Suzanne Robinson (3 page)

This time she didn’t just gasp; she screamed with fury.
To her mortification, she heard a low, rough laugh. She had closed her eyes, but now she opened them and beheld her tormentor. The knight sat astride his furious war horse as easily as if it were a palfrey. He tossed back long locks the color of silver and pearls as he smiled down at her, and Juliana felt as if she wanted to arch her back and spit.

Juliana scowled into a gaze of green that rivaled the emerald of the length of samite that draped across his shoulders and disappeared into the folds of his black cloak. It was a gaze that exuded sensuality and explicit knowledge. And even through her anger she was startled at the face. It was the face of the legendary Arthur, or some young Viking warrior brought back to life—wide at the jawline, hollow cheeks, and a bold, straight nose. The face of a barbarian warrior king, and it was laughing at her.

“By my soul,” he said in a voice that was half seductive growl, half chuckle. “Why didn’t you stand aside? Have you no sense? No, I suppose not, or you wouldn’t be sitting in a mud puddle like a little black duck.”

Shivering with humiliation as well as the cold, Juliana felt herself nearly burst with rage. The knave was laughing again! Her hands curled into fists, and she felt them squeeze mud. Her eyes narrowed as she beheld the embodiment of armored male insolence. Suddenly she lunged to her feet, brought her hands together, gathering the mud, and hurled it at that pretty, smirking face. The gob of mud hit him in the chest and splattered over his face and hair. It was his turn to gasp and grimace. Teeth chattering, Juliana gave him a sylph’s smile.

“And so should all ungentle knights be served, Sir Mud Face.”

She laughed, but her merriment vanished when she saw the change in him. He didn’t swear or fume or rant
in impotence like her father. His smile of sensual corruption vanished, and his features chilled with the ice of ruthlessness and an utter lack of mercy. In silence he swung down off his horse and stalked toward her. Juliana gaped at him for a moment, then grabbed her skirts—and ran.

GRAY DE VALENCE SNAPPED A COMMAND TO his destrier and threw the reins over his saddle. Ire threatened to melt the palisade of ice that surrounded his emotions as he strode toward the black-haired witch who had dared to throw mud in his face. He mastered the urge to release the anger in an ungoverned torrent.

For years he’d longed for the day when he could confront those who had ruined him. He’d spent months planning his arrival at Wellesbrooke, where one of his betrayers lurked. He’d arranged every detail of his appearance, from his embossed-silver chain mail to the fittings on his saddle. And this insolent peasant girl had destroyed it all with her mud!

He felt the acidlike scald of anger in his lungs and chest and tamped it down. The girl had launched into a run, casting fearful glances at him as she struggled with muddy skirts and boots. Her rout and confusion made him smile. She stumbled out of the largest puddle only to encounter another filled with more mud. His long strides covered the distance between them before she could pull one foot out of the mess.

While she lifted a leg, she turned to glance over her shoulder at him. He was almost upon her and joyous at the prospect. She cried out and threw herself forward, but he grabbed her around the waist. He heard a clatter. Pots and jars spilled from the recesses of her garments as she twisted in his arms.

“Just God,” he said coolly. “I’ll lesson you in manners proper to a little peasant duck.”

He stared down into gray eyes as welcoming as the steel of a sword blade. When he felt the meager blows from her fists on his chest, the corner of his mouth curled. She must have seen his smirk, for she ceased her attack abruptly. Dark brows came down over those damascened eyes, and he found himself unable to look away from their silver depths. Then he noticed that his hands seemed full of yielding flesh, pillowed in a softness he hadn’t expected. His ire began to fade. Surrounding her with one arm, he drew her close and allowed one hand to slip beneath her cloak to run from her waist to her hip. He heard her suck in a breath.

“It’s too fine a day to quarrel with a maid of such beauty,” he murmured.

“I’m a little black duck, remember?” Then she kicked him, hard, in the knee.

