The Damsel's Defiance (10 page)

‘And you are proposing to fix it?’ he asked slowly, as if reluctant to hear her answer. He lifted his eyes from the horizon, studying her expression for a moment, trying to assess her conviction.

Emmeline peered up at him earnestly. ‘Aye, that I am. It’s a task I have often done for my father.’ His look of complete astonishment made her want to laugh out loud.

‘But you’re a woman! Nay, you stay down on the deck where I can keep an eye on you.’ he set his lips in a firm line, indicating the end of the discussion.

‘The journey will be twice as long, with the amount of speed we are losing through that gap in the sail,’ she continued persuasively. ‘And it’s not just the crew that are sick, the Empress has also been taken bad…We need to reach land quickly, so they do not worsen. We have no medicine or herbs aboard to treat them.’

The deck shuddered, creaking violently under the strain of negotiating the heaving sea, then dropped unexpectedly, rolling down a vast wave. Emmeline’s hold tightened around Talvas as her knees buckled under the pitching deck, as she fought to keep her balance without coming too close to the devastating leanness of his body.

‘Rest easy, mistress,’ he ordered tersely, his arm snaking around her back and shoulders, pulling her in with firm authority. ‘It’s devilish hard to keep one’s footing in these waters.’

‘Talvas, I have to go up. I have to fix that sail, or I may lose the ship.’

Talvas grimaced. Would the chit never let up? His parents, his knight’s training, all had raised him with the belief that
women were delicate creatures to be cared for, cherished by men, their beauty and gentleness cushioned from the harsher realities of life. This woman defied every convention, revelling openly in her independence at every opportunity, challenging all his assumptions regarding the fairer sex. And yet who was he to command her? She did not belong to him, like a material possession; he was not her lord, to order her to do his bidding. He had no rights over her whatsoever.

‘Are you certain about this?’ he demanded suddenly. His eyes searched her face, the deceptive fragility of her figure.

The warmth of his muscle-bound shoulder cupped her back, searing the skin. She smiled up at him, knowing she had won, and nodded firmly. Moving out, reluctantly, from the protection of his arm, she began to untie the lacings of her cloak. Hanging on to his shoulder, she removed it, placing it in a wet, claggy bundle at his feet, then proceeded to release the side-lacings of her
bliaut,
drawing the dress over her head. Focused on her task, she remained unaware of Talvas’s increasingly bemused scrutiny. Against the squall, the close-fitting lines of her underdress clung to her damply, highlighting the tempting swell of her bosom, the soft flare of her hips.

‘Are you planning to climb up naked?’ Talvas threw her a lopsided smile, fighting the urge to embrace her, to tear that fine covering from her pearly skin. He turned his eyes sharply to the glimmering horizon as Emmeline bent down to fumble with the toggles that fastened her ankle-length leather shoes.

Emmeline laughed. ‘Nay, my lord, but it makes it easier to climb without these heavy garments. Rest assured, I shall be decent.’

‘Thank the Lord for that,’ he muttered under his breath. The slashed neck of her underdress gaped suggestively. Even in the darkness, he could make out the tempting curve of her bosom.
‘Bonne chance, petite.’
His words sounded stilted, untried. For a moment, their gazes locked, brilliant sapphire with sparkling emerald—it was as if he could see into her very soul.

As he watched her step tentatively toward the mast, a faltering roll to her gait, he felt powerless, unable to release his grip on the tiller, unable to climb the mast in her place. He had to have faith in her, had to trust her not to fall. He shook his head, trying to dispel the odd sentiment. Since when had he trusted a woman? He would do well to remember that the last time he had done so had been his undoing. This maid, with her fiery tongue and trim figure, had addled his brain, turned his senses!

