of Mary. Not him.
Benois le Vallieres charged full tilt at their small group, his body lying flat against the back of his galloping horse as its hooves sent clods flicking up from the spongy grass. She would know him anywhere now: the defiant cleft on his chin, those high, slanted cheekbones, that burly frame that dwarfed all the men around him. Fear knotted her stomach and she clenched her hands together, her palms slick with sudden sweat. He would know her, she was certain of it. There was no doubting the man’s intelligence. He would see through her disguise, and return immediately to Dunswick in the hope of kidnapping the real princess. And Tavia knew that Ferchar needed at least a day to take Ada to safety. She would lose the coin that he had promised her. Unless…
Dragging the heavy encumbrance of her cloak from her shoulders, Tavia backed away slowly, before turning to sprint off into the darkness of the forest.
Benois’s sword clashed heavily against the sword of his Scottish opponent with an ugly ringing sound. He hefted the weapon into the air once more, thrusting forwards with the great blade, slashing with a diagonal motion, first left, then right, moving with the skill and grace of a man honed by years of fighting. In contrast to the cumbersome movements of the soldier he fought, every manoeuvre he made appeared precise, using the least amount of energy to produce the greatest effect. In a few moments, Benois had reduced his opponent to a sweating, frightened animal.
‘Langley! Leave him to me!’ he shouted, aware that his friend was embroiled in a swordfight on his right. ‘Fetch the princess!’ Benois’s sword snared his opponent’s weapon, whipping it away into the undergrowth. Breathing heavily, the soldier sank to his knees, raising his hands up limply. Poking him with the point of his sword, Benois indicated the soldier should join his fellow countrymen, who sat huddled miserably on the ground, heads bowed, defeated. In a few moments, Langley’s opponent also surrendered, scurrying away on his hands and knees to join the group.
Sheathing his sword, Benois pulled irritably at his leather chin-strap, which anchored his helmet to his head, before glancing about him. Suddenly, Langley burst out from the forest, an expression of complete bafflement on his face.
‘Where is she?’ Benois said slowly, his voice grim.
‘I swear she was here…just a moment ago.’ Langley panted heavily, a sheen of sweat breaking out on his face. ‘But I just can’t find her!’
Benois cursed. ‘Probably snivelling behind a tree somewhere. She can’t have gone far. Langley, you’d better sit down before you fall down.’ He unbuckled the strap of his helmet and threw it for his friend to catch, feeling the breeze sift through the strands of his hair. ‘I shan’t be needing this, thank God.’ He laughed, glad to be rid of the restrictive head gear. ‘I doubt one simpering princess will be much of a threat.’
Her whole frame shaking from exertion, Tavia willed her legs to work harder, to take longer strides over the uneven ground. With every step, the bouncy mess of earth and decomposing vegetation dragged at her pace, slowing her, pulling on the delicate leather slippers that afforded little protection against the pools of stagnant water that she splashed through, the hidden branches over which she tripped. Brambles tore into the fine wool of her bliaut, leaving angry scratches across her exposed face and hands, as she plunged through the almost impenetrable thickets. Low-hanging branches plucked at her veil, snagging and ripping into it. In frustration, she tore it off, almost crying out in pain as the gold securing pins ripped against her scalp. Why had he, of all people, been sent to kidnap the princess? Why did it have to be him? Tavia prayed that some bumbling soldier would be sent after her, someone who she could lead on a merry dance through the forest, and delay the English from discovering the truth of her identity.
Breaking through the thicket, tripping over one long unwieldy sleeve, Tavia’s feet teetered on the edge of a huge natural bowl cut into the forest floor, a pool slick with foul mud at its base. Clutching on to a branch, she fought for balance, listening to the shallow, irregular sound of her own breathing. And then she heard it. A tiny, infinitesimal sound. The crack of a twig. Someone was coming after her. Fear focused her mind with rapier-sharp precision. A bird chirruped in the canopy above and at once she knew her plan.
Setting her feet on the low branches of the pine tree, Tavia began to pull herself up, swiftly, higher and higher. They would never reach her up here, especially as she weighed considerably less than the average soldier. Up here, in the high branches of the tree, her true identity would be safe from detection, and she would be able to delay them a little longer.
