The Knight's Return

She swayed on her feet, perilously close to him. Who knows what folly she might have fallen into if the rustle of birds in a nearby tree hadn’t distracted her. Straightening, she shook off the spell he seemed to have cast upon her and took a step back.

“I owe you naught, sir. I risk much by even allowing you within the walls of my home.” She had no guards to protect her here, just a wet nurse for her son and a groom who helped keep the horse fed and exercised.

“Then you have all the more reason to trust my ability to restrain myself with you.” He reached toward her and for one heart-stopping moment she though he meant to touch her, but instead he merely scruffed the head of the sleeping cat within her arms. “If my intentions had been less than honorable, I could have easily exercised my will here in the privacy of your gardens. Will you not trust me to escort you to the village fair on the morrow where we will be in full view of many watchful eyes?”

Her gaze dipped to his broad hand gently stroking the kitten’s fur, his fingers a hairsbreadth from her breast as he did so. Her breasts ached in warm response and she was grateful the tiny beast and her folded arms hid her body’s reaction.

“Think about it, Sorcha,” he prodded, lifting his hand to tip her chin, forcing her to meet his clear-eyed gaze. “When was the last time you enjoyed the taste of freshly baked meat pies and the scents of a spice trader’s cart? I hear there are minstrels from Scotland who are known to perform long into the night.”

He dropped his hand, but her skin retained the memory of his touch.

“You do not play fair, sir,” she complained, already smelling the smoke of a bonfire heaped with fragrant dried wood. “It has been many moons since I attended a feast day, let alone a full-fledged fair.”

“In truth, I cannot remember the last time I had the pleasure of such entertainment myself.” His grin beguiled her, calling her to forget her worries and join him in whatever mischief he had planned for the morrow. “We will make a merry pair.”

“Too merry, I think. The whole village will think we are courting.” She snuggled the kitten closer to her face, rubbing the fur along her cheek, but not even the animal’s warmth could replace the memory of Hugh’s gentle fingers. “And while I am pressured to wed, you must know there will be equal expectations heaped upon you.”

She worried her lower lip as she replaced Conn’s kitten on the ground. She should have already refused Hugh’s offer. Joining him at the fair day would only complicate matters. Yet what if his presence soothed her father’s haste to send her to the convent and bought her more time with her son before she had to give him up forever?

“Not even an Irish king could force a marriage upon me that I did not wish.” He narrowed his gaze for a moment and she shivered to think what kind of enemy Hugh Fitz Henry would make. “I vow no amount of pressure would sway me.”

She had spent every day since discovering her “husband” had played her false telling herself to trust no man. And still the fiery truth in Hugh’s eyes swayed her as much as her longing to dance a merry round while the minstrels played and the bonfires yawned flames into the night.

“Aye.” She could not resist the opportunity to break free of her exile. The chance to make a happy memory before she was confined to a life of toil and prayer. “I will attend the fair day at your side.”

“Excellent.” His smile brought forth an answering grin from her lips and she thought for a moment she might actually have fun with this mysterious Norman who chided himself for peering at her thighs and devoured her sweet bread like a starving man. “I will call for you at noon.”

She would have to leave Conn in the care of his nurse, but by the saints, she would venture out of her narrow domain and into the world again.

“Until then.” She dropped her gaze and dipped her head as a polite courtesy even if she had once outranked him.

For a moment, she thought he might attempt to steal a kiss. Oddly, she did not recoil at the notion. No matter that her passions had been used against her so cruelly once, the old flame still leaped to life as she envisioned Hugh’s mouth brushing hers.

She licked her lips as heat flowed through her veins.

“Until then.” With a quick bow, he spun on his heel and departed, leaving her surprisingly bereft and more than a little indignant.

Did he seek to toy with her affections by granting teasing touches? She was no maid who needed her passions awakened, but an experienced woman with desires long suppressed.

Sorcha might not drag the man into marriage to save herself from the convent, but she would be hard pressed not to give Hugh a taste of his own teasing medicine at the morrow’s fair.

Chapter Five

After departing Sorcha’s cottage, Hugh waited for the nimble lad to descend her garden enclosure before he accosted him.

As the spy’s face came into view, Hugh discerned the man was older than he’d first presumed. Lean and wiry, the stranger moved like a youth with his easy grace. Yet his face revealed the dark growth of a mature beard and there were faint lines about his eyes.