Stretching high to anchor her fingers on to the rough fibre of the rope that coiled round and round the mast, Emmeline levered herself up, swinging her bare foot around to gain a foothold on the thick rope. She breathed deeply, forgetting the peril of her surroundings to concentrate on the task before her. The strength in her lithe body overcame the weakness in her leg, and she made steady, self-assured progress, her long, wet braid flying about her trim waist in the unceasing wind. The wooden mast was not high, the height of three men perhaps, so she gained the top easily. She would not look down at the roiling sea beneath, and did not care to look and see if Talvas might be watching her. Locking her legs around the mast, she braced herself so that both hands were free to reach out and grab the frayed ends of the rope and retie them around the crossbar. The muscles in her back flexed under the strain of holding her body as her cold, raw fingers fumbled to tie a knot and drag the sail back up to the horizontal. She pulled back to the mast, feeling the strength seep from her limbs as she watched the mended sail fill with wind. There! She had done it. Now all that remained was to climb down.

It was only now that she felt the iciness of the incessant
rain soak her few remaining garments, the chill of the wind cutting in around her ankles. The deck loomed far away, an endless distance when all she wanted to do was sleep. The wet fabric of her underdress slapped at her naked ankles, her calves, sticking to her damp flesh and hampering her movements as she began to descend. She clung on desperately as the ship lurched and heaved—surely it had not been this difficult on the ascent? As she scrabbled for a foothold below, her fingers scraped along the coarse rope, slipping…
‘Faites attention!’
A shout from below went unnoticed as she began to fall. The ship swung violently to the leeward side. She clutched out in desperation, the rope burning her hands but not allowing her to take hold as she fell through the shrieking, screeching air, arms flailing.

‘I have you!’ A familiar voice rasped in her ear as she hit a solid wall of flesh and felt thick arms come about her, holding her steady. She shivered with relief as her bare feet slid down to touch the deck. Through two thin layers of material, her chemise and her underdress, she felt the heat emanating from Talvas’s big body.

‘Here,’ he muttered, dragging his cloak from his shoulders to sweep it around her, one arm still about her waist. ‘The cloth is wet, but maybe will give you some warmth.’ The heaviness of his cloak threatened to unbalance her, but she revelled in the extra comfort.

‘I thank you, my lord.’

‘Nay, I should be thanking you, Emmeline.’ He placed a finger under her chin, tilting her head up to meet his admiring gaze. ‘You performed an amazing feat—see, we are at full speed now.’ He frowned at her, as if trying to work out some enigmatic puzzle. ‘I know of no other woman who would have done something so brave.’

Emmeline shrugged her shoulders. ‘I grew up with the
sea. ’Tis of little matter to me.’ She tried to ignore the ache of the muscles across her back and shoulders.

He stared down at her, this little virago who tried to stand so tall before him, yet wilted with fatigue. Beneath the gaping sides of his cloak that she wore, the fine linen of her garments clung to the curve of her bosom, the flatness of her stomach. Her beauty drew him, irresistible. He ducked his head, his intention to place a kiss of thanks upon those rosebud lips. A butterfly touch, a brush of fleeting passion. As his lips grazed hers, a flare of desire kicked at him: he groaned, arms sweeping around her once more, pulling her soft curves into him as he savoured the taste of her. Emmeline swayed toward him, her legs unable to hold her, her body liquid. Her slender body cleaved toward his muscular frame as his arms tightened about her waist, one large hand splayed out over the delicate bones of her back. Need pulsed through her limbs, the kernel of her heart, a maelstrom of emotion that left her weak, helpless, clinging to him. The last shreds of reason melted away from her conscious thought; she entered a place that had hitherto been unknown to her. His lips spoke of a secret promise, a promise to sweep her away to a territory of uncharted waters—a magical place full of dreams and desires, a place of danger.

The kiss deepened, flowered with a devastating intensity that neither of them could control, firing sensation after sensation. As they clung to one another, two souls locked in unconscious passion, a huge wall of water crashed down over the ship.

T
he wide sweep of white shingle lay strewn with wreckage from
La Belle Saumur;
shards of timber, wrenched from their iron rivets, bobbed in the frothy surf. As the sky lightened, a night watchman from the harbour had alerted the villagers. They had stumbled from their cottages, bemused with sleep, to help pull the remainder of the ship securely on to the shore. Now the sun, peeking intermittently through the wraiths of mist, highlighted the scene of devastation: the broken ship, the crew huddled in borrowed blankets on the beach, either sleeping or talking quietly.

