Rexanne Becnel (8 page)

A steely arm came around her waist. In one terrifying moment she was lifted from her feet and pulled against a hard chest. Though she fought him and kicked in a wild panic, twisting desperately to be free, he would not relent in his hold.

“No!” she cried, arching back in his clasp. Her head cracked hard against him and she saw stars, but his grip did loosen slightly, and she instinctively slid down his tall frame. She was almost away but as he grabbed wildly for her, she lost her balance. With a shrill scream she tumbled to the earth, and before she could collect her senses to scramble away, he flung himself on top of her.

Joanna’s breath left her with a long
whoosh.
The man pressed her heavily into the hard earth and despite her overwhelming fear, she could not catch her breath either to scream or struggle. Her hair fell across her face and tangled in the grasses as her cheek pressed into the ground.

I am going to die,
she thought as useless tears stung her eyes.
I am going to die here, all alone at the hands of this vile monster.

When he shifted his weight her chest filled at once with blessed air, but she was no less caught in his remorseless grasp.

“Christ and bedamned!” he swore viciously. Then he twisted her beneath him so that they lay face to face.

Joanna felt every granite-hard muscle in the man’s body, for he lay directly upon her in the most intimate manner imaginable. Despite her wish not to display her fear, two huge tears leaked out from between her tightly clenched lashes, and her body shuddered in dread of what was surely to come. Then a rough palm pushed her hopelessly tangled hair back from her face. Though she flinched from his touch, he gripped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and forced her to face him.

“Open your eyes, Joanna. Open your eyes.”

Overcome as she was by paralyzing fear, Joanna neither recognized his voice nor responded to his command. Then he brushed her tears away, first from one eye and then the other with the gentlest of motions, and despite her horror, she opened her eyes.

The face that met hers was not that of a monster, yet it struck just as much terror into her heart.

“You!” she cried, though her voice was choked with tears.

“Yes, me,” he replied grimly. “Though it could just as easily be some fiend with murder in his heart—or worse.”

“Get off me,” she muttered, twisting against the heated weight of him.

But her restless movement seemed perversely to fit them more closely together. One of his legs slid between her own, and even though he propped himself up on one elbow, she was more securely than ever pinned beneath him. With a renewed sting of tears in her eyes, she glared up at him.

“Get off me, you disgusting oaf! You vile beast! You … You …”

“My, my, but our little nun has a considerable temper. And such a vocabulary. Surely such is not condoned in the hallowed halls of St. Theresa’s.”

“You may not excuse your wretched behavior by pretending my anger is not warranted!” She shoved at his chest, then glowered at him when it proved to no avail. “Is it your way to skulk around attacking women,
Sir
Rylan?”

Up until then his expression had been an odd mixture of triumph mingled with surprise, as if he were pleased to have trapped her, yet somehow still taken aback by it all. But her scathing accusation immediately drew his face into a frown.

“Is it your way to stroll the fields with your dress raised indecently high, displaying your legs for anyone to see?” His hand moved down to grasp her leg, gripping the bare flesh of her knee to prove his point.

“I was trying to reach the trees. Before the rains came!” She stared up at him with wide green eyes. “Let me up. And take your hand off my leg,” she added in a shakier tone.

Rylan’s hand was slow to leave her leg and even when it did, it was to finger the impossible tangles of her hair. Above them the wind still whipped the tall grasses and prickly heather, but pressed to the earth as they were, the impending storm seemed to surround them yet still not quite touch them. His dark hair lifted around his face, flying in the strong gusts. But he seemed oblivious to it. He only stared down at her with that same perplexed expression as he coiled one of her ringlets around his finger.

As the moment stretched out almost unbearably between them, Joanna felt an involuntary current of heat well up inside her. From the deepest recesses of her belly it surged outward, warming her blood and causing her skin to flush a rosy pink. For an instant she wasn’t afraid—at least not in the same way she had been. A fragmented memory of Winna and the fowler flashed through her mind, but those two were swiftly forgotten as she stared up into the midnight blue of his eyes. He seemed to be devouring her with his dark inscrutable stare, and her heart’s pace sped up even more. Then his head lowered and she gasped.