Concealed behind a hemlock tree close to the garden’s wall, Hugh began his protective assignment from the king with all haste.

Silently, he slipped from his hiding place and stepped behind the unsuspecting young man. With lightning speed, he wrapped an arm about the man’s neck and another his sword arm, preventing the spy from reaching for the short blade at his waist.

Hugh held him immobile for some moments while his quarry attempted to thrash and then finally stilled. Hugh did not, however, release him.

“What business have you here?” He would wait to identify himself in the hope the man recognized him. Someone must know him. But for now, Hugh kept the agile climber turned away from him so the spy could not see his face.

He understood that not knowing what enemy you faced was more unnerving than confronting an obviously powerful foe. At least then, a man could formulate a strategy. He also understood that if he yanked hard to his right with the man’s head clamped in his right arm, his opponent would expire instantly.

The knowledge gave him pause. Had he ever harmed someone thus?

“Eamon ap Dermot,” the stranger uttered through clenched teeth. “Man-at-arms to Tiernan Con Connacht.”

“I serve the king as well,” Hugh warned. “I will put your story to the test.”

He loosened his hold, but not his guard. Eamon freed himself and spun on his heel to face him. However, Hugh could not discern any recognition upon the man’s face.

“As will I,” the dark-haired Irishman threatened. “’Tis my duty to guard the princess, as it has been every day since her banishment.”

Eamon ap Dermot stepped back and rubbed his throat, a gesture no warrior would make since it revealed a weakness.

“You guard her?” Had the crafty old king omitted this detail on purpose when he asked Hugh to protect Sorcha? If so, he must have known he risked the young man-at-arms’s life.

Or was the spy lying?

For a moment, Hugh considered the possibility that Eamon was a consort to Sorcha—a lover taking advantage of a young woman’s isolation. The thought burned through him with sudden fury and he tightened his hands into fists on instinct.

“As well as one man might,” Eamon answered, oblivious to the dangerous direction of Hugh’s thoughts. Ceasing his ministrations to his neck, Eamon straightened to his full height. “I am to act as a lowly groom in order to remain close to her. But my blade is a weapon of the king’s house and I protect the princess with his authority.”

Eamon reached for the blade and proffered it, but by now, Hugh no longer saw him as a threat. There was truth in the boast, and his speech had the ring of a well-remembered charge that had changed Eamon’s life forever. No doubt the king had raised up the youth in station to do his bidding.

And, looking him over more carefully now that he was certain Eamon was not a secret paramour for the princess, Hugh decided the guard was a wise enough choice. Nimble and quick-witted for a common-born laborer, he must have been keeping a watch over the events in the garden this morning.

“If that is true, you will serve me in the future. The princess is now my charge.” He gave Eamon a hard look. “If I were to ask you about the princess’s activities today, what would you tell me of your observations?”

“My lady received a strange knight who cast a bold eye upon her person though he did not treat her with disrespect.” Eamon met his gaze with a narrow look of his own and Hugh saw promise in his intelligent speech and sharp assessment.

“Well enough. You must pretend to be a lowly groom?” Hugh suspected that had been the man’s position before he’d been assigned the new task as well, but he could easily see where Eamon would use his duty to pull himself up in station. “You know the Conqueror himself was descended from a tanner on his mother’s side.”

Another random piece of information he knew not how he possessed, yet if he chased the thought through the channels of his brain, it darted elusively away.

“Some men make their own destinies from naught,” Eamon agreed, sheathing the king’s blade.

Hugh tensed to think of his own situation. His very survival depended upon seeing this through. He couldn’t allow himself to indulge in softer feelings for the fallen princess. Sorcha had the protection of a caring father. Hugh had naught but his own cunning. He didn’t even know his own name.

“Aye. Some men more than others.”

St. Erasmus was little more than a name to Sorcha, yet the saint who protected sailors received high praise along the Irish coastline where unpredictable winds and waves could whisk a man off to a watery grave with no warning.

It was his feast day the village celebrated, inspired by a devout nobleman whose seafaring son returned safely home one year after a journey to the continent that lasted half the nobleman’s lifetime. He’d thought the son dead all that time, and his joy in his offspring’s return had called the father to sponsor a small chapel on the coast overlooking the sea.