“And why such anger?” he continued. “Have you not won another victory? Will that not add to your fame and fierce reputation? Surely that was worth the effort.”
Rheged regarded the man with undisguised disdain and answered in Welsh. Whatever he said, it was obviously no compliment.
“Leave my castle, Sir Rheged,” her uncle ordered, all vestige of amiability replaced by indignant anger, “or I’ll order my guards to—”
“What?” Rheged demanded, his voice low and hard. “Try to make me go? If that’s your notion, think again, my lord. I have my sword.”
“And I have twenty archers with arrows nocked and aimed right at your head,” her uncle returned.
A quick glance at the wall walk confirmed the truth of what he said.
Rheged threw the box onto the ground with such force the lid flew off and it skittered to a halt inches from her uncle’s toe. “Twenty men to one. Why am I not surprised?”
He gestured at the windows surrounding the yard, proving that he, too, was aware that they were being watched by more than the men and servants in the yard. “Soon all will know what kind of
honorable
nobleman you are. Then we shall see how many friends you have at court.”
“More than you, at least,” her uncle retorted. “More than some peasant of a Welshman will ever have, no matter how well he fights or how many walls he climbs. Indeed, a monkey could have done what you did to earn your knighthood, so don’t think to threaten me. Now get out, Sir Rheged, before I have you shot.”
He would do it, too, Tamsin knew.
Leave, Rheged,
she silently urged, instinctively stepping forward.
The Welshman glanced at her, his expression unreadable, before he turned his attention back to her uncle. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have expected better from a man who’ll give his niece to a greedy, lecherous lout like Blane.”
“My niece’s marriage is no business of yours!” DeLac cried as Tamsin stood frozen where she was, rooted to the ground, afraid to move a muscle lest she make things worse. “And you’ve got the only prize you deserve. Now go, before I order my men to kill you where you stand!”
“Very well, my lord, who has given a prize worthy of the giver—false and cheap, good for show, but lacking any true value,” Rheged replied as he threw himself into the saddle. “Keep your prize and be damned!”
“Get out and never return, you stupid, stinking Welshman!” her uncle shouted.
Rheged lifted his horse’s reins, but instead of heading for the gate, he rode right at Tamsin, turning his horse at the last moment.
In that same moment, he reached down and grabbed the back of her gown. Gasping with shock and dismay, she kicked and struggled as he hauled her over his lap.
“Put me down! Let me go!” she cried with desperate panic. Ignoring her, he punched his horse’s sides with his heels and, with her slung over his horse as if she were a sack of grain, rode out through the gates.
Chapter Five
“S
top! Let me down!” Tamsin cried, noise and confusion surrounding her as she fought to get off the swiftly moving horse, despite the fear of falling to her death.
But Rheged held her tight, and as they passed beneath the portcullis, she could understand nothing of the shouts, except for Mavis calling her name.
And then her uncle ordering his men to shoot.
Something hit her calf. Like a bee sting, only worse. Her leg was wet. With blood?
“Stop!” she gasped again, trying to be heard over the pounding of the horses’ hooves and shouts from the castle. “Please...stop....”
Regardless of her desperate cries, Rheged didn’t stop.
* * *
He wouldn’t until they were well away from Castle DeLac, when it would be safer, Rheged thought as he held on to Tamsin with all his might so she wouldn’t fall. Thank God they had some time before DeLac’s men could mount and give chase.
At least she’d stopped struggling. Because she’d fainted, apparently. No surprise, that, considering how shocked and frightened she must have been at his impulsive act. He had never been impulsive in his life. Until today. Until he’d...
The magnitude of what he’d done hit him like a rock thrown from a great height. He’d abducted a woman, a noblewoman, stolen her away from an uncle with wealth and power and influence with the king. He’d acted without thinking.
Foolishly.
Although he hated the thought of Tamsin—or any woman—married to a man like Blane, he had no right to interfere. Regardless of the consequences, he must take her back at once, he told himself as he began to turn his horse. Perhaps there would be no serious repercussions if he left her near—
Myr suddenly shied, as if there was a snake at his feet. Or he was hurt.
