Lady Danger (The Warrior Maids of Rivenloch, Book 1) (12 page)

She feinted low, then swung her sword up and around toward his midsection.  This time she surprised him.  He dodged back, narrowly avoiding a gash across his belly.  Her confidence bolstered, she pressed her attack, driving him back with a succession of quick jabs until she almost had him pinned against the wattle fence.

But as her blade swung around to force him back the last few feet, he brought up his blade in a jarring cross block.  The impact of steel on steel sent a shiver of pain up her arm.  Her advantage lost, she stumbled out of range of his sword.

“Forgive me,” he whispered, a wretched twinkle in his eye.  "Again.”

Deirdre shook off his mockery.  She wouldn’t give in to anger.  She would
not
.  Pagan might be big and strong and, aye, now she knew it, fast.  But he wasn’t infallible.  Even the mighty could fall.  And when they did, it was with a mighty crash.

This time she called upon a move she’d invented when she’d caught a man raiding sheep in Rivenloch’s meadows.  With her arms spread wide, she waited patiently for Pagan to make the first move.  He slashed forward once, twice, thrice, and she let him take the advantage, leaping back in retreat.

But on his fourth slice, she took an unexpected step forward, knocking his blade upwards so she could duck under his sword arm to pop up behind him.  As he reeled in confusion, she quickly booted him in the hindquarters.  His own forward momentum pitched him face-first into the dust.

While he lay stunned in the dirt, she bent down by his ear and whispered, “
My
apologies.”

She danced out of the way then and allowed him to rise.  The expression on his dust-rimmed face, a sort of bewildered irritation, was sweet reward indeed.

But her victory wasn't yet assured.

With a grim smile, he sliced viciously downward, the gesture more intimidation than intention.  She skipped out of his reach, uncowed but alert.

For a long while, they circled one another, eyes locked, each trying to divine the other's strategy.  Finally, like two charging stags, they clashed together, their blades sparking and clanging and tangling in unbridled violence.

Every slash of Deirdre's sword was answered in kind, and every time she gained the upper hand, it was but a matter of moments before he won it back.  Never had she fought so long and hard against an opponent, save Helena, without seizing the advantage.

At long last, breathless and desperate, Deirdre found her opportunity.  When his sword drifted wide, she lunged forward with a mortal thrust, straight for his heart.  But as quick as a whip, he dodged sideways, and her blade advanced only a few inches before he blocked it aside with such force that she whirled around backwards, staggering into him.  He caught her against his thigh with his free arm to keep her from falling.

“Are you finished yet?” he asked.  To her consternation, Pagan wasn't even breathing hard.

“Nay.”  She struggled loose.  “Unless you wish to yield.”

“Yield?”  He grinned.  “A Cameliard knight doesn’t yield.”

“Then continue.”

She rolled her shoulders back and braced her legs again.  What was his weakness? she wondered.  Where was the chink in his armor?

Her father had told her that her feet were a formidable weapon, for few knights expected attacks from below.  If she could draw Pagan’s blade high...

Gripping her sword in both hands, she raised it overhead and came straight down as if to split him in two.  Predictably, he raised his blade to block her.  As he did, she leaned sideways at the waist and snapped her foot around to kick him in the belly.

He folded forward with a satisfying “oof.”  While he recovered, she lifted the tip of her sword up to his chin.

But he wasn’t as incapacitated as she expected.  With his free hand, he batted the flat of her blade down, then swept up his own sword, lightning quick, to rest across her throat.

“Interesting,” he said, commenting on her unique move.  “You’re certain you don’t wish to surrender?  After all, I’m still fresh.  You’ve been sparring half the morn.”

“I was only...warming up,” she bragged, though they could both hear the breath wheezing in her chest.

Clucking his tongue, he covered her forehead with his hand and playfully pushed her back away from his blade.

Panting, she wiped the sweat from her face with the back of her hand and studied her opponent.

He was a fine fighter.  There was no argument.  He was strong and quick and clever.  She'd never faced such a formidable foe.  But no one was as clever as she.  She’d managed to surprise him twice already.  Once she threw in a few more tricks from the repertoire of the Warrior Maids of Rivenloch, he’d fall, dumbfounded, at her feet.  She was sure of it.

Her resolve renewed, she exchanged a few benign blows with him, then, borrowing her sister’s wily ruse, dove forward into a roll, planning to come up with her blade at his throat.

