Following Tabitha"s gaze to the fallen knight, Prince Charming smiled. "And what were you going to do if this fair maiden failed to behead me? Sic your p.u.s.s.ycat on me?"
In his effort to rise, the knight had made it only as far as his knees. Frightened by the smell of the dogs, Lucy was clinging to his brawny shoulder. A sudden thought struck her. If the man on the white horse was Prince Charming, then who the h.e.l.l was he? Prince Surly? What if she"d inadvertently been aiding and abetting the villain of the piece?
She decided to test her theory. Wishing she"d paid more attention to the dialogue in those Disney movies, she tilted her head back and offered Prince Charming her sweetest smile. "Forsooth, kind sir, methinks it most fortuitous thou hast stumbled upon this damsel in distress."
One of his men nudged the other. "What"d she say?"
"h.e.l.l if I know. She"s got good teeth though." The squat man grinned, revealing a mouthful of cracked and blackened stumps.
The knight was staring at her as if she"d lost her mind. But his opinion was not the one that mattered.
Prince Charming favored her with such a loving smile that she dared to lower the sword and lightly touch his knee. "I beseech you, my lord, should we not retire posthaste to your castle?"
She could not help but be slightly dazzled when he brought her grubby hand to his lips and gazed deep into her eyes. "Aye, my lady. Your wish is my command."
Your wish.
His words gave her a chill, even in this enchanted setting. But not nearly as much of a chill as his next words did.
"Take Ravenshaw and his wh.o.r.e back to the castle," he commanded, his smile curling into a sneer. "Cast them into the deepest, darkest dungeon. They can rot there just as well as they can in h.e.l.l."
Tabitha s.n.a.t.c.hed back her hand, but the sword was torn from her grasp before she could hoist it. Prince Charming wheeled his charger in a circle, abandoning her to the fate he had decreed. As the tinkle of bells faded in the distance, his men dropped from their mounts.
They wrenched her arms behind her and bound her wrists before swarming over Ravenshaw. He only got one lick in, but it was a good one. One of Prince Charming"s minions stumbled backward, blood gushing from his broken nose.
Tabitha cringed at the thud of fists against flesh.
"Raven"s naught but a craven!" someone bellowed.
"Ravenshaw"s a boor!" another man shouted. "Defended by a wh.o.r.e!"
As they forced him to his feet and dragged him toward a packhorse, the others took up the singsong chant, repeating it until Tabitha"s head rang. If her hands hadn"t been bound, she would have covered her ears. She remembered only too well how it felt to be mocked and taunted.
She looked helplessly at the knight, but he turned his face away from her, his mouth tightened in a contemptuous line. She didn"t know why it should bother her, but her spirits plunged even further as she realized her foolish daring had earned her his eternal loathing.
Chapter 6.
"Excuse me!" Tabitha shouted, rattling the iron grate set in the thick wooden door. "Excuse me, sir! Don"t you have room service in this establishment?"
The only answer from the shadowy corridor beyond was the whisper of water trickling down the dank stone walls. Tabitha licked her lips, more thirsty than she"d realized.
"I should"ve run you through when I had the chance."
The voice came from behind her a" lilting, conversational, almost tender. Tabitha swung around to shoot its owner a wounded glare. He was seated on the floor of the cell, his back to the stone wall, one lean leg drawn to his chest. Fresh blood stained his bandage and his lower lip was slightly swollen, making him look even more sullen than when she"d first encountered him.
If that were possible.
"I would think you"d be grateful," she retorted in the tone she used with insubordinate employees. "After all, I did risk my own life to save yours."
He snorted. " "Twasn"t your life you were risking, but your virtue. You were drooling over Brisbane as if he were a sweetmeat. For a moment there, I thought you were going to lick his fancy boots. Or hisa" He trailed off, mumbling something beneath his breath she a.s.sumed she was better off not hearing.
Embarra.s.sed to be reminded of how dazzled she"d been by Brisbane, Tabitha quickly changed the subject. "I wonder what happened to poor Lucy. I hate to think of her lost in that meadow. She must think I went off and abandoned her."
"If Lucy"s your accursed cat, I saw one of the men stuff her into his knapsack. Going to take her home and eat her, I"d wager." At Tabitha"s horrified cry, he rolled his eyes. " Twas only a jest, la.s.s. He"ll probably just carry the wee beastie back to the village for his bratlings to play with."
Tabitha sighed forlornly. "If only she were here."
"Why? So we could eat her?"
Tabitha started to protest, but she couldn"t tell if his eyes were sparkling with mischief or malice. "Do you have a name?"
"Colin," he said, all traces of humor disappearing from his face. "Sir Colin of Ravenshaw."
"Colin." She rolled the name around on her tongue to savor the taste of it. She"d always thought Colin a very dignified name, the sort that ought to belong to a pale English lord sipping tea in front of the hearth with his hunting dogs napping at his feet.
