Ransom My Heart (13 page)

The fire on the hearth was a large and cheerful one, and Finnula had gone to it at once, spreading her wet cloak before it and, removing her damp gloves, warming her hands before the leaping flames. There didn't appear to be much hope for the rest of her; her
leather braies were damp, and gave off the smell only wet leather created, and her white lawn shirt clung moistly to her skin.

The sight was quite appetizing, actually, and as Hugo joined her at the fire, warming his own hands, he couldn't help stealing glances at her. Traveling with a female companion was proving to be far more interesting than Hugo would have ever thought.

“Here, you must be chilled to t' bone.” Mavis Fairchild pressed steaming tankards into their hands, and when Hugo brought his to his lips, he found the promised hard cider, hot and spiced with cloves. He sucked at the liquid greedily, and felt it warming his insides at once.

Finnula was a little better mannered. She thanked the housewife before tasting the mulled drink, and inquired after the health of the baby. This brought a stream of excited jabber from the plump Mistress Fairchild that Hugo could hardly follow, though when she bent over a rough wooden cradle he hadn't previously noticed off to one side of the hearth, he assumed she was waxing poetic about her progeny. A glance told him that the child in question was large and healthy, all anyone could ask for of an heir, and he lost interest immediately and stared instead at his fair captor.

In the orange glow of the fire, Finnula's hair gleamed lustrously, and as she bent to examine the baby, Hugo was awarded with an excellent view of her heart-shaped backside. The leather braies might have proven to be inappropriate rainwear, but they were very fetching indeed on a woman of Finnula's proportions, which were exactly, in Hugo's opinion, what a woman's proportions ought to be: slender in the waist, full in the hips, and if her top half wasn't quite as full as the bottom, it didn't much matter, seeing as how what she had up top was so perfectly suited to Hugo's tastes.

The abrupt entrance of the farmer and the abashed Evan interrupted Hugo's reverential leering, but it hastened the intro
duction of a meal. From out of nowhere, pots of creamy cheese appeared, along with a barrel of pickles, and that, accompanied with the crusty loaves of still-warm bread, proved a better luncheon than Hugo expected to receive.

Sitting upon the hearth with the ever-silent Evan and his master, young Matthew, who prattled away about crop conditions and his hopes for a fruitful summer, Hugo hardly heard a word the farmer said, because all his attention was focused upon a single object. That object was at the other end of the hearth, cooing over a fat baby and listening to the gentle gossip of the farmer's wife.

Finnula seemed to feel at home with these people, and there was no change in her easy manner to mark the fact that she was conversing with people who were quite a few rungs below her own social standing. From what Hugo could remember, the Crais family were freemen of long standing, having been released from servitude to the earls of Stephensgate by one of Hugo's forefathers, grateful, apparently, for some act of bravery Finnula's great-great-grandfather had performed.

What struck Hugo as odd was the deference Matthew and his wife paid this young girl. But he supposed the couple owed her their current undeniable happiness. As much as it discomforted her, it amused him when they m'lady'd her, and several times he caught her eye and winked. Finnula only suppressed a smile and looked away.

When Mistress Fairchild began pressing a third “cuppa” upon them, and Hugo was already beginning to feel pleasantly sleepy from the first two, Finnula stood and, politely declining the offer, insisted that they had to go. Her hair had dried to form a thickly curling aurora around her head and shoulders, undoubtedly due to the dampness in the air, and Hugo could not help admiring the slender curve of her throat where her shirt collar opened. Oc
casionally, the shirt parted enough to reveal a tantalizing glimpse of a breast. Hasty glances at Matthew and his apprentice assured Hugo that he was the only male present who noticed the delightful phenomenon.

Though both Matthew and his wife urged them to stay the night, insisting that the day was too rainy for travel and that Dorchester was too far for them to get to before nightfall, Finnula would not be swayed from her original plan. Even Hugo's longing looks at the hearth wouldn't change her mind, and they left amid cries that they visit again soon.

“And next time bring some of your sister Mellana's ale,” teased Matthew, and Finnula cheerfully assured him that she would.

Hugo was uncommonly pleased by the fact that he was able to make it all the way across the muddy yard and into the barn, out of sight of his host and hostess, before taking hold of Finnula's arm and spinning her toward him.

