Defiant (11 page)

She’d never seen a man quite like him before. His breathing was deep and long and she wondered if she should wake him. With her finger, she drew a line across his cheek, brushed strands of his hair aside, and turned his face up so she could study it.

A shot of heat curled in her belly and for a fleeting moment she wished she could keep him here, like this, tied for her own pleasure. A man of her own. A husband she could totally control.

Guilt curled through her at the sinful idea. What a wicked thought!

Carefully, she turned his face from side to side, inspecting him.

At once, she blinked.

The monk?

The young monk?

Disbelief shot through her; she took a firmer hold on his chin and peered closer.

‘Twas definitely him. The man who had given her the book with the dragon cover. The book she carried even now tucked in her bosom. He was older, harder—a crease had formed between his brows. She smoothed it down with her fingers and wondered what had happened to him.

“Of all things,” she whispered, completely mystified and not knowing what to make of it.

How could he be here? Evidently he had not entered the monastery after all. Why?

Curious and intrigued, she slowly trailed her fingers down the column of his neck and loosened the ties of his tunic. She told herself that she needed to bathe him, that she needed to get all the blood off of him, but in her heart, she knew she lied to herself. He had been the one man she had felt a connection to all those years ago. The small book he had given her was pressed against her bosom, carried as it had been for three years. The dragon’s tail had lost flecks of its gilding because she’d thumbed through the pages so often.

She pushed Jared’s tunic upward, and sucked in a breath at the thick muscular ridges of his stomach. Heavens! It was so very different than her own soft, rounded white belly. He was tan, hard, chiseled.

Without thinking, she laid her palm fully across his midriff. Heat seeped from his body to her fingers. A wave of dizziness passed over her, and she snatched her hand quickly back.

Fanning herself with one hand, she reached for the cloth. She would attend her Christian duty of cleansing his wounds. He was not hers to keep no matter the beauty of his body. He was dangerous. Unpredictable. Had he not proved that in the church?

Asides, she had no interest in the carnal nature of man—such brought naught but pain on a woman.

She ran the wet cloth across the valleys and hills of his torso and allowed her fingers to linger across his skin. So much tantalizing masculinity.

‘Twas hard to believe that he was desexed, but Irma had been clear that his manhood never hardened.

She pushed the tunic farther aside, but it stuck to his skin where some blood had dried. She reached to unbind his wrists to remove it, but her hands hesitated on the ropes.

In the church, he had forced her to her knees all too quickly. Best to leave him bound until they came to some sort of an agreement.

She fetched a knife and sawed up the front of his garment and then down the sleeves. ‘Twas ruined anyway; she would send Irma to find another.

The pieces of cloth dropped onto the floor in a heap and Gwyneth’s eyes widened as she took in the expanse of his chest. Clothed, he had seemed large, but unclad he was more than merely large. Powerful. Enormous.

Mentally she counted the handbreadths across his shoulders. Wide. He was so bloody wide.

She wondered if instead of waking him, she should force more of the sleeping draught down his throat. If he were to get free, God only knew what he would do. Sliding her hand into her hair, she rubbed her scalp in the place where he had gripped her hair, the anchor point he’d used to force her to the floor so easily. Of a truth, the battle betwixt them could not be fought with physical force. Thank God he was unmanned and would be unable to consummate the marriage. Mayhap that was why he had been going into the monastery.

His naked chest rose and fell with deep, even breathing. She dipped her cloth back into the water, deciding to finish bathing him while she better formulated a plan to win him over to her way of thinking. She would be kind to him, smile at him, bend his mind to her will. She had plenty of practice doing that to men.

Back and forth the rag moved across his skin.

After a few moments, she stopped and stared at him. He was tied securely and completely helpless. She didn’t have to charm him—he was hers to use as she wanted!

A thrill of sheer female power went through her.

How very fascinating!

All her life she’d been under a man’s thumb in one way or another—first her father, then (now that her father was in exile) Lord Montgomery. All her life, she had manipulated, wheedled, and coaxed men to do her bidding. And here was a man she did not have to do that with. He was hers for the taking—to do with what she willed. She could undress him, wash him.
Kiss him.

