Captured by Her Enemy Knight Page 2

  Brutish body, brutish hands. His parents had often teased he was left on their doorstep by a mighty oak. Always larger than anyone else, he was acutely aware of his size and the damage he could cause. Other kids would jump from one side of the stream bed to the other, whereas he merely took a step. If there was a rope to swing out over water and dive, it was never for his use and enjoyment. Merely climbing a tree caused sturdy branches to break.

  Unless he was unleashed in battle where his entire body was free, he was constantly contained. Indoors was difficult. Low ceilings, small entryways, narrow hallways. Garderobes were the worst. Dining in a hall required him to sit at the end of a table—even then, he took the place of three others.

  Only in battle could he be free...and in his imagination. He had spent months relishing the imagery of fighting the Archer, of exacting significant harm. He knew his enemy was small and slight, but that meant nothing. Everyone was small and slight compared to him. He had no intention of containing any of his strength and, before he knew the Archer was a woman, that was exactly what he’d done. Then her hood tore free and revealed...beauty.

  The Archer being a female was unfathomable. His fighting a female was equally unheard of. His nose, throbbing and swelling from her strike, altered his thinking. Still, when he trapped her leg, he had only meant to halt her pursuit as she twisted out from under him. But when she thumped to the ground at his merest touch, echoes of his past taunted him.

  All the time he carried her through the crowds, she didn’t wake. He concentrated on the fluttering of her breath, the flickering of her closed eyelids and...worried.

  Over the Archer, who had killed his friends and, no doubt, other Englishmen. His rage at this enemy only increased because he was caring. All for naught. The Archer was awake and even now furtively trying to slacken her bindings.

  ‘Stop trying to loosen the gag with your tongue,’ he said. ‘You’ll only cause yourself thirst and I have no intention to quench it.’

  She swallowed and stilled her jaw.

  ‘That’s better, isn’t it?’ he said with a smirk.

  She kicked her bound legs, pushing the coverlet to the floor.

  ‘Even if you could loosen those ropes, do you think I’d let you out of the room? No, you’re here for as long as I want you here.’

  It was the only place they could be. When he’d approached that copse of trees, he had no thought other than capturing the Archer. Numerous times over the last few months he’d got close. Discovered he entered one door of a building while his enemy exited by another.

  He learned that hesitating, waiting at all, cost him. No more. Trapped in a tree, unaware he’d approached from behind, was an opportunity he wouldn’t waste.

  If the Archer had been a man, it would come down to a fight he would win, then dragging his enemy’s body through the port until guards stopped him. There would be a swift explanation, then he would proceed on to buying a cart, rope, etc. All to tie the Archer down and trap him on the way to London. Eldric didn’t care about the Archer’s comfort. If he pissed over himself on the way to his formal execution, it mattered not. He only cared to finally secure an enemy who had alluded him for far too long.

  And he had captured the Archer, but she was an unconscious woman because of his brutal hands, brutal strength. The buying of a cart and mere explanation were no longer feasible and he’d not readied a location to take her where they wouldn’t be seen.

  Unfortunately, he could hardly be hidden and his deeds... He’d fought a woman! If she hadn’t been swift enough, the fist blow he’d aimed for her face would have... He couldn’t think of it.

  Others were thinking it, the crowd for one, and he couldn’t blame them. Some of the children who had watched them fight were scampering behind them. Their excited chatter and scuffling feet abraded him at every step. He wanted to roar for them to leave. As a knight, his actions were unconscionable. As a spy for King Edward, they were grievous.

  Children thinking him a monster. What could he say to change their opinion? That it was the tiny frail woman in his arms who was the true evil? She looked anything but. Her colour, her vibrancy... Her beauty alone muddled his thoughts. The way she could fight muddled his reasoning.

  And it was a bitter reminder of who she truly was. The Archer at all costs must be contained. Urgency overtook him to find somewhere to confront her.

