The Mermaid's Knight (3 page)

“God’s blood, she’s crying.” The baron gave a weary sigh and ran a hand down his face, rubbing at the beard stubble that covered his chin. “Leave us alone, Christophe.” Leah stiffened. Warning bells rang in her mind, and she eyed the man seated before her as the squire hastily exited the small tent.

“Well now,” the man rumbled, tilting his head to regard her. “Since we’re alone now, do you still wish to continue with this pretense?” His voice was a low, smooth masculine bass.

She lifted her chin and gave him a haughty stare, tapping her throat once to maintain her story.

“Still holding onto that, eh? Suit yourself, if that’s how you want to be. Like it or not, though, you’re staying with me until I hear you speak.” Leah’s eyes widened and she clutched the fabric tighter around her. She pointed at the tent and raised an eyebrow. Then she pointed at the ground, as if to question,
here
?

He seemed to understand her well enough. Scratching at the sweaty, padded shirt, he yanked it over his head. A bare, tanned chest rose in front of her, and Leah blushed, trying not to stare, which proved to be more difficult than she’d imagined. For one, he was gorgeous. A light sprinkle of dark chest hair covered his chest, narrowing down to a not-so-subtle line down his middle. The more eye-catching part of his half-nude body was the myriad of scars that covered his torso, all of them healed and all of them ugly. No easy life here.

“Do you see something you like, wench?”

Jerk. Leah’s eyes snapped shut and she averted her face. How humiliating that he should catch her staring at him. She heard his low chuckle, and felt his fingertips brush underneath her jaw, forcing her head back toward him.

“Look at me,” he demanded, and Leah reluctantly opened her eyes. Dark, piercing black eyes stared back down at her, and he studied her face. “Something about you is odd.” Her heart hammered in her breast and she jerked away from his fingers. What did he think was odd about her? Was she still scaly here and there? Had he already figured out that Muffin had turned her into a half-fish that he was supposed to fall in love with?

Not that she didn’t have her doubts about that in the first place.

At least
she
didn’t have to fall in love with him. Her heart was hammering so hard she’d likely die of a heart attack first. He didn’t seem very likeable.

And he was still staring at her. “You’re trembling.” A hint of a crooked smile touched his lips, and Leah felt her heart thud in her breast. His features were arrogant and harsh, but when he smiled… she could see why Muffin had picked him.

Damn fairy godmothers.

Leah rubbed her arms to indicate the cold. She hoped he’d believe that she was covered in goose bumps because of the chill in the air, not because he’d flashed her a devastating grin.

“Cold?” He raised a black eyebrow at her mockingly. “You can have something warm to wear the moment you speak.”

She resisted the urge to flash him the middle finger and scowled instead.

He reached over again, and Leah stiffened automatically. To her surprise, he grabbed her hand and took it in his own. Warmth shot through her cold fingers at the touch of his hand, and Leah felt a blush creep over her cheeks again. It felt rather disconcerting to have a massive knight cradling her hand as she sat in front of him, wrapped in nothing but a blanket.

His thumb stroked across her palm. “Well, you’re no common girl from the village.

Though I had my doubts about that to begin with.” His dark eyes focused intently on her face.

Leah found herself trapped by his gaze. She glanced down at the hand in question, then back up at his face, her eyes inquiring.

The baron’s thumb stroked across the soft meat of her palm again. “Too soft,” he explained. “You haven’t done a day’s worth of hard work with these hands. These are a lady’s hands.” He lifted the palm of her hand, as if he would kiss it. “A lady or a whore,” he amended.

Leah snatched her hand from his and curled her fingers into a fist, aiming for his nose.

He caught her hand easily, laughing at her efforts. “So, the little mute is a spitfire. I’ve heard Rutledge prefers his women fiery.” His free hand reached out to touch a lock of the thick bangs that fell over her forehead. “Though why he would mangle your hair is beyond me. Did you displease him in some fashion?”

Confused, Leah pulled her hair from his hands and shook her head. What on earth was he talking about?

“Still refuse to talk, eh? You’re a very loyal wench, then. What did he offer you to infiltrate my camp? Money? A name for your son? Jewels?” He reached out and gently stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “Love? Surely you know that Rutledge was born with a black soul. He has no love for anyone but himself.”

