Страница 28 из 96
Her wide blue eyes swimming with mirth and her shoulders shaking helplessly, she said, "At first I managed to hide it, and then I snatched a handkerchief and pressed it to my lips, but I was so overwrought the giggles became a laugh. I laughed and I laughed and 'twas so contagious even poor Bre
Raising her mirthful eyes to Royce's she gasped gaily, "Artichokes! Have you ever heard anything so absurd?"
With a supreme effort, Royce managed to look puzzled. "You don't believe artichokes are beneficial to a man's prowess?"
"I-er-" Je
"Certainly not," Royce said straight-faced. "Everyone knows 'tis leeks and walnuts that are beneficial in such matters."
"Leeks and -!" Je
"What 'unforgivable folly' did you commit that time?"
She sobered. "I openly challenged Alexander to either take back the things he was saying about me or else meet me on the field of honor-in a local tournament we had each year near Merrick."
"And he refused," Royce said with somber tenderness.
"Of course. 'Twould have been disgraceful for him to do otherwise. Besides my being a girl, I was only fourteen and he was twenty. I cared naught for his pride, however, for he was-not very nice," she finished mildly, but there was a wealth of pain in those three words.
"Did you ever avenge your honor?" Royce asked, an unfamiliar ache in his chest.
She nodded, a hint of a rueful smile touching her lips. "Despite Father's command that I not go near the tournament, I persuaded our armorer to lend me Malcolm's armor, and on the day of the joust, without anyone knowing who I was, I rode out onto the field and faced Alexander, who had distinguished himself often in the lists."
Royce felt his blood turn cold at the thought of her galloping down the field, charging toward a grown man wielding a lance. "You're lucky you were only unseated and not killed."
She chuckled. " 'Twas Alexander who was unseated."
Royce stared at her in blank confusion. "You unseated him?"
"In a way," she gri
In the shocked moment of silence that preceded Royce's explosion of laughter she added, "He slid off his horse."
Outside the little clearing, knights and squires, mercenaries and archers stopped what they were doing and stared at the woods where the earl of Claymore's laughter rose above the trees.
When at last he'd caught his breath, Royce regarded her with a tender smile filled with admiration. "Your strategy was brilliant. I'd have knighted you right there on the field."
"My father was not quite so enthusiastic," she said without rancor. "Alex's skill at the joust was the pride of our clan-something I'd failed to consider. Instead of knighting me on the field, my father gave me the thrashing I probably deserved. And then he sent me off to the abbey."
"Where he kept you for two full years," Royce summarized, his voice filled with gruff gentleness.
Je
"They're true," Royce contradicted shortly, as visions of the countless bloody battles he'd fought paraded across his mind in all their lurid ugliness, complete with battlefields littered with the corpses of his own men and those of his foes.
Je
"Believe it!" he warned. Part of the reason Royce wanted her was that she did not cast him in the role of bestial conqueror when he touched her, but he was equally unwilling to let her deceive herself by casting him in another role-that of her knight in virtuous, shining armor. "Most of it is true," he said flatly.
Dimly, Je
In response, his hand slid lower, splaying against her spine to force her body into intimate, thorough contact with his rigid thighs-an eloquent statement that he couldn't, and wouldn't, stop. His other hand slid to her nape, stroking sensuously, urging her to lift her head for his kiss. Drawing a shattered breath, Je
His hand plunged into her thick hair, holding her captive while his mouth seized hers in a plundering, devouring kiss that sent her spiraling off into a hot darkness where nothing mattered except his seductive, urgent mouth and knowledgeable hands. Overwhelmed by her own tenderness and his raw, potent sexuality, Je