Free Knight of Passion by Margaret Mallory

other ladies had the good sense to travel by covered barge. It was a full day’s ride to Windsor. And November, for
     God’s sake. Jamie had told Francois he would bring her horse for her. But he could see that Linnet was back to her stubborn,
     independent self.
    What a sight she made on the high-strung palfrey. As she rode up the hill toward him, she looked like a fairy queen come to
     tempt lowly mortal men. He glanced at the men gathered to make the ride to Windsor. Judging from their rapt faces, her magic
     was having its usual effect.
    “Let us be off,” he called out to them. “We’ve a long day ahead.” That was the God’s truth.
    Since they could both be at Windsor for weeks to come, he would have to get used to being around her. He fell in beside her,
     deciding to set the tone now. They would be courteous to each other. No intimate conversations, just formally polite.
    “You’ve a fine horse,” he said, making his attempt at banal conversation. He should have stopped there, but somehow he could
     not help adding, “Not so fine that you shouldn’t have left her on the bridge in the riot. But a fine horse, nonetheless.”
    “She is special,” she said, smiling as she leaned forward to pat her horse’s neck.
    He forced himself not to think of those long, slender fingers grazing the flat of his stomach. But that only madehim think of them stroking his thigh… or clenched in his hair as she cried out…
    “Your uncle Stephen found her for me,” she said.
Found who?
He nearly asked the question aloud before he remembered they were talking about her horse.
    “Stephen did?” The traitor. All the members of his family who had met Linnet in France remembered her fondly. But then, they
     did not know her as he did. He unclenched his jaw to ask, “So you’ve seen Stephen and Isobel?”
    “Aye. They were in London when I arrived a few weeks ago.”
    Of course Stephen and his wife would see Linnet. “Speaking of kin,” he bit out. “I learned that you and Pomeroy are related.”
    “I would hardly call it that.”
    “Christ’s blood, Linnet, did you have to marry his uncle? Was there not some other wealthy old man you could have ensnared?”
    “There were others,” she said in a pleasant voice, “but Louis was the best.”
    Louis. Through clenched teeth, he asked, “How was he best?”
    “
He
had a sense of humor.”
    “Hmmph.”
    “ ’Twas a good arrangement,” she said with that annoying little smile on her face. “We both got what we wanted.”
    “I can guess what he wanted,” Jamie muttered, not quite under his breath.
    She shrugged one delicate shoulder. “He wanted a young wife to flaunt before his friends.”
    “As I recall, you wanted a brief marriage,” he said. “I take it this ideal husband of yours complied?”
    She was an effortless rider, sitting tall but at ease in her saddle. To watch her, you would never guess she had rarely ridden
     as a child—unless you counted riding in a carriage or cart, which he didn’t.
    “What I wanted,” she said, her gaze fixed on the road ahead, “was funds to start my business, a house in Calais, and a foothold
     in the Flemish cloth market.”
    Francois had mentioned something about Linnet taking up their grandfather’s trade.
    “Francois said you challenged Pomeroy to a duel.” She turned to fix him with that determined look of hers that said she meant
     to get her way. “You must know how utterly foolish that was. I insist you withdraw the challenge.”
    “A man cannot let that sort of brutish behavior go unpunished,” he said, though he felt a bit queasy about his own behavior
     toward her.
    Evidently her thoughts traveled in the same direction for the look she gave him would sear the bacon crisp. He refrained from
     reminding her that she had been every bit as passionate as he.
    “Pomeroy did not harm me,” Linnet said.
    “He did.” Seeing the thin line on her cheek where the devil’s spawn had cut her set his blood