The Conqueror

She smiled just a little.

“Well, ’tis too far away with a storm coming and Endshire’s men on the highway,” he murmured. “And I have places to be. I’ll take you somewhere safe and warm and dry.”

“But—”

“And later, I will ensure you get to Saint Alban’s.”

“Your word, sirrah?” she pressed. “You’ve no idea how I need to be home. Have I your most solemn word?”

“My most solemn word, lady. I know all about needing to be home.”

“I can never repay you.”

“You never have to.”

Fear and exhaustion corded together and pushed her over the cliff of decency and common sense. She had dim memories of gripping the only ballast available, his torn tunic, and burrowing into the granite-hewn structure that lay beneath. Through a fog she recalled pressing herself into the warm hardness of his body, unmindful of the iron rings digging into her skin. One hand went up around the strong column of his neck to steady herself, and her face rolled into his chest, where it lodged for a good two minutes. All in all, a less-than-comfortable ride. Or it should have been.

It was not. Although his thighs were as hard-packed with muscle as the arms that surrounded her, his lap was as welcoming and warm as a fur-laden bed. She wanted to snuggle in deeper, and only the dim knowledge of a morning to come kept her from following the impulse.

His arms wrapped on either side of

her loosely as he held the reins low on Noir’s withers. He clucked every so often, sometimes to her, sometimes to the horse. Noir responded by quickening his pace, she by nestling further into his body, purposefully forgetting about the dawn.

And she talked to him. She talked because the night was dark and a storm was rolling in. She talked because panic was nipping at her heels and if she stopped, she’d slip into insanity. Reason enough, but still a weak excuse to tell him all the mundane details of her life.

In fact, she realised in a dim corner of her mind, she was pouring out information like a water spout, just as if he cared. Perhaps, she reflected later, he had asked some small, leading question to still her panic, but that was a poor excuse to chatter nonstop until the man’s ears were numb and his mind mush. She talked about big things and small, about how she hated dealing with merchants and how she loved marinated mushrooms.

When his replies came in the form of nods and “ummm’s”—which could denote disinterest but, to judge by the look in his slate-grey eyes whenever he dropped them to her, was tolerance—she spoke haltingly of how she missed her mother, how she was sometimes irritable when she meant to be kind to her friends, her father, who was now dead too, and how she was coming to accept the fact that she was terribly, crushingly alone.

She talked herself back into a calm, then bounced atop his muscled thighs in silence. After a moment, she pushed back her hair and angled a careful glance up.

He was staring at the sky. She looked up too, but clouds scuttling across the sky were of little interest, so she looked back at him, her gaze travelling over a face that was turning out to have fine, noble lines and a most disconcerting handsomeness. Not that she cared, of course. Still, one could not help but notice, for goodness sake.

Without warning he dropped his gaze. “What is your name, mistress?”

She stiffened. The unguarded Countess d’Everoot had already proven to be a mighty temptation. Sooth, just six months ago the Duchess of Aquitaine had to flee from three matrimonial-minded abduction attempts on her travels home following her divorce from the King of France.

Still, Gwyn decided, angling her saviour a sideways glance, this one had rescued her, at serious risk to himself. He did not look the kidnapper, and while he felt dangerous, it was of a different sort than any she had a name for. Certainly no danger to her life or limb.

“Guinevere,” she finally said.

If he noted the absence of any identifying tags, such as her home or parentage, he did not show it. “Pleased to meet you.”

She laughed. “Yes, rather. And yours?”

It was his turn to pause. “I’m known as Pagan.”

She looked at him a moment, but he didn’t say anything more. So she lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “If God chose to answer my prayer with a pagan, so be it. Who am I to argue?”

He glanced down, smiling. “I think you would argue with God Himself, did it suit you, mistress.”

The smile, though, not his words, captured Gwyn’s attention. The faint sign of amusement deepened the curved lines beside his mouth, making him even more handsome and slightly less imposing, which, truly, was difficult to do in any other way. His body was encased in mail from shoulders to knees. Moonlight glinted off his close-cropped black hair whenever the tree cover opened for a moment. His face was fixed in rigid tightness, but the tension did not detract a whit from bloodlines that had crafted a noble face, its handsomeness almost taunting. Only a scar that lashed from temple to jaw marred the surface, that and a day’s growth of beard.

Yes, it would be difficult to describe him as anything but ‘imposing.’ And kind. And sacrificing. And heart-stoppingly handsome.

She ripped her gaze away.

After that, she didn’t remember much for the rest of their ride. When she tried to recall it later, it was too fuzzy, too laden with emotion. She had only dim memories.