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The thief apparently named Finn both scowled and—surprisingly—blushed as he darted an annoyed glance at his young confederate. “As I said, I don’t hurt women, so I’m not going to hurt you, or take you to Wimarc, who does. He’s a bad, wicked man and whatever he wants with you, it can’t be anything good. There’s a convent a few miles from here. I’ll take you there and you can write to your sisters and tell them what’s happened.”
“How do you know my family?” she demanded warily.
“He’s been to court,” Garreth supplied, as if insulted by her question. “He’s even met the king.”
She had believed this thief an Irish nobleman; perhaps he’d been able to fool the courtiers, too, as impossible as it seemed—but that didn’t mean she and Keldra were safe.
Not even when a sparkle of amusement appeared in the Irishman’s eyes. “Your sister wears a gold-and-emerald crucifix that was your mother’s.”
Merciful heavens—that was true.
“And because I have met her and she’s a good woman, I’ll do my best to keep you safe.”
He reached into his belt and drew out her dagger, presenting it to her by the handle. “Here. If I wanted to do you harm, I wouldn’t give you this, would I?”
She grabbed it, gripping it tightly. “This doesn’t mean much. You’re stronger than I am and could probably get this away from me in a moment.”
“Aye, I probably could,” he conceded, “but if I wanted to rape you, my lady, I’d have done it by now, and if I was going to hand you over to Wimarc, I wouldn’t have let you run away from his mercenaries. Now, unless you want to meet up with some of Wimarc’s men who will take you to him, I suggest we get moving.”
He was a liar, a thief, an outlaw—and yet he expected her to trust him?
Right now, what other choice did she have, except to try to get back to Averette on her own, on foot, with the distraught Keldra and without a coin to her name?
And she did have the dagger if he tried to touch her. “Very well,” she said at last. “Take us to the convent—but I’m a ward of the king, so if you think to—”
“I assure you, my lady, you’ll be perfectly safe with me. I’d sooner touch an adder than a ward of the king’s. Or Lady Adelaide’s sister.”
IAIN MAC KENDREN groaned softly. Pain racked his body. His head throbbed as if he’d been drunk for a week. His back was sore, and his chest ached with every breath.
He was dying. Dying, here in a ditch. In the darkness. In the cold. He’d let that bastard Lindall kill him.
Where was Lizette—merry, frustrating, aggravating Lizette? Was she alive, or dead? Had she died quickly, or was she still alive and suffering?
He was still alive, at least for now, and while he lived, he was the garrison commander of Averette, charged with keeping Lizette safe. As long as he had breath in his body, there was a chance … a hope … he could do his duty.
Iain moved his fingers, then his feet and legs.
His back wasn’t broken. He tried to move his right arm and blinding pain nearly rendered him unconscious again. He remembered the blow from Lindall’s sword and the man’s grunt as he made it. Lindall had cut deep. It was a wonder or a miracle that he hadn’t bled to death already.
A wonder or a miracle. Maybe God wasn’t ready for him to die.
Iain licked his dry, chapped lips. He was so thirsty.
With a groan, he rolled onto his side. There was a trickle of muddy water in the bottom of the ditch. He tried to cup it with his right hand, but the pain was too much, and the effort useless. He tried with his left and succeeded, greedily slurping the gritty water that tasted of his leather glove, and blood.
He struggled to his feet and looked around. His men lay dead nearby, some killed in the fight, others who’d been wounded had obviously had their throats slit later. He could see the signs of looting, the thievery of cowards.
His right arm useless at his side, he reached for his own throat with his left. His ventail was still closed. Either they’d not taken the time to finish him off, or they’d thought him already dead.
A horse, he thought vaguely as his eyesight blurred and he started to sway. He needed a horse.
“God help me, a horse,” he whispered hoarsely. “God, please, a horse.”
ELSEWHERE IN THE DARKNESS, two fires burned in the shelter of a small, tree-encircled clearing. The Irishman and his companion were seated at one, Lady Elizabeth and her maid lay by the other, sleeping, or trying to, Finn supposed. No doubt the lady wasn’t used to sleeping on the ground.
His sword lay across his knees and his dagger was within easy reach in his belt. He was tired, but not about to sleep, not with that scum of Wimarc’s after them. And with Lady Elizabeth’s vibrant presence to distract him.
“Is there any more bread?” Garreth asked, shifting to a cross-legged position after swallowing the last of the loaf of coarse brown bread they’d bought in the last town they’d passed through.
Finn shoved another stick into the fire before answering. They’d been careful to use only dry wood to ensure there was as little smoke as possible. He would have preferred not to have any fire at all, but the women would be too cold and Garreth liable to spend most of the night complaining without one.
