Lady Danger (The Warrior Maids of Rivenloch, Book 1) (15 page)

Her gaze lowered then to his mouth, and he could almost see her weighing his offer, reconsidering.

But he suddenly realized he didn’t want Deirdre this way.  He might have paid a woman for her favors in the past, but Deirdre was his wife.  He wanted her to come to him of her own free will, not because he promised her a trinket or a trifle...or command of an army.

Before lust could get the best of him, he released her and backed away.  “You fight admirably for a woman, Deirdre,” he allowed, “but you
will
fight no more.”

Deirdre replied with a strangled growl.  Then she pushed him out of her way, retrieved her discarded sword, and shoved it into its sheath.  For a moment, he thought she was going to speak.  She furrowed her brow and narrowed her eyes, and her lips thinned in anger.  But in the end, without a word, she wheeled and stalked off the field as angrily as a spurned harlot.

Pagan watched her go.  She would recover, he knew.  Aye, she was vexed now.  She was probably accustomed to getting her way.  No doubt the Lord of Rivenloch had spoiled his three daughters rotten.  That would have to change, now that he was steward.

Deirdre likely suffered, too, from wounded pride that his men had so soundly beaten hers.  She struck him as a woman who hated to lose.

But she’d get over it.

She wrenched open the gate of the tiltyard and slammed it shut, rattling the wattle fence.  Aye, Deirdre of Rivenloch most certainly did
not
like to lose.

By the Saints, she was far more complex than any woman he’d ever met.  He hated to admit it, particularly since he fully intended to take over that responsibility, but she seemed to indeed have a true talent for battle.  Aye, she was too light, too weak for genuine combat, but she had unique skills and a foxy mind.  With a bit of training...

He patted his sword, safe in its sheath, unsoiled by Deirdre’s blood, thanks to his discretion, and shuddered.  Nay, he decided, the battlefield was no place for a woman.

He didn’t care if she’d sparred with her countrymen from the time she was a babe, led armies, or slain dragons.  It was too dangerous a profession for a maid.  Pagan had enough to worry about, trying to get the Rivenloch knights in shape for battle, without brooding over a lass who believed she was invincible.  He’d seen warfare, seen what it did to the healthiest of flesh and the most indomitable spirit.  There was nothing that couldn’t be destroyed by the slash of a blade.  Nay, he wouldn’t watch Deirdre fall beneath the sword, she nor her sister.

A scream of rage built up in Deirdre’s throat as she banged the gate behind her, a scream she feared might escape if she didn’t kill something soon.

Fortunately, she was able to walk off her anger before anything living crossed her path.  But the mere fact that she felt such fury meant she was losing control, which in turn made her more furious.

She had to regain command.  Of her temper.  Of her body.  And of her castle. 
You will fight no more
indeed!  How dared he dictate to her what she would and would not do?  Damn him!  She needed no man’s protection.  It was no matter that he was capable.  And courageous.  And heroic.

God’s blood!  What did he think she’d done before he arrived?  How did he think they’d survived without him?  Hell, his arrogance was insufferable.

She should have told him so.  But standing in such proximity to him, enthralled by the force of his gaze, consumed by the power of his desire, overwhelmed by the pure male essence of his body, she’d been unable to think properly.

Deirdre had reached the abandoned dovecot now, and she entered the dark hovel, eager to be far from the eyes of castle folk who might spread tales about her agitated state.  The odor of mold and musty wood was strong, and though her eyes weren’t adjusted to see them, she heard mice skittering in the remote corners of the room.  Closing the door behind her, she began pacing briskly back and forth through the rushes.

Damn the Norman!  He was no less an invader than an Englishman would have been.  This was supposed to be an alliance, not a conquest.

She kicked up a tuft of straw.

Pagan might claim to be doing her a service by being...what had he said yesterday?  Her champion?  But she could see through his deception.  The fox meant to undermine her power.

She scuffed again at the dirt floor, making dust rise up in the slivers of sunlight made by the cracks in the walls.  Lord, even in the cool of the dovecot, she felt unbearably warm.  It must be the blood simmering in her veins.

She stopped pacing and sighed, trying to calm her mood.  Rage would serve her ill.  She needed to clear her head to consider her options.  She pitched her rump against the wall and stared pensively at the straw between her feet.

