Jessica looked around his shoulder at the man who still sat astride his horse, his flashing broadsword uplifted. That one seemed to make a decision of some kind. He shoved his sword back into his scabbard and jabbed his heels into his horse’s side. The beast cried out and jumped forward. The rest of the mounted men thundered past. It was only after the dust had dispersed that Jessica realized she’d been holding her breath. Then she realized something else.
The man with the iron grip around her wrist had faced down a man approximately the same size who was sitting on a horse with a drawn sword, yet he had come out the winner apparently using only words as his weapon.
He turned and looked down at her. Smiling in the face of that grim mask was more than she could manage. But words weren’t beyond her.
“Thank you,” she said, and it came out a croak. “I think.”
He shrugged, apparently noting her apology and then dismissing it. He put his hands on her waist and Jessica jerked back in surprise.
“Let go of me,” she said, struggling to push him away. “I mean it, mister. I appreciate the help, but I’m fine now. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
She gasped in surprise as the man lifted her easily and cast her up onto his saddle. Before she’d even had time to arrange her skirts to sit astride the horse, the man had vaulted up behind her onto the gelding’s rump.
Things were not going the way she’d planned.
But before she could protest, the man reached for the reins, then spurred his horse forward. Jessica clutched the front of the saddle and prayed she would get back to the house in one piece, assuming they were heading back to the house. The sun had definitely set and the twilight was fading quickly; she did her best to calculate where they were going. In that at least she found some relief. It felt like a return to Henry’s house.
Sounds reached her before she could make out shapes. She could hear livestock complaining. There were men shouting and laughing. Other voices were raised, speaking in a language she couldn’t understand. The sounds reminded her of an open market with merchants vocally advertising the excellence of their goods. But these sounds were completely out of place. Lord Henry’s garden was quiet and she certainly didn’t remember the town being this close. Besides, the tourists were long gone by now.
“What in the world did Lord Henry do . . . ah, to . . .” Her voice trailed off as something very large began to materialize from the mist.
No, it wasn’t large, it was enormous.
It was at that moment that she was faced with the overwhelming urge to scream.
It was a castle. It was a castle sitting where Lord Henry’s manor house should have been. In fact, she suspected that it looked a great deal like the castle she had been so ignominiously carried from by Archie not a pair of hours before.
And there, right there where the garden should have been was a drawbridge. A working drawbridge, with men and horses traveling over it and torches lighting their way. Jessica lifted her eyes up walls that were at least three stories high and jerked back when she saw the men walking atop them. Soldiers with helmets that gleamed silver in the light from the moon.
There was, however, no sign of that lovely Victorian mansion she had grown so attached to in such a short time.
Jessica tried to jerk out of the saddle but the man squeezed her between his forearms. She grabbed the reins in front of where his hands were and gave them a substantial tug. The gelding reared and the man swore. Jessica pulled back again, trying to turn the horse around. She dug her heels into his side for good measure. The beast reared again and Jessica released one rein long enough to give her companion a healthy shove. He teetered. Another jerk on the reins and another shove sent him right off the back of the horse. Jessica forced the horse around and slapped her heels against his flanks.
“Go, go!” she shouted. “Allez, you stupid horse!”
Blessed beast, he responded immediately. Jessica gave him his head and let the sharp wind in her face still her panic. She would get out of this just as soon as she could find a road and follow it to a pub. All she had to do was find a phone. Lord Henry would straighten this out.
She heard the shrill whistle and groaned even before she felt the gelding skid to a halt. She went sailing over his head, completely out of control. She knew there was nothing she could do but enjoy the ride. So she did, for the space of a breath or two.
She landed flat on her back and the wind was knocked completely from her. She gave a passing thought to the fact that she hadn’t hit her head on a rock before she concentrated on the fact that she couldn’t breathe. At all.
She tried valiantly to suck in air, truly she did. She kept her eyes open and trained on the stars above her, willing her body to respond. Then her view of the sky was blocked out by a man who planted himself over her with a foot on either side of her body and glared down at her, his chest heaving. It didn’t matter that he was the most ruthlessly beautiful man she’d ever seen. It didn’t even matter that he had a sword belted at his side. Not even his frown or the way his frown emphasized his harsh scar fazed her.
What did bother her, though, was his damned horse, who seemed determined to make up for throwing her by snuffling her hair and drooling on her forehead. The man slapped the horse away and grumbled in apparent disgust.
A man who would love her as much as he loved himself.
Jessica smiled wryly. That’s what she’d wished for, wasn’t it? Yes, and there was also that saying that generally went along with wishing: Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it.
Her world began to spin before she could give any more contemplation to the irony of those words.
2
Richard of Burwyck-on-the-Sea had passed better days than the current one over the course of his score-and-ten years. Yet at the moment he was beginning to wonder if these sorts of miserable days were to be his lot in life from now on. He looked down at the woman senseless on the ground between his feet and added her to the events that had imposed themselves upon him since the sun had risen four days earlier.
