Willa found herself almost relieved when his gaze moved on to the second half of the stables. This was where the cart should have been housed, but what space there had been for that was now taken up with several small cages and pens, leaving the cart to sit out in the elements.
Willa watched his gaze move over the pens and cages, saw his eyes narrow as he caught sight of a falcon that sat eyeing him with disdain.
"That falcon is missing a wing," he observed. When Willa remained silent, he moved further into the stable. He looked more closely into some of the other cages. "And this thrush has only one foot."
He turned slowly, his gaze moving over animal after animal. Willa glanced around with him, seeing what he saw. A building full of animals. Some were missing body parts vital to their survival in the wild. Those she kept, knowing that they would not have a chance otherwise. But there were other animals in the process of recovering from injuries or merely sickly and in need of tending. Those she would set free as soon as they were able to fend for themselves.
Her gaze slid back to Hugh and she saw dawning horror on his face. She supposed he was concluding that presenting her with a rabbit for her wolves to tear apart had been the worst possible way to please her.
"You were doing better with your flowers, my lord," she said softly and his gaze shot to her.
Hugh stared at her helplessly for a moment. Then he growled in frustration, grasped her arms and drew her forward to press his lips to hers. For one moment, surprise made Willa go still in his arms. It was long enough for him to brush his lips firmly over hers, then slip his tongue out to urge hers open. In the next moment, she was breathing in his breath. The smell and taste of him overwhelmed her. The caress of his tongue ignited something inside her she had never experienced. It was as if she were suddenly burning up from the inside out, as if a fever were raging through her body.
Willa should have wished to get away from that fever, but instead the opposite was true. She found herself aching to experience more of it, to get as close to it as she could. She began to press against him, almost squirming in an effort to climb inside his skin. When Willa felt his hand slide down toward her chest, she thought he was about to urge her away from him. She moaned in protest. But he didn't push her away; instead that hand closed warm over her breast. She moaned again, this time with undeniable pleasure. The fever coursing through her seemed to coalesce there with tingling excitement added to the heat.
Hugh's lips released hers suddenly and shifted to her throat. She heard him groan her name against the soft skin and her body made a response she was unable to articulate in any way except to grind her lower body against his codpiece. That brought a rather startling, but wholly satisfying response from Hugh. The kiss, which had already been rather passionate, became almost violent and he suddenly rushed her backward until he had her pressed up against the wall. Pressing one knee between hers, he held her in place and leaned back to begin jerking rather desperately at his chain mail.
Willa watched him in bewilderment until he gave up the effort with a growl and grabbed her by the upper arms. Almost rough in his excitement, he dragged her against his chest for another fast and furious kiss. Willa was breathless and nearly brainless when he ended it... until he growled, "Marry me."
The words pierced her pleasure, bringing her crashing back to earth with a thud. Ducking her head, she tried to clear her poor, woolly mind. He destroyed her efforts by simply covering her breast with his hand again and squeezing encouragingly. Willa stared at the sun-darkened hand covering the mound and found it difficult to breathe.
"I - " She gasped as he released her and suddenly jerked the neckline of her peasant dress down. For one moment, her breast was vulnerable to the open air, her hardened nipple appearing unusually dark against her pale flesh. Then his hand covered it again, and this time the slightly rough skin of his callused hand was actually against her bare flesh. Willa closed her eyes against the erotic sight and tipped her head back. She panted softly as he caressed her.
"Marry me." This time the words were a whisper against her skin as his lips replaced his hand. He began to suckle her flesh, tugging her nipple as if he were a babe at his mother's teat. Willa's response was not maternal. Crying out, she arched into him, then cried out again in protest when he stopped and straightened.
"Do not stop," she pleaded, catching his face in her hands and trying to tug him back down. He resisted, waiting until he had her attention before repeating, "Marry me."
Willa went still in his arms.
"Marry me, so that I can do this to you again and again." He shook her slightly. "Marry me."
She stared at him, her mind in an uproar. One part of her wanted to scream, "Aye. Now. This minute." Anything to keep this unbearable pleasure from ending. To experience it over and over again through the long years ahead with the sanctity of marriage to make it sweeter. But that was the trick. If Eada were correct, it would not be over and over again through the long years ahead. If she agreed to marry him before he crawled to her on his belly, he would die within a month.