“What—?” she demanded, raising her thick eyelashes and looking up at him in astonishment. But before she could utter another sound, Hugo brought his lips down over hers.

He felt her body tense, but when she tried to back away from him, two things happened simultaneously to thwart her escape. The first was that she came up against Violet's solid flank. The mare only looked back at them, placidly chewing on some loose straw, and would not move. The second was that Hugo's arms went around her, half lifting Finnula off the ground even as his tongue slid into her mouth.

Finnula let out a mew of protest that was quickly stifled by his mouth…but her protest seemed short-lived. Either Finnula was a woman who appreciated a good kiss, or she liked him, at least a bit. Because a second after his mouth met hers, her head fell back against his arm, and her lips opened like a blossom. He felt her relax against him, her hands, which previously had been trying
to push him away, suddenly going around his neck to press him closer.

It wasn't until he felt her tongue flick tentatively against his that he lost his careful control. Suddenly, he was kissing her even more urgently, his hands traveling down her sides, past her hips, until they cupped those leather-clad buttocks and lifted her full up against him.

Her firm breasts crushed against his chest, her thighs clenched tightly around his hips, Hugo molded Finnula against him, kissing her cheeks, her eyelids, her throat. The sensuous reaction he'd evoked from her amazed and excited him, and when she held his face between both her hands and rained kisses upon him, he groaned, both from the sweetness of the gesture and the fact that he could feel the heat from between her legs burning against his own urgent need.

Holding her to him with one arm, he swept open the collar of her shirt and placed a hand over her heart, feeling the hard bud of a nipple against his palm, surrounded by the silken heaviness of her breast. Finnula let out another sound, this one a sigh of such longing that Hugo could not stifle a wordless cry of eagerness, and he looked about for a pile of hay thick enough for them to lie in…

…and turned to see the witless Evan standing in the open barn doorway, his jaw slack, his ears as red as fire as he stared at them.

Finnula let out a strangled cry and elbowed Hugo, hard, in the midriff. Grunting, he dropped her to seize his middle, and Finnula hastened to close her shirt.

“Y-ye fergot yer gl-gloves,” Evan stammered, holding up Finnula's riding gloves. “M-mistress sent me to br-bring 'em to ye—”

Finnula darted forward and snatched the gloves from Evan's hands.

“Thank your mistress for me, will you, Evan?” she said, in a breathless voice. “'Twas very nice to see you again.”

“Aye,” Evan said, and he gave Hugo one last, curious glance before turning and walking back out into the rain.

“God's teeth,” Finnula groaned as soon as he was out of sight. She buried her burning cheeks in Violet's mane. “What have you done?”

Hugo pressed tenderly on his stomach. “I believe you've caused me an internal injury,” he said.

Finnula lifted her head from the horse's neck, her expression one of consternation. “He's bound to say something! Evan will tell Matthew and then Matthew will say something to one of my brothers-in-law, and they're bound to tell Robert, and then I'll never hear the end of it!”

Hugo eyed her hungrily. Her hair was in total disarray, her shirt tucked half in, half out of her braies. There were spots of bright color in her high cheekbones.

She looked, in other words, like a woman who needed to be tossed down in the hay and thoroughly loved.

And that's exactly what Hugo desperately wanted to do. Only the miracle that had occurred, making her pliant in his arms, had passed, and now she looked as if she'd sooner ram a fist in his gullet than kiss him again. Fussing with Violet's saddle, she radiated hostility, as if Evan had caught them doing something considerably more serious than simply kissing.

Hugo sighed. It was probably just as well that the boy had interrupted them. A horse stall was no proper place to perform a seduction. No, a woman as fine as Finnula Crais deserved better than a bed of hay upon which to lose her maidenhead. If Hugo had his way, he'd take her in his own bed back at Stephensgate Manor. It was a wide, canopied structure with a springy mattress of goose down spread over an intricate webbing of rope.

How he wished they were in Stephensgate already! More than anything in the world he wanted to spend this cold, wet day in bed with this woman, tasting every inch of her, exploring her, inhaling her…

But she'd turned virtuous on him again, and was now busy fastening her cloak and tugging on her gloves.

In a sudden fit of furious temper, Hugo lifted a booted foot and slammed it against the barn door.

Finnula looked up with a startled exclamation. Her eyes widened when she saw the loosened board Hugo had made. He was a bit surprised by it as well, and stood back, wondering what had possessed him.

