She forced a cool smile. "You won't live to regret it if you bleed to death either."
Conceding her point, he allowed her to proceed. After she'd torn another strip from her pajamas, she peeled back the soft leather shirt beneath his armor to reveal the sort of chest one couldn't buy from a personal trainer or expensive gym. Oddly enough, the numerous nicks and scars seemed as much a part of him as the crisp whorls of dark hair that fanned across the dusky expanse. Tabitha bit her bottom lip, struggling to concentrate on the task at hand.
As she wound the fabric around his shoulder, she glanced up to find him transfixed by her feet. He nodded toward her slippers with their bright plastic eyes and cheerfully bobbing whiskers. "What manner of creature did you kill for those?"
This time her smile was genuine. "The dreaded polyester." She was securing the bandage with a tasteful bow when his head snapped upright.
"What is it?" Tabitha whispered. She heard nothing.
Nothing but the eerie silence that had preceded his own arrival.
She sincerely hoped his tense posture was simply psychotic paranoia or overwrought acting. "What is it?" she repeated. "I don't hear anything."
He held up a hand for silence. Lucy crouched on the hillock, fully alert now, hackles rising. The horse tossed his head, whickering a warning. Then she heard it, far off in the distance like an echo from a nightmare.
The thunder of hoofbeats. The baying of hounds. The excited clamor of male voices.
The stranger grabbed her hand. "Flee, woman! I'm too weak to ride and if they find you here with me, 'twill not go well for you."
"If those are the same men who stabbed you, then I doubt it'll go very well for you either," she pointed out with irrefutable logic.
Bitterness darkened his eyes. "I'm a man. They'll only string me up from the nearest oak or cut my throat. But you're a woman. If Brisbane's dogs don't tear you to shreds, his men will."
Suddenly Tabitha didn't want to play this particular game anymore. She wanted to snatch Lucy into her arms and sprint for the far side of the meadow. She wanted to tip her face to the sky and wail, "I want my mommy!"
But her mother was nowhere in sight and this man's urgency was real, as real as the blood still seeping through the clumsy flannel bandage, as real as the bite of his fingers into her flesh, the desperate entreaty in his eyes.
"Take my mount and go," he commanded. "Before 'tis too late."
The forest no longer looked cheerful and welcoming, but dark and sinister – just right for Snow White's wicked stepmother and an entire orchard of poison apples. The baying of the hounds was growing louder and more relentless with each passing second.
Tabitha looked uncertainly at the horse. "I've never ridden before. Is it anything like riding in the back of a limousine?"
Her captor softened his grip, caressing her knuckles with his gauntleted thumb. "Go, lass," he said gently. "We'll have no more of your dallying."
Oddly enough, it was that tender rebuke that decided her.
Tabitha would never know where she found the strength to try and get him astride the horse. He cursed the entire time, colorful indictments of the fair sex in general and herself in particular. Her shortcomings were described in meticulous detail, down to her wretched stubbornness, disobedient nature, and deplorable lack of wit. When he tumbled off the horse for the third time while reaching to give her ears a halfhearted cuff, she was finally forced to admit defeat.
They lay on their backs in the grass, Tabitha gasping for breath, the knight glowering at her through the dark locks of hair that spilled over his forehead. She felt a familiar vibration shimmy up her spine, a thousand times worse than it had been before. The ground trembled as if a herd of elephants was stampeding straight for them. Not elephants, she realized in panic, but horses.
She scrambled to her feet.
"Now will you go?" the stranger bit off, his eyes glazed with a blend of fury and pain.
Sunlight glinted off steel, catching Tabitha's frantic eye. She snatched up Lucy and thrust the kitten into the man's hands. His sputters deepened to oaths when she bent to retrieve his fallen sword. It strained every muscle in her shoulders to lift the massive weapon, but lift it she did, staggering around to face the invisible threat.
If these men were ruthless enough to cut down a wounded man, they would have to come through her first.
Tabitha had never thought of herself as being particularly brave. Somehow she found the courage to stand her ground when the horses came pouring out of the forest, led by a pack of baying hounds. The riders reined in their mounts less than a foot from her outstretched blade, fanning out in a circle to surround them. The hounds bared their teeth and snapped at her pajama legs. Tabitha bit her bottom lip until she tasted blood to keep from crying out in terror.
