Ransom My Heart (7 page)

At Hugo's frankly questioning look, she shrugged, then winced when the gesture jarred her sore rib. “I merely bag a deer or two, to sell at the local inn. They always have a demand for venison, and the Earl of Stephensgate's woods are full of game—” She glanced up at him, her eyes wide at her indiscretion. “Not,” she added, speaking like a child reciting its lessons, “that I kill the earl's game—that would be poaching. Poaching is very wrong.”

Suddenly the reasons behind her reluctance to meet up with the local sheriff became all too clear to Hugo. But he did not want to raise her hackles, not yet, and so he pretended not to have heard the slip, and said only, “You must love your sister Mellana dearly to go to so much trouble for her.”

“Oh,” Finnula replied, a shadow darkening her light eyes. “Everyone loves her. Mellana is the beauty in the family—” This Hugo found exceedingly hard to believe, for though Finnula's
beauty might not be apparent to all, it would be hard to be outdone. “She isn't a bit like me. She wouldn't know how to draw a bow to save her life—she is exceedingly maidenly. Or at least she was, before she met that bloody minstrel.”

“I beg your pardon?”

By way of reply, Finnula merely sighed. “But she does make the nicest beer you ever tasted—”

Hugo laughed out loud at this assertion. Beside him, Finnula shot him an aggrieved look, insisting, “You won't laugh once you've tasted her ale. Mellana has a true gift for brewing—”

“And will I taste her ale?” Hugo wanted to know.

She looked arch. “Oh, I'll see that you get a tankard or two before Mel turns you loose.”

Hugo smiled down at the frank and open face beneath his, all practicality and—albeit recently restored—good humor, quite unlike any other female with whom he'd ever become acquainted. “And it is for her that you are abducting me?”

“Oh, yes.” Finnula waved a hand in irritation. “I promised her, you see, in a moment of weakness. I was distracted by all the stir over Robert's wedding—”

“Your brother is marrying?” Hugo wondered if this was excuse enough for the lad's woeful neglect of his youngest sister's welfare, and decided it was not.

“Most assuredly, and to the mayor's daughter. 'Twill be the wedding of the year. Of course, 'tis likely to become a funeral, if Robert finds out about that bloody minstrel—”

“That's the second time you've mentioned that unfortunate person. Whatever did the fellow do to warrant such censure?”

She scowled. “Never mind. Suffice it to say, I made a promise to Mellana before I knew what it was she wanted me to do, and now I am stuck with it, and so are you. I hope you do not mind overmuch. I would not,” she confessed, turning her great
gray eyes up at him seriously, “ever have
really
poked you with my knife. That was all for show. I think I did an admirable job of frightening your squire, don't you?”

Hugo smiled down at her, thinking her impossibly young, and very naive, that she spoke so confidently and so frankly with him, not knowing the least bit about him. But then it occurred to him that perhaps she did know a bit more than she let on. She had known that he would come to the spring, and she had known that he would look over the outcropping and see her bathing—but how?

When he asked, she shrugged and looked suddenly preoccupied, and busied herself with pulling on her boots, which she'd extracted from behind a clump of violets.

“I knew by the route you were taking that you were familiar with the land,” she confessed reluctantly. “No one who has ever been in this area has not been to the spring, and no one who has been to the spring can resist going again. And besides…Well, you remind me a little of someone, and I met him much the same way as I met you—only not by knifepoint.”

This oblique reference would not be elaborated upon, however, no matter how much he pressed. Eventually, in an obvious attempt to distract him from that line of questioning, she insisted that they be on their way; that if they were not on their way soon complications of grave magnitude would ensue; and would he please turn so that she could bind his hands again?

Hugo looked down at her in disbelief. “I thought we had settled that. I looked after your wound, and you untied me—”

“But I can't risk your riding away when my back is turned,” she declared staunchly. “Surely, as a soldier of war, you can understand that.”

Hugo stared down at her, unable to think up a reasonable argument in the face of such logic. Then suddenly it came upon
him. She was a slight creature, and would do well situated in the saddle before him. He could not very well run away when she was seated right there with him.

