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Knave's Honour
Margaret Moore
Honourable Knave Lady Elizabeth of Averette comes face-to-face with Finn – an outlaw with more honour than most knights – when he rescues her from a brutal abductor.In return Lizette agrees to help him find his brother by posing as Finn’s wife. Dishonourable Proposal Lizette hasn’t bargained on sharing a bed with her rugged knave as part of the deal.Now it’s her honour that could be compromised… She may not have had a wedding day, but the prospect of a wedding night with gorgeous Finn is seriously tempting!
Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author Margaret Moore
‘The story is fresh, fun, fast-paced, engaging, and passionate, with an added touch of adventure.’
—The Romance Readers Connection on THE NOTORIOUS KNIGHT
‘… filled with fast-paced dialogue and historical details that add depth and authenticity to the story. Readers will be well entertained.’
—RT Book Reviews on MY LORD’S DESIRE
‘Readers continue to ask for “Moore.” Her latest book is a sparkling, dynamic tale of two lonely hearts who find each other despite their pasts and the evil forces surrounding them.’
—RT Book Reviews on HERS TO DESIRE
‘Colourful and compelling details of life in the Middle Ages abound.’
—Publishers Weekly on HERS TO COMMAND
‘A lively adventure with enough tension and romance to keep me turning pages.’—International bestselling author Roberta Gellis on HERS TO COMMAND
‘This captivating adventure of thirteenth-century Scotland kept me enthralled from beginning to end. It’s a keeper!’
—Romance Junkies on BRIDE OF LOCHBARR
‘Margaret Moore is a master storyteller who has the uncanny ability to develop new twists on old themes.’
—Affaire de Coeur
‘When it comes to excellence in historical romance books, no one provides the audience with more than the award-winning Ms Moore.’
—Under the Covers
Lizette was too stunned to move.
She’d had no idea a kiss could make her wish that he’d pick her up and carry her somewhere, anywhere, where they could be alone …
Overwhelmed by desire, she ran her hands up Finn’s back, pressing her body against his. She recalled how he’d saved her from Lindall and those others. How kind he’d been to Keldra and Garreth, and how marvellous he looked …
Someone cleared a throat, and she abruptly remembered where she was, and that she had a part to play, too, as Finn did—and this kiss must be no more than a part of their ruse.
About the Author
Award-winning author MARGARET MOORE began her career at the age of eight, when she and a friend concocted stories featuring a lovely damsel and a handsome, misunderstood thief nicknamed ‘The Red Sheik’. Unknowingly pursuing her destiny, Margaret graduated with distinction from the University of Toronto, Canada. She has been a Leading Wren in the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve, an award-winning public speaker, a member of an archery team, and a student of fencing and ballroom dancing. She has also worked for every major department store chain in Canada.
Margaret lives in Toronto, Ontario, with her husband of over twenty-five years. Her two children have grown up understanding that it’s part of their mother’s job to discuss non-existent people and their problems. When not writing, Margaret updates her blog and website at www.margaretmoore.com
KNAVE’S HONOUR
Margaret Moore
www.millsandboon.co.uk
With many thanks to Karen Solem and Donna Warren for their calm guidance and sage advice.
CHAPTER ONE
The Midlands, 1204
“I FEARED I’D GO MAD if I had to sit in that wagon another moment,” Lady Elizabeth of Averette declared as she lifted the skirts of her blue woolen traveling gown and delicately picked her way toward the mossy bank of the swift-moving stream.
“Don’t you think we ought to stay with the men?” her maidservant asked, anxiously glancing back toward the escort of mail-clad soldiers who had dismounted nearby.
As such men were wont to do, they joked and cursed among themselves while they led their horses to drink or let them eat the plentiful grass by the side of the road. Some of them took out heels of bread from their packs or downed a sip of ale. The leader of the cortege, Iain Mac Kendren, did neither. He stood with feet planted and arms akimbo as if he were a statue, only his turning head giving any hint that he was alive and keeping watch.
“Last night I heard the innkeeper talking about a thief who sets upon travelers hereabouts,” Keldra said, breathless with a fearful excitement. “A huge fellow, fierce and terrible!”
Lizette, as she was known to her sisters and the people of Averette, gave Keldra a sympathetic smile. Keldra was only fifteen, and not used to travel. It was no wonder every tale of every thief, no matter how bizarre or exaggerated, frightened her. “According to a serving wench, he’s a very handsome thief. She also says he won’t rob a woman if she’ll give him a kiss, which sounds like something out of a minstrel’s song to me. Whatever this thief may be like, though, we have fifty men to guard us, and Iain Mac Kendren, too, so I’m sure we’ll be quite safe.”