The man mounted at the head of the party shouted some incomprehensible command and the dogs fell back, slinking away with flagging tails and reproachful looks.
"I can hardly blame them," their master drawled, "I'd sulk, too, if I'd been deprived of such a tasty morsel."
Tabitha slowly lifted her gaze to the face of the man who held their fates in his velvet-gloved hands. She expected to find a ruthless sneer, not the sort of urbane smile so prevalent at company cocktail parties. A rush of confusion dizzied her. Surely this was the man her mother had chosen to star in her fantasy.
He rode a snow-white charger with a profusion of ribbons and bells braided into its silky mane. They tinkled a winsome melody each time the spirited beast tossed its head. Tabitha wouldn't have been surprised to see a golden horn sprout from its milky brow.
The horse's master was no less a creature of myth. A honeyed mantle of hair brushed his shoulders, framing a face that might have been considered effeminate in its elfin beauty were it not for the determined jut of his clean-shaven chin. He wore a forest-green cloak trimmed in cloth-of-gold draped over his cream-colored tunic and leggings. Despite the grueling ride, he looked as fresh as if he'd just stepped from a hot shower. Tart lemon perfumed the air around him.
The man's green eyes glittered beneath arched brows a shade darker than his hair. "I've never known you to let a woman wield your precious blade, Ravenshaw." Tabitha's arms had began to droop with exhaustion; all it took was a nudge of his booted foot to drop the sword another six inches. "Perhaps you're growing soft in defeat."
The men burst into raucous laughter.
"Go to hell, Brisbane," her companion said, his voice soft, yet sharp enough to slice through their mockery.
Following Tabitha's gaze to the fallen knight, Prince Charming smiled. "And what were you going to do if this fair maiden failed to behead me? Sic your pussycat on me?"
In his effort to rise, the knight had made it only as far as his knees. Frightened by the smell of the dogs, Lucy was clinging to his brawny shoulder. A sudden thought struck her. If the man on the white horse was Prince Charming, then who the hell was he? Prince Surly? What if she'd inadvertently been aiding and abetting the villain of the piece?
She decided to test her theory. Wishing she'd paid more attention to the dialogue in those Disney movies, she tilted her head back and offered Prince Charming her sweetest smile. "Forsooth, kind sir, methinks it most fortuitous thou hast stumbled upon this damsel in distress."
One of his men nudged the other. "What'd she say?"
"Hell if I know. She's got good teeth though." The squat man grinned, revealing a mouthful of cracked and blackened stumps.
The knight was staring at her as if she'd lost her mind. But his opinion was not the one that mattered.
Prince Charming favored her with such a loving smile that she dared to lower the sword and lightly touch his knee. "I beseech you, my lord, should we not retire posthaste to your castle?"
She could not help but be slightly dazzled when he brought her grubby hand to his lips and gazed deep into her eyes. "Aye, my lady. Your wish is my command."
Your wish.
His words gave her a chill, even in
this enchanted setting. But not nearly as much of a chill as his next words did.
"Take Ravenshaw and his whore back to the castle," he commanded, his smile curling into a sneer. "Cast them into the deepest, darkest dungeon. They can rot there just as well as they can in hell."
Tabitha snatched back her hand, but the sword was torn from her grasp before she could hoist it. Prince Charming wheeled his charger in a circle, abandoning her to the fate he had decreed. As the tinkle of bells faded in the distance, his men dropped from their mounts.
They wrenched her arms behind her and bound her wrists before swarming over Ravenshaw. He only got one lick in, but it was a good one. One of Prince Charming's minions stumbled backward, blood gushing from his broken nose.
Tabitha cringed at the thud of fists against flesh.
"Raven's naught but a craven!" someone bellowed.
"Ravenshaw's a boor!" another man shouted. "Defended by a whore!"
As they forced him to his feet and dragged him toward a packhorse, the others took up the singsong chant, repeating it until Tabitha's head rang. If her hands hadn't been bound, she would have covered her ears. She remembered only too well how it felt to be mocked and taunted.
