CAPTIVE

Prologue

The year 1100. The Court of King William Rufus...

The telltale squeak of a closing portal roused Geoffrey de Sage from his night terrors.

Weapon drawn and at the ready, he kicked free of the silvery wolf pelts and leapt from bed. Spinning in a precise arc, the two-sided blade of his broadsword silently slashing the air, he searched all corners, prepared to end the life of whoever dared enter his private solar, unannounced, uninvited, and in the dead of night.

A taper floated in the bedchamber's dark recesses, the feeble yellow flame revealing the soft shape of a female form. Clad only in a flaxen shift, the woman swayed her hips seductively as she approached. Was the intruder a spy for the king, perchance? An assassin hired to eliminate him whilst he slept? Or worse yet, was she another apparition of his beleaguered mind?

Real, he decided. Unquestionably flesh and blood. His nightmare phantoms never undulated. And though self-serving and given to nocturnal clandestine activities, this schemer was no royal cohort.

Coming upright from his tensed crouch, Sage loosed his grip on the hilt of his weapon and called out to the foolish lady who had very nearly taken her last breath. "Lost your way, Thea?"

"Certainly not," she cooed sweetly, having missed the bite of his sarcasm. "These passages hold no great mystery for me." Without uttering so much as a by-your-leave, Thea ensconced her faltering wick on the stone wall closest to the threshold and continued her foolish course.

This action took Sage not at all by surprise. Indeed, forwardness was quite usual for the lady, as Thea made herself welcome wherever she went, regardless of the reception she received.

"Brr." Giving a delicate shiver that belied her substantial padding, she artfully shelved her arms under a fine bosom, lovingly nesting those two corpulent birds. "'Tis chilly! But will you see here? I actually have the gooseflesh."

His attention thus caught, Sage eyed the hardened nipples on her plump-pigeon mounds. "Cold, milady?" he asked with guarded detachment. "Mayhap a covering might help."

"Harrumph. Leave it to a man to complicate simple matters."

Amused despite himself, Sage placed his warrior's sword aside. Though undoubtedly misguided, Thea's motivations contained no trace of maliciousness and so warranted exasperation, not rancor. As a result, he modulated his voice to hold little in the way of sanction. "Pray, how does this man complicate your simple matters?"

"Sage, dear, really!" She snorted. "Why bother to cover what I would have you lay bare?" She posed a coy finger to a chin too fleshy for some tastes, but not his, and offered a smug smile. "Is the purpose of my visit now clear?"

He gave a slight courtier's bow. "As abundantly clear as your attributes. You are exceedingly generous with your charms - all the lords from hither and yon do say so. But sorry to say, I must decline your invitation."

"What!" she screeched in answer.

Despite his recoiling ears, he cushioned his own reply with a fair approximation of civility. "Kindly beat a hasty return to your bedchamber, ere your husband reaches for you middle-night and comes away with naught but a fistful of cooling fur."

"My husband never reaches for me at night or at any other time for that matter. His negligence provokes my visit here. I find myself almost pitifully in need of male companionship this eve. If not attended to soon, I fear I shall wither and dry like an old crone's pouch." Sniffing in disdain, Thea took a mincing step in his direction

Now within injurious proximity, she playfully raked a talon-like fingernail down his bare chest and over the raised welts of his battle-scars. "Come to this demoiselle's rescue, oh-great-and-powerful knight."

At this bit of preposterousness, Sage could only shake his head. He deserved the title of knight, great and powerful or otherwise, about as much as the well-wedded and much-bedded Thea deserved the title of demoiselle. The lady had left maidenhood behind many lovers ago, whilst he had never been anyone's idea of a chivalrous champion.

Nonetheless, ere a pretend cat-scratch drew very real blood, Sage gallantly retreated. "That which you seek to set afire was doused long ago."

Not one to give up easily, the lady simply exchanged one tactic for another. "Surely, you are lonely?"

Lonely? Verily, he had known naught but loneliness. Loneliness was his unrelenting lover, his harsh mistress during those long, dark, sleepless nights. Thea had no blame in this unhappy state of affairs. Hardly her fault either that her offer of companionship left his manhood unstirred. Placing responsibility for his solitary existence where it rightly belonged, he muttered, "I am celibate."

She gasped. "Surely you jest?"

Given her royal background, Thea's shock was quite understandable. Though spies routinely listened at castle portals, he wagered not one ever overheard a mention of chastity waft through courtly keyholes.

Admittedly, upon occasion - the times scarce and far between - he still missed the wet heat of penetration, the grunts and groans during the rut, the white-hot flash of illumination at climax. But never did he miss the ruling urgency, that mad, uncontrollable rush to mate. Thankfully, he had not suffered that particular torment with his wife.

Thea, her wind finally caught, launched into a scold. "You, my Lord Celibate, should wear a bell! 'Tis unforgivable to expose the unsuspecting this way."

"The affliction is not contagious. Rest easy, you are in no danger of contracting an incurable case of abstinence from me."

"Oh, how very humorous. Though, I must say, I have heard worrisome rumors about this strange condition of yours. Naturally, I gave the gossip no credence. Now I wonder the truth of the tales. 'Tis even said you took monk's vows during the Crusades."

At his irreverent smirk, she blessed herself. And then, fanning her lashes like a vulture's wing, she lowered her eyes, her gaze swooping atop his loincloth. "Oh, my! You are quite correct to leave Holy Orders to the less endowed. Enormous talents such as yours would be wasted in ecclesiasticism."

"You flatter me far too much, milady."

She sent him a withering look. "I shall believe in the existence of fire-belching dragons long ere believing in such a thing as too much flattery. Personally, I can attest to receiving far less fawning than I deserve."

Once again showing a remarkable insensitivity to futility, Thea shrugged her sloping shoulders in a move designed to accentuate the roll and swell of her voluptuousness. As rehearsed moves went, this one succeeded admirably well.

Sage sighed, resigned to Thea's seduction. As she flounced her way to the furs, he allowed his sights to linger on her hips. Difficult to ignore such fulsome persuasion.

"In any case, Sage, I am not here for you to play the toady. I realize you are no sycophant, but neither are you so cruel as to send me away. Only an unconscionable heathen would cast out a lady in my extremity of distress."

Alas, Thea had misjudged him, and on all three counts. Circumstances had made him cruel. A Holy War would make a heathen out of any man. And because the former held true in her statement, the latter must also follow - he would most definitely cast her out.

He did, however, smile at the incorrigible lady. He was celibate, not blind, and Thea of Trenwyth was an extraordinarily healthy female. Brunette, buxom, and brazen. She epitomized everything he had once admired in a bed partner. But that was long ago, in a former life, and he was a changed man. Now, he hardly recalled desire's hard prick.

Then again, his own hard prick had also faded from memory.

For that reason and more, he rushed forward and intercepted the lady ere she threw herself bodily atop the bedding. Taking her arm, he escorted her to the portal, where he placed the taper once again in her hand. "Leave me to my darkness, Thea."

"Wait!" After that strident bellow, she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial hush. "You depart for the borderlands on the morrow?"

At his nod, she whispered, "Do you still intend the capture of Aeschine of Scotland?"

He nodded again.

"I know you seek justice for your wife, Sage, but do take care. Make no misstep in your pursuit of your enemy, LaTourne. Should you stumble, should you so much as falter in your quest, you will find the wrath of Rufus visited upon your head."

"How? Tell me how!"

"You know of DuFont?"

"The king's henchman - what of him?"

"When you leave the castle gates, he is assigned to follow you. Watch your back, my dear friend."

Warning given, the lady disappeared down the hall, taking the light with her.