Page 3 of Saxon Blade Norman Blood

His business with Hugues de Malemort complete, William rushed back to his bed to find the girl under the covers, fast asleep. For a brief moment he put his need for relief on hold and allowed himself the pleasure of contemplating her. She was pure feminine perfection, all the way from the sensual mouth that had opened in ecstasy earlier, and the white throat that was still flushed from his caresses, to the delicate neck she had arched at the height of her pleasure. When she sighed in her sleep, his desire became too impervious to be contained any longer.

He ripped his tunic and shirt off like a man possessed and joined her on the bed. He could not wait to take her and watch as she fell apart in his arms. The memory of her body pulsing under his caresses sent a spark of desire through his groin and he groaned out loud at the idea of closing his mouth on her nipple again.

He would have her. Now.

William reached out to one of her wrists and took it gently. It was delicate, and so feminine that he couldn’t wait to feel her small hands all over his skin. He made to grab her other wrist so he could draw her on top of him—and froze.

A blade.

Desire vanished, replaced by confusion.

The girl had brought a dagger to his bed. Why? At first he thought she had brought a knife from the kitchens to protect herself in case Hugues or anyone else came searching for sport. It was not an unreasonable supposition, given what had happened in the banquet hall. But this was not a simple carving knife. It was a dagger of exquisite craftsmanship, the property of a rich man.

All thoughts of love making forgotten, William pondered this unwelcome development. This servant girl had brought a weapon which could not belong to her to his bed, yet she had not threatened him with it earlier, she had not intended it as a way of protecting her virtue.

On the contrary, she had allowed him access to her body and would have let him take her had they not been interrupted. He remembered the way she had arched her back in silent supplication after he had pleasured her. She had wanted him inside her.

Where he would have been at his most vulnerable.

William realized that by calling him when he had, his man had saved his life, for no doubt the girl would have plunged the dagger into his back once he was on top of her. That was why she’d lain on his bed, why she had obeyed his every instruction without question…

She had only been waiting for him to come closer, enticing him. He should have wondered at her eagerness, but his senses had been too fired up for him to think straight. For once, he’d been too busy watching her reveal herself to think about danger.

His hand clenched the dagger’s handle in frustration and disgust. The carvings on it looked Saxon and oddly familiar. Where had he seen them before? Over the years he had dealt with many Saxon lords, most of them hostile to him. But which of them wanted him dead, to the point of sending someone to kill him? Who had thought it expedient to send a servant to do the dirty work instead of confronting him like a man?

He lay by the girl’s side a long moment, lost in speculation, making sure to keep still, waiting for her to wake up by herself. He wanted to see if her first reflex would be to reach for the dagger while she thought him asleep. A moment later she did exactly that and he had the answer to his question.

William could not fool himself any longer. The girl was here to kill him, not pleasure him.

The gasp she gave when she realized the dagger was nowhere to be found only increased his fury.

“Looking for something?”

“N-no, but the covers—”

“Don’t even think about lying to me,” he warned, his mouth at her ear. She made to bolt but he easily caught her, wrapping an arm around her waist. A small laugh escaped his lips. Did she really think he would let her go now? The na?ve little fool. “I don’t think so. You are not going anywhere until you tell me what you are doing in my bed with a dagger. Tell me. Who sent you?”

Disappointment made his voice rougher than he would have liked. He had been driven to the edge of control by this girl and now he had to accept she was in his bed, not because she wanted him, but because she’d been waiting for the opportunity to strike. She felt nothing for him, she was simply obeying someone’s orders. No wonder she had refused to tell him her name earlier. She wanted to protect her master.

He should have been sharper. A pretty Saxon girl coming out of nowhere, speaking his language, coming to his bed so willingly and obeying his shocking instructions without a word of protest, should have raised his suspicions. He had let his senses govern his head, something he had sworn never to do again.

His hold on her tightened further.

“You are hurting me!” she gasped.

“Good. Now answer me. Who sent you here to kill me?”

The girl hesitated. It was obvious she was trying to think of a suitable lie to cover herself. William snorted. As if he would believe anything she said now.

“No one sent me,” she said after a long moment, looking him straight in the eye.

“You expect me to believe that you came alone to a mighty fortress teeming with Normans, armed with a single dagger with the sole purpose of killing me?”