She looked helplessly at the knight, but he turned his face away from her, his mouth tightened in a contemptuous line. She didn't know why it should bother her, but her spirits plunged even further as she realized her foolish daring had earned her his eternal loathing.
Chapter 6
"Excuse me!" Tabitha shouted, rattling the iron grate set in the thick wooden door. "Excuse me, sir! Don't you have room service in this establishment?"
The only answer from the shadowy corridor beyond was the whisper of water trickling down the dank stone walls. Tabitha licked her lips, more thirsty than she'd realized.
"I should've run you through when I had the chance."
The voice came from behind her – lilting, conversational, almost tender. Tabitha swung around to shoot its owner a wounded glare. He was seated on the floor of the cell, his back to the stone wall, one lean leg drawn to his chest. Fresh blood stained his bandage and his lower lip was slightly swollen, making him look even more sullen than when she'd first encountered him.
If that were possible.
"I would think you'd be grateful," she retorted in the tone she used with insubordinate employees. "After all, I did risk my own life to save yours."
He snorted. " 'Twasn't your life you were risking, but your virtue. You were drooling over Brisbane as if he were a sweetmeat. For a moment there, I thought you were going to lick his fancy boots. Or his…" He trailed off, mumbling something beneath his breath she assumed she was better off not hearing.
Embarrassed to be reminded of how dazzled she'd been by Brisbane, Tabitha quickly changed the subject. "I wonder what happened to poor Lucy. I hate to think of her lost in that meadow. She must think I went off and abandoned her."
"If Lucy's your accursed cat, I saw one of the men stuff her into his knapsack. Going to take her home and eat her, I'd wager." At Tabitha's horrified cry, he rolled his eyes. " Twas only a jest, lass. He'll probably just carry the wee beastie back to the village for his bratlings to play with."
Tabitha sighed forlornly. "If only she were here."
"Why? So we could eat her?"
Tabitha started to protest, but she couldn't tell if his eyes were sparkling with mischief or malice. "Do you have a name?"
"Colin," he said, all traces of humor disappearing from his face. "Sir Colin of Ravenshaw."
"Colin." She rolled the name around on her tongue to savor the taste of it. She'd always thought Colin a very dignified name, the sort that ought to belong to a pale English lord sipping tea in front of the hearth with his hunting dogs napping at his feet.
"Colin the Barbarian," she tried, smiling at him.
He was not amused.
"I'm Tabitha," she volunteered. When he maintained his stony silence, she added a mocking curtsy. "Lady Lennox."
He grunted, making her wish she'd introduced herself as the Princess Tabitha. She sighed and turned back to the door. Poking her nose through the bars, she yelled: "Hey! Couldn't you at least send down some mints for our pillows? Or some pillows for our mints? If this abominable service persists, I'm going to have to insist on speaking with the concierge."
This time she was rewarded by the clang of a distant door and the shuffle of booted feet. She shot Colin a triumphant look. "See. You just have to know how to address the help."
She was forced to jump backward when a wooden bowl and a rusty cup were shoved through a metal flap at the base of the door. The footsteps receded as she picked up the bowl and poked at its contents with the wooden spoon. "Mmmm," she murmured. "Gruel. How yummy."
"You'd best eat up," Colin said quietly. " Tis the only food you're likely to be getting for a while."
Praying she hadn't actually seen something wiggle in its depths, she held out the bowl to him. "I'm not really very hungry. You can have my portion."
Shrugging, he took the bowl and dug into the watery mush as if it were a filet mignon from Peter Luger's. "A body can survive without food, you know, but not without water."
Tabitha took the hint, lifting the cup to her lips for a hearty swallow. A searing cough exploded from her lungs.
"Christ, woman, don't go wasting perfectly good ale."
"Ale?" she wheezed. "I thought you said it was water."
He shrugged. "Ale. Water. What's the difference?"
"About fifty proof," she ventured, swiping the back of her hand across her lips in a futile attempt to quench their burning. The beverage was nothing like the fulsome German lagers she'd sipped at the Twenty-One Club. She handed it to Colin. He downed it in one swallow.