  In the end, coin was on his side, as was the sword against his hip. He entered the nearest inn and ordered the best room, which was on the ground floor. Large enough to sleep many, but sparsely filled, which provided space inside for his heavy frame. The only bed seemed adequate to support him.

  Out of every scenario he had ever envisaged when he finally captured the Archer, her being a woman tied to his bed was never one of them. Every accusation he expected to fling, every slam of his fists, every broken finger and absolute punishment thwarted.

  He had the Archer and no way to release his wrath. The world for him was only good and evil. Right and wrong. When there was evil, there was justice. The Archer was a woman? God’s bones, toes and any other body part, now he had questions.

  Using his left hand, and staring down at her diminutive form, he yanked the gag away. ‘Explain yourself.’

  * * *

  Licking her lips, Cressida stared at Eldric. Her Eldric. Only once had she dared be this close to him. It was at a Christmas dance in Swaffham where she thought to observe this warrior from afar, but he’d requested a dance. To hide her identity, she’d darkened her hair and worn a mask, but every moment her heart had pounded in her chest much like it was doing now.

  ‘Explain myself? For what? You snatched me from a tree and have tied me—’ She opened her eyes and feigned shock. ‘I’ve my maidenhead. Please don’t hurt me. My family will pay whatever silver you want.’

  ‘Don’t,’ he growled.

  ‘Don’t what?’ she pleaded with all the innocence she’d never felt. She must keep Eldric distracted until she escaped. ‘I have done nothing! I—’

  ‘Nothing!’ Eyes burning with retribution, his vibrating body loomed over her. Bound tight, she pulled her head away and caved her stomach to avoid what blows she could.

  A rough sound escaped his throat as he stepped back. She had truly hurt him when they’d fought. His nose and one of his eyes were swelling. There was a mark at the side of his neck where she had elbowed him. Tomorrow that would be purple, as would the rest of his face. She’d given him all of her fiercest of blows and none of them had been enough to take him down.

  ‘Don’t,’ he enunciated very carefully, ‘do that either.’

  This time she didn’t know what she’d done. Her confusion real.

  His brows drew in. ‘Did you think I would strike you?’

  Never, her action was only instinct and training. Unless in battle, Eldric was all too careful with his body. When she dared watch him with women—before she couldn’t watch any more—he was painfully formal, his arms unnaturally at his sides. The women always appeared inadequate for him. It didn’t seem to matter for him, they often... Cressida squashed the familiar burning of jealousy in her chest.

  ‘How would I know what you would do?’ She tried to put disdain into her words. Knew they were weak because of past hurts she had no right to feel. ‘I don’t know you!’

  ‘Thank you for your lies. A dear reminder of who you are.’ He unsheathed a dagger at his waist, aimed the blade towards her throat. ‘No flinching?’ he mocked. ‘Don’t presume I wouldn’t hurt you. For months now, that is all I have thought of.’

  ‘You wouldn’t hurt a woman,’ she answered, knowing the truth. Unbeknown to him, she’d watched him for years.

  He pressed it to her throat. ‘You don’t know me, though, remember?’

  How many times would she forget her ruse? She felt the cool metal press her skin, but it did not bite. ‘Knights don’t hurt women.�
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  He eased the blade up, but his eyes flared. ‘Chivalry has long been gone from knighthood. It has no place during war. And we both know you’re no mere woman.’

  Every ounce of Eldric was steeped in chivalry, though he hid it well when he did Edward’s nefarious deeds. As for the insult...that she deserved. Even now she could feel the sting on her forehead from when she’d tried to break his nose. Her foot throbbed where she’d kicked him and, after falling and losing her breath several times until she fainted, she still couldn’t catch her breath. A woman would normally only have these issues because she’d fainted from tightened undergarments. A true woman wouldn’t be bruised in the ribs after plunging from a tree to escape an enemy.

