The Last Arrow RH3 (17 page)

It was ridiculous. Ludicrous. Insane. It was in no sense of the word an honest wager made to an honest man who had in any way represented himself honestly. Certes, she was under no obligation to honor any oath given under such dubious circumstances, not when he had deliberately manipulated and maneuvered her into thinking him a bumpkin with a bow. Brave words indeed. Tricked out of her by a low-bellied worm who sat at their table, ate and drank their food, wenched with their serving girls, then strove to repay their hospitality by humiliating the daughter of the household.

She owed him nothing.

She would give him nothing but an ultimatum to leave Amboise before morning else she would go to her father and denounce him for his crimes of treachery and deceit. If he dared show his face.

The archery run was deserted, an empty stretch of grass broken only by the ghostly silhouettes of the butts. She turned full circle but there were no other shadows leaning insolently on the barricade; no vile laughter mocked her, no sound intruded on her solitude other than a faint quarrel between two dogs in the stables.

"A cowardly low-bellied worm," she muttered aloud, pushing her hood off her head. "Lacking even the decency to acknowledge my willingness to comply."

She turned another circle but she was alone. The mist made it difficult to see more than shadows upon shadows; the only lights were the distant flaring torches that marked the barbican gates and they were muted to a dull, watery yellow haze.

"Damned bloody coward," she muttered again. "I should have known he only wanted to torment me."

"Did I succeed?"

Brenna gasped and whirled around. The whispery voice had come out of the darkness behind her, so close it sounded like a shout. Moreover, the quickness of her spin, combined with the quantity of wine she had consumed since dusk, left her swaying slightly while the two; sets of sheds, barricades, and benches melded back together as one.

"Where are you? Show yourself."

A tall black shadow straightened and detached itself from the side of the bothy. "I had just about given up on you, my lady. 'Tis well past midnight, by the watch bells."

" 'Tis well past the limit of my patience," she snapped. "And I am only come to tell you your presence is no longer welcome at Amboise."

"Why? Because I pricked your vanity this morning?"

"You tricked me. You feigned ignorance of the longbow when all along you knew damned well how to use one."

"Truly, demoiselle." He gave a wry laugh. "What manner of sword for hire would I be if I were not at least passingly familiar with so magnificent and deadly a weapon?"

"Passingly familiar?" Her shoulders dropped a moment. "You made me look like a boastful child."

"That was not my intention."

"Was it not?"

"Would you rather I had bowed to the dictates of chivalry and deliberately missed the shot so as not to offend the sensibilities of a female competitor?"

"Certainly not!"

"Well then?"

Well then, indeed. He had effectively defused her argument, for it was the last thing she wanted on this earth, to think any man patronized her in any way just because of some foolish notion of chivalry.

"If it is any consolation," he said, taking a step closer, "I have never seen another archer with such a steady hand or keen eye—man or woman. I have never had to take such care with my own shot."

The wine swam around her head for a moment, mellowing her to the compliment, but then she remembered the last split second before he loosed the arrow. He had looked away from the target. He had looked away as coolly and calmly as if he knew precisely where the arrow was going and what her reaction would be.

"Never?" she spat. "Not in all your years of selling your sword for profit?"

He sighed. "Believe me, there is little profit in selling anything, except perhaps your soul."

"Hah! Then you admit it! You admit you ply your trade as a mercenary!"

"I admit nothing. Only that I am surprised to see you here tonight."

"Why should it surprise you? I gave my word."

"And is that the only reason you came?"

"What other reason would you suppose, sirrah? That I wanted to come?"

His laugh was low and husky. "I was hoping it might have counted for a little."

"Not the smallest part," she insisted. "Not with a black-hearted, rapine trickster the likes of you."