Tabitha was becoming aware of another more pressing urge. While Colin polished off the gruel, she circled the cell, exploring the shadowy corners and giving several of the stone blocks timid pushes in the hopes that one of them would slide open to reveal a secret passageway. She found nothing but a splintery wooden bucket and several rat-sized holes in the crumbling mortar.
Colin finally erupted in a baffled oath. "What in God's blood are you looking for, woman?"
Tabitha spun around, embarrassed. "The bathroom."
He fixed her with that unblinking golden stare. "From the smell of you, I wouldn't say you were in want of a bath. Yet."
It discomfited her to realize he'd even noticed her scent. She hadn't dabbed on any perfume after her shower, so she doubted she smelled of anything more enticing than baby shampoo and Ivory soap. She resisted the urge to tuck her nose into her pajama shirt and steal a whiff.
"I don't need a bath. I need to…" She trailed off, seeking the appropriate euphemism.
"If it's a piss you're after…" He nodded toward the bucket.
Tabitha hated herself for blushing.
The knight arched one of his dark eyebrows, challenging her to trot right over to the corner, drop her drawers, and plop down on the rickety bucket.
At the thought of this indignity, Tabitha slid down the wall to a sitting position and hugged her knees to her chest. Her parents never stayed at any accommodation less luxurious than a fivestar hotel. While it might be conceivable that they had decided a weekend in a dungeon might prove a character-building experience, she doubted they would have chosen a dungeon with no maid service or bathroom facilities.
For the first time, she was forced to confront the possibility that this might not be her mother's idea of a romantic fantasy, but bitter reality.
She lifted her hollow gaze, really seeing the murky cell for the first time. A flimsy torch sputtered high on the wall. It didn't take much imagination to envision what might come creeping out of those holes in the mortar once the torch burned to darkness. A chill damp saturated the air, seeping through the tattered flannel of her pajamas. She hugged her knees tighter, suppressing a shiver.
"Where are we?" she whispered.
"Brisbane's dungeon," the knight
whispered back.
Tabitha sighed. She didn't feel up to getting the answers she wanted out of the laconic barbarian at the moment. Given both the terrain and the speech patterns, they could be anywhere in the United Kingdom – Wales, England, Ireland, perhaps even Scotland. That would explain Sir Colin's lilting burr and his endearing tendency to drop the occasional g.
But if this was Scotland, why wasn't he dressed like some Catholic schoolgirl in plaid skirt and stockings? She wracked her brain, wishing she'd paid more attention in history class. She'd always excelled at math and science, but disdained literature and history as frivolous indulgences for the less pragmatic. Her quirky brain would store complex mathematical and scientific equations and song lyrics from the 1950s, but she could never remember exactly what year Benedict Arnold wrote the Declaration of Independence.
She vaguely remembered that the short kilt was of less ancient origin than most assumed, its modern popularity heightened by Queen Victoria's obsession with all things Scottish and the heather-drenched romanticism of Sir Walter Scott. The farther one traveled back in time, the more likely one was to encounter a civilization that was more muck than myth and more grit than glory.
Her matter-of-fact musings made her head throb. She could too easily imagine the knight's sarcastic response to When are we?
What if she had actually breached the time continuum? It wasn't completely inconceivable. According to Uncle Cop's bedtime stories, her mother had jumped time streams on three separate occasions, once with Cop and her father in tow.
Tabitha drew the emerald amulet from her shirt and studied it, wondering if it had been the catalyst for this entire disaster.
Sir Colin's attention sharpened. "And what would that be?"
She started guiltily before dropping the necklace back down her shirt and faking a bland smile. "Just a gift from my mother. A good-luck charm." One that had brought her the worst luck of her life.
Feeling Colin's predatory gaze on her, she thought of something else. If this man wasn't her mother's twisted idea of a blind date, then he was a dangerous stranger. A stranger who might have committed some terrible crime to deserve this imprisonment. She stole a glance at his face from beneath her lashes. Its baby-faced charm was offset by his brooding expression and the fresh stubble that shaded his jaw. What if he was a robber or a serial killer? Or even a rapist? With his fierce eyes and wild hair, he looked capable of committing all three felonies before breakfast without so much as breaking a sweat.