Unfortunately, it seemed the day’s events had not wearied Garreth at all, but only served to energize him. The youth showed no signs of wanting to lie down and rest any time soon, and he was a bottomless pit for food. Too bad for him, most of their meagre provisions had been given to the women. “No, it’s all gone.”
Garreth shrugged and scratched and then nodded at the other fire. “So, that’s a lady.”
“Aye, that’s a lady,” Finn replied, careful not to so much as glance at the women.
It had been difficult to ignore them as they’d prepared to sleep on the rough beds he and Garreth had made of branches and leaves, with only their cloaks for coverings. Even in a stained and wrinkled gown, its hem inches deep in mud, with her hair a tangled, riotous mess that she’d tried to comb with her fingers, he’d found himself fascinated by the lady as she moved with brisk, yet graceful, movements, and never once complained.
“Are all the ladies at court like her?”
“She’s not like any noblewoman I’ve ever met,” Finn truthfully replied.
Lady Elizabeth wasn’t even like her sister. Lady Adelaide was cool and dignified, aloof, like an angel sent down from heaven to be admired by mere mortals below.
Lady Elizabeth was something else entirely—spirited and fiery and defiant. Even from the first, her flustered, honest manner by the bank of that stream had been very different from the attitude of the haughty ladies of the court. Later she’d gotten an intriguing spark of mischief in her eyes.
Even so, he could just imagine the look on her face if he’d told her who he really was and what he’d really been thinking by the banks of that stream. My name is Fingal, my mother was a whore, I’ve been a thief since I was five years old, and I’m thinking it’d surely be a grand thing to lie you down right here in the grass and make love with you, my lady.
Despite the impossibility, his mind persisted in imagining taking that lithe, shapely body in his arms and capturing those full lips with his own, kissing her until she was breathless while his hand moved slowly along the curve of her hip, her waist, her full, rounded breasts …
He mentally gave his head a shake.
“So what’s she doing traveling about the countryside?” Garreth asked. “If she’s a ward of the king, shouldn’t she be with the court?”
“I suspect she was on her way home to Kent when they were attacked. The king and his court are at Salisbury, and that’s the other way.”
“Maybe her family will give us a reward for helping her,” Garreth suggested.
“Maybe they will,” Finn agreed, although he wasn’t planning to find out. He didn’t want to see Lady Adelaide, or her husband, again. “We’ve no time to go to Kent and find out. If we don’t get Ryder out of Wimarc’s dungeon soon, he’ll be dead.”
Slowly starved to death, like all Wimarc’s prisoners.
Garreth tossed another stick into the fire, sending up a small shower of sparks. “So we’re really taking them to St. Mary’s-in-the-Meadow?”
“Aye.” He caught the look of displeasure in his companion’s eyes. “We can’t leave them to get there on their own.”
“Her maidservant looks at me as if I smell bad.”
“She’s afraid.”
“Why? We helped them, didn’t we? Lady Elizabeth doesn’t look at us that way, and she was frightened, too.”
“I daresay she was,” Finn replied, “but she’s older, and I think she’s learned to hide her feelings. Keldra’s only a girl and a servant. She can’t count on her rank to protect her, the way a lady can.”
Unfortunately, from what he knew about Wimarc, rank wouldn’t necessarily protect Lady Elizabeth, either.
“Why do you suppose Wimarc sent his men for her?”
“Politics. She’s allied by marriage to men loyal to the king, and Wimarc is not. He probably hopes to use her against them.” He slid Garreth a glance. “Sometimes being a noblewoman has its shortcomings.”
“All right, so we’ve got to take them to the convent—but I hope that stupid girl doesn’t keep sniveling tomorrow. It’s enough to set my teeth on edge.”
“She’s not stupid, she’s frightened,” Finn explained again. “And you should rest. We’ve a long way to walk tomorrow, and the sooner we can get to the convent, the sooner we can go back and get Ryder.”
Garreth nodded and after a moment’s hesitation, he quietly asked, “You think he’s still alive then?”
“I have to,” Finn replied as he reached for another stick.
Or it would be his fault his half brother was dead.
THE NEXT MORNING, Lizette put her hands on the small of her back and arched to relieve the ache as she followed the silent Irishman along the narrow path that had probably been made by deer or some other creature through the wood of alder, beech, oak and chestnut. Finn had a leather pouch containing food and a few meagre articles of clothes slung over his back, and he seemed to have a knack for finding such paths.
Garreth was just as quiet and, mercifully, Keldra wasn’t crying as they both struggled to keep up with the Irishman’s brisk pace.
Was he really taking them to a convent? They could be anywhere as they marched through trees and the small valleys made by streams and brooks.