He put the suggestion in just such a light, and though she balked at first, he knew it was just for show. Finnula Crais was a young lady who liked having things her own way, and she seemed quite keen on keeping his hands tied behind his back. Hugo wasn't certain if she considered having his hands tied a means of keeping him from escaping so much as a way of ensuring that those hands wouldn't wander where they weren't supposed to. Despite her earlier exhibitionism in the pool, Finnula was not without an inconvenient amount of modesty—quite a surprising trait, Hugo found, in a kidnapper.

Eventually Finnula capitulated, but only after some more grumbling about how she ought to have gagged him from the beginning, and how she'd never in her life met such a verbose knight.

“Aren't you,” she demanded, every bit as peevishly as Peter might have, as she cautiously loaded his sword and dagger onto her mount's saddle pack, “supposed to be consumed with brawling and cursing and tossing bits of bone to your hounds?”

“Certainly not,” Hugo declared. “A knight is a paragon of virtue, his sole pursuit that of justice for the good of the realm.”

“Pshaw,” Finnula snorted. “I never saw such a knight.”

“That is your misfortune. I have met many such men,” Hugo lied, “and enjoyed hours of enlightening conversation at their tables.” Generally while dancing girls waved their bosoms in his face, if truth be told, but there was no reason she needed to know that.

Finnula snorted again. “I spent hours at the table of a lord once, and all I heard were belches. And he was an
earl
.”

Hugo stared at her curiously. “What were you doing, dining with an earl?”

“Never mind,” Finnula said, scowling. “You have an unnerving habit of drawing me out. I swear I never saw such a talkative soldier.”

“And I,” Hugo countered, watching disapprovingly as she tucked the trailing ends of her oversize shirt into her tight-fitting braies, “never saw such unmaidenly behavior in all my born days.”

Finnula just laughed, and placing a dainty foot in the stirrup, swung herself expertly into his saddle, the bruised rib apparently not bothering her.

“Well,” she said impatiently, looking down at him. “Are you coming, or not?”

Hugo glanced at the girl's mare. “And what of your mount? Should we not tie her bridle to Skinner's?”

“Certainly not,” Finnula scoffed. “Violet will follow.”

Hugo quirked up a single eyebrow. “Violet?” he repeated, with a mocking smile.

“Aye, Violet is her name, and I'd appreciate it if you'd wipe that smirk off your face. She's as well-trained as any destrier, and better tempered besides. I've had her since I was a child, and I wouldn't trade her for anything.”

Hugo smiled at the loyal indignation in Finnula's voice. “Since you were a child, eh?” He laughed. “And what are you now, pray? You look hardly a week past your sixteenth birthday.”

When Finnula pressed her lips into a thin line, obviously determined not to allow him to goad her into losing her temper, and haughtily tossed her long hair back behind her shoulders, he laughed again. She was a little fireball, this Finnula Crais, and he was going to be hard put to keep his hands off her. Perhaps he should have allowed her to truss him up again after all.

Grinning, Hugo swung himself into the saddle behind the indignant girl, and started to reach around her narrow waist for the reins, but received a sharp slap on the backs of his hands for his efforts.

“I will hold the reins,” Finnula informed him tersely, and, indeed, she'd already gathered up the leather leads in her gloved hands. “There's no use you holding them. You don't even know the way.”

Hugo shrugged and placed his hands on the girl's hips, liking the velvety feel of her leather braies beneath his fingers.

This time, he received an elbow in the midriff for his trouble.

“God's teeth, woman,” he cursed, clutching his middle. “What was that for?”

“If you can't keep your hands to yourself, I'll tie them behind your back, I swear I will.”

Finnula had turned in the saddle to glare at him, and in doing so, her pert backside pressed against the front of Hugo's braies, causing a reaction so immediate and unexpected that Hugo was momentarily nonplussed by it. Shifting so that she would not become aware of it, Hugo wondered at the instantaneousness of his body's response to her touch. What was wrong with him? The girl was attractive, yes, but it seemed as if every pore in his body was crying out for her touch. This was not how he usually responded to a beautiful woman. Usually he was master of himself, and his very self-restraint was what drove women into his arms. No beautiful woman could stand being ignored, and that was the trick in attracting them. Ignore her, and she will come.

