Ransom My Heart (9 page)

When Hugo finally spoke, the thunder was entirely gone from his voice. Instead, he sounded tired, and Finnula supposed that for a man his age, that wasn't so unusual. He had, after all, had quite a long day.

“Why did you do it?” he inquired.

Finnula was surprised by the question. As often as Robert had railed at her for poaching, he had never once bothered to ask her
why
she did it. That this stranger should put the question to her was really quite odd.

She looked at him, craning her neck to see his face, but his features were all in shadow, he stood so far from the fire.

“I told you already,” she said. “If someone hadn't done something, they wouldn't have lasted the winter. There wasn't enough food in their stores, what with the high tallage set by Laroche—”

“But why
you
?”

Finnula frowned, looking away from him, back at the fire. She certainly couldn't tell him the truth. But she could tell him part of it, anyway.

“God gave me a gift.” She shrugged. “It would be a sin not to use it. That's what my mother used to say, anyway.” When he said nothing, she supposed he wasn't satisfied with that explanation, but it was all she was willing to give. She thrust out her chin obstinately, refusing to utter another word.

“You risk your life,” Hugo said slowly, “for serfs.”

Forgetting her resolve to be silent, Finnula corrected him tersely. “To you, perhaps, they are serfs. To me they are friends, people I've known my whole life, family almost. If their lord will not care for them, I will. 'Tis the right thing to do.”

When he made no reply to that, Finnula pushed back a loose tendril of hair that had fallen over one of her eyes and glared at him, though he still stood in shadow and she wasn't at all certain he was even looking in her direction.

“You can't prove anything, you know,” she said with reckless indignation. “Any more than Sheriff de Brissac can produce a shred of evidence against me. Ask any single one of Lord Geoffrey's serfs. They'll not say a word. So you can just go back to King Edward and tell him that if there is a poacher in Fitzstephen Forest, you couldn't prosecute for want of proof.”

She was trembling by the time she got through with her speech, but not with fear. Good God, no wonder he'd been so amicable about being held hostage! He'd been hoping to goad her into a confession—and he'd succeeded, to a certain degree. But he still hadn't any evidence.

“What in the name of God are you talking about?” Hugo demanded, stomping back toward the fire in his enormous boots. He sank down beside her, took the flask from where she'd leaned it against a leg of the hayrack, and, unstopping it, took a few noisy gulps.

When he took the container away from his lips, the gesture made a smacking noise, which Hugo followed by wiping his mouth on his sleeve. His gaze was green-eyed now, Finnula noticed. It was disconcerting how his eyes were constantly turning different colors.

Finnula glowered at him, hoping to intimidate with her sadly unchangeable gray irises. “I know who you are.”

Hugo looked taken aback. For several seconds he simply stared at her, his mouth moving strangely, before he finally echoed, in a voice that was too hearty by half, “Who
I
am? What are you talking about?”

“Don't play games with me,” Finnula snarled. He seemed more amused than alarmed by her ire, but she wasn't going to let that stop her from delivering the lecture he so roundly deserved. “I think it's disgraceful, you taking advantage of me in such a manner. After all, I'm nothing but an innocent maid. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

Hugo laughed outright. “Maid you might be, Finnula Crais, but I have serious reservations concerning your innocence. Point in fact, your method of distracting me at the Spring of St. Elias—”

Finnula flushed hotly at the memory, but refused to be distracted by embarrassment. “That is neither here nor there. When my brother finds out, you can count on him complaining to the king about your ill treatment of me—”

“
My
ill treatment of
you
?” Hugo's golden eyebrows slanted upward in disbelief. “Was it not
I
who was trussed, as you so delicately put it, like a pig? Was it not
my
life threatened at knifepoint?”