"You wrong me, demoiselle. I have not raped anyone of your acquaintance that you should slander me so." He took another step and something metallic on his belt caught a reflection of light from the distant torches. "And unless your education has been sadly lacking about what a man and woman do together, you cannot possibly think I raped you last night. Teased you, perhaps. Possibly even gave you a taste of the pleasures you might encounter if you shed your tunics and boots and loosened your skirts a little."

"Pleasure?" She tensed and eased back a step, and although she could not see it clearly, a slow, wide grin spread across his face as he smelled the false courage on her breath. "You call pinning me up against a wall, threatening me, and frightening me half to death pleasure?"

"Did I frighten you? If I did, you will have to forgive me. I have been absent from courtly circles too long and my ...

manners... have suffered for it."

"A forced absence, or a voluntary one?"

"Tut-tut." He lifted a finger and wagged it. "I am not the one who lost the wager, remember, therefore I owe you no answers. You, on the other hand, owe me—"

"Nothing," she snapped. "I owe you nothing."

He bowed his head a moment and clasped his hands behind his back. "Ah, well, I confess you have me truly confused now. The chivalrous thing for me to have done this morning was to throw my shot and let you win—yet you disdain the notion. At the same time, had I done so, I would also have been expected to do the honorable thing by baring my soul and answering the thousands of questions fermenting in the back of your mind. But because you lost, and in spite of an oath of honor given freely and boldly, you expect chivalry to come to your rescue now, that I might release you from your bond and send you on your way with naught but a gallant bow. Do I have that clear in my mind?"

Brenna's cheeks flared red and her hands balled into fists by her sides. A mottling of small purple dots distorted her vision for a moment, rushed there by the anger boiling in her veins. The inner curtain wall was behind him and above, the darker jumble of towers and battlements were etched black against the midnight sky, shrouded in mist.

She could see very little of his face, no more than a pale bluish smear slashed with the line of his black eyebrows and framed by black hair. Something hot and liquid and stinging flushed away the purple pinspots, but her anger remained, causing her to square her shoulders and hold her chin high.

"Have you chosen your square of grass, sirrah, or will any bed of thatch do?"

It was Griffyn's turn to stare. He had excellent night vision and saw more than just the pale blot of her face. He saw the dark stain on her cheeks and the silvery liquid rim forming along her lower lashes. He saw her fists and the tremors that shook the folds of her cloak and the pride that kept her back straight and her eyes fierce.

She was magnificent, and the simple truth was that he wanted her. That was why he had followed her onto the field that morning and why he had taken up her challenge. It was why he had stood out here in the dark for two hours shredding enough stalks of hay to build a nest. He wanted her ... and at this moment, with his heart pounding and his blood raging ... he wanted her badly enough to break every rule he had set for himself, shatter every barrier it had taken him so long to erect around his emotions.

"I would gladly lay you down in the grass, my lady." He reached over with a surprisingly steady hand and lifted a single long, loose curl, drawing it out from beneath the wool of her cloak. "I would gladly do a thousand things to you that would have you begging me to do a thousand more." He toyed with the sleek, tawny spiral and watched it slither through his fingers. "On the other hand, I am not going to hold you to something you have no wish to do. The devil may have cursed me into accepting many things I would not have thought of doing at one time; but I am no despoiler of unwilling virgins. The effort is too great," he added, hoping his sigh sounded casual, "and the satisfaction too fleeting."

Brenna's own heart was beating like a wild thing. She was prepared to honor her oath. She was prepared to shame and curse and denigrate him all the while he had his lusty way with her, but she was prepared, nonetheless, to see this thing through and emerge with her pride and honor intact. She was not prepared for the icy, prickling frissons of sensation washing across her nape and rippling down her spine with each gentle stroke and tug of his fingers on her hair. Nor was she expecting this eleventh-hour gesture of nobility regardless of how tartly it dripped with sarcasm.

She forced herself to look up, not certain she had heard him correctly. "You are ... letting me go?"

"Alas, I neglected to bring my manacles and chains."

