Page 21 of The Shipwreck (The Warrior Maids of Rivenloch)
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LADY DANGER
The Warrior Maids of Rivenloch
THE BORDERS, SCOTLAND
SUMMER 1136
“So. Where is the third wench?” Sir Pagan murmured casually, feeling far from casual as he and Colin du Lac hunkered behind the concealing cloud of heather, spying upon the two splendid maids bathing in the pond below.
Colin almost strangled on his incredulity. “God’s breath, you greedy sot,” he hissed. “Isn’t it enough you have your choice of the pair of beauties yonder? Most men would give their sword arm to—”
Both men froze as the blonde woman, gloriously drenched in sunlight, sluiced water up over a creamy shoulder, rising above the waves enough to bare a pair of perfect breasts.
The blood drained from Pagan’s face and rushed to his loins, making them ache fiercely. Lord, he should have swived that lusty harlot in the last town before he came to negotiate such matters. This was as foolish as shopping for provender with a full purse and an empty gut.
But somehow he managed an indifferent grunt, despite the overwhelming desire disrupting his thoughts and transfiguring his body. “A man never purchases a blade, Colin,” he said hoarsely, “without inspecting all the swords in the shop.”
“True, but a man never runs his thumb along the edge of a sword presented him by the King .”
Colin had a point. Who was Sir Pagan Cameliard to question a gift from King David?
Besides, it wasn’t a weapon he chose. It was only a wife.
“Pah.” He swatted an irritating sprig of heather out of his face.
“One woman is much the same as another, I suppose,” he grumbled. “’Tis no matter which of them I claim.”
Colin snorted in derision. “So say you now ,” he whispered, fixing a lustful gaze upon the bathers, “now that you’ve laid eyes on the bountiful selection.
” A low whistle shivered from between his lips as the more buxom of the two maids dove beneath the glittering waves, giving them a glimpse of bare, sleek, enticing buttocks. “Lucky bastard.”
Pagan did consider himself lucky.
When King David first offered him a Scots holding and a wife to go with it, he’d half expected to find a crumbling keep with a withered old crone in the tower.
One glance at the imposing walls of Rivenloch eased his fears on the first count.
And to his astonishment, the prospective brides before him, delectable pastries the King had placed upon his platter, were truly the most appetizing he’d seen in a long while, perhaps ever .
His stirring loins offered proof of that.
Still, the idea of marriage unnerved Pagan like a cat rubbed tail to whiskers.
“God’s eyes, I can’t decide which I’d rather swive,” Colin mused, “that beauty with the sun-bleached locks or the curvy one with the wild tresses and enormous…” He released a shuddering sigh.
“Neither,” Pagan muttered.
“Both,” Colin decided.
Deirdre of Rivenloch tossed her long blonde hair over one shoulder. She could feel the intruders’ eyes upon her, had felt them for some time.
It wasn’t that she cared if she was caught at her bath. The sisters suffered from neither modesty nor shame. How could one be ashamed or proud of having what every woman possessed? If a stray lad happened to look upon them with misplaced lust, it was no more than folly on his part.
Deirdre ran her fingers through her wet tresses and cast another surreptitious glance up the hill, toward the thick heather and drooping willows.
The eyes trained upon her now were likely just that, belonging to a couple of curious youths who’d never seen a naked maid before.
But she didn’t dare mention their presence to Helena, for her impetuous sister would likely draw her sword first and ask their business afterward.
Nay, Deirdre would deal with their mischief later herself.
For now she had a grave matter to discuss with Helena. And not much time.
“You delayed Miriel?” she asked, running a palm full of sheep tallow soap along her forearm.
“I hid her sais ,” Helena confided, “and then told her I’d seen the stable lad skulking about her chamber earlier.”
Deirdre nodded. That would keep their youngest sister busy for a while. Miriel allowed no one to touch her precious weapons from the Orient.
“Listen, Deir,” Helena warned, “I won’t let Miriel sacrifice herself. I don’t care what Father says. She’s too young to wed. Too young and too…” She sighed in exasperation.
“I know.”
What they both left unspoken was the fact that their youngest sister wasn’t forged of the same metal they were.
Deirdre and Helena were their father’s daughters.
His Viking blood pumped through their hearts.
