With Her Kiss (Swords of Passion) (11 page)

“Aye, my lord.”

“By writ from William the Conqueror, you are the heir to the Earldom of Harleigh and your mother’s lands and wealth. By ordinance from me, you hold my barony in Winton. Let no man and no king say you nay. By blood and right, they are all yours.”

“Aye, I will claim them, Father.” The young man’s eyes clouded. “John will have a formidable enemy in me should he harm you and my mother.”

Geoffrey hugged him fiercely, then turned for the stairs, the stables and his mount.

At the gatehouse door minutes later, Reginald joined him as did a sleepy and disgruntled monk. Geoffrey urged them to mount the horses he had brought for them and gave the signal for his gatekeeper to lift the portcullis and open the doors. The three rode out across the drawbridge and forded the river towards the camp of the man whom he hated. He would have Katherine for his own as he had promised her or he would die trying.

* * * *

A woman alone, Kat knew, never walked into an armed camp of men itching for the day of battle. Waiting hours in the windy night among the trees at the edge of the forest, she peered into the throng of tents, discerning which might be John’s. No fool, he would choose a defensible spot, not necessarily at the centre of this men, but one that afforded him easy egress should the struggle not go his way.

His men slept deeply, most of them huddled in their cloaks upon the bare ground. Never would she understand men who so easily compelled others to fight for prideful things.
Like the possession of a woman. Or the right to kill her for her failure to come willingly to his bed.

She snorted. Then she clutched her cloak about her throat and picked her way among the men upon the hard earth. Even the two guards outside John’s tent slept like babies. She carefully lifted the flap and stepped inside.

Here, a small fire burned in a pot-bellied kettle. Close to John’s royal cot, the heat bore the aromas of rosemary and cumin. So vain, so needy was this sovereign that he would use his hard-won royal taxes to buy rich herbs that he sent up in smoke. As if his dreams could be perfumed by rare and heady delights. She choked back a laugh as she watched him, his head on one hand as he slept open-mouthed like a child.

A quick glance about his person and she saw what she needed. His dagger.

In one swipe, she had it in hand, ready to carve out his heart. Instead, she stroked his cheek with the point, and the cool steel had him swat at the thing that disturbed his rest.

Blinking at her, he did not believe his eyes. Rising on one elbow, he sank away from her. And cursed roundly as he wrestled the knife from her hand so easily, so quickly.

He narrowed his eyes at her, the dagger up to strike at her. “What hell is this?”

She chuckled in triumph to have scared him. This she would remember until she died. His fear, his abject terror that this might be his last night and that she might take from him his last breath was delicious to behold.

At her leisure while he collected his wits, she found a chair and sat in it, arranging her gown and cloak as if she were the regal one. “I come to offer terms.”

“T-terms?” he blubbered. “Oh, you cannot be serious.”

“But I am.”

“You are—” He spun towards the entrance to his tent. Then he shot from his bed, trudged to the flap still up from her entry, and kicked his two guards like dogs. “Wake up, damn you! Guards! Guards!”

Kat heard the scuffle of feet, the alarm in male voices.

Then John’s. “Take these two to the edge of the copse and slit their throats.”

Men objected, pleading to no avail.

“You, there, come here. Sit at your King’s tent and by Christ do not go to sleep and do not allow anyone else to enter, lest you too are dispatched for your dereliction of duty. Check the rest of the camp. Get them awake! All of them! And admit no one else, or did I have to say that, hmm?”

Kat watched it all with wry amusement as bowing and scraping seemed the necessary task for long minutes. At once, John stepped inside, flipped down the flap and glared at her.

She smiled at him, calm in her purpose, serene in her dedication.

“Smug.” He upbraided her as his eyes took in every detail of her form. “You do come back from the dead with alarming beauty.”

She met his gaze square on. This begrudging praise was precisely the reaction she wanted from him.

He strode to a table, grabbed a pitcher and poured a measure of blood-red wine into two goblets. “You have come alone, I imagine.”

As he handed her a cup, she took it and drank. “Why imagine?”

“St Claire went to all this trouble to save you, enlisting his men and friends, allying himself with more barons than any one should claim other than the King, even fooling the poor nuns, and then you walk out on him.” He laughed and downed a measure of the wine. Swiping his lips with the back of his hand, he sat down on his cot to study her. “I know he would not sanction that you come to me freely. Alone, no less. At night.”

“Unarmed, too,” she taunted him and took a delicate sip of her wine. “I had to avail myself of your own dagger. Just for the fun of seeing you gasp.”

“I did not gasp.”

“So you say. But I saw your face. Would that I could hire an artist to render in paints what I saw there.”

“You flatter yourself to think you have any days left to do that.”

Lowering her gaze to her cup, she traced its rim pensively. “I know. But I do like to bait you. After all, you have done so much worse to me.”

“And can again.”

She raised her face to lock her gaze to his. “You think that you can starve me again? Kill me this time?”

He spread out an arm. “Why do you think I am here? To take you and play chess with you?”

“But I am here to play that game with you.”

He crossed one leg over the other, his gaze dropping from her throat to her breasts and up to her eyes once more. “Is that so?”

“I have what you want. I will play you for the chance to win it.”

“And if I don’t agree? Even if I lose the game, you lose your freedom and your life.”

“You would have it said out there among your men that you allowed a woman to sneak into your tent, best them and you, pull your own knife on you and then you would not be honourable enough to humour her with a game of chess? Are you so bloodthirsty, Sire?”

He grinned, an evil light in his dark orbs. “I am.”

“Once not long ago, you wanted not my blood on your hands but your hands on my body.”