‘Princess Ada?’
Her fingers stilled briefly at his voice. Refusing to drop her gaze, she pushed her chin defiantly upwards, willing the aching muscles in her arms to haul herself higher.
‘Princess Ada? I suggest that you come down now.’ Benois’s voice held the raw edge of formality, and something else—irritation.
She reached up for the next branch and pulled, levering up her full weight. The branch cracked off suddenly, sending shots of adrenalin lancing through her veins as her feet scrabbled for a foothold, and the branch, weak and rotten, fell to the ground. Sickness crawled through her belly, and she closed her eyes, wanting to cry, not yet willing to admit that she was a fool to climb any higher.
‘Princess Ada! May I suggest that you don’t climb any higher?’ Surprisingly, Benois’s voice held concern, but she supposed it wouldn’t be good for Anglo-English relations if they managed to kill a Scottish princess.
Her rigid fingers scrabbled at the bark of the trunk, trying to find a more secure hold, as she tip-toed in a circle over the flimsy branch on which she stood, so she could look down cautiously. Her head swam, dizzy with vertigo, as she peered down at the ground, far, far away. And there was that man, his face stern, implacable, his chestnut hair ruffled by the wind. Clamping her eyes shut, she struggled to stop the crazy whirling in her head. She couldn’t believe how far she had climbed!
‘Princess Ada.’ His tone had adopted a more patient, resigned air, as if he were dealing with a naughty child. ‘You have nothing to fear from us. Just come down.’
Tavia frowned, concentrating resolutely on the etched bark before her. ‘Er…I can’t,’ she wailed. Her limbs were frozen in fear; if she moved, she would certainly fall to her death.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Irritation changed to outright contempt.
‘I said, “I can’t climb down!”’ she shouted. The muscles in her throat strained under her panic.
She heard a grunt of annoyance, then a thrashing and cursing, as thin branches snapped under his weight. He was coming after her! In a moment, a warm, large hand curled over her foot. The urge to collapse with relief was overwhelming.
‘Don’t move,’ he warned, as if he sensed the sag, the release of tension in her body. ‘I don’t have a safe hold of you yet.’
Tavia sighed. This wasn’t how the plan was supposed to work. She wondered if she could stall for longer, but she wanted, more than anything, to escape from this stupid situation she had climbed into, even if it meant being rescued by the enemy.
‘You need to drop down, my lady, and I’ll catch you.’ Cool persuasion laced his voice.
‘Nay, I cannot,’ Tavia replied frantically. ‘I just can’t move.’ The wind whipped beneath the hem of her bliaut, blowing the wide hem outwards.
‘Then why did you climb so high, if you’re so frightened of heights?’ Benois rapped out, exasperated, trying to avert his eyes from the tantalising glimpses of her slim calves, her rounded thighs clad in the finest silk stockings, afforded by her billowing hemline. Why did women also have to make every situation so infernally complicated? No wonder he preferred a life in the field of battle to a life of castles and chivalry.
‘I didn’t know I was,’ she admitted ruefully.
‘I can’t climb any higher, my lady. The branches will not support my weight.’ Benois still held tightly on to the princess’s slender ankle. From where he had braced himself against the main trunk, the maid’s position appeared extremely precarious. Mud smeared over his hand from her slippers; the fine leather had been scratched and her stockings were torn over her slim calves, affording him delectable glimpses of the lady’s smooth white skin where the silk had ripped. The temptation to place his fingertip over the holes, to test the alluring softness of her flesh, took him by surprise. Benois couldn’t remember the last time he had wanted to do such a thing. Women meant nothing to him, other than for physical release; they represented a constant source of annoyance, of inconvenience. Curling his scarred hand slowly, a vague sense of unease coiled stealthily in his mind.
Through the lacy fretwork of criss-crossing branches, the sun began to descend. Early sunsets still marked these first days of spring; the warmth leaching from the air as the skies darkened. Benois’s stomach growled with hunger. He and his men had forgone their mid-day meal in order to kidnap the princess and now he was starving.
Impatience made him tug irritably at the chit’s ankle; he had no intention of spending any longer in this tree! Langley’s advice on how to treat a royal princess was beginning to grate on his nerves; this current situation just proved that courtly manners simply did not work on some occasions!
