Knights of de Ware 01 - My Champion by Glynnis Campbell Page A

he’d drilled into her time and time again. Despite his own fall from grace, he never let Linet forget that, by blood, she was a real lady.
    She smirked. A real lady would never have endured the way the beggar had stared at her, his eyes perusing her as if he planned to devour her, his sly smile mocking her. He was a rogue, a scoundrel with cocky airs and much more in his sapphire eyes than avarice, something more dangerous than greed.
    She definitely should have slapped him.
    Her basket settled, she gathered her heavy skirts to climb up on the cart.
    “Wait!” someone called.
    She hesitated on the step. Dear God, it couldn’t be. No one was that audacious.
    “Wait!” repeated the all-too-familiar voice, still several yards behind her. “I can’t let you go!”
    Damn his persistence. She took a deep breath and turned, prepared to give the beggar the scolding of his life. Then she froze.
    Somehow he’d managed to wrest a sword from one of the guards. The heavy-laden sheath slapped against his thigh as he loped toward her. Dear God, she thought, had he killed them? Did he mean to kill her?
    She wasn’t going to find out. She heaved herself onto the cart. Then she took up the reins and snapped them smartly, startling the old nag into bolting down the castle road and nearly upsetting the wagon.
    Recklessly she fled, determined to leave the beggar in her dust, urging the horse on with curses. The wagon rollicked over a stone, and the band of her veil slipped down over one eye. Her heart racing, she cast aside the errant thing, and with her hair streaming out in wild tangles behind her, half-stood to drive the nag onward.
    The wagon careened around an egg merchant, scattering his flock of chickens in its wake. Then it bounded perilously over the rutted road, narrowly missing a fishmonger on his way to the castle with a basket full of trout. Only when the road cleared did she hazard a glance back over her shoulder.
    “Shite!”
    He was tearing after her like a plundering berserker.
    She cracked the reins down again. A squeal of panic rose in her throat. The cart rumbled over the road like an undulating pack of hunting hounds, growing more frenetic with each passing moment. The right wheels pitched into and out of a deep rut, rocking the cart perilously askew. The basket of neatly folded fabric toppled like a drunkard.
    Then, suddenly, the entire back of the wagon dipped down.
    The beggar was aboard.
    She turned to him, her eyes wide.
    Grim determination hardened his square jaw. The muscles of his forearms bulged as he hauled himself forward over the piles of wool. He was coming after her as relentlessly as a wolf after a fawn. And like doomed prey, Linet couldn’t drag her gaze away from her pursuer.
    Alas, she’d picked a poor time to shift her attention from the cart’s path. The beggar’s eyes widened as he glanced beyond her at the abrupt turn in the road. Before she could mouth a protest, he dove to the front of the cart and grabbed the reins from her, hauling back on them so hard that the nag yelped and the wagon skidded to a halt in a cloud of rocks and dust.
    She would have fallen forward, out of the cart and over the horse, but the beggar barred the way with his arm. She let out a great “oof” as his elbow caught her in the stomach. Coughing and sputtering hysterically, she rounded on him.
    “G-get away from me!”
    Duncan’s lungs hurt to bursting, and Linet’s piercing cry only added insult to the pain. Why in God’s name he’d chased after a horse-drawn cart driven by a reckless hoyden, he couldn’t begin to fathom. Chivalry certainly had its queer moments.
    By now, several interested travelers had stopped to look on, slack-jawed, but none seemed to want to get involved in what appeared to be a household squabble.
    “Get away!” she squeaked, her eyes round with fright.
    He cocked an affronted brow at her. What was wrong with the woman? She had no cause for fear or hostility. After all, he’d