Agony burst in his joint, and his leg nearly buckled. Cursing, he staggered and then got an arm under her legs. He lifted her, kicking and swearing, turned, and stepped into the puddle. His boot slipped; his injured knee gave way, and he pitched forward. The girl went flying, and he after her.

Dirty water flew in his face as he landed on his knees and collapsed onto something soft. Spewing water, he shook his head, slinging mud in every direction, while beneath him the girl gasped and squirmed.

“My chain mail,” he growled, all nonchalance and detachment abandoned.

“Get off me, you knave!”

With her pounding him in the chest and ribs, he managed to plant both hands in mud and lift himself. As he rose, her legs came free, and she brought a knee up between his thighs, nearly ramming him in the groin. He
cried out as her knee drove into his inner thigh. To protect himself, he dropped his whole weight down on her, into the quagmire of water and mud. He fastened a hand around her neck and pushed her head underwater, then let her up. She spewed water at him.

“Oh, plague-ridden sodding caitiff!”

He shoved her underwater again with a chuckle. “Curb your impertinent tongue. I’ve never encountered so errant a maid.” She bobbed out of the water and writhed beneath him, nudging his sex. “Nor one who invited me to correct her so lewdly.”

She went still at this last comment and gave him a look of such bewilderment that all his assumptions were overthrown. No woman of experience gaped at a man with such confusion. Suddenly, he was forced to look at the girl anew. Lustrous skin (beneath the mud), lips the color of wild roses, strong, strong arms and legs that could wrap around a man’s back—and that stare of complete incomprehension. He’d mistaken insolence for experience.

“My error,” he murmured. “You’re untouched, or were until I touched you.”

“What?”

More confusion. He smiled as he hadn’t since Saladin had thrown him into a cell with three lusty female slaves.

“Damascened eyes,” he whispered. “I’ve never seen the like.”

She was still struggling with his meaning as he lowered his mouth to hers. Her lips were cold, but lush and pliant, and her mouth was hot. He felt rather than heard her cry. A shiver passed through her body and spoke to him of a virgin’s terror. He had known terror and helplessness; he couldn’t endure it in her. He lifted his mouth, and then his body.

Shifting to the side, he allowed her to get to her knees.
Whimpering, she struggled to rise, but he was sitting on her cloak and skirt. She tugged at them with both hands.

“Thunder of God! Get off, you lewd devil, or I’ll put my boot in that licentious archangel’s face of yours.”

“Ah, the quivering virgin has recovered herself,” he said as he lifted his hip to free her.

She yanked her garments free, but with such force that she toppled into the mud again. He threw back his head and laughed a deep, full laugh such as he hadn’t uttered in years. Now she was so furious her curses had disintegrated into wordless sputters. She picked herself up, scrambled out of the puddle, and turned on him. Too late he saw the glob of mud in her hand. She threw it, and it hit him square on the nose.

It was his turn to indulge in wordless imprecations, and by the time he’d wiped his face, she had put two fingers in her mouth and was whistling. He heard three sharp bursts as he stood. A mare appeared at her side, and she swung herself up into the saddle. Kicking the horse, the girl deliberately sent the animal into the puddle. Great splatters of water and mud hit him.

He lunged at her. “Aaaahhrgh!”

His hand grabbed a small, muscled leg, but slipped as the mare lunged past him. He tried to hang on too long, overbalanced, and plunged to the ground on his hands and knees. He glared after the girl, thwarted and furious about it. She looked back at him as she cantered down the track, laughing.

Laughing! A woman with wild-rose lips and damascened eyes was laughing at him. He sprang to his feet and ran after her, but she vanished around a bend in the path before he could reach her. He stopped, chest heaving, fists clenched, and snarled. Then he looked down at himself.

His surcoat, chain mail, boots, every bit of him was
covered with mud. He glanced at his destrier, Saracen. The animal was ignoring him, calmly munching on new grass at the side of the track. Saracen was half covered in mud and would have to be groomed.