Her senses tingled at his soft touch, and Leah jerked away again, shaking her head over and over again. He was all wrong. He thought her some lord’s whore, paid to come and infiltrate the enemy’s camp? Was he crazy?

Leah looked the baron in the eye and tapped her throat with her fingers again.

Anger flared in his dark eyes, and she watched his jaw tighten. He stood, looming over her, and she instinctively backed away, the cloak clutched close to her body. “What would it take to make you talk, woman?” He was on Leah in two seconds, his hand wrapping in her hair and angling her face before his. “Would you speak if I kissed you?” Leah’s eyes were glued to his face, wide and wary. A flicker of fear shot through her—

what did he intend?

“Would you speak if I tossed you on these blankets and plowed your belly? Would you give me moans of fear, or of delight?”

She tried to shake her head, and found it pinned too tightly in his hand. The only thing she could do is watch his mouth as his deadly words caressed her cheek. One hand worked free of her blanket and she shoved at his chest weakly, trying to push him away.

“You,” the baron spoke again, his voice whisper soft, “can tell your Rutledge that Royce FitzWarren has no need of raping women to get what he wants. Unlike him, I am not an animal.” He flung her away and stalked out of the tent.

Leah huddled in the corner of the tent, her body racked with tremors. She had thought she’d be seducing a man, not a freaking
psychopath
.

Chapter Four

The baron’s war camp never slept. It was just as well; Leah couldn’t sleep either. Worry and stress kept her from relaxing long enough to fall into the bliss of sleep. Tense, she remained huddled in her corner and wondered who she would see next – the surly squire Christophe, dotty fairy godmother Muffin, or the arrogant baron himself?

After endless hours of being left by herself, Leah’s legs–which had been tingling up to this point—began to throb with hot flashes of pain. A quick touch to her skin showed that it was dry and feverish, and she remembered Muffin’s words—she must get her legs wet nightly to keep her health.

How on earth was she going to do that stuck in a tent in the midst of a camp?

The strains of a loud, raucous song reached her isolated tent, and Leah stuck her head out the door tentatively, looking around. The sky was still dark with just a hint of pink on the horizon. Dawn would be coming soon, and her legs throbbed painfully in anticipation. There was a large central fire in the distance between the sea of small tents, and the men ringed around that, singing loudly.

It was the perfect chance to escape, were it not for the boy that stood in front of the tent door, scowling fiercely at her. “Get back inside,” Christophe yelled, lunging toward her.

With a squeak of distress, Leah ducked back into the tent, breathing hard and waiting for him to follow her in and chastise her – or worse.

To her surprise, he didn’t. When she heard his exclamation of disgust before the tent became silent again, it puzzled her. He didn’t bother to check as to why she was trying to escape?

Her eyes focused on the back of the tent and a small hole in the thick, rough fabric and a plan formed in her mind. The edges of the tent itself were buried in the muddy earth, and she didn’t know if they were bolted down on the other side. Digging through would take too long.

But a hole in the fabric? A hole she could easily slip through.

She used her fingers to worry the small hole into a larger one, and then larger still, pulling at the weak edges of the fabric and edging it lower. It took maybe an hour of intense effort since she was trying to be quiet, but, by the time she was done, she had a hole big enough to shimmy through.

Leah tossed the cloak through the hole and then crawled through. After five minutes of creative wiggling, she was through and found herself on the other side of the tent, in the middle of camp. Nobody was nearby, and she gathered her cloak around her body again and headed out of the camp, ducking behind each dark tent as she stole away. Some unnatural instinct told her that the sea lay to the south of the camp, and her throbbing feet led her in that direction.

She had sand between her toes and the water lapping at her feet before the dawn was even on the horizon. The moment her legs touched the water, her feet seized up in a wave of pain, startling her and causing her to pitch forward into the tide. Her legs jerked and clenched, and waves of agony shot over her. Within moments it had passed, and her tail flicked in the water, just as her gills rose and fluttered with each deep, watery breath she took.

