Bride Of The Tower. Sharon Schulze

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ A hard blow to the head sent Will reeling, and they were upon him like flies to a midden, pummeling him, knocking loose his weapons and moving in for the kill. A stream of blood gushed from his forehead and ran into his eyes, further blurring his vision.

      A hard pounding sounded in the distance, drowning out the heavy pulse of his heartbeat. He could scarce care about its cause when he couldn’t find the strength to hold himself upright. He clung to his knife—a meager defense, but better than nothing—as his legs crumpled beneath him and he muttered a silent prayer that his death be swift and clean.

      But before his attackers could strike a killing blow, the distant sound became the thunder of hoofbeats drawing near. Muttering curses, the two men turned and fled into the forest, leaving Will sprawled in the road.

      He tried to stand, but could not make his legs support him. His searching fingers closed about the hilt of his sword and he dragged it close as the horses came to a plunging halt nigh at his feet.

      Had he survived the attack to be run down in the road instead? He pulled himself up on one elbow and stared at the blurred, shifting scene before him, but he could make no sense of it. Horses shuffled their feet nearby, appearing, to his bleary gaze, to have too many legs and heads; moonlight shimmered eerily on the armed and mail-clad riders, lending them an otherworldly appearance. One of them called another “milady.”

      Were they the warrior women of legend, come to escort him to Valhalla? Or the devil’s hand-maidens, mayhap, ready to carry him away to Hell? Did it matter? Will tried to laugh, but ’twas a feeble attempt. Whoever they were, if he must spend eternity with them, he hoped they were beautiful.

      Perhaps he hadn’t survived after all, Will thought as he watched the smallest of the riders slip from the saddle and remove his helmet. For unless the blow to his head had scrambled his brain completely, ’twas a flesh-and-blood woman who dropped to her knees at Will’s side and leaned down to touch his face. “Rest easy, sir, and let us help you,” she murmured as she shifted and reached down beside him. Before Will could reply or give in to the urge to resist, she slid his sword from his grasp and handed it to a man behind her.

      Disarmed by a woman again! Will’s confusion mounted as his vision began to fade. Her long, disheveled braid brushed over his face, teasing his senses with the scent of flowers. Unfamiliar, but clearly a woman—not Gillian, however.

      But who was she? He squinted up at her, but her features blurred in the uneven light. His strength gone, his arm collapsed beneath him. His head hit the ground, and he knew no more.

      “Hellfire, he’s swooned.” Lady Julianna d’Arcy grabbed hold of the fallen man’s mail-clad arm—caught beneath him when he collapsed—and shifted it to rest at his side. Her touch gentle, she brushed his hair away from his brow with a frown. Blood welled under her fingers and ran down his face; more dark streaks of it oozed sluggishly from his neck and arm.

      He clearly needed more help than she could give him here. She grabbed the hem of her surcoat and sliced away two strips of fabric with the long dagger lying beside him on the road. “Rolf, come help me bind his wounds, then you and Bart may move him.”

      Bart knelt on the far side of the victim and carefully raised the man so she could wind the material round his brow while Rolf tended to his throat. “Move him where, milady?” Bart asked.

      She knotted the linen and used the end of it to blot away the worst of the blood besmirching the man’s face. “Back to Tuck’s Tower, of course.” Clambering to her feet, she took up the dagger and thrust it into her boot top, next to her own.

      “Bring a stranger within our walls, milady?” Bart protested as he rose.

      “He’s no danger to anyone in his present condition,” Julianna pointed out tartly. By the saints, would he ever cease to look upon her as a child? Her father had been gone for nigh on a year now, her mother slightly more, yet unlike most of her people, Bart continued to quietly challenge her authority to rule her lands, treating her instead as the cherished young lady of Tuck’s Tower.

      Something she’d never sought to be—and had certainly never been.

      Rolf, waiting patiently near the injured man’s head, motioned for Bart to help lift him, but her father’s old retainer ignored him and moved closer to Julianna. “What of later, Lady Julianna?” he asked low-voiced. “Once he’s healed? What will you do then, if he turns out to be dangerous?”

      “You dare to question me, Bart—to question me here, now?” Though she kept her tone as restrained as Bart’s, she made certain he could not mistake her displeasure. “Make no mistake, we shall discuss this later.” Biting back a snarl of frustration, Julianna spun away and bent to grasp the victim’s feet. She nodded to Rolf and they lifted the man. “Now is hardly the time,” she added. “At this point, the poor fool’s more like to die here in the road.”

      Though ’twas a struggle for her—the fellow was tall and solidly built—she didn’t permit herself so much as a grunt of discomfort as they carried him to her mount.

      “I’ll take him with me,” she said, gratefully shifting her burden to a glowering Bart and climbing unassisted onto her mount.

      It took three men, grumbling and complaining, to support the fellow and shift him into the saddle before her. Biting back a few curses of her own, Julianna fitted her arms about him to hold him more securely. His tall, lean body fit snug against her, his back to her front, making her all too aware of his muscled physique even through the layers of mail separating them.

      She eased her hold a bit, making him groan and shift in her grasp and his empty scabbard bump against her leg. Tightening her hold again, she glanced about, hoping to catch a glimpse of his sword. If he survived, he’d not thank her for leaving the weapon behind in the forest.

      And if he did not, ’twould be another blade to add to her own ever-dwindling arsenal. Though the thought made her feel like a grave robber, of late she’d reached the point where she could not afford to be too particular. As long as she wasn’t forced to turn outlaw…

      “Rolf, find his sword and anything else that looks like it belongs to him,” she ordered. “His horse, as well, if it hasn’t run off. God willing, he’ll have need of them someday soon.”

      Wheeling her mount, she led her troop along the moon-shadowed trail, doing her best to ignore the intriguing feel of the man’s weight pressing her into the saddle. She glanced down at the stranger’s face, at the strength no amount of blood and bruising could hide.

      And prayed she’d not have cause to regret this night’s work.

      Chapter Two

      The torches along the walls of Tuck’s Tower glowed in the distance, a welcome greeting that lent Julianna the strength to hold on to the man slumped in her arms a bit longer. Never had the road from the forest to the keep seemed so long, nor her own resources so puny. She’d worked hard to perfect the ability to suppress any signs of exhaustion or weakness, yet this unknown man threatened to expose the woman she tried to hide beneath her mannish ways.

      The weight of him, his muscled body nested against her, felt foreign in a deliciously intriguing way, making her aware of how different her own body was from his. Tall and lean, male. The scent of leather and armor, the subtle brush of his whiskered cheek against her neck…. That simple contact heightened her senses until her mind and body fair reeled from the overwhelming enticement of sound, scent and touch.

      But СКАЧАТЬ