But how could he ignore this girl when every fiber in him was twitching to strain her to him? How could he ignore her when the soft fragrance of her wildly curling hair was constantly in his nostrils, the memory of her slim thighs tightening around his waist constantly in his mind? And he didn't think it would matter if she
were seated in a saddle before him or at a table in a tavern twenty leagues away; Finnula Crais, like a splinter, had worked her way beneath his skin with remarkable speed, and digging her out, he realized, was going to be no small task.

Shaking his head, aware that those gray eyes were fixed on him curiously, he clenched his teeth and tried to will himself to relax. He couldn't let her know the devastating effect she had on him.

But it was already too late. The sooty lashes lowered over those silver orbs, and Finnula demanded, staring below his belt suspiciously, “What is that?”

“What is what?” he inquired loftily.

“That,” she said, and there was no mistaking what she was referring to when she wedged her hip up against it and lifted accusing eyes to meet his mortified gaze. “Is that a knife hilt? Do you have a weapon beneath your belt you didn't tell me about?”

Was the girl serious? He could tell by the angry set of her mouth that she was, that she honestly had no idea what lay beneath a man's chausses. Again, he felt a spurt of irritation against Robert Crais, for letting this child gad about the countryside in such ignorance. Surely one of those married sisters would have told her the facts of life—and yet she seemed truly annoyed that he had not surrendered to her his most prized weapon of all.

Hugo wasn't at all certain how to proceed. He had no experience whatsoever with virgins. And this one was armed. The very thought of what she might do when he unveiled the hard object about which she was making such a fuss made his blood run cold. She seemed to have no compunction about wielding that blade at her waist—

“It isn't a knife hilt,” Hugo said finally, unable to keep wounded dignity from creeping into his voice. After all, it was considerably larger than a knife hilt.

“Well, what is it then?” Finnula demanded. “I can't ride comfortably with that thing poking at my back.”

Hugo opened his mouth to reply, hesitating because he was uncertain exactly how to phrase what it was he wanted to say, and was relieved to find that no further explanation was required. Suddenly Finnula's cheeks flooded with color. Her eyes widened, and her jaw dropped. Yes, one of those five sisters
had
spoken to her about the facts of life. It seemed that this was the first time, however, she'd chanced upon an occasion that required her to put that information to practical use.

Turning quickly away, Finnula seized the reins, breathing a horrified “Oh!”

Hugo's discomfort was dissipating, but his amusement over the way it had unsettled Finnula mounted as the girl's cheeks turned an ever-deepening shade of red.

“I'm afraid that it's a natural reaction to your proximity, demoiselle,” he said, delighting in her mortification. “Perhaps you haven't encountered such a strong response in any of your previous prisoners—”

Finnula's voice was so soft that he had to lean forward to hear her reply.

“I've never done this before,” she whispered. “You're the first man I've ever—I've never—” She broke off, obviously frustrated. “Oh, bloody hell,” she swore, and gave Hugo's horse a pretty vicious kick in the sides. “Just keep it to yourself, or I'll…I'll cut it off!”

Grinning, Hugo sat back in the saddle, well-contented with the way his day was proceeding. Who would have thought, when he'd wakened that morning in a hayrick with straw in his hair and dew in his clothes, that by evening he'd be the prisoner of so winsome a captor?

It amazed him to think that all those years ago, when he'd left
England, he'd ridden right by his father's mill, and given nary a thought to the possibility that years hence, the thatched roof might house so delectable a distraction as a Finnula Crais. He was going to enjoy his homecoming considerably more than he'd ever expected, thanks to this redheaded Valkyrie in the saddle before him, ignoring him so pointedly.

He chuckled delightedly to himself, not caring if the girl thought him mad.

