Knights of de Ware 02 - My Warrior (12 page)

“Never?” She found this difficult to believe, considering the number of dents his armor bore.

“Not a one.”

She imagined it would be easy to claim such a record if he always caught his enemies unaware the way he had at Blackhaugh. Then she remembered how he’d chided
her
for not following the rules of chivalry. Damn the man! Which was he—slaughterer or saint? Holden de Ware was becoming a frustrating series of contradictions.

“And what did the Wolf do with the knights who opposed him at Bowden?” she asked, sure his cruelty would be demonstrated now.

Gwen shrugged. “None opposed him.”

“No one questioned his authority?” she demanded. “They just let him take what he wanted?”

“Why, m’lady,” Gwen replied, “if he’s never lost a battle, only a fool would challenge him.” Then suddenly realizing what she’d said, she gasped and sputtered, “I-I mean…”

“He’s not yet conquered the Gavins,” Cambria stated, narrowing her eyes. She walked to the window of her prison, cocked open the shutter, and gazed out, imagining a time when she’d play the victor, not the captive.

Gwen, seeing that Cambria was preoccupied with her own thoughts, used the moment to mumble an excuse and escape the solar before her tongue could get her into yet another scrape.

“The ashes are warm,” Sir Stephen reported, crouching by the makeshift fire and rubbing the gray remains between his fingers.

Holden frowned. He stared at his man without hearing him. A paradox kept biting at his brain with the persistence of a flea. Cambria Gavin, murderess or no, was nonetheless the enemy, and she’d become as troublesome as a thistle beneath his saddle. How could what he felt toward her possibly be called desire? And yet didn’t it torment him like desire?

“My lord?” Stephen prompted, scowling back.

Holden blinked. Damn, he was having trouble concentrating on the task at hand. And by Stephen’s expression, his distraction was painfully obvious.

“Aye?” he replied.

It was that damned sprite. For the first time in his life, he’d met a foe he didn’t know how to fight. Never before had he met a woman he couldn’t handle. They were usually such pleasant creatures, docile, easy to please, grateful for his protection, even more grateful for his affections. What was wrong with this wench? Part of him wanted to throttle the bloodthirsty Scotswoman, and the other part…

The other part he swore he’d sate with the next willing maid he met. The Scots lass, after all, held no particular sway over him, no more than any other passing fair female. Why then could he not force her from his mind?

“The ashes, my lord,” Stephen said in measured irritation. “They’re still warm.”

Holden gritted his teeth and willed himself to focus on his duties. He’d be damned if he’d let that little elf bewitch him at this distance.

“How long do you think, Stephen?”

“No more than an hour.”

“We’re close then.”

“If it’s indeed the renegades we’re following,” Sir Henry piped in from atop his mount.

“Aye, it’s them,” Sir Myles replied as he knelt in the dust beside the fire. “One of them has orange hair, aye?”

“Aye,” Stephen replied.

Myles picked up a single coppery hair between his thumb and finger and held it up for all to see.

“You have the eye of a falcon, Myles,” Holden praised. “Good work. We’ll separate here. On foot, they can’t have gone far.” He mounted Ariel and patted her sleek neck. “Stephen, Henry, you come with me. Myles, Owen, and John, travel east. The rest of you head north. We’ll meet here again before nightfall. By then, God willing, one of us will have captured the renegades.”

Less than an hour later, a rustling in the bushes ahead startled Holden from his troubled thoughts, and the three steeds froze instantly in response to their masters’ silent commands. Slowly the men dismounted, the only noises the squeak of shifting saddles and the whisper of drawn blades. Stealthily they crept forward. Holden peered ahead toward the source of the sound, but then his keen ear heard a twig snap in the brush to the left behind them and another rustle of leaves from the right.

He only had time for one thought—they’d walked into a trap—before he felt the sharp agony of a blade piercing his flawed mail and sinking deep into his chest.

Cambria watched the day grow rapidly dreary and bleak. Showers were imminent, but the sky aged gracelessly into a vague gray presence that held onto the rain like a miser with his coins. With the knights collected within the keep, she had little desire to leave the security of Holden’s chamber. Consequently she grew as restless as the weather. When the clouds finally spilled their harvest, it was with a vengeance, and she found herself idly wondering if Holden and his men would find shelter in the storm.