  A true woman wouldn’t know what an injury was, let alone be able to inflict them on a giant of a man. No, she wasn’t a mere woman. If it wasn’t for that dance they had shared last winter, where she’d dressed and for one night pretended, she’d wonder if she was a woman at all.

  ‘I’m not anything,’ she said, covering her lies in partial truths. She was born and raised to be only what her father wished. ‘If it’s coin you want—’

  ‘Coin! I want your head and you well know it.’

  It was a fact she wished wasn’t true. ‘Please, if you’d only listen to me—’ she didn’t need to hide the pain in her voice ‘—I can give you coin. I have family. If you let me go, I can get it for you.’

  Eldric snorted. ‘You play a dangerous game, taunting me. Pretending I don’t know who you are or what you have done. I’ve caught you; I’ve bound you. You must know your life is mine to forfeit.’

  Her forfeited life was something which was never in doubt.

  Her father had raised her from infancy, kept her cloistered in different abbeys until she turned ten. On that birth date, he altered her role with him. No longer was she trained in private and kept hidden within the highest of walls; instead, as long as she wore her hood, she could travel with him. To learn to spy, to observe from afar and sometimes to thieve.

  At first, he didn’t risk her life on enemy camps, but on fellow English ones. And that was when, a year or two later, she had first seen Eldric. It wasn’t his size that caught her attention. By then she’d travelled and seen enough of men that she only noted their weaknesses in case they should become targets.

  No, it was Eldric’s actions that had arrested her. He whistled. She had never heard music until then. Prior to that, there had been no festival or celebratory events for her. The constantly rotating abbeys she was kept in secluded her in private chambers and the inhabitants never spoke to her.

  At first it had been shocking to be around camps and noise, but Eldric was something other than mere noise. The songs he made were hauntingly beautiful.

  Thus, she’d watched him most of all; she was grateful for his size, for it made it easy to see him as he went about his day with ease and laughter. And all the while from one tent to another, from one task to another—even in training. Constantly whistling.

  Perhaps because of his size, strength and skill, he felt safe enough in the world for such exotic behaviour. If she had such a noticeable habit, her father would have carved out her tongue.

  It also made it easy to find him again as the years went by and he kept his strange custom. And as time passed her fascination with him changed from that of a child to that of a woman. Until one day, when her father had given her another mission. Eldric had accepted King Edward’s position to spy. So, her father had ordered what he always did with Edward’s spies: for her to kill him.

  ‘What do you intend to do with me, or rather, with the person you believe I am?’ she whispered, coming back to the present with the awareness that his expression had changed to malice once more.

  ‘Think! I have pursued you for seasons now. Do I act like a man who is not certain? I know exactly what I will do with you. You are bound for the Tower of London for execution.’ His smile did not reach his eyes. ‘Ah, finally a reaction.’

  ‘Of course I’d react. I don’t know who you think I am. You snatched me from sleep, bound me to rape me and now tell me you want my head. Sir, please, you have the wrong—’

  The pounding on the door made them jump. Aware of her vulnerability, she wrenched on the bindings until the bed creaked.

  ‘Stay still and quiet,’ he hissed. ‘It is only the supplies I ordered.’

  As her father’s weapon, the Archer, she’d stay quiet, but as a female unlawfully abducted, her best bet would be to call out for help. She breathed in to call out—

  ‘Do you think to cry out?’ he sneered. ‘How would that favour you?’

  He was right. She couldn’t trust the being on the other side to believe she was innocent. But she had to keep her ruse as a frightened female.

  ‘Let me go!’ She struggled.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere.’ With a harsh laugh, Eldric cracked open the door and stepped out. A moment or two more and he carried in a large tray with a small water basin and several linens and set it down on a chest. Another moment outside and he brought inside a smaller tray, laden with food and drink, and set it on the one available table.

  The aromas of food and ale filled the room. Despite her training to go without, her mouth watered. He eyed her eyeing the food and smirked.

