A Kingdom of Dreams

  Gawin was staring at his lord's wound with a fury that outmeasured Royce's, and when the boy looked at Jenny, there was murder in his eye. "I'll fetch the guard," he said with a final loathsome look at her.

  "Don't be a fool!" Royce snapped. "Would you have word spread throughout the camp and then the land that I was wounded by a nun? 'Tis fear of me, of my legend, that defeats our enemies before they ever raise their weapons against me!"

  "I beg pardon, milord," Gawin said. "But how will you stop her from telling it once you let her loose?"

  "Let me loose?" Jenny said, roused from her fear-induced trance as she stared at the blood she'd drawn. "You intend to let us loose?"

  "Eventually, if I don't murder you first," the Wolf snapped, shoving her away from him with a force that sent her sprawling amidst the heap of rugs in the corner of his tent. He snatched up the flagon of wine, keeping a wary eye on her, and took a long swallow, then he glanced at the large needle on the table beside the thread. "Find a smaller needle," he ordered his squire.

  Jenny sat where she was, bewildered by his words and actions. Now that her reason was returning, she could scarce believe he hadn't murdered her on the spot for trying to kill him. His words ran through her mind, " 'Tis fear of me, of my legend, that defeats our enemies before they ever raise their weapons against me." Somewhere in the dim recesses of her mind, she'd already arrived at the conclusion that the Wolf was not near so bad as legend had him—were he half as bad as they said, she'd already have been tortured and molested. Instead, he evidently intended to let Brenna and her go.

  By the time Gawin returned with a smaller needle, Jenny was feeling almost charitable toward the man she'd tried to kill but minutes before. She could not and would not forgive him for physically abusing her, but she counted matters fairly even between them, now that she'd wounded both his body and his pride as he'd wounded hers. As she sat there watching him drink from the flagon, she decided that the wisest and best course, henceforth, would be to try her best not to provoke him into changing his mind about returning them to the abbey.

  "I'll have to shave your beard, sire," Gawin said, "else I can't see the wound in order to stitch it."

  "Shave it off then," Royce muttered, "you're not much good with that needle even when you can see what you're doing. I've scars all over me to prove it."

  "A pity 'tis your face she cut," Gawin agreed, and Jenny had the feeling she'd ceased to exist for the moment. " 'Tis scarred enough already," he added as he set out a sharp knife and a cup of water for shaving.

  The boy's body blocked the Wolf from Jenny's view as he went about his task, and as the minutes slowly ticked by, she found herself leaning slightly to one side, then the other, intensely curious to see what sort of ferocious face had been concealed by his thick, black beard. Or did it hide a weak chin? she wondered, leaning further to the left, trying to see. No doubt it hid a weak chin, she decided, leaning so far to the right that she nearly lost her balance as she tried to peer around the squire.

  Royce had not forgotten her presence, nor did he trust her, now that she'd showed herself bold enough to try to end his life. Watching her from the corner of his eye, he saw her leaning from one side to the other, and he mockingly told his squire, "Move aside, Gawin, so she can see my face before she topples like an overturned bottle, trying to see around you."

  Jenny, who had leaned far to the right, trying to see, could not recover her balance quickly enough to pretend she hadn't been doing exactly that. Color washed up her cheeks and she jerked her gaze from Royce Westmoreland's face, but not before she'd gotten the startling impression that the Wolf was considerably younger than she'd thought. Moreover, he did not have a weak chin. It was a strong, square chin with a curious little dent in the center of it. More than that, she hadn't been able to tell.

  "Come, come, don't be shy," Royce prodded sarcastically, but the strong wine he'd been drinking was doing much to soothe his temper. Besides, he found her swift, startling change from daring assassin to curious young girl both baffling and amusing. "Take a good look at the face you just tried to carve your initial into," he urged, watching her prim profile.

  "I need to stitch that wound, milord," Gawin said, frowning. "It's deep and swelling and 'twill be ugly enough as it is."

  "Try not to render me hideous to Lady Jennifer," Royce said sardonically.

  "I'm your squire, milord, not a seamstress," Gawin replied, the needle and thread poised above the deep gash that began near his lord's temple and followed his jawline.

