Jacq's Warlord (6 page)

He was disturbed by the sudden appearance of the woman on the battlefield and his hours-long disappearance. Yes, the woman was a mystery and he meant to get to the bottom of it.

* * * * *

After struggling fruitlessly to untie the knots around her wrists, Jacq gave up. Her skin was raw and bruised from her efforts, and she’d only managed to tighten the knots. The trauma of having been whisked away, on top of being bound and then ignored, had taken its toll. Jacq laid her head against the furs and fell asleep.

How long she slept, she didn’t know, but the sound of voices outside the tent brought her slowly awake. In that half-conscious state she could hear the words of two adolescent boys outside the tent.

At first, she didn’t understand them, but gradually the cadence of the language struck a familiar chord in her. When her mind made the connection she came immediately awake. They were speaking a language she was all too familiar with, but hadn’t recognized because she had only ever heard it spoken in a classroom. This particular dialect no longer existed.

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Shocked, she strained to hear them, trying to make heads or tails of what they were talking about. Her training in history and languages helped, but it was her knowledge of Medieval English literature which allowed her to find the basic similarities between the English language she had studied and what she was hearing.

The realization rocked her. This didn’t feel like this was a joke anymore. But what all this meant didn’t matter. She just wanted to go home, drink a beer and let go of the butterflies of panic that were beginning to flutter around her tummy. But first she needed to talk to the boys and convince them to untie her.

Sitting up, she shook her long hair out of her face and practiced a few words in the language. Then she decided to try them out. “Hello? Please. I need to talk to you.”

The boys’ voices grew quiet.

She tried again. “Please. I need to talk to you.”

The tent flap rustled and a boy of about twelve peered inside. “What is it you want?”

If this was an act, this kid really had the lingo down. Jacq was impressed. “I want to speak to the man who brought me here.”

“He’s busy with more important matters at the moment.”

He started to leave, but she desperately searched for something that would keep him talking. “What matters are more important?”

“The war, silly woman.”

War? Did she miss reading about a battle in the listing for scheduled reenactments?

Or were these men using the Faire for criminal purposes?

Maybe they’re terrorists.
The big guy was certainly scary enough to be one. But terrorists who spoke an extinct form of English? “And what war might that be?”

He gave her a look that said he thought she wasn’t carrying a full load. “Why, the war between King Stephen and Duke Henry. Where have you been, woman? Everyone knows of the war.”

It’s funny, he looks like he believes what he says.
“The war between King Stephen and Duke Henry?” she repeated faintly. Then a frightening thought occurred to her. “King Stephen and Duke Henry battled in the middle of the twelfth century,” she said, half to herself.

“Eleven hundred fifty-three to be exact.”

“What year did you say?” she whispered, afraid of the answer, but still needing the verbal confirmation.

“The year of our Lord one thousand one hundred and fifty-three,” he huffed impatiently.

That’s impossible.
However, thinking back she remembered the sounds of human suffering she’d heard as her captor had ridden into camp; they had been all too real.

Also too close to reality had been the overwhelming odor of blood and death. She’d dismissed those as figments of her oxygen-deprived brain.

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She sat back, her head reeling. But she knew it was true. One moment she’d been in Georgia, the next in a distant past and land. She didn’t want to believe it, but she accepted that it was so.

The shock on her face must have been easily apparent to the boy, because he frowned. “Madam, are you all right?”

“I don’t know.” What was happening? With her bound hands, she pinched herself through the red velvet of her dress. “Darn it. I felt that.”

No, this wasn’t a sleeping nightmare. But it sure as heck was a waking one.

The boy shrugged, tired of waiting for her to make sense, she supposed, and backed out of the tent.

“No, wait, please.”

“What is it you want now?” He sounded testy.

“Surely you must see it’s wrong to keep me prisoner?” She injected softness in her tone when all she wanted to do was scream at the little jerk.

“It’s not my business. You can take it up with Lord Rathburn when he returns. Now be silent or I’ll gag you.”

