“Emelin,” he shouted. “Answer me.” His gaze searched the clearing dotted with bodies.
If the outlaws had harmed her, he would track down their lord no matter how long it took. It would be his life’s work. The arrogant confidence in his own ability, his stubbornness, had exposed her to danger and now she was lost. God help him.
He didn’t know if God existed. But his little warrior-nun thought so. Pray Emelin’s God protected her.
Where was she? Was she hurt? God forbid, dead? Determination to find her overrode panic, and a rigid calm settled. When he got his hands on her, he’d wring her neck. Exposing herself to harm the way she had!
But the way she slammed the assassin in the head with a branch—Giles bit back the urge to smile.
“Here. Here I am.” The hoarse words came from behind his shoulder. In reflex, he flung back his sword arm, whipped around. And looked into the wide eyes of Emelin, now pinned beneath his knee. His gut twisted in fear at what he might have done.
“Satan’s balls, wench.” He unclenched one hand from her throat and tossed aside the sword. Relief and new fear warred in his mind. She was alive, but he, himself, could have harmed her, taken by surprise as he was.
“Never do that,” he roared. “I could have killed you.” Savage relief made him want to crush her in his arms, and he leaned in.
She didn’t move. That’s when he noticed dark red stains across the front of her gown. “Blood! Where are you hurt?” A quick examination uncovered no wounds, but still she didn’t speak, didn’t move.
An unfamiliar panic clutched his heart. His Emelin always had a quick retort, but now her glazed eyes stared. She couldn’t be dead, her breast rose and fell. Shock of the battle, that’s what it must be. He’d seen many squires freeze after their first fight.
“Speak to me, curse you.” He shook her; her head bobbed up and down.
“They plotted to kill you,” she whispered at last, her voice hiccupping. “When they saw you following, they made for the woods and boasted of how you would die. How you would suffer.”
Tears rolled down her pale cheeks as she reached for him. “They were certain you would follow me—and you did.” Her voice filled with wonder. “You came for me.”
“You knew I would.” His voice growled with emotion. “I don’t lose what’s mine.” He took her in his arms while she sobbed, petted her hair, caressed her trembling back. “Shhhh. It’s all right. They won’t harm you again.”
She swiped tears from her cheeks and clutched his side. “But—” Emelin pulled away her fingers, sticky with gore. “You’re injured. Dear God, the knife pierced your side.” She tried to squirm free. “Let me look.”
His grip tightened. “It’s nothing. A scratch. By my word, not worth the effort.”
Her body tensed, and Giles wondered if she would give way completely. But she just stared at him in silence. Then she blinked, as if seeing him clearly, and rubbed her throat.
“I’ve never seen anyone move so fast,” she whispered. “How did you do that?”
He grunted and helped her sit. Little by little, the expression in her eyes returned to normal, her breathing calmed.
His fear dissipated as she regained color. She would recover. Anger replaced relief once more. Throwing herself into the fight as she did, she could have died.
“Damnation. What did you mean by exposing yourself? That man had a knife. It could just as well have found your heart as my side.” To forestall grabbing her again, he dragged his hands through his tangled hair.
“I meant to help.” Her voice grew stronger as her indignation increased. “I saved your life. He intended to bury a knife in your back. Would you have preferred that?” Gaze leveled on his, she rose to her knees. “‘Damnation,’ indeed. Such gratitude.”
She’d returned to her normal, prickly self. Good.
When he stood, a sharp pain reminded him of his injury. It wasn’t bad. He’d tend it after they returned to camp.
“We must leave. Now.” He located his sword and thrust it into the scabbard. He spared not a thought for the dead men as he searched for some identification, some clue to the man who sent them. Nothing. Let the wolves have the bodies. He had no time to waste on burials.
Nuit had not returned, but when Giles mustered a sharp whistle, the gelding trotted from the trees.
****
Sensation returned to Emelin in a swoosh. Her heart pounded, her head throbbed.