She’d been pacing like a lion in a cage, desperately bored, so it was with great relief that she welcomed Gwen’s arrival with apple coffyns and wine shortly after midday.

The servant proved good enough company. Gleaning news from her was like taking the cork from a keg of ale. Never had she met a maid so eager to wag her tongue on any subject, and since Gwen had struck up a courtship with one of Holden’s men, she possessed a wealth of information. Thus Cambria discovered that Holden was one of three sons, the middle one. His older brother Duncan and he shared the same mother, but young Garth was the son of their father’s second marriage. Holden had no doubt joined Edward’s army in hopes of gaining land for himself. That was one of the only ways a younger son could win property and become a lord in his own right. Still, it chafed at her that one of the properties he’d laid claim to was Gavin land.

Cambria was then forced to listen to Gwen’s babbling about the lord’s infamous dalliances. According to all reports, there were few maids he hadn’t bedded, and the de Ware household was constantly enlarging to accommodate a number of baseborn green-eyed children whom his older brother Duncan insisted on fostering. Gwen spared no details concerning Holden’s alleged prowess and renowned virility, and by the time the supper hour had arrived, Cambria found herself completely irritated by the maid’s prattle. Then, as if that weren’t enough, as a final insult to Cambria’s sensibilities, Gwen coyly informed her that she had plans to meet her own lover, Holden’s gaoler, in the dungeon at midnight.

Cambria rolled her eyes. How anyone could focus so much attention on affairs of the heart, or more accurately, the loins, when there were battles to be waged and mouths to be fed, was beyond her grasp.

By nightfall, disgusted with Gwen’s chatter, weary of confinement, and unable to sleep, Cambria decided to venture forth. Perhaps she could find some tome from Bowden’s library in which to bury her nose. To her irritation, she was dogged by a pair of less than discreet squires that Lord Holden had no doubt set to shadow her every move.

Tiptoeing down the stairs to the great hall with an illuminated history of Rome, she was displeased to see the spot by the fire already occupied. The ominous Sir Guy half-reclined in a carved chair, his slippered feet up on a stool and his fingers laced peacefully over his large stomach.

Before she could creep back up the steps, he raised his black eyes. “I’m under oath to cause you no harm,” he grumbled.

No harm indeed, she thought dubiously. Her neck still bore the bruises from the big man’s fingers. “I can read elsewhere. I only need—“

“Read?” he interrupted with sudden interest.

“Aye.”

“What do you have there?” He nodded toward the book.

Wanting nothing more than to remove herself from the awkward situation, she told him. “It’s an account of Roman history.”

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You weren’t thinking to steal it?”

“Of course not,” she said tightly.

“Bring it here,” he commanded, and she thought that while he may be under oath not to harm her, that certainly didn’t keep him from ordering her about with his dark scowl and menacing presence. She stifled an oath and took a step toward him. He suddenly seemed larger than she remembered.

“How did you learn to read?” he growled.

“My father taught me.”

He smirked. “Swords
and
books, eh?” He sniffed and nodded again at the tome. “What does it say?”

She realized with astonishment that Sir Guy couldn’t read. And she could. The idea sent a heady wave of pride surging through her.

Well, she was bored, after all, and the great hall boasted the brightest fire by which to see. She supposed reading to the enemy was no great crime. She pulled a chair up next to his, wincing at its loud rasp across the stones. Settling onto the seat, she opened the book and pointed to the words as she began reciting them.

The Englishman listened with great fascination, and soon her awkwardness dissolved away. Indeed, in spite of his coarse appearance, Guy was like a little boy enraptured with a new toy. So engrossed did they become with the reading that the harsh scrape of the outer door made them both jump in surprise.

An icy wind blew in angrily through the portal, causing the fire to dance wildly. Cambria shot to her feet. There was a confusion of movement and shouting as several rain-soaked de Ware knights stumbled into the great hall.

One of the men-at-arms called out to whoever was at hand. “Heat water and bring linen!”

Then the wind slammed the door, blocking out the melancholy wailing of the storm.