Kiss him?

Where had that thought come from?

Nay, she would not kiss him.

But she would look her fill until he awoke—ogle him as men ogled women. ‘Twould be sheer joy to strike a blow for all women and leer at a man rather than the other way around.

He was, after all, until the marriage was annulled, her husband. Guilt swirled inside her, but she ignored it: He had agreed to the wedding fair and square, and he was the one who had broken his promise.

Fascinated by the opportunity to explore a man, she ran her finger lightly over his stomach. In doing so, her wrist gently grazed the area just below where his hose and braies met.

That area twitched, seemed to lift of its own accord.

Unable to tear her gaze away, her eyes widened. It twitched again.

Had Irma been wrong?

Curious, she touched the cloth near his groin. A swelling formed beneath her fingertips.

She gasped; a sinful thrill spiraled through her.

Quickly she pulled her hand back and set it in her lap. After a short time, the swelling subsided.

Irma had told her he had no manly desires! He was unable to perform the sexual act.

She kept looking at the area, but it made no more movement. Mayhap she had imagined the whole thing. Surely she had.

A few moments passed, then tentatively she leaned forward to shyly observe the area. Nothing. Naught. No movement at all. But what would happen if she touched it again?

A streak of dark desire went through her.

She shouldn’t. ‘Twas wicked! Horrible!

She glanced at his face. He still slept. There was no one here but her. No one would ever know.

Slowly, she eased her fingers forward and pushed at the thing beneath his linen braies.

It wiggled.

Curious, she leaned away and waited.

The lump settled, but not before she got a better look at the shape.

Eyes wide, she poked at it. This time it became higher, thicker, harder. Covering her mouth with her palm, she giggled. Irma had been totally wrong.

Tamping down a wayward tendril of guilt, she reached forward again when it had once again sunk to oblivion. This time, she squeezed it—even beneath his linen garment she could tell it was cylindrical and fleshy. It hardened beneath her fingers and she laughed aloud.

What fun, wicked pleasure to toy with a man’s body! They were such stupid, half-witted creatures that even in sleep they had no control over their own parts.

His eyes opened, locking with hers.

Her delighted giggle died on her lips, and she drew her hand back as if she’d been slapped.

He had the most intense eyes she’d ever seen. Intermingled shades of dark and light green agate caught in candle glow. They looked almost inhuman, as if they belonged to a thing dredged up from hell itself.

Not the eyes of a half-witted cretin at all.

Jared’s eyes drew into angry slits as he glared at the woman who circled over him like a buzzard. The screeching giggles that had escaped her maw pierced his head even more sharply than the Bible’s hinges had done. She’d been stroking him, playing with him, toying with him.

Heat, a consuming rage, flowed up his spine, and flushed across his face until her figure took on a red, hazy cast and her features were fuzzy. He struggled to get free.

“Peace, sir.”

His arms and legs ached from being fastened to the bed, his back felt stiff, and his temples pulsed with sharp pain. Worse, his cock throbbed.

“You will pay for this!” He fiercely worked the ropes that held his wrists against the frame to loosen the bonds. The bed bounced and clanked against the floor planks.

She jumped back. “Prithee, sir.” Her skin paled and she wrung her hands in her skirt. The nervous gestures did little to appease his fury. To be humiliated as he had been was unimaginable. And yet, here he was.

The ropes held. With effort, he contained his wrath. “Release me now and it will go easier for you.”

Silence.

An infuriating, long silence.

At last, she took a deep breath and shook her head slightly—as if to shake off her unease the same as a dog would quiver away water. She squared her shoulders, patted her hair, and looked him fully in the eye.

He blinked, trying to bring her features into focus, but the drug and the slam on the head made his vision blurry. Her image bounced.

“I have gold to pay you with,” she said. “You have only to cooperate—”

“Do you think that what you’ve done to me can be appeased with something as vulgar as mere gold?”

She blanched. “Of a truth, we meant you no harm.”

“I am not a toy to be played with.” He lifted his head, straining against the ropes. Perhaps he could flip the bed onto one side and somehow crawl free. “Untie me, wench.”

