Marsh smothered a smile, but clucked his tongue. “I know of your dagger, but I’m not afeared of it.”
Morgana gave him a long look. “It’s not a blade I’ll be needing,” she said in a low voice, hoping this large man would prove as superstitious as his fellow knights. “By the skin of the toad and the wing of the bat—”
“Enough!” Garrick, seeing the crafty smile playing upon Morgana’s lips, strode to his tent. “’Tis time we slept. You,” he ordered the sorceress, “shall sleep here” —he pointed to a pallet thick with furs near the center of the tent— “and you, servant woman, will sleep near the flap.”
Morgana eyed the largest bundle of furs tossed on a pallet bare inches from the one he had named as her bed.
“I shall sleep next to you, to make sure you don’t chant and disappear before you have fulfilled your promise.”
“I’ll not sleep next to you!”
“You’ve no choice,” Garrick commanded. “You rest on your own pallet or I’ll see that you share mine.” His eyes were as dark as night, his lips thin with anger at being contradicted in front of his men. Several of the knights were close enough to the flap of the tent to hear the exchange, and Marsh, still planted firmly at the entrance, could not help but overhear the argument. Morgana guessed few defied Garrick of Abergwynn, yet she refused to back down.
“Have it your way,” he said before Morgana could respond. He threw an angry glance at the guard. “Sir Marsh, take Springan outside to wash herself. Do not return until I say.”
Morgana’s throat froze as her plight became clear. Obviously the baron intended to punish her. “Nay…” she whispered.
“Do as I say!” Garrick snapped, and the guard grabbed Springan’s arm, drawing her outside the tent and letting the flap close behind him. Inside, the air was close, the darkness permeated only by the red glow of the fire.
Morgana shivered, feeling his presence, watching as he moved slowly around her, circling her as a wolf might stalk its prey.
“Dare you defy me in front of my men?” he growled, his voice as low as the sound of surf rumbling to the shore.
The hair on the back of Morgana’s neck lifted. “I did not—”
“Dare you argue with me?”
She stood, braced, waiting, sure that he might strike her at any moment. “But I—”
“Dare you chant silly, meaningless words to frighten my men and mock them?”
He quit moving. His bootsteps were hushed, and he was standing behind her, so close that she could smell him, could feel his breath, hot as dragon’s fire, against her neck.
“You try my patience, witch, and I’ll not allow this farce to continue. My men have pledged their fealty to me! They are loyal and—”
“You do not own me, Lord Garrick!”
“Do I not?” he returned, and she trembled at the taunting sound of his words. “Edward has given me these lands and all that which is upon them. Aye, in truth, they are partly his, but he would not argue that all that is Wenlock, including the people therein, belongs to me.”
“Nay, you do not—”
“Unless I have harmed you, I can do what I will.”
Merciful God. She reached instinctively for her dagger, but a hand, large and callused, folded quickly over her wrist, clamping hard over her skin and drawing her back against him so swiftly that her breath caught in her lungs. Her spine pressed against his abdomen, and though she tried to move, her buttocks were slammed against his rigid thighs. Steel muscles bound her to him, as his other arm surrounded her, holding her fast, his fingers splayed beneath her breasts.
She dared not move. Never had she been held so close by a man and certainly not with the savage power she felt in the coil of his muscles.
“I did not give you back your dagger so that you could use it against me,” he snarled against the nape of her neck, and she quivered in fear.
She swallowed back a hot retort, though a thousand sharp words spun through her mind. Lord, please let me get through this, she prayed in terror-riddled silence. The vision had been right. The danger was from this determined knight.
“What? No incantations?” he mocked. When he let his one hand slip lower, beneath her hip-slung belt, she tensed. Did the beast mean to take her? But his fingers, hot through her tunic, did not probe her legs. Instead they found their way to her dagger and unsheathed the silvery blade. He held the knife in front of her nose. “This is yours, m’lady, but since you must now sleep with me, I think it best kept in my hand.” Turning his head toward the door, he barked, “Bring in the servant girl and prepare the camp for the night.”
Springan, eyes round with fear, crawled back inside, and Morgana wished she could indeed chant a spell and disappear. A tiny smile tugged at the corners of Springan’s mouth when the servant girl discovered her lady in the arms of Garrick of Abergwynn.
“Turn your back to us and sleep,” Garrick ordered sharply. Springan spun quickly and slid beneath the furs on her pallet, her face to the wall of the tent. Garrick folded his knees, and together he and Morgana tumbled onto his pallet. “Now,” he said in a voice as low as death, “push me no further, woman, and taunt me no more in front of my men, or I will be forced to find other means of making you bend to my will.”
Chapter Nine