Emmeline sat on the pebbles, arms crossed tightly over her drawn-up knees. By some miracle, when the wave had crashed over the ship, the coast of England had been nearer than originally thought. The relentless waves, helped by a strong onshore breeze, had driven them landwards, too quickly for the crew to save the ship from being smashed against the shingle, but slow enough to get everyone safely to shore. They had splashed and spluttered their way through the shallows, the huge waves picking them up and flinging their wet dripping bodies on to the smooth round stones. She
should have felt fortunate that her life…nay, all the lives on board were safe, but instead, a curious sense of loss plucked at her frayed nerves.

Her eyes stung, watering in the freshening breeze, her eyelashes gritty with dried salt. She rubbed at them, trying to dispel with the vigorous movement the memory of Talvas as he hefted her exhausted body up the beach, before going back to help the others struggle their way to shore.

‘Emmeline, do you feel all right? You weren’t hurt in any way?’

Emmeline turned her head, her hair falling about her shoulders in stiff tendrils. Maud sat beside her on the beach, her cloak drawn tightly around her. Despite their ordeal, the Empress’s embroidered linen veil still covered her head, although her golden circlet sat askew and her white, uneven skin was red from the piercing touch of the wind.

‘I am quite well, my lady, thank you!’ She threw the Empress a quick smile. ‘But I should be asking you…how are you after your sickness last night?’

‘Oh…that!’ Maud’s wide, florid features crinkled jovially. ‘I seem fully recovered…and even better now that I have reached England, albeit a little shocked by our ordeal last night.’ She gestured at the broken shards of the ship.

‘’Tis important to you.’ Emmeline sunk one hand into the wet pebbles beneath her, the sticky salt from the hard, curved surfaces coating her fingers.

‘Aye, maid, for I seek the crown of England now my father has died.’ Maud assessed Emmeline with her small, hazel eyes, sensing an ally. ‘It will be difficult, for although my father made the barons swear to my accession on his death, they are still men who will resent a woman on the throne.’

‘Men resent women doing a great deal of things,’ Emmeline replied carefully, aware of a growing admiration
for the strong woman at her side. ‘Yet we can do those things just as well as they can, sometimes better.’

Maud laughed. ‘We are two of a kind, mistress, each fighting for our independence. Let’s hope we both succeed.’

‘I thought I had,’ Emmeline replied sadly. She cast her eye despondently over the shattered remains of her ship. Most of the hull was still intact, apart from a huge hole that gaped from the bow, caused when the ship had been battered continually against the shore.

‘I will cover the cost of the repairs,’ Maud said kindly. ‘I always reward people who help me.’ Her friendly words were laced with conspiracy. ‘But for the nonce, may I suggest that you find some more clothes?’

Emmeline looked down at herself, and blushed. The salt-encrusted underdress clung damply to her curves, revealing the elegant lines of her body.

‘Allow me.’ A husky voice cut through Emmeline’s embarrassment. The lilting tones furled around her, settling over her like a salve; her pulse quickened. Muscular legs steady on the steep, shifting pebbles, Talvas picked up his damp cloak from the shoreline and threw the heavy cloth around Emmeline, at once hiding her small frame from prying eyes. She clutched at the sides gratefully, pulling the soft wool across her bosom. Despite having been recently immersed in sea water, the material smelled of him, a rich scent of horse and woodsmoke. She peeked up at him, appreciating the gesture, wanting to thank him, but his attention had been diverted by a movement on the horizon.

‘Since when did you lose half your clothes?’ Maud asked curiously.

‘Since she climbed the mast and fixed the sail,’ Talvas cut in, a note of admiration in his voice. Emmeline looked at him, her expression fierce, eager to detect an element of con
demnation in his tone. Dark stubble shadowed the lower part of his face, giving him a rakish, piratical look. Her gaze drifted to his mouth, wide and generous and…desirable. Her stomach knotted as the unwanted memory of their kiss on deck shunted vividly into her mind.

‘Your courage is to be commended, young lady,’ Maud spoke slowly. ‘You saved us all, you saved the life of your Queen.’

