Authors: Teresa Medeiros
She stumbled after him as he threw open the door of the heavily carved ambry, kicked a chest until the latch broke, and popped the shutters open with his elbow. Snow swirled into the chamber. He leaned out, peering below the window at the unmarked quilt of snow. He was forced to free her to latch the shutters.
Then he turned on her, and she backed away as each word shot at her on a sharp puff of fog. "If so much as one brother, one uncle, or one twice-removed third cousin pops out at me, brandishing hoe, sword, or trumpet, I swear I shall cut off his head first and ask questions later. Do you understand?"
She nodded. The back of her knees came up against something solid, and she sat down. Gareth strode to the door and slammed down the slat of wood that served as a bolt.
Leaning against the door, he jerked off his gauntlets finger by finger. "Spare me the crestfallen look. I beg pardon if I am not the knight of your choice."
Rowena's eyes drifted away from his mocking gaze. The stone walls of the chamber were gently rounded to mark the interior of a miniature tower. A bed smaller than Gareth's sat in the center of the floor. On the wooden ceiling above it, fixed in entwined hands of gold, hung a mirror of hammered silver. Rowena frowned, pondering the disastrous effects if it should fall on the occupants of the bed. Her fingers absently toyed with the silken ribbons dangling from the arm of her chair.
"Do you know what sort of place this is?" Gareth's features were set in a stony mask.
Rowena squinted at the dim images in the tapestries that draped the walls. She had a fleeting impression of creamy flesh, contorted faces. "A castle," she said faintly. "Mayhaps a hunting lodge of some sort."
Gareth crossed the space between them. He leaned forward, imprisoning her with a hand on either arm of the chair. "Aye, Rowena," he said softly. "A castle. A lodge. Have you ever seen a mirror such as that?"
In a corner of the mirror Rowena caught a watery reflection of the burnished gold of her hair against the dark of his. She shook her head.
"A chair like this?" He trailed his fingernails over the plush red velvet of the chair arms. Rowena's arms prickled as if the caress had been made against her skin. She shook her head again. "This chair, my dear, was pilfered from an Arabian harem, probably by some devout Christian knight who brought it back for his mistress. Tis very costly and very rare. You see, these ribbons were fashioned to slide around your wrist." She sat paralyzed as a scarlet streamer was looped gently over her hand. "And these ribbons can be brought around like this." His broad fingers circled her slim ankle, parting it from her other ankle and pressing it toward the chair leg.
Her leg jerked convulsively. She realized too late that he had not secured any of the ribbons. Her foot slammed into his thigh and he caught it in an iron grip.
"Aye, Rowena. A castle. A hunting lodge. A dozen bored young knights. And their quarry? A lusty young widow mayhaps. Or an innocent peasant girl abducted from a village. If you will study the tapestries, you will get some idea of what sort of place this is."
He caught her chin and forced her gaze to the wall. Even a blur of tears could not disguise the arch of a swanlike neck as a maiden was forced to her knees at the feet of an armored warrior.
Rowena sniffed hard. Her voice was barely audible. "But they are knights… chivalry…"
Gareth knelt between her knees. "Welcome to the real world, Lady Precious. 'Tis no romantic tale of Irwin's. I hate to be the first to tell you, but the Pendragon and the Lionheart died long ago. Chivalry belongs to those wealthy enough to afford it."
Her eyes narrowed to suspicious blue slits. "How did
you
know of this place?"
"Blaine brought me here once when we weren't much older than those belowstairs. Did you think it was a place I would frequent?"
Rowena shrugged.
"How depraved do you think I am?"
She stared into her lap without answering.
Gareth caught her cheeks in his hands with a curse that gave new weight to her opinion. When he freed her, two bright circles of plum stained his palms.
"Sweet Jesu," he murmured.
His hands claimed her face again, chafing mercilessly until the pallor of her skin shone through the carelessly applied berry ash. Flesh that had once been rosy with health lay against her bones like melted wax. Her eyes glittered with unspilled tears.