“I hope so!” Keldra whispered, as if she feared the thief might be listening.
Smiling and very glad to be out of the stuffy confines of the wagon, Lizette removed her silver coronet and silken veil, then crouched down on the bank of the stream. “As long as he takes a kiss instead of my clothes or jewelry, I might even enjoy meeting this thief.”
“Oh, my lady, you wouldn’t!” Keldra exclaimed, scandalized—which showed how little she really knew her mistress.
Lizette cupped some clear, cold water in her hands and lifted it to her lips before she answered. “Wouldn’t you be willing to kiss a handsome rogue?”
“Not if he’s an outlaw!”
“I’d rather kiss a handsome outlaw than some courtier who may then assume I want to marry him,” Lizette said as she rose.
Men she might—and did—appreciate. She enjoyed their company and the teasing banter of flirtation. She envied them their easy camaraderie, although not as much as she envied them their freedom.
Marriage, however, was something else entirely. Most women might find those bonds a form of security, but after witnessing what passed for marriage between her parents, Elizabeth of Averette did not.
“I don’t have any jewels, my lady,” Keldra pointed out as she, too, bent down to drink. “He might make me kiss him!”
“Being kissed against one’s will is rather unpleasant,” Lizette conceded, as she had cause to know. More than one eager suitor who’d come to Averette seeking a wealthy bride had been swift to try seduction of the lord’s youngest, and presumably most innocent, daughter as a means to that end.
“I wouldn’t really want to meet a thief, of course,” she admitted, listening to the birds sing as if they hadn’t a care in the world. “It would be frightening.”
Like the time that drunken nobleman had cornered her in the chapel and no amount of gentle admonition would persuade him to let her go, until she’d finally promised to meet him later in a more secluded place. Her older sister had gone in her stead, and while Adelaide never revealed precisely what had transpired, Lord Smurton and his entourage had departed the next day at first light without even a farewell to his host.
“Oh, my lady!”
Lizette raised her eyes at the sound of Keldra’s cry and found her maid pointing at the middle of the stream—where her new silk veil was floating away on the water.
With a curse, Lizette hiked up her skirts and immediately gave chase along the slippery bank. She didn’t dare run because the rocks were too slick, but she had to get her veil. Iain would no doubt say she deserved to lose it if she was so careless and he’d probably never let her out of his sight for the rest of the journey home.
While she tried to keep her eyes on the veil as well as look for a stick with which to retrieve it, a man suddenly appeared on the opposite side of the stream as if he’d materialized out of thin air.
“Have no fear, my lady!” the stranger called out as she came to a startled halt. He unbuckled his sword belt and put it down on a nearby rock. “I mean you no harm.”
If he was taking off his sword and was alone, he likely didn’t mean any harm. More importantly, he sounded educated and of high rank—a knight, at least, if not a lord or baron.
Whoever he was, he wore a simple leather tunic with no shirt beneath, dark breeches and plain boots. Standing by the stream with the woods behind him, he was like some sort of god of the forest—or maybe that thought only came to her because of his simple clothing and dark, waving hair.
He began to wade across the deep stream and when he reached her veil, he plucked it from the water as easily as another man might pluck a daisy from its stem, then raised the dripping rectangle of cloth like a victor with his spoils.
“Permit me to introduce myself,” he said as he approached her, the water splashing up around his shins, his deep, musical voice again assuring her he was no rough rogue. “I’m Sir Oliver de Leslille, of Ireland.”
Sir Oliver—a knight indeed. Ireland explained the slight, delightful lilt to his words that made it seem as if he were singing rather than speaking.
He also possessed a high forehead, denoting intelligence, a remarkably fine, straight nose and a chin that was exactly what a man’s chin should be, while his full lips curved up in the most incredibly attractive smile.
Something deep inside her seemed to shift, as if a mild earthquake had moved the ground beneath her feet. Or the very quality of the air had changed.
Or as if something that had been slumbering had awakened.
“I was hunting with some friends and got separated from them,” Sir Oliver explained as he reached the bank and stood beside her. Water dripped from her bedraggled veil, and she couldn’t help noticing that his wet woolen breeches clung to his muscular thighs.
“Since I had a powerful thirst,” he said, “I stopped here, and then I heard your, um, cries of dismay. Very colorful, I must say.”
Sweet Mother of God, he’d heard her cursing. She wasn’t usually easily embarrassed, but right now, she was—so much so, she almost wished the stream would rise up and wash her away. Almost.
She wasn’t usually prone to blushing, either, but she was doing that, too, even as she realized she should say something. Give him thanks, at least. Unfortunately, the words would not come—another oddity—and instead she found herself transfixed by the steady, brown-eyed gaze of this handsome stranger who’d waded through the water toward her as if he did this sort of thing every day, and as if that water wasn’t ice-cold. “You must be frozen!”
