toe …
A twig snagged the brim of her hat, dragging it off to one side of her head before she could free a hand to snatch it back. Recovering her balance, she spurred her palfrey forward and noticed they had veered off the main road and were cutting along the basin of a shallow gully. Rising on either side were gentle slopes covered in a thick carpet of fallen leaves. Ahead was the sound of the river, and above, the stripped lattice of tree branches allowed wide, clear patches of sky to shine through. The wind was stilled to a whisper and the air was almost liquid with bluing shadows. It was quiet, peaceful, secluded. And Ariel found herself glancing over her shoulder, wondering how long it took to convince a band of poachers to share their ill-gotten gains.
FitzRandwulf halted Lucifer beside the river. After a few moments of contemplating the lushness of the setting, he dismounted and stretched his arms and back, angling his torso this way and that to ease the tightness in his muscles. Despite what he had said to Ariel, he was pleased with the time they had made and the distance they had covered. They were perhaps a day’s ride from Rennes, a city large enough and crowded enough to afford them the luxury of spending the night in an inn. While he was well aware of Lady Ariel’s stubbornness and her determination not to complain or betray any sign of weakness, he was also aware of her soft groans at night each time she shifted on the hard ground.
He glanced over at her now and saw that she had not yet dismounted. It took a further moment for Eduard to discard the ridiculous hat and ill-fitting byrnie and remember there was a woman beneath the disguise—a high-born woman who still deserved the courtesies that were her due, regardless of the pouting lower lip.
Without inquiring if she needed or wanted his assistance, he approached the palfrey and placed his big hands around her waist, lifting her down with an easy swing of his heavily muscled shoulders. The palfrey moved a skittish step to the side and Ariel had to grasp the folds of Eduard’s gypon for additional support. The gesture brought her more in contact with his body than she would have wanted, but luckily, he was distracted by the hooted exchanges of a pair of owls and did not take advantage. At the same time, he presented her with an unimpaired view of the scarred cheek—something he self-consciously avoided doing, especially in the unforgiving harshness of daylight.
It effectively dampened her own urge to maim. The wound, she surmised, must have been very painful in the earning, for the flesh had been torn from the base of his jaw to the indent of his temple. It was not so much the ugly, mottled, festered tapestry of misshapen gore she had aggrandized in her mind’s eye, but a pale, ragged weal of raised scar tissue that was thickest in the hollow of his cheek and might easily have been camouflaged, or at least blunted, by growing a full beard over it.
Not that he impressed her as a man dictated by vanity. He wore the scar as comfortably as he wore his masculinity, giving little credence to those who might judge him by either.
“Most women find it repulsive,” he said quietly, letting her know he was aware of her close scrutiny. He gazed directly down into her eyes and she could see that he expected some comment—an apology, perhaps? Or a stammered excuse for staring that he could slough off as easily as he sloughed off the reasons that made her stare? He was smiling, baiting her with a worthless little gesture that was scarcely more than a slight thinning of the lips, and she felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather or the sudden, stark silence suspended between them.
“I doubt the reaction is caused so much by the wound as it is by the man who bears it,” she said with a breathless attempt to undermine the power of those eyes.
“Strong words … for someone who so recently sought my opinion of her own desirability.”
“I sought no such thing!”
“No? Does that mean you always have to ask a man to kiss you?”
“I do not … did not ask you to kiss me!” “Nor did you enjoy it, I suppose.” “Certainly not!”
He leaned closer and the air went out of her in a