But to her surprise, Pagan, resisting the natural instinct to retreat from attack, instead stepped
toward
her.  When she sprang to her feet, they collided.  Her face smashed into his chest, and he clamped her sword arm beneath his own, trapping her so she could do no more than flail away uselessly at the air behind him.

She tried to wrest away, but his arm held her close.

“Now will you cede?” he asked silkily.

She tried to shout, “Never!”  But the words came out muffled in the folds of his tabard.  She jerked against him, stuck fast.

Still, there was more than one way to get free.  She and Helena had invented scores of moves for just such situations as these, situations in which a woman’s strength was no match for a man’s and she must rely on adroitness and cunning.

With her next breath, she drove her right knee up toward his groin as hard as she could.  Indeed, he
was
caught off his guard, but at the last instant, he must have sensed her intent, for he twisted enough to ruin her aim.  Still, he swore as her mailed knee caught a portion of his unprotected ballocks.

She expected him to release her at once.  But his hold upon her did not lessen in the least, and as he sagged forward, groaning in pain, he took her down with him.

“Let...me...go...” she bit out, pushing up against him and trying to free her trapped arm.

“Nay...” he panted, clutching her tighter.

It was time for more ingenuity.  As she maintained pressure against his chest, she eased her left foot between his two, then swept it quickly sideways, catching the back of his right heel to trip him.

This time, he was too distracted to brace for the impact.  His foot flew up, throwing him backwards.  Like a felled tree, he hit the ground with an earth-shaking thud.

Unfortunately, he took Deirdre with him.

He turned just enough as he landed to avoid crushing her sword arm with his shoulder.  But still she couldn’t free herself from Pagan, who clung to her as tenaciously as a tick to a hound.  And now she lay splayed atop him like some wanton harlot.

For a moment, as the dust rose around them, Pagan was silent, all the wind knocked from him.  But as soon as he managed to rake in a ragged breath, Deirdre braced herself for his angry bellow.

It never came.  What came instead was a low peal of laughter, so genuine and charming that it startled Deirdre half out of her battle mood.

“Clever lass,” he coughed out with an approving grin.  “Where did you learn that?”

The question took her aback.  “I...my sister and I...made it up.”

He gave her a dubious glare.

“We
did
.”  His doubt renewed her irritation, and she tried to wriggle free again.  “We invent most of our own moves.”  Curse Pagan’s powerful grip, she might as well have been wrestling a bear.

She could feel his assessing gaze upon her, as if he measured her honesty or her worth.  When she dared meet his eyes, what she found there was more than judgment.  There was a dangerous shine of pride or admiration or respect that she didn’t expect.  And as she tried to absorb that emotion, another crept in, one far more perilous.

He wanted her.

With a mighty heave, Pagan rolled them both over until she lay flat on her back in the dust and he stretched out atop her.  It was a humiliating position, indicating not only his dominance and her submission, but evocative, by the smoldering in his eyes, of the marriage bed and coupling.

He was heavy atop her, despite the bulk he held upon his elbows.  While she fought to be free of this demeaning arrangement, she was ashamed to admit a part of her thrilled to feel his weight and his strength, to be intimate with him again.  And that terrified her.

“Get off me,” she whispered furiously, blushing like a nun at her bath.

“Nay.”

“‘Tis...shameful.”

“No one is here to see.”

“Yet.”

He lowered his gaze to her mouth, staring as if he planned to devour her.  “There’s nothing to be ashamed of.  We’re newly wed.”

Deirdre and her sister had invented methods of escape from all sorts of predicaments.  But not this one.  Not one where a man the size of a warhorse anchored a woman bodily to the ground.  She feared that her only defense was words.  “I will not brook this, sirrah.”

“Ah, but you
will
...wife,” he said with quiet self-confidence.

She swallowed hard.  He didn’t intend to swive her here in the tiltyard, did he?  Surely he was not so heathen as that.  And there was still his promise.  “Do you mean to break the vow you made to my sister?”

One side of his mouth curved up in a crooked smile.  “Hardly.”

He might not mean to break his vow, but Deirdre knew he wanted to.  Even through chain mail, she swore she could feel his cursed cock hardening against her thigh.

“I only wish to speak with you,” he continued dryly, “in a position where you can’t knock me to the ground or unman me with a swift kick.”

Deirdre scowled.  It was against her nature to surrender.  Persistence was one of her best weapons.  But she saw she was getting nowhere.  And in her present circumstances, not only did she risk an increasing chance of getting caught in a compromising position by a wandering stableboy or milkmaid or, God forbid, her father, but her own body was beginning to vibrate in a mutinous manner again, as if it were some lute string Pagan plucked to his own tune.

