Captured by the Warrior (8 page)

She froze in amazement. The wide grin lit up his face, showing white, even teeth, making his eyes crinkle up with sheer merriment. It made him look much younger, more boyish somehow. It unnerved her.

Alice’s fingers released the bread roll, letting it fall with a soft ‘plop’ on to the rug. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ She coloured under his intense, teasing scrutiny.

‘Er, well, it’s your hair,’ he replied, still grinning, trying to suppress an outright guffaw. ‘It seems to have come adrift.’

‘What?’ Alice automatically lifted one hand to the back of her head, astonished to find that the net seemed to have slipped, and now was hanging down, secured by a single hairpin, while the rest of her hair had fallen down in soft coils. ‘Oh, I see,’ she replied calmly. ‘It must have been the riding; it’s all come apart. I suppose I’ll have to put it up again.’ She eyed the food longingly in front of her, torn between knowing she should tidy her hair and a ravening hunger.

‘Eat first,’ Bastien made the decision for her. ‘Don’t mind me.’

‘I don’t,’ she chipped back at him, picking up the roll, her small teeth biting delicately.

A silence descended between them, but it was not strained. The air was filled with the sound of birdsong, chirruping through the branches, and the perpetual, relaxing sound of the river beside them. The sunlight
finally managed to burn through the hazy cloud cover of the morning and filled the early afternoon air with heat. Having eaten his fill, Bastien turned his body slightly, closing his eyes, relishing the warmth washing over his limbs, as he tucked his arms behind his head, extending his legs, his thigh muscles flexing with the movement. Any other woman would be having seven fits about the state Alice was in, but she seemed unusually relaxed about the whole affair. The pinched, resentful face of his mother loomed into his mind’s eye. He had never, even as a small child, ever seen her in a state of disarray. Her presentation had always been perfect, every pleat pressed within an inch of its life, all stray hairs plucked, all velvet free from lint and dust. Even on that dreadful night when he had returned home from the Duke of York’s castle, carrying the news of his older brother’s death, she had made him wait for hours, before coming to see him in full dress, an elaborate head-dress completely hiding her hair. In fact, he had never even seen his mother’s hair, as high fashion dictated that not a scrap should be seen; he didn’t even know what colour it was.

Next to him, Alice continued to nibble contentedly, trying to ignore the large man stretched out opposite her, until she realised he seemed to have fallen asleep. Then, through dipped lashes, she studied him covertly. What a size he was! She knew he towered over her in height, that she had to tip her head to look at him, but it was the sheer muscled breadth of him that took her by surprise. The hem of his tunic had fallen back, revealing long legs encased in buff-coloured wool chausses. These were covered from the knee down by his calf-length boots, the leather of which, although polished,
was scarred and scuffed with use. Everything about him was hard, masculine—the cut of his tunic, the plain fabric of his shirt—so different from the other men at court, who competed to outdo each other with their complicated, elaborate costumes.

Darting a quick glance to Bastien’s face to assure herself he still slept, Alice endeavoured to sort her hair out. Sleep seemed to erase the severe edges of Bastien’s face; his proud, straight nose flared out around the nostrils—even his high cheekbones appeared softer, somehow. But his mouth still sent reverberations of shock through her, every time she looked at it, its softness unexpected in the harsh, craggy face of a soldier; wide, sensuous, with a full bottom lip, made all the more alluring by the set of his square, chiselled chin. For a moment, Alice just stared, drinking in the carved beauty of this man’s face, able to do so because he slept.

A bird squawked nearby, startling her, breaking her out of her reverie. Ashamed at her blatant perusal, she tilted her head downwards, lifting her fingers up to dislodge the pins, the net, to start again, tearing with agitation at the tangled strands. Her breath emerged rapidly, her heart thudding strongly in her chest—what was the matter with her? Was she ill?