‘Don’t be too hasty, Maud.’ Earl Robert had clambered up the steeply shelving beach to join the conversation. He threw a lopsided, peculiar smile at Emmeline, his eyes lingering on the jade amulet that swung at her throat. Emmeline yanked at the cloak, annoyed at his observance. The sooner she could escape to her sister’s estate, the better!

‘I will not forget what you have done.’ Maud laid one hand on Emmeline’s sleeve, before shifting her eyes to Talvas. ‘Now, my lord, you know this country. Where in Heaven’s name are we?’

‘Fortune has smiled on us, my lady,’ he replied. Emmeline looked at him in consternation, then back at the fragments of ship that had been her livelihood, rigid with disappointment.
Fortunate?

‘Surely you jest, my lord?’ She needed to be angry with him, to pick a fight with him, to stamp down on the bubbling excitement that threatened to overwhelm her every time his sapphire gaze touched her face, every time his broad frame moved nearer to her.

Talvas laughed out loud, sensing the maid’s resentment. ‘Aye, my lady, we are fortunate.’ He threw his arm northwards, away from the sea. ‘For not above two miles from here lies my own estate of Hawkeshayne. I have already dispatched Guillame to bring back horses and ox carts to transport us there.’

‘We are grateful for your hospitality, my lord,’ the Earl
replied. ‘It will allow the Empress and myself to assemble our allies and make an advance on Winchester, to claim the treasury and thence the throne. Henry’s body will be taken on to the abbey at Reading where people can pay their last respects.’ The group fell silent for a moment as they watched the cumbersome progress of the linen-wrapped body, manhandled up the beach by three members of the crew.

‘Then what are we waiting for?’ Maud demanded. ‘I am eager to become Queen of England!’ She raised a small, pudgy hand. ‘Help me up, please, Emmeline, for my bones are stiff.’ Emmeline stretched a hand forward, but Talvas brushed her aside, his lean, tanned hand pulling the Empress to her feet. Emmeline fumed. She had been perfectly happy to help Maud, beginning to like the brusque, practical ways of the woman.

‘Then this is where I will take my leave.’ Emmeline touched Talvas’s arm briefly to gain his attention. He frowned, crossing his arms high over his broad chest, his stare frank and assessing. Emmeline swallowed, her throat dry from the saltwater. ‘If I could have the loan of a horse, I would ride to my sister’s estate, which is not some twenty miles from here.’

‘Dressed as you are?’ The stern castigation in his tone could not be ignored. The azure brilliance of his eyes scoured her state of undress, her wet curls strewn around her shoulders like that of a mermaid. ‘I think you might need to sort yourself out before you travel anywhere.’

‘Stay a while with us, Emmeline,’ Maud encouraged. ‘I would like the chance to know you better.’

As I would, thought Talvas. He had spent but a handful of days in the woman’s company, yet, in that small time, she had tipped his world upside-down. He had no wish to see her disappear so soon.

‘I…’ Her linen veil and overdress had been lost to the sea, but her hair could easily be put right with braids. She frowned.

‘Have you no sense, mistress? If you set out on the road like that, have you any idea what could happen to you?’ Emmeline’s face flamed, acutely conscious of Maud and Robert listening intently.

‘I can do as I choose,’ she replied mulishly. Why did he curb her so? He was not her protector!

‘Choice might not come into it when you’re wrenched from your horse and raped in the bushes,’ he returned roughly, a cruel twist to his mouth. She recoiled at the vulgarity of his words, knitting her fingers together over her stomach. He noted the defensive gesture and inwardly cursed his roughness.

‘Aye, you may flinch at my words,
mam’selle,
but you would do well to heed them. I speak the truth. Accept my hospitality, if only for one night. I can furnish you with an escort and outriders if it be your wish to visit your sister on the morrow.’

‘Why not let the maid go now?’ the Earl interrupted in a bored tone. ‘She has served her purpose.’ Besides, he might take to the road himself if this tempting little morsel was riding all alone!

Talvas lifted his shoulders—a gesture of dismissal. ‘I cannot forcibly hold her if she is intent on her purpose, but ’tis not wise to travel without an escort.’

‘Then lend me one now,’ She challenged, unwilling to give in so easily. She had no wish to travel to his home, to be with him any longer than she had to!