"Willa?"
He gave her a gentle shake, drawing her gaze back to his and she bit her lip briefly, then murmured, "I do not suppose you feel like crawling around on the ground, do you?"
"What?"
He looked utterly confused by the question and she took advantage of his muddled state to slip out from between him and the wall. Without a word, Willa turned and hurried from the building.
Chapter Six
Hugh shifted on his saddle, trying to find a comfortable position. That seemed to be more and more of an impossibility of late. Earlier in the day, he had noticed a certain tenderness on his behind and had briefly wondered if it might be a saddle sore; he had just as quickly shrugged the idea away. Hugh had spent countless hours in the saddle over the years and though he'd suffered the complaint a time or two as a green lad, his hide had toughened with time. It was highly unlikely that he would experience it now. Still, there was definitely a tender spot on his seat. There was also nothing he could do about it at the moment, so he merely shifted again in a futile effort to ease his discomfort and set his mind to other things. The rain was the first thing that came to mind. That was probably because it was presently pouring over him in a steady drizzle. Which, he supposed, was better than the deluge that had been tormenting him throughout most of the last two days. Tipping his head back, he surveyed the night sky, wondering if the rain would ever end. Blinking raindrops away, he looked over the large dark clouds at the lighter, starless background. Dawn was coming. By his estimation, it would crest the horizon within the hour.
Another wasted day and night had passed. Thank God, he thought wearily. But then he realized that another was sure to follow and straightened in the saddle with a sigh followed by a sniffle. Stiffening, he sniffed experimentally and almost groaned at the wet sound his nose made. Damn! Now he was catching a cold. Was there no end to the misery he must suffer to win this woman?
Willa. The name played through his head and a picture of her lovely face suddenly rose before him. The more time he spent with her, the more beautiful he found her. That was an oddity. Usually, Hugh found his attraction waning as he got to know a woman. But not with her. She grew more glorious with every passing moment. Even her stubbornness had become somehow attractive, a challenge to overcome. And it was sheer stubbornness that now made her refuse him, he assured himself. He'd felt her passion when he had kissed her. She'd melted against him, opening for him like a rose to the sun's first touch. He had felt her quiver beneath his caress and heard her moan a plea for more. Willa had responded to him. She wanted him. And still she had refused to call an end to this game and marry him. Hugh didn't understand why. But then, he'd never claimed to understand women and their reasoning.
A growl from the black shadows on his left made him peer into the bushes. Hugh could not see the source of the sound, but the growl could not have come from anything but Willa's pet wolves.
Oh, this is grand, he thought unhappily. Her wolves will attack me, I will kill them in self-defense, and she will never speak to me again.
Willa awoke with a start and found herself staring into stygian blackness. She lay still for a moment, wondering at the source of the anxiety that was creeping over her. Then she realized the night was completely silent. Unnaturally so. There was no snuffling or scuffling or calls of nocturnal animals. There was not even the patter of rain on the roof anymore; it had stopped again.
She strained to see through the dark. The fire was out. Judging by the damp chill that had stolen into the small hovel, it had died hours before. Shivering, she bundled under the fur on her pallet and wondered what had awoken her. A growl sounded somewhere outside and she stiffened. Willa knew instinctively that it wasn't the first time she'd heard it. That was probably the sound that had drawn her from sleep.
"What was that?"
Willa sat up as Eada's hissed question pierced the silence. "I think 'tis - "
Her explanation died abruptly as a cacophony of sounds erupted outside. Growls, shouting, and a horse whinnying and stomping had both women scrambling out of their beds. Willa reached the door first and exploded out of the cottage. She hadn't even formed a full idea of what might be happening outside. What she found shocked her into stillness just outside the door.
After the inky blackness inside, the chaos taking place in the moonlit clearing was startlingly clear. Hugh Dulonget was off his horse. Shouting and cursing loudly, he was in the midst of a sword battle with another man. Wolfy and Fen circled the fighting pair, growling and nipping at whatever bits of the stranger they could reach.