“Why in the bloody hell did you do that?” she demanded, her mouth set angrily. “It isn't Farmer Fairchild's fault—”

Hugo reached into his cloak pocket and pulled out a coin.

“There,” he said churlishly, hurling the gold piece into the drinking trough. “That will pay for a whole new barn. Are you satisfied?”

Glaring at him, Finnula swung herself up into her saddle. “You, sir,” she said, haughtily, “grow too big for your braies.”

Hugo glowered at her as she rode past him.

“That,” he hissed, giving his braies a frustrated tug, “is entirely the problem.”

F
or the rest of the day, Finnula tried as best she could to ignore her traveling companion. It wasn't a simple undertaking.

It seemed as if Sir Hugh was determined to make as much of a nuisance out of himself as possible. He was forever letting his mount drift over into Violet's path, causing the horse to start and whinny. Or he'd brush his knee against Finnula's and then mouth apologies that were insincere or, worse, teasing.

She didn't know what she'd done to warrant the furious glowers she caught him giving her from beneath his hood. Was he angry that she'd elbowed him? That had been a purely instinctual reaction. Much like kissing him. In all her life, Finnula had never met a man who was able to provoke such physical reactions from her. It seemed that her desire to hit him was equal to her desire
to kiss him, though kissing, she'd discovered, was infinitely more satisfying…

And yet, strangely not so.

Her cheeks burned at the memory of their embrace in Matthew Fairchild's barn. What would Mavis think, when Evan told her of it? For Finnula was certain that he would. Mavis was a sweet woman, but surely she'd be shocked, almost as shocked by it as Finnula herself was. Why, she'd put her tongue in a man's mouth! The fact that Sir Hugh seemed to quite like it being there hardly mattered. Sir Hugh seemed to like all sorts of things that weren't in the least proper. His hand had been on her breast, and Finnula had
wanted
it there! Surely Mavis Fairchild would never understand that. Well, Mavis might.

But Robert never, ever would.

And knowing Mavis, she'd probably assume Finnula was in love with this scruffy-looking knight, an assumption that couldn't be more wrong. How could Finnula be in love with such a foul-tempered, ill-mannered person? He was old enough to be her father, surely, and rude enough to be her brother. The man she fell in love with certainly wouldn't dream of fondling her in a stable. The man she fell in love with would court her properly, with poetry and flowers and small gifts, such as hair ribbons. Not that Finnula ever wore hair ribbons.

But that was beside the point.

No, she was not in love with Sir Hugh Fitzwilliam—though she did have to admit that she admired him physically. Not his face—Lord, no. She couldn't make out one feature from another, he was covered with so much hair.

But he had rather nice eyes, she'd decided, even though they were forever changing colors. When he'd winked at her in the Fairchilds' cottage, his eyes had been a gentle green, full of mirth
and friendliness. She had liked him then, for listening to Matthew's boring farming stories with such patience, and for admiring Geoffrey Fairchild so gamely, and for generally being pleasant to everyone, including herself, for a change.

And if Finnula was being strictly honest with herself, she had to admit to a certain liking for his arms. He wore a close-fitting woolen shirt beneath his tunic, and the muscles of his arms were plainly visible beneath the sleeves. His biceps, she'd noticed that morning, when she'd woken with her face resting against one, were the size of Mellana's favorite gray-speckled hen. For a man of such advanced years to have such well-developed muscles—well, Finnula had to admire him for that.

His legs weren't spindly, either, something she'd noticed about some men. She couldn't stand a man who looked spindly or bandy-legged in a pair of braies. Sir Hugh's were solid as tree trunks, well-formed and, for being so long, surprisingly graceful. Even when he'd been battling the muck in the Fairchilds' yard, she'd noticed that he wasn't at all awkward in his own skin. She supposed that was what came from being a soldier. He couldn't afford to be clumsy, because clumsiness might have gotten him killed.

No, Sir Hugh Fitzwilliam was a fine figure of a man, one that any woman would be proud to call her husband—any woman except Finnula, that is.

Why she'd reacted the way she had to his kiss, she'd never know. It had seemed right, somehow, to kiss him back, and then, when he'd lifted her against him, well, that had seemed right, too. Lord only knew what would have happened if Evan hadn't interrupted them. Was that how Mellana had gotten pregnant? Finnula wondered. Jack Mallory had started kissing her, and no Evan had interrupted them? Finnula couldn't condemn her sister
for her foolishness anymore, since she was beginning to understand only too well how difficult it was to resist temptation.