The first sign of trouble had been a request from his younger brother, Hugh, asking for aid in the resolving of a fierce dispute. Normally Richard would have sent one of his men to do the like, but he’d been plagued by a nagging impulse to try to repair the breaches in his family wall himself—those walls being rickety at best. Perhaps a wiser man would have left matters be. One of his sisters he had not spoken to since she’d wed ten years earlier, as her husband didn’t care for her family. His other sister and her husband had both died of consumption whilst he was traveling and he had not wanted to make the effort to return home for their burying.
That left him with but two brothers, Hugh and Warren. Hugh had inherited the estate of Richard’s dead sister and her husband, partly because their father had willed it so and partly because ’twas such a miserable place that no one else wanted it. It was only because Hugh was family that Richard had even considered his request. He scowled. Damned family loyalty. He had succumbed to the desire for familial accord as if to a fever, cast aside his better judgment, packed up his gear to travel to Merceham—all for the noble purpose of fostering what family affection he could.
He’d arrived to find Hugh senseless in his bed, apparently overcome by the ample charms of a castle whore. Richard had done the fool a favor by rolling the wench off him. When Richard had learned the whole tale, he wished he’d let Hugh suffocate under that abundant bosom, for the fierce dispute had turned out to be nothing more than a pair of freemen haggling over a hen. Hugh had still been suffering from the aftereffects of too much ale and bosom the next day to offer any decent explanation for why he hadn’t been equal to solving that problem on his own. Richard suspected that Hugh’s purpose had been to make a fool of him.
Richard had not been amused.
He’d indulged his brother’s offer that day for a hunt, not out of a desire for diversion, but rather to see what was left of Merceham. With Hugh as steward of the soi
l, one never knew. Richard had toyed with the idea of perhaps letting an arrow or two miss their mark on supper and find their way into Hugh’s arse in repayment for his sport at Richard’s expense.
Yet instead of supper, Richard had caught this.
He looked down at the woman and scowled. Well, at least she wasn’t dead, though he suspected she might wish to be with the pain in her head she’d have when she woke. When he’d seen her go flying over Horse’s neck, he’d been certain he would find her crumpled up in the midst of a clutch of rocks. He’d cursed his stupidity the moment the whistle had left his lips, but damn the wench, what else was he to do? Let her ride off with his mount? At least his guard had ridden on ahead and spared themselves the sight of their lord landing ungracefully upon his backside.
He stared down at the horse thief. She was fair enough, he supposed. Indeed, if one were given to judging such things, one might decide that she was bordering on handsome. Her features were well formed and her skin free of any blemish. He was momentarily tempted to check her teeth, then he reminded himself that she was a woman and not a horse.
He had been, perhaps, too long out of polite company.
He turned his attentions to the mystery of her identity. She carried herself like a highborn lady yet spoke the peasant’s English with an accent that not even the lowliest serf could match. She’d also managed to blurt out a few words in his language, but he’d had trouble understanding her there as well. What was he to divine from that?
“You’re to divine nothing, dolt,” he muttered shortly. As if he had time to do anything but finish his business at Merceham and be on his way. Already he’d wasted more time humoring his younger brother than he should have.
And now a helpless woman to care for. He should have let her be trampled. Now he had no choice but to see her to safety.
“Bloody knightly vows,” he grumbled as he ran his hands over her body, checking for broken bones. They never served him save to poke and prod him until he relented and dragged out his rusty chivalry for use upon some soul who likely would have been better off without his aid.
Well, at least the wench had suffered no injury he could find. He slipped one arm under her shoulders, the other under her knees, and lifted her with a grunt. She wasn’t excessively heavy, but she was tall and that made for a somewhat awkward burden. Not that a tall woman troubled him. He was tired of women he had to fold himself in half just to kiss, never mind kissing them while he was bedding them. Taking a tall woman to his bed would likely cure him of the kink in his neck that plagued him.
Not that he was thinking about doing anything akin to that with this wench. He had no idea who she was. She was surely old enough to be someone’s wife or widow. She could have been some nobleman’s daughter with a tongue too shrewish to be borne by a husband.
He sighed. Perhaps he would just take her back to the keep, pack his gear, and be on his way. The thought of leaving a defenseless woman in his brother’s care did not sit well with him, but he wasn’t overly enthusiastic about carrying her back to his hall with him either. Besides, what was she to him? He’d saved her from Hugh’s dogs. She couldn’t ask for more than that.
Richard stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Damn you, Horse, come! You needn’t feel guilty about tossing her.”
Horse trotted up dutifully and bumped Richard’s elbow, as if to grovel a bit more to the woman draped over his master’s arms. Richard cursed his mount fluently for each jar; the last thing he wanted to do was think about the dead weight in his arms. Damnation, the last thing he wanted to do was think at all! How much simpler life had been before word of his father’s death had reached him. There was much to be said for shirking one’s responsibilities under the guise of mercenaryhood. France was lush, Spain was sunny, and Italy was far enough away from England that Richard had almost forgotten his inheritance. He never should have come home. He wanted none of this gloomy England and the ghosts of memories that haunted his hall.
He sidestepped a steaming pile of manure on the drawbridge and held his breath as he carried the woman inside the bailey. Returning to his own keep seemed more appealing by the moment. Burwyck-on-the-Sea would be a good place once he’d finished rebuilding it. The sea breezes continually washed away the stench of daily living, unlike this hellhole Hugh called home.
