Ena’s Surrender Read online

  Renault slipped behind a booth and watched as she purchased a small bit of salted venison and a loaf of crusty bread. She passed near the booth by him and hesitated. Renault froze, thinking she had recognized him. He expected her to shout out his presence to all.

  Except that it was not him she was looking at, but the vendor’s wares. Flaky crusted meat pies were laid out in a tempting tower on a board. She paused and gazed at the top pie, her eyes bright with apparent longing. Tendrils had come loose from her braid, pulled free by the wind, and framed her face.

  “Would ye care to buy a pasty, miss?” the vendor asked.

  Ena leapt slightly, as if interrupted from her thoughts and lifted her large, doe-like brown eyes on the vendor. Her cheeks colored and she shook her head before moving on, but not before taking one last look at the pasty and swallowing.

  She had wanted it, that much was clear. Given how her gown hung loose around her and how empty her basket remained in a market full of such fare, it was easy to see she could not afford the luxury.

  Renault, however, could. He was by no means a rich man, but he supported himself well. Enough to afford a meat pie for a beautiful woman.

  He paid from the purse of coins he’d received the day before from the Earl of Bothbury for his efforts of spying on the Scottish West March earlier that month.

  The pasty was hot in his hands and its savory scent promised a center filled with herb-flavored meat and hearty gravy. Maybe even some vegetables as well. Purchase in hand, he followed Ena’s path to where she stood by a grain stand.

  He extended the pie toward her. “My lady.”

  She saw the meat pasty and sucked in a breath, her longing evident. “I dinna purchase—” Her gaze shifted to him and her face hardened. “What are ye doing here?”

  “Buying you something you wanted.” He lifted the gift closer to her.

  She stared for a long time, a silent war playing out in her mind. “I dinna want it.” She spun on her heel and strode away from him.

  He raced after her, darting this way and that to avoid people in the crowd. “I trust Maribel is well?”

  She studied him from the corner of her eye as he caught up with her.

  “I could tell she meant a lot to you,” Renault said.

  Ena pressed her lips together and sighed. “Thank ye for returning her, though ye shouldna have taken her in the first place.”

  “You did help steal a considerable head of cattle…”

  “Ye do the same to us,” she countered. “Ye dine on fine food, with enough coin to buy a meat pie. Ye’ve no idea what it’s like to starve for want of food.”

  Renault smirked. “I think you’d be surprised.”

  She scoffed.

  “Why do you dislike me so?” he asked.

  “Because ye’re English.” She said the last word like it tasted foul in her mouth.

  “I’m a man like any other. One who has found a woman immensely attractive and appealing.” He gave her his most charming grin.

  A woman on the other end of the street smiled back at him. Ena did not.

  “I know what ye’re capable of,” she hissed.

  “Buying you a treat?” He winked and lifted the gift back into her line of sight.

  She didn’t even look at it this time.

  “Think of it as a present in honor of Saint Valentine.” He extended it toward her.

  She lifted her brow.

  He shrugged. “I heard a troubadour speak of it once. ’Tis in February, I believe. A day of love and attraction, where a man bestows gifts upon his lady of choice.” He bowed. “You are my lady of choice.”

  Her braid had fallen over one shoulder and she tossed it back. “I dinna think ye make good choices.”

  He continued to remain at her side as she left the busyness of the market to where the streets became wider.

  “Why are ye here?” she demanded.

  “I was hoping to see you.” He smiled at her. It was a partial truth. He had hoped he might see her while spying on the village.

  The streets gave way to the grassy terrain where the huts dotted the landscape like lazy sheep spread beneath the sprawling blue sky.

  “I dinna like the English,” she said vehemently. “That willna change. And I’ll no’ ever like ye, so ye can stop this foolish quest for my attention.”

  Renault hesitated.

  She was correct. It was a foolish quest. And he was no fool.