If it were anyone else, she would have simply challenged the Knights of Cameliard to a melee, an even number of them against an even number of Rivenloch men.  She'd always had great faith in her warriors.  But sparring with Pagan had alerted her to his prowess, and watching a few of his men, unarmed and unprepared, take down her knights so easily had shaken her confidence.

Still, she had no intention of bowing to the Norman’s wishes.  This was her home.  She was the lady of the keep.  If she wished to take command of the knights or the armory or the whole damned castle, then by God, she’d do it.

She pounded her fist against the wall for emphasis, and suddenly a throng of doves exploded from the rotting perches in a flurry of cooing and feathers, stirring up the dust and flapping about Deirdre’s head.  She yelped in surprise, startling them further.

Bloody hell.  The Normans had brought their doves with them.  Not even the dovecot was safe from their invasion.

“Shh.”  She held her hands out, palms forward, as if by that gesture she could calm the birds and settle them onto their perches again.  It would have been easier to reattach a plucked flower.  Or, she thought, to restore Rivenloch to what it was before the Normans came.

Her jaw resolute, Deirdre slipped carefully out the door so none of the flustered doves could escape.  She was beginning to think it would have been wise to take Helena’s suggestion at the first.  The sisters should have waylaid the cursed Normans in the forest ere they arrived.

“Again!” Deirdre commanded, closing her visor against the afternoon sun, bracing her feet wide, and raising her sword against Sir Reyner.

Sir Reyner lowered his shield.  “My lady, I mean no disrespect, but—“

”Come.”  She slashed downward, sending up a cloud of dust as the tip of the blade furrowed the hard-packed ground of the list.

“My lady...”

“Have at me, coward!”  She flexed her knees, tossed her head, and lifted the sword once more.

It was Pagan’s loss, she thought, if he chose to make rounds of the castle with his builder, discussing changes in Rivenloch’s fortification, rather than spend time training with his knights.  And she’d be damned if she’d let his soldiers,
Rivenloch’s
soldiers, grow lazy simply because he had better things to do.

Pagan’s men were predictably hesitant to fight her at first.  She was accustomed to that.  Men feared they would hurt her.  But she knew that once they engaged her, once she proved to be a worthy opponent, once she earned their respect, the Knights of Cameliard would learn to spar with her willingly, just as her own men did.

Meanwhile, she’d hold back nothing when she attacked them and give no quarter when they struck.  With luck, she’d even dole out a scratch or two they could display to Pagan at supper.

Pagan thoughtfully walked the perimeter of the keep, nodding at the sketches, pleased with his builder’s suggestions.  The addition of an inner wall enclosing the keep would vastly improve the defenses of the castle.  Grain might be kept within one of the six new towers of the wall, and cellars could be dug underneath for storage of provender—ale, cheese, dried fish, salted meat—for a hard winter or in the event of a siege.

Best of all, they could begin at once, and because the construction required no breaching of the outer wall, it could be done in complete safety.  If the summer weather held, and if enough stone could be quarried, the building might be well underway before winter.

There was just one thing Pagan wanted to discuss with Sir Rauve, and that was the merits of digging a moat around the castle.  It would require extra fortification at the foot of the existing wall and the addition of a drawbridge.  It was considerable work, expensive, and Pagan was not entirely convinced of its usefulness.

Returning the drawings to the builder, he told him he’d have a decision by the morrow.  Then he left to find Rauve.

Dust churned up from the direction of the tiltyard.  His men were likely there.  None of the Cameliard knights, himself included, could go more than a day without engaging in some kind of battle.  That passion for warfare made his men nearly unconquerable.

Sure enough, as he neared, he heard the violent ring of steel on steel, the scuff of sabatons in the dirt, shouts of pain and rage and victory.  He spotted Sir Rauve outside the field, leaning against the fence, watching the various battles with intense scrutiny.  Indeed, so focused was his man’s attention that it took a third glance before Rauve realized who approached.  Once he recognized Pagan, he pushed away from the fence and turned toward him.  He looked uncomfortable, as if someone had put honey in his trews or told him that yet another black-haired whelp had been born to one of his mistresses.

“What is it?” Pagan asked with a chiding grin.  “Have you got some Scots wench with child already?”

The big man only grunted, scowling and looking off absently across the field.

“What is it, Rauve?” Pagan said, keen to his man’s dark moods.  “Speak your mind.”

