A Knight Well Spent. Jackie Ivie

      A Knight Well Spent

      Also by Jackie Ivie

      Heat of the Knight

      The Knight Before Christmas

      Tender Is the Knight

      Lady of the Knight

      Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

      A Knight Well Spent

      Jackie Ivie

      ZEBRA BOOKS

       Kensington Publishing Corp.

       www.kensingtonbooks.com

      To my mother, Virginia,

       for instilling in me the drive,

       love of a challenge,

       and belief that all things are possible.

      And a special thanks to Michael Larsen,

       who came up with this title.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Chapter Nineteen

      Chapter Twenty

      Chapter Twenty-One

      Chapter Twenty-Two

      Chapter Twenty-Three

      Chapter Twenty-Four

      Chapter Twenty-Five

      Chapter Twenty-Six

      Chapter One

      AD 1141

      He was awake, he was moving, and he was in pain.

      Rhoenne eased his step to accommodate the pain lacing his calf. It was more a shuffling stumble than a walk. He wiped a hand across his forehead and grimaced at the sweat beads there before rubbing them away on his tunic’s edge. He couldn’t prevent the shudder. He knew why. He was fevered.

      He forced another step, another wince, and another quickly drawn breath. He couldn’t prevent the signs of weakness. All he could do was make certain no one else knew it. That was why he was forcing one agonized step after the other onto a leg mangled to the point he was afraid to look at it.

      Rhoenne stopped, listened, and sagged with relief. He could hear the sound of running water. His instincts hadn’t failed him. Knighted at sixteen and awarded this fief at the age of a score-and-one, he’d made it a point then to visit every croft, every field, crop, every water source. It had been years…but he still remembered.

      Rhoenne brushed the hair that many likened to a lion’s mane from his forehead before entering into the glade. There was one huge boulder, four large stones arranged like steps, and a row of overhanging willows weeping into the brook. It was exactly as he recalled—except for the strange figure straddling the waterfall that fed the brook. Rhoenne was so disappointed and frustrated he didn’t bother to hide the weakness. He lowered his head and groaned loudly, letting every bit of agony pierce the sound.

      The black-shrouded figure promptly fell right into the pool, showering everything, Rhoenne included. He kept from a major dousing by stumbling back two steps, before the motion became an all-out fall, slamming him onto the carpet of grass, and stealing every bit of air from his body.

      “Oh! How could you?”

      Rhoenne opened his eyes, started sucking for air, and glared at the girl who was screeching her words. It didn’t work. She was angrier. And she had command of her breathing.

      “You—you great big—oaf!”

      She was standing beside him, dripping water everywhere, shaking what looked like a child-sized fist at him. Then she gave him the oddest indignity of his life. She stepped right up onto his chest and hammered her feet into it. Rhoenne had only a moment to grasp his luck that she weighed little and that she hadn’t anything on her feet, before she was putting words with her steps as she stomped.

      “I have to start anew! You’ve ruined everything! Dinna’ just lay there with those big blue eyes and stare! Go! Move!”

      The growl he gave hadn’t much sound, but he had her off him and onto what scrawny buttocks she probably possessed, by grabbing and twisting her ankles and letting the spin make her fall. He registered that she had fairly shapely legs before she rolled back to her feet, pulling her sodden black mass of clothing about herself.

      “So…you have a bark? I’m cheered for you. Now run along, before The Lady gets annoyed with you.” She’d punctuated her speech with heaven-sent arms. “Well? Dinna’ just lay there after ruining my blessing ritual. I have to finish.”

      He bristled. It was rare, but he knew what it was. He knew what caused it, too. He’d never been treated like this. He pulled in a breath. He couldn’t decide which pained him more at the moment; his chest or his lower leg. The leg won out. He held the bit of air he’d managed to breathe, and then let it out extremely slowly, since anything else seemed beyond him. The leg was definitely more painful, and it throbbed worse; due, no doubt, to how he’d been forced to move it as he fell.

      That was her fault, he thought.

      “Are you a dimwit? Why dinna’ you say something? I wouldn’t have been so angered at you. Come. Tell me why you’ve sought the services of the Lady of the Brook. I’ll na’ hurt you.”

      Rhoenne made fists as she knelt beside him and looked him over with strange-colored eyes. In fact, if he wasn’t mistaken, she had one of green and one of brown. That was interesting.

      She smiled then, showing two very deep dimples. Rhoenne stared. She wasn’t as young as he’d first thought, nor was she uncomely. If he wasn’t mistaken she was freshly bathed and clean-looking, too. His eyes widened. She was wearing a head covering made from what could only be his own vivid blue cloth, beneath her own wimple! No one outside the Ramhurst castle was allowed to wear it. It was his own command. He was still reeling from that revelation when she put an icy hand against his cheek.

      “You’re fevered. You came to me just in time. You ken? Take off this tunic. What is wrong with you now?”

      Rhoenne didn’t know what she was referring to. He was looking at her with as little expression as he could manage. It was actually better that he didn’t have use of his voice just yet. Otherwise, he’d probably be yelling.

      “I canna’ begin healing if I dinna’ see the reason for it. Have you been ill long?”

      She lifted the hem of his garment. Rhoenne tried not to move while she peeled it up, exposing his belly flesh to the early morning air. Despite his every effort, the bumps rose, making his shiver worse.

      “This is na’ good. You’ve size…and strength. How can a dimwit get so—so…fit? You’re na’ going to hurt me, are you?”

      She