Hugh lay dying, his face a deathly gray. Soon he would bleed to death. Malcolm would have to trust her. His experience told him to be wary of women holding knives, women who gazed at him with that confident knowledge of a battle-experienced leader. Her strength beguiled him, contrasting sharply with the fragile cut of her face, at once beautiful and innocent; to her lithe grace and womanly curves. Truly such a sorceress could enchant a man. Or worse.
Yet she gazed at him with human eyes, waiting patiently for control of her knife. He saw in those blue depths a wise purpose. She had healed others gravely wounded before. He could read her confidence in her stance, feel it like an imminent storm on the wind—half instinct, half experience, but certain.
He’d seen evil, and it was not Elinore of Evenbough.
He released her knife. “Do what you must. But I will have you know Hugh was my friend.”
“I will do him no harm, fierce one.” She was young to be so confident, but her words eased his fears. She tapped herbs from a small crock into the steaming water and then dipped her blade into the mixture. “I learned my meager healing arts from a wise woman. She was skilled in anatomy and cures.”
Malcolm’s stomach turned as Elin slipped the blade into the red-edged flesh and tore widthwise across the gaping slash. The skin opened wider, like a hungry mouth. Blood rushed with renewed fury, and he almost stayed the girl-woman’s hand.
“I was not surprised to return and see your knights victorious.” She soaked strips of cloth in the trencher, then stuffed them into Hugh’s wound. They became colored with blood. “Tell me what fearsome enemy of the king’s you have overpowered now. An old man? Mayhap a lame woman? A goat?”
“Take care, dove, else you shall offend.”
“’Tis good to know I come close to succeeding.”
He snorted. What manner of woman was this Elin of Evenbough? He believed women should be tamed like a good horse, bridled and saddled and prepared to answer a man’s command, and this girl was not. Yet he couldn’t deny a grudging respect for her. She did not flinch as he did at the sight of the wound. He was used to inflicting them, not studying them.
“See, there is much damage.” She removed the cloths and probed the pink cavity with knowing fingers. “I note two tears, here and here. Look how deep they are.”
“I prefer not.”
She laughed. “Can it be such a great warrior has a weak stomach? Aye, ’tis not pretty to see the damage done by a man’s violent sword.”
He heard the censure in that and chose to remain silent. She had returned of her own accord—why, he could not fathom. Surely not to heal a fallen man, one she had not thought twice about kicking like an angry donkey. Yet Malcolm could not deny her touch was tender and her intent to heal sincere. She stitched and cleaned, studied her work, then stitched some more. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead and dampened the tendrils of gold gathered there, curling them, though the night was cold.
He could not deny how hard she worked. And for what? This daughter of a traitor ought to be bound like her father to a tree. She ought to fear for the crimes she faced. And yet she saw only Hugh and uttered commands to the old woman as if she were a king at war.
Light brushed her face, soft as the fine weave of her gown and cloak, stained by travel. ’Twas a pretty face, not beautiful, but striking. She had big, almond-shaped eyes, blue like winter, direct, not coy. Long curled lashes, as gold as her hair, framed those eyes. He admired her gently sloping, feminine nose. And her mouth! God’s teeth, ’twas bow shaped and as tempting as that of the moon goddess herself.
Then Elin sighed, a soft release of air, all emotion, all sadness. Her unblinking gaze collided with his directly; there was no flirting, no shyness, no feminine submission. “I fear there is more damage than I can repair, but the wound, both inside and out, is closed.”
He swallowed. “Hugh will die?”
“There’s no fever yet.” She laid a small hand to the unconscious knight’s forehead. “A fine sign. Now we must pray he is strong enough. I will do all I can.”
“You will, because I command it.” She may have returned of her own volition, but Elin of Evenbough was his prisoner still. He would not fail his king.
A smile tugged at one corner of her mouth, and that defiant chin firmed. “Again you try to terrify me, a woman half your size. Always the valiant warrior.”
Anger snapped in his chest and he held his tongue. She challenged his authority; she rebelled at something deeper. He was, as she said, twice her size and twice her strength. And he had her knife—her last one, he guessed—in his keeping. The only weapon left her was her tongue, and he could withstand those barbs. And if not, he would gag her, as he had her betrothed, the treacherous Caradoc.
“Old woman.” He caught the crone’s gaze, and she trembled at the attention. Though old and stooped, she possessed a strong set to her jaw, too. “See that your charge tends the injured men, mine and those captured. But not her father. Let the man suffer like the men he left to die.”
“Yes, Sir Malcolm. I will see the rebellious one obeys.” Head bowed, she scurried away.
Malcolm stepped away into the darkness. The wee hours of morning meant there would be little, mayhap no sleep for him before dawn. And then another day of raising his sword for the king.
Elin of Evenbough had the freedom to speak as she wished, whether innocent or criminal. But Caradoc was right. Malcolm was a peasant born, a barbarian king’s bastard, and both peasant and bastard he would always be. A savage hired merely because he was useful. Useful until another took his place, his livelihood or his head.
He thought of Caradoc’s threat, thought of the unrest of ambitious knights wanting to lead, thought of Elin’s courage in returning to aid her captors.
Lavender light chased the gray shadows at the eastern horizon. ’Twould be another day without peace, without rest, watching his back for treachery and the road ahead for danger.
The lot of a knight was a hard one, but Malcolm was harder.
“Caradoc!” Elin dropped to her knees before the bound man, neighbor and friend to her father. “I do not believe my eyes. What have you done? Challenged the king’s knights and lost?”
He colored from the collar of his hauberk to the roots of his dark hair. “Aye. Your father—”
“You are in league with my father?” she yelped, lowering her voice so it would not carry to the watchful knight keeping guard. That Giles, he looked untrustworthy, far more threatening than poor spying Hugh had ever been.
“Nay, I am no traitor. I would never turn against the king. I came for you.”
“Me?”
“My future bride.” Triumph glittered in his cold eyes.
“’Tis news to me.” She fought to sound unaffected. Surely this man dreamed! By the rood, she would no more marry him than Malcolm le Farouche.
“Your father and I had exchanged words on the matter.”
“We are not betrothed and you know it, Caradoc.” She swiped a clean cloth through the steaming trencher.
“We could be.”
“You only covet my father’s holdings, else you would not risk your life, your freedom and your barony.”
“Your father offered you to me.”
“I am not a cow to be bought and sold.” She brushed at the bloody but shallow cut beneath his jaw. “Look at this wound. Put there by le Farouche’s sword.”
“Loosen my bonds and I will kill him for you. For your honor.”
“Do