Rauve spat into the dust and pounded a fist absently into his palm.  “I’m not one to interfere.  You know that.”  He sniffed, but wouldn’t meet Pagan’s eyes.  “I know the Scots ways are...well, they’re not the same as ours.”

Pagan blinked.

Rauve struggled with the words.  “I don’t doubt her good intentions is what I’m trying to say, but...”

“Her?”

“Your wife.”  Rauve shifted his weight uneasily and began to speak more rapidly, as if preparing for the blow to come at the end of his speech.  “She has determination.  That much is true.  And spirit?  Well, what Scot hasn’t that fierce kind of...”

“What is it, Rauve?”  Pagan braced himself.

Rauve pressed his lips together, reluctant to say, then turned and nodded his head toward the tiltyard.

Sir Adric le Gris sparred out there, his knees bent, his shield held forward, his sword aloft but moving only infrequently, and then gingerly, as if he defended himself against a kitten’s claws.

Then Pagan saw the kitten.  She swung her blade around in both hands, slicing right and left, twirling, dodging, thrusting...  His heart plummeted.

“Mother of God,” he said under his breath, clapping a hand to the pommel of his sheathed sword and advancing.

But Rauve stopped him, placing his own body between Pagan and the tiltyard and ignoring Pagan’s black looks.  “‘Tis no great matter to me whether she wields a sword or no.  From what the men of Rivenloch say, she’s done so since she was a child.  But the knights fear for her safety, and—“

”Stand aside.  You have cause to worry no more.”  To his amazement, he was trembling, and his voice came out like a feeble wind through a straw hovel.

Rauve was looking at him oddly, and Pagan knew he had to pull himself together before he confronted Deirdre.  He swiftly closed down all his emotions save fury.  Then, filching the heavy, studded mace that hung from Rauve's belt, he pushed past his man toward his target.

“Deirdre of Rivenloch!”

His bellow was loud enough to halt even the most distant bouts on the practice field.  It startled Deirdre, though not as much as it did Sir Adric, who leaped into the air, all but dropping his sword and shield, as guilty as a mouse caught nibbling the Sabbath offering.

Pagan stalked across the field, the mace gripped firmly in his fist.

Adric fumbled his sword into its sheath.  “Forgive me, my lord.  I...”

Pagan ignored his man and marched straight up to Deirdre.  God’s blood!  He’d told her she need fight no more, that he and his men would protect her.  Why did she not believe him?  It was that damned yard-long piece of steel, he decided. 
That
was the root of his trouble and her danger.  If he got rid of
it
...

“Give me that sword.”  He hoped to God she couldn’t hear the tremor in his voice.  Sainted Mary, his voice served him well enough on the battlefield.  Why was it shaking now?

Deirdre tossed down her shield.  She removed her helm, and her hair spilled free like honey pouring forth from a comb.  “Why should I—“

”Now!” he roared like a madman.

She compressed her lips and tightened her grip on the sword.  But he reached forward, easily wresting it from her hand.

“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded.  “You have no right to...”

But he wasn’t listening.  Angling Deirdre's sword with its point in the earth, he raised the mace high.  Its studded head winked darkly in the sunlight.  Then, with one powerful blow, he plunged the club downward.  The refined steel was no match for the brutal mace, and the blade snapped with a brittle ring.  The two pieces clattered to the ground like dry bones—lifeless, harmless.  The enemy lay vanquished at his feet.  He’d slain the steel dragon and protected his lady from the harm she might do herself.  Never again would he need fear for her life.

Deirdre felt as if a quintain had caught her hard in the stomach.  For a moment, she couldn’t breathe.  Her precious sword.  He’d broken it.  In the wink of an eye.  Intentionally.  The sword her father had given her.  The sword that bore her name, scratched in a childish scrawl upon the hilt.  The sword she’d painstakingly notched for every victory.  To her utter mortification, her eyes filled with tears as she gaped at the broken blade.

She bit her lip to stem the tide.  Deirdre, the Warrior Maid of Rivenloch, didn’t cry.  Not from pain.  Not from fear.  And certainly not from something as insignificant as the breaking of a blade.  She would not weep.  She’d not give Pagan the satisfaction.

But to her horror, in the dreadful silence that ensued, a sob squeaked in her throat, and she knew she must flee at once, get out of their sight before she shamed herself in front of the knights.