Hearing the rustle of sounds to his left, Bastien open his eyes a fraction of an inch. He had not been asleep, merely content to listen to the bubble of water, the wind sifting through the trees. Through the mesh of his dipped lashes, Bastien watched Alice as she pulled her fingers through the tumbling ripples of her hair, watched the curling ends pool in her lap. She reminded him of a mermaid, told about in the old myths of the sea, sitting
on her rock, combing her locks. In the sunlight, her dark-gold hair burned with a brilliant fire, falling around her like a curtain of gold. Whereas before he had slumbered in a state of warm relaxation, now all the nerve endings in his body snapped to attention.

As she raised her arm, the material of the tightly fitted sleeve strained at her elbow, emphasising the slenderness of her limbs. She seemed to be having trouble coiling the unruly bundle into some semblance of order; every time she stabbed a long pin into the back of her head, another thick tendril came loose once more.

‘Let me.’ His voice, husky, poured over her with the sensuality of liquid cream.

Alice jumped. ‘I thought you were asleep!’ she squeaked. His eyes flared over her: an emerald flame. ‘Nay, I can do it,’ she protested limply as he sprang to his feet and came around to the back of her. She felt him kneel, felt his close, heated presence burn along the length of her spine.

‘It will take too long if you do it,’ he said, simply. His cool fingers brushed against her neck as he took the heavy weight of her hair into his hands.

His breath caught. He couldn’t remember the last time he had touched something so lovely, so silken against his fingers. His many days of battle had been filled with roughness, with steel, cracked leather, mud and stone. This was something different, something silky and soft, so pure. Each strand of hair had a life of its own, sparkling with a slightly different hue from its neighbour, lending the whole mass of wondrous silk a dynamic intensity that he longed to bury his face into.

An excitement leapt through his body, filling him with fierce, longing need. Gritting his teeth, he tried to
suppress it, tried to suppress the urge to bend his head, to drop his lips to the smooth, tempting curve of her neck.

Alice sat rigidly, her fingers balled into fists on her lap. Surely this wasn’t proper? But she had long ago lost all sense of what was proper behaviour and her mother wasn’t around to tell her. But it didn’t feel proper; nay, it felt dangerous, as if someone was pushing her inexorably towards the edge of a blazing fire. She wanted to flee, to run away. Every time the rough pads of Bastien’s fingers grazed her neck, a splinter of exhilaration drove through her, kindling a churning, fluttering sensation in her stomach, increasing her sense of unease.

One of his fingers glanced against the downy lobe of her ear. Her stomach flipped. ‘I’ll finish it,’ she spoke hurriedly, wanting him away from her. This was not right! This man was her enemy—what in Heaven’s name was she thinking? As she gritted her teeth against the heated feelings coursing through her blood, her hand whipped upwards and back, snaring his muscled wrist, trying to pull it away. The blood, pumping through the artery in his wrist, pulsed against her fingers.

‘I’ve nearly finished.’ He continued to pull the silken strands through his fingers, reluctant to relinquish the wonderful feel of her hair. Her slim fingers around his wrist felt cool, smooth.

‘Enough!’ she uttered, with sheer desperation, jerking her head forwards, pulling her hand back at the same time. Tears jumped to her eyes as the hair tore against her scalp, but she wrenched herself to her feet, stumbling backwards. ‘I said I’ll finish it!’

On his knees, Bastien stared up at her, his body a churning mass of heightened need. Alice’s eyes glowed
down at him, her azure orbs holding a heady mix of anger, frustration and, yes, desire. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her neat bosom strained against the fitted fabric of her dress. By Christ, his need was such that he wanted to strip her right now, and take her swiftly, there on the rug. He saw it in her eyes; her need matched his.

‘You feel it too,’ he said, bluntly.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she replied haltingly, studying the toes of her leather boots with unnecessary attention.

He leapt up then, the unfulfilled desire making his body restless, itching for action, and strode over to her so that she quailed at his threatening approach. He leaned down, whispered, close to her ear, ‘I think you do.’

B
astien drove his heels fiercely into his horse’s smooth, glossy flanks, urging the animal up the steep, wooded slope to gain the wider path that ran along the brow of the hill. Irritation seared through him; he was annoyed, annoyed that such a maid could arouse him so. He should never have offered to do her hair. How could he have known such a simple action would reap such consequences? Especially for him, a man who prided himself on keeping his emotions squashed down to nothing. Foolishly, he had believed he could indulge in the sheer pleasure of feeling the silken strands slip through his fingers and remain unaffected. How wrong he had been. Her hair had acted like a lure, reeling him closer, stealing in under the steel casing clamped around his heart, digging in, teasing out emotions he had long since forgotten. Emotions that he had no wish to remember.

