The Virgin's Debt Read online

  ‘I’ve only been gone since the morning.’ Rothmore discarded the poker, tossing it to the floor where it landed with a clatter. Then he stood up and turned to face her.

  Instinctively, Katrina took a small step back. ‘There isn’t anything else that requires your attention tonight...’

  Rothmore didn’t acknowledge her retreat. He crossed his arms over his chest, the roped muscles leaping beneath his skin. When she’d seen him fully clothed, she had failed to appreciate how powerful his torso was. A long crescent scar curved down from the outer edge of his collarbone, partly obscured by the crisp dark hairs on his chest.

  ‘You can get into bed while I finish undressing,’ he told her.

  ‘The bed?’ Katrina whispered. Her gaze had been riveted on the man who stood before her, glowing like a mythical creature in the firelight. She hadn’t spared a single glance to the rest of the room. Now she inspected her surroundings, and found little else but a large bed, ornately fashioned in dark oak. The thick curtains from the canopy above were pulled back, leaving the snowy-white bedding in clear view. A small table stood on the far side, with an unlit candle and a jug of ale and a single glass arranged on top.

  ‘Yes,’ Rothmore said. His words were slow and deliberate. ‘The bed.’

  Katrina detected amusement in his tone. Blood surged to her cheeks. The man was about to rob her of her virtue, and he saw it as a matter of mirth. She recoiled another step. The backs of her knees came flush with the edge of the thick mattress, and she toppled heavily onto it.

  ‘Good,’ Rothmore said. His voice was rough, and in a flash of intuition Katrina realised that she had been wrong about his mood. Not amused, but tense, apprehensive. She couldn’t surmise why he would feel ill at ease. After all, what took place on the canopied bed in the glow of the firelight would be at his command.

  Rothmore settled on the stool and lifted one booted foot over the opposite knee. His eyes met hers, and the unspoken challenge in them ordered her to watch as he slowly began to reveal the extent of his deformity to her.

  Katrina inhaled a sharp breath. Her heart hammered, nearly bursting out of her chest. Tears of sympathy for his suffering welled in her eyes. He could have disrobed before she entered, waited for her beneath the pristine linen sheets. Instead, he was torturing himself by making a spectacle of what he thought of as his inadequacies.

  ‘Don’t,’ she whispered. ‘You don’t have to do this.’

  ‘Find it too gruesome to watch?’ he threw back, and in one swift move he pulled off the boot and the stocking beneath.

  Katrina stared at the shrivelled calf muscle and the small twisted foot that pointed down and inward. Compassion overwhelmed her, the emotion so sudden and powerful it cracked her heart wide open. A few snippets of gossip she had heard from her late mother’s lady-in-waiting rose in her mind. Imperfection met with cruel ridicule in the elevated circles of King James’s Court. Rothmore must have been subjected to agonies in his youth, always aware that he would never measure up to the physical standards expected from a man training to be the King’s vassal—a man whose primary duty was to act as a fighting machine for the sovereign.

  ‘No,’ she protested. Not gruesome at all, just a man with a minor physical flaw.

  Before she had time to put her thoughts into words, Rothmore pulled off his other boot. He stood up and took a few hobbling steps across the floor. ‘No?’ he repeated, one eyebrow rising in a sarcastic twist. ‘You find me so repulsive that you can’t keep the bargain we made?’

  ‘No, I didn’t—’

  ‘Perhaps, if you keep your eyes closed, you can manage to tolerate me. After all, I did save your life, and that entitles me to a reward, does it not?’

  Anger unfurled inside Katrina at how Rothmore flayed his pride with his own cruel words. Now she understood the suffering in his eyes. Instead of enjoying the pleasures that the world could offer to a man of his elevated social position, he had spent his life punishing himself for a deficiency beyond his control.

  ‘I didn’t have to come with you,’ she said, her voice low and harsh. ‘I could have asked you to leave me in the next village, and made my way alone.’