“You come to offer me your surrender as your prize for a game!” he chided. “Unbelievable.”

“Am I not as desirable as when you saw me last year or the year before or many years before that?”

His nostrils flared. He made a wry face. “Your hair is gone. You look like a boy.”

Yet she saw his cock jump in his nightshirt.
Intrigued, aye, you are.
She parted her lips, lowered her voice to sultry invitation. “Then you could take me as a man does a boy.”

He scoffed, yet it did not cover his interest. “You joke.”

“Do I? Is that what you wish? Certainly, not what you had in mind for me before, but then I am not the one to define how you mate. I only wish to offer you total domination if you give me what I want.”

“I could take you without a game, without this infernal bargaining!”

“Aye. You could. But where would be the conquest?” She waved a hand at him. “You might even wish for others to view our exhibition.”

His eyes bulged. “You have been deranged by your days in the dungeon.”

“Or so thrilled by my nights with the man I loved that I give him up and take you instead.”

“Ah, there it is. For the chance to fuck you, you want St Claire’s freedom.”

“And my son’s.”

“Geoffrey’s bastard, you mean.”

“My boy bears Harleigh’s name and heritage. You will approve his inheritance.”

“Then let St Claire live long enough to make a writ and give his lands to the boy as well?”

She rolled a shoulder, no need to reply to the obvious here.

“I wonder.” His tongue snaked out to wet his lower lip. “Are you that good in bed?”

“You could take me, fuck me like a wench and throw me away, but I do assure you that way I would never give you the satisfaction that you crave.”

She rose from her chair and approached him, her hips slightly swaying in invitation. “A willing woman is so much more enjoyable, is she not? I know a man is.” She traced a fingertip over the whorl of his ear. “And when you crave a special person in your bed for years and years, you can be lavish in your gifts and sensual in your joys. Don’t you agree?”

His eyes went blank and the starkness shocked her. Had he never had a true love in his arms? Was he so deranged that he had done all this, roused these men, ordered these armaments to gain a woman in his bed who hated him? If so, he was mad.

He curled a lip. “I could kill you now.”

She nodded, wary of his hesitation in accepting her offer. “Revenge would be swift. But not sweet. You do know that or you would have used your dagger on me when first you took it from me.”

He grabbed her hand, pressed the palm to his lips and planted a warm kiss there. She set her jaw, steeling herself to accept his lizard’s touch. For if she could not bear his lips upon her skin, how could she bear his cock inside her cunt?

“Sire! Sire!”

Cries of his sentries filled the air.

Nooo. Nooo. No interruptions now. He is mine. Nearly mine!

John cursed, rose and went to raise the flap of his tent. “What?”

“Sire, we have need of you on the eastern flank.”

“Why? What goes?”

“A line of archers, Sire. The banners are those of St Claire. Winton, Sire.”

“And how many are they?” John asked.

Though she could not see his face, his voice gave evidence that his fury was as hell-deep as her own.

No. Why has Geoffrey not left this to me? I will not have all this agony be for naught.

Minutes later, a cadre of John’s guards ushered Geoffrey into his tent. Geoffrey was surrounded by his chief of arms, Reginald, and a monk. Geoffrey’s gaze met hers in defiance the moment he stood before John. Kat chose to focus on Reginald, who stood tall and fiercely proud beside his lord. But the monk intrigued her.

And evidently the little man returned the interest. His face was kindly, smiling in soft reassurance. In his attitude in this audience, Kat thought him as mad as John. For a moment, she questioned her own sanity because, for some odd reason, the monk looked familiar.

John looked up at Geoffrey. “Be quick about this, St Claire. You weary me with your defiance of my power.”

“I come not to take your power, Sire,” Geoffrey said to him, “but to temper it.”

“You cannot.”

“I come to take back my lady.” Geoffrey glanced at her, his countenance rigid with anger.

“If you speak of Lady Harleigh, she came here of her own accord. She does not wish to return.”

“Your days of coercing women to your bed are done. Tax us all blind, if you dare, but you cannot couple a public obligation with a private one.”

John paced before Geoffrey. “I will do as I wish.”

“My friends outside say you nay. We have you and your men blocked from exit of this valley.”

“At last count, you had not enough to do that.”

Geoffrey gave him a small smile. “When was your last count?”

John blustered. His face fell. “I will not be bullied.”

“How ironic. You know the tactic so well,” Geoffrey chided him.

“I will hold you until hell freezes over. I do not care how many men you have assembled.”

Geoffrey shook his head. “You should.”

“Guard!” John shouted, hands on his hips. “Find my sergeant. Have him come forward with a current assessment of my Lord St Claire’s men at arms.”

“As he counts,” Geoffrey nigh unto cooed at John, “you would do wise to consider giving the lady to me.”

“I will not leave,” she told them all. “I came to end this matter in my own way.”

John lifted both hands. “There. You see. She does not wish to go with you, St Claire. For all your generosity in and out of bed, she will not go. She will not obey. She is not yours.”

Kat grimaced at John’s words. Upon his lips, her decision seemed so small, so unworthy of Geoffrey who was ready to lose his land, his title, even his life for her.

“But she is,” Geoffrey told him, his voice hoarse with rough emotion. “Tell King John what he must know, Domine James.”

The monk cleared his throat. “Sire, I beg you to understand the circumstances here.”

Kat wrinkled her brow in thought. His voice sounded so familiar. His face, now that he spoke, reminded her of a vision she had dreamt often these past few days. The man wore black robes. The light was dim. The air was damp and smelt of rot.

“My Lady Harleigh was spirited from her own home by a Lord Ferrer. This was a heinous abduction.”