The Bride Hunt (14 page)

Isabel had never seen Anvrai dance, and he spoke bluntly, if at all. Yet the mere sight of that tall, disfigured knight made Isabel’s heart leap. ’Twas the differences between them that intrigued and attracted her. He was a fierce warrior, and his harsh reaction to her appearance on his battlefield was probably well deserved. It had been rash and dangerous to go out there. Belatedly, she realized that her actions had distracted him, might even have caused him to err in battle.

Isabel punched the dough and lamented her impulsive behavior. Surely no heroine in any tale would have acted thus. She should apologize for jeopardizing the outcome of the battle.

Taking Tillie’s instructions, she made two loaves, then plucked the turkey Roger had caught, gutted it, and put it on the spit. She did not relish the task of skinning the hare, but she listened to Tillie’s description of the process anyway, then took the knife and went
outside to do the work. She could not stand to be idle.

Dressing the hare was more difficult than Isabel anticipated, but she managed it somehow and put the meat in a pot with water and vegetables, then hung it over the fire.

She took Belle from her mother, bouncing her gently. “You should sleep now, Tillie.” The bairn belched and fell asleep, and Isabel helped an exhausted Tillie into the bed. She placed the bairn in the crook of Tillie’s arm and went outside.

Not yet ready to face Anvrai’s justified anger, Isabel went in search of Roger and found him a short distance away, digging a hole and muttering under his breath. When she realized he was digging a grave for the Scots, a wave of confusion came over her. The wound in his arm had saturated the bandage with blood, yet he worked on, ignoring it. This was so unlike him…

“Roger, your wound—”

“Is likely to kill me before I get this grave dug.”

“Let me take a turn with the shovel. You can go back to the cottage for a new cloth to bind it.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “And let that bastard catch you performing
my
task? No.”

“Then I’ll get a new bandage and bring it back to you.”

“Bring a cool drink, too. ’Tis damnably hot in this sun.”

He muttered under his breath, and Isabel could only imagine the agony he felt in his arm. Yet his task was necessary. His arduous labor in spite of the wound in his arm made Isabel consider how vulnerable they were. If the three men who’d come to visit Cormac were missed, someone might come after them. ’Twas imperative they get away as soon as possible. They had two days at most, two days to get a head start.

She returned to the cottage and was relieved to see Tillie and Belle still sleeping soundly. The day’s activities had been too strenuous for Tillie, and she needed to rest, especially if their journey was to begin upon the morrow.

Gathering a length of cloth to bandage Roger’s arm, she picked up the bucket and went down to the brook for freshwater. Though he said not a word of thanks, Isabel was certain Roger was grateful for her efforts in binding his wound and bringing him refreshment, and she decided to brave an encounter with Sir Anvrai. Surely he was in need of refreshment, too, and he would accept her gesture as an offer of peace between them.

Leaving Roger to his task, she carried the water to the shed. When Anvrai turned, her breath caught in her throat. He wore the eye patch she’d made.

T
he patch transformed his face, covering the worst of his scars. Now, instead of being overwhelmed by the horrible eye socket, his good eye and its clear green color, surrounded by thick, russet lashes, was prominent. His cheekbones were high and appealing, his nose straight and strong, and his jaw sharp and masculine. Isabel looked at his lips and could not help but remember their taste and texture.

“Y-you’re wearing it.”

A muscle in his jaw jumped. “I have no desire to offend your good taste, my lady.”

“You—” She clenched her own jaw. “Do what you will, Sir Anvrai.”

He was insufferable. Isabel left the water with him and returned to the cottage, busying herself with household tasks and preparations for their departure. There were foodstuffs to pack as well as the extra clothes she’d found. She told herself ’twas not necessary to go back to the shed to look for other useful items to take with them, but in spite of herself, she was intrigued by Anvrai’s transformation. She had to go back and see if she’d imagined the change in his countenance. He had not changed his attitude. Even with his scars covered, Isabel knew he still felt responsible for his family’s demise and was averse to taking responsibility for the safety of their party. It seemed he shepherded them only out of necessity.

The bodies were gone from the clearing when Isabel returned to the shed. She found the cart standing upright on the ground and the tools nearby, but Anvrai was not there. Too restless to return to the cottage, she walked in Roger’s direction and saw that Anvrai was there, wielding the shovel while Roger stood watching. The bodies lay in a row nearby.

“Go back to the cottage,” Anvrai said to her. “Find a needle and thread for Roger’s arm.”

“You will sew it?”

“No,
you
will.”

“I? But I’ve never…” She took a deep breath
and straightened her back. “Aye,” she said, resolute. “I can do it.” She could do anything necessary to survive this misadventure, and she would show no squeamishness to Anvrai. He might be their reluctant guardian, but Isabel was fully capable of doing what was needed to survive.

Anvrai pulled his tunic over his head, tossed it upon the ground, and resumed digging, half-naked. Isabel whirled away and returned to the cottage. The sight of his broad, muscular back and transformed face did her no good. ’Twas too unsettling.