She ducked out of his grasp with a yelp. He shoved her back into the chair and squatted in front of her. Rowena waited for the wrench of one knee away from another, the bite of a ribbon around her ankle.
"When was the last time you ate?" he demanded. Her face went blank. He shook her. "When did you eat last, Rowena?"
Her lips moved as she counted. She held up four fingers. "Three days."
Gareth's expletive was short and descriptive. He strode to the door. Throwing back the bolt, he leaned out and bellowed, "Bring me food. Make haste."
A chorus of "Aye, sir" floated up the stairs, followed by a symphony of banging and clashing. Gareth slammed the door and resumed his position at it, glowering at her. Rowena was spared the niceties of conversation by the crash of a knight against the door. Unaware that Gareth's bulk was on the other side, he had slammed into it at full tilt. Gareth jerked the door open, and the knight reeled into the chamber, balancing a full tray on one hand. He shot a quizzical glance at the fully clothed Rowena sitting with her hands folded demurely in her lap. Gareth snatched the tray and sent him stumbling out. Gareth dropped the tray on a small table. Rowena gasped as he lifted her, chair and all, and dropped her in front of the table.
He straddled the chair across from her, glaring at her over his folded arms.
Beneath his piercing stare, the beast of hunger in her stomach rolled over with a whimper and quietly died.
She stared glumly at hunks of salted boar meat smothered in brown dollops of gravy. "I should eat."
"You should."
"I shall need all my strength tonight."
"Well thought, milady."
A shiver that had little to do with cold ran through her. She speared a bean with her knife and began to eat. The food lay like ashes in her mouth, but she ate every bite of it. When her lips closed around the last bite, Gareth snatched away the tray, leaving only a flagon of sweet wine and a goblet on the table. He disposed of the rest by throwing it out the door. The tray clattered to a halt against the wall. The door slammed. The bolt dropped home.
Rowena jerked her head up as one of his boots struck the wall. He sat on the edge of the bed, drawing off the other one.
"Proceed," he said. "Let the entertainment begin. I want to see your tricks."
"Tricks," Rowena repeated stupidly.
Gareth tugged his hauberk over his head. Crisp hairs erupted from the neckline of his rumpled tunic. "Tricks. The ones Irwin sold so freely. Is he the one who taught them to you?"
"Some of them."
The hauberk clinked to the floor with more violence than was necessary. Gareth's smile was strained. "Then show me. As you well know, I am not a patient man."
Rowena mumbled something unintelligible, then stood with a curtsy. "As you wish."
Gareth's eyes darkened as he leaned back on his elbows, watching the play of the firelight through her threadbare kirtle. Her painful slenderness was broken only by the gentle swell of her breasts. She dropped to
182
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Teresa Medeiros
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her hands and knees. Gareth sat up straight, his eyes widening. She rested the top of her head on the floor and balanced her knees on her elbows. Her shapely legs flailed wildly at the air. She held that pose, heedless of the fall of her skirts, for nearly a minute before toppling to the side with a grunt of exertion. She sprang to her feet with a graceful bow. Gareth stared at her as if she'd gone mad.
Her hopeful smile faded. "You did not fancy that trick? I have others." Her gaze darted around the room. "If you would call for some rope, I could string it from the mantel to—"
"Rowena."
"Sir?"
"Those were not the tricks I had in mind."
She met his gaze evenly. "They are the only ones I know, milord."
Gareth rose in one smooth motion. Rowena took a step backward. "I had something more in mind of the tricks you were showing that green-eyed whelp when I walked in."
He sauntered toward her. Her shins hit the Arabian chair and she leaped sideways as if scorched. What use would it be to explain that Green Eyes was as good as dead when she had kissed him? Her gaze swept the chamber, finding Gareth's sword propped against the hearth. She would be hard-pressed to murder Gareth with his own sword. Even Marlys might take a dim view of that. Her search for something to bash him over the head with proved just as futile. She realized too late that he had backed her into a circle. Her trembling legs were fast approaching the bed.
