The Bride Hunt by Margo Maguire Read Free Book Online Page B

survive.
    They should have put the leather skins out to dry. As it was, they lay in a sodden heap at the water’s edge. At least Anvrai still had the sword he’d taken from the guard. It could easily have been lost during the night’s storm and their mad rowing, just as they’d lost the second oar. That loss was frustrating, but in all fairness, ’twas not Isabel’s fault. The boat had slammed into the rocks and knocked it out of her hands. There was naught she could have done.
    Anvrai lowered Roger into the boat and finally turned to Isabel. “Climb in. I’ll push the boat onto the water…”
    Her nakedness struck him once again,though she seemed to have no idea how she looked in her torn chemise. Her full attention was upon Roger.
    Anvrai pulled his tunic over his head and handed it to her. “Put this on. It will keep you…warm.” And covered. She had no awareness of the stirring sight she made, tempting him to want what he could never have.
     
    Of course it had been too much to ask that Sir Anvrai would not notice her attire—or its lack. Isabel felt her face heat with color and her nipples tighten with embarrassment as she accepted the knight’s tunic and drew it over her head.
    She opened her mouth to thank him, but shut it quickly, hoping her shock at the sight of him did not offend him.
    She had never seen so much male flesh. Certainly no workmen or priests had ever gone unclothed at the abbey, and even if they had, there were none whose physical structure would have been as powerful as Sir Anvrai’s. ’Twas an impressive sight.
    His braies rode low upon his hips, and his abdomen rippled with dense muscles, the sight of which made Isabel’s own muscles tighten in awe.
    The hair upon his head was so light it wasnearly white, yet the hair on his chest, and that which trailed beneath his braies, was darker. She wondered if his male part was as—
    No, she did not wonder. Her eyes shot up to his chest again, then to his face, which was half-covered with a beard that had grown thick and full since their captivity. Much of his scarred face was covered by it.
    Isabel looked away. The sudden warmth that surged through her body was surely due to the added heat of his tunic when she pulled it on. She rolled the sleeves up past her wrists, ignoring the blisters on her hands and the odd sensation that the chieftain’s slick blood was still upon them. “What will we do now?”
    “I’m going to push the currach into the water,” he said. “I’ll hold it while you climb in, then I’ll get in after you.”
    The boat was heavier and more cumbersome than it looked, and Isabel wondered how Sir Anvrai had managed to pull it out of the water himself when they’d landed. She knelt on the rocky ground and helped him push it, and he eventually succeeding in lowering it into the river.
    They followed the process he’d outlined, though it was a struggle to hold on to the rocky ledge long enough for Anvrai to climb into the boat. Finally, it was done, and he took his position in the center of the currach. Roger lay ahead of him, and Isabel stayed behind, unable to take her eyes from the ripple of muscles in Anvrai’s back as he rowed and the hideous gash in his shoulder.
    She could not imagine how he managed to move his arm with such a wound, yet he maneuvered the boat, keeping it out of the rough waters, close to the shore. Their journey was difficult, and Anvrai was often forced to use the oar to push them away from jutting rocks that impeded their path. He strained to keep them out of the river’s swift current, guiding them slowly downriver toward the bit of jutting land they’d seen earlier.
    Roger remained unconscious, a grave worry for Isabel.
    “Sir Anvrai, will Roger…” She swallowed. “I—I’m afraid for him. Will he—”
    “Die?”
    “Hush! What if he can hear you?”
    “If he can hear me, then he knows his condition is dire.”
    With her worst fears confirmed, Isabel gaped up at the high