Lady Danger (The Warrior Maids of Rivenloch, Book 1) (28 page)

He bit out a foul oath and charged after her.  He might be unable to save the castle, curse his willful wife and his defiant knights, but at least he’d keep Deirdre from harm.

He bolted up the hill, but as he drew near, his gaze caught on a curious flame near the top of the trebuchet.  By its light, he spied a dark creature scrambling over the structure.  As he watched, perplexed, all at once the figure made a daring leap, appearing to vanish into the night.

Then the flame began to spark.

And Pagan knew.

“God’s blood!”

He lunged forward with renewed purpose.

The sky flashed suddenly white, as if the sun had burst through night’s cloak, and he dove atop Deirdre, shielding her with his body.

A deafening explosion rocked the earth, flattening them to the ground.  He covered his head, certain the world had been cleaved asunder.  Gasps and shouts of astonishment rose around him as splinters of the trebuchet pierced the night and trickled down like demon rain.

“Ballocks!”  Deirdre squirmed impatiently beneath him for a better view.  “What was that?”

“That,” he told her in breathless disbelief, “was salvation.”

“Holy...”  She was left speechless, gazing at the grim remains of the beast.

He eased some of his weight off of her.  “Bloody Saints, are you all right?”

“Aye.”  She twisted onto her back so she could look up at him.  “You?”

Gazing down at his precious warrior maid, he was filled with warring emotions.  He’d never felt more grateful to be alive.  And he'd never been more furious at her disobedience.  He'd never experienced such sweet relief.  Nor such burning rage.  He was bloody and battered, his body a battlefield of cuts that would sting and bruises that would ache once the skirmish was over, but just looking into Deirdre’s adoring eyes seemed to heal his hurts and melt his anger.  “I'll mend."

“Do we have a chance now?”

He scanned the crowd of cheering knights further down the slope.  “I think we may.”

“Then let’s finish this.”

Indeed, Pagan didn’t want to move.  He’d much prefer lying atop his beautiful wife, holding her safe in his arms till dawn.  But she was right.  They had to make an end to the battle.  Soon the English would regroup and launch another attack.  The war was not yet over.

But if obliterating their trebuchet didn’t completely destroy the morale of the English, the thundering herd of red-haired savages charging over the hill like wild cattle sealed their fate.  Even before the stars began to wink out in deference to the impending dawn, the enemy, their lords slain, exhausted and finally outnumbered, recovered their dead and fled.

As the last panicked English soldier retreated over the hill to the sound of Norman taunts and rattling Scots blades, Pagan sheathed his sword, grabbed his wife, and gave her a deep kiss of sweet victory they would remember for the rest of their lives.

Triumphant cheers echoed along the starlit hills and glens of Rivenloch as Helena threw the castle gates wide in welcome.  Indeed, the keep had never known a gathering of such magnitude.  The great hall swarmed with the clan of Lachanburn, the Knights of Cameliard, and the crofters and craftsmen and maidservants of Rivenloch.  Ale flowed freely, and while winsome lasses tenderly cared for their wounded heroes, tales and exaggerations of tales already sprang from the seeds that would turn them into legends.

Already, men speculated upon the trebuchet’s destruction.  Some said a freak bolt of lightning, hurled by God’s avenging hand, had struck down the machine.  Some claimed it was the work of the Devil.

Still, unless her eyes had deceived her, Deirdre suspected it was neither divine intervention nor demonic mischief, but the hand of their resident outlaw that had saved Rivenloch.

As the revelers celebrated and boasted and drank to their triumph, Deirdre, bone-weary but sublimely content, sat upon a bench, casually suveying the great hall and letting Boniface tend to her injuries.

“I’ve already got the first lines,” Boniface confided, dabbing at a scrape on her arm.  He cleared his throat and sang softly, “More fierce than Ariadne when she slew the Minotaur, More bold than brave Athena when she led her men to war."  His voice swelled with exaggerated zeal as he placed a mawkish hand over his heart.  "More valiant than Nemesis with her avenging sword, Was Deirdre, Maid of Rivenloch, the night she—"

Deirdre seized him about the throat, choking off his song.  ”You sing that, lad,” she warned him with a dangerous smile, “and I’ll see you get no supper for a sennight.”  Helena might enjoy such lofty praise, but it was an embarrassment to Deirdre.

