Claire Delacroix (102 page)

Rowan halted and turned, looking astonished that she was not immediately behind him. His features darkened when he saw the men circling around her. He marched back to her side and seized her elbow, his grip less forceful than she had expected.

“Fool woman!” He shook her slightly and forced her to match her pace to his. “I thought we had agreed!”

Yet Ibernia, instead of feeling threatened by his annoyance, felt oddly protected. She told herself that ’twas only natural to expect a knight to protect one, especially a knight who had paid too much coin to make her his slave.

She was a possession, no more than that.

“We agreed to go to Ireland,” she clarified.

“Surely ’tis not too much for a man to partake of a meal and a measure of ale first.”

Ibernia looked to him in alarm. “In a tavern?”

“Aye, likely as not.”

“I will not enter a tavern!” Ibernia argued, for that was where her own troubles had begun.

“Whyever not?” Rowan turned to her, his expression slightly impatient. “Surely you can have no desire to linger here? When did you last have a hot meal? ’Tis not my intent to eat alone!”

Ibernia clung to her conviction, not daring to be tempted by the luxury of hot food. “We travel to Ireland.” She deliberately took a more confrontational pose. “You vowed it to me.”

To her surprise, dismay transformed Rowan’s features. Then he smiled anew, and she wondered whether she had imagined his response.

Indeed, his tone turned cajoling. “But I have only just disembarked. Would you not have a meal in your own belly first?”

Did he mean to break his pledge? Ibernia folded her arms across her chest, not prepared to leave wharf for town without a battle.

Even if her empty belly was readily persuaded to join Rowan’s side. “I think only of your quest,” she declared archly.

Rowan looked skeptical. “Aye?”

“Aye. You would not want to reach Ballyroyal
after
Bronwyn had taken her marital vows.” Ibernia shrugged, knowing from the brightness of his gaze that she had his attention. “Of course, ’tis
your
quest, and no doubt you know best how to pursue it.”

The squire snickered until the knight cast him a dark glance.

“After
her nuptials?” Rowan shoved a hand through his russet hair, the dishevelled result making him look appealingly boyish. His brows drew together in frustration. “When was she to wed?”

“Just past midsummer was the last I heard. And now ’tis—”

“Just past midsummer!” the squire crowed.

Rowan swore.

Once again Ibernia feigned indifference, knowing the knight’s attention was fully snared. “Though indeed, ’tis
long since I was in Ireland. The nuptials could have been delayed.”

“Or hastened,” the squire commented, most conveniently, to Ibernia’s thinking.

Rowan’s expression turned grim in a way that she guessed was not characteristic. “To what port must we sail?”

“Dublin, of course.”

His gaze slid over the numerous ships at anchor as if seeking an escape from keeping his word. “Indeed, there may not be a vessel destined there.” He nodded crisply. “We shall seek news at the tavern while we eat.”

“On the contrary, that ship with the Venetian colors is destined precisely there.” Ibernia pointed to the flag fluttering in the breeze with its familiar symbol of the winged lion of St. Mark.

Rowan’s gaze turned questioning and Ibernia realized she had erred. She hastened on before he could even ask how she knew enough to recognize that banner. “I heard the men talking as my former master and I passed.”

Which was partly true. She had heard them talking of their destination—but had recognized their insignia from her father’s lessons.

Though she had understood their Venetian dialect from her father’s lessons as well, that was less than pertinent. If Dame Fortune rode with her, Rowan would never catch her second slip.

Ibernia lifted her chin to face Rowan, wanting beyond all else to be on that ship, purely because it was destined to leave the soonest.

Rowan glanced to the ship and paled ever so slightly. “Surely we can find passage on the morrow,” he suggested.

Ibernia feared that time would change his thinking or that ale would muddy his intent.

“Perhaps we could.” She smiled ever so slightly. “Or perhaps you do not truly wish to win your dare, after all.”

She stepped forward, allowing a slight swagger in her walk, then glanced over her shoulder. “Or perhaps,” she added softly, “you are
afraid
to measure your charm against the Venetians. One does hear that they are most handsome and gallant men, accomplished and discerning. A woman could readily lose her heart to such a man.”

“Or something somewhat lower,” the squire amended, his lack of innocence making Ibernia glance his way in surprise.

But Rowan cast his hands toward the sky, indifferent to the boy’s comment. “I fear comparison with no man! How could you even suggest such foolery?”

“Then prove it,” Ibernia whispered. Rowan glared at her and she felt suddenly very bold. “I
dare
you.”

The air crackled between them and Ibernia’s heart skipped a beat. The knight’s eyes flashed. He strode forward so suddenly that his destrier started, and grasped Ibernia’s elbow with purpose.

Ibernia slanted a sidelong glance his way and noted the determined set of his lips. She had a very definite sense that she was going to win her way in this. But that was not the sole root of the very odd thrill running through her as Rowan marched her down the wharf.

“Oh, I shall accept your dare and shame you for even making such a suggestion, of that you can be sure,” the knight muttered through gritted teeth. “My charm so far exceeds that of mere merchants that even
you
shall swoon in my arms when you see the truth.”

Ibernia chuckled despite herself. “Oh, I think not.”

Rowan turned a sparkling glance upon her, his annoyance gone as swiftly as the wind. “Would you care to make a wager upon it,
ma demoiselle
!”

Oh, he was an alluring man, of that Ibernia had no doubt. Her breath caught in her throat. A strange warmth unfurled in her belly, and Ibernia wondered if she were becoming ill. Truly she had never felt so strange in all her days.

“What manner of wager?” Aye, even her voice was oddly breathless.

Rowan’s eyes gleamed. His smile made her heart pound, the way his thumb slid across her arm prompting her to shiver. “That I can persuade you to share your charms with me.”