  ‘And where could you have gone to?’ he mocked. ‘Think of the vagrancy laws. The first time they release you with a warning, but the next time you’ll get your ear cut off. How would you like that?’ He reached out one hand and stroked her earlobe in a teasing caress. ‘And the third time they hang you. My efforts to save your life would have been in vain.’

  His fingers roamed to the side of her neck and reached the buttons at the top of her robe. ‘My sweet, you don’t have a choice. Do you think you might manage to receive my attentions without fainting from disgust?’

  Katrina surged to her feet, knocking Rothmore out of balance. He released her to seek support from the bedpost, and her sympathy scattered as she gave vent to her fury. ‘I may have been willing to trade my virtue for my life, but nothing will make me sacrifice my dignity.’ She took a step closer and tilted her chin up to Rothmore’s startled face. ‘You will not touch me, unless you are willing to accept that I come to you out of my free will and not simply because you require payment for saving my life.’ She spun on her thick wool socks and marched out, swinging the heavy oak door open before her and slamming it shut after.

  The candle in the corridor had guttered out in the icy draft, and she made her way in the blackness by dragging her hands along the rough stone walls. She had barely advanced a few steps when light flooded out from the bedchamber behind her, casting a long shadow over the bare floorboards in front of her.

  ‘Katrina,’ Rothmore roared. ‘Get back in here.’

  She whirled around. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. The tension of the trial, having feared for her life and then been spared, riding through the forest pressed against a stranger, trying not to think of the coming sexual act, and the hope that she had found a noble protector in him and then having to swallow the bitter ashes of her disappointment—it all mixed into a caustic anger that burned inside her.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she shouted back at him. ‘Run down the corridor and chase after me?’

  With that cruel taunt, she left him, using the reflected firelight to hasten her way to the bedchamber she had used for her bath. Safely inside, Katrina leaned back against the solid timber door and burst into tears.

  Instead of easing the suffering of the man who had saved her from the flames, she had added to his pain, and instead of forming an alliance with a brave knight, in the hope that he might one day agree to become her husband, she had just acquired another enemy.

  * * *

  Duncan stood in the doorway, watching Katrina flee down the corridor like a ghost in her fluttering white robe.

  What the hell had just happened? She had issued him an ultimatum. He hobbled back to the bed and sat on the edge, propping his left foot over his right knee to massage away the cramp that tore with sharp claws through his withered flesh.

  With the specially made boots, few people had an idea of the severity of his infirmity, and even fewer realised the pain he conquered every waking moment to appear as normal as possible. What perversity had made him strip bare in front of a woman he had never met until today? Why had he sought to intimidate her with his power over her? Duncan gritted his teeth as the answer rang through his mind, like a band of troubadours singing a mocking chorus.

  It was easier to push someone away than face rejection.

  You will not touch me, unless you accept that I come to you out of my free will.

  Why would she ever come to him if not by force? A woman possessed of exquisite beauty didn’t seek a tryst with a cripple stripped of his wealth and title.

  Duncan flopped onto his side and reached across the mattress for the cord he had rigged to ring a bell in the servants’ quarters. Except for Agnes, he had left his entire staff for the new baron, but in addition to the two maids, he had hired a manservant from the nearby village for
the heavy work.

  ‘Come in,’ he yelled when a knock sounded at the door.

  The burly lad with unruly fair hair opened the door and stood on the threshold, blinking at his master’s half-clothed state.

  ‘I need a pitcher of whisky,’ Duncan said, too frustrated to couch his order with apologies for the lateness of the hour, despite knowing that Jackson had been up since dawn. ‘Make it hot and sweet and strong,’ he added.

  ‘Now, master?’

  ‘Now,’ he said, weariness creeping into his tone. ‘And be quick about it.’

  ‘Yes, master.’ The lad retreated and pulled the door to a soft close in his wake.

  Duncan stared into the dying embers while he waited, refusing to allow his thoughts to return to Katrina. Instead, he listed in his mind the alterations he needed to undertake to make his new home fit to live in.

  And what would he do with his time from now on?

  Train the village lads to be men-at-arms?

  Learn how to grow crops and barter for merchandise?