She released him, and Boniface scowled in disappointment and returned to cleaning her cuts.

Athena indeed.  Deirdre had fought well, but it wasn’t her hand that had turned the tide of battle.  That honor belonged to The Shadow.  Whoever he was.

She took a swallow of ale and glanced in speculation about the hall.  In one corner, Miriel and Sung Li conversed with Lachanburn and two of his flame-haired sons.  Deirdre studied the boys.  The mysterious figure climbing on the trebuchet had appeared with the arrival of the Lachanburn clan.  Maybe one of the mischief-making lads, unbeknownst to his father, had a criminal avocation.

Deirdre smiled, then drank from her ale.  If so, then far be it from her to disclose his identity, in light of the good he’d done this eve.

In another corner of the hall, Helena and Colin, who was fully awake now, argued vehemently, even as she carefully tended to a cut on his cheek.  Deirdre shook her head.  One day, if the two of them ever ceased quarreling, maybe she’d hear the story of their adventures in the woods.

Beside the fire, the Lord of Lachanburn and her father drank together, nodding sagely and exchanging words of comfort only old widowed warriors could understand.  Perhaps this battle had been a blessing.  Their alliance and their renewed friendship might serve to mend the wounds both men had suffered.

And there, across the hall, by the flickering candlelight, Pagan, her magnificent Pagan, bruised and bloody and beautiful, leaned against the buttery wall, sipping from a cup of ale and merrily chatting with...

Lucy Campbell.

Deirdre arched a brow, muttering, “Don’t even think of it.”

“My lady?” Boniface looked up.

She hadn’t battled fierce English soldiers away from her husband all night just to have a conniving Scots kitchen maid mince up and lay claim to him.

She banged down her cup of ale and rose from the bench.

Boniface sputtered in protest.  “But my lady, I’m not f-“

”Later.”  She straightened to her full height.  “I have one last foe to conquer.”

She strode across the hall, her fingers resting idly on her dagger hilt and an even direr threat in her eyes.

When she reached the buttery, she swept up between the two of them with a deceptively sweet, “Pagan, my love,” looping her arm possessively through his.  But the glare she gave Lucy was pointed as she asked him, “Will you come upstairs with me?”

Lucy pouted, her plans foiled.  Deirdre made a mental note to assign the wench to emptying chamberpots on the morrow for her devilry.

But one glance at Pagan’s face, and Deirdre knew he’d intended no mischief with the maid.  Adoration shone in his eyes as he smiled at her, adoration and a bond that no amount of dallying with a kitchen wench could unmake.

Not that she’d allow him to test her...

She took the cup of ale from him and handed it off to Lucy, dismissing the thwarted maid.  Then with a waggish smile, she led Pagan through the cheering crowd.

Somehow, despite the revelers who insisted on delaying them with congratulations and hearty salutes, they managed to finally climb the stairs to their bedchamber.

Deirdre paused before the door.  There was one thing still nagging at her brain, one thing she had to ask.  “Pagan, just before the trebuchet exploded...did you see...?”

“What?”

“Anything?”

He grinned.  “I saw you.  Only you.”  His eyes glowed with worship as he lifted a lock of her hair and kissed it.

Lord, the lust in his eyes almost made her forget her question.  She gulped, then furrowed her brow.  “I mean...
on
the trebuchet.”

His gaze drifted down to her lips, and she could almost feel his desire for a kiss.  “Aye,” he said dreamily.

“You did?”

“Mm."

Then she hadn’t imagined it.  “A dark figure?”

“I suppose so.”

“‘Twas The Shadow then.  It had to be,” she said.  “But he just...disappeared.”

Pagan shrugged, his gaze lingering on her mouth.  Clearly his mind was on other things.  “Your outlaw seems to prefer obscurity.”