  The word "seamstress" suddenly reminded Royce of the neat, nearly invisible stitches Jenny had sewn into a pair of woolen hose, and he waved Gawin aside, turning his speculative gaze on his captive. "Come here," he told Jenny in a calm voice that nevertheless rang with authority.

  No longer eager to provoke him, lest he change his mind about releasing them, Jenny arose and warily obeyed, relieved to take the pressure off her throbbing backside.

  "Come closer," he bade her when she paused just out of his reach. "It seems only fitting that you should have to mend everything you have rent. Stitch up my face."

  In the light from the pair of candles, Jenny saw the gash she'd made in his face and the sight of that torn flesh, added to the thought of piercing it with a needle, made her feel like swooning. She swallowed the bile rising in her throat and whispered through parched lips, "I—I can't."

  "You can and you will," Royce stated implacably. A second ago, he'd started to doubt the wisdom of letting her near him with a needle, but as he witnessed her horror at the sight of what she'd done, he felt reassured. In fact, he thought, forcing her to continue to look at it—to touch it—was just retribution!

  With visible reluctance, Gawin handed her the needle and thread, and Jenny held it in her shaking hand, poised above Royce's face, but just when she was about to touch him, he stayed her hand with his and said in a cold, warning voice, "I hope you aren't foolish enough to entertain any thought of making this ordeal unnecessarily painful?"

  "No, I wasn't. I won't," Jenny said weakly.

  Satisfied, Royce held out the flagon of wine to her, "Here, drink some of this first. 'Twill steady your nerves." If he'd offered her poison at that moment, and told her it would steady her nerves, Jenny would have taken it, so distraught was she at the prospect of what she had to do. She lifted the flagon and took three long swallows, choked, then lifted it and drank some more. She would have had yet more, had the earl not firmly removed the flagon from her clenched hand. "Too much of it will cloud your vision and make you clumsy," he said dryly. "I don't want you trying to stitch my ear closed. Now, get on with it." Turning his head, he calmly offered his torn face for her ministrations while Gawin stood at Jenny's elbow, watching to make certain she did no harm.

  Never had Jenny ever pierced human flesh with her needle, and as she forced the point through the earl's swollen skin, she couldn't completely suppress her moan of sick protest. Watching her from the corner of his eye, Royce tried not to wince for fear she'd see it and faint dead away. "For an assassin, you have an amazingly weak stomach," he remarked, trying to divert his mind from the pain, and her mind from her gory task.

  Biting her lip, Jenny dug the needle into his flesh again. The color drained from her face, and Royce tried again to divert her with conversation. "Whatever made you think you had a calling to be a nun?"

  "I—I didn't," she gasped.

  "Then what were you doing at the abbey in Belkirk?"

  "My father sent me there." she said, swallowing down the sickness at her gruesome task.

  "Because he thinks you're meant to be a nun?" Royce demanded in disbelief, watching her out of the corners of his eyes. "He must see a different side of your nature than you've shown to me."

  That almost made her laugh, he noted, watching her bite her lip as the color returned to her cheeks. "Actually," she admitted slowly, her soft voice amazingly lyrical when she wasn't angry or guarded, "I suppose you could say he sent me there because he'd
seen the same side of my nature that you have."

  "Really?" Royce inquired conversationally. "What reason had you to try to kill him?"

  He sounded so genuinely disgruntled, that Jenny couldn't completely suppress a smile. Besides, she'd eaten nothing since yesterday and the heady wine was surging through her bloodstream, relaxing and warming her all the way to her toes.

  "Well?" Royce prompted, studying the tiny dimple that peeked from the corner of her mouth.

  "I did not try to kill my father," she said firmly, taking another stitch.

  "What did you do then, that he banished you to a convent?"

  "Among other things, I refused to wed someone—in a way."

  "Really?" Royce said, genuinely surprised as he recalled what he'd heard of Merrick's eldest daughter when he was last at Henry's court. Rumor had it that Merrick's eldest was a plain, prim, cold woman and a dedicated spinster. He racked his brain, trying to remember who had actually described her to him in such terms. Edward Balder, he remembered now—the earl of Lochlordon, an emissary from King James's court, had said that of her. But then, so had everyone else on those rare occasions he'd heard her mentioned at all. A plain, prim, cold spinster, they had said, but there had been more, though he couldn't recall it at the moment. "How old are you?" he asked abruptly.

