Read Online Malcolm'S Honor (Historical, 519) by Jillian Hart - Free Book Online Page B

“Aye, I have me a liking forthat one. Rough she is. Knows how to satisfy a man. I hear the king’s nephew attacked your band and you killed half his men.”
    â€œAye, but I did not kill the nephew.”
    â€œEdward will owe you a boon, then. Mayhap it will compensate for the prisoner woman’s escape, and he’ll not demote you.” Ian’s eyes teased, but his words held a ring of warning as he lifted his tankard and drank deeply.
    Fie, would the traitor’s daughter haunt him forever? Malcolm could still feel the womanly shape of her body pressed hard to his in the saddle, for he’d trapped her there, beneath his arms and against his chest. She’d been his captive, a slim reed of a thing, and the memory of it still ached like an old wound, like a tooth slowly festering. He’d scared the spirit from her and intimidated her until she did not dare even look at him.
    He remembered her words, so cocksure and dismissing. Tell me what fearsome enemy of the king’s you have overpowered now. An old man? Mayhap a lame woman? A goat? He could not remember when anyone had dared to demean the king’s favored knight.
    And he’d left her in the dungeon.
    His guts tightened into hard knots and he drank until the tankard was empty, and the next one after that. But the image of the frightened-eyed maiden chained to the stone wall remained with him and would not fade. Even through a night of sleep and dreams and into the next morning, when word of Caradoc’s fury and Philip’s impending execution buzzed on the lips of the villagers.
    Malcolm watched the new day dawn, and the brightness of it never touched him. For he knew there would be no mercy for the warrior dove. ’Twas the way of the world, and the futility of it deadened him. He gathered his men, because it was yet another day of serving the king.
    Â 
    â€œElinore of Evenbough?” Booted feet halted before her.
    Cold, hungry and stiff, Elin tilted back her head. Her gaze traveled up the hosed legs to the fine tunic bearing the king’s standard.
    â€œAre you Lady Elinore of Evenbough?” This time it was a rough demand.
    â€œAye.” She tucked her ankles together. “Am I to go to the king? Will he hear my tale? I—”
    â€œSilence!” Unlike Malcolm the Fierce, this man’s voice seemed to resonate with cruelty, as if he treasured doing violence.
    She felt the tug on her chains, and the brutal oaf nearly pulled her arms from their sockets before he unlocked her. She stood and her irons clattered. Her knees wobbled. Fiery pricks of pain shot through her limbs, numb from cold and lack of circulation.
    â€œCome.” The guard shoved her roughly, and caught her when she stumbled. “He awaits.”
    â€œWho? Malcolm?”
    Why his name came to her lips, she could not imagine, nor the hope that accompanied it. That man had dragged her here and chained her up like a misbehaving dog.
    All night she had thought upon it, unable to sleep. The night noises of the dungeon were terrifying, and she had much time to think upon her crimes. She had poisoned the king’s men and she was the daughter of a traitor. No king would allow her to live.
    The only man who could stay her execution was Malcolm. And if he’d come for her—
    â€œNay, Edward has granted Lord Caradoc a boon.” The guard’s laugh rang with glee, as if he enjoyed bringing the worst of news. “’Tis Caradoc who awaits you.”
    Defeat lodged like a blade between her ribs. Caradoc was planning to claim that they were betrothed. What had she done to deserve this end? She would refuse it—that’s what she would do. She would rather have a swift death at the hands of the executioner than allow Caradoc the right to finish the rape he’d started years ago.
    â€œElin, how pathetic you look.” That putrid swine rose from a cushioned chair in a private chamber. He wore an elaborate