A Knight's Temptation (26 page)

The stew’s fragrant aroma drew Aldwin to the table. He sat on the opposite bench, served himself a portion, and scooped up a broth-laden spoonful of cabbage and turnips.

Leona met his gaze. “Why are you so determined to keep me captive and deliver me to de Lanceau?”

He chewed his mouthful. “He ordered me to find the pendant and bring it to him.”

She leaned her spoon against the side of her bowl. “Aye, but—”

“I obey my lord’s demands.”

“He did not order you to take me hostage.”

Aldwin shrugged. “After what you told me about the baron and Veronique’s dealings at Pryerston, I am even more convinced de Lanceau must hear what you know.”

She seemed about to challenge his words, but pressed her lips together. A memory of her soft mouth against his flashed into his mind, and, looking down at his stew, he picked through the chunks of vegetables.

“You want to succeed in this mission because of your duty to de Lanceau,” she said. “’Tis the only reason?”

Not exactly
. “Do I need another?” He pushed more of the savory stew into his mouth.

She wiped her bottom lip with her thumb. “I guess not. I cannot help wondering, though, if there is more.”

“I swore fealty to de Lanceau for the rest of my life. Loyalty, chivalry, and honor are very important to me.”

“As to all knights. However—”

He swallowed, readying to correct her.

His expression must have alerted her, for her eyes widened. She glanced under the table at his boots. “No spurs.”

“No spurs,” he agreed.

“I thought—God’s teeth! You are not a knight.”

“Yet I will be, soon.”

Her expression turned cool. “After you deliver the lost jewel to your lord, you mean? When you return a hero, fit for a glorious
chanson
praising your victory?”

Aldwin’s hand clenched so tightly on the spoon, it dug into his palm. “Aye. Then I hope to have earned knighthood.”

Anger tightened her posture. “You are the most self-centered, arrogant—”

“Leona!”

“Let me go.” Her voice rose. “How dare you drag me into your selfish ambitions when my sire needs my help?”

She stood, the bench moving back with a screech. Harsh gasps broke from her lips as she grabbed the pendant’s chain, drew it over her head, and set the jewel on the table. “Take it. Let. Me. Go.”

He set down his spoon and rose. “I cannot.”

“Liar! How can you—”

“I cannot protect you, if you are gone from my sight.”

Her ranting abruptly stopped. “
Protect
me?” She threw out her hands. “I do not want your help! I can—”

“—outwit the baron and Veronique on your own? Do not be stupid. You would be dead in less than a day. So would your father.” If Lord Ransley wasn’t dead by their hands already. He wouldn’t worry Leona, however, by voicing his suspicions.

Her eyes looked moist. “Now I am stupid? For wanting to save my sire and the keep I call home?”

Balling his hands into fists, Aldwin sighed. This discussion had no hope of being easily resolved. “I know you are upset, Leona, but you will not change my mind. I will not let you go.”
Because, Lioness, the thought of losing you rips me apart inside
.

He blinked, stunned by the thought. Then he gestured to the table.

“Please. Finish your stew.”

“I no longer want it.” Her gaze slid past him to the cottage door. Was she thinking of running away? If not now, when he was asleep?

He turned on his heel, crossed to his saddlebag, and drew out the rope.

“Nay!” She backed toward the kitchen.

Halting near the table, he extended a hand. “Give me your right wrist.”

Rage glittered in her eyes. “You are
not
—”

He lunged, caught her wrist, and looped the rope around it.

Leona fought him.

“I am sorry,” he repeated, more gently.

She pulled hard, almost whipping the rope from his grasp. When he drew her wrist back, his stitches pinched. If he’d torn any, he’d have to fix them on his own; she wouldn’t help him now.

“I sewed your side,” she said in a brittle whisper. “I cared for you.”

Cared
. A word of several meanings, but he doubted she meant any that denoted tenderness. “That was kind and noble of you.”

“And yet you tie me.”

Aldwin tightened the knot before he raised his gaze to hers. Her anguished stare hit him like a hard slap. “I am tired, Leona.” He sounded weary even to his own ears. “My side aches. I need to sleep without worrying you might slip out the door. I cannot trust you; therefore, you must be tied.”