She swiveled her head toward the door. The motion made her hair glisten in the candle’s glow. It was loose and swung freely down her back, a river of silver and gold. Even with his bouncing vision, the mass skimmed her body’s curves in a way that framed her perfectly.

He glowered at her, wishing he could wipe his eyes, rub away the blurriness.

“Truly, sir, this has been a terrible mistake.”

He snarled, frustrated that he could not rise from the cot, grasp her by the shoulders, and shake her.

“Please, we must talk. I can give you gold—a lot of gold—and send you on your way,” she explained. “'Twill be a transaction that is good for both of us.”

His vision was bouncing less now and he blinked, wanting to get it under control. At that moment, the door swung open and Irma scrambled inside. Water dripped all over the floor planks. A puddle formed at her feet. She wore the same garish outfit she’d had on at the church, but it was muddied and rain-splattered.

Rouge reddened the whore’s cheeks—obviously reapplied. She’d probably serviced a client or two as well since bringing him here. Disgusting.

He twisted toward the woman he’d married and sized her up as best he could with blurry eyes: The whore’s garment she had worn in the brothel was gone and in its stead was a well-made gown, blue silk, with meticulously stitched embroidery around the dagged sleeves and square bodice. Her back was toward him and the long length of her luxurious hair snaked down her spine.

Dear God.

Betrayal hissed through him, sharp and cutting. Earlier he had suspected it was Gwyneth of Windrose. Yesterday, he would have been glad to be married to the woman he had dreamed about for so long.

A sickening wave went through him and for an instant he wished that his vision was still clouded and unstable.

Gwyneth.

Gwyneth of Windrose.

His Gwyneth.

No other woman could own that hair. It perfectly matched the lock he carried in his pouch as a token to all that was good and right in the world—that there was still hope no matter how dark life seemed.

Pride fled him and he yowled in outrage. He bucked against his bonds. Rage boiled inside him.

“Faith, sir!” Gwyneth said, jumping back.

Still straining against the ropes, he scrutinized the brazenly manipulative woman he’d married. She had washed her face and no longer wore the Jezebel enhancements of a whore. Of a truth, she looked as pure and fresh as any court virgin—twice as attractive as she had before. A queen. A goddess among mortals. The thought tweaked his abhorrence of her. Her beauty came from the devil himself.

There was such a marked difference between the two women—one regal, one common—that he wondered at their friendship.

Irma crossed the chamber with heavy, unladylike steps, a woman on a mission. “Boat leaves soon. The jailor said we can exchange ‘im for that girl Elizabeth and that kills two birds with one stone, it does.”

Gwyneth stared at her friend, her hand clenched to her heart.

“It’s either that or the nightshade.” Irma held up a clay jar.

Nightshade! They intended to poison him?

Gwyneth did not move.

“'e can’t stay ‘ere. We shouldn’t even be ‘ere at all, you know. And the man said ‘e had to be cleaned up and ready to sell. They wouldn’t take ‘im if ‘e was all mangy like.”

Jared shook against the bedframe; his wrists strained against the ropes.

Irma thumbed the mole on her chin.

“Nay,” Gwyneth said, “there is a better way.”

“Ain’t no better way.” Irma sidled across the chamber and began digging through the cupboard. “We gots to be rid of ‘im. The boat or the poison. Where’s the wine to mix this nightshade with?”

The harridans! Jared lurched and fought against his bonds. The bed jumped up and down, clanging heavily against the planks. “Let me go!”

Gwyneth jumped back.

“Silence him!” Clay jars clanked together as Irma dug faster through the cabinets. “Damn it all to the bloody devil! No wine!” Turning abruptly, she scurried to the door like the mangy rat she was. “I’ll pop over to the brothel. Calm him afore someone ‘ears ‘im.”

“Wait!” Gwyneth called, but the door slammed closed after Irma.

Curse it to the seven hells.
With a grunt, Jared bucked his body off the mattress, nearly toppling the bed onto its side. He had to get free! The bed came away from the wall and bounced into the midst of the chamber, upsetting the slat-backed chair Gwyneth had been sitting in earlier.