Tillie continued to sleep, so Isabel turned the meat on the spit and stirred the pot. She would not think of the muscles Anvrai displayed so brazenly or the quickening she felt in the most private, sensitive parts of her body. Her reaction to him was an aberration. Far better to consider how she was going to sew Roger’s wound.

She looked askance at the sewing basket sitting on the floor beside the bed. The very idea of sewing Roger’s arm made her queasy, but she would manage it somehow. When she thought of all Tillie had endured, putting a few stitches through Roger’s skin seemed a minimal inconvenience.

’Twas nearly dark when Roger came inside. His mood was edgy and peevish. “I’ll be glad
to see the last of that overbearing savage,” he muttered. “He’s hardly better than a damnable Scot.”

Isabel held her tongue. She might be annoyed with Anvrai, but there was no denying all he had done for them. She could only think Roger’s bad temper had to be due to the terrible gash in his arm. She could not imagine the pain he’d endured while digging the grave.

“Look,” he said, holding out his injured arm with its blood-soaked bandage. “’Tis still bleeding.”

His bruises had faded, as had the lump upon his head. His eyes, sharply blue, were beautiful, as were all his features, as comely as those of a young girl. When Isabel looked at him, she felt no pulsing awareness of him, no quickening of her heartbeat or fever of her blood.

She pulled the bandage from Roger’s arm and wondered how she could have been so mistaken about him. He was one of her father’s favored choices as her spouse. Had Henri Louvet understood the shallowness of Roger’s worth, or had the value of his London estate blinded her father the way his handsome face and demeanor had dazzled her?

They’d all come so close to death. ’Twas only Anvrai’s prowess that had stood between them and a gruesome end in Cormac’s yard.

Isabel turned to Roger, unsure how to begin the sewing, but Anvrai did not come in to give instruction. Steadying her hands, she reminded herself she’d done every possible kind of stitching…save this. Surely it could not be so different.

She bid Roger sit on the chair while she crouched before him. She dabbed blood from the gash, took a shuddering breath, and began.

As Anvrai repaired the wheel, he saw that the axle was also weak. He welcomed the reason for staying out in the shed, working on it past dark. He hoped the others would eat supper and go to sleep before he returned to the cottage. The less he saw of Isabel, the better. Her allegiance to Roger rankled more than it should, reminding him that he needed to keep his distance from her.

As darkness fell, Anvrai continued to work by the light of a lamp. He finished building a new axle and attached the wheels. When he was satisfied with his work, he chose the tools he planned to take when they left on the morrow, placed them in a leather pouch, and put them in the back of the cart.

The cart was sturdy enough to carry Tillie as well as Isabel, but he had concerns about staying on the path. Recent experience told him it
was a well-traveled thoroughfare, and he had no interest in meeting any other travelers.

The door to the shed opened, and Isabel entered, carrying a large bowl of pottage and a thick slice of bread. “You did not come in to sup with us,” she said. Her demeanor was demure and shy, reminiscent of every other lady who’d ever looked upon his ugly countenance.

Anvrai did not like it. Isabel seemed accustomed to the sight of his face. And now he wore the patch that covered the worst of his scars. She should find him less offensive. Likely the tale he’d told her had repulsed her even more than his face.

His hands ached to touch her. The tunic she wore over her ragged chemise would come off easily, giving him access to her soft skin, but he reminded himself he had no rights, and she had no business coming out to him.

She looked away from him, her gaze alighting upon the cart. “’Tis ready,” she said. Her voice was soft, her words tentative.

“Aye.” He took the bowl she offered. “We’ll leave in the morn.”

“’Tis a pleasant setting here at the cottage…or might have been, were we not in Scotland. I—”

“Isabel, why are you here?”

She ran her hand over the edge of the cart. “I brought your supper.”

But it was more than that. Sewing Roger’s wound had been horrible, and all Isabel could think of was how Anvrai would have held up under the stitching. Roger had behaved like a child.

Anvrai was a man.

He was the man who’d protected all of them that afternoon with his quick thinking and lethal sword. There was a potency about him that drew her like a butterfly to nectar. They’d come so close to death that day, and countless times since being taken from Kettwyck. She dreaded to think what might happen to them upon the morrow, or the day after. She did not like to think what would happen if their welfare rested in Roger’s hands.

She stepped well inside the shed and set Anvrai’s bowl on the workbench. ’Twas dark inside but for the light of one lamp.

“Isabel.”

“I am sorry for coming into the yard today,” she said, keeping her eyes downcast. “’Twas wrong of me to ignore your command. I hope you will not remain angry with me.”

She looked up at him, at the face that seemed so unfamiliar now. The anger was gone, but there was an intensity of his expression that took her breath away.

He took a step toward her, and when he raised a hand to the hair that framed her face, a shiver ran through her. She closed her eyes and leaned toward him.

“You should not have come here,” he said, but he did not release the lock of her hair. He let the curl wrap ’round his finger.

His light touch shimmered through her, and she wanted more. She wanted his hands on her shoulders, on her breasts and legs. She yearned for his mouth to touch hers and his tongue to slip between her lips.

“E-everyone is asleep,” she said, shocked by the direction of her thoughts. “Tillie and Belle…Roger.”

