Meriel Fuller - Innocent's Champion

‘Wake up!’ he said, louder this time. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’ How had he even managed to become caught up in this mess? He should have ignored the shouts, turned his back on the situation. Henry would be along in a moment to see what was keeping him. He swallowed the thought that the maid was fortunate not to have been killed; if she hadn’t fallen, he would have run her through with his sword, thinking her to be a man. She was lucky to be alive.

Her eyelids fluttered open; she observed him hazily for a moment. Her eyes were blue, enormous in her oval face, the lilac-blue of forget-me-nots. Limpid eyes, stunning.

Desire surged through him. Shocked, he sat back abruptly on his heels, tamping down the lurch of pleasure, annoyed with himself, annoyed at his body’s response. With her hair dishevelled and her gown askew, the maid was a mess, with a shrewish tongue as well, if her reaction to him in the river was anything to go by. And yet his body had responded to her like a callow youth in the first flush of romance. He was at a loss to explain it.

Her gaze sharpened, turning to an expression of sheer terror, her pupils dilating in fright as she remembered where she was, who he was. She opened her mouth.

‘No!’ He held up his hands, palms flat. ‘No, please don’t scream. Not again. I told you I’m not going to hurt you!

Spine pressed back into lumpy ground, Matilda focused on the stern lines of the man’s face, the forbidding slash of his mouth, his tousled hair. He looked like a Viking of old, a barbarian who had waded in from the longships, raiding and ransacking everything in their path. An expanse of grey metal plate covered his huge chest; his arms were covered in flexible chain mail. Impenetrable eyes, the colour of rain-washed granite, bore into her.

Breath punched from her lungs in fear; she shook her head from side to side. ‘No, I...don’t...believe...you,’ she managed to stutter out. The cold stickiness of her clothes seeped into her bones. ‘You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?’ Her voice rose, wobbling, on a wave of shrill hysteria.

To her surprise, the man lifted his chin and laughed. The sun caught the rich wheat colour of his hair, augmenting the vigorous strands to shining gold. ‘Believe me, if I was going to kill you, I would have done it by now.’

Well, that was reassuring. Lying prone and limp beneath his intimidating perusal, Matilda glared at him, chewing at her bottom lip, unsure. She needed to sit up, stand up and face him, eye to eye, but right at this moment, a debilitating weakness sapped her strength, made her muscles floppy. What was the matter with her?

‘What were you playing at, shooting at us like that?’ Kneeling at her side, the man spoke with the cool, modulated tones of the nobility, and his clothes, despite being travel-worn, were of good quality.

‘You attacked us!’ she hissed, trying to stop her teeth from chattering. Pressing her hands back into the grass, she struggled into a seated position. It was a mistake. With this hulk of a man right next to her, his rough-hewn features and exquisitely carved mouth were on a level with her own, too close! She shifted her hips, straining her body backwards to create a bigger space between them. His nearness unsettled her. ‘You attacked defenceless women, attacked our knights, our servants!’

‘Not me, not us.’ He shook his head, blond hair falling across his temple. The hood of his hauberk, which he wore beneath his breastplate, gathered in glittering metallic folds behind his head, emphasising the corded strength of his neck. ‘We heard the screams and came running. You’re fortunate that we did, otherwise something worse than falling in the river might have happened to you.’ His piercing grey eyes swept the length of her shuddering body, from her glossy silken hair, past her neat waist, to her diminutive feet in soft leather slippers peeking out from beneath her gown.

Matilda flushed, heated colour flooding her cheeks beneath his diamond stare. His eyes were like silver coins. She tilted her chin downwards, setting her mouth in a fixed stubborn line. The insinuation was unmistakable and she hated him for it. ‘It would never have come to that,’ she stated, trying to inject some confidence into her voice, drawing her spine up straight. ‘Someone would have stopped them, either our knights...or me.’

‘You?’ He tilted his head to one side, a small smile playing across his generous mouth. His tanned skin was flushed from the sun, emphasising the taut hollows beneath his high cheekbones. ‘But you were floundering in the river.’

‘Only because you made me fall!’ Her voice rang out with accusation. ‘You’re on my gown,’ she croaked out irritably, tugging at her skirts. ‘Can you move, please?’

Gilan looked down at his knees planted firmly in the expanse of blue, very wet, velvet silk. He didn’t move. ‘Is that all you have to say for yourself? Most people would be thanking me, and my men, for what we did back there.’

‘You nearly drowned me, or have you forgotten?’ She folded her arms high across her chest, trying to keep her shivers hidden from his predatory gaze.

He quirked one eyebrow at her. ‘Forgive me, my lady, but from the way you lurched back from my hold, I think you were trying to drown yourself.’

‘I thought you were one of them,’ she mumbled, plucking at a loose silver thread that had come adrift from the belt around her ribcage. Her fingernails were pale pink, like the polished interior of a shell.

‘What were you thinking of, shooting like that? You had a perfect hiding place, why did you not keep quiet? Wait until those men had gone?’

Her blue eyes flashed up at him. ‘Because I wanted to help. I could help. I can shoot as well as any man.’ Hands pooled in her lap, Matilda laced her fingers together, trying to stop them trembling.

Gilan raised his eyebrows at her bold words, surprised. Why, he had never heard a woman speak thus, with such a sense of pride in her own ability. She was a good shot, too, he thought grudgingly, remembering the hiss of the arrow past his head. He narrowed his eyes suddenly, noting the telltale shake of her shoulders beneath the countless pleats of her bodice, the blueness around her lips.

‘You’re freezing,’ he announced bluntly. ‘Do you live hereabouts?’ Rising swiftly to his feet, he stepped off her gown. Matilda pulled at it hurriedly, gathering the voluminous folds around her slim legs. Why did he not just go away? He made her feel vulnerable, exposed, as if her own efforts had all been in vain. He towered over her, big shoulders blocking out the sun, dark blue cloak swinging down to his knees, emblazoned with small golden fleur-de-lis.

Golden fleur-de-lis? Her heart flipped dangerously, warning her, a small pucker of skin pleating between her dark eyebrows. ‘Do you ride with the king?’

He grinned down at her pale, worried face. ‘No, the complete opposite. I ride with the man who intends to push him from the throne.’

‘Henry of Lancaster,’ she whispered.

‘Correct.’ Gilan nodded. Insects buzzed and whirred in the tall grass, the sound soporific in the pressing heat of the afternoon.

Matilda’s heart lurched, fear scything through her. She would have to be careful. They would all have to be careful. Katherine and her husband were staunch supporters of King Richard, and by association with them, so was she. She was certain Henry of Lancaster would not take kindly to such a kinship, so the sooner she was away from this man, this formidable stranger, the better. She lifted one hand to her forehead and pushed distractedly at the silver net which seemed to drag lopsidedly over one ear.

‘I said, do you live hereabouts?’

Really, he talked to her as if she were a dim-witted peasant! But with her flesh prickling uncomfortably with river water, and her mind fuddled by his overbearing presence, she was finding it difficult to concentrate. She breathed in deeply, trying to gain some control over her tattered senses. ‘Yes, yes, we do. We were on our way home when we were attacked.’