Knights of de Ware 01 - My Champion (15 page)

He knew he’d found his bride.

Linet dragged herself up the ladder of the ship’s hold. Faith, what had happened to her? And where was Harold? She felt as if someone had sent her through a fulling mill. Every muscle in her body ached, and she was as muzzy-headed as an old sot. She fought to get her bearings in the fading sunlight, but her eyes refused to focus.

More than a score of dangerously drunk reivers gathered near the mainsail, stuffing chunks of hard bread and cheese into their maws, washing them down with ale. The low-slung moon turned their leering faces to lurid gold masks.

Linet self-consciously clutched at the neck of her shift as their eyes raked her, but still the lawless knaves of the sea bore their lust like a banner. They gestured crudely, calling out in vile Spanish.

A gull screeched suddenly overhead. She followed its path of flight with her eyes.

Then she saw them. Not ten paces from her, silhouetted by the purple sky, El Gallo and the beggar stood together like lifelong friends, toasting one another, laughing. Pain closed her throat. What treachery was this? Did the beggar’s loyalties shift with the wind? She could have sworn he’d swooped down earlier like some guardian angel to save her from the reivers. Then again, perhaps she’d simply imagined the whole episode.

She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her throbbing temple. Patterns of color descended upon her head like a shower of fabric. Dear God, she must be going daft. Or maybe she was only dreaming. Aye, that was it—she was having a bad dream. She’d simply return to the hold until she awoke.

Before she could turn, the beggar pinned her with his cobalt gaze. “Thank God…” he breathed. For an unguarded instant, naked relief shone in his eyes, dazzling and disarming her. Then he added loudly, “Thank God you are awake at last, you wretched wench. I have waited long for our reunion.”

The ragged crew hushed. Linet frowned. What was he talking about? And why was he speaking with that ridiculous accent?

“How do you know this man, eh?” El Gallo demanded, his pig eyes slipping drunkenly from her to the beggar.

Her mouth felt as dry as dust, but at least the colors in her head were fading. “He…” She stared at the beggar, still bewildered by the genuine concern she’d glimpsed briefly in his eyes.

“I fear I am not a very welcome sight,” the beggar said, smirking. “We were lovers once, you see, until she decided to make off with my coffers.”

She gasped at the ridiculous lie. “What?”

The reivers watched with growing interest, though few of them could understand the exchange.

The beggar continued. “She is part of the reward Philip promised me for my part in this.”

“Reward?” she exclaimed, outrage replacing caution. “What are you talking about? I am no man’s reward!”

“Silence!” El Gallo barked, rolling his eyes in disgust. “I am beginning to think no truer words could be spoken. Women’s prattle is tiresome,” he said to the beggar. “Would you like me to cut out her tongue for you?” he offered, sneering.

“Oh no,” Duncan whispered silkily, gazing steadily into her eyes. He strolled up to her until his chin was mere inches away from the top of her head. “I have other uses for that tongue of hers.”

The band of reivers cooed at his words, some raising their cups in salute. Linet hadn’t the slightest idea what the beggar was talking about, since he’d said the last in Spanish. But the message in his penetrating gaze and the lascivious invitation of his lips were unmistakable.

He lifted one hand to tangle it in her hair.

“Stay away from me, you…you cur!” she cried. “I am a de Mont—“

The beggar’s lips came down on hers before she could finish. His kiss was deep, demanding, and his chin rough and foreign against her cheek. For a moment she was too stunned to resist. Then her head cleared, and she began to struggle in his confining embrace. She tried to scream, but his mouth cut off the sound. This couldn’t be happening, she thought distantly.

Not with a peasant.

Not her first kiss.

She pushed against the firm wall of his chest and tried to twist in his arms, but he held her fast. The kiss seemed to last forever. To her growing dismay, her breath quickened, and her heart began to beat erratically against her throat at the place where his thumb rested. Then, all at once, he pulled back. For one instant, as she looked up into his smoky eyes, he looked as dazed as she felt.

Duncan
was
dazed. Never had a kiss felt so right to him, so perfect.

“Oho!” El Gallo bellowed, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You said she had the pox!”

Duncan’s voice was ragged. “I am a…a jealous man. Would you not have said as much?”