“You do not want to trust me.” She glowered. “Why should you respect me in that way? I am no more to you than a means to win knighthood.”

Her words cut deep. Self-loathing flared inside him. Aye, he did want de Lanceau’s commendation and the honor of being dubbed a knight. He’d wanted such for years, not just to advance his military career, but to make up for the disgrace he’d brought upon his respected parents; having them accept him back into the castle where he’d grown up, with pride, was important to him.

But Leona wasn’t merely a means to fulfill his ambitions.

How could she believe she meant naught to him? Had she been oblivious to his arousal and impulsive kiss? Had she not sensed, when their lips had touched, what he’d revealed to her without words?

Intriguing thoughts, which made him wonder exactly how much experience she’d had with men apart from her brother.

“Leona,” he said carefully, “you are not . . . I mean—”

Judging by her expression, she was too upset to listen. He’d only look a fool, stumbling over his words while he tried to convince her he cared about her safety, and that the thought of her running off into the night, alone, on the outskirts of a village harboring traitorous mercenaries, made his innards clench with dread.

He gestured to the pallets by the cupboard. “Come.”

Resentment darkened her gaze. Then, as though the fight had drained out of her, she walked forward.

He led her to the pallet closest to the cupboard. “I will leave you enough rope to turn over while you sleep.”

Glancing at the other pallets, she said, “Where will you sleep? Not beside me.”

Stooping but keeping his body turned so as to keep watch on her, Aldwin wound the rope around the cupboard’s leg several times and tied a knot. “I will take some of the blankets and lie by the fire.”

He stood. She didn’t slump to the bed, lower the defiant tilt of her chin, or step back to put more distance between them, although their bodies almost touched. Standing close—near enough to inhale her sweetish scent—he saw moisture along her lower lashes.

Seeing those tears . . . His gut twisted. “Leona—”

She flicked her bound wrist, making the rope snap like a whip. Then, without a word, she sat on the pallet, drew over a blanket, and lay down with her back facing him.

***

Leona waited for Aldwin to gather his blankets and stride away, then rolled onto her other side to stare at the cupboard’s turned legs. Her free hand curled under her head in a makeshift pillow. The straw-filled pallet, while lumpy, was comfortable enough.

In Aldwin’s wretched opinion, he might have given her enough lead, but, if she lay on her other side, the rope snaked across her waist and belly. ’Twas enough pressure to remind her, with each breath, that she was fettered.

She scowled at the rope twisting like a dark vine around the cupboard’s leg and wondered, of all things, if Aldwin’s stitches were intact. She’d heard his pained gasp when he’d straightened away from the pallets, and his relieved grunt moments ago when he’d dropped the bedding. Arrogant turd. If he’d broken his stitches, he had only himself to blame. But ’twould be a shame when the wound had stitched so well.

A shame, too, that their earlier understanding had turned to animosity. When she’d accused him of seeing her merely as a means to knighthood, he’d looked wounded. How vividly she remembered the hurt in his eyes, for it had filled her with an anguish unlike any she’d felt before.

She smothered a yawn with the edge of her blanket. How could he cause her such anxiety? What did that nagging angst inside her mean?

The scuffle of boots reached her, followed by rustling cloth. He was either organizing his bed or undressing. She bit her lip against the urge to see for herself. She did
not
care.

Reaching out a finger, Leona traced the knot. She dug in her nail, hoping to find a spot where the binding wasn’t as tight. Naught.

How tempted she was to jump to her feet, shove against the cupboard, and send it crashing to the floor, while she yanked the rope from the leg. But she’d have to get past Aldwin. He’d easily catch her and tie her up again, which meant she’d be right back in this position.

Fatigue and despair threatened to bring her to tears. Crying would solve naught tonight. Neither would fretting about her father and the others at Pryerston Keep who meant so much to her.

Smothering another yawn, she tried not to let her thoughts return to Aldwin. She shut her eyes, tugged the blanket up around her shoulders, and listened to the crackle of the dwindling fire . . .

She stood bound to a tree, her back pressed against the bark and her hands tied behind the trunk. Aldwin stood before her. Twisting her wrists, she jerked her head to the side as he leaned down to take her mouth in a kiss.

“Nay!” She struggled, trying to evade him.

Aldwin’s lips brushed hers in a coaxing kiss.

Pleasure. Oh, what pleasure.

She tore her mouth away. “Nay.”

“Aye, Leona,” he whispered against her cheek. “You want my kiss. Admit that you do.”

“Nay,” she panted, hating the tears stinging her eyes. “Untie me. Let me go.”

He laughed while his hand skimmed down her cheek. She tried to fight the yearning cresting inside her, but her body arched toward his touch, needing more.

Bzzz.

“Bees,” she gasped, glancing about to locate them. Her legs shook. She couldn’t bear to be stung again. The agony. The horrible, painful swelling. Sickly sweat broke over her body. Fear sharpened each of her breaths.

“Bees!” she repeated.

Aldwin didn’t seem to hear her. His fingers slipped down her jaw, along her throat, in tempting caresses that made her limbs weak.

Bzzz.

Leona’s eyelids opened. As her sleepy mind focused, she realized the
thud-thud
in her ears was the sound of her hammering pulse.

She blinked, her muzzy gaze coming into focus. Light slipped over the dirt floor underneath the cupboard. Somehow she’d slept through the night. She’d woken from a nightmare about bees.

A shudder rippled through her and she wiped her damp brow.

Bzzz
.

Panic jarred her fully awake. She pushed up to sitting, reminded, when the rope scratched her skin, that she was still tied to the cupboard. Trapped, as she’d been years ago, the day she almost died.

Fear raced through her. Had the buzzing come from inside the cottage? Or had her mind, still caught up in the nightmare, tricked her?

Sitting very still, she listened, her free hand twisting into the blankets that had tumbled to her waist. She couldn’t remember covering herself with a second blanket. Aldwin must have draped it over her in the night. How thoughtful of him.

She couldn’t think about that now. Her frantic gaze searched the sun-streaked cottage before falling to the blankets lying by the cold fire; the top blanket was rumpled as though cast aside when Aldwin rose.

Where was he? Somewhere in the cottage?

“Aldwin?”

As she spoke, she saw the cottage door stood slightly ajar—

Bzzz
.

Oh, God
. Her head swiveled. Her breath rattling in her throat, she stared at the kitchen shutters. A small, dark shape moved in the bottom corner. It ambled in a purposeful line along the window ledge.

A bee.

Oh, God, a bee!

It must have come in through the open door, which Aldwin hadn’t closed behind him.

She fought a shriek burning for release.
Calm yourself, Leona. You haven’t been stung since that day years ago; you won’t be hurt now. ’Twill be all right
.

Aye. The width of a cottage separated her and the insect. If she sat very still, the bee would find its way out between the shutters and fly away.

’Twill be all right
.

Bzzz-zzzz
.

The droning grew louder. Angrier. Unable to wrench her gaze away, she watched the bee try to climb onto the right shutter. It fell back to the ledge.

Bzzz
—

The bee launched itself away from the window and soared in a wide arc toward the middle of the cottage.

Leona screamed.

Chapter Sixteen

Standing in the sun-drenched space between the cottage and the small barn, Aldwin inhaled a breath of clean morning air. Two of the three farmers Neale had hired to keep watch during the night walked away down the road, counting the silver Aldwin had just paid them. He’d sent the third man to Neale’s home, as previously arranged, to tell the family Aldwin would like a meal and fresh water sent to the cottage.

Smothering a groan, he rolled his shoulders, loosening muscles in his back that ached from sleeping in an unfamiliar position to keep pressure off of his stitches. Aye, that was the reason he’d stayed on his left side, his head propped up by his saddlebag and rolled blankets—not just to watch over Leona, who looked even more beautiful as she slumbered.

“Leona,” he murmured, his thoughts turning to moments ago, when he’d looked down at her curled beneath her bedding, sound asleep. Her brow had pursed with a frown. Had she been challenging him in a dream? How lovely she was, with her features relaxed in slumber. Wisps of hair trailed over her forehead, down her smooth cheek, past her slightly parted lips. Did she have more freckles than days ago, or was he imagining such?