Malcolm's Honor

“Lady Elinore of Evenbough, daughter to Philip of Evenbough, suspected traitor to King Edward, you are my prisoner. You have attempted to kill the king’s knights—”

“I meant only to sicken—”

“Silence.” His roar echoed through the forest. “Another word and I shall gag you as I did your father. I will do my duty to my king and bring you to him alive, but how I bring you and in what condition, the good sovereign cares not.”

He felt her every tremble, for she was tucked beneath his chin and caught in the shelter of his arms. She was slight and delicate—easily crushed. Now she seemed aware of that fact as she leaned against him, rigid with fear, unable to stand on her own.

Good, ’tis as it should be. She ought to be afraid.

He bound her wrists tightly, so she could not escape. The small noise in her throat, the one that said he’d bruised her, made him wince. He hated treating a woman thus, but ’twas not his choice. ’Twas Edward’s. And Malcolm’s oath to serve his king drove him now.

“But my father’s mare—”

“Will follow us or nay. ’Tis not my concern.” He swung her up onto his saddle.

She clutched the stallion’s mane with her delicate fingers. “But my herbs—”

“Not another word.” He caught her ankle before she could level him with a kick. He bound her well, wise to her tricks of defense, and mounted behind her.

“But my satchel is in the tree—”

“Where you are headed, worldly possessions are of no concern. Now, you’ve disobeyed my order to stay quiet. Open your mouth.”

“Prithee, do not force a gag on me.”

He could see her clearly. The deep pools of her eyes gleamed with honest terror. She was daughter to a brutal man, and at the thought Malcolm’s chest tightened. No doubt she expected all manner of brutality from the land’s fiercest knight.

But he did not harm women, regardless of how they treated him. He relented on the gag, certain now that she would obey him and remain silent. He sheathed his sword and gathered the reins. Imprisoned in the strength of his arms, the warrior woman was subdued enough.

For now.

He spurred his warhorse into a well-disciplined lope and protected her the best he could from the slap of stinging limbs. She still trembled. As she sat in the cradle of his thighs, he was not unaware of her soft, womanly curves. Even through his armor, he could feel her heat and her temptation.

If his shaft hardened and his blood thickened, ’twas a weakness a man who lived and died by the sword could ill afford.

Where once he had vowed to help her, he was now bound by duty to his king to condemn her.

Chapter Five

Afraid to say even one word for fear of the discomfort of a gag, Elin endured the long hours trapped against Malcolm’s steeled chest. She was not unaware of his maleness, of the solid man hewn of muscle and bone, or of the hardness of his shaft, unmistakable against the back of her thigh.

He held her trapped against him endlessly as he drove his stallion across vale and hill and through a world brushed by shades of night. No other living creature stirred until dawn grayed the edges of the eastern horizon and the first birds woke the world with song.

Still she felt the hardness of the man and his virility. His arousal remained solid and rigid, and she feared it. She feared what one as dark and powerful as this king’s knight might do. He did not even glance at her, but the threat lingered.

Aye, she was vulnerable without weapon and protector, vulnerable to this man without mercy.

He sat tall, easily guiding his giant destrier as dawn brightened. He looked magnificent riding in the blinding gleam of the rising sun. Light radiated all around him in eye-watering shafts.

He stopped to allow her to tend to her body’s needs, and then wordlessly offered her drink and food. They rode again, unrelenting and hard. They traveled thus for two days. And when Elin saw the silhouette of a city on the horizon, she knew a different sort of fear. One so quiet and cold it wrapped around her soul like a winter’s freeze.

She would die in that city. ’Twas a certainty. And would Malcolm the Fierce feel even a twist of conscience, knowing that he’d hunted her down like a ruthless wolf, only to deliver her to her death? That he could have shown her mercy and allowed her to escape, but had not?

Eyes averted, he hauled her from his horse and slung her over his broad shoulder. He easily carried her down stone steps into a dungeon rank with the scents of rotting wood and cruelty. He lowered her like a sack of grain to the floor and chained her to the wall.

Terror beat in her heart as she listened to the click of the lock. Though darkness cloaked him, she felt the force of his gaze.

He towered above her like a mythical warrior. Then he turned without a word, leaving her alone in a dark hell.

“Malcolm, I heard a woman got the best of you.” Ian the Strong slapped Malcolm on the shoulder, a gesture of old friendship. “Heard she rendered you and every last one of your men sick as dogs.”

“Tease all you wish. If Edward hadn’t assigned you to a different task, you would have been retching in the courtyard with the best of us.”

“Nay, my friend. I would have had the brains to know a woman should never be trusted. Liars and manipulators, every last one of them. Why, look at the tavern wenches. See how they plot and play for our benefit?”

“For the benefit of coin.”

“Aye, what woman doesn’t? From the queen to the lowest peasant, ’tis how they survive and how they are made.”

Malcolm drained the last of his ale and dropped the tankard on the table. “’Tis true I gave the traitor’s daughter too much freedom. After she saved Hugh’s life and mixed a healing ointment for the old innkeeper’s wife, I grew less suspicious. I thought she only meant to help serve the food.”

“I cannot believe you would give a woman aught but a good swiving.”

Malcolm rubbed his aching brow, where exhaustion and long-pent-up rage tensed the muscles, causing a blasting pain.

“Why, ’tis Sir Malcolm and Sir Ian.” A serving wench well known for more than her skills in dispensing ale appeared at the edge of the trestle table, pitcher in hand. “What a lucky maid I am to host such powerful knights in my tavern.”

“You, a maid?” Ian’s gaze roamed the wench’s form, from ripe, half-exposed breasts to the swell of her generous hips. “I’ve often been between those thighs. You long ago left maidenhood behind.”

“Aye, for womanhood pleases me better.” She winked at him, certain now there would be more coin added to her earnings this night, and ’twould not be only from serving ale. She filled both tankards handily. “And you, Sir Malcolm? Shall I send over a maid for your amusement?”

“Maid?” Ian laughed. “Your maids have too much experience for the Fierce One. They may well overpower him, and his reputation will be in ruins again.”

“Enough with the jests, Ian. Matilda, I have no need of a woman.”

As the wench turned, dropping their small coins into her pocket, Ian watched lustily. “Aye, I have me a liking for that one. Rough she is. Knows how to satisfy a man. I hear the king’s nephew attacked your band and you killed half his men.”

“Aye, but I did not kill the nephew.”

“Edward will owe you a boon, then. Mayhap it will compensate for the prisoner woman’s escape, and he’ll not demote you.” Ian’s eyes teased, but his words held a ring of warning as he lifted his tankard and drank deeply.

Fie, would the traitor’s daughter haunt him forever? Malcolm could still feel the womanly shape of her body pressed hard to his in the saddle, for he’d trapped her there, beneath his arms and against his chest. She’d been his captive, a slim reed of a thing, and the memory of it still ached like an old wound, like a tooth slowly festering. He’d scared the spirit from her and intimidated her until she did not dare even look at him.

He remembered her words, so cocksure and dismissing. Tell me what fearsome enemy of the king’s you have overpowered now. An old man? Mayhap a lame woman? A goat? He could not remember when anyone had dared to demean the king’s favored knight.

And he’d left her in the dungeon.

His guts tightened into hard knots and he drank until the tankard was empty, and the next one after that. But the image of the frightened-eyed maiden chained to the stone wall remained with him and would not fade. Even through a night of sleep and dreams and into the next morning, when word of Caradoc’s fury and Philip’s impending execution buzzed on the lips of the villagers.