“Yes.”

There was a silence, then he laughed. A deep, throaty laugh he rarely indulged in. He couldn’t help it.

“Don’t laugh at me. Don’t you dare mock me!” the girl roared, fighting to free herself from his embrace. “Do you think women are such weak and pathetic creatures that they can’t have ideas of their own or the courage to use a weapon?”

“No. I do not think that.”

The laugh disappeared as quickly as it had come. Indeed, he did not, and this was no laughing matter. He could well have died tonight.

William released his hold and turned the girl around. For a moment she glared at him, his declared enemy. He glared back.

“I do not think women are pathetic creatures, nor do I think they would be too weak-minded to wield a knife. On the contrary, they are often more determined and wilier than men,” he told her, trying to assess how far she was prepared to go in her defense of her master. “But I have to warn you I will not be so easy to kill. I have every intention of defending myself now that I am forewarned about your intentions. You will never get past my guard, and neither will you…”

He did not finish the sentence, but instead let his gaze wander over her body, making his meaning clear. She would never lure him into bed again. And without the element of surprise, there was no hope for her. He was much stronger, a warrior, a man honed for combat, when she was just a girl with no experience and no real plan. Whoever had sent her had chosen the wrong person. She looked nothing like a dangerous murderer. How could anyone have thought this slip of a girl could overcome a man like him armed with a simple dagger?

William gave a snort when he remembered the events from earlier. Perhaps the man who’d sent her was not such a fool after all because, small, unassuming as she was, she had almost killed him. The dagger was not the only weapon at her disposal. Her sensual appeal had been a far more dangerous one, making him forget elementary caution for a brief, crucial moment. No other assassin he had ever seen possessed such a distracting mouth or eyes that drew him into their blue depths. They did not have breasts so perfect his fingers itched with the need to touch them, or skin that made his mouth water at the idea of tasting it.

“What will you do to me?” she asked uneasily, clearly unsettled by the hunger that would appear on his face.

“Right now, I can think of a few things,” he drawled. His body was not concerned in the least by the fact that she was his would-be assassin. It was hard from being pressed so close to her.

She swallowed. “I-I meant—”

“I know what you mean. But you are in my bed, and I cannot help but think we left things before we were quite satisfied. In my case at least. You seemed rather sated.”

He placed his hand on her stomach before he could think and frowned at the impulse. He really wanted to make love to her, he realized, not in revenge or even to finish what they had started. He wanted to pleasure her again.

What a fool he was. The woman was here to kill him, he had better remember it. He should not be thinking about the best way to give her pleasure.

He should be questioning her, forcing her to name her master, then punishing her for her role in the whole affair.

*

The hand on her stomach was so warm, so comforting… Rowena was confused. What was happening? With that possessive yet respectful gesture, William seemed to say he wanted to make love to her, but that he would not take her against her will.

The man was full of surprises. He felt desire for her, but he was leaving her to choose what they did in bed. He had just found out she was here to kill him, but he hadn’t exacted his revenge on her. Why was that? Surely he should be furious and have her punished?

Her mind whirred, trying to find a way out of this impasse.

William seemed to think an enemy had sent her here. This could be her salvation. He might spare her if he believed she did not have her own motives for wanting to kill him but was following someone else’s orders. Aye, but who could she blame? Lying would lead to too many questions, as he would hardly be satisfied with just a name and no explanation. And if by some miracle he believed her, she did not want him to take his revenge on someone innocent.

He lifted smoldering eyes to her and something within her uncoiled, reminiscent of the rush of sensations he had provoked within her earlier.

Rowena blinked in shock.

How could he do something like that with no more than a look? And why did it affect her so much? This man was her enemy but in this moment she wanted nothing more than for him to caress her like he had done before, to slide his hand lower down her stomach and…

She scrambled away from him, away from the perverting influence of his hazel eyes. This was wrong.

He smirked. “So. You are not going to kill me after all?”

She would not, not now at least. Even supposing she could have overcome him, she would never be able to stab him in cold blood. It was one thing striking someone in the heat of the moment, out of vengeful fury or to stop him from hurting her, quite another to do it whilst calmly looking him in the eye.

Whilst he was waiting for her to do it.

“It would be difficult without my dagger,” was all she said.

He left the bed and retrieved it from the table. Then he forced her to her feet.

