Lady Thief (28 page)

Her eyes widened.
“You planned on seeking
vengeance on me?”

“Aye.”

“Why did you not?”

He shrugged.
“I had meant to, but when you
leapt across the bed so dramatically like you did the need for
revenge left me with the thought of how my vengeance could possibly
destroy you.
I could not do it.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, a sinful smirk
pressing her lips, knowing what form of revenge he would have used
but needing to hear him say it.
“What would you have done to
me?”

His grin was lecherous, and he pulled her
closer and planted kisses on her neck before whispering into her
ear.

“You swine!” She shrieked, laughing and
slapping his shoulders.

“I see ‘tis not a thing that would bother you
much now.”

She took his hand, matching his lusty grin
with one of her own.
“Nay, but I think we should seek the warmth of
our chamber now.
‘Tis too cold to be making love in the snow.”

He nodded, pulling her body to his for the
walk back to their chamber when a thought came to him.
“Blaise was
correct when he called you a thief.”

Knowing better than to be insulted, she eyed
him curiously.
“Why say that?”

“Because you have stolen my heart.”

THE END

Watch out for
Lady Deception
, the
sequel to
Lady Thief
!
Coming soon to Smashwords!

A poverty stricken lady saves the life of a
rich young lord and is taken in for her reward.
As she melts his
heart, and finds her own melting in return, she becomes more and
more determined to hide the fact that she was the one who attempted
to kill him.

Warning: The following three chapters are
subject to change in the final edit.

Chapter One

Hampshire

Summer, 1318

Elizabeth attempted to halt her rushing feet,
slid in the muck, and tripped over them instead.
Her body fell flat
in the mud which splashed up her gown, caking her legs, chest, and
face in the sludge that horses tread and shit on.

She struggled to lift herself out of the
clinging, wet dirt, but only made it as far as her hands and knees.
She threw off her hood in spite of the heavy rain, and gaped at the
image that shocked her into halting in the first place.

There was a naked man in front of her.

His body did not so much as twitch to give
her proof of life as he lay face down in the middle of the road.
There was no sign of a horse, nor any small item that could have
belonged to him.

He had been robbed.

Elizabeth pushed her hands against the mud to
pull herself to him.
She crawled as her feet struggled for purchase
in the slop, but her skirt, heavy with muck and rain, hampered
her.

His face lay half inside a rain puddle that
grew and filled with every heavy raindrop that spattered inside,
filling the pool and endangering him.

If he did not wake on his own his fate would
be sealed.
He would drown if she left him like this.
Elizabeth gave
up on her feet and pulled herself to him with her arms.

‘Twas easy with the slime-like quality of the
muck.
She reached his still form, took his shoulder and pulled hard
until he lay on his back, out of danger from inhaling the brown
water.

The dirt that darkened his face washed away
in the warm rain, revealing a square jaw, prominent brows and
cheekbones, and a nose with only a slight crook in it.
No bruise
marred his perfect features.

"How did this happen?" She asked before
deciding that the answer may lie beneath his mud caked hair.

Her hand hesitated before gently moving
forward.
She probed her fingers through the rough string.
Mud and
rocks slipped away with the intrusion until she found what she
searched for.

A lump the size of a robin’s egg sat stiffly
on the back of his head, it cracked open like an egg as well,
trickling blood into her curious fingers.

She shook her head, terror filling her gut as
she twisted her head in search of anything he might posses,
anything she had missed that the wretched band of thieves may have
left behind.
A horse could take her to the nearest village where
she could sell it for medicine.
Surely he would not mind in his
condition.

She held back a sob as the bending trees, the
sloppy road, and some leaves swirling in the whistling wind crushed
her prayers.
"Those brutes.
Evil son's of swine."

Elizabeth stared down at the man in her arms,
who did not stir at the sound of her black tongue.
Her small body
provided him with no protection against the weather and her
helplessness engulfed her.

If she left him here he would surely die.
Yet, she had naught with which to carry him back to shelter with,
no cart, no horse, not even a mule.

Elizabeth ran her finger through his orange
hair.
She would not leave him to this monstrous fate.
She would not
have the blood of a man resting on her soul because a group of
foolish men had to excite themselves by taking their games too
far.

Elizabeth threw off her cloak.
The rain
soaked through the material long ago, making it useless to dry him,
but it could spare the man's dignity well enough.
Perhaps when he
awoke and discovered that she had dragged him by his hands through
mud, twigs, and filth, he would not take his anger out on her.

Luckily her hut was not far.

***

Blaise's head burned.
The heat ravaged his
skull so harshly that he turned over in his sleep to angle himself
away from the fire.
The flames followed him.

"No more logs," His slurred voice commanded.
His bed felt rough and gritty, bits of straw poked him and made his
body tingle and itch.
He would command the servants to laundry the
sheets when he decided to awake.
It felt as though he slept on a
mound of hay.

A hand touched his shoulder.
His father,
surely, for no one other than he would dare enter his chamber to
wake him.
But no, the hand that touched him was small and thin, not
large like that of a man.
His step-mother?

In another of her playful tempers that only
caused him more annoyance.

Blaise pushed the hand away.
"Off with ye,
Marianne.
I am in no mood for yer games."

"Marianne?" The feminine voice huffed as
though affronted.
"I am Elizabeth!"

Blaise forced his eyelids open, a difficult
task since they felt as though they were being weighed down by
rocks.
When they finally obeyed his commands, Blaise shut them
tightly again with the sharp stabs that assaulted his eyes.

He hissed and rubbed his fists to his eyes.
Those same feminine hands wrapped around his wrists and tried to
force him to pull away but he held firm.

Whether he could see or not did not matter.
His senses returned and the awareness that he was in a foreign
place with an unknown woman filled his body with sharp
displeasure.

