Ransom My Heart (6 page)

“I knew I ought to have checked your boots for knives,” she said angrily to the squire, whose cheeks had been turning steadily a color not unlike umber. “But I thought you were too stupid to have a spare one. You did, though, and you cut yourself free, didn't you?”

Peter, for the first time since he'd been in Hugo's acquaintance, was actually tongue-tied. He nodded dumbly.

“I thought as much.” Finnula's arm tightened around Hugo's throat, but he thought she did it unconsciously, as if by straining the master to her, she could keep the servant at bay. “Well, do not come any closer, or I'll have no choice but to cut him.”

It was an obvious lie, which no one who looked into her angelic
face would believe, but Peter remembered the men back at the inn, and stayed still. Besides, he'd been given his instructions by his master, and would not but obey them. Never again would he risk engendering His Lordship's wrath.

“I w-will do as…you say,” Peter stammered, somewhat incoherently. “I am sorry for…for hurting you. You aren't—Is anything amiss?”

Finnula clung even closer to Hugo, who thought he might be strangled by the tight hold she kept on him. Truly, the girl did not know her own strength, which was considerably greater than one might guess, to look at her.

“You are Sir Hugh's squire?” she demanded, and Peter, though confused by the title and name change, nodded.

“Good. Then get gone with you to…” She paused, her lips not far from Hugo's ear, and turned her face toward her captive. “Where did you say you hailed from, sir?”

“You know where it is, boy,” Hugo said, to hurry things along. “Go there, now—”

“And tell them,” Finnula hurried to add, when it appeared that Peter was ready to fly from the clearing, “that they will be contacted in the matter of ransom for their master. And at Sir Hugh's peril do you contact Sheriff de Brissac,” she took care to inform him, “because he won't brook any nonsense, and has more important things to do than trouble himself with so trivial a matter as this.”

Hugo listened to this last with interest. It was spoken with a particular force that indicated that this maiden had tangled with Sheriff de Brissac in the past, and wished to avoid further confrontations. How many other men, Hugo wondered, had Finnula Crais abducted? Considering her tender years and obvious inexperience, not many, he thought. So what sort of troubles could she have gotten herself into that involved the reeve of the shire?

“Yes, madam,” Peter was saying, backing away with no little haste. “I'll see to it that no one contacts the sheriff, never you fear.”

“Get gone, then,” Finnula said, with a wave of the dagger, and Peter nearly fell over himself in his haste to comply with her wishes.

Finnula never stirred from Hugo's back until the lad was well away, and the last sounds of his horse's hooves could no longer be heard above the roar of the waterfall. Then she withdrew her arm from Hugo's throat, but did not come around to face him.

He heard a sigh, and turning his head, saw that she had sunk down to rest upon the rocky shelf upon which he'd lain, observing her. Her elbows on her knees, her face resting in her hands, she huddled there, cloaked in her thick mane of auburn hair, no longer the spirited Diana who'd trussed him like a calf, but a small, defenseless maiden who had been taxed beyond her strength in the last few minutes.

Hugo, still kneeling with his hands bound behind his back, began to have misgivings about the entire situation. Damn that boy! He would never forgive him for scrambling the girl's brains so, and would see him duly punished when he finally reached Stephensgate Manor.

“Does aught ail you, Mistress Crais?” he asked gently. “Is there naught I can do for you?”

She looked up, her face pinched with pain. “'Tis nothing,” she said stoutly, like a child too proud to share her hurts. “It will pass.”

Hugo knew then that she was badly injured. So stubborn a girl would never admit to pain were it not of the worst kind. “Show me,” he said.

“No.” She shook her head firmly, the red hair bouncing wildly around her slim shoulders. “I told you, 'tis nothing. Come, we
must move on in order to be at our destination by dark. 'Tis not safe to roam these hills after sunset—”

She started to get up, but pain creased her lovely visage, and Hugo lost all patience, and bellowed at her in the same manner he'd chastised his squire.

“Foolish girl, you're hurt. Unbind me and let me examine your wounds. I will not slip away from you, not when you have captured me in all fairness. I will play your game until the end, bound or unbound. Now, loose me!”

