A Knight Well Spent. Jackie Ivie

ken me?”

      He nodded. She sighed.

      “Good. I’m known as the Lady of the Brook. I’m a healer. You look to need a healer.”

      Rhoenne nodded again, slower this time. He couldn’t believe his luck. As strange as she was, he’d heard of far worse from those few gifted in the healing arts. He didn’t waste time debating it. If she could heal him, mayhap he wouldn’t take a switch to her when she finished. Maybe.

      “I’m na’ a witch. I want you to know this.”

      His eyebrows rose.

      “I dinna’ practice it. I never have.”

      He sucked for breath as she pulled up her skirts. Then she was splitting bare legs to straddle his torso, dampening him worse and making him shudder anew. Then she made it all worse by burrowing both cold hands well beneath his tunic and placing them directly atop his heart. Everything in him reacted; his heart stopped, his shuddering ceased, his breath caught. Then his heart decided it would continue beating, and rather rapidly. He was afraid she’d spot it.

      Rhoenne watched her and admitted to himself that he’d slighted her on her comeliness. She was more than that. She was beautiful. She had arched black brows, long, perfectly spaced lashes, high cheekbones, and very full lips. He found himself wondering if she was in possession of all her teeth, and if they were in as perfect condition as the rest of her. He wondered what color her hair was, and how long, and how it would feel between his fingers.

      “I canna’ work if you insist on such thoughts,” she whispered, stiffening her arms and sitting forward so that her upper body hovered above his.

      Rhoenne flushed. He knew it, although he couldn’t remember ever experiencing it before. He watched as she arched herself above him, catching the first rays of sun as the dawn broke over the biggest boulder. He caught his breath for an entirely new reason as light flooded her features.

      She wasn’t just beautiful, he decided, and wondered what word did fit.

      “You’ve been injured,” she said softly, moving her head down to match her gaze to his.

      Rhoenne’s eyes showed the surprise. He couldn’t prevent it.

      “You took a weapon in your lower leg. You have na’ had it seen to. You’re hiding it. You dinna’ even clean it. You’re very brave…. Or very foolish. It’s poisoning within you.”

      His eyes went wider still. She winked. Rhoenne knew he had a full-out blush now. He didn’t know how to hide it.

      “You need na’ fear me. I’m a healer. I have strange methods, true, but I can heal you. I swear it. Do you wish me to go on?” she asked.

      He nodded.

      “Are you a knight?”

      He shook his head after a moment. She didn’t look like she believed him.

      “Dinna’ lie to The Lady. I canna’ heal you, if I canna’ trust you.”

      “I’m not a knight,” he replied in a raspy whisper. It was true. He wasn’t. He was the liege lord. He had legions of knights serving him. He didn’t say a word about any of that.

      At his reply she hesitated. Rhoenne waited. She couldn’t have known that he had a great, deep, resonant voice. It was notorious. He’d been described by it. It came along with the immense frame the Lord had gifted him with. A small voice would have been incongruous coming from him.

      “You’re na’ a dimwit…are you?” she asked with very little sound.

      He shook his head.

      “You’re na’ a knight yet you’ve a battle wound? This is na’ the mark of a learned, scholarly man…nor one using his wits, if he possessed such.”

      Rhoenne bristled. “I am not a dimwit.” He couldn’t keep the defensive tone from the whisper.

      “Then why did you lose?” she asked.

      Rhoenne’s mouth gaped.

      She grinned, bringing the dimples back into existence. “I dinna’ have special powers. I’ll na’ stand accused of such.” Her face clouded and her grin died.

      He shook his head rapidly.

      “That’s good, for I’ll na’ be able to heal if you worry over the methods.”

      “I don’t worry,” Rhoenne whispered.

      He didn’t know if she believed him or not, for the enigmatic look she turned on him didn’t tell him anything. The word came to him then. She was absolutely exquisite. Her skin was silk-smooth, her mouth reddened and lush-looking. He found himself hoping she had black hair that matched her brows; thick, glossy strands of it. She deserved the setting of his castle room, richly covered with tapestries and filled with gilded furniture.

      “I already have all that,” she said.

      Rhoenne went stiff with the surprise.

      She giggled and the stiffness went straight to his groin at the sound. There wasn’t anything he could do to prevent it. That was unbelievable. He’d never had his body betray him to this extent. He tried bringing the pain of his wound back to the forefront of his mind. It almost worked. He was afraid he was rose red with the reaction.

      “If I close my eyes, I have castles, servants, and silver. Anyone can. Close your eyes.”

      He didn’t want to. He almost said it aloud.

      “You have to mind The Lady. Right here. Right now. Otherwise….”

      She left her threat unfinished. Rhoenne closed his eyes. That was worse somehow, for she not only was clean-looking, she smelled like fresh-picked wildflowers. He pulled in a long breath and held it.

      “You claim you are na’ a knight…yet you’ve every mark of one. You’re nae idiot, although you dinna’ show much in wits when you entered my glade. I surprised you. You’re na’ easily surprised. All of that is strange. Verra strange. You’ve a battle wound, so you have been in a battle. If you’d won this battle, you would have had your wound tended to before now. You must have lost. You see the method of my knowledge? I weigh out what I know with what has to be. You dinna’ even take out the weapon, I’m guessing. How can you pretend ’tis naught? You’re very strong. You’re very brave. You’re very manly…and you’re very foolish. Verra.”

      Rhoenne opened his eyes and lifted his head. She wasn’t hovering over him anymore. She was kneeling next to his boiled leather shin-guard, the one he’d strapped tight to hold in the grotesque-looking, linen-swathed swelling below his knee. He wondered when she’d moved. He hadn’t even felt it.

      “I’m going to have to remove this Sassenach thing…and this hose. Will that be a problem?”

      He wondered how she could ask such a question, when the answer was starting to distend the patch at his crotch. He groaned the breath out and lay back down. Perhaps if he pretended she was a man—and a fat, ugly one at that—he could stop such a reaction.

      “I mean…I—I canna’ just cut through it. Those you have been hiding this from…they—they would ken your wound. It would na’ remain hidden. Your bravery would be…for naught. You do see?”

      She was stammering and stumbling through the words. Rhoenne sucked in on both cheeks and kept any expression where she wouldn’t see it. He guessed she hadn’t had that reaction before. She didn’t sound like a confident healer calling herself the Lady of the Brook. She sounded just like what she was; a young, beautiful, virginal maiden with a man at her fingertips.

      Rhoenne groaned again. Virginal, he repeated in his thoughts.

      “Forgive me. I try na’ to pain.”

      Her face was back in view as she scooted to his side. He did the best he could not to let her see, or think she could see, where his thoughts had just been. He suspected