She didn’t trust herself to speak.  Steeling her spine as best she could, she turned stiffly around.  The knights moved aside as she made her dignified way to the gate and strode across the courtyard toward the keep.  If she could maintain a pretense of composure and make it to her chamber, she could bar the door and cry her heart out into her pillow.

Later she’d deal with Pagan’s treachery.  Later she’d be able to think clearly enough to devise a fitting retribution.  But for now, all she wanted was to make it to her chamber without falling to pieces.

Pagan watched her leave the field, then turned to find several pairs of sullen, judging eyes boring into him.  The Rivenloch knights.  They didn’t approve.  He glanced at the broken sword, winking up at him like a taunt, and cursed.  Perhaps it
had
been a childish gesture, but, damn it all, someone had to keep Deirdre safe.

“She’s a woman!” he yelled, loud enough for all to hear.  “God’s eyes!  Would you risk the life of the lady of the keep?  Do you not want heirs for Rivenloch?”  He shook his head and raked his hand back through his hair, then fixed them all with a stern glare.  “No one,
no one
will spar with her again.  Do you understand?”

The Rivenloch men shuffled their feet and muttered grudging acceptance.  He waved them back to their affairs with an annoyed flick of his hand.  Then he trudged back to where Sir Rauve waited.

“She’ll trouble you no more,” he told his man, returning the mace.

Rauve grunted.

Pagan crossed his arms over his chest, over the spot where his heart felt strangely bereft.  For some unfathomable reason, he suddenly needed to explain himself.  “A wench truly has no place on the field of battle, Rauve,” he murmured.  “I don’t care what her father allowed.  Her insistence on wielding her own weapon shows a lack of faith in my protection.  ‘Tis a man’s duty to protect his wife, just as ‘tis his duty to lay down the law for her.”

Rauve’s heavy black brows lifted almost imperceptibly.

Pagan tried to summon up a self-satisfied smile and failed.  Damn it all, he thought, he
should
have felt satisfied.  Maybe he could talk himself into it.  “‘Tis my own fault.  I should have made it clear for her earlier.  A woman’s place is in the keep,” he continued with a frown.  “Women are made for handling tapestries and...and seedlings...and babes, not weapons of war.  She has...things to oversee...affairs to supervise.”

“Aye.”  Rauve still looked skeptical.

“She has no business mingling with reckless knights who might unwittingly knock her senseless or...or slash her hauberk or lop off her...”  He swayed as a too clear picture of Deirdre falling to her death hit him full force.

“My lord?”  Rauve grasped him by the shoulder in concern.

Pagan looked at his man blankly.  Who was he fooling?  He wasn’t looking to lay down the law for Deirdre.  Even in the brief time he’d known her, he knew better.  She was unlike any woman he’d ever met—strong-willed and smart and independent—and he respected those unique qualities.  By the Saints, he
admired
them.

Nay, the truth was, he was terrified for her.  When he’d beheld her battling Sir Adric le Gris, her shield bowing beneath his sword, his blade narrowly missing her leg, Pagan’s breath had stopped.  It was different when
he
fought her.  Then he was in control.  But God help him, when he’d seen his beautiful wife fighting a man twice her size, risking her neck against his own seasoned knight, his heart had knifed so violently that he feared it would thrust through his chest.

Which could only mean one thing.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered.

He was developing a weakness for his wife.

He shook his head, then took a deep breath before he started off toward the keep.  If it was in his power to stop Deirdre from ever lifting a sword again, he would do so, if he had to break every blade in the armory.

“Deirdre.”

Deirdre scrambled up from the bed, frantically wiping the despicable tears from her face, and stared at the bolted door.  She wasn’t about to open it.  She refused to let him find her like this, sniffling over her broken sword.

“What do
you
want?”  She tried to sneer, but the weepy hitch in her voice ruined the effect.

The latch rattled in reply as Pagan tried the door.  Her heart thumped against her ribs.  He jogged the latch harder, without success.

“Deirdre.”  His tone was calm and steady, but its hard edge made the bar across the door seem suddenly insubstantial.  “Let me in.”

“Nay.”

A long quiet followed.  Deirdre’s pulse rushed in her ears.

“Open the door, Deirdre.”  His voice was softer this time, but even more dangerous.

“Nay.”

There was no reply, no movement.  No sound at all intruded from beyond the door.  Deirdre listened breathlessly, but the silence lengthened until she was sure he’d given up, gone away.