Resisting the pull on her foot, Tavia wrapped both her arms even more firmly around the branch conveniently located near her chest. She had worked out that the longer she stayed up here, out of Benois’s reach, then the less chance he would have of recognising her, of leaving to kidnap the real princess. ‘If you go down,’ she suggested lightly, ‘then I’ll follow.’
‘I thought you said you couldn’t!’ His gaze swept over her fragile figure, clinging like a wisp of lace to the tree. Really, this royal maid seemed to contradict herself with every sentence! Did she not know her own mind?
‘I feel better now,’ she replied. ‘I think I’ll be able to come down on my own.’
‘No chance!’ he countered bluntly. ‘I, for one, have had enough of being stuck up a tree. I can’t wait all day, and all night for that matter, for you to make up your mind. You’re coming down now!’
Stretching his big body upwards, he thrust one hand over her calf, fastened his fingers around the crook of her knee, and pulled, hard. Her feet teetered precariously.
‘Nay! What are you doing?’ she protested, as he began to haul her body downwards. Her fingers scrabbled violently at the branch that had become her security, trying to cling on, but his grip was too powerful. Slithering downwards, she became acutely aware of the touch of his hands over her hips, her backside and, finally, the sensitive curve of her waist. He held her wrapped against him, her feet flailing uselessly in the air.
‘It’s almost as if you don’t want to come down.’ His warm breath skimmed her ear intimately. ‘Now, why would that be?’
‘Because I don’t want to go with you!’ she shouted into the soft wool of the tunic that covered his chainmail, furious at his rough manhandling. Steel-clad arms braced her waist, making any escape attempt impossible. ‘Let me go!’ she ordered, imperiously.
‘If I let you go, then you will fall straight out of the tree,’ he advised her quietly. ‘I am the only thing holding you at the moment.’ The mellow timbre of his words had a curious effect on her, generating a weird fluttering sensation in her belly.
‘Youpushtheboundariesofcommon decency,’ she threw back waspishly. ‘This is no way to treat a princess! Even captured knights are treated better than this. Just wait until I tell King Malcolm about you!’
Laughter rumbled deep in his chest; the vibrations pushing the muscled breadth of his torso against her own softer curves. Holding her with one arm, he yanked the curling end of her braid sharply, bringing tears to her eyes as he forced her to lift her chin, to look at him.
‘You’re no more a princess than I am,’ he announced, the smoke-grey of his eyes grimly assessing.
Tavia licked her lips nervously, a dryness scouring her throat. Her heart hammered in her chest. Was he going to kill her?
‘Are you?’ he said again, jerking the end of her braid once more.
‘Of course I am,’ she replied. Her voice echoed lamely.
The breeze ruffled through the sable smoothness of his hair, hair that gleamed like the polished skin of a hazelnut. A few strands fell across his forehead, softening the rawboned angularity of his features.
‘So I’ve never met you before.’
‘Correct.’
‘Liar.’
He would know the maid anywhere: the proud, defiant tilt of her chin, the huge eyes of cobalt blue and that hair, her beautiful wine-dark hair that proclaimed her identity like a flag.
‘How did you ever think you would pass as a princess?’ His tone mocked her.
To admit her true identity would be to fail. And she was not about to do that! This man had to believe her! For the sake of her mother, for this whole plan to work, she had to convince him! Sticking her chin imperiously in the air, Tavia addressed him in prim tones, trying to ignore the proximity of his big body pressed up against her own soft curves.
‘Because I am a princess, you fool!’
His eyes narrowed, sparkling chips of granite. ‘Oh, so it’s usual practice for a princess to run around her own city dressed in peasant clothes; it’s usual practice for a princess to shoot a crossbow with unerring accuracy?’ He lifted one dark eyebrow. ‘Credit me with some intelligence, my lady!’
One finger picked nervously at the nail on her thumb squashed into her side by his big arm. This wasn’t going to be easy. ‘I admit that my behaviour is unusual for a lady of rank,’ she ventured, refusing to let his mocking stare intimidate her, ‘but Malcolm taught me to shoot from an early age, and sitting in the woman’s solar all day is boring! It’s fun going around the town dressed in peasant clothes.’