“Willingly?” Ibernia’s doubt made the squire chuckle again.

But Rowan arched a brow. “Of course.” His gaze danced over her features, and ’twas as if he touched her. Ibernia’s face burned and she leapt away from him.

“I will never willingly cede to a man’s touch!” She granted him a scornful glance, though she wondered whom she sought to convince. “Especially a rogue like you.”

Rowan watched her, his gaze too perceptive for Ibernia’s taste. She wrapped her arms around herself, and glared at him. Both shivers and heat ran beneath her flesh. Clearly, she was falling prey to some foul illness.

Yet, if she fell ill, would Rowan take advantage of her then? She had witnessed how men thought of little beyond themselves and their pleasure. Oh, how she longed to be home and safe again!

When Rowan spoke, his voice was soft. “Then you have naught to lose by taking my challenge.”

Ibernia studied him for a long moment. She was oblivious to the bustle of the wharf, aware only of the glow in Rowan’s amber eyes and the hammer of her heart. “You will not force me?”

“Never.” His slow smile heated her blood in a most uncommon
way, or maybe ’twas the heat in his pledge. “I prefer to have women leap willingly into my bed.”

Ibernia shook her head and stepped away. “I will not be the next. Not I.”

“On the contrary, I suspect you will.” Rowan offered his hand, in the manner of knights making a pledge, his manner so cursedly confident that Ibernia was tempted to prove his expectation wrong. “Let there be a new wager between us. I pledge to win your willing surrender—with no tool but my own charm.”

Still Ibernia did not take his hand. “You will not force your affections upon me?”

Rowan snorted. “That course is for the vulgar alone.” He arched a brow. “Perhaps a
merchant
might take such a course, but I would not stoop to such a deed.”

“And what stakes do you set?”

He grinned. “Resist me until Ballyroyal and you shall have your freedom then and there.”

Ibernia blinked. The man did indeed set a hefty measure upon his allure! “Instead of in a year and a day?”

“Aye.” There was a twinkle in the knight’s eye, one that reminded her of his desire to win at challenges.

But Ibernia knew she could withstand any such temptation. Sharing a bed with a man was no pleasure—and could be no different, even with one so handsomely wrought as Rowan.

She could fend off his advances for a few weeks, especially if the prize was her freedom—and to be home once again.

Home. She could be
home
before summer’s end. And free.

’Twas an offer that could not be denied.

Ibernia took his hand without further hesitation. “Consider the wager to be made.”

“That I do.” Rowan’s hand closed over hers with a warmth and surety that Ibernia found curiously reassuring. His eyes flashed and she had a warning only the span of a heartbeat before he quickly brushed his lips across her brow.

Ibernia danced backward, outraged that he would make such a gesture. “You!” The fleeting kiss seemed to burn against her flesh, and she scrubbed at it, well aware that the knight chuckled at her expense.

Oh, he was too confident by half! She would savor each refusal of his attempt to woo her!

“I but seal our bargain,” Rowan teased with a confident wink, then turned toward the ship.

Without dragging her along, or binding her to his side, or otherwise compelling her to join him. But Ibernia followed, disliking that Rowan found her so predictable as that. She could have fled—aye, in a heartbeat!—but he was her best opportunity to achieve what she wanted. That alone was why she followed him.

And Rowan de Montvieux—curse him!—knew that all too well.

owan strode to the ship she had indicated, needled by Ibernia’s insistence that they leave immediately, no less her means to ensure she had him doing her will. ’Twas he who twisted women around his finger and turned them to
his
will! Rowan did not care for the change. Nay, there had never been a woman who compelled him to act against his will.

And he had wanted that hot meal. No less, a break from voyaging on ships and all the attendant discomfort. Aye, this was certainly not the circumstance he would have preferred, but Rowan had a weakness to which he seldom confessed.

The flash of fear in the lady’s eyes had been his undoing. He was not one who liked to see women afraid. Perhaps his upbringing made him love to see women laughing and happy, to see welcome in their eyes. Rowan did not care. He would never force a woman beneath his hand, for to Rowan, that would take the joy of the moment from him as well.

The anguish in those clear blue eyes when he vowed to seduce her told Rowan volumes of what his new slave had endured at the hands of men. Clearly Ibernia—or whatever her name was—had not found happiness with men, and Rowan was not inclined to torment her.

He suspected she had been tormented enough.

Just as he suspected that she was more than she would
have him believe. There was something in the tilt of Ibernia’s chin and the flash of her eyes that spoke of a life of privilege, a household in which a woman had the freedom to speak, a place in which her comments would be heeded.

There was a lilt in her voice that hinted at education, an assessing light in her eyes and keenness of wit that showed she had grown up surrounded by those who valued her view. Only a woman raised in pampered circumstance could imagine that fleeing that circumstance could win her anything better.

She was born wealthy, or Rowan would eat his saddle.

Though she hurried to cover her tale of the ship, Rowan was not fooled. She had recognized the insignia, an unlikely feat for someone who was “no one.” The Venetians were not so common as that in this port outside the Mediterranean.

Rowan would guess that Ibernia was a merchant’s daughter, schooled by her family in matters of import to merchants. ’Twas easy to conclude from that how she had become a slave. Perhaps she had travelled with her father or spouse on a journey gone awry, and become a spoil of war who had then been sold.

She lied about fleeing the nuns, of that there could be no doubt. Indeed, he was fiercely curious about that truth, and he knew he would have the fullness of the lady’s tale before all was done.

If not much more of her favor.

But he would proceed with caution—even though there was clearly more to Ibernia than she would have preferred Rowan know, he also knew that she would not part with her tale readily. Nor that ’twould be readily disentangled from the falsehoods she had learned to tell to protect herself.