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“For consorting with the enemy.” she insisted. “If my Da even suspected that I had ever tended an English wounded, then he would brand me traitor and kill me.”

William pulled his gauntlets on. “Nay, he would not have,” he said. “I have pledged my life to protect you, Lady Jordan, be it at Langton or at Northwood. Your father would not have laid a hand on you.”

The chivalrous declaration flattered her. When he extended a gloved hand to her, she accepted and he pulled her effortlessly to her feet. Their eyes locked and Jordan felt volcanic emotions swirling between them. The feelings were so intense that her arms tingled painfully in response and she had no idea what she was feeling or why her whole body ached when he had simply touched her hand. It was disarming but not at all unpleasant, and she wondered if he had felt it, too.

She was embarrassed for feeling that way from the touch of an English knight. She should be insulting him, cursing him at the very least for being her enemy, but instead she was letting him touch her… and she was liking it. What an unworthy Scot she was.

Once again, she mounted the gigantic horse and tried to get comfortable with her sore bottom. William bellowed for his squire and began dropping pieces of armor faster than the boy could pick them up. Jordan watched him curiously. When he was finished, he was armorless from the waist up, wearing only a padded linen tunic.

He glanced up at her, rolling up the sleeves. She detected no warmth, no friendliness in his gaze and wondered what she had done that had made his behavior change so abruptly since leaving the stream. He seemed cold and distant again, as he had back at Langton.

He mounted the horse behind her and she closed her eyes for a brief moment at the sensual shock of being pulled up against his massive chest. Without the armor, he was infinitely more comfortable but to have him so intimately close flustered her. She should demand that he put his armor back on, but she just could not seem to form the words.

“I thought you might be more comfortable without all of that armor crowding you,” he said quietly into her ear.

She nodded shortly, puzzled. The silky voice and the hard gaze she had just met a moment ago did not match. Was this man always so confusing?

The caravan moved on, Jordan resting against William’s muscular body. The heat he radiated coupled with the rhythmic sway of the horse drew at her and she found that she was completely exhausted. But she fought the sleep that tried to claim her, fearful that if she were to sleep, somehow she would find herself in the clutches of an English soldier with evil on her mind. Even though William had pledged to protect her, how could she be sure? She didn’t know the man, his mind or his convictions. For all that she knew, she should be trying to protect herself from him.

She tried to sit forward a little, putting a minuscule amount of space between William’s body and her own. A minimum safe distance. Yet between the movement of the horse and her own weariness, she soon found herself resting against him once again.

Sweet Jesu,’ but she felt content when she was pressed to him. It was an indescribable feeling of pleasure and satisfaction such as she had never experience before. Although she was still denying it, her instincts told her that William’s pledge was honorable and true, and that he was a man of his word.

He said he would die for her. Somehow, she believed him, although she didn’t want to. She somehow knew that she could sleep completely in his arms and that nothing at all would harm her.

It was so queer, this trust she felt with him. Strange and wonderful and the same time. All she had was his word, the word of an Englishman no less, that no harm would ever come to her. And she believed him.

Darkly, she began to feel traitorous. What had she told Jemma? That she would show the English what Scot pride was? That she would make her family proud? Feeling the emotions that she was for the captain was certainly no way to make her family proud.

But she was in a new world now, and she had to do what she had to do to survive in it. If no one but she knew what she was feeling, then no one would suspect that she was a weak, silly woman whose weak, silly emotions could rule her head. Only she would know her shame. The shame in actually not hating an Englishman.

For the moment, she had stopped fighting and fearing it wasn’t long before he felt her relax completely and her breathing grew steady. He shifted her so that she lay across him, her head nestled against his massive bicep and her creamy breasts half-pressed into his chest. She slept the dead-sleep of a child, her rosy lips parted mostly in sleep.

As tumultuous as Jordan’s thoughts were, Williams were worse. He gazed upon her for a moment impassively, as one sees after a weaker and smaller being. He felt secretive, allowing himself to drink in the beauty of the woman who had infatuated him for the better part of a year. He still could not believe she was real; not one of his faded dreams, and he found that holding her in his arms was one of the more pleasant experiences of his life. Better than he had imagined.

One of William’s officers, a young knight named Jason Grey, rode alongside. He could have almost been William’s younger brother with his darkly handsome looks. His brown eyes raked appreciatively over Jordan in his captain’s arms.

“A beauty, to be sure,” he commented seductively.

William felt a strange sense of possessiveness creep into his veins. Calmly, he glanced down at his burden.

“Aye,” he said evenly. “Jason, go to the wagon and retrieve a cloak for my lady. It looks to rain.”

Jason reined his animal around and dashed back along the column.

William let out a sigh of release. He hadn’t realized he had been holding his breath. It occurred to him that having his angel of mercy so near him was going to create a tremendous conflict in his mind. He had to control himself where she was concerned, no matter what kind of debt he felt to her. It was an unpaid debt he felt toward her, correct? No more than that, he told himself. He felt obliged to protect this woman because she had undoubtedly saved his life, and, because he had been ordered to.

…right?

Uncertainty flooded him. Good God, man, is there more to this than you are allowing yourself to admit? Impossible. He had no use for a woman, Scot or English. He had not the time, nor the desire.

But there was one thing that tugged at him persistently; he had met this woman a mere two times in his life and she had left an indelible mark on him as if she had burned her presence into his very soul. No one had ever done that. Aye; he would admit that fact and that one alone.

As William wrestled with confusion, Jason brought back the matching cloak to the dress she wore. Between the two of them, they managed to cover her quite nicely. William’s horse, smelling the fox lining, snorted and danced at the strange scent. He clucked to the animal and spoke softly to it, and soon the warhorse calmed.

“And what, pray, do you think the old lord is going to do with her, my lord?” Jason barged into his thoughts.

“Marry her,” William replied, uninterested in his knight’s innuendos.