The crew hushed in apprehension, awaiting their captain’s response. The silence grew uncomfortably long. Then El Gallo’s eyes crinkled, and he burst out laughing. He slapped his thigh. “But of course!”

The laughter seemed to bring Linet around. Duncan had let his arm creep casually across her shoulders. But a silent battle ensued now between the two of them as he let his fingers dangling suggestively above her breast.

“Eh, Frenchman!” a black-bearded, sly-eyed fellow beside El Gallo said. “In my country, it is a sign of courtesy to share one’s good fortune.” He fingered the buckle of his belt. “I would not mind a piece of this treasure.” He took a bold step forward.

Duncan felt Linet tense beneath his arm.

But El Gallo stopped the reiver short, whacking the man’s belly with the flat of his dagger. “In your country, Diego, it is a sign of courtesy to respect the property of others.” He motioned the man away.

Duncan resisted the urge to scoff. Since when did a reiver respect the property of others? Still, he thanked El Gallo with a subtle nod of his head. The captain wasn’t stupid. He might be greedy. He might be twisted. But he wasn’t stupid. Until he held Philip’s gold in his hands, he’d have to appease Duncan.

“Wench,” Duncan barked out, “bring me a trencher.” He swatted her enthusiastically on the backside.

He should have been prepared for her reaction, but nothing could have readied him for the speed at which she swung around with her fist, slamming it into his stomach. All the air went out of him. He coughed once and turned ashen.

“
Ay, Madre de Dios
!” a man yelled. “There’s fire in her.”

“Fire that begs to be quenched!” Duncan replied, forcing out a laugh to cover his pain. His eyes watered. He gripped the top of Linet’s shoulder tightly.

“Come and have a bite, my friend,” El Gallo called from beyond the mainsail, his mouth full of cheese. “You’ll need your strength with that kitten, eh?”

Duncan nodded vaguely. The last thing his bruised stomach wanted was dinner. Nonetheless, he pressed Linet with a firm hand toward the food.

Linet wasn’t about to cooperate. She was a de Montfort. De Montforts followed no one’s orders save the king’s. She pushed against her captor, intent on standing her ground, no matter what manner of threat the rogue concocted.

But a whiff of something sweet, something irresistibly familiar, changed her mind. An orange. The black-bearded reiver was biting into an orange. And there was a whole basket of them.

Her mouth began to water. She realized she hadn’t eaten since morning. Suddenly she was ravenous. She let the beggar lead her forward, and then reached out to snatch one of the fruits for herself. But before she could, the beggar reined her in abruptly beside him.

The words he bit out were for her ears alone. “I vow you’ll regret that blow one day, my lady. But for now, you’ll do precisely as I command.”

She squirmed in his close hold.

“Unless, of course,” he added, “you wish to be their last course for supper.”

His words hit her like a dash of cold water. She scanned the faces around her, faces of predators—toothless grins, gluttonous eyes, foreheads slick with sweat, chins slimy with grease. She shuddered and relaxed marginally against her captor. At least, she thought, glancing down at the hand that yet clamped her arm, there was no observable grime beneath the beggar’s nails.

He maintained a smile for the reivers’ benefit, but his voice was clipped as he murmured into her ear. “You’ll serve me—bring me bread, cheese, an orange, a cup of ale. You’ll fetch me these before you sit down for your own supper, and any time my cup grows empty, you’ll fill it. Do you understand?”

Who did he think he was? she wondered, incensed that he’d command her as a lord would a servant. Her body fairly vibrated with ire. But she knew she had no choice in the matter. Unless she wanted to become the crew’s plaything, she had to obey him.

“Aye, my lord,” she muttered sarcastically through her teeth. Scowling fiercely, she gathered his supper, juggling the orange atop the bread in one hand, cheese and ale in the other. When she presented the food to him, he didn’t so much as give her a nod of acknowledgment. He behaved as if he were accustomed to being served. She longed to pour the ale down over his head.

Instead she tore off a hunk of her own hard bread with her teeth, wolfing it down with a piece of cheese as if it were her last meal. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. She hardly tasted the orange. The strong ale made her head buzz pleasantly, mercifully numbing her to the humiliation of serving a peasant.