T
he insufferable knight seemed actually to be
enjoying
himself, and that infuriated her.

It wasn't that she had hoped to terrify her captive, but, as a skillful—and fully armed—huntress, she did expect a little respect.

But this Sir Hugh's constant teasing showed that he did not consider her a serious threat at all.

She did not feel as if she were the party in control, even though
she
was the one with the dagger. Her authority had been usurped, first when that pea-headed squire had knocked her flat, and then when she'd had to undo Sir Hugh's hands so that he could tend to her wound.

That, she reckoned, had been her fatal mistake: not disarming the squire when she'd had a chance. But she'd felt sorry for
him, squalling in midair, his arms flailing. She certainly never would have thought he'd have the gumption to hide a knife in his boot, let alone cut himself down. It was a drop of eight feet or more.

But he'd escaped, and she'd paid for her lack of farsightedness.

Surreptitiously pressing on her wounded side and finding it tolerably numb, Finnula supposed she ought to have thanked St. Elias for supplying her with a prisoner with so tender a touch. This Sir Hugh, despite his immense size—and alarming amount of facial hair—had surprised her with his gentleness, probing her sore rib with fingers that soothed. That brief glimpse into his true nature, the side of him that wasn't armored in cynicism, had been enlightening.

Still, she'd have traded all his sensitivity for a more civil—and less amorous—captive any day of the week.

It wasn't just his complete lack of fear of her that annoyed Finnula. There was something about the appraising way the knight's hazel eyes raked her at every glance, the slightly mocking curve of his lips, half hidden beneath that tangle of beard, that unnerved her, made her feel shy. Finnula was not, as a rule, a diffident girl, and she could not understand what Sir Hugh was doing to make her feel that way. She resented him for it. Deeply.

But despite the fact that her plan had not proceeded according to schedule, Finnula had to content herself with the fact that she did, indeed, have a prisoner to bring home to Mellana. True, he was entirely too sarcastic and far too forward for Finnula's taste.

But he would fetch a fair amount of ransom, enough to replenish her sister's dowry, anyway, and that was all that mattered. She didn't have to like him. She just had to deliver him. Intact.

Of course, the hardest part was going to be restraining herself from smacking him. He so roundly deserved to be put in his place, odious lecher. Imagine, pressing that…
thing
against her
like that! The very memory caused Finnula's cheeks to burn. How was she going to put up with behavior like that for two days and nights? He might find himself trussed like a doe and slung over Violet's neck if he didn't watch it.

They had ridden for almost two hours, mostly in silence, except when Hugo asked her probing questions about her family and personal life that Finnula refused to answer, much to his amusement, when the slowly setting sun indicated that it was time to find shelter for the night. Finnula urged Hugo's mount, which she considered a truly fine beast, much more easily managed than his master, into a meadow that was already purpling in the twilight, and toward a hayrack.

“Our evening's accommodations?” Hugo inquired, an unmistakably hopeful note in his voice.

Finnula sighed tiredly. She was not looking forward to coping with the ham-handed knight come nightfall.

“It is,” she said, trying to keep a threatening inflection in her voice. “I am acquainted with the farmer who tends this field, and he's given me permission to stay the night whenever I choose—”

“Generous of him,” Hugo said, mildly. Finnula set her lips.

“In return, I keep his copses free of wolves,” she said, disliking his insinuating tone. Behind her, she heard her prisoner chuckle.

“All I said,” Hugo insisted, “was that it was generous of him—”

“I heard what you said,” Finnula snapped. “Dismount.”

Hugo looked about the meadow, already long-shadowed and growing cold now that the sun was sinking below the treetops along the horizon.

“What, here?” he questioned.

“Yes, here.” Finnula waited until he was on the ground before swinging back a leg and slipping to the grass beside him. Once again, his towering height disconcerted her, and she went to Vio
let's side shaking her head, wondering at the fact that giants did indeed still roam the earth.

Reaching into her saddlebag, Finnula drew out a length of rope and turned toward the enormous knight.

“If you'll just sit there, please, at the base of the hayrack, I'll secure you.”

