Free KNIGHT OF SECRETS (Knights of Passion Series 2) by Evie North Page A

He jumped down beside her and she struggled up onto her hands and knees, meaning to fight to the last. But instead of throwing himself like a beast upon her, as she expected, he stepped over her to the iron clad door and thrust it open.
    Was he going to rob her first? Edwina wondered in a daze.
    He turned to face her and she saw he was young, as young as she, with dark hair and eyes and a deep cut upon his temple. Blood ran freely down the side of his face.
    “Come, lady,” he said in a voice hoarse from his hard ride. “They will be upon us in a moment. We must get inside.”
    Edwina blinked. She had made him her enemy and it took a moment for her mind to refocus on the fact that he may be her friend. But it was a moment they didn’t have. The Scots were almost upon them. He reached for her, dragging her upright, pushing her ahead of him into the building. She heard the clatter of the horse following, and then he closed the door and began the process of locking and barring it from those outside.
    Voices shouting, thuds upon the heavy wood. Anger and hate and frustration seemed to come through in waves. Edwina backed away until she reached the wall and stayed, eyes fixed on the man who stood with his back to her, hands clenched at his sides, staring at the door that was keeping them safe.
    “They won’t get in,” she said at last, and her voice was husky, her throat still aching from the cold. “My brother made that door to withstand any force. And the manor house is stout.”
    He didn’t react; perhaps he hadn’t heard her.
    She realised she was still holding the basket, its handle hooked over her arm. There were a few leaves and berries left in the bottom of it from her foraging and she set it down carefully. Beyond, further inside the lower area of the manor, she could hear the animals in their briars. This was not a land where anything could survive outside in the winter and they all lived together. The horse heard them too, stamping its hooves, blowing through its nose. She made a soothing nose, coming forward to capture its bridle before it decided to run amok.
    The voices were still outside but they were not as loud as before.
    “What do they want with you?” she asked, watching him warily. “Why are they pursuing you?”
    He stood there a moment more and then his shoulders seemed to sag a little, his body to relax, and his clenched fists unfurl. He bent his head and she wondered whether he was saying a prayer, and then he turned to her.
    She was surprised again by how young and handsome he was. The cut upon his head was still bleeding, although it had slowed now. He was clean-shaven, and his clothing beneath the fur-lined cloak was well-made and of fine cloth. Not the usual homespun that the working men here wore, or even the plain trousers and tunics her brother preferred when he was at home. But even his best clothes, the ones he had taken with him to Carlyle, were not as fine as this man’s.
    “I was caught on the road,” he said at last, and his voice was low timbered, his words spoken in fine French. A gentleman then. A nobleman perhaps.
    She pushed the hood back from her face and was aware of his dark eyes suddenly fixed on her brown hair, her elfin face, her blue eyes, as if he found her beautiful. Men usually did find her beautiful. When she was younger she had enjoyed teasing them, amused by the way they stammered or seemed struck to silence when they were around her. These days there was little that amused her about men.
    When her father and three of her brothers had died in a skirmish on the border, Edwina had come here, to her only remaining brother. He treated her as little more than a servant. She was her father’s heiress and he hated her for that, he thought he should have been the recipient of their father’s fortune rather than this small estate he’d received instead. And now her brother had arranged for her marriage to Sir Jerome, a large and important landowner who would assist