“What—what are you doing?” she cried, trying her best to hold him back. Against her hands she could feel the pounding of his heart, and it seemed a dreadfully intimate discovery.

At her words he stopped, but his face was so near hers she could feel the warmth of his breath and the brush of his hair. Then he pulled back and a scowl replaced his previously unfathomable expression.

“What I’m doing,” he muttered in a voice gone low and husky, “is taking you to Blaecston.” He rolled off her and took a harsh breath. “Once you leave the oppressive surroundings of that priory you’ll change your mind about being a nun.”

“I’ll never change my mind!” She lunged away from him, but he had her in a moment, with one hand around her wrist. Though she jerked her arm frantically, his hold was implacable.

“Don’t make it harder than it has to be, Joanna,” he warned as he sat up.

Joanna rose to a crouch, leaning as far away from him as their outstretched arms would allow. “What you are suggesting is unthinkable,” she vowed furiously. “You cannot just abduct me this way. I won’t go! I won’t!”

“Oh, you’ll go, all right. And one day when you are well wed with a babe in arms, you shall thank me for saving you from that miserable place, my little gray dove.”

She stared at his face, seeing the hard determination there, and sudden despair overwhelmed her. “You may drag me away from here,” she whispered, stricken anew by unwanted tears, “but you will never succeed in this. I’ll not marry some minion of yours. I’d sooner fling myself in the sea!”

His brow lowered at her softly worded vow and his eyes burned into hers. “And risk the fires of hell? I think not.” His hand tightened almost painfully on her wrist as he rose to his feet. Then, ignoring her furious struggles, he dragged her relentlessly toward his waiting horse.

J
OANNA RODE STIFFLY, TRYING
hard to avoid any contact with her captor. She was seated sideways before him, balanced most precariously with her bottom nestled between his thighs and her two legs resting over one of his. Under the circumstances any attempt to lean away from him was hopeless, yet her fury would not allow her to react in any other manner. How dare he treat her this way! How dare he lay in wait for her, hunting her down and dragging her off like some prize hart!

She gasped as the horse lurched down a sharp incline and her balance was threatened. Rylan’s arm tightened around her, preventing her from falling, yet she could not feel an ounce of gratitude toward him. If not for him she wouldn’t be perched on this frightening animal, terrified for her very life. If not for him she wouldn’t be riding through the forests while a storm threatened.

As the horse resumed its steady pace, Joanna pulled away from Rylan, unwilling to rest against his chest no matter how sturdy it was. But he clearly had other ideas. His arm tightened, keeping her pressed against him, and his head lowered nearer to her ear.

“Relax, milady. This struggle is useless, as is your anger.”

“’Tis your blunt-witted plan that is useless. Do you truly think to change my mind in this fashion? By stealing me away from the life I choose?”

“You have chosen that life without ever knowing what other life is open to you. I seek only to make you aware of the alternatives.”

“You waste your time then, for I shall never change my mind. And you will have to return me to St. Theresa’s once your hateful plan is undone.”

He pushed a tendril of knotted hair from her cheek. “You shall never return to St. Theresa’s, Joanna. Accept that fact and we shall deal very well together.”

“I should as lief deal with a murderer!” she cried in a voice that shook as much from fury as it did from fear.

“We shall see,” he answered coolly. “We shall soon see.”

When they reached the place where his men waited, Joanna was thrown into a new quandary. How was she to manage amid this hard-eyed group? They were, to a man, all clearly veterans of many a battle, and though they stared at her with an odd mixture of curiosity and discomfort, she held but no hope that they might intercede on her behalf. Rylan’s command over his men was subtle yet unmistakable. Even the blond giant who looked second to no man in physical prowess seemed content with his lord’s wicked ways. Should he or any of the others feel a twinge of guilt or sympathy for her poor treatment, she was depressingly certain they would still not come to her aid.

“Rouse yourself, my boys. We’ve many leagues to go,” Rylan called, all the while keeping a snug hold on her.

“Shall I prepare one of the packhorses to take your … our … ahem, to take a rider?” one grizzled soldier finished, with a sidelong glance at Joanna’s rigid face.