Richard kicked open the door of the great hall and strode inside. The rushes were a slimy, noisome marsh and he struggled to keep his footing. He carried his burden past the huge fire in the center of the room and blinked at the smokiness of the chamber. The new Burwyck was being built more sensibly, with flues that would carry the smoke outside. His eyes would never burn again.
“Did I give you leave to bring her here?” a voice asked sharply.
Richard slowed to a stop, then slowly turned his head and looked at his younger brother. “I beg your pardon?”
“This is my hall, Richard,” Hugh said. “I say who enters my doors.”
A young man jumped up from the chair next to Hugh and bolted for the stairs. Richard watched his youngest brother, Warren, disappear to the upper floor. At least someone in the family had some sense left to him. A pity the same couldn’t be said about Hugh.
Richard turned and walked to the high table. “You were saying, Hugh?”
Hugh looked at the woman and Richard felt a chill go down his spine in spite of himself. Nay, he would not be leaving this poor woman here, damn her anyway. As if he had time to indulge in any rescues at the moment!
“I saw her first,” Hugh said, his eyes burning with a feverish light. “I think she’s a faery.”
That was the other thing about Hugh: He was what a kinder soul would have deemed mad.
Richard sighed. “She is no faery.”
“She sprang up from a blade of grass,” Hugh said. “I know what she is.”
Hugh crossed himself, made a handful of signs Richard had no desire to determine the purpose of, then spit a glob of mucus over his left shoulder.
Richard tried to clamp his lips shut, but he couldn’t stop the words. “Right shoulder, Hugh,” he said grimly.
“’Tis the right shoulder for faeries.”
Hugh looked as horrified as if he expected the wench to wake and eat him whole. “Is it?”
“I’m sure of it,” Richard said. Damn, he should have remained silent. The very last thing he needed was to start his brother on one of his paths of madness. But the desire to repay Hugh for the journey to Merceham had been stronger than his common sense.
Hugh, Richard decided with finality, was much more tolerable when he was drunk. Fortunately for his people, that was his usual condition.
Hugh spat several times until apparently the effort was too much. Then he sat back and looked at the woman.
“I still think I should keep her,” he insisted.
“Nay. Your first instinct was to leave her to your dogs.”
Hugh dragged his gaze away from Richard’s burden and looked at his brother. “So it was. But I’ve changed my mind.”
“Too late.”
“’Tis my land,” Hugh insisted. “I say what happens here.”
“’Tis your land by my good graces,” Richard said.
“I earned this,” Hugh said, starting to shift uncomfortably in his chair. “I earned it—”
“Aye, by kissing Father’s sorry arse before his death and by my not wanting the burden of this hovel after-ward.”
“I don’t need you—”
“You do,” Richard interrupted. “You do indeed, or have you forgotten how life works in this England of ours?”
“I’ve forgotten nothing,” Hugh said, slumping down in his chair and scowling like a child. “And even if I had, I wouldn’t need your help in understanding it.”
“And I say you would, and you do,” Richard said tightly. “Let me remind you how these matters of hospitality proceed. When my liege Henry deigns to grace my hall with his presence, I bow and scrape before him, kiss his hands, offer him the finest of m
y larder, and see that he is served well at all times by pleasing wenches. And I do this, repeat this with me, Hugh, because he is my liege-lord and I am his vassal.”
Hugh was silent.
“Now,” Richard continued, “though you seem to have difficulty in remembering this, I am your liege-lord. All this”—he cast a sweeping glance about Hugh’s hall—“all this finery you enjoy is because of me. Remember, brother, that all you have, from your randiest mistress to your most insignificant cooking pot, comes from me. And I can take it away in less than a heartbeat.”
Hugh opened his mouth, but Richard gave one brief, sharp shake of his head. “Do not. There are several of my knights who would make finer vassals and care more skillfully for what is mine than you. And if you think I lack the stomach for such a deed, you are sadly mistaken.”
“Father would never forgive you for it,” Hugh muttered.
Richard lost what little patience he had left. Had he ever entertained the thought that he had family he wanted to see?
By the saints, he was a fool.
“Never make the mistake of mentioning him to me again,” Richard said coldly. “He’s dead and rotting in hell where he belongs and you’ll rot alongside him if you push me further this day. Send water for washing to my chamber and edible food if you can find it. And send up a cloak for the woman—one without vermin, if that is possible in this place,” he added as he strode away from the table.
“I saw her first,” Hugh insisted. “I saw the faery first and I’ll have her yet!”
Richard ignored him. He had little patience for Hugh or for his foolish ideas. Richard didn’t believe in faeries, or in the ghosts that supposedly haunted the forests between Merceham and Burwyck-on-the-Sea. He had enough to trouble himself over without worrying about things he could not see and did not believe existed. A pity Hugh could not say the same.
He felt Hugh’s gaze bore into his back as he walked to the stairs, but he ignored that as well. Let Hugh think what he would. Richard had no fear of his brother’s puny rages.