His voice lowered to a husky whisper. "I had thought to sample some of your tricks, and then show you a few tricks of my own."
Rowena smiled brightly. "Do you juggle, milord?" When her words failed to slow his advance, her smile faded. The backs of her knees locked against the mahogany bedstead. She put out one hand as if its fragile weight could stop him.
"Gareth, if you believe my family has taken to selling me and I to whoring to earn our bread, now would be a good time to admit you are sorely mistaken."
He gave her a long look from beneath his smoky lashes. "Mayhaps morning would be a more apt time to admit it. When I can kiss away your wounded tears and beg sweetly for your forgiveness."
She tilted her face to his, determined to reward his honesty with her own. "Such ploys might work on Lady Alise. They will not work on me. I will not forgive you."
"It might be worth it." He bowed his head. His fingers found a loose strand of her tangled hair and brought it to his lips. "Why did you flee Caerleon?"
The truth was too dangerous for Rowena to admit, even to herself. "Because you asked me to leave you be."
His snort might have been one of laughter. "If I had asked you to stay with me that night, you would have done my bidding?"
"I would."
His head flew up. The strand of hair slipped from his fingers and fell across her face in a silky web. She blew softly and it drifted upward. His hand slipped beneath her hair to cup her neck, his fingers warm against her skin.
"If I bid you to lay with me tonight, would you?"
"The choice is yours, is it not? Yours is the strength, the will. There is no one to answer my cries for help. Percival and his cohorts would only delight in them."
Gareth's thumb toyed with the feathery softness of her earlobe. " 'Tis not rape I speak of, Rowena."
"The knight speaks of little else, be it rape of the man less fortunate than he, or rape of the woman he chooses to subject in the guise of chivalry."
His fingers tightened. Her pulse began to race. His voice held an edge of bitterness. "Well spoken, milady. Marlys would applaud your newly found politics. You've become quite the learned woman beneath my tutelage."
"If you have your way, I fear I shall become more learned before this year is done."
His powerful fingers spread into her hair, cupping her skull with taut restraint. "I have lost a month of that year chasing you all over England in the bitter cold, one step ahead of a mob that wants to stretch your pretty little neck on the gallows. I could have better spent the time curled in my warm, cozy bed at Caerleon."
"With the lady Alise?"
His voice deepened. "With you."
Rowena dropped her gaze, longing to nuzzle her face into the soft folds of his tunic. The sating of her stomach had left her exhausted and terribly vulnerable to this dark-garbed man. His fingers lost themselves in her hair, stroking her scalp with hypnotic rhythm. She was so weary of taking care of others. To be taken care of by a man as strong and capable as Sir Gareth of Caerleon was a formidable temptation. To sway forward into his arms, to be carried to the ermine-trimmed bed and tucked beneath the warmth of his body. She knew instinctively that surrender would be as painless as he could make it.
Surrender.
Her head shot up at the glint of firelight off steel. Between Gareth's raised arm and rib cage, she had a perfect view of the window. Inching upward between the latch and shutter was the thin blade of a hunting knife.
"God's blood!" Rowena screeched as the latch went clattering up and the shutters flew open.
"Whatever is the matter?" Gareth's brows drew together in a puzzled line as she flew around him like a woman possessed.
"Whatever is the matter?" she parroted. "Whatever is the matter? Can you not even latch a shutter properly? I've spent the past month clambering around in the ice and snow. I should hardly have to put up with it in my bedchamber, should I?"
She grasped the edge of the shutters. A desperate glance out the window showed her a pair of eyes as silvery-gray as the blade held between clenched teeth. Little Freddie stood on Irwin's shoulders, his foot in Irwin's ear. Irwin teetered on Big Freddie's back. As Little Freddie caught the shutters and tugged, Rowena tugged back, steeling herself against his pleading gaze. Gareth's vow to kill first and ask questions later echoed through her mind. It was only when she heard his curious footfalls behind her that she found the strength to slam the shutters on her brother's fingers.