The sea was a welcome respite from the harsh reality that she had been tossed into. No warlords, no bitter squires, no medieval world, just her and the dark, comforting sea. She swam

for hours, easing her mind. She couldn’t hide in the sea forever, much as she would like to, unless she wanted to fail the task Muffin had set before her.

The thought of dying permanently was even less appealing than her other options. Leah headed for shore reluctantly, swimming in closer to the jagged rocks. The anticipation of the pain that would hit her body when she left the water was not a pleasant one.

“Yoohoo,” called a voice from the shore. In the distance, the fairy godmother waved her hands excitedly.

Leah swam close, waving a hand in return. Relief poured through her. She wasn’t alone anymore. Muffin could fix this.

“How are you doing, my girl?” Muffin put a hand to the overlarge pink straw hat that covered her gray curls. She was dressed in a matching pink sundress, and looked like she was heading for a day of vacation on the beach – the irony of which was not lost on Leah.

Leah pulled herself halfway onto a nearby rock to rest her tired, wobbly arms, and patted her throat, reminding the old woman of the curse.

Muffin waved her hand dismissively at Leah’s gesture. “That only works for the locals, my dear. You can talk to me. Try it.”

She tested her voice, and found that it worked after all. “I can talk,” she called, surprised.

“Why can I talk now?”

“I’m not exactly part of this setting, my dear, so you can talk to me as much as you like.” Muffin beamed and slid her sandals off, wading into the ankle-high tide. “Lovely weather, isn’t it? I just adore Cornwall.”

“Is that where we are?” Leah eyed the rocky shore that surrounded them. “Great Britain?”

“It won’t be anything but England for several centuries. This is the fourteenth century, if I recall correctly.”

Leah’s head spun as she tried to comprehend that. The fourteenth century? That was six—no, seven—centuries before she had even been born. “Why are we here?”

“Why, because you let me pick. I do prefer the medieval feel of things to any other time period. So romantic with the knights and their ladies fair and such. You’re lucky, though. You missed the Black Plague by about a decade.”

“Oh, yes, I am just
so
lucky,” Leah said sarcastically. “Those men up there are trying to steal that castle from someone else. They’re rude, uncouth, and they won’t give me a scrap of clothing. One of them even called me wench. And last night? I had to use the bathroom in a bucket. It was
awful
. And their leader thinks I’m some sort of slutty spy!”

“Oh dear.” Muffin’s brow wrinkled. “That could be a bit of a problem. You’ve got to make him fall in love with you and you’ve only got twenty-nine days left. He might like the slutty part, but I’m not sure about the spy thing.”

“Why do I have to make him fall in love with me?”

Muffin seemed surprised at the question. “Why, because that’s how the fairy tale ends, my dear.”

Leah buried her head in her arm, leaning against the thick slab of rock. “Why couldn’t you just let me go back to my old life?”

“Your old life was long gone, child.” There was a thread of steel in Muffin’s voice.

“There’s no sense in lamenting over what you’ve lost and crying like a spoiled child. You wanted another chance, I’m giving it to you. These are the rules I have to follow as a fairy godmother. Feel free to give up at any time and let yourself drown.” She stepped out of the water

and put her sandals on her feet, giving Leah an offended look. “Let me know when you’re ready for my help.”

“I need help now!”

Muffin shook her head and winked out of existence. “I’ll be back tomorrow night.” Her words floated on the windy air.

Just like that, she was gone. Leah groaned and slapped the water in annoyance, and then dragged herself back onto shore and lay in the sand. She had no choice. She had to make him love her.

It didn’t take long for the pain to kick in. Her body began to shudder with convulsions, and seawater erupted in her mouth. Pain overrode all of her senses, and then it was over.

Exhausted, she put her head to the soft sand and slept.

#

Something hard prodded her side. Leah twitched in her sleep, then rolled over, not wanting to wake just yet. She was so tired, and the sand beneath her felt so good.

The hard thing nudged her side again, and Leah opened her eyes a crack to scowl at whoever was bothering her.

The warlord stared down at her, his unshaven face grim and unsmiling. “You sleep like the dead, woman.”

Leah gasped and shot upright, smacking her head against his by accident. She put a hand to her forehead and winced, disoriented.