Shadow and Lace by Teresa Medeiros

Author:Teresa Medeiros
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Medieval
Publisher: 0
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The voices throbbed to silence. Percival sneered. "If you care to put your faith in the word of a barefoot light-skirt, bring on the dice. The winner can take her upstairs and find out what a fool he has been."

Bone dice clattered on the stones in front of the hearth. Irwin, Big Freddie, and Little Freddie were bound and tossed in a heap in the corner. The knights clamored with excitement as they knelt around the game. Those in the back craned their flushed faces to watch. They seemed to have forgotten Rowena altogether in the thrill of the wager.

She backed away, not daring to breathe, but flight was stopped by an unyielding chest. She had not been left unguarded after all. Green eyes flashed a greeting as she looked back over her shoulder.

The knight's silky smooth voice poured into her ear like honey. "I could not bear to see you pinned on that table like a lamb for the slaughter."

Rowena stared straight ahead. "You would help me, sir?" she said with no change of expression.

"I would." His arms slipped around her waist. "Come away with me while they play. I swear to be gentle with you. When I am done, I shall help you escape before they can take their turns on you."

Rowena closed her eyes. Why did the kindest words she had heard that night also have to be the crudest? "The others? The rest of my troupe? Will you see they escape with their lives?"

"For you, little one—anything." One of his hands glided beneath the worn linen of her kirtle to cup her thigh. His lips nuzzled her throat.

Rowena's mind raced. What would Marlys do with this lecherous man-child offering to politely ravish her?

She would take him upstairs and kill him.

The answer came with such haste that Rowena gave a pained yelp of laughter. Green Eyes groaned softly, taking her start as one of pleasure. His hand drifted between her thighs.

In the center of the circle, Percival's long fingers danced on the dice. Perhaps he was even winning.

Rowena made an awkward hop to avoid the probing fingers and turned in the knight's embrace to keep both of his hands in view. Green Eyes took it as a gesture of assent.

Before she could protest, he had laid his lips across hers. Oddly enough, his was the kiss of a whore, not hers. Teasing and practiced, with an undertone of passion held leisurely at bay by the exploration of his tongue. With another man, Rowena might have wondered what came after such a kiss. But Green Eyes was a stranger. How would Marlys kill him? Would she bash him on the head? Run him through with his own sword? Marlys would surely appreciate the irony of that. His roaming hand dipped into the neck of her kirtle, and Rowena squeezed her eyes shut in resignation. Unbeknownst to him, he was a dead man, anyway.

Lost in the throes of plotting the knight's imminent demise, Rowena heard the crash of the door as if it were a mere echo of her heartbeat.

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