Malcolm's Honor. Jillian Hart

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      If his shaft hardened and his blood thickened, ’twas a weakness a man who lived and died by the sword could ill afford.

      Where once he had vowed to help her, he was now bound by duty to his king to condemn her.

      Chapter Five

      Afraid to say even one word for fear of the discomfort of a gag, Elin endured the long hours trapped against Malcolm’s steeled chest. She was not unaware of his maleness, of the solid man hewn of muscle and bone, or of the hardness of his shaft, unmistakable against the back of her thigh.

      He held her trapped against him endlessly as he drove his stallion across vale and hill and through a world brushed by shades of night. No other living creature stirred until dawn grayed the edges of the eastern horizon and the first birds woke the world with song.

      Still she felt the hardness of the man and his virility. His arousal remained solid and rigid, and she feared it. She feared what one as dark and powerful as this king’s knight might do. He did not even glance at her, but the threat lingered.

      Aye, she was vulnerable without weapon and protector, vulnerable to this man without mercy.

      He sat tall, easily guiding his giant destrier as dawn brightened. He looked magnificent riding in the blinding gleam of the rising sun. Light radiated all around him in eye-watering shafts.

      He stopped to allow her to tend to her body’s needs, and then wordlessly offered her drink and food. They rode again, unrelenting and hard. They traveled thus for two days. And when Elin saw the silhouette of a city on the horizon, she knew a different sort of fear. One so quiet and cold it wrapped around her soul like a winter’s freeze.

      She would die in that city. ’Twas a certainty. And would Malcolm the Fierce feel even a twist of conscience, knowing that he’d hunted her down like a ruthless wolf, only to deliver her to her death? That he could have shown her mercy and allowed her to escape, but had not?

      Eyes averted, he hauled her from his horse and slung her over his broad shoulder. He easily carried her down stone steps into a dungeon rank with the scents of rotting wood and cruelty. He lowered her like a sack of grain to the floor and chained her to the wall.

      Terror beat in her heart as she listened to the click of the lock. Though darkness cloaked him, she felt the force of his gaze.

      He towered above her like a mythical warrior. Then he turned without a word, leaving her alone in a dark hell.

      “Malcolm, I heard a woman got the best of you.” Ian the Strong slapped Malcolm on the shoulder, a gesture of old friendship. “Heard she rendered you and every last one of your men sick as dogs.”

      “Tease all you wish. If Edward hadn’t assigned you to a different task, you would have been retching in the courtyard with the best of us.”

      “Nay, my friend. I would have had the brains to know a woman should never be trusted. Liars and manipulators, every last one of them. Why, look at the tavern wenches. See how they plot and play for our benefit?”

      “For the benefit of coin.”

      “Aye, what woman doesn’t? From the queen to the lowest peasant, ’tis how they survive and how they are made.”

      Malcolm drained the last of his ale and dropped the tankard on the table. “’Tis true I gave the traitor’s daughter too much freedom. After she saved Hugh’s life and mixed a healing ointment for the old innkeeper’s wife, I grew less suspicious. I thought she only meant to help serve the food.”

      “I cannot believe you would give a woman aught but a good swiving.”

      Malcolm rubbed his aching brow, where exhaustion and long-pent-up rage tensed the muscles, causing a blasting pain.

      “Why, ’tis Sir Malcolm and Sir Ian.” A serving wench well known for more than her skills in dispensing ale appeared at the edge of the trestle table, pitcher in hand. “What a lucky maid I am to host such powerful knights in my tavern.”

      “You, a maid?” Ian’s gaze roamed the wench’s form, from ripe, half-exposed breasts to the swell of her generous hips. “I’ve often been between those thighs. You long ago left maidenhood behind.”

      “Aye, for womanhood pleases me better.” She winked at him, certain now there would be more coin added to her earnings this night, and ’twould not be only from serving ale. She filled both tankards handily. “And you, Sir Malcolm? Shall I send over a maid for your amusement?”

      “Maid?” Ian laughed. “Your maids have too much experience for the Fierce One. They may well overpower him, and his reputation will be in ruins again.”

      “Enough with the jests, Ian. Matilda, I have no need of a woman.”

      As the wench turned, dropping their small coins into her pocket, Ian watched lustily. “Aye, I have me a liking for that one. Rough she is. Knows how to satisfy a man. I hear the king’s nephew attacked your band and you killed half his men.”

      “Aye, but I did not kill the nephew.”

      “Edward will owe you a boon, then. Mayhap it will compensate for the prisoner woman’s escape, and he’ll not demote you.” Ian’s eyes teased, but his words held a ring of warning as he lifted his tankard and drank deeply.

      Fie, would the traitor’s daughter haunt him forever? Malcolm could still feel the womanly shape of her body pressed hard to his in the saddle, for he’d trapped her there, beneath his arms and against his chest. She’d been his captive, a slim reed of a thing, and the memory of it still ached like an old wound, like a tooth slowly festering. He’d scared the spirit from her and intimidated her until she did not dare even look at him.

      He remembered her words, so cocksure and dismissing. Tell me what fearsome enemy of the king’s you have overpowered now. An old man? Mayhap a lame woman? A goat? He could not remember when anyone had dared to demean the king’s favored knight.

      And he’d left her in the dungeon.

      His guts tightened into hard knots and he drank until the tankard was empty, and the next one after that. But the image of the frightened-eyed maiden chained to the stone wall remained with him and would not fade. Even through a night of sleep and dreams and into the next morning, when word of Caradoc’s fury and Philip’s impending execution buzzed on the lips of the villagers.

      Malcolm watched the new day dawn, and the brightness of it never touched him. For he knew there would be no mercy for the warrior dove. ’Twas the way of the world, and the futility of it deadened him. He gathered his men, because it was yet another day of serving the king.

      “Elinore of Evenbough?” Booted feet halted before her.

      Cold, hungry and stiff, Elin tilted back her head. Her gaze traveled up the hosed legs to the fine tunic bearing the king’s standard.

      “Are you Lady Elinore of Evenbough?” This time it was a rough demand.

      “Aye.” She tucked her ankles together. “Am I to go to the king? Will he hear my tale? I—”

      “Silence!” Unlike Malcolm the Fierce, this man’s voice seemed to resonate with cruelty, as if he treasured СКАЧАТЬ