Only For A Knight (5 page)

 

And Juliana collected hope, seizing every wee shimmer of goodness that she could, stashing each precious blessing in her heart like bright water-washed pebbles.

 

Aye, she’d learned early on to always look on the more felicitous side of whate’er life laid at her feet.

 

So she reached inside for her deepest strength, then eased herself back to look into the face she so cherished. Touching her head wound again, she tried to give him a not-too-wobbly smile.

 

But when even that small effort proved too difficult, she contented herself by lighting her cold lips to his cheek in the dearest kiss she could muster.

 

“See you, Kenneth, now we shall be truly alike,” she whispered, her voice shaky. “Now we will have nigh matching scars.”

 

“Kenneth?” The man’s deep blue gaze, so familiar and yet not, sharpened. He stared at her, his brows drawing together in a frown.

 

Nay, more a look of total perplexity—an expression that nowise detracted from his dark good looks or hid what she only now noticed.

 

The irrefutable truth that his handsome face bore nary a scar.

 

Certainly not the three vertical slashes she’d expected to see marring his left cheek.

 

There was simply nothing.

 

Naught save his undeniable handsomeness and the intensity of his questioning gaze.

 

Juliana bit her lip. For the first time since she’d wakened, an icy chill sluiced through her. “You are not—”

 

“Kenneth?” he repeated, pushing to his feet. “Nay, to be sure, I am not, though I once had an uncle of the name.” He sketched her a quick bow.

 

A fully unabashed naked bow!

 

Juliana stared. Faith, she could even feel her jaw dropping. Foggy-headed or no, she was quite certain she’d ne’er seen a more . . .
naked
man. She blinked. Her heart began to pound in her throat and she started shivering again—even as her cheeks flamed hotter than two clumps of red-glowing sea coal.

 

“Sir Robert MacKenzie at your service,” the strapping knight said, wearing his nakedness as boldly as she sought to cover hers. “But ‘Robbie’ will suffice.”

 

Staring at him, Juliana drew the great plaid closer about her chilled body.
“MacKenzie?”

 

She blinked again. Faith, but the name gave her an inexplicable jolt.

 

He merely nodded. “The MacKenzies of Kintail. My father is Duncan MacKenzie, the Black Stag. Mayhap you ken the name?” He paused a moment, then continued when she only gaped at him. “I am his son and bound home to wed my betrothed.”

 

This time it was her turn to nod. But she couldn’t speak for her mouth had gone ash-dry. And something—a swift-descending emotion best described as a sharp stab of resentment—made her insides tighten and quiver like a well-wrung cloth.

 

Most disturbing of all . . . she didn’t know why the name MacKenzie distressed her. As did the name of his family’s stronghold, even though he hadn’t spoken it aloud.

 

She knew the name regardless.

 

Eilean Creag Castle.

 

Juliana shuddered, just the whisper of the dread place sent hot bile rushing to her throat. She curled her fingers deeper into the soft woolen folds of the plaid and looked at the knight, the knifing pain in her head clearly addling her wits.

 

As with his name, she had no idea why the mere thought of his home so repulsed her.

 

“. . . and you?” he was asking her in a friendly enough tone but with a definite hint of easy command lacing the gentle question.

 

Hearing it, some inborn thread of rebellion made Juliana straighten her back and square her shoulders—despite the agony the brisk movements cost her.

 

Biting her lip rather than cry out again, she tugged the great plaid a wee bit higher up her breasts. Whate’er had brought her to this miserable pass, she would not sit on the grass and cower before him like a frightened rabbit.

 

“I asked your name,” he repeated, still quite naked and coming forward with a length of cloth he’d ripped from the hem of a clean, dry shirt.

 

Juliana swallowed, tried to keep her gaze on the improvised bandage in his hand.

 

With deft movements, he began securing the linen strip around the top of her head. “Who are you and whither were you bound? Before you decided to take a swim with yon grazing ewe?” He jerked his head toward the still-dripping animal. “Saving her life nigh cost you your own.”

 

“Then I offer you my profoundest gratitude, Sir Knight.” Her voice held just a bit of a quiver, as if she couldn’t quite wrap her tongue around the words.

 

Or didn’t want to—but that was ludicrous.

 

She had no cause to dislike him.