He dropped the silky curl and clasped his hands behind his back again, wondering at his own madness. Wondering at hers for continuing to stand there staring up at him like a trapped doe that does not understand a hunter's reprieve.

"Is ... my virginity the only reason?"

"Not entirely." He chucked quietly. "But then you are not just any virgin either, my lady, but the daughter of the Black Wolf of Amboise. I would not want to speculate over the number of knives I would find stuck in my gullet come morning should the happy denouement take place and my part in it be discovered."

She did not know where the next question came from, but it stumbled off her tongue anyway. "No ... other reason?"

His head tilted to one side. "Such as?"

"Such as my ... fondness for tunics and leggings over loose silk skirts."

If the ache in his groin was not so overwhelming, he might have laughed. If the note of uncertainty in her voice had been any less compelling, he might have cursed his noble intentions to hell and thrown her on the ground then and there. As it was, he was forced to stare long and hard, and to recall a similarly faint air of aspersion at the supper table the previous night when her father had remarked on how lovely she looked.

Was it possible she did not know how beautiful she was? low desirable? How the mere thought of lying with her anywhere—in the grass, in the bath house, in the weeds by the river—was putting such an unprecedented strain on his willpower, he was nearly coming out of his skin? "No other reason," he said evenly. "On my oath."

Her head dipped down and he could see the sheen of mist droplets sparkling on her hair. "Given on the safe assumption you will not have to act upon it." This was too much. He clamped his teeth together so hard his jaw made a grinding sound and when he did laugh, purely out of desperation, it sounded coarse and lusty and darkened the stains on her cheeks.

"Very well, my lady. Since you are so insistent, shall we strike a compromise? Comply with the original terms of the wager and we may both claim honor has been served."

"The original terms?"

"A kiss," he said brusquely. "Long and sweet and freely given ... unlike your squirming, missish efforts from last night."

She looked up at him through the darkness. The wine was muddling her senses, spinning them from one extreme to the other, but they were clear enough to know he was making fun of her, mocking the frightened, trembling woman he had sent running out of the bath house, terrified as much by the responses he had roused in her as she was by his offer to introduce her to still more. He was cynical and unfeeling and would likely laugh all the harder even if she did kiss him and it failed to measure up against his talents as a debaucher of household servants. On the other hand, did she really care what he thought of her? He was arrogant and crude and ill-mannered, and if a kiss was needed to prove she was no country simpleton who would default on the demands of her honor, a kiss was what he would get.

She took a deep breath and moved close enough for the wool of her cloak to brush against his surcoat. She stood a long moment with the top of her head a silky curl away from touching his chin, then tilted her face up and elevated herself onto the tips of her toes, using one cool hand to circle his neck and coax his mouth down to within a breath of hers.

"You know, of course," she murmured through a frown, "that Tansy faints if a mouse crosses her path."

"Is that a fact? I gather you have been listening to castle gossips?"

"Not willingly, I assure you."

"You did not believe them?"

She lowered her lashes and tried not to think of how her breasts were tingling, crushed against his chest. "I do not believe a person could be made to faint three times, no."

"Actually ... it was only twice." He grinned. "But I was somewhat tupped on your father's excellent ale and not in my best form."

She exhaled around a disparaging sigh and pressed her mouth over his. It was a tentative, nerveless effort at first, hampered by his grin and her own reluctance. But then she was more insistent, and he obliged by parting his lips and suddenly the clumsiness gave way to stubbornness and instinct. Her tongue sought the silky heat of his mouth, exploring it with the same kind of rolling, swirling intimacy that had caught her by surprise last night. It seemed to win a similar reaction from him for he stiffened and resisted the encroachment as if, all things said, it was an unwanted intrusion.

She forced his lips even wider and thrust deeper, determined to prove she could be as irreverent as he, but somewhere between the rush of smug satisfaction and the surge of unwarranted physical pleasure, she felt his arms circle her waist and lift her against him. He gathered her close enough to cause the tingling tension in her breasts to