Her heart fluttered as she fought to concentrate on the issue at hand.  “Then let’s not disclose his secret.”

“Done,” he said, lifting her hand and placing a gentle kiss upon her fingers.  “As long as I am steward of Rivenloch—"

"Lord of Rivenloch," she corrected.  After the battle, Lord Gellir had, of his own free will, officially ceded authority to Pagan.

"As long as I am lord," he amended, laying his hand across his heart as a pledge, "no one shall ever lay a hand upon The Shadow.  Whoever he is.”  Then he gave her a sly grin.  “As for you, however...”

She returned his smile.  Already her blood warmed in anticipation.  “To the victors,” she whispered as she opened the door.

His grin widened.  “Go the spoils.”

And, ah, what spoils they shared...

Within moments, they were nestled beneath the thick furs, their naked bodies entwining in a tender embrace.

“'Twas a terrible risk you took," Pagan chided her, reaching up to caress her jaw, “coming to rescue—“

She sucked a quick breath between her teeth as he touched a tender spot, and he withdrew his hand.

“I caught an English fist,” she explained with a sheepish smile.  “And your rescue?  'Twas a risk worth taking."  She tucked a lock of his hair behind his ear.

He winced.

She lifted a questioning brow.

“Dagger nick,” he said.  Then he shook his head.  “Oh, wife," he sighed, "when I first saw you tearing your way into that pavilion...”  He clasped her hand in his.

She gasped.

He let go.

“Caught an English
face
,” she said, flexing her sore knuckles.  Sighing, she ran a palm experimentally over his bare shoulder.  “I couldn’t bear to leave you there with those miserable bas-”  He tried not to flinch, but she could tell it pained him.

“Mace bruise,” he admitted.

“Ooh.”  She cringed in sympathy.  “Is there anywhere you’re
not
...”

He thought for a moment.  Then one side of his mouth curved up into a wolfish grin.

Battle-weary and bone-bruised, they made love slowly,
carefully
, murmuring endearments against one another’s lips.  And as they merged in blissful union, Deirdre perceived that
this
, more than anything, represented the truth of their bond.

Before, she’d envisioned their marriage as a battle waged between the two of them, where one triumphed and one surrendered, a contest for control and power.

But marriage, she now knew, was not war at all.  Marriage was man and wife, side by side as they were now, sharing life’s adventures and battling its challenges...together.  It was an alliance forged of the finest steel, tempered in the fires of adversity, and thus blessed by unrivaled strength.

Gradually, their limbs and murmurs and hearts tangled in the lovely disarray of trysting, and Deirdre grew less and less capable of clear thought.  Instead, she found herself enveloped in a mindless mist of sensual pleasure and sweet relief.  And finally, as one, they culminated their passion, holding each other, heart to heart, crying out their soft ecstasy, just as sunlight poured over the horizon on a new day.

Pagan had never felt such contentment, gazing upon his beautiful prize, his fair Scots bride.  Her adoring eyes shone as pure and clean as the cloudless sky, and the golden hue of her hair rivaled that of the sunlight spilling through the half-shuttered window.  He stroked her silken locks while her breathing slowed and her eyes drifted closed.

But there was much more to her beauty than her blonde Viking tresses and clear crystal eyes and sensual curves, he realized.  Deirdre possessed a beauty of spirit.  She’d shown him faith and loyalty.  Strength and honor and, aye, love.

He smiled.  It had taken them bloody long enough to admit to that love.  But now that they had, he wouldn’t ever let her forget it.  Indeed, he wondered how long it would take for Colin and Helena to realize that they, too, belonged together.

Deirdre sighed happily, and he pressed a gentle kiss to her brow.  From the moment he’d glimpsed her ripping through the English pavilion, sword in hand, come to rescue him, he’d realized she was as courageous as any of the Knights of Cameliard, and as headstrong.  Now he supposed there was no getting that ale back into the keg.  But he’d gladly fight beside his brave Warrior Maid any time, for together, they could conquer the world.