  A timid knock on the door interrupted his bitter musings. Instead of calling out, Duncan got to his feet and hobbled over. Joan, the buxom dark girl hired from the village stood in front of him, peering bashfully at him from beneath her lashes.

  ‘Jackson sent me to bring this, master.’

  Without thinking, Duncan wrapped his fingers around the pewter tankard. A muffled curse sprang to his lips as the metal scalded his skin. Aware of his bare torso and the uncovered state of his infirm foot, he added another curse for Jackson, who should have known better than to send a female servant to witness his dishevelled state.

  ‘Thank you, Joan,’ he grunted, and waited for her to move out of the way, so he could slam the door.

  The lass darted a hesitant glance up at him. ‘The new mistress has nothing to wear, only one linen robe that is too thin to keep her warm. My mother is a fine seamstress. She knows how a high-born lady should dress.’

  ‘A high-born lady?’ he drawled.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Joan gave a vigorous nod. ‘She puts on no airs, but it’s clear that she is used to living in a fine house and being attended upon. And graceful she is with it, too, says thank you and please at every turn.’

  Duncan’s brows furrowed. He dismissed the girl with a careless wave of his hand, feeling a fool for not seeing it before. The way Katrina had stood in front of the inquisition, facing her tormentors with a haughty dignity. The skills she had listed—riding, mending cushions, polishing silver—and her intelligent conversation during the simple meal they had shared, and the angry outburst she had directed at him, so totally lacking in humility.

  Who was Katrina MacLelland?

  An impoverished gentlewoman, a clever actress or something else?

  He would have the answer before he was done with her.

  * * *

  Duncan stood on the stone steps and flexed his ankle to ease the pain in his foot. Low clouds had rolled in, shedding a steady drizzle that had soaked him through. All day, he had laboured to exhaust himself, in the hope of avoiding the torment of another sleepless night.

  In the morning, Katrina had remained in the privacy of her bedchamber, and he had not seen her before he left the keep. Despite struggling with the rusty mechanism of the drawbridge until midday, and cantering with a lance at the quintain on the training field all afternoon, he hadn’t been able to shake her from his mind.

  Duncan raked his hands through his wet hair and pushed the door open.

  As he entered the great hall, his boots slipped on the wet flagstones, nearly sending him pitching forward. Recovering his balance, he came to a halt in front of Katrina, who crawled on all fours in the middle of the room.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m scrubbing the floor,’ she told him, and straightened to her knees.

  Puzzled, Duncan took in the scene before him. The sleeves of her linen robe were rolled up, and the hem was tucked into what looked like a pair of his old breeches. A pail of water stood by her elbow, and her fingers curled around a coarse bristle brush. The skin on her knuckles shone red and raw.

  ‘You don’t have to do this.’ He leaned down but changed his mind, checking his motion an instant before his hands curled beneath her arms to haul her up. ‘Leave it to the maids,’ he muttered, feeling awkward.

  ‘Joan is washing the upstairs corridor and Margaret is helping Agnes to clean the larder,’ she informed him. ‘Did you know that there are rats?’

  ‘Yes.’ His mouth tugged into a wry grin. ‘Agnes says they might be the only thing between us and death by starvation, if we don’t get the larders stocked before the winter sets in.’

  ‘Rats!’ Katrina dunked the brush in the pail and attacked the stone floor once more. ‘No rushes on the floor, and the roof leaks, and because there’s no water in the moat, the waste from the garderobe shafts lands in a heap by the outside walls, where it stews in the sun.’

  Duncan watched her clumsy efforts that proved she had no experience with a scrubbing brush. Something twisted in his heart. ‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked. ‘Our bargain didn’t include household chores.’

  ‘I want rushes on the floor for warmth. Agnes says you refuse to have them until the dirt has been scraped away.’

  ‘You can have rushes today if that’s what you want.’

  ‘No.’ Katrina slammed the brush against a stubborn piece of encrusted dirt. ‘You are right. I don’t want the filth covered up. I want it gone. I want every ugly thing in the world gone.’ Her voice rose in defiance, and Duncan knew she wasn’t only talking about a grimy floor. The fierceness of her comment stirred his curiosity about her past, but he chose not to probe.