 

His nakedness forgotten, Robbie raked a hand through his damp hair, watched as a variety of emotions played across her lovely face. And the longer he studied her, the more he couldn’t quite shake the impression that she half expected him to sprout horns and a tail.

 

“Robbie will serve,” he minded her again, deliberately keeping his tone light. “Pray do not call me
Sir Knight.
For you, my lady, I am simply Ro—”

 

“I heard the name, good sir,” she blurted, inching the fool plaid nigh to her chin. A most fetching chin with just a flavor of defiance in its pert lift. “As to my name and where I was going . . . I . . .” She faltered, let the words tail away as her wee spark of oh-so-appealing boldness faded to dismay.

 

She glanced at the mounded heap of her ruined kirtle. A carefully stitched-on patch showed conspicuously amongst the soggy folds.

 

“My name—” she began again, then promptly bit her lower lip, stared at him. “Ach, I can tell you that I am not a lady. That much I know.” She poked her foot at the wet gown. “I vow you will agree that no gently born lass would suffer to wear mended skirts?”

 

Robbie’s jaw tightened. True lady or nay, he’d but meant to accord her the courtesy. And would. “Even so, fair maid, I would still learn your name.”

 

“Think you I would not tell you if—” she started again, only to break off once more, this time pressing her lips together in clear consternation.

 

Her lovely moss-green eyes clouded and she looked past him toward her ancient nag of a garron. But when her gaze left the shaggy beast to light briefly on the spilled coins and her raggedy money purse, Robbie could see her confusion mounting—just as he also would’ve sworn she was inwardly steeling herself before she looked back at him.

 

“You needn’t fear me,” he said, deciding she must indeed be afraid of him, for whatever misplaced reason. “I have ne’er harmed a woman in my life and would sooner cut off my sword arm than cause any female even the most fleeting moment of distress. Gentle-born, cot-reared, or otherwise. You have my word on it.”

 

“I am not affrighted of you, sir,” she declared, her voice a shade stronger. “’Tis only that I have dire need to be on my way.”

 

“Unclothed, my lady?” Robbie couldn’t resist teasing for she’d lurched to her feet so quickly she’d forgotten to hold fast to the plaid.

 

“Oh!” Frozen in shock, she flattened one hand across the lush triangle of red-gold curls at the top of her thighs and jammed the other, spread-fingered, against her well-rounded breasts.

 

Snatching up the two linen shirts he’d also thought to gather, Robbie thrust them at her, indicating the one he’d ripped to make a bandage for her head.

 

“You can use the torn shirt to dry yourself and the other . . . that one, you can wear to cover yourself unless your travel bags hold better?”

 

But a glance at the two leathern satchels assured him they did not.

 

As did the lightning-quick flash of perturbation flaring in her magnificent eyes as she clutched both tunics to her wet-gleaming nakedness.

 

“And you, sir?” she challenged, the slant of her gaze reminding him at last of his own . . . exposure.

 

But, a true son of his father, Robbie could not keep his eyes from crinkling with reluctant amusement as he donned his own fresh garments. Then, having refastened his still-damp sword belt low on his waist, he folded his arms and waited in appreciative silence as she struggled into the undamaged tunic.

 

Knightly honor or nay, fetching lass or otherwise, an insistent cribbling along the back of his neck warned he ought not let her out of his sight—not even for her modesty’s sake.

 

She also warranted a close eye because her deliciously creamy skin held an unnatural waxy pallor. Equally alarming, she swayed on her feet. And despite all his precautions and care, she still shivered.

 

More vexing still, at least for him, she also seemed to have tangled her arms in his much-too-large-for-her tunic.

 

Robbie heaved a great sigh, knew himself lost. Looking on as she twisted and turned in her efforts to don the garment proved both an immeasurable delight and a torture beyond all imagining.

 

Unable to endure watching her innocently sensual windings a moment longer—or mayhap worse, not wishing to imagine how easily he could bring a cessation to her trembling if only he’d forget his honor long enough to pull her lushness flush against his body and
un
chill her with a searing, soul-stealing kiss—Robbie drew a stiff, bracing breath and strode forward.