"Colin the Barbarian," she tried, smiling at him.
He was not amused.
"I"m Tabitha," she volunteered. When he maintained his stony silence, she added a mocking curtsy. "Lady Lennox."
He grunted, making her wish she"d introduced herself as the Princess Tabitha. She sighed and turned back to the door. Poking her nose through the bars, she yelled: "Hey! Couldn"t you at least send down some mints for our pillows? Or some pillows for our mints? If this abominable service persists, I"m going to have to insist on speaking with the concierge."
This time she was rewarded by the clang of a distant door and the shuffle of booted feet. She shot Colin a triumphant look. "See. You just have to know how to address the help."
She was forced to jump backward when a wooden bowl and a rusty cup were shoved through a metal flap at the base of the door. The footsteps receded as she picked up the bowl and poked at its contents with the wooden spoon. "Mmmm," she murmured. "Gruel. How yummy."
"You"d best eat up," Colin said quietly. " Tis the only food you"re likely to be getting for a while."
Praying she hadn"t actually seen something wiggle in its depths, she held out the bowl to him. "I"m not really very hungry. You can have my portion."
Shrugging, he took the bowl and dug into the watery mush as if it were a filet mignon from Peter Luger"s. "A body can survive without food, you know, but not without water."
Tabitha took the hint, lifting the cup to her lips for a hearty swallow. A searing cough exploded from her lungs.
"Christ, woman, don"t go wasting perfectly good ale."
"Ale?" she wheezed. "I thought you said it was water."
He shrugged. "Ale. Water. What"s the difference?"
"About fifty proof," she ventured, swiping the back of her hand across her lips in a futile attempt to quench their burning. The beverage was nothing like the fulsome German lagers she"d sipped at the Twenty-One Club. She handed it to Colin. He downed it in one swallow.
Tabitha was becoming aware of another more pressing urge. While Colin polished off the gruel, she circled the cell, exploring the shadowy corners and giving several of the stone blocks timid pushes in the hopes that one of them would slide open to reveal a secret pa.s.sageway. She found nothing but a splintery wooden bucket and several rat-sized holes in the crumbling mortar.
Colin finally erupted in a baffled oath. "What in G.o.d"s blood are you looking for, woman?"
Tabitha spun around, embarra.s.sed. "The bathroom."
He fixed her with that unblinking golden stare. "From the smell of you, I wouldn"t say you were in want of a bath. Yet."
It discomfited her to realize he"d even noticed her scent. She hadn"t dabbed on any perfume after her shower, so she doubted she smelled of anything more enticing than baby shampoo and Ivory soap. She resisted the urge to tuck her nose into her pajama shirt and steal a whiff.
"I don"t need a bath. I need toa" She trailed off, seeking the appropriate euphemism.
"If it"s a p.i.s.s you"re aftera" He nodded toward the bucket.
Tabitha hated herself for blushing.
The knight arched one of his dark eyebrows, challenging her to trot right over to the corner, drop her drawers, and plop down on the rickety bucket.
At the thought of this indignity, Tabitha slid down the wall to a sitting position and hugged her knees to her chest. Her parents never stayed at any accommodation less luxurious than a fivestar hotel. While it might be conceivable that they had decided a weekend in a dungeon might prove a character-building experience, she doubted they would have chosen a dungeon with no maid service or bathroom facilities.
For the first time, she was forced to confront the possibility that this might not be her mother"s idea of a romantic fantasy, but bitter reality.
She lifted her hollow gaze, really seeing the murky cell for the first time. A flimsy torch sputtered high on the wall. It didn"t take much imagination to envision what might come creeping out of those holes in the mortar once the torch burned to darkness. A chill damp saturated the air, seeping through the tattered flannel of her pajamas. She hugged her knees tighter, suppressing a shiver.
"Where are we?" she whispered.
"Brisbane"s dungeon," the knight whispered back.
Tabitha sighed. She didn"t feel up to getting the answers she wanted out of the laconic barbarian at the moment. Given both the terrain and the speech patterns, they could be anywhere in the United Kingdom a" Wales, England, Ireland, perhaps even Scotland. That would explain Sir Colin"s lilting burr and his endearing tendency to drop the occasional g.
But if this was Scotland, why wasn"t he dressed like some Catholic schoolgirl in plaid skirt and stockings? She wracked her brain, wishing she"d paid more attention in history cla.s.s. She"d always excelled at math and science, but disdained literature and history as frivolous indulgences for the less pragmatic. Her quirky brain would store complex mathematical and scientific equations and song lyrics from the 1950s, but she could never remember exactly what year Benedict Arnold wrote the Declaration of Independence.
She vaguely remembered that the short kilt was of less ancient origin than most a.s.sumed, its modern popularity heightened by Queen Victoria"s obsession with all things Scottish and the heather-drenched romanticism of Sir Walter Scott. The farther one traveled back in time, the more likely one was to encounter a civilization that was more muck than myth and more grit than glory.