‘Impossible,
mam’selle,
’ he replied, deliberately keeping his tone disinterested. ‘Most of my men and their families live on their own farmsteads. It will take at least a day to summon them.’

She held fast on to his bright azure gaze, not wanting to accept his offer, not wanting to give in, to back down. It was childish, she knew, but her years of independence had made her so with men. The intense blue of his eyes goaded her. She
adjusted her position on the shingle, lifting one foot, then the other; the round, clacking pebbles resettled around her toes.

‘It seems I have no choice,’ she responded, finally.

The tide was running out fast toward the sea as the bedraggled party picked their way on horseback along the cobbled road that edged the wide river estuary. The lowering water began to reveal a vast area of marshland and reedbed, crossed with a sinuous pattern of muddy rivulets. The smooth, polished-grey trunks of ancient beech trees lined the upper side of the roadway, the starkness of their branches stuck up like lightning forks beneath the leaden sky. Behind the slow-moving group, an ox cart lumbered carrying the few possessions that had been retrieved from
La Belle Saumur,
including the body of the late King Henry.

Rankling from Talvas’s coarse reprimand, Emmeline stared fixedly at her horse’s mane, paying little attention to her direction. If she had spirit enough, she should have stood up to Talvas and broken away from this party. She hated having to rely on him for hospitality, and, as she feared, her small bag had been lost in the storm, possibly more. But her timidity at his reaction held her back; she was in no doubt that he would unceremoniously drag her back, and no one would stop him. In truth, she had no knowledge as to the direction of her sister’s manor, only that it was to the east of the harbour where they had landed.

‘From your expression, I suspect you are still annoyed with me.’ Talvas pulled on his stallion’s reins to walk his horse beside her. The gleam of his hair, dark as a blackbird’s wing and tousled with sea water, lent him a boyish air. His blue eyes sparkled, teasing her, drawing her under his mesmeric spell. Emmeline jerked her gaze away, fingers attempting to pleat the unyielding leather of her reins in an effort
to quell the memory of their last kiss. What in the name of Mary was happening to her?

‘Nay, not annoyed, my lord.’ She concentrated on the horizon, a pleasing aspect of rolling hills and woodland, gently sloping down to the river at the bottom of the wide valley. ‘I am eager to visit my sister, that is all.’ And to take myself away from
you,
she thought, before I do something I regret.

‘And tomorrow you shall,’ he replied amiably, ‘and we, too, will part as if we had never met.’

‘Life would have been more simple if we had not,’ she answered, not bothering to conceal the frankness in her tone.

‘But far less exciting,’ he replied, enigmatically. What in Heaven’s name did he mean by that?

‘And I might still have a ship.’ Her shoulders slumped forward slightly.

‘You still have a ship, my lady, albeit a little damaged. I will make arrangements to have her towed into the harbour later on today.’

‘You don’t have to humour me,’ She replied. ‘I saw the hole in her side.’

‘She is not lost, Emmeline.’ Talvas leaned down earnestly, the jewelled hilt of his sword winking in the sunlight that peeked from behind a thick cloud. ‘I have seen far worse damage than that.’

‘Don’t give me false hope, my lord.’ Yet a huge sense of relief rose in her chest.

‘I wouldn’t do that, my lady. I can see how much that ship means to you.’

‘The ship means
everything
to me,’ She answered him, her eyes scanning the taut, sculptured angles of his face. ‘She is my livelihood, and that of my family. If I lose her, I lose everything.’ She looked down at her hands, quickly, embarrassed by her sudden flow of words.

‘Your father designed the ship well.
La Belle Saumur
will survive.’ Talvas spoke softly, his booted toe grazing Emmeline’s hip as his horse stumbled on a loose stone. A faint blush stole across her cheeks at the contact. He pulled sharply on the reins, drawing the horse away.

‘I wish he had,’ Emmeline muttered, almost to herself. ‘Survived, I mean.’ She attempted to clarify her spoken thought.

‘I’m sorry. It must have been hard after his death.’

She clamped her lips together, willing the tears to stay back, not wanting to acknowledge the sympathy in his tone. The plaintive cry of a curlew rent the air, sending a shudder down her spine.