And so, in the interest of extricating herself as quickly as possible, Deirdre stopped struggling and dropped her weapon to the ground.  “Speak.”

He set his sword aside as well.  “You have some skill.”

The compliment surprised her, but she didn’t want him to know that.  “As do you,” she replied.

He chuckled, and his stomach jostled hers with each soft laugh.  “So I’m told.”  Apparently, there was not an ounce of humility in him.  “How long have you trained?”

“My father says I was born with a sword in my hand,” she told him proudly.

“Indeed?”  Laughter danced in his eyes.  “And did you stab at your nursemaid then?”

She fixed him with a grim stare.  “At twelve winters old, I cut the fingers from a fletcher who tried to swive my sister in the stables.”

A frown flitted across his brow, and his smile faded.  He was silent a long while, studying her thoughtfully, and she almost wished she hadn’t told him about the fletcher.  After all, the man was only the first of a long line of men who had met misfortune at the point of her sword.

At last he spoke.  “Maybe your father was wise in teaching you to fight.”

Deirdre was again astonished.  No one had ever said that before.  Her mother, the servants, even some of her own knights, were of the opinion that the sisters should have never taken up weapons.  It was only by her father’s bidding that their training had been permitted.

Perhaps, Deirdre dared to hope, Pagan understood.  Perhaps he recognized the wisdom in allowing her to be well-prepared and battle-ready and self-reliant.  Perhaps there would be no struggle for the command of the army of Rivenloch after all.

In the next instant, however, her hopes were dashed.

“But now, my lady,” Pagan said, his gaze at once magnanimous and patronizing, “you and your sister need not trouble your precious heads over such things.  The Knights of Cameliard are here to protect you.  You need never wear chain mail, never wield a sword, never suffer the scars of battle.  From this day forward,” he vowed, “I will be your champion.”

Apparently, Pagan thought, smiling tenderly, Deirdre was too grateful for words, for she could do little more than stare at him and sputter.  It would be a great relief to her not to rely upon that motley bunch she called the army of Rivenloch for defense.  Now that he and his men had arrived, she could return to stitching surcoats and picking flowers and whatever else women did.

And now that he had her where he wanted her, soft and flustered and grateful, perhaps she’d be amenable to a kiss...

“Deirdre!” someone suddenly called.

She stiffened beneath him.  He lifted his head to peer through a gap in the wattle fence.  Bloody hell, it was Miriel, looking for her sister.

“Deirdre!  Where are you?”

Panicked, Deirdre struggled to push him off of her.

“I know you’re here, Deirdre,” Miriel scolded, drawing near.  “I heard swords.  You can’t...oh!”

Miriel’s eyes went as round as quail eggs as she peeked over the fence.

But Pagan refused to jump up like an adulterer caught with his mistress.  Deirdre was his wife.  This was his tiltyard.  And if he wanted to swive his wife in his tiltyard, that was his own affair.

Deirdre apparently did not concur.  Her fingers had wormed their way under his chainse, and now she gave his bare flesh a hard pinch.  With a grunt of pain, he reluctantly moved off of her.  And with a glare of disapproval, he helped her to her feet.

Miriel stood frozen in her tracks, her jaw lax.  Her strange servant scowled beside her.

“What is it?” Pagan snapped.  It had better be important, or he would string the both of them up by their braids.

“Oh...oh...”  Miriel gaped from one to the other, as if she didn’t quite understand.

The maidservant stepped forward, planted her fists atop her narrow hips, and demanded, “What have you done with Helena?”

Pagan glowered at the old woman, unaccustomed to such effrontery from a servant.

Miriel seemed jolted from her paralysis.  She placed a placating hand on the maidservant’s arm.  “I’ve looked everywhere,” she explained to Pagan.  “I can’t find her.  And I can’t find your man, Colin, either.”

“What?” Deirdre exploded.  She turned on him.  “Where are they?  So help me, if he’s harmed one hair on her head—“

”Wait!” Pagan said, forestalling their panic.  “There’s nothing to fret about.  Colin is a trusted friend.  I told him to lock her in the cellar.  He is doubtless tending to her there.”

Almost before he spit the words out, Deirdre charged past the tiltyard gate.  He dogged her steps all the way back to the keep, praying that Colin had indeed spent the night watching over Helena, that he’d done nothing untoward or unwise.

