In the Shadow of Midnight (11 page)

Her first lunge was executed without fault; her second ended in a clumsy attempt to counter the momentum of the sword after her legs had become entangled in the folds of her skirt.

Eduard, still shielded by the gloom of the outer corridor, allowed a grin to steal across his face, somehow managing to stifle the guffaw of laughter that teased his throat.

The girl frowned and set the blade to one side. She reached up beneath her chin and, after a brief tussle with laces, dropped the cumbersome weight of her overtunic onto the floor. Dressed only in a knee-length pelisson, she swept the Castilian sword like a scythe, attacking the discarded pile of wool and sending it whirling away into the shadows.

Oblivious to the eyes following her every move, she lunged and parried, smote and hacked at her enemy with a two-handed vengeance that lured Eduard closer and closer to the open doorway. He could feel a dampening of his skin between his shoulder blades just as he could see a similar fine
sheen gleaming at the girl’s temples and across her brow. His heart was thudding loud in his chest. So loud, he reasoned afterwards, it must have been the noise of it that caused the girl to stop mid-stroke and stare out into the passageway.

The sight of two glowing eyes set in a disembodied head caused her to gasp and sent the sword flying out of her hands. It clattered into a nearby rack, unseating a brace of other swords as well as various pieces of armour plating. The metal clanged and banged, the sound echoing off the damp stone walls and bouncing out into the corridor.

Eduard bent to catch a steel disc as it rolled unerringly through the gap in the door, and the movement startled another choked gasp from the girl’s throat.

“Who are you?” she cried. “What are you doing out there?
How long have you been standing there spying on me?”

Eduard had his attention momentarily distracted by the sight of the long, willowy legs clad in silk to the knees. The pelisson would normally have allowed a gap of only a few inches above the garters, but part of the hem had become caught up under her arm with the happy result that a portion of her thigh was bared from her waist to the tops of her hose. His gaze, understandably reluctant to abandon such a comely sight for the blazing fury of her eyes, took its time making the ascent, lingering on the trim little waist and the agitated rise and fall of firm, round breasts.

“I asked you a question, Churl! Come forward at once and offer your answer!”

Eduard straightened to his full height and met her hot stare.

“Forgive me, demoiselle,” he murmured. “I should have made my presence known.”

“Indeed, you most certainly should have,” she retorted. “I ask you again: Who are you and how long have you been standing out there spying on me?”

Eduard laid the flat of his hand on the door and pushed it wider, letting the light from the torch attach his head to his shoulders and cast a partial glow over his features.

“It was not my intention to spy on you,” he assured her.

“Or to frighten you. As it happens, I had to pass this room on the way to the wine stores and—”

“And you thought you might as well stop and amuse yourself at my expense?” The look she gave him was one of utter and complete contempt—a look usually reserved for a creature of low birth who would dare lift his gaze to the level of his betters. Eduard remembered then that he had dressed in worn clothing that morning, intending to spend a sweaty afternoon in the practice yards. His shirt was of the same coarse linen worn by tillers of the soil; his hose were wrinkled and dusty. Because of this, she thought him a common, ignorant lout and, despite being half-naked in an isolated room with a man easily twice her size and strength, showed not a shred of hesitation in challenging him.

“In truth, I was more curious than amused,” he said. The smile he was having difficulty concealing tugged at his mouth as he strove not to look down at the enticingly exposed hip. “You hold a battle sword as if you were no stranger to it. An unusual accomplishment for someone of such youth and …
bearing.”

The blaze of green eyes narrowed, reducing the intensity, but not the impact. “There is no mystery in knowing how to defend oneself. Most especially from lechers and voyeurs who have the look and manners of gawping apes about them.”

Eduard’s smile won out. “An ape? Surely you misjudge me.”

The ravishing beauty took a long, hard look at the man who stood before her. His smile was pure insolence, his stance bespoke an easy arrogance that came to one unaccustomed to answering too many questions. He was imposing in a rough-hewn sort of way. Long-limbed, with a fine spread of shoulders, muscled heavily no doubt from lugging full casks of wine to and fro the cellars all day. His jaw was square and capable of framing any expression save for humility; his mouth was a stern slash of cynicism. His eyes were the colour of slate after a thorough soaking—dark, yet flecked with sparks of some other hue … blue, perhaps … that would need the harsher revelation of sunlight to identify. Handsome. Swaggering. Besotted
with himself. King of the scullery wenches and milch-maids, she surmised, with a directness in his gaze that was far too bold for his own good. For anyone’s good.

She was very much aware of the musky, animal scent about him, an incense that made her draw upon all her defenses in order to keep from imagining the heat and texture of the flesh so carelessly exposed through the loosened vee of his tunic. She was not altogether successful in smothering her curiosity, for she found herself wondering, for one irreverent and irrational moment, if she
were
but a humble maid, unconstrained by birthright or propriety, if she would be so outraged by the obvious gleam of interest in his eyes.

She moistened her lips with care. “Misjudge you, knave? I think not. More’s the like you misjudge yourself and your effect on women of unimpaired senses and sensibilities.”

Eduard’s mouth curved up at the corner and his gaze slid with shocking deliberation to where the outline of her breasts betrayed just how unsensible an effect he was having on her. The weave of the cloth was fine enough to echo the nervous tremors that were racing through her flesh. Fine enough to leave no doubt as to the sensations flowing through her body, making her breasts hard and full and exquisitely defined.