He wished to see more of where he was, but
pain, tears, and blurred images greeted him when he opened his
lids.

"What did you put in my eyes, witch?" He
growled, rubbing harder and hating his blindness.

The hands yanked themselves away.
"Witch!
I
put nothing in your eyes!
'Tis only dirt."

He did not believe her.
He had dirt in his
eyes plenty of times before and not once had he ever been in such
pain.
"'Tis more than dirt.
Only boulders could do this."

He tried to rub out the offending things, or
at least move them to an area of his eyes where they did not cause
him such discomfort.
He needed to open them again and see where he
was, be aware of his surroundings so that he might make an
escape.

The female voice softened.
"Aye, 'tis true.
I
would not be shocked if there were some rocks in there scratching
at the whites of your eyes.
'Tis actually mud from the road where I
found you."

Blaise halted the rubbing of his eyes but his
hands remained in place.
The road where she found him?

Aye, that was correct.
He was riding, heading
back to Graystone castle because of the rain when he was stopped by
a portly man in the middle of the road.

His memory could conjure no solid image, but
he did recall how the man humbly begged Blaise for coins to feed
his starving family.

Sympathetic and eager to be out of the wet
weather, Blaise reached for his pouch.
He was promptly grabbed from
behind and dragged from his horse, held down by what could only be
a giant with the strength that overpowered him, and beaten over the
head before all turned black on him.

Beneath the damp blanket, for the first time
Blaise became aware that he was naked.
He clenched his fists harder
over his useless eyes.

The thieves took everything then.
He could
hardly believe his luck that they hadn't taken his life as well,
though it would only serve him right for allowing himself to be
fooled.

He swore to himself to never trust another
individual outside of his family after Robert's betrayal.
Now,
because he so much as trusted that a beggar might truly be in need
of sustenance, he found himself blind and helpless.

He clenched his fists in the straw.
Relying
on a peasant woman for aid.
‘Twas humiliating.

“Is the pain so horrible for you to scowl
so?”

The voice was soft, indicating that he was
not being made a joke of.
He still ignored the question.
"Was there
nothing left of mine scattered in the road?
My sword, or horse?" He
asked.

"Nay, only yourself.
You are fortunate that I
came when I did as you would have drowned had I not been travelling
down that road."

Blaise sputtered at her strange lie.
"Drowned?
There are no streams near that road."

"Nay, but the rain does create small streams
and lakes of its own, and you were laying face down in one of those
growing puddles."

Her plainly spoken statement silenced him.
He
could hardly think at all.
So the thieves left him for dead.
He
supposed he should feel grateful that they left him for dead rather
than seeing to the job themselves, otherwise he would not have been
rescued by the woman sitting with him.

He had no eyes so he relied on his ears to
tell him that Elizabeth picked herself up from where she sat next
to him, went to the other side of the chamber, and Blaise heard a
liquid being poured from a pitcher before she returned and sat next
to him.

"Remove your hands.
I'll wash it out.
'Tis
clean water."

Blaise kept his hands over his eyes for one
second longer, knowing that without the pressure from his fists the
stabbing would return.
But the offending rocks had to be taken out
or else he would suffer with them for hours.

Her hand pressed against his chest, pushing
back down into the straw.
"Put your head back."

He did as he was told, removing his hands and
forcing them down but still keeping his eyes firmly shut against
the onslaught of mud in his eyes.

Her thumb and finger press just under and
over his left eye, and he knew what she prepared to do before she
explained it.
"When you open your eye, I shall hold it open and
pour the water in."

Blaise nodded and opened his eye right away.
The pressure of Elizabeth's fingers kept it open when instinct
forced him to try and lock it shut as cool water splashed inside
and blurred his vision.

Blaise grit his teeth, counted, and could
stand no more and forcefully turned his head away.

Elizabeth cursed above him as she stilled the
bowl to stop the water flow.
"Fool!
I have not yet finished!"

"I have!" Blaise hissed back, wiping the
water out of his face and keeping his other eye shut while he tried
to force vision to come to the one that was open.
His eye was
clean, he could see perfectly through it without the pain of being
stabbed with tiny mud rocks.

Instead of peering at his surroundings, his
good eye focused on the woman sitting above him who dared insult
him.
Blaise's breath caught.

Only at the sight of her did he realize that
'twas no common peasant who rescued him.
Her language, while
occasionally foul, had no country accent.
The fingers that tended
to him were not rough with working hard labour.
Though her ragged
appearance and loose wet hair suggested that what he saw was a
common serf, her treatment of him proved otherwise.

"Who are you?"

"I told you, I am Elizabeth Hollow.
Ye are in
my home."

Blaise looked beyond her, his one hand still
pressing against his dirty eye.

What he thought was a chamber in a much
larger dwelling was actually a hut that could hardly be considered
a home.
His bed of hay was at the far corner, in the center sat a
small, dying fire that could in no way be responsible for his
earlier discomfort.

His hand flew to the back of his head.
He
winced as the lightning-quick pain struck him.
The burning
returned.

“A gift from my attackers, no doubt,” he
muttered.

The girl said nothing, likely not wishing to
anger him with any misplaced comments on his loss, so he returned
to inspecting her home.

There were shelves of meagre possessions,
pots for cooking and, to his shock, what he was sure was a lady’s
gown, folded and stuffed in one of the shelves.

He could hear the rain outside.
It had been
pouring during his attack, enough to keep him from seeing that
there were men surrounding him before it was too late.
‘Twas now at
a gentle shower.
Though Elizabeth's roof still leaked and dripped
in some places.

Elizabeth gripped his chin and forced him to
face her again, the bowl of water still in hand.
"That is enough of
you gaping at my home." She forced his other eye open and poured
the water quicker than she had the last time.