Until the Knight Comes by Sue-Ellen Welfonder Read Free Book Online

than take them back, she found herself peering at him, the next lie already on her lips. “I am not plagued by some regrettable plight,” she denied, clutching her cloak against the cold. “And, for certes, I am not afraid of you.”
    He folded his arms, doubt all over him. “What then, my lady?”
    Mariota swallowed, keenly aware of his men bustling about the bailey. “I simply thought to dwell here in solitude—like you,” she said, trying hard not to fidget. “It was ne’er my intent to deceive you. For truth, I sought these walls because I believed you did not exist!”
    A glint of amusement lit his eyes. “Then I vow we share more than one might venture, since I find the existence of a
wife
equally astonishing.”
    He paused and the gleam turned cynical. “Aye, not to be believed. And nigh as inexplicable as why a woman of gentle birth would hie herself into such a dark glen as this?”
    “Why, indeed?” Mariota quipped, nervousness edging her voice. “There are reasons aplenty, do not doubt it.”
    “Even so, do you not fear broken men, my lady?” He towered over her, the wind whipping his plaid, tossing his hair. “Caterans who skulk through empty lands such as these? Burning and pillaging as they go?”
    “Are
you
such a man?”
    Surprising her, he laughed, and the brief glimpse of warmth proved . . . devastating. “I have told you who I am,” he said, serious again. “’Tis who
you
are, that I would know.”
    “I am Mariota of Dunach,” she admitted, her heart clenching on the name. “And I was raised to fear little, though I am wise enough to avoid the notice of such marauders as you described.”
    “And how?” His brow shot upward. “By hiding away and claiming to be lady of this keep?”
    “I will not deny that . . . deception,” she owned, guilt pinching her again. “Cloaking myself with what I believed to be an empty title seemed harmless. In especial, if doing so might warn off unwanted . . . attentions.”
    Kenneth looked at her, admiring her spirit even as he strove not to be swayed by the fetching gold flecks in her enormous, sea-green eyes.
    Something about her summoned images of hot, tumbled bedding and rich, satisfying sensual sport.
    Worse, a trace of vulnerability that made him want to protect her.
    Frowning, he forced himself to recall other green eyes. Ones not near so luminous and vulnerable as Lady Mariota’s, but potent enough to chill his blood and banish unwanted bestirrings.
    “So-o-o, Mariota of Dunach,” he began, “whose bothersome attentions drove you here?”
    She drew a deep breath. “I misspoke,” she admitted. “’Twas not unwanted attentions that brought me here, but . . . wrath and superstition. I was to be sacrificed—given in offering to the Each Uisge of River Inver. Some might scoff at water-horses and other such mythical beasts, but those who believe fear them mightily. I escaped only because Nessa took great hazards to rescue me.”
    “I see,” Kenneth said, the weight of his knightly spurs suddenly tremendous.
    Not that it mattered.
    He’d just stepped into a whirl of chaos and honor demanded he dwell there.
    The ancient code of Highland hospitality fettered him, binding him to grant her sanctuary. As did his newly bestowed knighthood. That, and his inability to walk past a woman in need.
    A compulsion that had often caused him more than his share of grief.
    So he blew out a frustrated breath that felt uncomfortably like resignation. “The effort it took you to come here was trouble well spent,” he heard himself saying, his voice sounding like a stranger’s. “You will be safe at Cuidrach, I promise you.”
    But she didn’t seem to hear him, her gaze sliding past him into the hall where some of his men had stripped to the waist and were taking turns at the steaming cauldron. Sir Lachlan, the contented-looking loon, was already full submerged in a hastily readied bathing tub.
    A rickety-looking contrivance set discreetly in a