Sliding a glance at her huffy prisoner, Finnula saw that he was glowering at her again. He looked utterly miserable, wet to the bone. She was certain she looked a sight, as well. Any warmth that had returned before the Fairchilds' fire was gone again, and she could hardly stand the damp smell of her own clothing.

It had rained nonstop all day, the sun never once showing its face from behind the clouds. While May was supposed to be a month of sunshine and flowers, Finnula supposed the flowers wouldn't grow without a good drenching. Now that darkness was falling, it had grown even colder, and it seemed hard to believe that winter was behind them.

Summoning up a cheerful smile that her eyes did not echo, Finnula called, through the steadily hissing rain, “Should we stop, Sir Hugh, and look for shelter for the night? I know a shepherd's lean-to not far from here.”

Hugo let out an ill-tempered guffaw. “Shepherd's lean-to,” he sputtered. “What do you take me for, a duck? I'm not stopping until we've reached Dorchester, and there I'm taking a room at an inn.”

Finnula felt herself growing irritable, but tried to calm her temper.
He's just a man, after all
, she said to herself.
He can't help being so contrary
.

“We can't stay at an inn,” Finnula reasoned, gently. “I haven't any coin for a room.”

“I'll pay for a bloody room,” Hugo declared.

Finnula glanced at him, then shrugged. “I'll stay with the horses.”

“Like hell you'll stay with the horses,” Hugo exploded. “You'll stay in the inn with me like a decent, God-fearing woman, and not some sort of demented Diana—”

Finnula felt her cheeks growing hot, but whether it was from indignation or embarrassment, she wasn't sure. She chose to think of it as icy rage, and spoke accordingly.

“I am not sharing a room with you, Sir Hugh,” she declared. “I'd sooner sleep with the horses.”

Hugo shot her a surprisingly humorous look for one who'd so recently been glaring balefully in her direction. “Separate rooms, then. Be sure to bolt your door. With the sort of riffraff that lurk about inns these days, I hardly think you'll be safer by yourself than with me. And I fail to see why you'd be content to share a shepherd's lean-to with me, but not a comfortable room—”

“Not in Dorchester, where everybody knows me!” Was the man dense? “You may not think much of my reputation, but I assure you, I do have one, and 'twould be sullied beyond repair were I to share a room in an inn with a wandering knight.”

Her traveling companion chuckled to himself, his good humor mysteriously restored. “Separate rooms, then, like I said. Christ's toes, but virgins can be tiresome.”

Finnula kicked Violet into a trot, but the odious knight followed, not getting the message at all.

“I don't care where we stay,” Hugo informed her. “So long as I can get out of these wet clothes and into a hot bath.”

Finnula stared back at him through the darkening gloom. “Baths cost extra,” she couldn't help reminding him.

“I think I can afford it.” Sir Hugh, though a seasoned campaigner, seemed to have grown soft in his old age. “I'm sick of rain and I'm damned sick of mud. I'd forgotten how bloody muddy England can be in the spring—”

Finnula thought it best to keep quiet after that, lest she should find herself targeted to receive a stream of the expletives the tawny-headed knight was muttering beneath his breath.

Fortunately, they were only a league or two from Dorchester. Before long, the desolate road along which they traveled grew more populous, as despite the rain, villagers rushed about with their errands. There was Vespers to attend, supper to prepare, friends to gossip with. The rain didn't slacken as they passed through the gates to the prosperous village, but Finnula's heart lifted anyway. The prospect of a hot meal and a soft bed was a welcome one, and she didn't even mind the fact that a strange man would be paying for it all. She figured that after the mortification he'd put her through back at the Fairchilds', Sir Hugh owed her a good supper, at the very least.

Her hopes, however, were soon dashed. No sooner had Hugo entered the Hearth and Hare, leaving Finnula to hold the horses, than he emerged again, his expression grim.

“They haven't got two rooms left,” he told her, without preamble. “Just one.”

Finnula, still holding the horses' reins, began leading them back to the stables, the rain pelting her shoulders.

“Have a pleasant night's rest,” she called back to him, over her shoulder. “I'll give your regards to the fleas—”

“Finnula!”