Just as Willa pursed her lips to whistle the animals to her side, Hugh stumbled backward over one of the circling beasts. He tumbled to the ground, his mail jangling loudly. The moonlight glinted off the stranger's sword as he raised it, then Wolfy and Fen lunged almost as one. Both wolves went for the face and neck, the only unarmored portions of the man. The melee was over as quickly as it had begun. The intruder went down under the attack with a gurgle of sound that ended as he hit the ground.
"Wolfy! Fen!" Willa ran forward, tried to stop when she reached them, and lost her footing in the mud. She ended on her knees at the attacker's side. She was between the still-snarling and gnashing Wolfy, who now stood on his chest, teeth buried deep in the man's neck, and Fen who stood on the ground and appeared to have gone for the face. A sob breaking from her throat, Willa grabbed at the scruff of first one, then the other of the wolves. She knew it was a dangerous move. Even domesticated dogs sometimes turned on a master in the midst of blood lust. These were no domesticated animals and they had no master. But neither animal turned on her. Both calmed almost at once, their growls and snarls turning to rumbles in their throats as they allowed her to tug them away from their quarry. It was too late, however. The man was dead, his blood pooling around his throat and shoulders on the already damp ground. Wolfy and Fen had done their jobs well.
Turning away from the gory sight, she sought out Hugh. He had taken a bad tumble. Hampered by his heavy mail armor, he was only now rolling to his stomach in the mud. He got to his hands and knees and paused to shake his head as if dizzy. Then his concerned gaze found Willa and he crawled through the mud to her side.
"Are you well?"
Willa stared at him. His voice was thick and his breathing hampered. Hugh was obviously developing a cold. He was also bleeding from the head. Releasing the wolves, she shifted to face him on her knees and took his head in her hands. She turned him so that she could peer at the source of the blood trailing down his face. "You are hurt. You must have hit your head when you fell."
" 'Tis nothing," he said gruffly, shaking off her hold so that he could turn his head to peer at the prone man beside them. "Who is he?"
"I do not know. Should I?"
Scowling, Hugh edged closer to the dead man. He examined him briefly, apparently looking for some identifying feature.
"Do you know him?" she asked, forcing herself to look at the man's ruined face. It would be difficult for anyone to recognize him.
"Nay." Apparently finding nothing helpful to identify the man, Hugh settled back on his haunches. "I do not think I have ever seen him before."
They both stared at his waxen features in the moonlight, then she asked, "What happened? Did he attack you?"
"Aye. Right after the rain finally stopped. There were a few minutes of silence, then I heard one of those beasts of yours growl. I thought he was growling at me, but I presume he was warning me, for in the next moment this fellow - " he nodded toward the man on the ground - "rushed out of the trees. He ran straight at me, sword raised. I barely managed to get off of my horse in time to counter the first blow."
Hugh rubbed his forehead fretfully. He shifted to get to his feet, only to stumble back to his knees with a startled curse when Willa caught his hand and tugged him off balance. "What are you doing?"
"You should not be getting up just yet. You should rest and regain your strength," Willa said firmly. She tugged at him again and he tumbled forward in the mud, his head dropping face-first into her lap. "Head wounds are tricky. You should rest until Eada has seen the wound and checked your eyes."
"Checked my eyes for what?" His impatience was evident, despite the fact that his voice was muffled against her upper leg.
"I am not sure," Willa admitted. She turned his head so that his face pressed against her stomach and carefully examined the wound at the side of his temple. "But she can generally tell the depth of damage done by looking into the eyes. You took an awful knock."
"I am fine," he repeated, but made no effort to remove his head from her lap. Instead, he shifted onto his back and peered up at her. It was only when he glimpsed her concerned features that it occurred to him he might use this situation to his advantage. The written apology had not worked, nor the vow to guard her, nor his pathetic attempts at pleasing her with limp flowers and a live rabbit. Even the passion he'd brought to life in her in the stable had not persuaded her to agree to marry him. However, perhaps the events of this night and the concern he now saw in her face would do the trick. Hugh should have been ashamed to stoop to such manipulations, but with two castles and all of their attendant servants and soldiers depending on him, he had no time for such petty considerations.