Gunnar had no time for doubts. “Keep still, lady,” he ordered through gritted teeth, and tightened his arm. “They are Fitzmorton’s men.”
Rose froze, her eyes widening. He was right! The flapping banner was blue and yellow—Fitzmorton’s colors. A cold, numbing fear spread through her. Why would Fitzmorton send his men here, now?
Mayhap he had found a use for her at last?
Fitzmorton hated Radulf, and she was Radulf’s vassal. Was she now to be the pawn in this game between two powerful men? No, Rose determined, she would fight to the death before being taken captive by Fitzmorton…and besides, Gunnar Olafson would protect her.
In that moment, and for no reason she could properly understand, Rose was certain of it.
“Fitzmorton?” Arno had repeated, frowning. Then, his brow clearing: “Aye, Fitzmorton’s men. But what do they want here, now?”
Gunnar had been looking at him curiously, as if something in Arno’s manner struck him as odd. Now he turned back to the approaching riders, and his blue eyes narrowed. “They are on your manor, Lady Rose. Did you invite them here?
He looked dangerous, she decided, peering up at him. She was breathless as she sat, pressed against his hard chest, her thighs resting upon his, his powerful arm squeezing her, and realized she had not been this close to any man, apart from Edric, in her whole life. And Edric had never felt like this.
“No, of course I did not invite them here!” she gasped, and brushed aside a swathe of dark hair. She had lost her veil and her braid was coming undone. She tried to straighten, to edge away from this unbearable closeness. “Please put me back on my horse, Captain! There is no need—”
To her dismay, but not her surprise, he ignored her. The troop with the blue and yellow banner came to a halt before them. Their leader urged his mount forward a little, and to Rose’s consternation she saw amusement in his gray eyes as they took in her rigid demeanor, and the muscular arm wrapped possessively about her middle. His thin, rather austere face relaxed, he was even handsome in a priestly sort of way, but he was not a man Rose would ever trust. Even as the thought occurred to her, the man’s gaze slid from her dishevelment to Gunnar behind her, and his face went blank with surprise.
Gunnar stiffened, his body going solid as stone. He even seemed to have stopped breathing. It was then that Rose understood: they knew each other.
“Gunnar Olafson.” There was no denying the recognition in the man’s voice, or the dislike. “What misfortune brings you here to Somerford Manor?”
Gunnar’s shock was already fading as he looked ahead to this new challenge. Miles! The last person he hoped to see, though in hindsight he should not have been surprised. It was natural that Miles should have aligned himself with someone like Fitzmorton. Gunnar was just grateful that Ivo wasn’t there—his friend had returned to the place in the woods where they had found the miller, hoping to find something, anything, to help solve the mystery of the attack on the village.
“Miles.” Gunnar sounded as if they were meeting in perfectly normal circumstances. “You are with Fitzmorton, then. Why am I not surprised?”
Miles snorted a laugh. “God rot you, Gunnar, I hoped you were dead.”
In his arms, Rose had been rigid with fear and with an equal determination not to show it. Now she went pliant, as if she might be about to faint. Or maybe his grip around her was too tight? Gunnar loosened his hold, and felt the soft weight of her breasts upon his arm. A sweet scent rose from her uncovered hair and her warm body; it filled his nostrils, threatening to divert his mind from their very real danger. Gunnar forced himself to coldness—more of a weapon and less of a man—concentrating on the enemy before him.
“Why are you here anyway?” Miles demanded, glancing suspiciously at Arno and then away again. “I had heard you were in Wales.”
“I was.”
“I have been to the north, seeing to Lord Fitzmorton’s lands there,” Miles’s gaze traveled over Rose as he spoke, taking in her dark hair and beautiful face and lush shape. He nodded at her breasts. “You always did take the most desirable wenches for yourself, Gunnar.”
Gunnar would have enjoyed striking the smirk from his mouth and watching him bleed. He held in the violence and gave a cold smile. “This is Lady Rose of Somerford, Miles.” His voice was as icy as Norse snow. “You are standing on her land.”
The smirk vanished. Miles glared a moment at Gunnar and then bowed his head to Rose in a manner far too brisk and soldierlike to be apologetic. “Lady, I am sorry.”
Gunnar had decided there was little point in making an issue of his rudeness. Matters were tense enough. But he wasn’t sure how Rose would react. Most of the Norman ladies he had known would take serious offense at Miles’s remarks…
Rose wasn’t most ladies.
She nodded coolly, accepting Miles’s apology as if it were her due. Gunnar admired her for that, although her next words startled him. “You are known to Captain Olafson, sir?”
Miles’s gray eyes flicked to Gunnar and away again. “Aye. We fought together…long ago. I am Sir Miles de Vessey.”
“And why are you here at Somerford, Sir Miles de Vessey?” she asked him in that soft, authoritative voice that could have extracted obedience from the lowest serf to the highest baron in the land.
But Miles was as cunning and slippery as the eels that lived in the Mere. “When I returned from the north it was to learn that one of Fitzmorton’s men had gone astray, lady. He was traveling across Somerford Manor with messages to Lord Radulf at Crevitch Castle, and didn’t return when he was meant to. I have come to find him.”
Gunnar had been content to allow Rose to ask the questions, but now he felt her tense. A missing messenger from Fitzmorton and a dead Norman. He did not need her warm fingers, slipping into his to press a warning—he had already drawn the same conclusions. Still, he could not help but wonder at her bored tone when again she spoke. “Then you are on your way to Crevitch Castle?”
“Aye, lady.”
“Then we will not delay you—”