Hugo splashed across the cobblestones to reach her, laying a heavy hand upon her arm and spinning her around to face him in a manner reminiscent of earlier that day, in the Fairchilds' barn. Only this time, Finnula didn't think he was going to kiss her.

“Finnula, listen to me.” His eyes, she saw, in the dim light cast by the torch over the stable door, were green again. “There's no reason why we can't share the room. I won't lay a hand upon you. You have my word.”

“Ha!” Finnula, still holding on to the horses' reins, jerked her arm from his grasp. “You gave me your word once before, remember? No, I'm far safer sleeping with Violet. She may not
smell very nice, but at least she's not preoccupied with what I've got on beneath my braies.”

Stomping across the courtyard, Finnula flung open the stable doors, hauling the horses into adjoining stalls. She was beginning to unsaddle them when she saw that Sir Hugh had followed her into the dimly lit barn. Fearing a scene like the one that had occurred the last time they'd been in a barn together, Finnula seized a cloth and began to furiously dry Violet's back, keeping the horse as a barrier between herself and the man.

“Finnula,” the knight said, leaning against the stall door. “You're being ridiculous.”

“I'm not,” she snapped.

“You are. Listen to you, your teeth are chattering.”

“They aren't.”

“They are. And was that a sniffle I just heard?”

Rebelliously, Finnula wiped her nose with her sleeve, before bending to rub her mare's forelegs. “It wasn't.”

“And your rib is hurting you. I can tell by the way you bend.”

“It isn't,” Finnula lied, through teeth gritted against the pain of her bruised side.

“You can have the bed. I'll sleep on the floor.”

Finnula snorted.

“All right, on the hearth, then. Finnula, I won't have you sleep in the stables. My sense of chivalry won't allow it.”

“Then let me have the room to myself.” Finnula looked up to see how he bore that suggestion, and saw the amusement that flashed across his face.

“What?” He chuckled. “I pay for a room for you, whilst I spend the night in the company of nags? No, thank you. My sense of chivalry is not
that
deep.”

“Then the answer is still no.” Finnula set about filling the feed trough with oats from a bucket hanging on a peg.

“What are you afraid of?” he asked, in a deep voice that actually sent a ripple down Finnula's spine. Then again, she was freezing, and her hair was dripping frigid rainwater down the back of her cloak, so that could easily explain the chill she'd felt.

“What am I afraid of? My brother, Robert, for one thing.”

He didn't look as if that was the answer he'd been expecting. “What has Brother Robert to do with it?” he demanded.

“Everything.” Finnula had moved to unsaddle his destrier, but with an impatient gesture, Hugo himself saw to his mount's needs. Finnula, whose teeth, despite her denial, really were chattering, retired to the stall door against which he had been leaning. “If Robert were to hear I'd spent the night with a man, he'd see to it I never left the house again. Or
try
to see to it, anyway.”

Hugo used the same cloth she'd employed to rub down his own mount. “But you spent last night with a man,” he reminded her, with a furrowed brow.

“Aye, but who's to tell of it? Here, in Dorchester, I'm well-known. I've sold game to this very inn—”

Hugo gave her a stern look over his destrier's flank. “The earl's game?”

Finnula could not help blushing. “Aye, from time to time. The point is, someone'll tell Robert, and he'll make my life a misery. He's marrying soon, and…well, it took him a bit to get the girl to come around, and if I did something
more
to upset her, or her parents…well, I'd just as soon not get him in a lather.”

Hugo muttered something. Finnula didn't catch what it was, but when she asked him what he'd said, he leveled an enigmatic stare at her and demanded, his voice without inflection, “Is that all that frightens you? Brother Robert finding out?”

Finnula stuck out her chin bravely. “Aye,” she lied. “What else would I be afraid of?”

“Me, for instance.”

He said it tonelessly, but Finnula saw his glance flick up from his horse's feed, the green eyes arresting her with the intensity of their glow, and she knew that her answer mattered, perhaps more than anything else she'd said that evening. She could not meet his gaze.

Was she afraid of him? Yes, certainly, but not in the way he meant. She wasn't afraid that he would hurt her, or even frightened that he might try to seduce her. She was fairly certain that he would attempt the latter, and equally certain that, if she wanted to, she could stop him. And that was the problem: