“Most pages dinnae wear such bonny amulets.”
Gisele cursed, shoved her garnet-encrusted locket back inside her jupon, and glared at the grinning Scotsman as she hefted her sack of wood over her shoulder. She did her best to ignore his beautiful smile as she started to walk through the wood, back toward Guy’s tent. It had been one full week since Sir Murray had intruded upon her secret. The man had shadowed her every move. She was constantly bumping into him, seeing that alluring grin at every turn. Gisele was not sure what annoyed her more, his persistence or her unshakable attraction to the rogue.
“Do ye want some help with that kindling?” Nigel asked as he fell into step by her side.
“Non,” she snapped, irritated that she was unable to walk faster than he could. “Have you not considered the chance that all of your attention to me could rouse some suspicion?”
“Aye, but I dinnae think that the suspicion will be that ye are really a lass and nay a lad.”
“What could they think if not that?”
“That I have grown weary of women.”
She frowned, then gasped and blushed as she understood what he meant. “That is disgusting.”
Nigel shrugged. “’Tis France.”
“Be wary, my fine knight. I am French.”
“Aye, and ye are the bonniest sight I have set eyes upon in the long seven years that I have roamed this land.”
That effusive flattery made her heart beat a little faster, and Gisele silently cursed the man. “Have you nothing else to occupy your time and thoughts beside my paltry problems?”
“Not at this time.”
At the edge of the wood, while they were still sheltered by the trees and the shadows they cast, Gisele turned to look at him. Why did he have to be so handsome? Why did she feel anything for him at all? She had been so sure that her brutal husband had killed all interest in men for her, but she recognized the signs of a dangerous attraction even though it had been well over a year since she had felt any such thing. Where had this fine knight been when she could have enjoyed a flirtation, savored the warming of her blood and the clouding of her thoughts without fear? He was out wallowing in wine and women, she suddenly thought, and scowled.
“This is not a trouble you need to concern yourself with,” she said.
“I ken it, but I have chosen to intrude.” He briefly grinned as he leaned against a tree and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Why are the DeVeaux hunting you?”
“Merde, you are like a hungry dog who has sunk his teeth into a bone.”
“My brothers always said that I could be a stubborn bastard. Lass, I ken ye are being hunted, and I ken by whom. Your disguise has been no secret to me since the moment ye donned it. I also ken that ye have a bounty upon your sweet head. The only thing I dinnae ken is the why of it all.” He met her gaze and held it. “Why do the DeVeaux want ye dead? I think ’tis because they believe ye killed one of their kinsmen. If that is the truth of it, then which kinsman, and why should they ever think that a wee, bonny lass like yourself would kill anyone?”
He was close to the truth, she thought, captivated by the warmth of his amber eyes. Too close. A large part of her desperately wanted to confide in him. More alarmingly, a large part of her desperately wanted him to believe in her innocence.
She forced herself to look away, afraid that his gaze would pull the truth from her. To trust him with the truth would be to gamble with her life and, quite possibly, with Guy’s. She simply could not take that chance. To her disgust, she was also afraid that he would not believe her, would turn against her like so many others, and she knew that would deeply hurt her.
“As I have tried to tell you—” she began, then realized that he was no longer listening to her, had instead straightened up and was staring intently toward the camp. “Is something wrong?”
“The Sassanachs,” he hissed.
“The who?”
“The English.” He pushed her ahead of him as he began to hurry back to the camp. “Ye must get to Guy’s quarters and stay there.”
“But, I see nothing. No alarm has been sounded. How can you know that the English are close at hand?” She stumbled, only to be roughly straightened up by him and pushed forward. “Merde, do you smell them or something, or are you just mad?”
“Oh, aye, I can smell the bastards.”
Before Gisele could question that a cry rippled through the camp. Men scrambled to arm themselves. She looked at Nigel in amazement even as he shoved her inside Guy’s tent and disappeared. The first sound of swords clashing reached her ears and yanked her free of her bemusement. She tossed her sack of kindling aside and grabbed one of Guy’s daggers, then sat down on the dirt floor facing the tent opening. If the battle came to her she was ready to meet it.
As she sat there, tense and alert, she found herself wondering about the Scotsman, something that happened far too often now for her liking. This was not a good time to be concerned about anyone, especially a man. Such distraction could easily cost her her life. All of her attention had to be on one thing and one thing only—eluding the DeVeaux. Her heart and mind, however, did not seem to want to heed that truth. No matter how hard she tried to get the amber-eyed Scotsman out of her head, thoughts of him continually crept back in.
Nigel Murray was an exceptionally handsome man, and many a woman would be unable to resist thinking about him. That knowledge did little to soothe Gisele’s concern and irritation. She should be better than that. She had seen the dark side of men, seen the black heart a beautiful face could hide. The Scotsman did not seem to carry that taint, but Gisele knew she could no longer trust herself to make that judgment. Although she had adamantly if futilely refused to wed DeVeau, having believed all the dark tales about the man, even she had not realized the depths of his amoral and brutal nature.
Gisele cursed as thoughts of her dead husband brought the dark memories of her time with him rushing to the fore of her mind. It had been almost a year since she had found his mutilated body and, knowing that she would be blamed, had run for her life. They had only been married for six months, but she knew the things DeVeau had done to her would scar her for life. So, too, would what she saw as her betrayal by her family. They had done nothing to help her before or after her marriage to DeVeau, and many of them had believed the DeVeaux claim that she had murdered her husband. That was beginning to change, but she knew she would be slow to forgive and forget.
A scream brought her attention back to her precarious position. It was the chilling sound of a man dying, but what alarmed her more was how near it was. The battle had drawn dangerously close to the tent. Gisele slowly stood up as the clash of swords continued at what sounded like only a few paces away. Hiding within the tent no longer felt safe. It began to feel very much like a trap.
The dagger held tightly in her hand, she inched through the tent opening and then halted. Horror and fear held her rooted to the spot. Guy was in a fierce battle for his life with two men whose shields held the heraldic colors of the house of DeVeau. They had found her, and they were about to cut down one of the few members of her large family who had believed in her, just as they had cut down Guy’s friend Charles. Gisele shuddered as she quickly looked away from the amiable young knight’s body.
“Get away!” bellowed Guy as he nimbly evaded a lethal thrust of a sword.
Just as Gisele realized that if Guy knew she was there so did the DeVeaux, a third DeVeau man appeared and slowly approached her sword in hand. She held out her dagger and knew that the huge knight had every right to grin so arrogantly. She and her tiny weapon were no threat to him.
“Drop the dagger, you murderous whore,” he said, his deep voice little more than a rough growl.
“And make this injustice easier for you to commit? Non, I think not,” she replied.
“Injustice?