She snapped back at him, for all the world as if she were his wife of long standing. “Don't bellow at me! I am not your serf, that you can tell me what to do. 'Tis
I
that does the bellowing round here, not
you
!”

Taken aback by her considerable spirit, Hugo blinked. Never before had he encountered a woman so completely unmoved by his ire. He realized that she was immune to fear of him, and cast about helplessly, wondering how to proceed. Never had he dealt with so contrary a lass. There was no use trying to intimidate her, much less seduce her. Would she respond to logic?

None too patiently, Hugo snapped, “Around my neck you'll find a silken cord. Pull it out.”

She stared at him round-eyed, as if he had taken leave of his senses. “I'll do nothing of the kind.”

“Pull it out, I tell you. Upon it hangs an uncut gem of far more worth than any ransom, given to me by a daughter of the Sultan of Egypt.”

“And tainted with some foul foreign poison, no doubt, with which you hope to kill me,” she sniffed.

“Are you as stupid as that sniveling squire of mine? It will do nothing of the sort. Pull it out, I say!”

Seeing that she hesitated still, regarding him as suspiciously as
if he were the ferret-faced Dick, he roared, so thunderously that his mount reared behind them, “Do it!”

“Don't tell me,” she roared back, every bit as loudly, “what to do! If you don't stop bellowing at me, I'll gag you!”

Hugo was so angry, he thought he might burst his bonds through sheer frustration alone. Then, just when he thought he might do himself—not to mention the intractable young miss who'd captured him—a harm, she rose from her seat with a painful wince, stalked toward him, and did as he bid, plucking from beneath his shirt the black cord about which he'd been speaking. The large, uncut emerald fell heavily into her hands, and she stared down at it in wonder, her lips parted moistly.

“'Tis yours,” Hugo said, realizing he was breathing hard with the effort of not knocking her about the head. “Until my ransom is paid, in any case. Take it, Finnula. If I escape, then you may keep it, to do with as you like. It will pay,” he added, with ill grace, “for a great deal of hops and malt.”

Her eyebrows rose nearly to her hairline, so great was her surprise that he'd sussed out the true reason for her kidnapping of him. “How did you know…?”

“Untie me.”

“But—”

“Untie me. Now.”

Never taking her large gray eyes from his face, she carefully dropped the silken cord from which the gemstone hung about her own long, slender neck. Then she reached for the knife she'd sheathed in the belt at her narrow waist, and, leaning so close to him that he could once again smell the fresh scent of her, she sliced cleanly through the rope that bound his wrists. Freed, Hugo stood, pulling himself up to his full height, and looked down at her. Finnula, who stood hardly past his elbow, regarded him with
out trepidation, a rare occurrence for Hugo, who engendered as much fear as admiration in the hearts of the many women he had known. Perhaps that brother of hers had seen that she led a sheltered life, never knowing of the cruelty of which men were capable, he thought. Foolish boy! Better that the girl should know the truth, that most men would not have her best interests at heart.

“Show me where it hurts,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. There was something about her proximity, which was close indeed, that caused him no small degree of discomfort. He did not know whether he wanted to thrash her or kiss her.

Without a word, she sank back onto the rock outcropping, and lifting her white lawn shirt no higher than the beginning of the curve of her right breast, revealed a bruise already mottled. Hugo sank to one knee to examine it, then reached out a tentative hand to touch the sensitive skin. When Finnula drew away before he had even touched her, her expression clearly challenging, he looked into her wide eyes and asked politely, “May I?”

She looked scornful. “What do
you
know,” she demanded, “of tending to wounds?”

“What choice do you have?” he snarled right back at her. “I don't see any of your many sisters about, do you?”

Capturing her lush lower lip between her white, even teeth, Finnula nodded, closing her eyes against the anticipated pain—or perhaps, Hugo considered, against the humiliation of his touch.