Tall and strong, they possessed wills of iron and skills to match.
Known throughout the Borders as the Warrior Maids of Rivenloch, they’d taken to the sword like a babe to the breast. Their father had raised them to be fighters, to fear no man.
Miriel, however, to the lord’s dismay, had proved as delicate and docile as their long departed mother. Whatever warrior spirit might have been nurtured in her had been quelled by Lady Edwina, who’d begged that Miriel be spared what she termed the perversion of the other two sisters.
After their mother died, Miriel had tried to please their father in her own way, amassing an impressive collection of exotic weapons from traveling merchants, but she’d developed neither the desire nor the strength to wield them.
She’d become, in short, the meek, mild, obedient daughter their mother desired.
And so Deirdre and Helena had protected Miriel all her life from her own helplessness and their father’s disappointment in her.
Now it was up to them to save her from an undesirable marriage.
Deirdre passed her sister the lump of soap. “Trust me, I have no intention of leading the lamb to slaughter.”
The spark of battle flared in Helena’s eyes. “We’ll challenge this Norman bridegroom then?”
Deirdre frowned. She knew that not every conflict was best resolved on the battlefield, even if her sister did not. She shook her head.
Helena cursed under her breath and gave the water a disappointed slap. “Why not?”
“To defy the Norman is to defy the King.”
Hel arched a brow in challenge. “And?”
Deirdre’s frown deepened. One day Helena’s audaciousness would be her undoing. “’Tis treason , Hel.”
Helena puffed out an irritated breath and scrubbed at her arm.
“’Tis hardly treason when we’ve been betrayed by our own King.
This meddler is a Norman, Deirdre…a Norman .
” She sneered the word as if it were a disease.
“Pah! I’ve heard they’re so soft they can’t grow a proper beard.
And some say they bathe even their hounds in lavender. ” She shuddered with distaste.
Deirdre had to agree with her sister’s frustration, if not her claims. Indeed, she’d been just as outraged upon learning that King David had handed over Rivenloch’s stewardship, not to a Scot, but to one of his Norman allies.
Aye, the man was reported to be a fierce warrior, but certainly he knew nothing about Scotland.
What complicated matters was that their father had launched no protest. But then the Lord of Rivenloch hadn’t been right in his mind for months now.
Deirdre frequently found him conversing with the air, addressing their dead mother, and he was ever losing his way in the keep.
He seemed to live in some idyllic time in the past, where his rule was unquestioned and his lands secure.
But with the crown resting uneasily on Stephen’s head, greedy English barons had begun to wreak havoc along the Borders, seizing what lands they could in the ensuing chaos.
So for the past year the sisters had hidden their father’s infirmity as best they could, to maintain the illusion of power and to prevent the perception of Rivenloch as an easy target.
Deirdre had served as steward of the holding and captain of the guard, with Helena as second in command, and Miriel had overseen the household and the accounts.
They’d managed adequately. But Deirdre was wise enough to know such subterfuge couldn’t last forever. Maybe that was the reason for this sudden appointment by the King. Maybe rumors of their father’s debility had spread.
So Deirdre had thought long on the matter and finally come to grips with the truth.
While Rivenloch’s knights were brave and capable, they hadn’t fought a real battle since before she was born.
Now, land-hungry warmongers threatened the Borders.
Only a fortnight ago, a rogue English baron had brazenly attacked the Scots keep at Mirkloan, not fifty miles distant.
Indeed, it might serve Rivenloch well to have the counsel of a warrior seasoned in combat, someone who could advise her in her command.
But the missive that had arrived last week bearing King David’s seal, the one Deirdre had shared only with Helena, also commanded the hand of one of the Rivenloch daughters in marriage to the steward. Clearly, the King intended a more permanent position for the Norman knight.
The news had hit her like a mace in the belly.
With the responsibility of managing the castle, the furthest thing from any of the sisters’ minds had been marriage.
That the King would wed one of them to a…
foreigner…was inconceivable. Did David doubt Rivenloch’s loyalty?
Deirdre could only pray this compulsory marriage was his attempt to keep the holding at least half in her clan’s hands.
She wanted to believe that, needed to believe it. Otherwise, she might be tempted to sweep up her own blade and join her hotheaded sister in a Norman massacre.