Two knights struggled toward the fire, carrying something heavy on a big blanket hung between a pair of lances. Cambria gasped as she recognized the silent, pale form stretched out on the makeshift litter.

It was Holden, and there was blood everywhere.

Sir Guy turned on her with a furious glare, as if she were to blame for whatever had transpired.

One servant fetched a bucket of water, another brought cloth for bandages, a third roused the physician from his bed. Only after the litter was carefully lowered to the floor did Cambria notice the three men kneeling in cruel chains on the stones beyond the litter, held there by two of Holden’s knights. They were bloody and ragged, and it took Cambria a moment to realize who they were.

Robbie’s fiery red hair was dulled beneath a crust of filth, but his temper blazed as hot as ever in his angry blue eyes. Beside Robbie was his younger brother, Graham, fourteen summers old, looking suddenly much older in his pain and fear. The third was her older cousin Jamie. It was the first time she’d ever seen him without a smile on his face.

At Guy’s harsh command, the two knights dragged the prisoners to their feet and hauled them off to the dungeon. If her clansmen noticed her at all, they showed no sign of it, or perhaps terror blinded them.

Sick in her heart, she retreated from the horrible scene and stole up the stairs. Once returned to the haven of Lord Holden’s chamber, she wore a path through the rushes with her pacing.

Lord, what was she to do? Holden’s men were so ferociously protective of him. If the Blackhaugh deserters were responsible for the lord’s wounds, she feared they wouldn’t live long. Somehow, she had to help them. Aye, they’d deserted Blackhaugh and joined up with Scots rebels, but they were still Gavins. As her clansmen, she owed them her protection.

Her eyes flickered over the things in the room,
his
things—the tapestry of a boar hunt on the wall, ink and parchment on the table, a whalebone comb, a pair of deerskin boots—and a desperate plan formed in her mind.

She had sworn not to attempt escape while Lord Holden was away, and a vow made in the name of her clan was sacred. But he wasn’t away now, was he? So her oath no longer applied. Or so she told herself, though the thought of coming so close to breaking her word left a bitter taste at the back of her throat.

In a matter of moments, the men would bring the lord to his chamber. She used the time to hide, secreting herself behind the long tapestry.

When the knights finally carried in de Ware’s unconscious form, so concerned were they with the condition of their lord, they never noticed her. She seemed to be completely forgotten in the uproar.

She heard Holden’s muffled groan as the men eased his body onto the pallet. Strangely, it caused her heart to catch. She scarcely breathed as they unfastened and removed his mail. From the hushed conversation between de Ware’s men and the physician, she learned that they’d been waylaid by a half dozen rebels who had somehow been alerted to their whereabouts. There was talk of a spy. The lord had been wounded by a sword slipped beneath his ribs. One of the three Scots prisoners they’d managed to capture had done the deed. The blade had cut cleanly, and the flow of blood had been stanched, but he’d lost a lot of it, and the travel through the fierce storm had left him weak.

A servant kindled a fire in the fireplace, and everyone but the physician cleared the room to allow the wounded man rest. While the physician rummaged through his chest of cures, Cambria peeped out at Lord Holden.

His hair stuck in damp curls to his forehead, which was wan and troubled. His nose trembled with each shallow breath. The coppery smell of blood was heavy in the room as the physician bent to inspect the wound. Something deep within her was stirred with pity to see such a fit warrior injured, but of necessity, she choked the emotion down like gamey meat. His misfortune was, after all, her good luck.

She waited patiently while the surgeon practiced his arts on the lord, wincing as he stitched up the ugly wound, shutting her ears to Holden’s weak groans, sighing out a breath of relief when, near midnight, the physician finally settled down on his own makeshift pallet and began to snore at the foot of the bed.

Long before the fingers of dawn stretched over the horizon, Cambria stole from her hiding place. She quickly plaited her loose curls by the dim firelight. Then, casting a cursory glance at the still sleeping lord, she made a hushed exit from his chamber and crept like a mouse through the castle.

As quiet as shadow, she hovered outside the room Gwen shared with several other maidservants. The time seemed to plod by in plowman’s shoes as she awaited the hour of the maid’s tryst with her lover, the gaoler.