“At least loosen these damned ropes,” she yelled as he dropped the flap. She lay back against the furs.

Well, so much for working on the boy. Apparently, their leader had all the control.

The boy had called him Lord Rathburn. A prickle of fear chased down her spine as she recalled the prayer she’d recited to an eager audience just a short while ago. Rufus of Rathburn had been the name of the man the priest prayed for. She shivered as she recalled the warrior on the black horse who had picked her up as easily as a child’s doll.

Men didn’t usually intimidate her. But she wasn’t exactly petite. Still, despite the fact he was taller than most men she had encountered in her life, she wasn’t afraid of him or his heavily muscled body. Her father’s insistence on self-defense training had taught her that sheer size wasn’t enough to guarantee the outcome of any fight. She’d always been smart and fast enough to incapacitate even her largest opponents.

What was one overlarge knight on a black horse? Mentally, she snapped her fingers.
Piece of cake.

As if her thoughts had conjured him up, the man of her inner conversation tossed up the flap of the tent and stepped inside.

So this was what a knight in armor really looked like, she thought weakly.

Black hair brushed the tops of his shoulders. A stone-carved jaw, slightly skewed nose, and piercing brown eyes accompanied a face too strong to ever be called handsome. A long jagged scar stretched across his right cheekbone to the corner of his eye, completing the intimidating picture.

“What is your name?” he demanded.

His manners were no better than his squire’s, she mused. “Why the hell should I tell you?” she answered in kind.

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His eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed. “Because I command it.”

She just stopped herself from bellowing back, silently reminding herself to be cautious. “Why did you kidnap me?” she asked, still ignoring his question. She wondered why she felt compelled to argue with the man when she was at a distinct disadvantage here.

His brow furrowed in a look of irritation. “I saved your life.”

Jacq sputtered. “From what? Splinters?”

Lord, she’d done it now. His face was turning purple. He stalked toward her, and she rolled to the side, striking out with her bound feet as he reached down for her.

“Dammit, woman, just answer the question,” he yelled. Grabbing her, he pulled her to her feet and shook her hard. “You will tell me, or I’ll have you whipped.”

“Easy…for you…to say…when you have me tied up so…I can’t…defend myself,”

she gritted out between shakes.

He stopped and stared down at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Defend yourself?

From what? It was I who saved you from either being trampled or cut in half by that warrior who was set on killing us both.”

“I wasn’t on your stinking battlefield. You rode up on my stage. I was telling a story.”

“You were on a hillock, on your knees. Now cease your lies and tell me why you were in the midst of the battlefield.”

“I don’t know,” she shouted, suddenly collapsing into his arms. This whole scenario was becoming more than she could comprehend. She realized dazedly she was shaking, and that tears leaked down her face. Embarrassed by her weakness, she kept her face averted from his keen eyes.

As the woman finally quieted, Rufus decided he was getting nowhere with this line of questioning. He considered himself a good judge of character and based on her expression, he thought she might be telling the truth.
She was addled.

Recalling the mist, he realized anyone could have become disoriented, as thick as it had been. He relented and set the woman a little away from him. He would let her rest for now, and lose her distress. Nothing made him more uncomfortable than a woman’s tears.

Her head came up and she stared with her green eyes into his, searching for understanding he wasn’t willing to give. To avoid her moist glance, he looked down her long body.

She was a plentiful wench! Lushly curved breasts pressed against the bodice of her gown. Below, the gown swelled around her broad hips. Facts he couldn’t ignore.

Despite his need to be away, his body reacted with a surge of heat that swelled his loins.

Then he spied the red marks on her wrists from the ropes. He felt a twinge of conscience that she’d been mistreated. After all, despite her waspish tongue, she was a 34

Jacq’s Warlord

gentlewoman. The quality of her clothing, the smoothness of her skin and palms and the prideful cant of her head belied her station.