  He knew why he was spying on the Scottish Middle March for the earl. Lord Bothbury did not hide his intentions. Ena would be more than a distraction when war erupted from the information Renault shared.

  She would be a complication, one that could jeopardize everything he’d been working so ardently to achieve.

  She glared at him and opened her mouth when a shrill cry cut the air. Renault snapped his attention to the right, in the direction of the scream. Fire danced a wicked jig over the thatch roof and plumes of black smoke curled up into the sky. He shoved the pie toward a shocked Ena and this time she silently accepted it.

  Without another thought, Renault raced toward the burning house and the shrieks within.

  4

  Ena held the meat pie in her hands, barely registering the heat that bled into her fingers and palms. Renault ran at a quick pace and did not hesitate as he plunged into the flame-filled home. The thatch roof burned quickly and collapsed inward in great gaps in several areas.

  The greedy fire licked down the walls—a simple wattle and daub construction of interwoven twigs overlaid with mud and whitewash, all dry and quickly devoured. The acrid odor of smoke reached Ena and billowed with vigor, filling the air with its destruction. Renault did not emerge from the hut. The screams within had ceased.

  Tension locked around Ena’s chest. She took several steps toward the engulfed hut.

  Suddenly, a figure emerged, a woman with a small child clutched in her arms. But not Renault.

  Ena tried to liberate the breath she held in her lungs. She shouldn’t care. Renault was simply some bloody fool Englishman that ran stupidly into the fire. The angry, bitter voice of her youth demanded that he deserved to die. As all Englishmen did.

  Except that he had run in to help others, regardless of them being English or Scottish. He simply went to their aid.

  Ena’s breath gasped from her and the grip around her heart squeezed tighter. Where was he? She moved forward without thought, her feet bringing her closer to the flaming cottage.

  The woman’s cries wailed louder as she paced in front of the open door of the hut, her clothes dirty with ash. Ena was running now, her legs shaky with urgency, that damn pie still held in her hands.

  Renault burst through the open doorway, the limp form of a child in his arms.

  The woman screamed and ran to him, but he kept pushing forward, forcing her to get farther from the hut. Only then did he kneel and carefully settle the child onto the soft grass. Her eyes were closed; her blonde hair blackened with soot.

  Her mother collapsed at the girl’s side, the child in her arms wailing in protest. “My lass,” she sobbed. “My sweet lass.”

  “Give her room,” Renault cautioned. “She needs to breathe.”

  The mother drew back, anxiously fixated on her child. After only a moment, the little girl coughed, then began choking and sputtering in earnest.

  A roar filled the air, crackling and snapping and overwhelming the sounds of the girl gasping for breath. The cottage that Renault had forced the woman to run from had collapsed in on itself.

  Renault had saved them.

  In wordless wonder, Ena stared down at him, this Englishman who had risked his life to save a family of Scots. He had shown his enemy kindness and bravery. He was everything she had never expected from an Englishman.

  The woman had recently relocated from north of the Scottish West March. But before she could say her name or explain what had happened, riders appeared in the distance. The reivers were returning from their raid the night before. A
late arrival that had left Ena anxious for the better part of the day.

  She shoved the pie into Renault’s hands this time. “Go into Maribel’s pen. I’ll be there in a moment. And dinna make a sound.”

  Renault accepted the pasty before quickly slipping away toward Maribel’s stable. As he departed, the severity of what Ena had done crashed down on her.

  She was hiding their enemy from Bran.

  The woman’s husband was among the returning reivers and quickly set to the task of seeing to his family. They had a cousin located nearby who would allow them to stay with him while their home was rebuilt. Ena noticed the woman had pointedly refrained from mentioning Renault’s involvement, and for that, Ena was grateful.

  “Soldiers were waiting for us,” Bran said as he walked with Ena toward their hut. “We assumed they would be, but the forces were greater than anticipated. We had to hide for the better part of the night and well into morning before we could return but managed to keep from losing any men. We’ve a plan for next time though.”