And she was so angry she could scream. But after the first few moments, she couldn’t seem to form words. Giles scooped her up, plopped her sideways onto the saddle, then mounted. An arm slid around her waist, jerked her against his warm body.
They couldn’t just ride away. He was wounded. He’d rescued her from her own stubbornness. She owed him care. She squirmed.
“Stop. Let me look at your side. You’re bleeding, you know.”
Tension vibrated against her side where it touched his chest. “What?”
“Your wound? It must be tended. Get down and let me bind it.”
“
Merde
.” He pulled on the reins, and Nuit shot forward.
“Swearing is not polite.”
He ignored her.
How like him, to think himself indestructible. He wasn’t. Frustration gave way to memory of the battle and the way Giles fought. He’d been magnificent. Tight, economic, lethal movements, driven by tireless muscles. Had she not witnessed the encounter, she’d never have believed one man could fight so fiercely. Sometimes his humor made her forget he was a dangerous warrior. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
The pommel ground into her hip and she squirmed. At her back, his strong body went rigid. “Sit still.” The deep voice growled in her ear.
Leaning back, she closed her eyes. Silence and the rhythm of the horse’s movement lulled her, and she thought of the comfort she’d felt the night before, curled next to him. Finally she conceded, “I was wrong to leave after you slept. But I thought the voices I heard were the searchers. I must go back to Langley, surely you realize.”
The rise and fall of his chest grew more pronounced. Silence.
“If they find us together—” She raised her voice to be heard over the sound of hooves. “—there will be too many for you to fight.”
“You think I can’t protect myself. Or you?” The voice rumbled, the arm muscles tightened.
How could she say no after what she had witnessed? Yet one man, no matter how proficient, could account for only so many opponents.
“You can’t fight a small army,” she repeated.
The answer was another growl. Emelin didn’t reply. She knew when to be quiet.
****
Although Emelin’s chatter reassured Giles, he was grateful for her silence. The warmth of her body calmed him. She was safe. Why did she doubt him?
The three assassins were dead. He had not failed. But he had damn well placed her in jeopardy when he hauled her out of Langley. Her safety was his responsibility, and during the pursuit to the woods, he vowed he’d see her secure and protected before searching another league for the men who plotted against Richard. One more day would not matter in England’s future. It could mean everything in Emelin’s.
He felt more than worry. He’d felt fear. He’d been afraid for the stubborn, willful woman whose body now pressed against him, and the strength of that reaction had surprised him. He controlled fear as tightly as he controlled all other emotions that could get him killed.
This fear had caught him unaware—a frantic clutching near his heart that left him gasping. Now he held her, he could breathe.
His arm flexed around her. When he pulled her closer, pain jabbed his side, and the road before him wavered. He tightened his jaw, gritted his teeth.
Concentrate.
He blinked hard, snapped his head to the side to focus his attention.
The discomfort eased soon, replaced by another, more pleasurable one, not so easily ignored. Shifting in the saddle, Giles lifted her soft, round bottom away from his painful erection. He sighed. With Emelin near, he’d be aroused on his deathbed.
By the time they neared their destination, however, he was ready to submit to her ministrations. Little jabs from sharp daggers could be troublesome after all.
****
The moment Nuit stopped at the site of last night’s camp, Emelin slid off. “Don’t move,” she ordered Giles. She raced to his other side and bit her lip at the sight of his injury. Blood no longer oozed from the wound, but the tunic’s ripped edges stuck to the skin.
She reached up. “Let me help you down.”
“I can do it myself.”
If the situation hadn’t been so dire, she would have smiled at the petulance in his voice. Like a child.
“Stubborn,” she whispered, as he dismounted.
He walked to a rock at the edge of the tiny clearing. Emelin grabbed the bag from the saddle and followed. He stood, struggling to pull off his tunic when she reached him. She flung down the pack and caught the bottom of the garment to ease it over the wound.
