His Lady's Ransom

“Is it so improbable that Lady Madeline might want me as a husband?” Will asked slowly.

Ian threw him a sharp glance. “You are betrothed.”

“Aye.” Will gnawed on his lower lip for a long, hesitant moment. “But the last time I was in the north, Alicia seemed to find little joy in the prospect of marriage with me. Mayhap she would be better matched with someone else.”

Ian’s brows soared in surprise. “Are you saying she wants release from the betrothal? Our lady mother mentioned nothing of this when I was home.”

Will shook his head, clearly miserable. “Nay, Ian. Alicia would not ask for release. She’s such a mouse, she would not have the courage. But…but neither does she invite my kisses.”

Ian wavered between exasperation and amusement. Will’s next words, however, erased all inclination to laugh.

“Lady Madeline doesn’t shrink away and call me a heavy-handed brute when I take her arm.”

“Nay, I’ll wager she does not,” Ian drawled. “She’s more used to men by a goodly measure than is Alicia.”

A frown settled between Will’s brows at this description of his ladylove. Satisfied that he’d planted at least a seed of doubt, Ian turned the subject. He’d heard enough to know that Will would not disgrace himself by forswearing his vows, though the lad longed for this Madeline de Courcey with all the urgency of a young man in the throes of his first love.

There was only one solution, Ian concluded, and that was to convince the woman herself to call a halt before the boy’s heart took a serious blow. Or before he earned the enmity of the king’s son with his pursuit of the lady. Sending Will off with the suggestion that he find himself a flagon of ale or a willing wench, or both, Ian decided that ‘twas time he and the Lady Madeline finished their discussion of some days before.

With the skill of the hunter cutting his prey from the herd, Ian separated the lady from the women she walked with in the castle gardens the next afternoon. Holding her hand longer than was either polite or necessary, he gave the other ladies a slow grin and the unmistakable hint that he desired private speech with Lady Madeline. Despite Madeline’s raised brows and stiff rejoinder that ‘twas too cold and damp for conversation, the other women fluttered off, casting more than one arch glance over a cloaked shoulder. As soon as they had disappeared around a bend of the intricate evergreen hedges that made Kenilworth’s gardens famous, Madeline snatched back her hand.

“I much mislike this tendency you have to separate me from my companions, my lord. Do not do so again.”

Ian stared down at her flushed face. Whether it was the cold February wind that had put the pink in her cheeks or his own determined tactics, he neither knew nor cared. But the sight of her creamy, rose-tinted skin and huge, flashing eyes framed by a blue wool hood lined with sable made Ian suck in a quick breath. Irritated that she would cause such a reaction in him, he folded his arms across his chest.

“And I much mislike seeing my brother make a fool of himself over one such as you, my lady. You will cease your attentions to him.”

Her breath puffed out in a little cloud of white vapor. “One such as I?”

“Come, you told me yourself that you preferred plain speaking.”

To his surprise, a gleam of wry laughter appeared in her expressive eyes. “’Tis one thing for me to speak plainly about myself, my lord. ‘Tis another thing altogether for you to do so.”

Despite himself, Ian felt an answering grin tug at his lips. “I see. ‘Tis well I know the rules before I play the game.”

“The game?”

“Aye. ‘Tis what you do, is it not? You draw men in with your laughter and your merry eyes, and play with them. You’re most skilled at it.”

She drew back and surveyed him thoughtfully. “I’d thank you for the compliment sir, if I thought it one.”

“Oh, it is, most assuredly.”

Ian brushed a knuckle down the alabaster coldness of her cheek. She jerked her head back, startled and a little breathless. Her fingers curled under her chin.

“I would be drawn by those eyes myself,” he murmured, “were I not reluctant to poach in my brother’s preserves.”

Madeline stared up at him, confused by the conflicting emotions he generated within her breast. With every double-edged word he spoke, he seemed to be offering her insult. But the lambent gleam in his dark blue eyes, and the way his hand now cupped her chin in a warm, hard hold, fanned a tiny flame within her. When it came to playing the game, Madeline decided, this man was more skilled by far than she.

“My lord…” she began, embarrassed at the breathless quality of her voice.

“Aye?”

His murmured response sent a tingle of awareness shimmering down her spine. Or mayhap it was the feel of his callused fingers on her skin. Or the scent that drifted to her on the cold, crisp air of leather and dry wood and male.

“You need not worry about William.”

“Need I not?”

Madeline’s hood slid off her hair as she tilted her head back to look up into the face above her. The winter sun painted his high cheeks and square, blunt jaw. It was a strong face, Madeline decided, echoing the character of its owner.

“Nay, you need not,” she replied lightly. “I will ensure he takes no hurt. As you said, I’m much skilled at this game.”

The hold on her chin tightened suddenly. Madeline blinked in surprise as his eyes took on the silvery sheen of old slate.

“You mistake Will’s character, lady. Unlike your husbands, my brother is neither old nor thick-skulled.”

“What are you speaking of?” she gasped.

“I won’t allow Will to break his betrothal and marry you,” he replied with knife-edged bluntness. “However well you play this game of yours, you’ll not put cuckold’s horns on my brother while you dally with the king’s son.”

Madeline jerked her chin out of his hold, stunned by his attack. “How—how dare you speak to me so!”

“I dare because Will is my responsibility.”

“You take your responsibilities too heavily,” she said, gathering her skirts. “William is a man, fully grown and knighted. ‘Tis time you let him think for himself.”

She whirled, intending to stalk out of the garden, but a hard hand grasped her arm and whipped her around.

“I tell you now, he’ll not break his betrothal. Will has more honor than you appear to credit him with. He’s…infatuated with you, ‘tis all.”

“If infatuation is all it is, you need not worry,” Madeline snapped, tugging furiously at his hold.

“Cut the strings you keep him dangling by, or I’ll cut them myself, in a manner you’ll like not.”

Incensed, Madeline swung back to face him. “You may take your threats and your insults straight to the reddest, hottest flames of hell, my lord, and yourself with them.”

His jaw clenching, he caught both of her arms in an iron, unbreakable hold. “Let the lad be, lady.”

“Why should I do so?” she retorted, stung by the flat coldness in a voice that had sent a shiver of delight through her only moments before. She wanted to hurt this man, as he’d hurt her. Humble him. Cause him to sweat under his fur-lined surcoat. If this…this dolt wanted to think she sought to ensnare his precious brother, then she’d not disabuse him of his folly.

Without giving him time to reply, she rushed on. “The boy’s besotted, any fool can see that. And he has lands and incomes greater by far than my previous lords,” she ended on a sneer.

He tightened his grip, drawing her up, until her toes just touched the stone walk and her head tilted back. A muscle twitched at one side of his jaw.

Madeline watched it, fascinated and a little frightened. She swallowed, thinking that mayhap she’d been a little too precipitate. Wetting her lips, she drew in a deep breath.

“My lord…” she began.