Page 37 of My Warrior
She flinched as his hold tightened. “You need me alive to…to escape.”
“Alive, aye, but not necessarily…untouched.”
Holden let his eyes rake suggestively over her tempting form, intentionally unnerving her. He knew where her vulnerability lay now, and although it normally went against his principles to prey on a woman’s weaknesses, this woman had proved herself far from weak. He intended to thoroughly disarm her.
Her eyes widened as he drew the dagger slowly, torturously down the front of her bunched shift, between her pale breasts, past her narrow ribs and her hitching abdomen, over her woman’s mound. She drew her breath in sharply through her teeth as he pressed the flat of the cold blade suddenly and intimately between her bare thighs.
He spoke evenly despite his inevitable surge of desire, his gaze burning like a steady flame into her frantically darting eyes. “I have another dagger I’d gladly sheathe here.” He allowed his meaning to sink in. “Now where is Garth?”
This time she didn’t hesitate. “In the dungeon.”
He slipped the dagger from her, and then sat up, planting his knee lightly in the middle of her chest to keep her down. A sharp pain grabbed briefly at his ribs as he snagged the tabard from its perch on the wall and slipped it over his head. He’d been testing his muscles for the last day now. Though he’d feigned weakness, all that remained of his injury were a dull ache and that occasional twinge. Within a day or two, his body would return to its former strength.
“Let’s go,” he told her, placing the blade at her neck once more and prodding her to rise to her feet. He twisted her arm behind her, pushing her toward the door. How frail it felt in his grasp, like the wing of a sparrow. Yet he knew better. This sparrow had flown far with him.
Once, she attempted to call out for help as they made slow progress down the steps. But so swiftly did his dagger react to her intake of breath, the sound was strangled almost before it was begun.
In the great hall, their only company was a groggy serving wench who shuffled about at her labors, taking no notice of them as they skirted the corner of the room and made their way to the dungeon stairs.
As he forced her to traverse the wet, slippery steps in her bare feet, she leaned upon him for dear life, fearing he’d trip on the uneven ground and impale her on his blade. But he was surefooted enough and managed to keep them both upright. Not a drop of her blood was spilled.
At the bottom of the stairs, Blackhaugh’s gaoler sat snoozing on a three-legged stool. Hearing their approach, the man shot to his feet and gawked stupidly back and forth between the two.
“The keys,” Holden said, nodding toward the wall.
“The keys,” the gaoler aped, scratching his head in confusion beneath Cambria’s glare.
The slack-jawed servant hesitated, weighing the consequences of disobeying each of his superiors. In the end, Holden’s wrath evidently overshadowed that of the Gavin laird. Shrugging an apology to his mistress, the gaoler fetched the key ring from the wall.
Holden nodded toward the long row of cells. “Free my brother and his men.”
The gaoler let the breath whistle out through his teeth, but did as he was told. “Aye, my lord.”
Garth and his knights emerged from their cramped quarters with delighted grins on their faces. They seemed no worse for wear from their brief stay in the dungeon, and they looked at Cambria with undisguised triumph.
“You’re all right?” Garth asked him, the hero worship plain in his eyes. “I thought you were…that is, Iknewthey were no match for you.”
Cambria squirmed in mute protest at the insult. Holden renewed his grip on her arm and pressed the steel close against her throat as a reminder.
“The armory,” he directed his brother.
Garth led them there. The armory was well stocked with claymores and daggers and sundry other weapons, and as the de Ware knights armed themselves generously, Holden addressed them.
“We go not to battle, but to make peace,” he said. “The Gavins won’t harm us while we hold their laird. Use the weapons only for defense.”
He paused a moment, taking Cambria’s chin between his thumb and fingers, turning her face up to his. “I have a proposition for the Scots, one that may ensure there’s no more bloodshed.”
Defiance crackled in her gem-hard eyes, and her delicate nostrils flared in outrage. Her cheeks flushed pink, and her lips compressed into an unyielding line. He looked at her curiously and wondered for a moment if he was doing a wise thing. Then he released her jaw and exhaled a long, decisive breath.
This time the serving wench saw them enter the hall. When she beheld her mistress taken captive by a whole assemblage of heavily armed men, she dropped her kettle of water and ran whimpering from the room. In a few moments, the hall was populated by Gavin knights, freshly roused from slumber and meagerly armed. There were less than a score of them.
Holden whispered in Cambria’s ear. “These are all the men that remain?”
“Aye,” she bit out.
Was it desolation he heard in her voice?
He took his time, studying them, measuring the worth of each of the Gavin men carefully before he spoke. “You,” he said to the scowling old, gray-haired gentleman at the fore. “Youmustbe the steward.”