“I can—”
“—do it yourself. I know.” She shook her head. “Shhhh. There’s fabric in the cut. Let me free it. Raise your arms. No. Not that far, you’ll open the wound. Put them down a bit…if you weren’t so tall…Will you try to cooperate?” At last she worked it over his head and tossed it to the side.
“How have I lived a score and eight years without you to bully me?” he grumbled.
Emelin heard a smile thread his voice, and she wondered again at the spring of humor in this fierce man. It ran so near the surface, bubbling up at the most unexpected time, such as now. He had fought and killed three outlaws, took a dagger to the side, then brought them both safely to camp, bleeding all the while.
Yet he could find something about which to jest. Her face warmed as she recalled the first day they met, when he played that absurd prank and kissed her. Her lips tingled.
Oh, she had to stop this foolishness. He was her abductor, not some poor, defenseless, inept…man.
He was also her rescuer.
And he was wounded. Because of her. She owed it to him to tend his hurts, not gape at the muscle cording his solid arms and rippling down his torso. Embarrassed by the urge to trace every contour of his impressive expanse of skin, she scowled. Best get to work.
Emelin freed several strands of wool from the sticky cut, retrieved the water, and splashed some on the wound. He didn’t wince as the coldness trickled down the wavy, hard ridges of his stomach. When she glanced up, he winked.
With a small “uh” of exasperation, she shook her head, then returned attention to the gash. Shade from the trees around the campsite made it difficult to see.
She kneeled, ran her fingers across the wound. Deeper than first thought, where the dagger tip had lodged, but it seemed clean now, praise God. Barring infection, the injury would heal without trouble.
“That tickles.” His hooded eyes sparkled.
She ignored the tiny flip of her stomach. Of course, she realized, humor often covered cynicism. What made Giles cynical? For some women at the convent, the outlook resulted from disappointment or disillusionment. What had disappointed Giles in the past? What disillusioned him?
Circling behind the rock where he now sat, she gasped. A jagged scar angled from his left shoulder to his lower right back. A short, thick scar lay near his right shoulder blade. Her fingertips skimmed like a breath over the rough puckers. How these injuries must have hurt. His muscles jerked.
A murmur, thick and warm as summer honey, reached her. “That happened when I was young. Before I learned to guard my back.”
“Was there no one to do it for you?” Her light voice wavered.
“Not then.”
She had an absurd urge to run her lips along those scars, kisses to make them well. As her mother had once kissed her hurts, in a childhood that lasted but an instant, a memory so dim it might have been a dream.
Emelin settled for a touch in passing. She dug in the pack for a fresh rag to dress the most recent wound. Another scar in the making. It could have used stitching, but the gouge would likely be healed before they reached a needle and thread.
“At the bottom,” he said, “pieces of cloth.”
She pulled out a rough square of old linen. Soft and clean. He traveled prepared. But how to keep the bandage in place? Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she grabbed two items and knotted them together to make one long piece of fabric, then shoved it toward him
Giles dangled the long strip. “These are my other hose.”
If he laughed, so help her, she’d do him a worse injury. “I’ll wrap it around and tie it over the bandage.” She laid the folded linen over the wound, then placed his other hand on it. “Hold please.”
His chest shook, but he—wisely, Emelin judged—uttered not a sound.
She wrapped the knotted hose around one side of his waist, then leaned in to catch the other end. And found her cheek against his chest. Why hadn’t she thought this binding thing through?
His scent filled her. Mingled with blood were the faint odors of dried perspiration and the spicy, musky male essence that was his alone. Gently, a large hand cupped her head in place. Her own hand flew up to steady herself. Beneath her cheek, his skin was smooth, slightly cool in the autumn air. A dark curl tickled her nose. She moved her fingers to brush at it then used the leverage to push away.
He allowed her to straighten, but his hand trailed down to rest at the small of her back. She noticed another scar, this one high on the left side under his bulging shoulder muscles. Her fingertips touched it.