  Ena followed him into their cottage and prepared the bit of venison and bread for him while he stripped off his boots. Even as she listened to the story of how they were all nearly killed and what measures they would take next time, she could not stop her mind from wandering to where Renault was hiding on the other side of the wall.

  Their enemy.

  A man who would have been among those ready to kill Bran and his men.

  A man who had saved a Scottish family.

  A man who somehow managed to divide her heart and make her question her own beliefs.

  “Are ye well, Ena?” Bran asked.

  She gave her head a little shake to clear her thoughts. “Aye, forgive me. I was thinking of that poor woman.”

  “’Tis a miracle they all survived, especially with a log falling onto the lass as it did,” Bran said.

  Ena nodded.

  A miracle, indeed.

  Bran quickly ate the bread and venison—so tired, he did not even make mention of the extraordinarily large portion she cut for him. Within minutes, he laid out on his pallet and was deep asleep with Moggy stretched out against his side, purring in contentment.

  Ena waited several minutes, clattering about as she cleaned up the dirty dishes. He did not stir. Even when the metal pot clanged to the ground.

  Only then did she open the side door connecting the stable to the hut.

  Renault glanced up at her, his eyes pale blue against his soot-covered face. He grinned and his teeth gleamed brilliantly white.

  She chuckled in spite of herself. “Ye look ridiculous.”

  “Ridiculous…ly handsome?” He waggled his brows.

  She rolled her eyes and shook her head but could not stop the smile from spreading over her lips. She handed him a cloth. “Maribel willna mind if ye use some of her water.”

  Renault bowed to the goat. “Thank you kindly, Maribel.”

  The goat stared blankly at him.

  He handed the pie back to Ena. “Mayhap this time you’ll keep it?” With that, he set to cleaning off his face and hands.

  It was on the tip of her tongue to decline, to say she had never wanted it in the first place. But that would be a lie. She had been desperate for the pasty from the moment she caught its rich scent hovering under the usual odors of the market.

  “Share it with me,” she found herself saying.

  Before he could protest, she broke it in half.

  He set aside the blackened linen he’d used to clean his face and reached for the smaller piece. His hasty washing had gotten most of the soot, but left some streaked across his forehead, his hairline damp.

  He sank down to the ground and rested his back on the wall of the hut, then raised his piece of the pie toward her in a silent toast.

  She settled beside him and together they bit into their treat. Though the meat pie had long since gone cold, it was still the most decadent thing she’d eaten in months. There was a brininess to the gravy that mingled with the herbs and tender meat, the crust still flaky enough to practically fall apart as she neared the end of her share.

  “Why did ye do it?” she asked. “Save those people. Ye could’ve died. Are the Scots no’ yer enemy?”

  “They needed help.” He lifted his shoulder. “As was pointed out earlier, I don’t always make good choices.”

  Ena lowered her head, considering her next words even as she spoke them. “Mayhap yer choices are better than I realized.”

  “Oh?”

  She looked up at him and found him studying her.

  “Would that be all my choices?” he asked. “Even my interest in you?”

  He had such vividly blue eyes that they reminded her of the sky on a clear summer day, with a brilliant sun lighting the world like a gem. She shouldn’t like the way he watched her. She shouldn’t let the flutters in her stomach tickle up through her chest. She shouldn’t want to kiss him.

  “Ye’re my enemy,” she whispered. “And I’m yers.”

  He lifted his hand to her face, framing her chin in his strong fingers. “I know,” he murmured. “But I can’t help wanting to kiss you.”

  “Ena,” she said softly.

  He smiled. “I want to kiss you, Ena.”

  She closed her eyes and angled her face toward him in a silent agreement she knew he would not mistake.

  Renault touched the bottom of Ena’s chin with his fingertips and guided his mouth to hers. Her lips were lush beneath his, full and sensual. It was a gentle kiss, a light meeting of their mouths with tentative curiosity, concealing a burning attraction. At least on his part.

