Tail wagging, Belde sniffed her from the toes up, his usual greeting. It took longer this time, because he caught an unfamiliar scent.
‘That’s a new Brunson you smell,’ she muttered, scratching behind his ears. A Brunson who threatened the fragile barrier that protected her. ‘Bite him when you see him.’
Intent to understand the new scent, the dog didn’t lift his head. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his reddish fur. There would be no tears, but this creature would be the only one allowed to see her sorrow.
The men accepted her silently. Braw Cate, they called her, and if she was not exactly a comrade in arms, none of them saw her as a woman. That part of her had died and she would let no one resurrect it.
Especially a blue-eyed Brunson.
She lifted her head and settled a firm expression on her face.
Sorrow would be left on the dog’s coat.
John found her in the soft, grey light of the afternoon doing something he’d never seen a woman do: waving a sword at her fading shadow in a corner of the courtyard.
He watched her from the doorway, more baffled than ever. She was slim and strong. Bone and sinew bent to her will. This was not, he could tell, the first time she had lifted a blade, but the sword, more than half her height, was one a man needed two hands to wield.
What kind of woman tried the same?
Quietly, he unsheathed his dagger and crept around the edge of the yard. It was no match for her sword, but confronted with a weapon in a man’s hand, she’d no doubt gasp and blush and step aside.
She heard him before he got within a sword’s length and whirled to meet him. He lifted his weapon and crossed it with hers.
‘Surrender?’ he said with a smile.
Instead, she knocked his dagger aside. ‘Never.’
Then, lips set, eyes narrowed, she pointed the sword at his chest, as if to make a touch.
Or something even more deadly.
He tightened his grip on the dagger and took a step back, wishing he still wore his armour. On his guard, he countered her, exhilaration warring with annoyance as they circled each other. He had learned to fight in this very yard, learned because it was a matter of life and death, but his style had been polished beside the king, who had picked up an adult sword at thirteen.
Partnering with King James, guided by the same master, he had developed swift elegance that allowed his opponent to increase his skills without either fighter being hurt.
Even disadvantaged by his weapon, he should be able to toy with this woman until she lowered her blade.
Yet she knew none of those rules. She swung her sword with the bluntness of a warrior astride a hobbler pony, fending off an enemy brandishing a pike. Her sword’s thrust carried urgency, even passion, that somehow stirred his blood.
Even his loins.
He jumped just in time to escape a touch. Now was not the time for distractions. He had expected a playful joust. Instead, he faced a warrior.
He swung high, but she held up her sword, turned sideways, to block his stroke. A clever move, but lifting the two-handed sword had strained her strength and when she lowered it, her arms shook.
Seizing on her weakness, he attacked and they crossed blades again. Prepared now, he leveraged his strength against her sword. Though she kept her grip, he pushed the blade away, coming close enough to feel her chest rise and fall, nearly touching his.
Close enough that his mind wandered, careless of the blades, thinking that under her tunic and vest, she had breasts. Now he could see her face, the angles of it, sharp and cleanly sculpted as her sword. Yet thick lashes edged her brown eyes, disguising some of the hatred there.
‘Surrender now?’
Panting, she shook her head. Yet her lips parted, tempting him to take them. She was, after all, a woman. A kiss would be mightier than a sword.
He pushed her sword arm down, pulled her to him and took her lips.
She yielded for a breath, no more.
But it was long enough for him to lose his thoughts, to forget she held a sword and remember only that she was a woman, breasts soft against his chest, smelling of heather …
In a flash, she turned stiff as a sword and leaned away, though her lips did not leave his, so he thought she only teased.
When he felt the point of a dirk at his throat, he knew she did not.
‘Let me go,’ she said, her lips still close enough that they moved over his, ‘or you’ll be bleeding and I’ll leave you to it, I swear.’
He eased his arms from her back and she pushed him away, wiped her mouth and spat into the dirt.
He touched the scratch she’d left on his neck, grateful she had not drawn blood.
Her eyes, which he had thought to turn soft with pleasure, narrowed, hard with fury.
‘It’s a Brunson you’re facing,’ he said, trying a smile. ‘Not a Storwick.’
She raised both sword and dirk, the larger wobbling in her grip. ‘It’s a man I’m facing who thinks what I want is of no consequence if it interferes with his privileges and pleasures.’
Had he imagined the echo of the bedchamber in her voice? No more.
He raised his eyebrows, opened his arms and made a slight bow. ‘A thousand pardons.’ Words as insincere as the feelings behind them.
She frowned. ‘You are a stranger here, so you know no better. And because you are a Brunson, I’ll let you keep your head, but I’ll warn you just once. You will not do that again. Ever.’
She lowered her sword, slowly.
You are a stranger. She was the Brunson, besting him with a sword, displacing him at the family table. His temper rose. ‘And what if I do?’
The blade rose, this time, not pointed at his throat, but between his legs. ‘If you do, you won’t have to worry about bedding a woman ever again.’
He swallowed, gingerly, his body on fire. Only because she had challenged him. Nothing more. No man could desire such a woman.
‘Then have no worries on that score, Catie Gilnock,’ he said, flush with anger. ‘When next I bed a woman, it most certainly will not be you.’
Cate watched him go, struggling to keep her sword upright. Only when he was safely inside the tower did she lower her blade and raise her fingers to her lips.
He had dared to kiss her. And for just a moment, she had felt what other women must.
What she had thought never to feel.
After the raid, after her father died, after … the rest, she had been mercifully numb. Months were a blur. Some days, the only sensation she felt was Belde’s nose, nudging aside tears she didn’t remember shedding.
Then the numbness faded, and the fear came.
Bit by bit, day by day, she fought it. Piece by piece, she built a wall to hold it back.
Now, no one questioned why she was not like other women. But Johnnie Brunson did. His careless smile was a cruel reminder of doubts she had smothered and regrets she had suppressed. When he looked at her, they haunted her anew. Who she had been. Who she could never be. All the things she wanted to forget, the questions she did not want to ask, wanted no one to ask.
The questions she would never answer.
She carried her sword back to the armoury and polished the blade, reluctant to rejoin the wake and see him again.
Surely she would