  The question startled her and seemed to embarrass her. "Seventeen years," she admitted, rather reluctantly, Royce thought, "and two weeks."

  "That old?" he said, his lips twitching with a mixture of amusement and compassion. Seventeen was hardly ancient, although most girls married between fourteen and sixteen years of age. He supposed she was loosely qualified for the term spinster. "A spinster by choice then?"

  Embarrassment and denial flickered in her deep blue eyes, and he tried to recall what else they said of her at court. He could remember nothing—except that they said her sister, Brenna, eclipsed her completely. Brenna, according to rumor, had a face whose beauty outshone the sun and stars. Idly, Royce wondered why any man would prefer a meek, pale blond to this fiery young temptress, and then he recalled that he himself had generally preferred the comforts of an angelic blond—one in particular. "Are you a spinster by choice?" he demanded, wisely waiting until she'd taken another stitch before using the word that made her flinch.

  Jenny took another tiny stitch, and then another, and another, trying to stave off her sudden unaccustomed awareness of him as a handsome, virile male. And he was handsome, she realized fairly, astonishingly so. Clean-shaven, he possessed a rugged, thoroughly male sort of beauty that had taken her completely by surprise. His jaw was square, the chin clefted, his cheekbones high and wide. But what was so completely disarming was her latest discovery: The earl of Claymore, whose very name struck terror in the hearts of his enemy—had the thickest eyelashes she'd ever seen in her life! A smile danced in her eyes as she imagined how intrigued everyone would be at home when she imparted that piece of information. "Are you a spinster by choice?" Royce repeated a trifle impatiently.

  "I suppose I am, since my father warned me he'd send me to the convent if I spoiled the only eminently suitable offer of marriage I was likely ever to receive."

  "Who offered for you?" Royce asked, intrigued.

  "Edward Balder, Earl of Lochlordon. Hold still!" she commanded with outrageous temerity when he jumped in surprise. "I'll not be blamed for making a poor job of this if you mean to leap about beneath the needle."

  That sharply worded chastisement from a mere slip of a girl who was, moreover, his prisoner nearly made Royce laugh aloud. "How many damned stitches do you mean to take?" he countered irritably. " 'Twas only a small gash, anyway."

  Offended that he apparently considered her daring attack nothing more than a slight inconvenience, Jenny drew back and glared at him. " 'Tis a huge, nasty gash and nothing less!"

  He opened his mouth to argue with her but his gaze was drawn to her breasts where they strained impudently against the fabric of the shirt she wore. Odd that he hadn't noticed until just now how amply endowed she was, or how tiny her waist, or how gently rounded her hips. On second thought, not odd at all, Royce reminded himself, since she'd been wearing shapeless nun's robes until a few hours ago, and until a few minutes ago, he'd been too furious to notice what she was wearing at all. And now that he'd noticed, he wished he hadn't. Having noticed all that, he remembered full well how delightfully rounded her bottom had been. Desire leapt inside him, and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Finish your task," he said brusquely.

  Jenny noted his sudden gruffness, but she put it down to his moodiness—the same moodiness that caused him to seem like an evil monster one moment and almost like a brother in the next. For her part, her body was almost as unpredictable as his moods. A few minutes ago she'd been cold, despite the fire burning in the tent. Now she felt over-warm in her shirt! Still, she rather wanted to restore the almost friendly companionship they'd shared for the last few moments, not because she desired him for a friend, but simply because it made her less afraid of him. Tentatively, she said, "You seemed surprised when I mentioned the earl of Lochlordon."

  "I was," Royce said, keeping his expression noncommittal.

  "Why?"

  He did not want to tell her that Edward Balder was probably responsible for the somewhat unjust rumors circulating all over London about her. Considering that Balder was a vain peacock, it wasn't entirely surprising that he reacted to being a rejected suitor by blackening the name of the woman who rejected him. "Because he's an old man," Royce hedged finally.

