A Warrior's Honor

She slowed her pace to a more sedate walk, as befitted a gentlewoman.

Then she halted. His back to her, a man stood in the shadows near some carts outside the barracks where the visiting knights and their retinues were housed. He seemed to be rummaging among the goods on the back of one of the wagons, yet it was too late and too dark for any of the castle servants to be preparing for a journey.

“You, there! What are you doing?” she called out, moving closer, prepared to summon the guards if need be.

She realized the man had shoulder-length hair only a moment before Bryce Frechette turned to face her. “I am looking for my baggage, which isn’t in the barracks. I was told one of the servants put it here by mistake.”

As he spoke, Rhiannon saw that he did resemble a Saxon more than a Norman, with his hair to his broad shoulders, angular face and an aloof, slightly disgruntled expression.

He also stood in an interesting manner, as if he were in a relaxed battle stance. She knew only one other man who stood that way when not actually engaged in combat. Urien Fitzroy, a friend of her father’s, was credited with being the finest trainer of fighting men in England.

Bryce Frechette was a most imposing warrior, too, and yet, now that she was close to him, she did not find him frightening. She found him rather intriguing and wished she could see his face more clearly, particularly his shadowed eyes. “I’m sorry. I made a mistake.”

“Did you think I was trying to steal something?” he charged.

“Yes...no...” she began, then she straightened her shoulders defensively. “You must appreciate that your activity did look questionable.”

“Especially when I am not a nobleman?” he queried, his tone ostensibly polite, but with an undercurrent of hostility.

Why should he have cause to be angry at her? she wondered, her own ire rising when she recalled what she knew of him. “If you are no longer a nobleman, you have only yourself to blame, Bryce Frechette,” she retorted.

“I am honored to think you know my name, Lady Rhiannon,” he replied sarcastically, and with a mockery of a bow.

He was pleased to see her surprise that he knew her name, too, and some of the haughtiness fled her face. He reached out and grabbed her hand, bending low as if he would kiss the back of it.

She snatched it away. “Obviously I know more than just your name,” she said.

“Perhaps you do not know as much as you think you do, my lady,” he said quietly, stepping closer.

He noted that she didn’t move away and remembered how she had behaved in the hall, especially when she was with Lord Cynvelin. Perhaps she was not nearly as virtuous as she seemed. “Would you care to learn more?”

“I might. But this is hardly the time or place for such a conversation,” she finished firmly.

Her forthright answer took him aback, but he recovered quickly. “That is a great pity,” he replied, his deep voice seductively low. “I would like to know more about you.”

Rhiannon cleared her throat. She had been complimented and flattered much these past few days, but no other man’s words seemed to stir her as his did. “Yes, well, another time,” she prevaricated.

“Why in so much of a hurry, my lady? Are you going to meet someone?” he said, advancing toward her.

“No!” She retreated into a shadowed alcove, then raised her chin in defiance of his insolence.

He cocked his head to one side and ran an admiring gaze from the top of her silk scarf to the hem of her gown.

“Please don’t look at me in that impertinent manner, sir!” she said, her whole body warming as he continued to regard her steadily.

“Sir? I see I am rising in your estimation. Let me assure you, my lady, I do not mean to be rude. Far from it.” He took another step closer and smiled.

Not as Lord Cynvelin smiled, as if it were nothing more than a habit. She suddenly felt such a smile from this man was a rare thing, and very much to be prized.

She wished she could see his face better, but it was too dark here in the shadows.

She suddenly realized he had backed her nearly into a corner, and they were quite shielded from the view of the men on the wall walk above.

“From the way you were acting in the hall,” he continued in a husky whisper, “I thought you enjoyed being the object of men’s admiration.”

“Some men’s perhaps,” she answered, crossing her arms over her chest defensively, feeling far too vulnerable. “However, I have no wish to be noticed by a man who would abandon his family and leave his sister in such a perilous situation. Indeed, I was surprised to learn that Lord Cynvelin would want such a person in his company.”

He froze, staring at her. Then his brows lowered ominously and she remembered the sense of controlled power that had seemed to emanate from him. “That is what you think of me?”

“Yes,” she retorted.

He stepped back. “You surprise me, my lady. I thought you had more intelligence than to believe rumors and gossip.”

“So what I have heard is not true? You did not quarrel with your father and leave in a huff like a spoiled child? You did not stay away, even when your father lay dying? Are you telling me that contrary to everything I have heard, you returned to help your sister, who was left impoverished and had to become a servant in her own castle?”

“Have you not heard more?” he charged. “That I am a rogue and wastrel? That my sister cast me out? That her husband, the mighty Baron DeGuerre, detests me? That I lie and cheat and steal?” He came close again. “That I have sold my soul to the devil?”

She gasped, her eyes wide, until he chuckled scornfully.

“Have you so little sense that you will believe everything you hear?” he said.

“How dare you!” she cried, shocked by his criticism. “You dishonorable—”

“No, my lady, how dare you?” he demanded quietly, his voice as cold as ice. “You know me not, yet you dare to chastise me for my past actions. You do not know why my father and I quarreled, or why I left as I did. You do not know why I stayed away, or how I felt when I learned what had happened.” His voice dropped. “You do not know how I have suffered, knowing that I was not with Gabriella when she needed me most.”

Rhiannon flushed with guilt when she heard the remorse in his voice. She had been wrong to judge him so quickly, she thought contritely, yet before she could speak, he was suddenly directly in front of her, his face no more than a hand span from hers.

“Who are you to stand in judgment of me?” he demanded. “I could believe, from the way you danced and smiled and laughed with more than one man in Lord Melevoir’s hall, that if I am lacking in scruples, I am not the only one. So how dare you, my lovely hypocrite? How dare you act as you have, and then upbraid me?”

He looked at her so intently it was as if his gaze rooted her to the ground. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t make an answer to his charges, or utter one word to excuse her own behavior.

He came even closer, so that his body was within a hairbreadth of hers, and when he spoke again, his voice was a low, husky growl. “How dare you stand there in the shadows looking as desirable as any woman I have ever seen, yet if I were to so much as touch you, you would probably call out for the guard and denounce me for a disgraceful villain?”

She swallowed hard, unable to take her eyes from his face. “I wouldn’t,” she said softly.

His expression seemed to change. “You would not do that, my lady?” he whispered, shifting closer. “You would not call out the guard and condemn me for acting on my desire?”

He reached out and gently ran his hand up her arm, his touch sending thrilling tremors of excitement through her.

“I am glad to hear it, for you are the most tempting woman I have ever seen.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her into his warm embrace.

She knew she should pull away, and yet the moment his mouth touched hers, kissing him did not seem wrong, or immoral, or disgraceful. It felt absolutely, perfectly right.

She had been kissed before, by shy boys who pecked her cheek or lips. Never like this, with power and passion and a desire that seemed to call forth an equally strong reaction from deep within her.

Never had a man’s tongue pressed urgently to enter her mouth.