Page 18 of A Knight’s Vengeance

The mercenary picked at a sore on his face. “’Is whereabouts are no concern of yers.”

“Oaf!” Mildred turned her back to him. “Come, milady. Let me wash the grime from your face. Then I can examine the cut.”

Sliding her left arm through the matron’s, Elizabeth whispered, “On the way, mayhap we will get a chance to flee.” They started for the stream, flattening a path through the grasses dotted with poppies and cornflowers.

“Oy!” a guard called.

“Where do you think you are going?” another shouted.

Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. “Ignore them.”

Mildred chuckled. “I shall.”

Irritated voices rose behind them. Grasses crunched as the men followed. Elizabeth quelled the urge to run. With her wounds, and the guards so close, she and Mildred would only get a few paces before they were caught.

A little later, however, they might have the perfect opportunity to elude their captors.

Ignoring her pursuers, Elizabeth slowed her strides to a graceful walk and pretended she had no intentions of fleeing. As she approached the stream, she slipped her arm from Mildred’s, raised her shift’s hem, and stepped down to the bank. The earthy scent of mud and sun-warmed pebbles rose up to her. Silver-bellied minnows shot out of the glimmering shallows.

Tucking her shift between her knees, she bent to wash. A bedraggled woman stared back at her.

How wretched she looked. Her hair was streaked with flour. The dried blood on her cheek enhanced the dark smudges beneath her eyes, and her fine linen shift, embroidered at the cuffs and neck with delicate flowers, was creased and stained. Anger and humiliation blazed through her, and she plunged her hands into the water and rinsed her face.

Mildred crouched beside her, tore a strip from the hem of her shift and dipped it into the water. “I will be careful, but this may hurt.”

Elizabeth stood. Shutting her eyes, she steeled her nerves against the press of wet cloth. She paid no heed to the approaching footfalls.

“Come away from the water,” a guard snapped.

“Did you hear something, milady?” Mildred asked with a disdainful sniff.

Elizabeth smiled. “Naught but the wind’s pleasing sigh.”

The guard swore. Another spoke in a tone fraught with concern, and Elizabeth resisted a giggle.

More footsteps approached.

“You can tell that rogue de Lanceau we have no intention of cooperating with any of you,” Elizabeth said, not opening her eyes. “Tell him I think he is an idiot. If he has even a mote of intelligence in his addled head, he will release us.”

“You may tell me yourself.”

Elizabeth’s eyes flew open. De Lanceau stood above her on the bank, his hands planted on his hips. In one fist, he held a scuffed saddlebag.

“Well?” he said.

Her cheeks flamed, but her soul would roast in hell before she would allow him to best her. She turned to face him. The abrupt movement set the meadow spinning before her eyes, and she blinked twice before he came back into focus.

His mouth tightened. “You wish to speak with me?”

“You heard every word. I have no wish to repeat them.” With an annoyed huff, she flicked her hair over her shoulder.

A muscle ticked in his jaw. His expression darkened, and her breath jammed in her throat.

With agonizing slowness, his heavy-lidded gaze dragged up her torso, across her shift’s embroidered front, to her face. Her skin prickled. Heated. Burned, as though his fingers, not his gaze, had swept over her.

He stared at her with fierce intensity. A look that suggested he saw every swell and curve under her shift.

She forced herself to exhale, and crossed her shaking arms over her breasts. His stare should not fill her with a strange excitement.