Ariel de Clare did not have to follow his stare to know what had drawn his lewd attentions. Partly to cover her own embarrassment and partly to put an end to any further liberties he might endeavor to take, she stepped forward, swinging her hand upward with a swift savagery that would have left bleeding scratch marks on his face had Eduard’s reflexes not been a hair quicker to react. He leaned slightly back and twisted to the side, exposing his entire face to the torchlight as he did so. The shock of seeing the gnarled weal of scarred flesh that had, until then, been camouflaged by shadow, caused Ariel a split second’s worth of hesitation—more than enough time for Eduard to catch her wrist and twist it around into the small of her back.

The action brought her crushing against his chest, whereupon he snatched up her other wrist and pinned it with the first for good measure.

“A spirited little dabchick,” he commented wryly, averting his face to avoid the sudden thrashing of wild red hair.

“Unhand me, you ugly, cowardly brute! Unhand me at once!”

“Tsk tsk tsk … two insults in as many minutes. I would have a man’s tongue plucked out of his head for less.”

“Brute! Churl! Lech! Let me go, I tell you!
Let me go”

“I might consider doing so, my lady vixen, if you would but pay a small price for my leniency.”

“Pay a price?” Ariel stopped struggling and glared upward, the fury sparking in her eyes like flashes of green fire.
“Me?”

Eduard glanced casually around the armoury. “I see no other trespassers here.”

Ariel huffed her breath free—a difficult task with her arms pinned at her back and her breasts crushed against a solid wall of granite. “Ahh. And because we are alone, this price you would ask, I warrant, would be a kiss or two, freely given?”

Eduard’s intentions had been more inclined toward a name, or an explanation of her presence in the armoury, but her suggestion was not without certain appeal. Up close, the light from the torch threaded her hair with gold and showed her mouth to favour the shape of a sulky, moist pout. Her squirmings were emphasizing just how long and lithe her limbs were, and, because he saw no reason not to, he let a hand slip down to caress her bottom, pulling her even closer.

“I might be persuaded to accept such an offering,” he murmured.

Ariel’s anger took her almost beyond speech. It certainly took her beyond rational thought as she looked deliberately at the molten mass of scar tissue and hissed her opinion through her teeth. “A maid would have to be blind, drunk, and addle-witted to offer to kiss such a beast as you, sirrah. Now, unhand me at once or my uncle will have your ballocks for trophies, your eyes for archery targets, and your hands for tavern signs.”

The muscle in Eduard’s jaw flexed. His grip turned to iron and there was no longer any mocking gentleness in the way he held her against his body. “I tremble with trepidation, my
lady. Dare I inquire after the name of this bloodthirsty fellow that I might bolt my door at night and crouch beneath my bed in terror?”

“Well you should hide and crouch,” she spat, “for when my uncle, the Earl of Pembroke, Marshal of England, Lion of the Lists, finishes flaying you alive, there will not be enough of you left for the crows to feed upon!”

Eduard’s arms sprang open as if he had been burned, and he stepped back so suddenly Ariel’s struggles sent her in a full spinning circle before she realized she was free. She stood swaying in the centre of the room, her lungs heaving for air, her fists clenched by her sides, her hair a froth of shiny curls around her shoulders.

“The Earl of Pembroke … is your uncle?” Eduard asked, horrified.

“My loving, adoring,
devoted
uncle,” she boasted. “And he will lovingly tear your heart out with his
teeth
for
daring
to touch me!”

“My lady … I had no idea—”
“With his teeth!”

Ignoring his further, futile attempts at an apology, Ariel snatched her tunic off the floor and stormed out of the chamber without another word or glance back. Eduard could hear her brisk, angry steps tapping hollowly along the stone floor and clipping up the stairwell, and, because it would indeed be a miracle if the earl did not take personal offence at the insult to his flesh and blood, he debated chasing after her and forcing an apology upon her.

With the next breath, however, he cursed and strode out of the armoury, continuing on his way to the wine cellar. He had never, in all his life, apologized to a wench and he had no intentions of doing so now. He might be dead by nightfall if he did not, but at least he would have the dubious honour of being run through by the greatest knight and champion of all time.

W
illiam the Marshal, despite the three score and six years he had already put behind him, was still a handsome man, immensely strong, with limbs as stout as the abutments of a bridge. He bore a full mane of long, thick hair, the black less evident than it once had been, the gray streaking down into the neatly trimmed, luxuriant beard. His voice could quiet a battlefield and his eyes, bright blue, sharp as daggers, could turn a man’s courage to water on a single glance.

He had been knighted by the old king, Henry Secund, and had spent most of his younger years in fierce and loyal service to his liege. He had been devastated by his mentor’s death and sickened by the way all three of the king’s surviving sons had conspired to break their father’s spirit and drive him into an early grave.

When Richard had succeeded to the throne, he had considered himself a champion in all things to do with battle and combat. He had harboured an intense dislike for William since the age of eighteen when he had been unhorsed by the seasoned veteran and publicly humiliated in a tournament. But the Lionheart also had a keen eye for valour and had not only retained William in his service upon being crowned, but had invested him as Marshal of England and rewarded the reluctant bachelor with a marriage to the wealthiest and most sought-after heiress in the kingdom: Isabella of Pembroke.

Eduard FitzRandwulf had good reason to fear the earl’s umbrage. At last reckoning, William the Marshal had championed over five hundred tournaments and single-combat bouts —an impressive feat that most likely would never be surpassed. His closest rival for trophies and honours was Randwulf de la Seyne Sur Mer, who could count slightly more than half that number of victories in forfeited pennants and prizes. But Randwulf had also retired from the tournament circuits over a decade ago and had no intention of picking up a lance again for the sake of amusement.

The two men had become friends over the years—a respectful friendship between two old warriors, both of whom had been men of action and honesty all their lives and who found it hard to tolerate ineptness or deceit, especially from their king.