  ‘Where’s Jackson?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve sent him to the village to see if he can borrow a plough and oxen to clear the moat.’

  He stared at her. ‘You are proposing to plough up the moat?’

  ‘Should be quicker than shovelling it open,’ she said, and carried on her battle with the stain. When Duncan didn’t reply, she glanced up. ‘Can it be done?’

  He shook his head, fascinated by the determined expression that made her look like a rebellious angel. ‘I don’t know,’ he told her. ‘You might have come up with a stroke of genius that saves us weeks of back-breaking effort with a shovel.’

  A smile brightened her tired face. ‘See?’ she said. ‘I promised that I would help you make this place a comfortable home.’

  ‘So you did,’ Duncan muttered. Clenching his jaw, he tried to banish the warm feeling that invaded his chest. ‘Tell Agnes to prepare a bath for you when you are done,’ he ordered. ‘We’ll have supper in my bedchamber.’

  Her smile faded.

  He turned away before he could betray his thoughts.

  Chapter Four

  Katrina knocked on the bedchamber door, just like she had the night before, but tonight she knew that Rothmore wouldn’t let her walk away. Her body ached from the toils of the day, but the throbbing in her muscles didn’t compare to the pounding of her heart.

  ‘Come in,’ he called, and once again his voice drew a shiver on her skin.

  She pushed the door open and found him sitting in front of the fire, but this time dressed in a flowing white shirt, the tails tugged free from the waist of his breeches. The tall boots on his feet gleamed in the flickering firelight.

  He turned to her and jerked the stool farther away from the flames. ‘Hasn’t Agnes found you anything else to wear?’ he asked.

  Katrina glanced down her linen robe, soiled at the bodice and sleeves, since there had been no time to wash the garment after her efforts to scrub the floor in the great hall.

  ‘Joan offered me a kirtle, but I didn’t wish to accept. She only has two.’

  ‘I’ve sent for a seamstress to make you gowns.’

  ‘No.’ Katrina shook her head, the gesture sharper than she had intended as the tension heightened her reactions. ‘I don’t want to...acc
ept gifts from you.’

  ‘You will accept gifts from me,’ Rothmore countered. The shadows added a roughness to the planes and angles of his lean face, and the compassion she had felt for him earlier receded, pushed aside by the sheer force of will that emanated from him and the rough masculinity evident in his every gesture.

  ‘Perhaps one or two gowns,’ she conceded. ‘I need to be able to go out.’

  ‘Tell me, how does a man know that a woman comes to him freely?’

  Her eyes flickered up to his face, but she saw no amusement in his guarded expression. ‘Surely, many women must have come to you of their own accord...’ Her words trailed away.

  His mouth quirked into a humourless smile. ‘They have, but I have always suspected that their ardour might be more to do with my wealth and position than my charm.’

  ‘I don’t know how a man could tell the difference.’ Katrina considered adding that she had no experience in such matters, but decided against the idea. If Rothmore didn’t understand her innocence against the accusations of being a tormentor of men, he would discover the truth soon enough.

  His gaze fell to her breasts and he said, ‘Pull your robe down your shoulders.’ When Katrina hesitated, he added in a low voice, ‘Please. I’d like to see you the way I saw you during the witch trial.’

  She regarded him a long moment. A shadow of humility softened the expression in his fierce eyes, and Katrina understood that he was trying to comply with the demand she had made last night. He was accepting that she was acting out of her free will, and according her the respect of treating her as an equal.

  He had complied with her demand. She had no refusal to hide behind.

  And Katrina realized she didn’t want to deny him. The hope she had buried last night sprang back to life. Rothmore might be the man to bring peace and safety to her world. She yearned to confide in him, offer him her hand in marriage and the lands that came with her, but she couldn’t reveal her identity until she felt more confident that the bonds of affection could grow between them.

  Only then could she ask him to risk his life for her.