The Conqueror

Griffyn’s were rather more vivid.

If she’d been expected, he could have protected himself.

He’d been riding to the most important meeting of his entire sojourn in England, thoughts lost in dreary dreams of the future, when he’d heard the sounds of arguing. A woman’s voice, sing-song with fright, but the words were defiant. Brave and hopeless. The spirit that prompted them was worthy of a battle she could never give, and so he’d ridden out. He must have been bored. Or out of his mind.

She was unlike anything he’d ever known before, and he was totally unprepared.

He was not a child, for heaven’s sake. At twenty-six years of age, with seventeen years of exile under his belt, in disguise and courting death, he was a spy for his king. The things he’d done in the execution of those duties were undoubtedly more challenging than managing one lost waif, no matter how beautiful or spirited or…well, simply no matter anything.

And yet, here she was, on the back of his horse. Distracting him.

He’d never been distracted before.

He suddenly realised she’d been talking.

“…and I couldn’t think when I saw them there, Marcus’s men. All I knew is that I was doomed.”

He looked down at the top of her dark, tousled head. “You didn’t appear to think all hope was lost, mistress, the way you stood in the middle of the road and ordered them on their way.”

“I was angry,” she explained. “That’s all that was: bravado, and anger. But I knew I was dead. More sure of it than tomorrow’s sunrise. Then you came. You saved me.”

He shifted on Noir. His mission had nothing to do with saving anyone from anything. This was about settling old scores, about taking back what was his. It was about conquest. The last thing he needed was an indebted woman, particularly one whose trembling body was pressed up against his, her slender, pale arm thrown around his neck.

“I’m no saviour, mistress,” he gruffed.

She cocked her head up. Green-eyes peered at him sidewise. Definitely, he did not need this.

“You just saved me,” she pointed out.

“We saved each other, then,” he allowed gruffly.

“You would not have needed any saving if it weren’t for me, Pagan,” she persisted.

A corner of his mouth twitched. “’Tis so.”

“Then I’m indebted.”

He lowered his gaze slowly. “Guinevere, ’tis best if you don’t see me as the saviour of anything.”

Her body was moving slightly now, not so rock-hard and rigid as it had been. This was encouraging, and disturbing, for it was leading his mind in directions he had no desire to go. A female body warm and pressed against him, swaying with every step Noir took. Into him. He glared at the tips of Noir’s furry ears and took a long, controlled breath.

A sudden shift of her weight brought his attention back down. She’d bent forward and cupped her forehead in her palms. He tugged Noir to a halt. “Your head hurts.”

“Only when I breathe,” she whispered.

He swung a leg over Noir’s rump, and dismounted, then rummaged through one of his saddlebags.

The dark, comforting space below Gwyn’s down-turned head was suddenly invaded by a pungent odour as he nudged a silver flask in front of her face. “Saints assoil me, knight,” she complained, lifting her head. “What in perdition is that?”

He lifted his eyebrows, then pushed the flask closer. “Say ’tis medicine and you’ll be closer than many others who call it by another.”

Gracing him with a suspicious slant of her eyes, she sniffed again. “It smells like something my dog would cough up.”

He laughed. “You’re priceless.”

“No one has placed a bid as yet.”

“Their loss. Drink.”