"Jennifer-" Royce Westmoreland's quiet voice was edged with gravity, and Jenny tore her gaze from the place where William had vanished.
"Y-yes," she stammered, half expecting her father's entire army to leap from the woods at any instant and slaughter Royce where he sat. Slaughter him! The thought made bile rise up in her throat, and Jenny shot to her feet, obsessed with the simultaneous need to get him away from the woods and still manage to get into them herself.
Royce frowned at her pale face. "What's wrong-you seem-"
"Restless!" Jenny burst out. "I feel the need to stroll just a bit. I-"
Royce rolled to his feet and was about to ask the reason for her restlessness when he saw Arik walking up the hill. "Before Arik reaches us," he began, "I would like to tell you something."
Jenny swung around, her gaze freezing on the mighty Arik while crazy relief surged through her: With Arik here, at least Royce wouldn't die without someone to fight at his side. But if there was fighting, then her father or William or one of the clan might be killed.
"Jennifer-" Royce said, his tone reflecting his exasperation at her flagging attention.
Somehow, Jenny made herself turn to him and look attentive. "Yes?" If her father's men were going to attack Royce, surely they'd have moved from the woods by now; he'd never be more vulnerable than he was at this moment. Which meant, Jenny thought wildly, William must be alone and he'd seen Arik. If that was true, and she hoped at the moment it was, then she had only to stay calm and find some way to return to the woods as soon as possible.
"No one is going to lock you in a dungeon," he said with gentle firmness.
Gazing up into his compelling gray eyes, it suddenly dawned on Jenny that she'd be leaving him soon-perhaps within the hour, and the realization pierced her with unexpected poignancy. True, he had condoned her abduction, but he had never subjected her to the atrocities any other captor would have forced upon her. Moreover, he was the only man who'd admired her courage instead of condemning her headstrong conduct; she'd caused the death of his horse, and stabbed him, and made a fool of him by escaping. All things considered, she realized with an awful ache behind her eyes, he'd treated her with more gallantry -his own style of gallantry-than any courtier might have done. In fact, if things were different between their families and their countries, Royce Westmoreland and she would have been friends. Friends? He was more than that already. He was her lover.
"I-I'm sorry," Jenny said in a suffocated voice, "my mind has gone abegging. What did you say just now?"
"I said," he repeated with a slight worried frown at her panicked expression, "I don't want you imagining you're in any sort of peril. Until the time comes to send you home, you will remain under my protection."
Jenny nodded and swallowed. "Yes. Thank you," she whispered, her voice flooded with emotion.
Misinterpreting her tone for one of gratitude, Royce smiled lazily. "Would you care to express your gratitude with a kiss?" To his amazed delight, Jenny needed no strong persuasion at all. Reaching her arms around his neck, she kissed him with desperate ardor, crushing her lips to his in a kiss that was part farewell and part fear, her hands roving over the bunched muscles of his back, unconsciously memorizing the contours of it, clasping him to her tightly.
When he finally lifted his head, Royce gazed down at her, his arms still wrapped tightly around her. "My God," he whispered. He started to lower his head again, then stopped, his gaze on Arik. "Damn, here's Arik." He took her arm and guided her toward the knight, but when they reached Arik, he instantly drew Royce aside, speaking swiftly.
Royce turned back to Jennifer, preoccupied with the unpleasant news of Graverley's arrival. "We'll have to go back," he began, but the look of misery on her face tugged at his heart. This morning, she had lit up like a candle when he'd offered to take her out of the castle. "I've been confined to a tent or else under guard for so long," she'd told him, "that the thought of sitting on a hillside makes me feel reborn!"
Obviously, the time out here had done her a world of good, Royce thought wryly, recalling the ardor of her kiss, and wondering if he would be insane to offer her the right to remain here alone. She was on foot, with no way to get a horse, and she was intelligent enough to know that if she tried to escape on foot, the five thousand men camped all around the castle would be able to find her within an hour. Moreover, he could instruct the guards on the wall to keep an eye on her.
With the taste of her kiss still on his lips, and the memory of her decision not to try to escape from camp several nights ago still fresh in his mind, he walked over to her. "Jennifer," he said, his reservations about the wisdom of what he was doing making his voice sound stern, "if I allow you to remain out here, can I trust you to stay in this spot?"
The look of joyous disbelief on her face was reward enough for his generosity.
"Yes!" she exclaimed, unable to believe this boon from fate.
The lazy smile that wafted across his bronzed features made him look very handsome and almost boyish. "I won't be long," he promised.
She watched him walk away with Arik, unconsciously memorizing the way he looked, his broad shoulders encased in a tan jerkin, a brown belt drawn loosely around his narrow waist, and thick hose outlining the heavy muscles of his thighs above his high boots. Partway down the hill, he stopped and turned. Raising his head, Royce scanned the trees, his black brows drawn into a frown, as if he sensed the threat to him lurking in the woods. Terrified that he'd seen or heard something and meant to come back, Jenny did the first thing that came to mind: Raising her hand in a slight wave, she drew his attention and smiled at him, then she touched her fingers to her lips. The gesture had been unintended, a forestalled impulse to cover her mouth and stifle a cry of panic. To Royce, it appeared that she was blowing him a kiss. With a grin that bespoke his surprised gratification, he lifted his hand in a gesture of farewell to Jennifer. Beside him, Arik spoke sharply, and he pulled his attention from Jennifer and the woods. Turning, he walked swiftly down the steep hill beside Arik, his mind pleasurably occupied with the enthusiastic ardor of Jennifer's kiss and his body's equally enthusiastic response to it.
