Meriel Fuller - The Warrior's Princess Bride

‘I thought you said you couldn’t!’ His gaze swept over her fragile figure, clinging like a wisp of lace to the tree. Really, this royal maid seemed to contradict herself with every sentence! Did she not know her own mind?

‘I feel better now,’ she replied. ‘I think I’ll be able to come down on my own.’

‘No chance!’ he countered bluntly. ‘I, for one, have had enough of being stuck up a tree. I can’t wait all day, and all night for that matter, for you to make up your mind. You’re coming down now!’

Stretching his big body upwards, he thrust one hand over her calf, fastened his fingers around the crook of her knee, and pulled, hard. Her feet teetered precariously.

‘Nay! What are you doing?’ she protested, as he began to haul her body downwards. Her fingers scrabbled violently at the branch that had become her security, trying to cling on, but his grip was too powerful. Slithering downwards, she became acutely aware of the touch of his hands over her hips, her backside and, finally, the sensitive curve of her waist. He held her wrapped against him, her feet flailing uselessly in the air.

‘It’s almost as if you don’t want to come down.’ His warm breath skimmed her ear intimately. ‘Now, why would that be?’

‘Because I don’t want to go with you!’ she shouted into the soft wool of the tunic that covered his chainmail, furious at his rough manhandling. Steel-clad arms braced her waist, making any escape attempt impossible. ‘Let me go!’ she ordered, imperiously.

‘If I let you go, then you will fall straight out of the tree,’ he advised her quietly. ‘I am the only thing holding you at the moment.’ The mellow timbre of his words had a curious effect on her, generating a weird fluttering sensation in her belly.

‘Youpushtheboundariesofcommon decency,’ she threw back waspishly. ‘This is no way to treat a princess! Even captured knights are treated better than this. Just wait until I tell King Malcolm about you!’

Laughter rumbled deep in his chest; the vibrations pushing the muscled breadth of his torso against her own softer curves. Holding her with one arm, he yanked the curling end of her braid sharply, bringing tears to her eyes as he forced her to lift her chin, to look at him.

‘You’re no more a princess than I am,’ he announced, the smoke-grey of his eyes grimly assessing.

Tavia licked her lips nervously, a dryness scouring her throat. Her heart hammered in her chest. Was he going to kill her?

‘Are you?’ he said again, jerking the end of her braid once more.

‘Of course I am,’ she replied. Her voice echoed lamely.

The breeze ruffled through the sable smoothness of his hair, hair that gleamed like the polished skin of a hazelnut. A few strands fell across his forehead, softening the rawboned angularity of his features.

‘So I’ve never met you before.’

‘Correct.’

‘Liar.’

He would know the maid anywhere: the proud, defiant tilt of her chin, the huge eyes of cobalt blue and that hair, her beautiful wine-dark hair that proclaimed her identity like a flag.

‘How did you ever think you would pass as a princess?’ His tone mocked her.

To admit her true identity would be to fail. And she was not about to do that! This man had to believe her! For the sake of her mother, for this whole plan to work, she had to convince him! Sticking her chin imperiously in the air, Tavia addressed him in prim tones, trying to ignore the proximity of his big body pressed up against her own soft curves.

‘Because I am a princess, you fool!’

His eyes narrowed, sparkling chips of granite. ‘Oh, so it’s usual practice for a princess to run around her own city dressed in peasant clothes; it’s usual practice for a princess to shoot a crossbow with unerring accuracy?’ He lifted one dark eyebrow. ‘Credit me with some intelligence, my lady!’

One finger picked nervously at the nail on her thumb squashed into her side by his big arm. This wasn’t going to be easy. ‘I admit that my behaviour is unusual for a lady of rank,’ she ventured, refusing to let his mocking stare intimidate her, ‘but Malcolm taught me to shoot from an early age, and sitting in the woman’s solar all day is boring! It’s fun going around the town dressed in peasant clothes.’

‘Not so fun when you’re nearly raped by English soldiers, I suspect.’ A stinging wryness entered his tone.

She shuddered slightly at the memory, heart thrilling at the note of doubt creeping into his voice. Benois sighed, momentarily allowing himself to enjoy the maid’s soft curves against his own hard frame. He stared at her intently, drinking in the lush, perfect oval of her face, trying to read her mind. What if the maid spoke the truth?

Tavia schooled her features into an expression of stern chastisement. ‘Mayhap we could discuss this further on the ground?’ She tilted her head in question. ‘I don’t feel entirely safe up here.’ Without thinking, she flicked her blue, long-lashed eyes up to his, trying to impress on him the need to descend, willing herself to ignore the strange, flickering excitement that jolted upwards through her belly and chest at the alluring proximity of his body.

Benois’s arms tightened imperceptibly around her; it was a long time since he had held a woman thus. With lurching awareness, he realised his own body’s physical response to the maid’s nearness: fierce, hungry, demanding. The peach-like lustre of her flushed skin drew him, the pretty curve of her mouth drew him in…she lured him, like a siren singing far out to sea. A predatory glow moderated his flinty gaze; Tavia saw it, and knew at once his intention. ‘Stop! I command you to stop!’ she cried, pushing futilely at the punishing lock of his arms. ‘You mustn’t do this! I am the princess!’

‘I don’t care!’ he growled, his voice husky with desire.

As his lips descended, he told himself he had earned this kiss. The maid had teased and taunted him, caused him to miss his lunch and no doubt his supper as well. There was nothing in the least that attracted him to her; the maid was slender and short, her arms thin and wiry, completely opposite to the type of women he sought for physical solace. Henry’s camp women, who accompanied the royal court and its entourage of soldiers in the hope of making ready coin, were normally tall and buxom, their beauty often spoiled by the tawdry nature of their business.

The sweetness of her lips stunned him; in that first, fleeting touch, all conscious thought, all logic, fled, to be replaced by a raging thirst to discover more, to plunder further, deeper. The brace of his arms shifted slightly, hauling her closer to him, thigh to thigh, hip to hip. At the intimate contact, she gasped against his mouth. He groaned, bringing one hand up to cup the back of her head, to tangle his fingers in the silk of her hair, to bring her lips closer to him.

Tavia began to struggle against him, ramming her toes into his shins, pushing her small hands against his chest.

‘Nay…’ He lifted his head, his grey irises lit with silvered threads, passion unbalancing him. ‘My lady…for God’s sake…don’t struggle!’ The innate strength in that waif-like body caught him unawares, and, with horrible realisation, he felt her sliding towards the ground. In a moment he had reached down to grab a fistful of cloth at her waist, catching her, but the fierce movement threw him off balance, and they crashed down through the branches together to land in a tangle of limbs below.

The fall winded him slightly, but luckily the branches had broken much of the impact. Although he had managed to twist slightly as he landed, he feared the maid had caught at least half his weight on impact. He lifted himself up on his arms, assessing her, searching her pale face for some sign of life.