But when they arrived at the cellar, his worst fears were confirmed.

It was damningly empty.

“Rauve and Adric, you take the east road,” Pagan ordered as the stableboy led several saddled horses into the courtyard.  “Reyner and Warin, go west.  Deirdre, have your—“

”Ian,” she interrupted, already a step ahead of him, “send Rivenloch men north and south.  And Miriel, have all the servants check the keep again.  Leave no stone unturned.”

“Good,” Pagan decided.

He’d never been so angry with Colin.  The dallying knave had recklessly absconded with a noblewoman, calling Pagan’s honor into question as well.  Even now, the Rivenloch people looked at him with thinly disguised hostility.  If Pagan couldn’t safeguard the lord’s daughter, how could he defend an entire keep?

Aye, the instant Colin came trotting back, smug from his romantic escapade, Pagan intended to knock a few teeth out of the varlet’s self-satisfied grin.

Deirdre would doubtless gloat over the lapse in Pagan’s judgment.  She deserved to.  But for the moment, too worried about her sister, she neither chided nor condemned him.

Deirdre sounded the order, and the gates of Rivenloch swung open to allow passage for the first riders.  But before the men could leave, Sir Adric spotted a monk approaching the castle, waving a rolled parchment in one hand.  “My lord, a messenger.”

“Wait.”  Pagan quickly mounted his own horse.

“Take me with you.”  Deirdre’s words were more command than plea, but under the circumstances, he obliged her.  He lowered his arm and let her pull herself up into the saddle behind him.

No sooner was she settled than he kicked the horse into a gallop out the gate to meet the monk.

The approaching steed almost frightened the tonsured young man out of his robes as it skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust.

“What have you there?” Pagan demanded.

“A m-missive, my lord.”

“From whom?”

“I was t-told to deliver it to a woman named Deirdre.”

Deirdre slipped easily from the saddle to the ground and reached for the parchment.  “I’m Deirdre.”

Pagan dismounted.  He itched to snatch the missive away from her.  After all, he could surely read much more quickly than a woman.  But he waited impatiently while she perused its contents.

When her shoulders sank, he feared the worst.  “What?  What is it?”

She gave no reply, only let her hand drop, and he seized the parchment before it could fall from her fingers.

“Deirdre,” he read aloud, “I have taken the Norman hos-...”  That couldn’t be right.  He read it again, slower.  “I have taken the Norman hostage.  I will not return him until the marriage is annulled.  Helena.”

For a moment, all he could do was stare in bewilderment at the childish scrawl.

“Shite,” Deirdre muttered, startling the monk, who, deciding it was time to travel on, crossed himself and hied down the road.

Then the truth of Colin’s predicament struck Pagan.  For possibly the first time in Colin’s life, he’d been outwitted by a wench.  At long last, the charming, sly, swell-headed varlet had met his match.

Laughter bubbled up from deep in Pagan’s chest and shook his shoulders.

Deirdre scowled and snatched the parchment from him, rolling it up to rap him on the arm.  ”’Tisn’t a matter for laughing.”

“Oh, aye, ‘tis,” he said, chuckling.  For Pagan, nothing tasted sweeter than just deserts.  “You don’t know Colin.”

“And you don’t know Helena.”

“She’s a wench,” he said with a dismissive shrug.

“Yet somehow she managed to singlehandedly take him hostage,” she said pointedly.

He snorted.  “She doubtless caught him off his guard.”  Indeed, he was relieved to have the blame shifted from Colin.  And under the circumstances, he was in no hurry to come riding to his man’s rescue.

But something in Deirdre’s grave manner took him aback.  He narrowed his gaze.  “She isn’t...daft...is she?”

“She’s...impulsive.”

“What do you mean, impulsive?”

“You should know.  She tried to stab you.”

“She was quite drunk.”

“Aye,” she admitted, “but she was also desperate to save Miriel.”

“Which you’ve already done,” he said sourly.  The idea of the three sisters battling over the disgrace of becoming his bride still cut him to the quick.

“But she doesn’t know that.  She thinks you’re wed to Miriel.”

“Colin will tell her otherwise.”

“Not if he’s bound and gagged.”

The image of Colin, tied up at the mercy of a wench, lightened his mood again.

Deirdre wasn't so amused.  "I think I know where she took him.  There's an abandoned crofter's cottage about—"

“Let them be.”

“What?”

“Let them be.  If Colin let a woman get the best of him, I say the fool should find his own way free.”