Hugo stared down at her uncomprehendingly, his eyes glowing green in the failing light of dusk. “Whatever are you talking about?” he asked, a smile curving up the corners of his generous lips.

Finnula stamped an impatient foot. “I've got to build a fire and fetch us some dinner, and I can't do all of that
and
keep an eye on you—”

Understanding dawned. Hugo threw back his tawny head and laughed. “So you intend to tie me to a hayrack? Oh, that's rich.”

Finnula glared at him. “It isn't amusing. What's to keep you from escaping while I'm hunting?”

“If you don't know, I'm certainly not going to tell you,” Hugo declared, still laughing. When Finnula narrowed her eyes at him, he held up both hands, palms facing her. “Nay, don't give me that look, you hard-hearted wench. I swear to you I'll stay put. You have my emerald, remember?”

Finnula's fingers flew to the heavy stone she wore upon her neck. She had nearly forgotten about it, it nestled so comfortably between her breasts. Of course he wouldn't try to escape, not while something so valuable was still in her possession.

There was nothing, however, to keep him from sneaking up behind her and taking it away by force—but she supposed if he had been intent on doing such a thing, he'd have done it already. God knew he could easily have gotten away after his squire had knocked her senseless. No, as much as she didn't like to admit
it, Sir Hugh Fitzwilliam apparently had
some
honor. He was the type to see a thing through to the end, if only for the pleasure of laughing at her some more.

“I'll make a fire,” Hugo offered, reasonably, “while you fetch us something to eat. I'm looking forward to actually seeing these superlative hunting skills about which I've heard so much.”

Finnula looked down at the length of rope in her hands. She
so
wanted to tie him up, and gag him, too, and spend a few hours in pleasant obliviousness to his presence. His aggressively male presence was grating. But there was no hope for it. She needed only to endure him for another forty-eight hours. Forty-eight hours was nothing. With any luck, she'd spend at least sixteen of them asleep.

If she could sleep in the presence of such a man.

Shrugging, Finnula went back to Violet's side and put away the rope, taking her bow and quiver from the saddle instead. She tried not to pay attention to the fact that she could feel her prisoner's eyes boring into her the entire time her back was to him. What was it, she wondered, that so constantly drew his eyes to her? It wasn't possible that he could still be attracted to her, not after she'd spent almost the entire afternoon being unpleasant to him.

But he didn't even have the grace to look away when she caught his stare on her hair, and, glaring at him challengingly, she quickly braided the mess of auburn locks, and tossed the plait over her shoulder and out of sight.

Hugo just smirked, as if her contrariness was charming. She glared at him some more.

“I hope you're partial to rabbit,” she said irritably. “Because that's all you're getting for dinner.”

Hugo bowed as if she'd said she'd be preparing boar in a delicate mushroom sauce. Fuming, Finnula whirled away, and began
trudging toward a nearby thicket, muttering to herself. What was it about this infuriating man that kept provoking her? Normally she had the most steady of tempers. Normally it didn't bother her at all when people smirked at her: Isabella Laroche smirked at her regularly, and it had never irritated her a bit. But something about being the object of this man's amusement was very annoying indeed.

Stalking a particularly cunning hare in the half light calmed Finnula somewhat. She ignored several females for fear that she'd leave their little ones motherless, and went for a male instead. She dallied a bit, enjoying her time away from her lecherous prisoner, letting her prey escape several times before finally ending the chase by sending an arrow clean through the hare's brain. He never knew what hit him.

After skinning him expertly with her knife, Finnula washed her hands in a nearby brook, where she also paused to fill her water flask. By the time she returned to the hayrack, half hoping she'd find that Sir Hugh had cleared out, taking his smirks and insinuations with him, she found that he'd managed to start a fire and even had a pot of something bubbling merrily over it.

Hugo looked up from the small cauldron, from which the unmistakable odor of shallots was emanating. The sun had set, and except for the glow from the fire he'd started, the meadow was entirely in shadow. The firelight made his bone structure, which was difficult to see beneath the bristling beard, more pronounced, and Finnula realized, with a slight sinking feeling, that her prisoner was actually passably good-looking. Irrationally, this discovery annoyed her.