“I’ve been colder than this plenty o’ times before, my lady,” he said as he handed her the sopping veil. “It’s worth a little chill to be of service to such a lovely woman.”
“I—I thank you, sir,” she stammered.
What in the name of the saints was wrong with her? She’d never sounded like such a complete ninny.
Unfortunately, she simply couldn’t seem to think clearly, to form coherent words or a thought other than that he was the most breathtakingly good-looking man she’d ever met. “I’m very grateful you retrieved this for me. I paid a great deal for it—too much, my sister will say—and I would have been very upset if I’d lost it. It’s fortunate you were nearby, although you’re a long way from Ireland.”
God help her, now she was babbling.
“Aye, my lady, I am,” he said, a twinkle of amusement in his brown eyes. “And who might you be?”
Fool! “I’m Lizette.” Simpleton! “I mean, I’m Lady Elizabeth, of Averette.”
The man nodded over her shoulder. “That’s your maid, I presume? I trust you have others with you and aren’t traveling alone?”
“Yes, no, that is, yes, that’s my maid. And of course, I have an escort. Of …” Sweet savior, how many? “Fifty men. They’re close by.”
“I’m glad to hear it. There are thieves lurking hereabouts and you’d be a very tempting morsel,” he said with a look in his eyes that made her throat go dry and her heartbeat quicken as it never had before.
“So I’ve heard. That is, that there are thieves, not that I … I don’t mean to sound vain … or imply …” She gave up and silently cursed herself for a dolt.
Sir Oliver laughed softly. “Modest as well as pretty. That’s a potent combination.”
Merciful Mary, she might swoon like some giddy girl if he kept looking at her that way and she might say. anything.
If this man had cornered her in the chapel, who could say what she might have done?
“Averette—that’s in Kent, isn’t it?” he asked.
“It is indeed! Have you ever been there?”
What a stupid question! Surely if he’d visited Averette she would remember him.
“No, I’ve never been to Kent. I’ve met your sister at court, though.”
A surge of dismay and disappointment tore through her. If he’d been to court, if he’d met Adelaide, he would be comparing them in looks, if nothing else, and nobody could come out ahead of Adelaide if beauty was the measure. The men who sought her hand had all tried for Adelaide first, and been refused.
His smile grew and she supposed that was because he was thinking about Adelaide. “Actually, I asked her to run off with me, but she wouldn’t. There was another man, you see, that she liked better.”
All Lizette’s anger and envy disappeared. He’d probably felt the sting of Adelaide’s rejection—and Adelaide could be very stinging.
“How unfortunate for you,” she replied as her confidence returned, and she gave him a smile of her own. “Why don’t you ask me instead?”
It was an outrageous thing to say, yet surely he would laugh and say something clever in return, as courtiers and handsome noblemen were wont to do.
Instead, the joviality left his face, and he said, in a voice soft and low that acted upon her like a bold and intimate caress, “Would you say yes if I did?”
He must be teasing. He couldn’t possibly be serious.
Yet her heart throbbed as if it wanted to break free of her ribs. Her lungs seemed to stop functioning. God in heaven, she’d craved excitement and adventure all her life, and here it was, in the flesh. Handsome, seductive flesh.
“My lady!”
She’d completely forgotten about Keldra. And Iain. And everything else in the entire world except Sir Oliver de Leslille of Ireland.
She looked back over her shoulder to see Iain Mac Kendren marching toward them, his sword drawn and a hostile expression on his sun-browned face. Keldra must have gone to fetch him, for she came scurrying along behind him.
Iain, who was forty-five if he was a day, had spent most of the journey from Lord Delapont’s castle ignoring her complaints that the rocking motion of the wagon made her queasy. He’d also made it quite clear that he resented being sent to bring her home to Averette, although he couldn’t be any more annoyed than she at being summoned home as if she were a child.
In spite of Iain’s belligerent bearing, however, Sir Oliver didn’t appear the least disturbed, and he once again regarded her with amusement in his dark eyes.
“Who’s this, then?” he inquired, quirking a brow. “I hope not an irate father or husband?”
“No!” She cleared her throat and spoke in a more ladylike tone. “No, he’s the garrison commander of Averette, the leader of my escort.”
She turned to Iain and spoke with what she hoped sounded like authority. “Iain, put up your blade. This is Sir Oliver de Leslille, and he means us no harm.”
Iain came to a halt, one hand on his hip as he ran a measuring gaze over Sir Oliver who was, Lizette suddenly recalled, still soaking wet.