“Then here, take it.” He handed her the knife and wrapped her fingers around the hilt when she did not move.

She could not move. For the first time, William was not an enemy talking to her stepfather with his back to her or a mighty lord sitting at a table on the far side of a room. He was a bare chested man standing right in front of her, all six foot three of him. He hadn’t seemed that tall next to her in the bed. Or that muscular.

Her gaze flicked to his groin before she could stop it. The bulge she saw there caused her to gulp. Despite knowing she was here to kill him, he was aroused by her proximity.

Though he must have seen her looking at him, his eyes never left hers, not for a heartbeat. Rowena’s blood was roaring in her veins. What was he about to do?

“How did you imagine you would kill me? Where would you have struck? Here?” Still holding her hand, he pointed the dagger at his heart.

Rowena watched, fascinated, as he pressed the blade onto his honeyed flesh. Muscles rippled with each movement, making her catch her breath. Dear God, he was so beautiful.

“Would you have slit my throat perhaps?” He brought the knife to the side of his neck, where thick veins ran under the skin. “Or would you have cut my wrists and watched me bleed to death?”

He placed the blade on his left wrist and she stopped breathing. One wrong move and she would cut him but suddenly the idea of piercing his flesh horrified her. Rowena disentangled her fingers from his hold and took a step back.

“It’s not so easy to kill a man, you know,” he said, pressing his advantage.

“Is it not? That you of all people should say this!” she cried, remembering how he had plunged his sword into her stepfather’s chest in one smooth jab. It had been easy for him. There had been no hesitation.

“Why wouldn’t I say this?” He regarded her curiously.

She bit her lip, knowing that in her anguish she had said too much. “For no reason, only I assume that you have already killed men, in battle if nothing else.”

“I have. That is why I’m telling you it’s not easy. You could do it to save your life of course, anyone could. But failing that, you would need a very good reason to kill someone. He would have to be a dangerous, mortal enemy. However, I know for a fact that I have never threatened you.” William threw her a scorching look, as if to remind her of the pleasure he had coaxed out of her earlier that night. No. He had never hurt her, quite the opposite. “So tell me, why do you want to kill me? What have I done to deserve such a fate?”

“You have done nothing to me,” she said in a breath.

He towered over her, brooding and seductive, addling her powers of thought. Rowena was afraid, but much too fascinated to take a step back. They were so close, she could smell the male scent of him, pine with undertones of spice. She could have touched him if she’d lifted her hand. She almost did because she badly wanted to touch him. His round shoulders in particular fascinated her, as did the vein running along the bulge of his bicep. His skin seemed so smooth, she felt the need to reach out to check if it was as soft as she imagined.

No. She shook her head. This would not do. William was a dangerous enemy she’d sworn revenge on, not a man to be seduced. So why was her unruly mind urging her to consider things she had never imagined doing before, like running her tongue over that damned vein?

Not stopping to worry about how she would look with her loosened bodice and her hair in disarray, she turned for the door but a hand closed on her wrist before she had taken one step.

“Where do you imagine you are going?”

Rowena swallowed in panic. For a moment, lost in licentious thoughts, she had forgotten the reality of the situation. Of course William would not let her go unpunished, not after she had confessed to wanting to murder him. She was not going anywhere.

“I’m not letting you out of my sight until I have found out who you are, who sent you, and why. Despite your claim to the contrary, I don’t believe you are not acting on another’s behalf.”

His eyes narrowed as he turned the dagger in his hand. With a sinking heart, she understood he’d recognized it and was trying to remember where he’d seen it. She cursed her decision to use a weapon he might recognize. Any other dagger would have done just as well.

“I’m telling you no one—”

“In any case, it’s late,” he cut in, not interested in her protests. “The men are either drunk or unconscious. There is nothing to be done until morning. You will sleep here tonight. But without this.” He tossed the dagger back onto the table. “I trust I will be able to restrain you if necessary.”

There was a small smile, little more than a twitch. He was mocking her. Rowena wondered if she would not have preferred him to hand her over to one of his men to be guarded as a murderer than kept in here for his amusement.

“And where are you to sleep?” she asked as haughtily as she dared.

“Where do you think?” The look he threw her made her heart flip in her chest. “This is my bed. I will sleep in it.”