Crusader Captive by Merline Lovelace Read Free Book Online Page A

“Why didn’t you call out?”
    “No, no. It wasn’t that.” She gave the two guardsmen a quick glance and kept her response as cryptic as she could. “He, uh, sapped his strength such that his wounds overcame him.”
    Her castellan swore under his breath. “I feared something like this when I saw his back.”
    A layer of guilt piled on top of Jocelyn’s churning emotions. Hugh had indeed told her de Rhys had been hard used. But she’d been so determined to go forward with her scheme that she’d ignored the warning.
    “Come and help me with him.”
    Gathering her skirts, she hurried back up the winding tower stairs. Hugh issued a curt order to the other men to remain where they were and followed. When they reentered her chamber, de Rhys still lay where he’d fallen, his naked body sprawled atop his scattered clothing.
    “He’s too heavy for me alone,” Hugh muttered. “I’ll need to summon aid to carry him from your chamber.”
    “I can’t have him seen unclothed like this! Help me draw on his breeks, then we’ll drag him to the bed.”
    Hugh’s glance cut from the fallen knight to Jocelyn. “Your bed?”
    “Yes.”
    She struggled to gather her scattered wits. Her original plan had called for de Rhys to depart her chamber when he’d done what she’d required of him and spend the rest of the night in the great hall with her other knights before departing on the morrow. Now…
    Now she must needs cover what they’d done here to protect him from the curiosity of her people and, ultimately, the king’s wrath.
    “I’ll…I’ll say I had you bring him to my solar so I might speak with him about his capture,” she got out, hastily revising her plan. “While we were speaking, de Rhys appeared most weak. I bade him show me his wounds and was so appalled by them that I insisted he lie abed that I might tend him. That’s what… That’s what any chatelaine would do,” she finished lamely.
    Sir Hugh grunted, but didn’t gainsay her. Muttering under his breath, he knelt beside de Rhys and pulled the man’s breeks up one leg, then the other. With another grunt, he rolled the man over. Once his nether parts were covered, he signaled to Jocelyn.
    “Grasp his arm.”
    They dragged him to the bed without too much difficulty. Getting him into it was another matter altogether. As strong as Sir Hugh was, he had to strain to lift de Rhys’s dead weight. He got him to the edge of the mattress finally and let him collapse face-down into the linen sheets.
    The stained linen sheets. Hugh’s sharp glance took in the reddish smears and cut to Jocelyn. “So it’s done?”
    “It’s done.”
    He nodded once, a quick jerk of his chin, and maneuvered de Rhys’s legs onto the mattress. When the man was fully laid out, the castellan regarded her in the flickering light from the fire.
    “Had it been a husband you’d bedded with, you could show these sheets as proof that you came to him a maid.”
    She was all too aware of that. Aware, as well, that she could not use the sheets as proof of her lost virginity. The king would question whether the stains were the result of her monthly courses. Or whether she’d cut herself. Or sprinkled sheep’s blood on the sheets.
    She didn’t doubt Baldwin would have his personal physician examine her. Perhaps in front of witnesses. The prospect made Jocelyn writhe inside, but she would endure such a humiliation, and gladly, if it turned the Emir of Damascus against marriage to her.
    “I’ll tell my women the stains are from de Rhys’s wounds,” she said with another hasty revision to her scheme.
    “If you don’t want them to know what occurred here this night,” Sir Hugh said gruffly, “you’d best wash yourself first. You have the scent of him on you.”
    In her flustered state, Jocelyn had forgotten the yeasty stickiness between her thighs. She guessed it, too, was tinged with red. And obviously gave off a distinctive scent. That an old and loyal vassal should have to