 

He closed the short space between them in two long strides and, with one practiced flick of the tunic’s hem, urged its cloaking length down over her charms until the soft linen folds molded seductively to her bounty but also shielded each golden inch of her from prying eyes, including his own.

 

Especially his own!

 

Even so, he purposely lifted one corner of his mouth in a way he knew brought out his best dimpled smile.

 

Better to capture her attention with a look he hoped she’d find charming rather than risk her noting how intensely the temptation of her unclothed twistings and turnings had affected him.

 

There were some things a man simply could not hide.

 

Things even the best-draped plaid failed to disguise.

 

Careful to keep his gaze on her, and well above her fetching nose, Robbie willed her to look at him, to notice his smile. But she paid him scant heed. Not to his focused gaze, his dimpled smile, nor the unruly evidence of his
admiration.

 

Indeed, she’d scarce smoothed the folds of his shirt in place o’er her sweetness before she began looking from side to side, her beautiful eyes troubled as if she sought something she’d lost but didn’t know what.

 

When she dropped to her knees and began searching through the wet heap of her ruined kirtle, Robbie could bear no more. “Come, lass,” he urged, his dimpled smile receding as he drew her to her feet. “Your kirtle has served its purpose—”

 

“You do not understand,” she protested, jerking free. “I’d hidden it for safekeeping . . . here, in the folds, see you? But it is gone.”

 

“It?”
Robbie eyed the sodden gown, cocked a dubious brow. Save a wealth of patches and too many years of use, the kirtle had scarce little to offer. “What, lass? What are you searching for?”

 

“I— . . . cannot tell you . . .”

 

Robbie arched a brow, strove to ignore the increased surge of icy tingles spreading up and down the back of his neck. His gaze slanted to the spilled coins still fanned haphazardly across the grass.

 

Coins that, despite his noblest efforts, loosed his tongue.

 

Any maid with such reddened, work-worn hands would need a lifetime to gather even half as much siller. Truth be told, many a landed man he’d encountered o’er the years would rub their palms in glee to possess a lesser sum!

 

“Whether you can tell me or no, I think you should,” he suggested, eyeing her. Holding her gaze, he folded his arms in a way that mirrored one of his father’s favorite postures—the Black Stag’s I-am-the-laird,-tell-me-or-die pose. “Aye, I find myself desirous of knowing.”

 

“The coin is not ill-gotten,” she huffed, meeting his challenge with a defiance most surprising in one of humble birth.

 

But low-born or nay, Robbie’s heart clenched when she drew a deep, shuddery breath and clutched her middle against the chills still racking her.

 

“I only wish to help you,” he said, uncrossing his arms at once. “But I canna if you refuse—”

 

“I am not a thief.” She hurled the words at him, a bit of pleasing color coming back into her cheeks with the brisk denial. “Aye, that I know beyond a doubt. I would not steal a bannock were I starving. ’Tis only that I— . . . I promised and I have e’er taken care—”

 

“Och, lassie, do you not see ’tis
you
who are in need of care?” Robbie’s smile returned, his own niggling doubts forgotten. Every last one of them banished by the snapping indignation in her beautiful eyes and the returning vibrancy not only staining her cheeks but beginning to thrum all through her.

 

Already a rare beauty, her vexation set her aflame and Robbie found himself sore smitten.

 

Besotted enough to take a chance.

 

Sliding an arm around her waist, he pulled her as close as propriety allowed—now that they were both more or less clothed and she fully wakened and by her senses.

 

But she only stiffened and flashed him an indignant stare. “I did not steal a single coin of yon sillers,” she repeated, clearly mistaking why he’d seized her.

 

Robbie heaved a sigh. “You err, lass. I care not whence you obtained the coin,” he said, seeing no reason to lie. Truth was, she could be transporting a whole coffer brimming with shiny fripperies of mysterious origin and he’d feel the same. “’Tis seeing you well cared for that concerns me—naught else,” he sought to reassure her. “Ne’er you worry.”

 

“And neither should you, good sir. I can assure you that it is not every day that I seek to save a drowning ewe . . . nor do I wish to burden you.” She tried to wriggle free of his grasp, then narrowed her eyes at him when she couldn’t. “Leave me to while here a bit and I shall soon be well enough to be on my way—alone,” she insisted, the shakiness of her voice belying her every spoken word.