“I’ll untie these knots if you will promise not to try to escape.”

“I won’t try to escape as I have nowhere to go,” she said in a flat tone.

“Still, I will have your promise.”

“All right,” she huffed. “I promise not to try to escape.”

He set her away from him and reached for her bound hands. Her steady stare, nearly level with his own, disturbed him.

When she was free, she bent to untie her feet, and then stood rubbing the marks on her wrists as she glared. “What do I call you?”

“I am Lord Rufus of Rathburn Keep.”

“My name’s Jacq. Jacq Frazier.” She stuck her hand out, but withdrew it when he stared down at it.

Just what was she about? Did she want to hold hands? “Jack Frazier?” He frowned and his eyebrows nearly met in the middle his expression was so fierce. “What manner of mother would give her daughter a name more fit for a man?”

She straightened, and her chin came up. “Where I’m from, it’s quite common for women to have masculine names. Besides, it’s short for Jacqueline.”

“Jacq is not seemly.”

She tossed her hair over her shoulders and tilted her chin in challenge. “Well, it’s my name.”

He liked her anger more than her melancholy. Not understanding his need to prick her, he said, “I won’t call you Jacq. Then again, you are very large. Perhaps I am assuming too much. Are you even a woman?” His gaze dropped to her breasts, and he brought his hands up. Before she could utter a protest, he caught her around the rib cage, and pressed his fingers against her breasts, roughly testing the tender flesh through the thick material of her gown. She was a woman all right!

She knocked his hands away and took up a fighting stance, hands balled into fists.

“Don’t ever do that again!” Her cheeks flamed.

Rufus pressed his lips together to prevent a smile. “I will do as I please, woman.

And if it pleases me, I will have you.” He didn’t mean it, of course, but the woman goaded him.

“Over my dead body.”

He lifted one brow. “That, madam, can be arranged.”

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The knight left her standing in the tent. With her hands untied.

As the tent flap fell into place, Jacq’s breath caught. Her first thoughts were of escape, but where would she go? She couldn’t go running back home. Her home was over eight hundred years away. If she escaped this group of soldiers, what other dangers would she find?

What was that saying? Better the devil you know…

Jacq stomped her foot in the dirt. She hated that she needed protection. Especially his! Could she stand to take orders from the brute? And what if he made good on his threat to take her whenever he wanted?

A thrill of something not exactly resembling dread trembled down her spine.

Despite his rugged scars, the arrogant bastard was possibly the most attractive man Jacq had met in either the twelfth or the twenty-first centuries.

Of course, this realization had no bearing on her decision to stay with Lord Rathburn until she had a better plan.

Resigned to being hopelessly stuck for now, she recognized a more immediate concern. Where, in this godforsaken hell, was the nearest port-o-potty?

She tossed the tent flap to the side and stepped out to survey her surroundings.

Good, there were trees and bushes close by. Her father had taken her camping and hiking in fairly primitive areas. She was not a stranger to making a quick field latrine.

She grinned.
Thanks, Dad, for giving me the training I’d need to survive this.

The thought of her dad brought her close to tears. He needed her as much as she needed him. Sometimes, he was forgetful. Would he remember his appointment with the oncologist? Jacq wished she could be with him. This appointment was a milestone.

Five years. Five years since he’d finished chemotherapy. The doctor told him if he was cancer-free after five years, he stood a good chance of living a long healthy life.

The tough guy wasn’t one for open displays of emotions, nonetheless, they shared a close relationship. Her loss would be a blow to him after having already lost his wife and gone through hell with cancer. Now, he’d be alone.

Oh, Dad, I wish I could talk to you and let you know I’m okay…scared, but okay
.

The trip to the bushes was accomplished with minimum fuss. Not knowing where else to go, she returned to the tent, pulling the flap aside to step in. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw
Lord Rufus
sitting on a stool, stark naked! Worse, a scantily clad woman was bathing him like a baby. Well, not quite, her hands were lingering near very manly territory.