Just God. He’d ridden a little ahead of his men to put his thoughts in order before they got to Wellesbrooke, and now he’d be delayed even more. He was to meet his cousin Arthur and the rest of his company by the Clare. When they saw him, they wouldn’t rest until they got the story of the mishap from him. What was he going to say—that a peasant maid had tossed him in a mud puddle?

“Unruly witch,” he muttered.

He wiped his face and started trudging toward Saracen. Then he heard his name called. It was Arthur, and he heard Lucien as well. He was late and they’d come looking for him. Mounting Saracen, he turned the destrier toward the stream, but before he could go far, his young cousin, Arthur Strange, trotted out of the woods to meet him. He was wide of shoulder like Gray, quiet, and often wore a lost expression gained from having Edmund Strange for an older brother. Unlike Gray, he possessed hair that was more blond than silver. Arthur pulled up, stared, then covered his mouth.

Another young man joined him—Lucien, who was French. Gray scowled and stabbed glances at the newcomer. He was older than Arthur and thus had more mastery. His features settled into frozen gravity. He walked his destrier over to Gray. Lean, with hair of deep rich brown and eyes the blue-gray color of a rain-filled cloud. His irreverence and impiety often shocked more staid English knights.

“Messire.”
Lucien’s solemn expression didn’t waver, nor did the dancing merriment in his eyes.
“Pauvre messire
. What has happened? Did you purpose to take a mud
bath to make yourself more beauteous than you already are for this momentous tournament? I assure you.
Ce n’est pas nécessaire. Tu es de Valence le Beau.”

“Lucien, go to the devil.”

“Perhaps first,
messire
, we should go to the stream and watch you bathe.”

Having lost almost her entire supply of herbs, Juliana had returned home early. She’d created a stir along the way, with villagers and travelers alike staring at her mud-caked self. Her remedy had been to fix her gaze straight ahead and glower into the distance. Back at Wellesbrooke her parents had been in the midst of greeting the Earl of Uvedale, legal guardian of Yolande. Father had shot her a look of such outrage that she’d ducked into the crowds traversing the bailey until the guest had been conducted into the New Hall.

She had stolen back into the keep and up to her room. There she gave instructions that more agrimony be delivered to Jacoba’s mother at Vyne Hill. Then she bathed, using twice the usual amount of water to get rid of all the mud. Now she was ignoring Alice’s questions as she had been since setting out on the return journey.

“Beg pardon, mistress,” the maid said as she helped Juliana into another old kirtle, undertunic, and overgown. “You know how awful I am at riding. But I’ll make it right, I will. You’ll see. I’ll have them herbs potted again by tomorrow. But how in God’s name did you come to fall in the mud like that?”

Juliana was combing her wet hair. She was still so furious she expected steam to come out her ears. “I met a beast. A great, arrogant Viking beast riding on a black monster.”

Alice, whose imagination was peopled with ghosts, unicorns,
griffins, and other fantastic creatures, widened her eyes.

“A beast? What manner of beast?”

Dropping her comb, Juliana began to tie the side lacings of her overgown. “Another of those foul, prideful rooster knights come to tournament, no doubt. The knave is probably one of those younger sons who go from one to the other unseating their betters, taking their horses and armor and holding them for ransom. Bloated with conceit, he was.” Her eyes narrowed as she remembered him straddling her and laughing down at her. “But I have no doubt he’ll meet his match at Wellesbrooke.”

Alice stared at her mistress for a moment, then began to shake her head vigorously. “Oh, no. Oh, no, mistress. Please, not this time. There are too many knights and barons about. Think of the risk.”

Juliana spared not a glance at the maid as she walked to an alcove in which was set a window with a pointed arch. The shutters were open to let in sunlight. She knelt on a bench and leaned out the window to gaze over the sparkling blue of the river Clare, past a patchwork of fields to the forest beyond them. Dozens of knight’s tents had been erected between the castle and palisade at the edge of the promontory. To her right the sun was sinking toward the hills. She drummed her fingers on the windowsill, deep in thought.