‘Not so fun when you’re nearly raped by English soldiers, I suspect.’ A stinging wryness entered his tone.
She shuddered slightly at the memory, heart thrilling at the note of doubt creeping into his voice. Benois sighed, momentarily allowing himself to enjoy the maid’s soft curves against his own hard frame. He stared at her intently, drinking in the lush, perfect oval of her face, trying to read her mind. What if the maid spoke the truth?
Tavia schooled her features into an expression of stern chastisement. ‘Mayhap we could discuss this further on the ground?’ She tilted her head in question. ‘I don’t feel entirely safe up here.’ Without thinking, she flicked her blue, long-lashed eyes up to his, trying to impress on him the need to descend, willing herself to ignore the strange, flickering excitement that jolted upwards through her belly and chest at the alluring proximity of his body.
Benois’s arms tightened imperceptibly around her; it was a long time since he had held a woman thus. With lurching awareness, he realised his own body’s physical response to the maid’s nearness: fierce, hungry, demanding. The peach-like lustre of her flushed skin drew him, the pretty curve of her mouth drew him in…she lured him, like a siren singing far out to sea. A predatory glow moderated his flinty gaze; Tavia saw it, and knew at once his intention. ‘Stop! I command you to stop!’ she cried, pushing futilely at the punishing lock of his arms. ‘You mustn’t do this! I am the princess!’
‘I don’t care!’ he growled, his voice husky with desire.
As his lips descended, he told himself he had earned this kiss. The maid had teased and taunted him, caused him to miss his lunch and no doubt his supper as well. There was nothing in the least that attracted him to her; the maid was slender and short, her arms thin and wiry, completely opposite to the type of women he sought for physical solace. Henry’s camp women, who accompanied the royal court and its entourage of soldiers in the hope of making ready coin, were normally tall and buxom, their beauty often spoiled by the tawdry nature of their business.
The sweetness of her lips stunned him; in that first, fleeting touch, all conscious thought, all logic, fled, to be replaced by a raging thirst to discover more, to plunder further, deeper. The brace of his arms shifted slightly, hauling her closer to him, thigh to thigh, hip to hip. At the intimate contact, she gasped against his mouth. He groaned, bringing one hand up to cup the back of her head, to tangle his fingers in the silk of her hair, to bring her lips closer to him.
Tavia began to struggle against him, ramming her toes into his shins, pushing her small hands against his chest.
‘Nay…’ He lifted his head, his grey irises lit with silvered threads, passion unbalancing him. ‘My lady…for God’s sake…don’t struggle!’ The innate strength in that waif-like body caught him unawares, and, with horrible realisation, he felt her sliding towards the ground. In a moment he had reached down to grab a fistful of cloth at her waist, catching her, but the fierce movement threw him off balance, and they crashed down through the branches together to land in a tangle of limbs below.
The fall winded him slightly, but luckily the branches had broken much of the impact. Although he had managed to twist slightly as he landed, he feared the maid had caught at least half his weight on impact. He lifted himself up on his arms, assessing her, searching her pale face for some sign of life.
Langley burst into the clearing, closely followed by his own soldiers. ‘Good God, man, what have you done to her?’
Chapter Five
Pushing himself off the maid, and on to his knees beside her, Benois sat back on his heels, baffled by her unconsciousness. From their position on the tree, the drop had not been above the height of two men, and the dense carpet of rotting woodland vegetation had softened their landing. But, touching a finger to his throbbing temple, Benois realised that their heads had knocked together on impact. A huge purplish bruise had begun to develop above the maid’s left eye, marring the polished marble of her skin.
Lying there, sprawled beside him, the girl appeared as a fallen angel, so ethereal, so fragile that Benois could scarce believe she was the same chit who had antagonised him just moments before. The silken folds of her bliaut spread around her, revealing the slender curve of her tiny waist; the tear-shaped sleeves had fallen back, revealing the delicate bones of her wrists, deathly white against the earthy leaves. He frowned. Angel, indeed! What in Heaven’s name had given him such a fanciful idea? At best, this girl, this Tavia of Mowerby, was an unwelcome nuisance, one he intended to be rid of, as quickly as possible.