“How you can be so indignant when 'tis you who are a sneak and a liar, I'll never know. I don't ken how you sleep at night.” Leveling a narrow-eyed glare at him, she hissed, “Men like you are no better than the worms crawling below our feet this very instant—”

Hugo looked down, expecting to see the ground littered with night crawlers. “I apologize, demoiselle,” he began carefully, “if I have done aught to offend you—”

“Offend me!” Finnula laughed humorlessly. “Oh, arresting me
will be an offense, all right. An offense against all that is sacred in this land—”

“
Arrest you?
” Sir Hugh's astonishment, which Finnula was certain was feigned, was nevertheless so convincing, she almost believed him. “Why would I
arrest you
?”

“Oh!” she cried, leaping to her feet at the cost of sending shooting pains through her side. “And still you play dumb!” She stabbed an impatient finger at him. “Are you not an agent of the king, sent here to root me out?”

To her surprise, her prisoner threw back his tawny head and laughed, long and loud. This reaction was so unexpected that for a moment, Finnula could naught but stare at him, openmouthed. He continued to laugh for some minutes, so uproariously that Finnula, who appreciated a good joke but disliked being the butt of one immensely, grew impatient.

“'Tis not amusing,” she insisted.

But Hugo could not stop laughing. In a fit of pique, Finnula crossed the few feet of grass that separated them, until she stood over him, hands on her hips, her eyes snapping as hotly as the flames of the fire.

“Aye, that's right,” she snarled. “Laugh all you want. We'll see how amusing you find it when my brother gets hold of you. He's got fists as big as flour sacks, you know, and he won't take it kindly if you bring me back to the millhouse in shackles.”

This only succeeded in making the lion-maned knight laugh harder. Finnula stamped an impatient foot.

“I've got brothers-in-law, too, four of them, and Bruce is the village butcher. His arms are thicker than tree trunks—”

Before she realized what was happening, one of Sir Hugh's own arms, which, while not thicker than tree trunks, were among the longest and most muscular she'd ever seen, snaked around her
legs. In the next second, he'd knocked her sharply in the backs of the knees, buckling them, while his other hand closed over her wrist, pulling her down into his lap. Finnula could not stifle a yelp of surprise.

But before she'd had time to recover herself from the ignominious tumbling, before she'd had a chance to notice that his lap was not the most unpleasant place she'd ever been, being, among other things, rather warm, though uncomfortably hard in places, Finnula lifted her head to complain about this rude treatment…

…and found her protest silenced by a pair of very determined lips.

Finnula had been kissed before, it was true, but the few men who'd tried it had lived to regret it, since she was as swift with her fists as she was with a bow. Yet there was something about these particular lips, pressing so intently against hers, that caused nary a feeling of rancor within her. Indeed, what she felt instead could hardly be described, it was so foreign to her. But it was most definitely enjoyable, of that she was certain. She could not even bring herself to bite the audacious knight, she so enjoyed his caress.

He was an excellent kisser, her prisoner, his mouth moving over hers in a slightly inquisitive manner—not tentatively, by any means, but as if he was asking a question for which only she, Finnula, had the answer. Now there was nothing questioning at all in his manner; he'd launched the first volley and realized that Finnula's defenses were down. He attacked, showing no mercy.

It was then that it struck Finnula, as forcibly as a blow, that this kiss was something out of the ordinary, and that perhaps she was not in as much control of the situation as she would have liked. Though she struggled against the sudden, dizzying assault on her senses, she could no sooner free herself from the hypnotic spell of
his lips than he'd been able to break the bonds with which she'd tied him. She went completely limp in his arms, as if she were melting against him, except for her hands, which, quite of their own volition, slipped around his brawny neck, tangling in the surprisingly soft hair half buried beneath the flung-back hood of his cloak. What was it, she wondered dimly, about the introduction of a man's mouth against one's own that seemed to have a direct correlation to a very sudden and very noticeable tightening sensation between her thighs?

Even in her heightened state of arousal, Finnula was not unaware of the fact that her prisoner seemed to be suffering a similar discomfort. She could feel that part of him which earlier she'd so foolishly mistaken for a knife hilt, pressing urgently against the softness of her hip. He had let out a low moan, smothered against her mouth, when she'd slid her hands around his neck, and now, as his need for her chafed against his braies, his strong arms tightened possessively around her. Callused fingers caressed her through the thin material of her shirt, and she realized they were moving inexorably close to her breasts. If she let him touch her
there
, what with the strange feeling she was experiencing between her legs, she'd be lost, she knew.