“For now she shall ride with me. Once we’ve gone a distance perhaps I shall give her her own mount.”

“I prefer to ride alone,” Joanna snapped. Though she had never once ridden a horse herself and was, indeed, rather frightened of the large animals, she nonetheless would gladly ride anything in order to be free of the smug Sir Rylan’s grasp.

“Your preferences are not being considered today,” he replied softly, for her ears only. Then, at her gasp of outrage, he shifted her on his lap as if to emphasize how at his mercy she was. To his men he winked. “Let us make haste, for the heavens threaten to open up on us, and I do not relish riding in the rain.”

Yet ride in the rain they did, for no sooner did they break through the other side of the woods than the lowering clouds spilled over. The wind had dropped considerably and the rain fell in thick heavy drops—at times in veritable sheets of water.

Joanna was heartened by the rain. Surely they would stop now, and perhaps she would find a way to escape. However, save for a brief pause in the meager protection of a clump of oaks, the band did not stop. Rylan retrieved a tightly woven
chape à pluie
from one of the packhorses and flung it over his shoulders. Then, still keeping her seated sideways across his lap, he pulled her into his arms, wrapped her securely within the folds of the voluminous cloak, and started forward once more.

Joanna was much too furious with him to appreciate his attempted kindness. The rain was not likely to ruin her life—only he could do that! Yet struggle as she might to be free, the confining cape held her well. She was like a poor insect, caught up in a web, she fumed. Though she was warm in the dark protectiveness of his embrace, what she really wanted was to be set free.

“Be still,” she heard him mutter as her pointed elbow met with his ribs.

“I cannot see!” she snapped, and poked him even more sharply.

“By damn, woman—” The cloak parted and rain pelted her face. “If you would rather be soaked to the skin you need only say the word!”

“I would rather be set free!”

He did not answer her angry words, but only bent forward against the fierce onslaught of rain. A deep hood sheltered his face, but Joanna was no longer so protected. Although the cape still covered her body, her head projected through the open front, and the rain swiftly drenched her face and hair. Before them, barely visible through the downpour, she saw one rider. The others she assumed trailed them. Beyond that she could see very little. The rain obscured field and forest alike, revealing only the bit of stony track they now traversed at such a perilous pace.

She ducked her head against the sting of the pelting rain, then was surprised when he hunched one shoulder and brought the cloak up to cover her head, but without covering her face. Joanna shivered as a cold droplet ran down her neck from her now-soaked hair. Yet as icy as it was, she was well aware of his constant warmth. Beneath the enveloping cloak the heat of their two bodies, coupled with the horse’s exertion, had created a remarkable warmth. Though she still sat stiffly across his legs, her body moved in rhythm with the horse, rocking in tempo with Rylan’s. His arms remained clasped securely around her waist, and despite her best effort to maintain whatever distance she could between them, her weary muscles were slowly overcome. She slumped unwittingly against him, succumbing to an exhaustion caused by both the emotional trauma of the past days and the physical exertion of the past hour. Her back curved almost imperceptibly against his chest, and her shoulders leaned ever so slightly against his encircling arm. Though she now gripped the open ends of the cloak in her own hands, she held the fabric tight against the merciless rain.

“Relax and get some rest,” he murmured very close to her right ear.

At once she jumped. “I’m not tired,” she stated scathingly, though she knew it was a lie.

He shrugged. “Have it as you will, Joanna. We’ve a long ride ahead of us. Eventually you will wish you’d taken me up on this offer.”

“Where are you taking me?” she demanded, not fooled for a moment by his affectation of concern for her well-being. “And what do you truly expect to gain by this shameful deed?”

For a moment he did not answer. Through her wet lashes she saw his jaw clench, then he turned a quick look upon her. “You may have abdicated any responsibility for your people—for your country. But I have not done so.”

“You cannot think to hide your crime beneath such lofty ideals as that,” she countered bitterly. “I am but one noblewoman in a land of many more. Oxwich is but one stronghold—and not so magnificent a one as to influence the fate of the entire kingdom. No, Lord Blaecston—Lord Black Heart!—you delude yourself if you expect me to believe so poor a tale as that.”