Her matter-of-fact musings made her head throb. She could too easily imagine the knight"s sarcastic response to When are we?
What if she had actually breached the time continuum? It wasn"t completely inconceivable. According to Uncle Cop"s bedtime stories, her mother had jumped time streams on three separate occasions, once with Cop and her father in tow.
Tabitha drew the emerald amulet from her shirt and studied it, wondering if it had been the catalyst for this entire disaster.
Sir Colin"s attention sharpened. "And what would that be?"
She started guiltily before dropping the necklace back down her shirt and faking a bland smile. "Just a gift from my mother. A good-luck charm." One that had brought her the worst luck of her life.
Feeling Colin"s predatory gaze on her, she thought of something else. If this man wasn"t her mother"s twisted idea of a blind date, then he was a dangerous stranger. A stranger who might have committed some terrible crime to deserve this imprisonment. She stole a glance at his face from beneath her lashes. Its baby-faced charm was offset by his brooding expression and the fresh stubble that shaded his jaw. What if he was a robber or a serial killer? Or even a rapist? With his fierce eyes and wild hair, he looked capable of committing all three felonies before breakfast without so much as breaking a sweat.
"How were you wounded?" she asked, nodding toward his bandage.
"Escaping."
He certainly wouldn"t win any congeniality awards. "Escaping from where?"
She thought his expression couldn"t become any more murderous. She was wrong. "From this dungeon."
Tabitha winced, suddenly comprehending the enormity of what she"d done. If she hadn"t intercepted him, he would be well on his way to freedom by now.
"This Brisbane fellow doesn"t seem to be terribly fond of you. What did you do to him?"
"What did I do to him?" he repeated, the soft rasp somehow more alarming than a full-throated roar. "What did I do to him?"
Before Tabitha could take it back, he rose and staggered toward her. She scrambled to her feet. But he didn"t touch her; he didn"t have to. He simply backed her against the wall with the sheer force of his will, leaving her helpless to do anything but look into those smoldering eyes.
She remembered learning long ago that the men of previous generations had rarely achieved the heights of her contemporaries. Her cla.s.smates had giggled, envisioning an army of dwarves riding Shetland ponies. She realized now how naive they had been.
This man might be no more than half an inch taller than she was, but he exuded raw virility. There was something unnerving yet exhilarating about standing toe-to-toe with such a man.
She tried to lower her gaze, but he caught her chin in his hand and tilted her face upward, his grip as steely as his voice was soft. "Why don"t I tell you what Brisbane did to me?"
"If you"d like," she offered timidly.
"While I was defending the cause of Christ against the infidels in Egypt, he laid siege to my father"s castle. After he"d starved several of the inhabitants of the castle to death, including my stepmother and infant sister, he stormed the keep and torched the village. His henchmen slaughtered all the men of fighting age and raped the women, from the oldest crone to the most innocent child."
The blood drained from Tabitha"s face. He went on.
"When I set foot on Scottish soil for the first time in six years, Brisbane"s men ambushed me and carted me off to this dungeon where their lord was gracious enough to inform me of the fate of my family."
Not really wanting to know the answer, she whispered, "Your father?"
"Died of apoplexy before the castle surrendered. Twas most likely the shock of my stepmother"s death that killed him."
Tabitha swallowed. Hard. "No wonder you"re in such a bad mood. You"re probably suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome or unresolved grief. Perhaps a good psychotherapista?" She stammered to a halt. His unflinching gaze made her psychobabble sound unbearably trivial.
For some inexplicable reason, his grip on her chin gentled. "Brisbane took my home. He took my family. He took my freedom. He left me with nothing but my honor. And you, my lady, handed that to him on a silver platter when you defended me with my own sword and allowed his men to make mock of me."
Raven"s a craven!
Ravenshaw"s a boor! Defended by a wh.o.r.e!
"What was I supposed to do?" Tabitha protested. "Let him cut you down in cold blood?"
"Aye," he replied without hesitation. "At least I would have died with my honor intact."
She wanted to denounce his archaic reasoning, but the image of this proud knight driven to his knees at his enemy"s feet was too fresh in her memory.
She was horrified to feel her throat closing. "I"m sorry," she said fiercely, returning his glare, trying to hold back tears.
Sir Colin of Ravenshaw was not a man to be melted by heartfelt apologies. He stilled the trembling of her lower lip with his thumb before turning away from her. "Not half as sorry as I, my lady."
Tabitha huddled in a corner of the cell, transfixed by the waning torch flame. She"d been watching it burn for a long time and knew it would be only a matter of minutes before it smoldered to ash, leaving them in darkness. She thought longingly of the contents of the Gucci purse she"d left in her apartment a" a travel flashlight, a half-eaten Twinkie, a pack of sugar-free gum. Although only hours had pa.s.sed since Brisbane had locked them away, she could no longer remember the last time she"d eaten or drank or slept.