Rheged slipped from the saddle, his motion making Tamsin moan. She must be waking up from her swoon. Then he saw the blood dripping from her foot onto the road beneath.
God help him! She’d been struck by an arrow! He could see the shaft protruding from her cloak where it had pierced her calf. He knew from experience that such a wound must be tended to at once. They had to return to Castle DeLac immediately, even if the jostling of the ride would make her bleed more and although every sense told him it was about to rain.
He grabbed Myr’s bridle and started back just before the rain began to fall. It wasn’t droplets or a drizzle, but a downpour. They would both be soaked through unless...
The coal burner’s hut! It was little more than a ruin, but it was a shelter.
Leading his horse from the road into the wood, he hurried toward the hovel. He looped Myr’s reins around a bush and lifted Tamsin down. She groaned softly as he carried her to the hut and kicked open the ramshackle door. The hard-packed floor was bare, and a circle of stones with a few charred and half-burned sticks were all that remained of the fire he’d built before. The pile of branches he’d slept on was still there, too, and he laid her on it. He unbuckled his sword belt and set it on the ground nearby before tugging off his leather tunic. He put that down beside her, then gently shifted her onto it.
Cold air blew in through chinks in the rough walls and rain began dripping through the hole in the roof made to let the smoke from the fire escape. They needed a fire tonight, both for warmth and should he have to cauterize the wound.
Thank God he had his flint and steel. He hadn’t taken the time at Cwn Bron to remove the pouch he always wore at his waist when he traveled. He grabbed some leaves from the branches and got them alight. He used a few of the sticks to build a fire, then ran out into the rain, seeking larger pieces of wood under the trees. He could get water from the stream nearby.
Gathering up a few more sticks, he made his way through the bracken, ferns and underbrush toward the stream. This time he spotted a broken pot on the bank. Fortunately there was enough of it left to hold water, so with his free hand he filled it and then hurried back to the hut. Crouching, he fed the wood into the fire, then put the broken pot near the flames to warm the contents.
Only then did he glance at Tamsin, to discover she was watching him, her brown eyes huge in her pale face, one hand clutching the arrow in her leg.
He rose and approached her cautiously. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to tend to that,” he said, nodding at the arrow.
“I’m sorry you ever came to Castle DeLac,” she retorted, her teeth clenched. “Take me home!”
“I can’t. It’s raining and it’s going to be dark soon.”
“I don’t care if it’s pouring. Take me back!”
“As soon as the water’s heated, I’m going to have to wash your wound.”
“You’re no physician.”
“No, but I’ve dealt with such injuries before, my own and other’s. The sooner it’s tended to—”
“Take me home!” she commanded, but now there was a tremor in her voice. “You must take me back. I have to marry Blane.” She moved as if she was trying to stand, then gasped, her face growing even more pale.
“Sit,” he commanded, “or you’ll bleed more.”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t say anything, her lips a thin line of anger and pain, but at least she didn’t try to move again.
He reached for the warm water. “It’s good you’re wearing a heavy gown,” he said as he knelt down and got a good look at the spot where the arrow had pierced her garments. “I’m going to break the shaft so I can pull the fabric of your clothes away from the wound. Stay still. It won’t be easy. Fletchers use the hardest wood for strength.”
“I know that,” she snapped.
“I suspect there isn’t much you don’t know,” he replied. He held the shaft against her leg with one hand and gripped the other end of the shaft near the feathers with the other. “How many days until Christmas?”
“What?”
“How many days until Christmas. That’s got to be a busy time for you.”
“I don’t—”
In spite of his efforts to distract her, she stiffened and cried out in pain when he broke the shaft. Panting, she lay back.
“I’m sorry, my lady.”
“You should be!”
“I didn’t shoot the arrow,” he said, carefully maneuvering the fabric of her gown and shift up and over the broken shaft.
“It wouldn’t have happened at all if you hadn’t taken me.” She jerked as her skirt caught on the shaft. “For the love of God, be careful!”
“I’m doing the best I can.”
