She groaned and stirred. Ian looked over from the stool where he sat eating one of the meat pies. She lay stretched out on the cot, arms and legs spread and tied to the corners. He had considered stripping off her clothes, but had decided that might be overdoing it. He wanted her scared and vulnerable, not paralyzed by terror.
Their struggle had torn her gown, almost exposing one small, pretty breast. The skirt hitched high on her shapely legs. She had a very nice body even if it was a little too thin. Small and curved and compact and neat like Elizabeth's had been, only younger.
When he first saw her standing in the dim light, formidable and determined, that pale straight hair hanging to her hips, he had thought for one instant that she was Elizabeth. But the face, while pretty enough, had none of Elizabeth's precise perfection and much more warmth and expression. And the hair was not white like Elizabeth's, but the palest blond shot through with silver highlights, and her skin possessed a pleasant pink glow. Elizabeth had been a snow queen. This woman looked like the first sun of dawn.
In her middle twenties, he guessed. Lovely and brave.
Too bad he had to destroy her.
His squire John entered through the tent flap, carrying a plate of stew. The youth had been slow delivering the supper, bringing one item at a time to have an excuse to ogle the woman. His hot eyes scanned the naked legs.
Best to clarify things now. "Keep your hose laced, boy. She is not for you."
John flushed and set down the stew. Ian made a face at the tasteless mass. Fortunately, he had filled himself on Melissa's delicious meat pies. Picking up the last one, he tossed it to his squire as he left. "A consolation. The pleasure from all women is much the alike. The same can not be said for food."
She stirred again. Her lids slowly rose. Alertness spread and she comprehended her position. She yanked at her bindings and the movement made her groan again.
"How is it?" he asked. "I've never heard of a sleeping potion that doesn't split your head later."
Her lidded gaze slid over to where he sat. For an instant, before she composed herself, panic flickered.
Good.
"Lucky for you it wasn't poison," he added.
"I didn't have a recipe for poison."
He resisted the urge to laugh. Feisty little thing. "Too bad."
She managed the slightest shrug. "Since it is obvious that you never drank any, it wouldn't have mattered." She looked down her vulnerable body again. "What are you going to do?"
She tried to sound brave and cool. He felt a little sorry for her. "I have been considering that. I was all set to hang you when you woke."
"Hang me!"
"Aye. For murder."
"But I didn't---"
"You tried."
"I didn't really. I lost my courage."
"I have a cut on my arm that says that you did."
"Only because you attacked me. If you had been asleep as you were supposed to be--"
"I would be dead now. Don't get all pleading and innocent on me, Melissa. Your plan was bold and brave and I respect that. But you failed, and that makes your life mine to dispose of. I considered hanging, but my squire convinced me that would be a waste. So I have devised a plan for your redemption."
He walked over and sat beside her on the cot. "As you pointed out, this has been a long, hot siege. There are a lot of bored men here, and the camp whores. . .well, they are not the same as having a courtesan."
Her eyes went wide. "Are you saying that you will give me to your army? That you expect me to--"
"Not the whole army. Just the knights."
"That is disgusting."
"So is hanging."
Her expression hardened in fury. He had expected tears. She had spirit, he had to give her that.
"I can not believe that your lord, Sir Morvan, would approve of what you plan. He is rumored to be an honorable man."
"He won't give a damn. Soon, I will have taken this tower for him and half this army can join him at Harclow. That is all that will matter. Also, I saved his life once, so he is at a disadvantage with me."
Her jaw tightened with wavering control and her eyes glistened before she closed her lids. "I would rather hang. There are at least twenty knights here. They will probably kill me anyway."
"Not if they are pleased. In a way, you will be fulfilling your mission. Tomorrow at dawn we will fire one of the tunnels. By midday, I expect the tower will fall or yield. Your favors will reward my knights, and perhaps salve their annoyance that they can not pillage what they have conquered."
Her gaze locked on him. "You fire the tunnel at dawn?"
"I expect so. We are digging two. The one to the south has reached the wall."
His gaze drifted to the dewy skin of her face and shoulders and exposed swell of breast. No longer a girl, but then he had never much cared for girls. The urge to lick her glowing paleness, and the knowledge that she could not prevent him from doing so, tightened his body. Melissa the courtesan had been right about one thing. He had grown tired of camp life and he did desire the illusions of some courtly lovemaking. He had been sorely tempted to play her game to the end, but then he might have lost the heart to use her the way he planned now.
He could not help himself. He reached out and stroked her cheek. Soft. Warm. He leaned forward and brushed it with his lips. "For a courtesan this should be an easy punishment. The way I see it, there is just one problem." He smiled down at her. "You, Melissa, are no courtesan."
"I certainly am."
"You surely are not. I have met virgins who kiss with more skill than you. Who are you? Are you from the town?"
She nodded.
"So a young matron decides to be a heroine for her people. Very brave and impressive. Does your husband know that you tried this mad scheme?"
"I am a widow."
"Ah. Still your man didn't teach you much, did he? And that is the problem. My squire has spread the word that I have a courtesan here. Some of these knights might think that you are insulting them, or saving your best for others. They could get ugly. I could explain the mistake, but then they may think that I lie and am the one for whom you save the real thing."
He twisted and looked down her half exposed body. She glared apprehensively at him.
"Since the goal is to keep you alive, there is nothing for it but to have you first," he said. "I will teach you, and perhaps you will be able to fool them."
"There is no need. I will take my chances."
"I don't think so." He slid his hand down her body. It tightened to his touch. She was not immune, but then he had known that when he kissed her earlier. She possessed needs that she did not control and it appalled her that he could tap them. If she was the sort of woman he thought, this was the most frightening thing he could do to her. Even more frightening than the twenty knights that he threatened her with.
A tremor shook through her and into him and he gritted his teeth against it. The temptation to keep her and wait out the summer with her on this cot almost won out.
He pulled away. "I must leave now. The work at the tunnel requires me. We will finish well before dawn, however. Since I command, I can permit myself an early celebration." He rose and stood over her. "A pity to share you with the others, but they know that you are here and it would be unwise not to. Besides, you are mine before and after anyway."
"After! Surely you must let me leave after."
"Eventually. When I no longer have use of you."
As he turned to go her body collapsed in a disheartened way, as if this latest detail had finally undone her.
Ian waited with John and five men near the base of the low hill on which the tower house rose. The camps were quiet, all of their occupants carefully positioned within quick access of the gatehouse. Above him Black Lyne Keep rose like an impenetrable shaft of stone surrounded by a skirt of thick battlements.
The camp fires burned low, giving off little light. His captive should not be surprised by the silence and emptiness. She would surmise that everyone worked on the tunnel this night.
It had been easy to lure her with subtleties. In some ways, a clever woman was the simplest to dupe. Unless, of course, she duped you first. That had occurred once in his life with catastrophic results, and he had sworn it would never happen again.
"You are sure?" the archer Gregory whispered. He was Morvan's man, thick and gray, sent to sit out the summer with Ian's company in order to keep an eye on things.
"I am sure," Ian said. "She knew too much. She had counted the knights. She did not know that Morvan is at Harclow, nor that we had settled with the town a month ago. Furthermore, she is a lady, not a courtesan or a merchant's widow, and could have only come from one place."
And if she got out, she could get back in.
He felt no impatience. Even after she realized that the rope binding one hand was not totally secure, it would take her a while to free herself.
The only question was whether she would choose the wise course and try to escape completely, or risk herself by going back to warn the others.
He was counting on the lady who had posed as a courtesan in order to kill him to choose the latter, reckless option.
Click here for EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER ONE