Behind him, Alice followed at a more sedate pace, the head of her gentle mare nodding rhythmically as it
plodded up the track. Her hands trembled on the reins; her body felt weak, sapped of energy. The wetness of her furious tears clung to her long, dark lashes, blurring her vision and she lifted one finger to blot them away. How ludicrous the whole thing was! The man had offered to tidy her hair. Yet she still felt the imprint of his fingers at the nape of her neck, and her body still clung to the embers of desire that he had kindled with that touch. What would have happened if she hadn’t leapt to her feet, if she had let him continue? The memory of the look in his eyes as she had whirled about told her the answer. Sighing, gritting her teeth, she contemplated his fast-receding back. She forced herself to think about Edmund, Edmund, the man she had promised to marry. They both knew it would be a marriage in name only, but at least it would be
safe.

Gaining the brow of the hill in record speed, Bastien pulled on the reins, wheeling the animal around to assess the maid’s progress. Christ, she was miles away! He could just about make out her slim figure through the trees. And he could also see how she sagged in the saddle, her whole demeanour wilting with exhaustion. Serve the girl right, he thought savagely. She had chosen to ride, hadn’t she? Wanting to prove that she could ride as well as any man? He wanted to punish her, wanted to give her a hard time for sparking such unwanted feelings inside him. If he made things tough for her, then maybe it would be easier to keep her at arm’s length. To make her hate him would be a far safer option.

‘You need to hurry up,’ he ground out, as, finally, she drew level with him. A small, neat ankle, encased in white stocking, forced him to draw a swift breath. Alice flicked the hem of her skirt down over her foot,
hiding it completely. ‘I can’t make this animal go any faster.’ She regarded him through wide, periwinkle-blue eyes, her animated face glowing like a precious jewel beneath the shady canopy of the forest.

The neutral tone in her voice irritated him. He had seen her hands loose on the reins as she approached; he hadn’t seen her urge the animal on once.

‘Try,’ he murmured tersely, ‘or we’ll not make Abberley by nightfall.’

‘I’m not one of your soldiers who you can boss around all day,’ she sniped back at him.

‘I am well aware of that fact.’ He glared pointedly at her rounded bosom. ‘But at this rate, it would have been faster if you had travelled in a litter.’

‘I don’t believe you! We couldn’t have journeyed this way if I was in a litter, and by using this path we’ve shaved hours off the journey time.’

He grimaced. She was right. Since when had women become so informed about the geography of their country? ‘Well, come on, then,’ he said at last, exasperated. Surely a whole army of men was easier to control than this one woman?

The wider path at the brow of the hill led them out of the forest and on to open moorland, vast tracts of high, rough grass where a few sheep grazed. The track become wider, with fewer hazards to negotiate, allowing both riders to break into a gallop. Above their heads, buzzards wheeled and circled in the rising warm air, filling the vast, open space with their haunting cries. This time, Alice kept up with him; he was surprised to see that she was merely a few feet behind him all the way. She was a good horsewoman, he thought grudgingly.

Now and again, they would slow to a walk, allowing the horses a short rest, before resuming the relentless pace once more. Bastien could go on like this for ever, days even; he had endured enough practice in this kind of travel in France, but the maid? He shrugged his shoulders inwardly, a small part of him wanting to see her reduced, suffering, just a little.

Dusk began to fall; the western horizon a mass of glowing pinks and purples, silhouetting the few lone trees on the moor with stark beauty. Most of the trees were bent over at an angle, like old men stooped, after being continually buffeted by wind through their growth. Bastien and Alice slowed once more to a walk. Silently Alice wondered how long this was going to go on. Her whole body was overheated and uncomfortable, coated in perspiration from matching Bastien’s tireless pace; she now regretted turning down the offer of a litter. Ensconced in the curtained interior, she wouldn’t have had to
look
at him all day.