And she
had
to stop him, because she was no Isabella Laroche, who was loose enough to enjoy without compunction the lewd attentions of men she did not love or had any intention of marrying. She was Finnula Crais, who had a reputation to uphold. Granted, that reputation was not exactly a flawless one, but it
was
all she had. Besides, she would not end up in the same situation as Mellana, for whom she'd gone to all this trouble in the first place…

And then those strong, yet incredibly gentle fingers closed over one of her breasts, the nipple of which was already pebble-hard against the heat of his palm.

Tearing her mouth away from his and placing a restraining hand against his wide chest, Finnula brought accusing eyes up to his face, and was startled by what she saw there. Not the derisive smile or the mocking hazel eyes she'd become accustomed to, but a mouth slack with desire and green eyes filled with…with what? Finnula could not put a name to what she saw within those orbs, but it frightened as much as it thrilled her.

She had to put a stop to this madness, before things went too far. “Have you lost your reason?” she demanded, through lips that felt numb from the bruising pressure of his kiss. “Release me at once.”

Hugo lifted his head, his expression as dazed as a man who'd just roused from sleep. Blinking down at the girl in his arms, he gave every indication of having heard her, and yet his hand, still anchored upon her breast, tightened, as if he had no intention of releasing her. When he spoke, it was with a hoarse voice, his intonations slurred.

“I rather think it isn't my reason I've lost, Maiden Crais, but my heart,” he rasped.

Finnula snorted at this. He looked, to her, like a man who hadn't lost anything more serious than his judgment. “Do you think I'm a simpleton?” she demanded. “That I'll swoon at your pretty words and beg you to take me?” She laughed without humor. “Not bloody likely.”

“'Tis going to be a long night.” Hugo sighed. “Long and cold. Think of the comfort we could find in each other's arms—”

Finnula reached up and, with the heel of her hand, struck the knight soundly in the center of his forehead, sending his head cracking against the leg of the hayrack at his back. Hugo let go of her in his surprise, and Finnula scrambled to her feet, retreating a safe distance in the event that he chose to avenge his smarting skull.

“Don't make me have to hurt you,” Finnula shouted, holding out a warning finger as Hugo staggered upright, using the hayrack's wooden frame for support with one hand and clutching his head with the other. “I promised to return you to your squire un-injured if your ransom was paid in full, and it would be a burning shame if I had to deliver damaged goods—”

Hugo simply glared at her, all desire gone now from his face, his eyes a mocking amber once again.

“Remind me,” he muttered, “never again to tangle with a virgin.”

Finnula sniffed primly. “You have only yourself to blame. I never invited your advances.”

“Like hell you didn't. What was that at the spring, then?”

“That was a trap.”

“Yes, yes.” He waved a hand at her dismissively. “A lure for the ignorant beast. Well, I certainly fell for it, didn't I? I have to admit that I'm a bit surprised that you, who seem to value honesty so highly, would stoop to such feminine trickery—”

Finnula stamped a foot in the soft grass. “I
told
you. My sister—”

“Yes, yes, yes.” He rolled his eyes. “Your sister needs the money. What does she need it so badly for, anyway? Did she get herself in the family way?”

When Finnula, stunned speechless that he should have guessed so easily what she'd been trying to keep a secret from him, only stared at him, Hugo threw back his head and laughed mirthlessly.

“So that's it!” he crowed. “The beautiful Mellana has the face of an angel but the virtue of a trollop—”

Finnula took a half-dozen angry strides toward him. “You take that back!” she ordered him. “How dare you?”

“And this also explains your oblique references to that unfortunate minstrel. He would be the father, then? Well, no wonder
the fair Mellana needs money so badly. Does Brother Robert know? I'd wager not—”