  ‘I didn’t think it would be so easy to break you,’ he said.

  ‘I’m already broken—what man ties a woman—?’

  ‘One that knows better when it comes to you, despite your gender. Despite your—’ His eyes skittered from her bound wrists down the curves of her body to her wrapped feet. Fear, and something else, brushed just under her skin as his gaze darkened and became almost calculating before his frown grew fierce and he jerked his head away.

  She suddenly wished she hadn’t kicked off the linen that covered her. It was a weak protection, but at least in this moment it would prevent him from seeing her so clearly. The fact anyone could see her was a vulnerability. But for Eldric to do so was—

  No, Eldric wasn’t looking at her as a woman. He was taking note of her size and seeing if the bindings held. Fully revealed to him, he could see the odd colours of her hair and eyes. When sunlight came, he’d see her freckles across her nose, the numerous scars. He’d compare her to his other women.

  She’d only imagined his eyes lingered on her bound hands, at her body stretched against the bed. Imagined he saw her as a woman. Eldric would never see her as anyone other than the person who had killed his friends.

  Her only option was to lie until she could escape. ‘You only think you know who I am. I’m trying to tell you, if there’s someone you’re trying to...capture, I’m not they. You’ve got me here, but the person you want could be escaping even now.’

  ‘Of course, you would continue to lie since every weapon you have is gone. Please, tell me more. Entertain me. I have all the time in the world to find the truth.’ He scoffed as if he was amused with her words, but a muscle ticked in his jaw as if her falsehood got under his skin. He gestured to the food. ‘I can eat while you starve. I can leave for the garderobe while you soil yourself. I can and will do what is necessary because we both know you’re anything but broken. But I will get you there.’

  As if to prove his point, he leisurely unfastened his outer vest, throwing it towards a chair, though it slid to the floor. At the tray with the basin of water, he soaked the linen and wrung it. He did this slowly, methodically, as if his every thought were on those water droplets.

  After all the accusations, the room seethed with a taut wariness punctuated by the sounds of splashing water and the wringing of cloth. She was used to her father and his games. Used to being ignored until he focused everything on her. And that focus was always violent. Words. Deeds.

  Eldric wasn’t her father, but she was woefully without any other comparison. She might have watched others from afar, but she herself had never inter
acted with anyone. She didn’t know what to expect. Would he launch the dagger he threatened her with? Force her mouth and nose into the sodden linen until she suffocated?

  Abruptly, he looked over his shoulder and caught her eye. She didn’t turn her gaze—it was all she had, to watch him as if he was just any other man to her. She concentrated on easing her heart rate, slowing her breath. Faked a bored mien though she could do nothing about the heated restlessness that coursed under her skin which she knew had everything to do with the proximity of this man. Another matter she could do nothing about. She’d been fascinated by him for far too long not to react when he was this near.

  With a huff, he reached behind, yanked off his tunic and threw it towards the same chair. It also slid and billowed to the floor. Keeping that eerie silence between them, he lifted the cloth to his face, held it there. Dipped it back into the basin to soak.

  All these years, she’d watched him from afar as he went about his daily routine. Never close enough, never fully, truly seeing him. Not like now.

  His clothing couldn’t hide the structure of his body, but she could never have been prepared for what was underneath. The width of his shoulders defined by the mounds and striations of muscles from his arms to his neck. His spinal cord providing a straight boundary for the arrow-like cording that arched outwards.

  The entirety of his back tapered fast and hard to his waist where his breeches hugged. The fabric was thickly woven and his back was to her, but now that his tunic was gone, there was nothing that hid his gender from her. His breeches outlined every honed muscle.

  She swallowed.

  How did she dare fight or think she could escape him? He was nothing but formidable strength and magnificent male. If she assessed him as simply an enemy, there would be no stopping him, his arms providing an easy reach should he snatch her and too long for her to get up close with a dagger. That was before he applied any strength. No, only with an arrow could he be killed.