‘Have you killed her?’ Langley wrung his hands together. ‘Have you killed the Princess?’ He lurked at the edge of the clearing, as if unwilling to come forward to witness the dreadful sight. Above them, leaves rustled, the breeze through the trees began to strengthen with the onset of evening. Benois contemplated the barely perceptible rise and fall of Tavia’s chest, then reached his fingers to the side of her neck; a strong, steady pulse confirmed what he already knew. On instinct, his thumb moved fractionally to trace the corner of her mouth, a mouth that still bore the blush of his kiss. He snatched his fingers away, springing to his feet. Was he completely mad? How had this fey creature managed to slip beneath his guard? His self-control had been the one thing he could rely on since…since that time.
‘Nay, the girl’s not dead,’ Benois bit back, his slate eyes tracing Langley’s lumpy profile in the twilight. ‘And, if you look a little closer, Langley, you will see that we have been well and truly duped. This maid is not the Princess Ada.’
‘Don’t be a fool, of course it’s the Princess!’ Langley came forward, stumbling over an unseen tree root. ‘God in Heaven, there will be hell to pay if Henry finds out how we’ve treated her!’
‘The girl has brought it all upon herself,’ Benois returned curtly. ‘When was the last time you witnessed a princess sprinting off like a hare, and climbing a tree with the grace and agility of a cat?’
Langley shrugged. ‘I admit, it is unusual.’ He moved to crouch down next to Tavia’s prone figure. ‘She certainly has the Princess’s hair.’ He touched his fingers lightly to Tavia’s head. ‘As far as I know, only members of Scottish royalty possess such an amazing colour. Malcolm and his dead father, Earl Henry, and, of course, King David.’ Langley frowned, his eyes sweeping the length of Tavia’s figure. ‘But you are right, Benois, this maid is not tall enough to be Ada. How high does she stand?’
‘Up to here.’ Benois indicated the place below the curve of his shoulder.
Langley nodded. ‘And there’s less of her, too. Just see how this dress hangs about her. She wears the clothes of the Princess…’
‘But she is not the Princess,’ Benois concluded.
‘The question is…’ Langley surveyed his friend ‘…what do we do with her now?’
Through the flimsy layers separating consciousness, the deep timbre of male voices penetrated Tavia’s brain. Where was she? Cold seeped disagreeably through the material of her clothes…her back felt wet as she lay on the damp ground. Pieces of memory came floating back, at first slowly, and then in a rush, fitting together neatly to form coherent pictures in her brain. The chase through the forest. Climbing the tree. The kiss. Reality smashed into her as she suddenly remembered. Forcing herself to keep her breathing low and steady, she kept her eyes firmly shut. She could hear Benois’s voice, and another man also talking. Why were they still here?
She shivered, the cold beginning to freeze her bones.
‘She’s awake,’ a voice announced.
Pressing her hands flat against the soggy leaves, Tavia pushed herself up, raising one hand to smooth her hair from her eyes. Benois towered above her, scowling, a dark and brooding presence that made her want to scramble to her feet and run once more. He radiated a dynamic energy, an energy that made every inch of his body spark with vitality. He made her feel vulnerable, weak, so she dragged her gaze to the man beside him, a smaller man, also in English colours, who smiled at her courteously. She fixed on his ruffled blond hair and genial features with relief.
‘Are you well, my lady?’ the blond man asked.
‘Aye, no thanks to him!’ Tavia grumbled, jabbing a finger in Benois’s direction. ‘Why did you have to land on top of me, you big oaf!’ Why did you have to kiss me? The words were left unsaid.
His mouth curled. ‘Ah, Langley, I don’t believe you have met the charming Tavia of Mowerby?’ Derision laced his tone, as he viewed her bedraggled figure.
‘Delighted.’ Langley stepped forward. ‘Allow me, my lady.’ He stuck out his gloved hand, and, taking hers, pulled her up easily from the ground. She swayed a little, her head aching, unwilling to allow any weakness to show before these two men.
‘I must go,’ she announced. She had performed her task for Ferchar; now all she needed to do was to ride back to Dunswick, claim her reward and find a physician for her mother.