  His body nearly trembled with excitement, with the victory of finally having broken through her shield. He would do nothing to have her raise it again. Not when her glares had softened into something akin to longing.

  He cupped his hand to her cheek and tilted his head to the side, lightly sweeping his tongue against her bottom lip. She continued to kiss him and answered the silent, careful request with a graze of her own tongue over his mouth. He pressed his thumb against her chin, easing her lips apart with light pressure.

  His free hand curled around her waist, slowly drawing her closer to him as he deepened the kiss. At the moment their tongues connected, Ena gave a gasp of surprise.

  Renault shifted back, lowering his hand. “Have you never been kissed, Ena?”

  Her cheeks flushed and she shifted her eyes from him. Answer enough. No man had kissed her before him. No man had touched her.

  Renault hesitated to reach for her again. He’d never debauched a maiden and had no plans to do so now.

  “Did I do it wrong?” Her deep brown stare fixed on him, lashes impossibly long and lovely. There was an uncertainty there that had been absent in their previous encounters, something delicate and vulnerable.

  It was a beautiful balance, the genuine kindness within her and the hard-edged ability to care for herself. It made her unique and altogether extraordinary.

  “You’ve done everything right.” A deep desire within him wanted to pull her toward him once more and kiss her until they were both panting for breath. But he wouldn’t do that to a maiden. Not to her.

  “I should be on my way before your brother wakes,” he said.

  “Aye, of course.” Ena pushed up to standing. “Thank ye for Maribel, and for saving that family. And for the meat pie.”

  “Thank you for saving me from your brother.” He took her hand in his, bowed over it and gently pressed his mouth to it.

  When he straightened, he found her watching him with tension pinching at her brows.

  “Next time we meet, we must be enemies once more.”

  It was true, he knew, though he didn’t want it to be.

  Her cheeks still held a pretty rosiness to them, as did her lips. He should walk away at that moment. Walk away and never look back. After all, he had to return to Lord Bothbury to report what he’d seen today. And what he’d heard.

  The walls of the hut were thin
and offered little barrier from Bran’s detailed account of the plan for the Scottish reiver’s next attack.

  The knowledge Renault now possessed churned in his gut. Such information could save English lives, but at the expense of many Scottish ones. Suddenly, he didn’t want to return to England and fulfill his mission to Bothbury. He wanted to remain in Scotland, in a pen beside a cottage with a goat who had fallen asleep tucked in a corner and a woman whose resolve had finally begun to unfurl into something amazing.

  “Dinna look at me like that,” Ena said.

  He stepped closer to her, drawn in by her beauty and strength and innocence. “Like what?”

  “Like ye dinna want to leave.”

  He took her face in his hands and closed the distance between them. “I don’t want to. Nor do I want to be your enemy.”

  She searched his eyes. “Renault.”

  Renault.

  It was the first time she’d said his name. She had remembered it. And oh, how sweet it sounded burred in her husky voice.

  “Ena.” Though he’d said her name before, he could not stop relishing it, savoring being given leave to finally use it.

  He could say no more, not with her so close. Instead, he lowered his mouth to hers once more. What had been meant to be tender with affection quickly escalated into hungry desperation. And all it had taken was the brazen swipe of her tongue over his. Brave and fierce. Like her.

  He groaned and pressed his body to the softness of hers. She moaned; the sound muted beneath mouths. The kisses became deeper, more frantic.

  His cock throbbed with desire and strained at his breeches. His blood roared in his ears.

  He ran his hands down her slender neck, skimming the sides of her breasts and resting at her slim waist. He wanted to let his touch continue to roam over all of her. And yet he knew if he did, he would not wish to stop.

  Ena arched against him, flexing her hips against the force of his erection. The nudge of their pelvises together made chills race over his skin and his nerves tingled with awareness. She smelled of flowers and hay and sunshine, an unexpectedly intoxicating blend that he wanted to lose himself in.