  "He's also ugly."

  "That, too." Try as he might, Royce could not imagine a loving father actually trying to marry his daughter off to that old lecher. For that matter, Royce couldn't believe her father actually intended to keep her locked away in a convent, either. No doubt the earl of Merrick had merely sent her there for a few weeks to teach her obedience. "How long have you been at Belkirk Abbey?"

  "Two years."

  His mouth dropped open, then he caught himself and closed it. His face was hurting like hell and his disposition was taking a sudden turn for the worse. "Evidently, your father finds you as unmanageable, headstrong, willful, and unreasonable as I do," he said irritably, wishing for another long draught of wine.

  "If I were your daughter, how would you feel?" Jenny demanded indignantly.

  "Cursed," he said bluntly, ignoring her wounded look. "In two days, you've shown me more resistance than I encountered at the last two castles I took by force."

  "I meant," Jenny said, her eyes filled with ire, plunking her hands on her slim hips, "if I were your daughter, and your sworn enemy kidnapped me, how would you want me to behave?"

  Momentarily dumbstruck, Royce stared at her as he considered what she said. She had not simpered nor pled for mercy. She had, instead, tried her damnedest to outwit him, to escape from him, and to kill him, in that order. She had not shed so much as one tear, even during the sound thrashing he'd given her. Afterward, when he'd thought she was crying, she'd been planning to stab him. It crossed his mind again that she must be incapable of tears, but for the moment he was absorbed in envisioning how he would feel, were she his daughter—an innocent captured from the safety of an abbey.

  "Sheathe your claws, Jennifer," he said curtly. "You've made your point."

  She accepted her victory with a gracious nod—in fact, with far more grace than Royce had conceded it.

  It was the first time Royce had seen her really smile, and the effect on her face was more than startling. The smile came slowly, dawning in her eyes until they positively sparkled, then drifting to her generous lips, softening them at the corners until they parted, allowing a glimpse of perfect white teeth, and a pair of dimples that peeked at him from the corners of her soft mouth.

  Royce might have grinned at her, but at that moment he caught the disdainful look on Gawin's face, and it dawned on him that he was behaving like a besotted gallant to his prisoner—more importantly, to the daughter of his enemy. Most of a
ll, to the woman whose destructiveness meant that many of his men would shiver in the unseasonable cold tonight, without blankets to offer them any warmth. He nodded curtly at the pile of rugs. "Go to sleep. Tomorrow, you can start repairing the damage you did to the blankets."

  His brusqueness banished the smile from her face, and she stepped back.

  "I meant what I said," he added, angrier with himself than he was with her. "Until you've repaired the damage to the blankets, you sleep without them."

  Her chin came up in the arrogant pose he'd grown used to from her, and she turned to walk toward the rugs that served as his bed. She moved, Royce noted grimly, with the provocative grace of a courtesan, not a nun.

  Jenny lay down atop the furs while he blew out the candles; a few moments later, the earl stretched beside her, pulling the furs over him for warmth. Suddenly the comforting glow from the wine began to desert her, and her exhausted mind started replaying each nerve-shattering hour of the endless day, from early dawn when Brenna and she planned their escape, until a few hours ago, when the man beside her had recaptured her.

  Staring up into the darkness, she relived the most shattering scene of all—the one she'd been trying to forget all night. Before her eyes she saw Thor in all his magnificent splendor, prancing effortlessly through the woods, racing along the ridge, jumping obstacle after obstacle, and then she saw him lying dead against the boulder, his glossy coat shining in the moonlight.

  Tears gathered in her eyes; she drew a shattered breath and then another, trying to hold them back, but the anguish she felt for the courageous animal would not go away.

  Royce, who was afraid to fall asleep until she did, heard the ragged texture of her breathing, and then a slight, suspicious sniff. Positive she was feigning tears in hopes he would relent and let her beneath the furs, he rolled onto his side and in one smooth motion caught her face and turned it toward him. Her eyes were glittering with unshed tears. "You're so cold, you're fighting back tears?" he uttered in disbelief, trying to see her face with only the dying embers of the little fire in the center of the tent for illumination.