Benois folded his arms across his chest, the metal scales of his chainmail sleeves glinting in the last rays of sunlight that filtered through the trees.
‘Go where, exactly?’ She flinched at the hollowness of his tone.
‘Why, go back to Dunswick!’
‘You, mistress, are going nowhere.’
‘You can’t keep me here!’ she remonstrated, brushing impatiently at a twig clinging to the fabric of her dress.
‘I’ve no intention of keeping you here,’ Benois replied patiently. ‘God forbid that I should have to put up with any more of your infernal prattle…’
‘Go easy, Benois.’ Langley frowned. ‘You’re frightening the maid.’
‘Hah!’ Benois scoffed. ‘I doubt it very much.’ His eyes glittered silver, precious metal sewn through granite.
‘It’s for your own good,’ Langley explained, his modulated tones calm and composed in comparison to Benois’s husky cadence. ‘It has grown too dark for us to travel safely. We must make camp tonight and travel on the morrow.’
A hollowness churned in her stomach. Tavia stared in dismay at the two men, half-shaking her head. ‘But I must return,’ she whispered, the memory of her mother lying ill and defenceless on her pallet bed clawing at her brain. ‘I must.’
‘You should have thought of that before you undertook this deception,’ Benois rounded on her callously. ‘I suppose it was Ferchar’s little scheme. He must have thought it was his lucky day when you walked into Dunswick Castle with your crossbow, and the double of Princess Ada.’
‘But you don’t need me any more,’ Tavia protested, ‘I’m not worth anything to you, now that you know who I am. Why not let me go? Just give me a horse and you’ll never see me again.’
‘If we let you go now, mistress, then no one will ever see you again,’ Benois commented starkly. ‘You really think you would arrive back in Dunswick in one piece?’
‘Of course,’ she stated boldly. ‘I have my crossbow; I can defend myself.’
‘Like you did with my soldiers,’ he reminded her.
‘That was different…’ She faltered as Benois began to shake his head.
‘No different, Tavia.’ He curled his fingers around the top of her arm. ‘Come on, we must make camp while we can still see.’
Tavia had no choice but to accompany the men back to the clearing where the initial attack had taken place. Following Langley’s stocky frame, she struggled to walk in her sodden, ill-fitting slippers; her toes aching from scrunching to keep the leather attached to her feet. What could she do? Short of stealing a horse and pointing it roughly in the direction on Dunswick, she had no idea of which route to follow, or, indeed, if she could stay on the wretched animal. Langley had already announced that he had sent the soldiers who had accompanied her back to Dunswick, so she had no hope of securing their escort.
Tavia stopped abruptly, whipping around. At her back, Benois cursed, ceasing his stride immediately, to avoid cannoning into her.
‘What now?’ he asked brusquely, aware that his hands had risen instinctively to steady her. He dropped them to his sides, his fingers curiously bereft. ‘Can’t we even take two steps without protest from you?’
‘It’s not a protest, more a request.’ Her wide eyes implored him. ‘Benois, I need you to take me back to Dunswick tonight. You must!’ she pleaded, tormented by the recurring images of her mother.
‘I must?’ he replied slowly, astounded that this impudent chit still found the capacity to give orders. Idly, he wondered at the anguish in her wide, light-blue eyes.
‘Lord Ferchar would reward you handsomely if you took me back.’
Benois grabbed her chin roughly between thumb and forefinger, so close that an enticing smell of leather mixed with woodsmoke arose from him. ‘I wasn’t aware you were that important to him,’ he responded heartlessly. ‘I presumed you were a peasant.’
His words rankled her; she straightened her spine, drawing herself up. ‘I’m a farmer’s daughter,’ she announced.
‘My mistake,’ he ground out unpleasantly, indicating by his tone that he still considered her to be ill bred, of the lowest stock.
‘I’ll reward you,’ she said desperately.
His lips clamped into a thin line. ‘Be careful, mistress.’
She gulped. ‘I said, I’ll reward you, if you take me back.’
‘How?’ He tipped his head to one side, considering her—nay, challenging her.
Was it her imagination or had he stepped a little closer? ‘I’ll pay you,’ she stuttered, wondering how on earth she would achieve that.