‘What’s that, up ahead?’ Alice broke the silence between them.

Bastien narrowed his eyes, focusing on a small group of shambling peasants up ahead. He could see two people, and it appeared that one of them was helping the other to walk along the trackway. ‘No one of importance,’ he muttered, keeping his eyes forwards, trained on the horizon. ‘Come on.’ He kicked the animal into a gallop, aiming to pass the group at top speed. ‘Make way!’ he roared at them. ‘Move aside!’

The white, pinched faces of the peasants looked completely terrified as Bastien thundered towards them, the bit jangling wildly between his horse’s large, yellow
ing teeth. The elderly man held up one hand, pleading, as Bastien approached. ‘Stop, my lord, we need help.’ Bastien ignored the man, his horse’s hooves throwing up great clods of sticky white mud as he charged by. But almost in that moment of passing that pathetic huddle of humankind, he knew that he would have to stop—because
she
would stop. Hauling on the reins, he twisted his head round in time to see Alice slipping from her horse, an encouraging smile on her face.

‘Alice!’ he bellowed at her, leaping from his animal and striding back. ‘We have no time for this!’

Alice’s face appeared as an iridescent pearl through the twilight. His fingers twitched, wanting to touch, to test the fine exquisiteness of her skin. ‘This will take no time at all,’ she assured him coolly, her arms crossed high, defensively, over her bosom as she faced him. ‘This woman has hurt her leg, I could see her struggling to walk from the bottom of the hill; I might be able to help.’

‘It’s none of our business.’ His voice had softened, despite his annoyance at having been delayed. In the dimness of the evening light, the shadows beneath his high cheekbones appeared more pronounced, more sculptured, as if carved from polished wood.

‘It’s my business, Bastien. It’s what I do.’ Alice took a deep breath, pushing the flat of her hand against her horse’s heated flank, as if to steady herself. He stared into her sweet, earnest face for a moment, noted the stubborn set of her mouth with a sense of resignation. He could force her to come now, drag her up before him, and link her horse to his own. But what would it achieve, except to turn her further against him? ‘Then be quick about it,’ he relented.

Alice nodded at him, the hint of a smile playing about her lips, before motioning for the woman to sit on the high grassy verge. She raised the woman’s skirts to reveal bare legs, pale and lumpy in the half-light. The right leg was gashed, the edges of the wide wound puckered and swollen. The old man craned his neck to try to see, lines of concern etching his elderly face.

‘The wound’s infected,’ Alice announced calmly. ‘I’ll clean it, put a poultice on it.’

‘Put a poultice on it?’ Bastien frowned at her, his body impatient. ‘How long is this going to take?’

‘Bastien, I can’t just ignore this. It could infect her blood; she could die. I just can’t ride on without helping.’

‘But she’s a peasant.’ His voice cut across her, callous, unremitting.

Alice’s head rolled back, her eyes glittering with shocked anger. ‘How can you say such a thing? She’s a human being, just like you and me.’ She jumped up to fetch her leather drinking bottle tied to the back of her horse, unlacing it with short, jerky movements.

Bastien shrugged his shoulders, unconcerned. The maid was clearly insane. In his world, nobles dealt with nobles, and peasants? Well, they were nothing. He turned back to his horse, leaning down to adjust the strap that held the saddle in place, tightening it. One small fist jabbed him in the shoulder. Alice was beside him. Her blue eyes burned with fury, her lips pursed and rigid. Instinctively, he braced himself for another onslaught.

‘What is it?’ He straightened up, curious.

Alice tipped her head back, exposing the long, creamy length of her neck, the silken dip of her throat. He hulked
over her, this barbarian of a man, too close, but she refused to step back, to be intimidated by his size.

‘Do you really value human life so lightly?’ Her mouth curled downwards in disapproval.

‘I’m a soldier, Alice, what do you expect?’ he replied bluntly.

‘I expected more understanding from a nobleman, more compassion.’

‘Compassion doesn’t come into it when you’re in the thick of battle.’ He wrenched the girth strap tightly.

‘Maybe it should.’