"Jennifer!" William's low, urgent voice from the woods behind her made Jenny's entire body tense for her impending flight, but she was careful not to make a move for the woods-not until the earl had disappeared through the hidden doorway cut into the thick stone wall surrounding Hardin castle. Then she whirled, almost stumbling in her haste, as she raced up the short incline and bolted into the woods, her gaze searching madly for her rescuers. "William, where-" she began, then stifled a scream as strong, wiry arms caught her at the waist from behind, lifting her clear off the ground, hauling her into the deeper seclusion of the ancient oaks.
"Jennifer!" William whispered hoarsely, his beloved face only inches from hers. Regret and anxiety were etched into his worried frown. "My poor girl-" he began, his eyes searching her face, and then, obviously recalling the kisses he'd witnessed, he said bleakly, "He forced you to become his mistress, didn't he?"
"I-I'll explain later. We must make haste," she implored, obsessed with the remembered urgency to persuade her clansmen to leave without bloodshed. "Brenna's already on her way home. Where is Father and our people?" she began.
"Father is at Merrick, and there's only six of us here."
"Six!" Jenny exclaimed, stumbling as her slipper caught in a vine and then recovering, running beside him.
He nodded. "I thought we'd have a better chance of freeing you if we used stealth rather than might."
When Royce walked into the hall, Graverley was standing in the center of the room, his narrow face slowly surveying the interior of Hardin castle, his thin nose pinched with resentment and ill-concealed greed. As privy councillor to the king and the most influential member of the powerful Court of the Star Chamber, Graverley enjoyed tremendous influence, but his very position denied him the hope of a title and the estates that he so obviously coveted.
From the time Henry seized the throne, he had begun taking steps to avoid meeting the same fate as his predecessors-defeat at the hands of powerful nobles who swore allegiance to their king and then rose up when discontented and overthrew that same sovereign. To prevent such an occurrence, he had reinstated the Court of the Star Chamber which he then filled with councillors and ministers outside the peerage, men like Graverley, who then sat in judgment on the nobles fining them heavily, for any misdeed, an action which simultaneously fattened Henry's coffers and deprived said nobles of the wealth necessary for revolt.
Of all the privy councillors, Graverley was the most influential and most vindictive; with Henry's full trust and authority behind him, Graverley had successfully impoverished or completely broken nearly every powerful noble in Britain… with the exception of the earl of Claymore who, to his unconcealed fury, had continued to prosper, growing more powerful and more wealthy with each battle he won for his king.
Graverley's hatred for Royce Westmoreland was known to everyone at court, and was equalled by Royce's contempt for him.
Royce's features were perfectly bland as he crossed the one hundred-foot distance separating him from his foe, but he was registering all the subtle indications that an unusually unpleasant confrontation was evidently about to occur over some issue. For one thing, there was the smirk of satisfaction on Graverley's face; for another, positioned behind Graverley were thirty-five of Henry's men-at-arms, who were standing with military rigidity, their faces set and grim. Royce's own men, headed by Godfrey and Eustace, were formed into two lines at the end of the hall near the dais, their faces watchful, alert, tense-as if they, too, sensed something seriously amiss in this unexpected and unprecedented visit from Graverley. As Royce strode past the last pair of his men, they fell into step behind him in a formal honor guard.
"Well, Graverley," Royce said, stopping in front of his adversary, "what brings you out from your hiding place behind Henry's throne?"
Rage burned in Graverley's eyes, but his voice was equally bland, and the words he spoke scored a hit every bit as deep as Royce's had done: "Fortunately for civilization, Claymore, the majority of us do not share your pleasure in the sight of blood and the stench of rotting bodies."
"Now that we've exchanged civilities," Royce clipped, "What do you want?"
"Your hostages."
In frigid silence, Royce listened to the rest of Graverley's scathing tirade, but it seemed to his benumbed mind that the words were coming from somewhere very far away: "The king heeded my advice," Graverley was saying, "and has been trying to negotiate a peace with King James. In the midst of those delicate negotiations, you seized the daughters of one of the most powerful lords in Scotland and, by your actions, may have rendered such a peace all but impossible." His voice rang with authority as he finished, "Assuming you haven't already butchered your prisoners in your usual barbarous fashion, you are hereby commanded by our Sovereign King to release Lady Jennifer Merrick and her sister into my custody at once, whereupon they will be returned to their family."
"No." The single icy word, which constituted a treasonous refusal to obey a royal edict, escaped from Royce without volition, and it hit the room with the explosive force of a giant boulder hurtled into the hall by an invisible catapult. The king's men automatically tightened their grips on their swords and stared ominously at Royce, while his own men stiffened in amazed alarm and also stared at Royce. Only Arik betrayed no emotion whatsoever, his stony gaze riveted unflinchingly on Graverley.
Even Graverley was too shocked to conceal it. Staring at Royce through narrowed eyes, he said in a tone of utter disbelief, "Do you challenge the accuracy with which I deliver the king's message, or do you actually dare to refuse the command itself?"
"I challenge," Royce improvised coldly, "your accusation of butchery."
"I'd no idea you were so sensitive on the subject, Claymore," Graverley lied.
Automatically stalling for time, Royce said, "Prisoners, as you above all should know, are taken before Henry's ministers and their fate decided there."
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