What did Stephen tell her? Find her advantage and use it. Too bad she had no skirt to lift to show her ankles.
She remembered Stephen’s reaction to her leggings and unfastened her cloak with one hand. When she shrugged it off, the man dropped the point of his sword and gaped open-mouthed at her legs. Before she could overcome her surprise at how well it worked, he brought his gaze back up to meet her eyes.
“I’d wager your husband finds you a handful.” His tone was still amused, but the glint in his eyes had her backing up. “I would love to be there when you explain to him how you happen to be traveling alone with FitzAlan and his brother… dressed as a man.”
Her heel hit FitzAlan’s prone form. She could step back no farther. With the man just two or three feet beyond the reach of her sword, she could wait no longer to begin her farce. She made a clumsy swing at him with her sword.
This time, she did not miss her moment.
When the man threw his head back, roaring with laughter, she lunged forward with her sword aimed straight at his heart. At the last instant, he jumped back and saved himself.
“You are full of surprises!” He was smiling, but he had his sword at the ready now.
She had no more tricks. There was nothing for it but to fight as best she could. He came at her hard and fast. The first attack she fended off. Then the second, and the third. But he was quick and strong, and more skilled than she.
“I see ’tis true that chivalry is dead among the French nobility,” she jeered. “You are the worst kind of coward, to attack a man so gravely injured and a defenseless woman.”
“You are hardly defenseless, my dear.” He was circling, waiting for her to give him an opening. “I must ask, who was your teacher?”
She did have one advantage left, after all. From the way he was fighting, he was trying only to disarm her. She fought with no such constraint; she would kill him if he gave her half a chance.
As they moved forward and back, swords clanging, he showed no concern he might lose. In sooth, the man appeared to be enjoying himself. He spun in a circle, returning in time to block her thrust. Good heavens, the fool was showing off!
The next time he spun about, she was ready. She lunged at once, putting all her weight behind it. Somehow he managed to duck below her sword, and she fell crashing forward. The air went out of her as he caught her around the waist.
“You tried to kill me!” the man said.
He hit her wrist with the side of his hand. The sharp pain made her hand go numb, and she dropped her sword.
“For that, I shall make you watch FitzAlan die,” he said. “He must mean a good deal to you, for you to risk your life for him.”
She kicked and screamed and bit as he dragged her with one arm back to where FitzAlan lay unmoving beside the log. Holding her against his side with one arm, he raised his sword arm over FitzAlan. The bandage around Fitz-Alan’s neck looked like a bloody target.
“No, no!” she screamed.
He raised his sword higher. Desperate to stop him, she wrenched sideways, caught his raised arm, and clung to it.
The man threw her to the ground. Her head hit something hard, stunning her. When her vision cleared, she saw him raising his sword again. She scrambled across the rough ground on hands and knees and flung herself on top of FitzAlan.
The man above her was shouting a string of curses at her, but Isobel was screaming back. Suddenly, he jerked her to her knees by her hair. She looked up at the man’s face, mottled with rage, and braced herself to be backhanded across the face.
As he swung his arm back to strike her, she heard a roar. The man turned, his arm frozen in midair. From the corner of her eye, she saw a blur of movement through the trees.
Thunk!
She stared at the hilt of a blade protruding from the man’s left eye socket. Blood gushed from it, splattering on her. Even when his grip on her hair loosened and he fell to the ground, her mind could not yet grasp what had happened. She felt herself sway just before strong arms caught her.
Then Stephen was holding her against him. He was squeezing the breath out of her, but she did not care. As he covered her face with kisses, she sucked in gasps of air that came out as choked sobs. He murmured into her hair words she did not try to understand. But his voice comforted her.
She could not say how long he held her. It might have been an eternity, but it would never be enough.
Once her heart stopped pounding so violently in her chest and her sobbing subsided, a dense wave of exhaustion rolled over her. The leaf-strewn floor of the forest swirled beneath her.
“Thank you,” she whispered and closed her eyes.
Stephen entered the wood riding at a pace that risked his horse, cursing himself for taking so long. Damn, there had been just too many of them. He charged into them, slashing his sword from side to side. He killed two in the first foray, but the next two took more time. While he fought them, the others scattered.
A few rode off across the fields, but he thought he saw at least two go into the wood. That was why he was riding like a madman through the trees.