How could she trust this man? How could she have any faith in anything he said, or be sure he would help them? He was a thief, outside the law, perhaps even a murderer … yet he’d been true to his word and not touched her, or Keldra. She’d even been able to sleep a little, dozing off, then waking with a start to find him still sitting by the fire.
Most of the time he’d been motionless, as still as a stone, but every so often he’d lean forward to add more wood or stir the ashes. Then the flames would flare up, and she could see his handsome visage as he stared into the fire as if trying to foretell the future. Or maybe he’d merely been trying to stay awake.
At dawn he’d risen and told her they had to start moving, and so they had, with the thief in front and the youth behind.
Now, her feet felt as heavy as millstones, and her stomach growled with hunger. Every impulse urged her to ask the Irishman to stop and let them rest and eat whatever he had in that leather pouch he carried. But her pride was stronger than both her fatigue and her hunger, so instead, she quickened her pace until she was near enough to talk to him.
Since she didn’t want to anger him, she started with something relatively unimportant. “Is Garreth your son?”
The Irishman checked his steps. “Jaysus, no.”
He started forward again, pushing a low branch out of their way, and slid her an aggrieved look. “I’m not that old.”
“I thought perhaps he was because he so obviously admires you,” she replied, worried she’d offended him as she likewise moved the branch back, not above a little flattery if it would encourage him to talk.
“If he admires me, it’s because I treat him decently. Garreth was born in the gutter, my lady, same as me, so being treated with respect’s a rare thing.”
Could this Irishman who passed for a nobleman really be of such humble origin? “Are you truly of low birth? You sounded exactly like a courtier.”
“Because I took the time and trouble to learn.”
“Why?” she blurted, her curiosity overcoming her desire to be subtle.
“Why else but to make thieving easier? If you can talk like a noble, you can get yourself invited into a hall or manor with no trouble at all.”
She realized she’d been hoping he wasn’t really an outlaw—a hope now dashed.
He laughed with sarcastic mockery. “Ruined your little fantasy, have I? Want to think me some bold, brave fellow who’s only fallen on hard times temporarily? Well, I’m not. I’ve been thieving since boyhood, because it was that, or die of cold or starvation.”
His expression changed to one of aggravating condescension. “I don’t expect you’d know much about suffering.”
“Perhaps not in the way you mean,” she replied, her temper flaring, “but it wasn’t easy living with a father who drank too much, cursed you for being born a girl and sometimes used his fists when he was angry, which he often was.”
The Irishman’s brown eyes darted to her face. “On you?”
“No, not me. My poor mother and sometimes Adelaide when she tried to protect us. But we could never be sure he wouldn’t hit us, too, Gillian and me. I was always afraid when my father was at home. I confess I was relieved when he died last year, even though that means the king now has the right to decide my fate. At least John doesn’t live at Averette.”
“I was glad when my mother died, too,” he quietly replied. “She made my life a living hell during her last years.”
Surprised by that revelation, Lizette wasn’t as careful as she should have been and tripped over her muddy hem. He immediately reached out to steady her. Taken aback, she tried to ignore his touch, and the strength apparent even in that simple act, and pulled away the moment she was steady on her feet.
“I didn’t have any motive other than to keep you from falling flat on your face,” the Irishman coolly observed, “so I hope you’re not thinking of killing me for daring to touch you.”
Was he trying to be funny? “Not now,” she tartly replied. “Garreth called you Finn yesterday. Is that your real name?”
The man’s frown deepened as he stepped over a rock that she had to walk around. “Aye. It’s short for Fingal.”
“So you’re really from Ireland?”
“My mother was.”
The mother who had made his life a hell. “Did she teach you to speak like a courtier?”
“God, no—and that’s all you need to know about me or my mother, my lady.”
There could be no mistaking the finality of his tone.
“Tell me about this Lord Wimarc,” she said, starting to pant as the path went uphill. “I’ve never even heard his name.”
The way was muddy and slick, the ground damp and covered with dead leaves, and she had to keep her eyes on the ground so she wouldn’t fall. Behind her, she could hear Keldra likewise struggling to stay on her feet.
“Garreth, give the girl a hand,” Finn ordered as he looked back. He was finally starting to sound a bit winded, too.
“Wimarc’s rich, he’s recently wed the daughter of a minor but wealthy earl, he hates the king and he’s an evil brute.”
Merciful Mary! “Is that all?”
Finn reached the top of the rise and, holding on to a slender branch, put out his hand to help her. “He’s dangerous and you don’t want to get anywhere near him.”
“Have you any idea why he’d want to abduct me?” she asked as she clasped his offered hand and let him pull her forward, his grip sure and strong and warm.