Her stocking was the most difficult of all, but at last he managed to uncover her calf. The wide end of the arrowhead, he saw with great relief, was visible, so it hadn’t gone too far into the muscle, probably because of her clothes and the distance it had traveled. It would be easy enough to remove the tip and clean the wound. Although that would be painful enough, he need not do more.
“This isn’t too bad,” he said, sitting back on his haunches. He had three scars himself from similar wounds and treatment, and knew enough to believe the damage wouldn’t be severe, or lethal. Thank God.
Tamsin didn’t hear him. Pain, nausea and dizziness had overwhelmed her, and she had swooned once more.
* * *
She was cold and shivering and her leg hurt.
Tamsin’s eyes snapped open as she remembered that she was in a decrepit hut off the road from Castle DeLac, brought here by Rheged of Cwm Bron, and she’d been hit by an arrow. He’d been angry with her uncle because the tournament prize had been almost worthless and he’d taken her by force, probably intending to hold her for ransom or perhaps for vengeance.
“You’re awake.”
She turned her head to see Rheged rising from beside the fire where he’d been crouched like some kind of demon. He was clad only in woolen breeches and worn leather boots, with his plain sword belt around his narrow waist.
“Don’t touch me!” she cried, gasping in pain as she scrambled back against the rough wall of the hut. “Don’t come near me!”
Rheged crossed his arms over his bare chest. “I have no intention of touching you except to check your wound. If you fear for your virtue because of my state of undress, my shirt is bandaging your leg where your uncle’s man shot you, and my tunic is beneath you, covering the branches that wouldn’t be very comfortable otherwise.”
She glanced down and saw the edge of his tunic beneath her. Carefully raising her skirt, she saw white fabric wrapped around her lower leg, fabric that was now stained with blood.
She swallowed hard and raised her eyes. “You touched my leg?”
“It was that or leave the arrowhead there to fester.”
“Take me home.”
“To the man who almost got you killed?”
“
You
almost got me killed when you took me by force. If you have any shred of chivalry as a man and as a knight—”
“Because I have a shred of chivalry, I’m taking you to Cwm Bron come the morning.”
She stared at him with horror and dismay. “In the
morning?
That’s too late!” Trying to ignore the pain, she started to stand. “I have to go back
now!
”
He shook his head. “We can’t risk riding in the dark, especially when it’s raining.”
She blinked back tears not just of pain but of frustration as she limped past him toward what was supposed to be a door.
“Stop,” he growled, taking hold of her arm.
She couldn’t stifle a little moan of agony as she tried to pull free.
“It’s dark and it’s wet,” he said, his tone more gentle. “You’ll swoon or get lost before you find the road.”
She wrenched herself free and nearly fell, but managed to stay upright. “If I’m not back before the morning, it will be too late! Everyone will know you had me alone all night.”
“So what of that? I’m a knight sworn to protect women and children. I would never take a woman against her will.”
“So
you
say! But what will people believe? And you half-naked, too!”
“I had to make a bandage out of something, lest you bleed to death—and you might do so anyway if you don’t sit down and keep still. Would you rather I’d torn off a piece of your shift?”
She could barely stand, but that didn’t matter. “Rumors will fly when people hear you’ve abducted me and that we were together for a night. That’s all they will need to hear to believe I’m no longer a virgin. Your selfish act of vengeance has quite likely rendered me unmarriageable and for what? A prize at a tournament.”
“I’ve hardly touched you, except to attend to your wound.”
“And grab me and throw me onto your horse with no more care than you would a sack of flour.”
“Sit down before you swoon.”
She did, but not because he told her to. She was feeling sick and dizzy again, so she hobbled toward the fire and sat as best she could. She must return to Castle DeLac before it was too late, but she couldn’t try while he was awake. But Rheged would have to sleep sometime.
He came around the fire and squatted at her feet. “Try not to move while I look at your leg,” he said, starting to raise the hem of her gown.
She slapped his hand away. “Leave me alone!”
He regarded her with a frown of frustration. “I may not be a physician, but I’ve tended plenty of wounds, including my own, my lady, so whether you want me to or not, I’m going to examine your leg.”
His tone would brook no refusal, so she bit her lip and looked away, staring at the gaps in the door and listening to the rain hitting what remained of the roof.