Carefully, he laid his hand upon the bruised flesh, feeling skin that was smoother than any he had ever encountered, as soft as silk, but as hot as a feverish brow. She had very little fat on her, her muscles well-honed from riding and hunting. Her ribs protruded slightly beneath her small breasts, and the one he felt was surely bruised from Peter's blow, though not likely broken. He had long experience with wounds, having spent so many years on battlefields, and he was well-versed in the arts of medicine.

But he had never, in all his healing experience, had so comely a patient.

Hoping that his voice carried no hint of the desire he felt at the touch of her bare, silken flesh, he asked, “Does it hurt when you breathe?”

She said, keeping her face turned well off to the side, so that all he saw was the curve of her high cheekbone, “A little. Is it my rib?”

“It is.”

“Is it broken?”

“I think not,” he said, straining to keep his voice light. “Bruised, surely, though. But such a slight wound is surely nothing to a woman of your stamina—”

The gray-eyed gaze swiveled toward him, the dark fringe of lashes narrowed suspiciously. “Do you mock me, sir?” she inquired.

“I, dare to mock a great huntress such as yourself? Forsooth!”

Her cheeks, which had been pale, flushed a hot pink. “You will regret making light of my hunting skills, sir, when I sup tonight on roast rabbit, and leave you to forage for yourself.”

“Ah, but 'tis the responsibility of a captor to see that her prisoner is well-fed.” Seeing her raised eyebrows, he added, to see how she'd react, “And even better bedded—”

She regarded him with just a trace of a smile on her lips. “Oh, you'll be well-bedded, sir,” she assured him. “With the horses.”

Hugo grinned back at her, liking her for her mettle. “If you will permit me, I will bind it.”

She inclined her head regally in response, every bit as proud as the princess who'd given him the gem she now wore around her neck, and perhaps with more cause. After all, the sultan's daughter had possessed great beauty…but no skill with a short bow.

Tearing a wide strip of material from the lining of his cloak,
which was satin, and ought not to irritate her delicate skin, he had her inhale, and wound the impromptu bandage round her narrow rib cage. It would suffice, he decided. Now he had only to convince her to take something for the pain—

“I have,” he began, without preamble, “the essence of the poppy in one of my saddlebags. A few drops only will help lessen the pain. Will you take some?”

She eyed him narrowly, already clearly feeling better. “What kind of fool do you take me for? I know of a woman who took it, and remembered not what she did for twenty-four hours after, though all the village saw her skipping naked to the well—”

Tempting as that sounded, Hugo was already responsible for her bruised rib. He would not also be branded as her despoiler. There was that brother of hers to remember.

“Nay,” he said lightly. “I would not let you take so much. Only a little, for the pain.”

She was suspicious of him, surely, but what choice did the girl have, so far from home, and in such pain? Hugo felt a sudden and nearly overwhelming sense of anger toward this absent brother, who took such poor care of his womenfolk as to allow them to gad about the countryside, dressed in leather chausses and all but defenseless. He would do more than have words with Robert Crais when he returned to the manor house. Perhaps he might see that he spent a little time in the stockade, as well.

Of a sudden, Finnula capitulated, saying she would taste the medicine—if doing so would “shut him up about it.” Swallowing a rebuke, Hugo hastened to his mount to fetch her the vial in which he kept the foul-tasting stuff. She balked at the smell, then finally allowed two drops to be placed on her pink and pointed tongue. She swallowed, looking unimpressed, and then, with no little urgency, insisted they be on their way.

“For,” she said in her husky voice, “the sun is sinking fast in
the west, and we've still a long way to go if we're to get to Stephensgate by nightfall next—”

“And what,” Hugo wanted to know, regarding her seriously, “lies in Stephensgate?”

“Why,” she cried, as if he were the simplest man to have ever walked the earth, “that's where I live. I must get you back to Mellana.”

“Mellana? And who is this Mellana, who holds my fate so casually in her hands?”

“Mellana is one of my sisters. I promised her I would capture a man for her, so that she could ransom him—”

Hugo was not a little disturbed to hear this. “You mean you do not intend to ransom me yourself?”

She made a moue of distaste, wrinkling her small nose in a most illustrative manner. “Of course not!” She spoke as if he'd offended her by the very thought. “When I have need of coin, I have more sensible ways of earning it.”