likely the unfair warrior was you.” Elin knew Caradoc, not by rumor, but from experience. He despised her, as she did him. Worse, she was afraid of him. Hard and dark were his eyes, not lethal like Malcolm’s, but colder still, like a man who killed for pleasure.
As she thought of Malcolm, she looked up and saw him, a fierce knight shrouded in darkness and shadow, standing away from the shivering light of the fire and torch, alone with the night. He had removed his helm, and the wind moved through his long tresses, which were as black as the night. His gaze fastened on hers, and she read his suspicions like a thought in her own mind. As if he were part of her, or she part of him.
Traitor. Malcolm thought her guilty of her father’s crimes. She shivered inside as he strode toward her. He moved like a predator, with silent, powerful strides, until he towered overhead, all tensed male might.
“Do you conspire with this man, this suspected traitor?”
She blanched. “Caradoc is no traitor! Do you accuse every man, woman and child?”
“Silence. I forbid you to speak further with this unworthy lord.” Le Farouche’s lethal look came as a warning.
Yet two different responses sparked to life in her breast. Fear, because she knew Alma was wrong: the fierce knight had his own dark agenda, and Elin knew now to be wary of it. And a light, hot flutter of attraction, because his steely presence stole the very breath from her lungs and stilled the blood in her veins. She fought this response to him. No man of war and killing could attract her. Not even a man this compelling, this beautifully made.
“’Tis just as well, for I will have naught more to do with Ravenwood.” Let le Farouche think she was following his bidding. She had her own reasons for keeping distance between herself and Caradoc. “May I tend my father now that I have treated all other manner of men?”
“You have yet to tend me.” Brows arched across his blade-sharp gaze.
“I refuse to touch the likes of you.” Elin lifted her chin, certain now of the danger she was in. “Even a lowly woman unable to bear weapons has her standards.” She rose.
The fierce knight towered over her, as immovable as a great stone mountain. His mouth twisted when he spoke, mayhap in anger. “Tempt me any further, maid, and I will care naught for your skills to heal, and bind you to a tree like the rest of the traitors.”
“Then bind yourself as well, for you keep to your own agenda in holding captive whomever you come across, be it lord or unarmed woman.” She balanced the trencher so as not to spill it. Curls of steam rose in the chilly dawn air. “I will tend my father.”
“I say you shall not.” His grimace flashed in the waning darkness. “Try me no further.”
“What will you do? Slay me here in the road? ’Tis better than waiting for the same fate in London.” Fear trembled through her, for she was no fool. She heard both anger and truth rumbling in that voice.
“You think I will strike you down?” he roared. “Have I raised my sword to you? Have I struck you? Ravished you? Given you to my men to suit their pleasures?”
She felt small as his wrath filled him, making him seem taller, larger. The air vibrated with his keen male power, and she shivered. “I cannot say you have.”
“Nor will I, on my honor.” He spat the words, and fire-light caught on the steel hilt of his sword, glinting with a reminder of his undefeatable strength. “You have endured no more than being carried from the woods and forced to ride with us. Do you think your betrothed, Ravenwood, would be less cruel?”
“He is not my betrothed,” she declared savagely. If she married the man, ’twould be like ordering her own death. “Never call him that to my face.”
“The maiden warrior is not so easily bent. Do you not fear me?”
He leaned close. She saw the flash of black eyes and white teeth and the hard demanding countenance of a man used to leading battles, of a man used to facing death. She shivered again. “I both fear and loathe you, sir.”
“A true answer, at last. I despise liars, dove. And the company they keep.”
“As do I.”
“Then keep this in mind.” His gaze bored into her, as sharp as any dagger. She stepped back, but he followed, intent upon dominating her as a wolf stalks wounded prey. “I despise your sharp tongue and your rebellious ways, and ’tis clear your father failed to beat you properly.”
“Beat me?” She seethed. What was this? “A knight such as you would surely think violence is the greatest teacher.”
“What I think matters naught. Only how the king judges you. Keep this in mind, fighting dove. I tell no lies to my king. If Edward asks if you fought, if you lacked respect, if you gave any indication you were guilty, then I will tell him what has transpired between us.”
“You would condemn me either way.”
“Nay. Only you have that power.”
She shivered yet again. The threat of such a future felt real for the first time. In Malcolm’s eyes, she could see the grim reality ahead. Would she truly be seated before the king and judged a traitor?
“I am a terrible daughter for certain,” she confessed. Everyone from the lowliest peasant farmer to the highest knight would agree. “But I am loyal. To friend, family and country. Believe me, or condemn an innocent.”
One corner of his mouth quirked. “I am not your judge, Elin of Evenbough.”
“Do you mock me?” There, on his bloody swollen lip, shone the barest hint of laughter. “Does talk of an unjust traitor’s punishment amuse you?”
“Nay.” That humor waned, as silent as the night. “You amuse me—the cruel world does not. Take care in how you act from this moment on. You have tended my men. That will serve you well in the king’s court. I will tell how you worked of your own free will until day’s light without food or water or rest.”
“I came to tend Hugh. I shall not have a dead man on my conscience. I returned to care for his wound, not to prove my innocence or earn a better judgment from the king.”
“You ought to worry about proof, or you will watch your entrails be cut from your body as they draw and quarter you. I have seen enough of such punishment to know it one of the cruelest. You will be alive when they begin butchering you. Remember, innocent or guilty, all that matters is proof of innocence.”
“And I have no proof, no lies to cover, no one to bribe, no way to show I know what my father plotted.”
“You know he plotted?”
“He plots constantly. And as he sits weeping there in the shadows, he still plots a way to escape.” Tears knotted her throat and she fell silent. Anger, fear and an enormous chill of betrayal cloaked her body. What had her father done, involving her in his escape? Had she known he sought to evade the king’s protector, she would have held fast to her bedpost and refused to let go.
Now she would face court. With no way to prove her innocence, save Caradoc, the king’s nephew, trussed up to an oak tree. She could not ask his help. Not from a cheater, a killer and a wife beater. To enlist his aid would mean she would have to agree to his outrageous claims of marriage.
What she needed was a plot of her own. She needed to avoid the king’s court, Caradoc’s influence and the strong sword of Malcolm le Farouche. Already the lavender tint to the horizon began fading to peach. Soon the sun would rise, and they would journey toward London and her fate as a traitor’s daughter.
An idea came to her, and she could not take time to think through the consequences. Being kind to the fierce one would not be easy, though she vowed to do it. For both her life and her freedom. “You bleed, sir.”
“What? No insults? No name-calling? Not ‘sirrah,’ or ‘cowardly knave’?”
Let