The Knight's Return. Joanne Rock

dissimilarities did not mean they didn’t share the same black heart or the same opinion of women. Why would this man choose her—a fallen woman of the most public sort—to court?

      His motives could not be honorable.

      “Your service is highly suspect here, warrior. I suggest you find your path back to my father’s keep.” Backing up a step, Sorcha swung the door closed, unwilling to let any scheming mercenary into her home, no matter how appealing his appearance.

      Chapter Three

      The warrior caught the door neatly in his hand, his fingers wrapping around the wood at the last second.

      The move was quick, silent and unexpected.

      He reopened it slowly, his broad arm coming into focus by degrees until she could see the whole impressive length holding open her threshold. And wasn’t that just a little bit…dominating?

      Sorcha searched for her old grit and fire—the willfulness her father had bemoaned half her life—and found only a maternal fear for the babe sleeping two rooms away. She would not allow any strange male in such proximity to her son, especially not one who would flex his strength in direct opposition to Sorcha’s wishes.

      “Be careful, sir. I practiced my hold on my knife and I assure you I can wield it more easily thanks to your advice.” She kept her hand hidden in her skirt to perpetuate the idea that she might hide a blade from him.

      “You closed the entryway with that hand.” He smiled as he released the slab of wood, the removal of that strong arm making her feel less intimidated. But then, she remembered that about him from the glade where they’d met. Hugh Fitz Henry was skilled at giving the illusion he would not harm someone. No doubt he’d needed to cultivate that talent from a young age, given his size.

      “I reached for it after I closed it.” She was no stranger to deceit when a situation warranted.

      Her fear had diminished somewhat, but she could not be too careful.

      “Lady Sorcha, will you feel more at ease outside?” He gestured to her small plot where a few wildflowers had grown since winter. “I just wish to speak to you and if you are still as unmoved by my suit afterward, I promise to leave and bother you no more.”

      Ah, they could be so accommodating when it pleased them, couldn’t they? She peered past him to the fresh spurts of spring grass and budding trees, an awakening world she’d spent little time noticing until she’d had naught to entertain her but the seasons and her son.

      Would it be so dangerous then, to sit in the garden with him, this man who had already proven no threat to her well-being? She had not spoken at length to any noble person—any adult noble person—since she had been banished. Her sister, Onora, had attempted to visit her, but Sorcha had feared Onora would suffer at their father’s hands for the efforts and had forbade her younger sibling to visit the cottage anymore.

      Surely Sorcha could keep this knight at bay when his intentions were more—corporeal than violent. After her first romantic encounter with a man, she’d learned too late the power of a woman’s ability to say no, but she would put that lesson to use well now, if necessary.

      “I will join you shortly.” She pointed to the left where her garden awaited. “There is a bench nearby. I will bring us some mead.”

      Hugh’s head tipped back and a short bark of laughter sounded.

      “And a knife, I’ll warrant.” Nodding, he stalked out to the garden, reading her far too well.

      Had her expression become so transparent in her year away from court that even a knight with such unpolished manners would see through her purpose so quickly? Ach. She was as awkward and unpolished as he after keeping no company for so long.

      Perhaps she should not turn away Hugh Fitz Henry without a bit more thought. Conversation might do her good. She could hone her skills and sharpen her mind grown dull from lack of use. If she hoped to talk her father out of locking her away in a convent, she would need a smooth tongue and sharp wit.

      Tucking a sheathed blade into her garter, Sorcha hurried around the kitchen to assemble a tray. A pitcher of sweet mead. Freshly baked honey bread. Two flagons. When all was ready, she carried it out into the garden and set it on the bench.

      Hugh was nowhere in sight.

      Had she scared him off already? Perhaps a woman who threatened him with a blade had not been what he’d hoped for in a courtship. Surprised at the twinge of disappointment that filled her throat, she was about to retrieve the tray when she heard the rustle of tree branches and a crack of wood.

      “Sir?” She peered around the garden to the woods nearby and didn’t see anything.

      Until she looked up.

      And spied Hugh Fitz Henry perched in a tree, his big body balanced on a thick limb as one boot dangled from a freshly broken branch. With one hand, he held tight to the oak. With the other, he reached out for a tiny puff of white and black. Her son’s six-week-old kitten.

      “Oh!” Sorcha raced over to stand beneath the tree, nervous the animal might fall. “The bold little thing. He is not yet weaned and he would scale heights as if he were a bird.”

      She lined up under the small animal, holding her skirt out from her body like a cradle to catch the poor thing if he should lose his tenuous grip. Conn would be sad and puzzled should any harm befall his wee friend.

      But Hugh stretched a hand’s span more and snatched the animal up while the kitten mewed piteously. Relief flooded through her. For although the kitten was a small thing and the mother cat had litters of many to safeguard against the loss of one, this particular little beast remained special to her son. And therefore, tremendously special to Sorcha.

      “Thank you.” She waited impatiently for Hugh to descend, finally taking the kitten from him when he was but a few feet from the ground. “You have averted tragedy, sir, and I appreciate it greatly.”

      She wrapped the mewling creature in her long sleeve as she crooked her arm, smiling as the feline licked her wrist in joyful obliviousness of his near accident.

      Hugh leaped to the ground as nimbly as a squire, though the expression on his face bore little resemblance to a boy’s.

      “You should have a care with the revelation of your legs, my lady.” His voice took on a growling note that surprised her in the middle of her happy reunion with the cat.

      And then she recalled lifting her skirt.

      “Thankfully a woman’s garments allow her to dispense with a layer without revealing—anything.” Her cheeks heated nevertheless. And while she would like to pretend that it was her long and lonely exile that had turned her manners so coarse, she suspected she would have been as quick to flash her underskirts even while she lived beneath her father’s roof.

      “You forget that men require little encouragement to envision the exact shape and texture of a woman’s thighs.” He stormed past her, boots pounding an angry tempo on the ground as he closed in on the pitcher of mead. Helping himself to a flagon, he downed it quickly, readjusting his tunic.

      His braies.

      Sweet. Merciful. Heaven.

      She needed to remain mindful of being around a man. Heat washed through her like a summer fever even though she had no business imagining anything so—physical about this bold and unusual warrior. Quickly, she averted her eyes, although she hadn’t seen anything untoward. It unsettled her enough to have imagined the discomfort his movements hinted at.

      Flustered and frustrated with herself that she only perpetuated the man’s probable view of her as having loose morals, Sorcha kept her distance while he took a seat beside the tray of bread and mead. The scowling expression on his visage told her to run back inside the cottage. Yet he held himself firmly to the bench as he poured a second cup full of mead.

      The man possessed restraint, if the flexing and tightening