head, and the kitten clung on tighter. “Ouch!”
“Allow me, my lady.”
A pair of scuffed, worn and muddy boots appeared in her line of sight and the weight of the kitten mercifully disappeared, if not the sensation of the painful little claws digging into her flesh.
“Please, be careful,” she pleaded, her head still bowed in a position both awkward and embarrassing. “Otherwise the kitten might tear my gown.”
“We can’t have that,” her rescuer agreed, his voice intimate and amiable, making her blush as if this were the sort of clandestine encounter she so assiduously sought to avoid.
She raised her eyes, hoping to see a bit more of the man standing in front of her. His gray cloak was made of wool and mud-spattered, and there was a hole in the hem large enough to stick her finger through.
“Come now, little one,” the man murmured as he worked to free the kitten’s claws from her garment.
Even as she tried to ignore the stranger’s proximity, his deep voice and the warmth of his breath on the nape of her neck sent shivers down her spine—although not of fear. Of something else. Something forbidden and dangerous.
“You’re free,” he said, finally lifting the kitten from her. He brushed her hair away from the nape of her neck in a gesture like a caress. “Did it scratch you?”
God save her, no man had ever touched her like that. No man should touch her like that, and she should certainly not be enjoying it.
“I can’t see any blood,” he said. “Perhaps beneath your gown—”
“You’re not looking beneath my gown!” she cried as she scrambled to her feet, snatching up her veil, barbette and cap and turning to face—
—the most attractive man she’d ever seen.
Long, chestnut-brown hair framed a handsome, mature face of angles and planes, sharp cheekbones and a strong, firm jaw. Dark brows slanted over quizzical brown eyes brightened with flecks of gold, like pinpoints of sunlight. His full lips curved up in an amused, yet gentle, smile that made her heart race as if she’d run for miles. The white and black kitten lay cradled in the crook of his arm, its eyes half-closed, purring loudly as the man rubbed its plump little belly.
Never before had Adelaide envied a cat.
“I assure you, my lady, I wasn’t suggesting anything improper,” the stranger said, a chuckle lurking beneath his rough voice. “I merely meant that you should have your maid tend to any scratches. A cat’s scratch can be a serious matter.”
Adelaide’s mouth snapped shut as she realized she’d been staring at him like a besotted ninny. This was just a man, after all, not a supernatural being.
“I thank you, sir, for your help,” she said with haughty dignity. “I’m sure any injuries I’ve sustained are minor.”
His smile disappeared, and the light in his brown eyes dimmed.
This was as it should be. After all, she had not come to court to find a husband. She had come to court to do all she could to prevent being married.
A hiss came from behind her. The last of the kittens had finished nursing and the mother cat clearly thought it was time for all her brood to go.
The white kitten bounded out of the man’s grasp and ran to join the others.
The handsome, well-spoken and therefore surely noble stranger gave Adelaide a rueful grin. “Alas, I’ve been abandoned.”
Adelaide didn’t want to smile, lest he take that for encouragement. She looked away—and saw a long scratch on the back of his hand. “You’re bleeding!”
“Little devil,” the man muttered as he examined his hand, exposing his wrist and mottled, red skin that had obviously once been rubbed raw. As if he’d been shackled. For weeks.
Adelaide raised her startled eyes to find the stranger regarding her steadily, with an expression that betrayed nothing. Although she was full of curiosity, she decided it would be best to say nothing and simply tend to his wound, as he’d come to her assistance.
She hurried from the stall to the nearest trough and dipped the corner of her veil into the water before returning to wash the scratch.
The unknown nobleman, as well as the cat and her kittens, were gone.
Adelaide stood dumbfounded, wondering where he’d gone and if she should seek him out, until she heard the all-too-familiar voice of Francis de Farnby. It wouldn’t be good to be found here with a man—any man—and especially not a man as attractive as the unknown nobleman. She could easily imagine what the gossips of the court would make of that.
CHAPTER TWO
“ARMAND! You’re finally here! I was beginning to think you’d gotten lost.”
Delighted to hear the voice of his closest friend, Armand stopped rubbing down his horse and smiled as Randall FitzOsbourne limped into the stall.
As usual, Randall was dressed in a long, dark tunic that reached the ground, with a plain leather belt girded around his slender waist. He wore his hair, the color of newly cut oak, in the popular Norman fashion, although the cowlick on the left side of his head gave him a rakish look that was distinctly at odds with his gentle personality.
“Is that your horse?” Randall asked, running a wary eye over the ill-tempered animal that shifted at the sound of his voice.
“It was the best I could afford,” Armand replied, tossing the rag he’d been using into a bucket on the other side of the stall. “I’m sorry if I gave you any cause to worry. This beast is not the swiftest, and I was longer at my uncle’s than I planned.”
“Success?” Randall asked, his sandy brows rising in query.
One hand stroking the horse as it snorted and refooted, Armand reached into his tunic and tossed a small leather pouch at Randall, the coins within clinking as he caught it. Randall had excellent coordination and would have been a formidable knight, had his club foot not made that impossible.
“How much?” Randall asked, pulling the drawstring open and peering within.
“Ten marks.”
Randall’s disappointment matched Armand’s. “So little?”
“There was no love between my father and my uncle,” Armand reminded his friend with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “I was fortunate he didn’t set the hounds on me.”
Randall sighed as he leaned back against the stable wall. “As bad as that?”
“Yes.”
Armand saw no need to elaborate on the unpleasant reaction his arrival had elicited from his uncle when he went to plead for money to ransom his half brother, Bayard. He would not repeat the justifiable epithets applied to his vicious, lascivious, mercifully dead father, or the cold reminders that his uncle had already helped to pay for Armand’s freedom; he had little to
