Read Online The Last Arrow RH3 by Marsha Canham - Free Book Online

liver to the dogs if you give any false—or insolent—answers to his questions."
    Renaud gave the horse's muzzle another scratch and stared calmly back at her. His face was handsome beyond decency, no small part of her could deny it, yet for all the warmth he exuded and friendliness he inspired, it might well have been carved from the same block of marble that shaped the rest of him. The smile that came and went so effortlessly was no more than a practiced arrangement of muscles, heart-stopping to some no doubt, but to Brenna it suggested he was dangerous and deceitful, and probably could not be trusted beyond the blink of an eye.
    Even as she debated his credibility, he was studying the faint tremors that were causing the laces of her jerkin to shiver with each rise and fall of her breasts. Her arm was tiring, the muscles beginning to cramp from the strain. His mouth curved up at the corner and he started to lower his hands, but Brenna's voice cut short whatever his intentions might have been.
    "If you touch your sword or your knife, or reach for a weapon of any kind, I will shoot your horse first. Then you."
    The pale eyes shot back to hers and she felt their heat, their power, their fury cut clean through her flesh and scrape on her bones.
    His voice, when it came to her through the gloom, was a soft snarl. "I think it would give me great pleasure to teach you some manners, demoiselle."
    "It would be difficult to teach something you so obviously lack yourself," she retorted smartly. "Now get dressed.
    We have a long walk ahead of us."

    The first challenge of manners came before they had cleared the campsite. They had not yet shaken the wet earth from the riverbank off their boots when Brenna announced her intention to ride the stallion home while he walked a suitable distance ahead.
    A knight, armored or not, was a formidable opponent on horseback. Destriers were trained to charge, lunge, rear, pivot, and trample, all through subtle commands delivered by the rider's thighs, calves, feet. Man and beast learned to fight as one unit, and a single knight, mounted, could easily lay waste to a dozen men on foot. Stripped of his horse and weapons, however, and forced to use his feet for something other than swinging a stirrup, a knight was reduced to a mere man. And a mere man was no match for Brenna Wardieu, regardless how much she admired the breadth of his shoulders or the long, fluid strides that swallowed the miles beneath him.
    Clearly, the thought of her riding while he walked was as ludicrous as the notion of her being able to control the highly strung temperament of a blooded warhorse. Just as clearly, he had expected to see her clutch at the reins and tumble out of the saddle the first time he gave his destrier a softly trilled signal. But Brenna had been anticipating his deviousness and was ready. She weathered the high, rearing lurches and kept her seat expertly through the violent twists and leaps meant to spill her on her rump. Moreover, when she proved she could still nock and fire an arrow from the back of a rampaging charger, another quiet whistle ended the confrontation.
    Renaud had said nothing as he extracted the arrow from the soft earth an inch in front of his toe, but he had promised her the world through his eyes as he held the shaft in both hands and snapped it in two.
    Full darkness had settled over them like a thick sable blanket by the time the man and rider made their way through the forest and emerged at the small village of Amboise. There was a single fire blazing in the square; the only other signs of life came from the glowing red halo that surrounded the open doors of the smithy. Most of the cottages had been shuttered and barred for the night and would remain steadfastly so until morning. The villagers were a superstitious lot and believed the devil roamed abroad in human guise at night, searching for souls to steal.
    The gray stone fortifications of the castle dominated the high ridge above