The Recruit (Highland Guard #6)(98)

Felton was fully armored in chain mail and Kenneth was naked to the waist, protected only by the steel of his helm. But it didn’t matter. There was nothing knightly about the way Kenneth fought. He used his fists, elbows, legs, feet—whatever he need to win. Felton used his shield—until Kenneth wrenched it from his hands—his dirk, whatever he could get his hands on, but his weapons were no match for Kenneth’s fierce skill and brutish strength. He’d been hit so many times the past few weeks that his body had become almost immune to pain. In less than a minute, Kenneth had the victory he’d been craving for months. He had Felton on his back, pinning him to the ground with his foot pressed against his throat.

“Put your hands on my wife again and I’ll kill you.”

Felton’s eyes burned hatred through the steel of his helm. He wanted to say something, but Kenneth’s foot prevented it.

The crowd had given them a wide circle, but he was aware of only one gaze on him. Mary stared at him in wide-eyed shock, looking at him as if seeing him for the first time.

“Please,” she said, her soft voice soothing him like a balm. “I’m fine. It’s over. He was helping me.”

Kenneth clenched his jaw, primitive instincts warring with honor. He wanted to kill Felton, but just enough rationality penetrated the haze. The bastard might have been holding her too long and too close, but he’d saved her. Kenneth had plenty of reasons for killing the man, but this wasn’t one of them.

He lifted his foot off Felton’s neck and stepped back. Heedless of the blood and grime, Mary raced into his arms, burying her face against his chest. His arms automatically closed around her. It felt so perfect, so right, that at that moment he recognized the truth.

Concentrating on soothing his sobbing wife, he watched while Felton struggled to his feet.

“I’ll see you thrown in the pit prison for this,” Felton seethed, rubbing his neck.

Kenneth’s gaze narrowed. “If you value your place as Percy’s champion, you won’t say a bloody thing.”

“Clandestine combat is illegal.”

“With war coming, do you think Edward will imprison one of his best knights for long? Especially after it becomes known that I bested Percy’s champion? Perhaps I shall choose to have my trial by challenging you to a wager of battle and we can let the entire castle witness your dethroning.”

Felton’s face was livid with rage. “You bastard! What happened to your arm injury? Why are you fighting here but not at practice? What are you hiding?”

Kenneth swore inwardly but appeared nonchalant. “This is part of my recovery. I was ensuring that I was back to full strength before we met in the yard.” He smiled. “But I guess we’ve established that I’m ready. This is a different type of fighting experience, one you can’t get on the lists with knights.”

Felton swore again, but Kenneth was finished with him. They both knew he would keep what happened to himself. “Find your men and return to the castle.”

Mary had lifted her head from his chest and was blinking back tears as she watched the verbal duel between the two men.

Felton held out his hand. “Lady Mary.”

Kenneth stiffened, but before he could reply, she shook her head and tightened her hold around his waist.

His chest swelled. “I will see my wife safely returned.”

With a look hard enough to cut steel, Felton turned on his heel and left.

Kenneth knew he’d made a mistake. His loss of temper had given Felton even more reason to want to discredit him. But he didn’t care. Mary had chosen him.

Twenty-two

Kenneth would have been content to hold her here forever, but the crowd was too unruly. He cupped her chin, tipping her face to his. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, and the emotion swimming in her big greenish-blue eyes made his chest squeeze.

It seemed to take an interminable amount of time to fetch his belongings, change his clothes, and locate his horse, which he’d given a coin to a lad to watch. But eventually, he and Mary rode in silence back to the castle, her safely seated before him. When he thought about how close she’d come to falling …

What the hell was she doing there? And why was she with Felton? The questions kept pounding through his head on the ride back to the castle.

Not surprisingly, there wasn’t a guard to greet them as they rode through the gate. Felton prized his place as champion too much to risk losing it when he couldn’t be certain of the outcome. But Kenneth knew like a cornered dog that Felton would be looking and waiting for his chance to strike back.

Despite his victory, Kenneth did not delude himself; by losing his temper, he’d given Felton an axe to hang over his head.

But it was the questions about Mary’s role that ate at him. By the time they reached the solitude of their chamber, he was fighting an ugly bout of jealousy and suspicion.

The door had barely closed behind them when he took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. His heart clenched to see her tear-ravaged face, but he steeled himself. “Why, Mary? Why were you in town with him?”

She drew back in shock. “You can’t be accusing me of something?”

His mouth fell in a hard line, the muscle below his jaw ticking. “Do I not have a right to be suspicious when I find my wife with another man in the middle of a damned melee, where she could have fallen to her death? Were you following me, or is there another reason you and Felton traveled to town together?”