‘And maybe—’ he rounded on her, eyes flinty with annoyance ‘—you should stop lecturing me about my moral values and hurry up with treating that woman.’ He pushed his face close to hers, wanting her to back down, to run away, but she didn’t move one jot.

‘It would be quicker if you helped me.’ His skin smelt musky, a tantalising mix of horse and woodsmoke. Her heart rate skittered, then jolted into a faster pace. She ducked away then, unable to maintain that close contact, frightened of what his presence did to her body, without waiting for his answer. Dropping to her knees in the mud, she began to clean the wound.

Bastien watched her with annoyance. Since when had a woman taken him to task on how he lived his life? He had been fêted as a hero on both sides of the Channel for his prowess in battle; Alice made him feel he had crawled out from beneath the nearest stone. Was there any truth in her accusation? That human life, any human life, held no value for him? Since his older brother’s death, he had fought harder, longer than any man in France, earning the reputation of the most feared opponent in Europe. The endless fighting had driven away the
memories; he had been glad of that. Now, home again, to his utter disgust, the memories had come flooding back, those of his older brother and…Katherine. He wanted to be fighting again, out in the cut and thrust, the mayhem of the battlefield, not nursemaiding some girl in the hope that he would see King Henry. And yet, what was the alternative? Home, to his estates north of Ludlow, and what joys awaited him there? Only his mother, and he had no burning wish to see her.

Bastien hunkered down next to Alice, who was busily cleaning the woman’s wound with most of the contents of her water bottle. Her face was set with an earnest concentration, her touch deft and assured. Although the wound must have pained her, the woman made scarcely a sound.

‘What can I do?’

Alice glanced at him, startled. ‘Fetch my bag, please.’

Feeling chastened by her earlier, heated words, Bastien did as he was told.

‘Take out the linen bandages, and beneath you’ll find an earthenware pot of ointment,’ Alice continued. ‘Then smear the ointment over the middle of one of the bandages—don’t stint.’

Bastien opened the leather satchel fastened to the mare’s side. The orderliness of the contents within astonished him—the neat row of rolled-up bandages, the labelled pots, and small leather pouches—all seemed at odds with Alice’s disregard for her own appearance. Only one pot was made from earthenware; he removed the wide cork stopper, digging his fingers into the cold, waxy substance. A foul smell rose to his nostrils; he wrinkled his nose in disgust as he spread it across the bandage.

‘Thank—you.’ Alice barely looked up at him as she took the length of bandage between her fingers. Her skin creased a little between her eyebrows as she concentrated on applying the length of cloth around the woman’s calf.

‘There.’ Alice tied a simple knot to secure the bandage, before sitting back on her heels to survey her handiwork. The woman was smiling, thanking Alice over and over again.

‘We have nothing to give you, to thank you with,’ the old man said forlornly.

Alice smiled up into the gnarled, worried face. ‘I don’t want anything; it’s enough that I could help,’ she explained gently. The woman stood up, putting her full weight on her injured leg, and started to walk, gingerly at first, then with more confidence.

Kneeling in the earth, an incredible fatigue washed over Alice, a cold fog sweeping through her brain, muddling her thoughts. From the intense concentration a few moments ago, now she couldn’t even think straight, merely content to sit back in the mud and watch the old couple walk off, heading in an easterly direction, waving and smiling. She wanted to close her eyes and slump forwards, pillow her head in the soft, lush grass of the verge and sleep.

A hand grasped her upper arm, dragged her up. ‘Come on, Alice.’ Bastien’s strong voice punched into her. ‘Let’s keep going.’ Weariness made her sway on her feet before him, a slender reed buffeted by the wind. Smudges of blue formed dark semi-circles beneath her eyes, evidence of her exhaustion.

‘How much further is it?’ Alice rubbed at one eye, trying to erase the grittiness clouding her vision. She
wilted under Bastien’s grip, fast about her upper arm. He realised that instead of helping her up, he was in fact supporting her. His intention had been to ride through the night; the sky was clear, and already the waxing moon had begun to cast its ethereal light across the land. But the girl was exhausted, he could see that now.