He said naught.

’Twas foolish to have come to the shed. Roger was her future, not Anvrai.

“We were fortunate today,” she whispered. “Will our luck hold, Anvrai? Will we survive the morrow and sleep upon English soil at day’s end?”

Questions of their fate lay heavily upon her…not her death, because she’d come so close so many times already. ’Twas irrational, but she was afraid of dying without feeling Anvrai’s arms ’round her once more.

She raised herself up onto her toes, and he leaned down, sliding his hands across her
shoulders, pulling her close. He looked at her face, his gaze moving from her eyes to her nose, then to her mouth.

Heat pooled in the center of her body, and when Anvrai lowered his head to claim her lips, the heat inside unfurled, tightening the tips of her breasts, tingling low in her belly and between her legs. She felt a desire to eliminate all space between them and become one.

’Twas reckless, but Isabel dug her fingertips into his arms and let her eyes drift closed. He was warm and hard under her hands, his scent thoroughly male, and when he closed the distance between them by pulling her against him, she felt the heavy thud of his heart against her breast. She opened her mouth to him, relishing the new rush of sensations when his tongue touched hers. She made a small sound, and he broke their kiss, lifting her into his arms.

He carried her deep inside the shed and lowered her onto the straw-strewn floor. Bending down to her, he took possession of her lips once again. Isabel arched her back, her body tense and aching for more, drowning in desire.

His mouth glided over hers, nipping and tasting. He pulled her lower lip into his mouth and sucked, and Isabel felt the breath leave her body. She was weightless, floating in a sea of sensation.

She slid her fingers into the hair at Anvrai’s nape and pulled him closer. He moved slightly, pushing her legs apart with his knee, touching her breast with one hand. His fingers moved slowly and deliberately, and Isabel gasped when his lips left her mouth to press nibbling kisses down her throat. He loosened the laces of the battered tunic she wore over her chemise, then pushed it aside and sucked her nipple deep into his mouth.

Shards of fire shot through her, urging her to press her legs together, driving her toward some primitive relief. But Anvrai raised his head, leaving her pulsing and wanting.

He kissed her shoulder and slid the strap of her ragged chemise down until she was bared to the waist. He unlaced the fur tunic she’d made for him, then returned to her, taking her hand and guiding it to his chest. Isabel speared her fingers through the dense pelt of hair and found his nipples. She fondled and teased them, and learned that her touch pleased him.

And she wanted more.

He raised the tattered hem of her skirt to her waist, baring her entirely, then fit himself into the crook of her legs. His body moved against her in a rhythm that drove her nearly to madness. She wanted to feel him against her, not
just the rough wool of his braies, but his hard male flesh.

His weight suddenly shifted off her, and Isabel reached for him. “Please,” she cried softly.

He touched the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. Isabel’s breath caught when his hand moved higher, caressing her intimately, skillfully drawing out her pleasure.

She felt as if her body would burst into flames when he touched his lips to her belly. The rough texture of his unshaven whiskers rasped across her tender flesh as he moved his head, kissing, nipping, sliding down, moving ever lower until she felt his breath upon her most sensitive parts.

Isabel gasped and started to protest, but when his tongue stroked her, then dipped into her, pure sensation lifted her off the ground and pulsed through her in waves of quivering delight. He made a low growl and slid his hands under her hips, his sounds of arousal melting her, making her boneless. One flick of Anvrai’s tongue, and all the nerves in her body gathered tightly and pulsed in waves of exquisite pleasure.

When the spasms ceased, she managed to move, rolling to her side to face Anvrai. She pressed her mouth to his chest, pulling his tu
nic from his bare skin. She kissed the nipples she’d seen earlier in the day and slid her hand under the belt of his braies, touching the bare length of him.

He groaned. “Isabel, you must not.”

“Pray, do not tell me to stop.”

She felt his hand then, opening his belt, freeing himself to her touch. “Will you put this inside me?” she asked. When he hesitated, she rose up and straddled him. “Make love to me, Anvrai.”

“Isabel, I—”

“By midday tomorrow, we may be dead,” she said, pressing her feminine core against his hard, male body, seeking fulfillment without knowing how to accomplish it. “Please…”

The muscles of his jaw clenched, but he pulled her down to him, smothering her with his kiss, shoving his tongue into her mouth. He moved suddenly, levering her beneath him, spreading her legs with his thighs.

Positioning his taut male flesh against her soft, welcoming body, he would have thrust into her, but he took a deep shuddering breath instead.

Desire surged through her again, violent and passionate. She needed more. “
Now
, Anvrai!”

He entered her gently, cautiously, intensifying Isabel’s yearning for him. She lifted her
hips, and he surged into her as though unable to stop himself.

He held still then, and she could see the strain on his features. “Isabel.” His voice was a harsh rasp, but he raised himself on one hand and touched her face tenderly with the other. “Did I hurt you?”

Anvrai forced himself to stay still against the flood of sensation, to wait until Isabel adjusted to him. “N-no,” she replied shakily. “It does not hurt.”

Yet he’d broken through her maidenhead. ’Twas madness.