“I see you've been going through my belongings in my absence,” she said coldly.

Hugo shrugged, salting his soup with a pinch from the bag of spices Finnula kept in her saddle pouch.

“Get to know one's enemy, I've always said.” He smiled, supremely unconcerned by her irritation. “You've got quite an arsenal of cooking implements. I threw some of the turnips and shallots in here. You don't mind, do you? I figured that by adding the rabbit's carcass and letting the pot simmer overnight, we'd have a good, thick soup come morning.”

Finnula tried to hide her surprise. Here was a man, a
man
, who knew how to cook? Why, Robert didn't know a turnip from a parsnip. Curiosity overcame her dislike of him, and Finnula asked bemusedly, “Where did you learn how to cook?”

“Ah,” Hugo sighed, stirring his concoction with a stick he'd stripped of bark. “It wasn't always safe to eat the local food in Egypt. I saw many more men fall to illness brought on by consuming rancid meat than I saw fall by the scimitar. We learned to prepare our own dinners, cooking them in our helmets, most times.” He chuckled at the memory. “Of course, that could prove dangerous as well, when one of us forgot last night's dinner was still in his headpiece, and went to put it on without first checking inside—”

Finnula couldn't help laughing at his wry expression. He grinned up at her, then lowered his gaze to the hare she'd skewered on a clean branch.

“Ah, the main course.” Rising to his full height, the knight approached her, all of his attention focused on the rabbit she'd killed. He bent to take the skewer from her, closely examining it, then lifted his gaze to hers appraisingly.

“A clean shot,” he said, the admiration in his voice evident. “You did this with that short bow?”

Finnula fingered her weathered bow, uncommonly pleased by the compliment, small though it was. Whatever ailed her?

“Aye,” she said, unshouldering her quiver and showing it to
him. “'Tis all I need. A long bow is too much in the way. Besides, I've no need to pierce armor—”

Hugo flexed the bow experimentally. “Finely crafted. You made it?”

“Yes.” Amazingly, Finnula felt her cheeks suffuse with color. His regard pleased her far more than it ought. What did she care what he thought of her? He was just a knight, and not a very chivalrous one, at that. He was nothing to her.

Of course, it was one thing to be admired for one's looks, which one couldn't help, and quite another to be complimented upon one's skills. Finnula took infinitely more pride in her hunting abilities than in her appearance.

Speaking quickly to hide her embarrassment, Finnula pointed out a notch she'd carved into each one of her arrows, a notch she claimed extended the curve of the arrow's flight.

“But,” Hugo said, scrutinizing the violet-tipped projectile, “while it might lengthen your shot, it also makes your arrows highly distinctive.”

Finnula shrugged, not understanding his meaning straight away. “Oh, aye, but it seems to work—”

“And Sheriff de Brissac hasn't yet learned how to identify your handiwork?”

Comprehension dawned. Suddenly uncomfortable with the shift the conversation had taken, Finnula took the quiver from him and turned her attention to dinner. “I'll rub this fine fellow with some herbs,” she said, deliberately changing the subject. “With any luck, he should be done in half an hour—”

Hugo chuckled. “I see. Your troubles with the shire reeve aren't any of my business?”

Finnula sank to her knees by the fire and industrially began applying a layer of spice to her kill. She kept her eyes on her work,
hoping that the red glow of the firelight hid her blush. “I have no troubles with the sheriff,” she said nonchalantly. Then, flicking a quick glance in the knight's direction, muttered, “None that he can prove, anyway.”

Hugo joined her on the hard ground, his joints popping in protest as he lowered his massive frame to the grass. He sat far enough away that their thighs were not exactly touching, but close enough that the chance of such contact occurring was a distinct possibility. Finnula regarded him nervously as she set the rabbit roasting over the flames, but all he did was lean forward, his broad shoulder suddenly blocking out all the firelight, and give his soup a stir.