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“Hell and damnation!” It was Arno’s muttered imprecation that brought Miles de Vessey’s head around. Rose sighed, and Gunnar squeezed her fingers in comfort or warning, he didn’t know which. “Will no one tell him?” Arno growled, turning from one to the other. “We have a dead Norman and Sir Miles is missing a man—does that not strike anyone as odd?”
Gunnar watched Rose widen her eyes in assumed surprise. “But why would one of Lord Fitzmorton’s men set fire to the miller’s cottage and assault his daughter?” Her even voice was designed to dampen Arno’s certainty.
“If he did,” Arno retorted in disgust, not in the least dampened. “We have only the miller’s word for that, lady.”
“And that of Millisent, his daughter.”
“Exactly,” Arno said, as if she had been feeding his argument rather than her own.
“What is this?” Miles’s gray eyes were turning from Gunnar to Rose, and there was distrust in every line of him.
Arno did likewise, and when he saw the reluctance evident on both their faces, he scowled. “Come with me,” he spoke grimly to Miles de Vessey. “There is a body lying unburied in the village. You can judge for yourself whether it is your missing man.”
Arno rode away, and Miles, with another soldierlike bow to Rose, followed with his men. Gunnar nodded for Sweyn and Ethelred to accompany them. Sweyn grimaced, eyes on Miles. “Did you know he’d be here, captain?”
“No.” Briefly Gunnar wondered how he was going to extract them all from an increasingly complicated situation, and then he dismissed what-might-bes and concentrated on here and now.
“If Miles questions you, say nothing,” he commanded his men. “We have been instructed to protect Somerford Manor and its lady. The money is good. That is all you know.”
Sweyn grinned and rode off, with Ethelred following.
Rose had turned her head to look up at him, so that she could see his face properly. The turn of events had made her pale and anxious. “Why will Sir Miles ask questions?”
Gunnar hoped his eyes were blank. “It is in his nature.”
“Why should your men tell him anything but the truth; what else is there to tell?”
She was suspicious and he didn’t blame her. Did that mean she was entirely innocent of any involvement with Fitzmorton, or was she simply leading him in the direction she wanted him to go? Gunnar wished he knew.
“If the dead man is Lord Fitzmorton’s messenger…?” she murmured uncertainly.
“Do you want the sour truth, lady, or honey-coated lies?”
Rose frowned, shifting in his lap, her soft bottom pressing against his thighs. Gunnar winced. “I want the truth.”
“Then I will give it to you. The more powerful the man, the harsher the punishment. If the body in the village is Fitzmorton’s messenger, then there will be no reprieve for your miller.”
Her lips parted on a little sigh but she didn’t look away. Suddenly he wished both the foolish miller and Miles de Vessey to hell. He was holding Rose in his arms and there were more pleasurable things to do.
Rose could see a pulse beating smoothly in Gunnar’s throat. The tanned texture of his skin was broken by gold-red stubble on his cheeks and along his jaw—he hadn’t had time to shave that morning. His own gaze was roaming over her face, probing, searching, and she wondered what he could see. All her fears about Fitzmorton and the miller and the dead Norman laid out like counters for his perusal? Or her growing awareness that they were now even closer than they had been the night before last, when he had kissed her.
While Miles de Vessey and Arno had been there, Rose had maintained her calm authority—her lady-of-the-manor face. But now they were gone and suddenly she was very close to tears. Was it safe for Gunnar Olafson to know that? Women in her position should hide their weakness—she had learned that on her mother’s knee. And still, when Miles had spoken of the dead Norman and she had realized the implications, she had voluntarily placed her hand in Gunnar Olafson’s, and felt his strong, scarred fingers close firmly on hers. As if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Miles de Vessey is not to be trusted,” he said, after what seemed an age. His voice was husky.
Still, Rose stared back into his eyes, seeking…what? She only knew that they were as blue as the ocean, that they evinced everything she pretended to be but was not, and that they soothed her like a balm.
She looked away, before he could draw out her very soul, and took a deep breath for courage. He was still holding her, his body against hers, and it felt so good. Better than anything had felt for a very long time. She did not want to move, and yet in a moment he would lift her back onto her horse and she must straighten her shoulders and resume her lady-of-the-manor face and pretend she felt nothing for the mercenary captain.
“So Miles de Vessey is known to you, Captain,” she said quietly, and it was not a question.
“Aye, lady. Whatever he tells you…promises you, do not believe him.”
“I have never seen him before; why should he promise me anything?”
“Sir Arno d’Alan knows him.”
That brought her head up and around. She had planned to deny it, but as her lips opened to spill forth the words Rose realized he had spoken the truth. Arno did know him. Remembering now, Rose was suddenly conscious of the fact that Arno had not been surprised to see Miles, or if he was, it was only that he should appear abruptly over the rise like that. Aye, they were known to each other; Miles had not even asked for Arno’s name!