When she rose to fill her cup for the fourth time, the beggar halted her.

“Come, wench!” he announced loudly. “I don’t wish you too drunk for what I have in mind. The food has only whetted my appetite.”

Before she could argue, he stood and with one hand wheeled her around and into the wall of his chest. He pulled back on her hair with one hand and pressed her hips to him with the other. Then, with no further warning, his head descended to her upturned face, and his mouth captured hers in a sensual devouring.

His kiss was all-encompassing, blotting out sight and sound and reason. It left her breathless. And naturally, the ale made her slow to resist him. It must have been the ale, she reasoned, for it left her weakened to the point that she swayed into his embrace.

Duncan felt as if a lance had struck him dead center. He’d expected resistance. He’d braced his body for the wench’s struggles, tightened his stomach against her inevitable pummeling. But the soft petals of her mouth opened beneath his. Need surged inside him, and he found welcome in her embrace, welcome and danger. Bloody hell, he felt as if he’d leaped upon a runaway steed. He just hoped to God he’d be able to rein it in once they were alone.

He did intend to get her alone. He had to tell her the truth—how he meant to rescue her and turn El Gallo over to the authorities in Flanders. How he would turn Normandy upside down to find Sombra, the eel that had slithered from his grasp, bring him to justice and rescue Harold. How he’d help her find her way to the de Montfort castle and deliver her straight into the arms of her grateful kin.

She’d thank him then. Once she understood. Once he got her alone.

If he could only get her to stop kissing him.

The reivers had begun a rhythmic chant, drunkenly encouraging him to dare more. Steeling himself, he finally broke free of the little wanton’s grasp, holding her away from him by the shoulders. At arm’s length, her senses seemed to return. She shook her head as if shaking off the remnants of a dream.

“You will make her pay, eh, Frenchman?” one of the crewmen asked.

“
Doncella
, with that purring of yours,” another chimed in for her benefit, “he will end up owing you change!”

Linet blanched. Purring? Surely she hadn’t been… She drew a deep breath to tell them just what she thought of their taunts, but the beggar squeezed her shoulder in warning. She bit her tongue and waited for him to rise to her defense.

He answered smoothly in English. “It will take many nights of purring and screaming and begging for mercy before she can begin to pay me back for the fortune she stole.” His fingers idly caressed her chin.

Her jaw dropped. What in God’s name was the knave doing? She felt as if, in the midst of a storm at sea, the piece of wood she’d clung to had turned out to be rotted away and sinking fast.

“I wish she had taken
my
family fortune!” one sailor cried.

“For
your
family fortune,” his friend chortled, “you would be lucky to get a peck and a tickle!”

Then El Gallo roared with laughter.

Duncan held onto Linet as tightly as he dared, but it was all he could manage to keep her from bolting overboard. The reiver captain leaned toward him and gestured Duncan closer.

“I like you, Gaston,” El Gallo decided in a loud whisper. “Eh,” he confided in Spanish, his voice slurred by drink, “how would you like to use Sombra’s cabin? You wreak your revenge on the wench now, eh?”

“Now?” Duncan choked out. His mind raced. Why would El Gallo make such an offer? And how was he going to get out of it? He glanced at Linet, who was desperately trying to decipher El Gallo’s sloppy Spanish.

The captain shrugged, but there was a queer hunger in his eyes. “Sombra has some…toys…that can be quite amusing. Go on.” He nudged Duncan.

Duncan drank from his cup to buy time. Something wasn’t right. It looked as if he and Linet were going to get that solitude he desired, but the circumstances couldn’t have been more suspect. With great misgiving, he nodded to the captain. “Your hospitality is overwhelming.”

Linet didn’t like the sound of their voices. She looked nervously from one man to the other. The beggar rose suddenly to his full height, a head taller than she was, his ominous eye patch making him look particularly villainous.

“Come,” he commanded.

She locked her knees.

“Come with me,” he warned her, glancing with obvious unease at the witnesses around him.

She wasn’t going to budge.

Then, before she could naysay him, he bent and tossed her over his broad shoulder, turning her world upside down.

She shrieked, and a great cheer went up.