Benois laughed, the sound hollow and raw. ‘I have coin enough. Try again.’
She squeezed her eyes together, wretched, anticipating his rejection before she even spoke the words. But she would do anything to save her mother’s life.
‘Not in coin,’ her voice fluttered. A cold, sick feeling rose in her stomach, humbling her. Glancing upwards, the rigid lines around his mouth portrayed his utter fury, his condemnation at her words. She had made a mistake.
‘You want to offer me your body?’ His voice mocked her, cruelly teasing, shredding her confidence. ‘You must really be desperate if you wish to prostitute yourself with me.’
‘’Tis all I have,’ she replied meekly, wanting to crawl away into the undergrowth and weep.
The steel-grey of his eyes hardened, the stance of his body at once condemning and judgemental. Somewhere above them, an owl hooted, the unearthly note echoing hauntingly through the trees.
‘Then keep it. Keep it for someone more deserving than myself.’ He stuck his hand through his hair; the silky spikes fell down rakishly over his forehead. ‘Hear me, Mistress of Mowerby, and hear me well. I don’t care if you rip off all your clothes in front of me, and run about stark naked, you will not convince me to change my mind. We are not travelling until tomorrow, do you understand?’
In reply, she nodded jerkily, misery gathering about her like a cloak.
Sleep evaded her. The woodland glade, the ground of which had appeared so cushioned and inviting when she had first ridden into it with the Scottish soldiers, was riddled with sharp stones. Every way she turned, rocky corners jabbed her flesh, poking into the rounded curve of her hips, the small of her back. Despite retrieving her cloak, and wrapping herself securely in it, she was still cold, her feet like lumps of ice, her head aching each time the breeze lifted her hair.
On one side, Langley snored comfortably. On her other side, mere inches from her, Benois had stretched himself out, and was now breathing evenly. His nearness made her feel awkward, uncomfortable. She held herself rigid, every muscle held in constant check, just in case she might touch him inadvertently. One of the horses pawed the ground behind her as she followed the alluring line of his profile, highlighted by the waning moon: the straight, proud line of his nose, the enticing curve of his full top lip, the jut of his chin.
Benois turned his head swiftly, eyes twinkling in the soft light, catching her staring at him. Surprised, she gasped, clutching the sides of her cloak to her breast.
‘I thought you’d be fast asleep by now,’ he murmured. His breath emerged in misty white puffs of air into the cool night. The velvet rasp of his voice spiralled around her like silken thread, drawing her in. ‘Not still trying to plan your escape, are you?’
Heat suffused her body, spreading traitorously along her limbs. ‘Nay,’ she whispered back. ‘I wouldn’t dare.’
He trapped her gaze, and smiled.
Without thinking, she grinned back.
‘We both know that’s a lie,’ Benois replied mildly, a hint of admiration in his tone. Unexpectedly, his expression hardened, became alert, predatory. In a creak of leather, he had raised himself on one elbow, a finger to his lips. He tilted his head upwards, listening intently for a moment, before crouching over her, lips tickling her ear.
‘Come with me,’ he whispered. ‘We have visitors.’
Her senses quickened at the closeness of his body. Powerful arms drew her upwards, one hand at her back as he pushed her towards the dark mass of the forest. ‘Stay out of sight,’ he nodded, indicating that she could go further in, ‘and you’ll be safe.’
‘But what is it?’ Tavia halted abruptly, turning in the circle of his arm. ‘I can’t hear anything.’ She craned her neck, trying to look over the broad curve of his shoulder, but he pushed her onwards into the cover of the trees.
‘Just stay here,’ he ordered. His broad palm slid along her back, down her arm, igniting a line of fire around her waist, her hips. Tavia captured his hand, feeling the rough scar of his palm against her own, staying him. The warmth, the vitality of his fingers sparked through her veins.
‘Let me fetch my crossbow,’ she urged, her eyes huge orbs of diamond in the gloom. ‘I might be of some use.’
‘There’s not above a few.’ He glanced at the pale oval of her face, gossamer white in the rays of moonlight filtering through the branches. ‘We’ll finish them quickly if they attack. Mayhap they’ll just pass by.’

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