Meriel Fuller - Innocent's Champion

‘We?’ He raised one dark blond eyebrow.

‘My sister and I.’ She clapped her fingers over her horrified mouth. ‘Oh, Lord... Katherine!’

Gilan arched one thick blond eyebrow, the tanned skin around his eyes crinkling. ‘There’s another one of you?’

‘I have to fetch her!’ Bending her knees, Matilda struck both feet firmly against the ground, struggling against the wet, sticky material in an attempt to rise.

‘Allow me.’ His voice curled over her, a low, seductive rumble. Leaning down, he seized her icy fingers in his bearlike grip, catapulting her upwards in one swift movement. There was nothing gentle about his offer of help: one moment she was sitting on the ground, legs outstretched before her, the next she was on her feet, teetering dangerously at his side. His fingers remained around her hand, steadying her.

‘You can let go now,’ she said, her voice prim. Anything to remove his compelling touch from her body. ‘I’m fine.’

‘You don’t look fine.’ He studied the shadowed patches beneath her eyes, noted the rapid pulse beneath the skin of her neck. ‘You look like you’re about to collapse in a heap.’

‘Well, I’m not,’ she snapped, wrestling her hand away from his hold. ‘I’m stronger than I look.’ She caught the supercilious raise of his eyebrows; he didn’t believe her! ‘I need to find my sister, that’s all. I told her to hide when those men came and not to come out until I called her.’

‘Call her, then.’ His silver eyes scanned the tumbled-down tower, the lumps of stone covered with moss and lichen, the dense forest of trees behind, and he sighed. How long was this going to take?

Chapter Three

Matilda ran a slender finger between her neck and the high collar of her gown, trying to relieve the uncomfortable sensation of wet fabric against flesh: an unconscious movement. In the strong heat of the afternoon, her looped-up hair dried rapidly, curling tresses pulling against silver hairpins. She attempted to pat some of the pins back into place, to adjust the net that held her hair in place. She supposed she must look awful.

Lifting her chin, she called out to her sister. Her clear, bell-like tones cut across the torpid languor of the afternoon. ‘Katherine!’ she shouted, holding up her weighty skirts so she could manoeuvre over the stones. ‘You can come out now, we’re safe!’ Or safer than we were, she thought, casting a hunted, sideways glance at the stranger. The knight rode with Henry, Duke of Lancaster, a man who had the potential to make their situation far worse.

‘Do you think she might have run into the forest?’ Gilan suggested. The maid’s hair, silken and lustrous, sagged precariously. Hairpins stuck out at all angles from the plaited rolls on each side of her head. He wondered what her hair would look like when it was unpinned. Would those curling ends brush against the enticing swell of her hips?

Matilda twisted around to face him. ‘She is incapable of running anywhere... Katherine is pregnant, you see.’

‘Ah.’

She sensed the irritation running through his lean, muscled frame. He stood there with the stance of a fighter, legs planted firmly in the swishing grass, cloak spilling down over his shoulders, the dark blue fabric framing the burnished steel of his breastplate. Beneath the armour he wore a hooded tunic, a thin material that reached the middle of his thighs, split at the sides for ease of riding. Driven into a leather belt around his hips, the jewelled hilt of his sword flashed in the sun. The formidable power of his body was plain to see; she was in no doubt that he was a force to be reckoned with. She had to get rid of him before he realised they supported King Richard, before he had a chance to punish them for that loyalty.

Glancing across to the packhorse bridge, she saw with relief that all the servants were safe, the gang of ruffians driven away. Even the soldier who had fallen from his horse was propped up against the litter, conversing quietly with the other household knight, hand pressed up hard against his bloodied shoulder.

Matilda drew herself up to her full height, which annoyingly, seemed only a shade above this disquieting man’s shoulder. ‘Please don’t let me, let us, keep you from anything,’ she intoned formally. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded jerky, too precise. ‘I’m sure there is somewhere that you would rather be.’

‘There is.’ He inclined his head to one side, a gesture of agreement. ‘But the laws of chivalry prevent me from leaving a damsel and her sister in distress.’

His hair was quite an incredible colour, thought Matilda. Pale gold, like washed sand on a deserted shoreline. The strands glowed in the sun with a bright star’s incandescence. A heated flutter stirred her stomach, coiling slowly; she ducked her eyes, toeing the ground with the damp, squishy leather of her slipper.

‘Oh, I don’t believe in all that chivalry nonsense.’ She waved one white hand at him airily, attempting to keep her tone light, practical. ‘Katherine doesn’t, either. Look, our servants are fine, and I think our knights will live. So we really don’t need you any more. Thank you for what you’ve done, and...and everything.’ Her sentence trailed off at the end, lamely.

He was being dismissed. Gilan watched her hand flick through the air at him, as if she were shooing away a fly. A small, insignificant fly.

His eyes gleamed. ‘I’ll help you find her, at least.’

Matilda’s shoulders slumped forwards, a visible sign of defeat. Why did she object to his presence so much? Most women would be clinging on to him by now, weeping on his shoulder about the outrages of their attack, begging him to help, but this maid? Once she had realised he was no threat to her, her whole demeanour moved to the defensive, indicating in no uncertain terms that she wished him to disappear.

‘Don’t feel you have to,’ she tried once more. Her voice was limp.

‘I want to,’ he lied, knowing this would annoy her even more. Her abrasive manner intrigued him; he couldn’t remember a woman being quite so stubborn, so ungrateful , as this pert-nosed chit. His lips twitched at the disgruntled set of her shoulders as she turned away from him, intending to head into the woodland behind the tower. His fingers reached out, snaring the soft flesh of her upper arm, stalling her. ‘I suggest you remove your cloak. The wet fabric will slow you down,’ he said.

Matilda whisked around, glowering at him, then wordlessly raised both hands to the pearl-studded clasp at her shoulder. Her frozen fingers struggled with the intricate fixings.

‘Here, let me,’ he offered, exasperated, tough fingers dealing quickly, efficiently with the stiff fastening. One rough knuckle brushed the sensitive skin of her neck, below her ear, and she gasped out loud. A sweet, looping sensation plummeted straight to her belly. Astounded by her response, she staggered back, her mind draining of conscious thought. Her breath disappeared. The cloak slithered down her back, over her slim hips, pooling into loose folds around her ankles.

‘There,’ he announced. ‘Now we can get on with the business of finding your sister.’

Hating the man at her side, this stranger who dogged her steps, who refused to go away, Matilda strode into the woodland, her skirts swishing angrily through the drifts of spent cow parsley, across collapsed bluebell stalks, sweeping her gaze across the shadowed green beneath the spreading beech, searching for the blotch of colour that would be Katherine.

‘She’s wearing a red gown,’ she chewed out grudgingly. The sooner they found Katherine, the sooner this horrible man would be on his way. Her hand crept up to the spot below her ear, still throbbing from his touch, amazed at her reaction to him. Her fall into the river had obviously shaken her up more than she realised. Men did not often have the power to affect her in such an adverse manner.