‘Elswyth.’ The harsh voice spoken so close behind her nearly made her scream in panic.
She turned with her arms raised to strike an attacker, but it was only Galan. ‘Are you mad? He could see you,’ she whispered.
Galan scowled in Rolfe’s direction, but didn’t leave her. ‘Did you find it?’
‘Aye. I think this is it.’ She held out the purse and Galan took it, peering inside.
‘It matches the description,’ he confirmed. ‘How did you get it?’
Her face burned as she answered him, ‘I had to sneak into his chamber. It was hidden in a chest.’
Galan stared at her with a mixture of horror and anger shining from his eyes. ‘Does he force you to share his bed?’
Somehow her blush deepened and spread to the rest of her body. She frowned, resenting the fact that Galan was questioning not only her methods, but her chastity as well. ‘Nay. I was sent to tend his wound the first night. That’s how I saw it. I sneaked back in last night after we spoke while he was below at the evening meal.’ She glanced behind her, but couldn’t see around the tree to tell what Rolfe was doing. ‘What does it matter? You have to go.’
Galan glanced from her to the clearing where Rolfe was no doubt wondering what she was up to. He scowled and his eyes were fiercer than she’d ever seen them. ‘Are you two alone?’
She nodded. ‘But he won’t try anything like what you’re thinking. He’s...he doesn’t strike me as the sort to take advantage of a woman.’ It was true. The Dane she had spent so much time fearing and even hating seemed to be honourable. She wouldn’t have believed it herself had she not met him.
‘Do not let yourself be fooled by a handsome face. I’m certain Mother thought the same thing and look where that got her. The Danes have no notion of honour. He wouldn’t think twice about taking you here against your will.’
She flinched at the comparison. Would she spend her entire life proving to her family that she wasn’t like her mother? ‘He wouldn’t do that,’ she whispered vehemently, beginning to despair of ever finding peace between their people if everyone was like Galan and kept insisting on something that was plainly not true.
Galan didn’t seem to be paying attention to her. He was staring between the evergreen needles, watching Rolfe. ‘I could shoot the bastard right now if I had my bow.’
Despite herself, a wave of fear for Rolfe swept through her. ‘You wouldn’t kill an innocent man from behind.’
That made him look at her, his gaze seeming to see far more in her than she wanted to share. ‘He’s far from innocent, Elswyth. Don’t ever forget that.’ He looked back through the needles and his hand went to the handle of the axe strapped across his back. ‘But you’re right. I should kill him now, face to face, man to man.’
‘Nay, Galan!’ She gripped his arm to stay him, struggling to keep her voice low. ‘You must go. Someone has to save Baldric. They could kill him if you don’t return.’
He wavered, but finally lowered his arm and turned to face her. ‘You’re right, Sister, as usual.’ The moment of madness over, he gave her a brief smile and pulled her close. ‘Take care of yourself. I vow to you that I will do all I can to save Baldric.’ She didn’t even have a chance to respond before he had disappeared into the depths of the forest.
* * *
Rolfe couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. There had been a wariness about Elswyth this morning that hadn’t been present the day before. When he’d gently shaken her awake she’d looked upon him as if he’d come to do her harm. He could believe that was because it wasn’t every morning a warrior came to pull you from your bed, except that her wariness had hardly changed as they rode to the clearing. Something had happened between their banter on the sparring field yesterday and this morning to put that caution in her eyes. Perhaps she had learned about what he had done in Banford.
He wanted to ask her. His nature was to be direct, but a subtle approach would work so much better, even though he despised ploys and artifice. If he could take them back to that place—the one they’d found the night of his bath before he’d known her identity—then he’d get further with her.
To do that, he’d have to forget who she was and he wasn’t certain that was something he wanted to do. Something about her got under his skin so easily that she was dangerous to him. She could be a very big distraction. Wyborn picked his way around the trees, nosing through the dead leaves and foliage on the ground. A sound or movement that Rolfe wasn’t aware of pricked his curiosity. The dog lowered his head towards the ground, his ears tilted forward as he faced the direction Elswyth had disappeared.
Something was wrong. Rolfe stared, unable to shake the feeling that someone was out there in the depths of the morning forest watching him. The hairs on the back of his neck raised in warning, so he dropped the wooden swords against the trunk of a tree and pulled his own sword from the sheath strapped on to his horse. Its familiar weight set heavy in his hand as he turned a slow circle, taking in the silence of the trees. Nothing moved. The weak rays of early sunlight that managed to penetrate the clouds and hazy fog showed him only grey.
For one tense moment he wasn’t certain if Elswyth was in danger or if she was the one who had brought danger. Already his fascination with her was distracting him. Perhaps his instinct had been correct and she had found a way to bring her father and his men here to this clearing. He cursed himself for a fool for underestimating her as he listened for any sound to betray the danger. Just as he parted his lips to call to Elswyth, she stepped through the trees on her way back to him. He was struck motionless by the sight of her beauty. The dark smudges of her gracefully arched brows and long eyelashes stood out against the nearly ethereal glow of her face in the silver morning mist. Her eyes shimmered a depthless green in the grey light and the delicate curve of her cheekbones seemed emphasised beneath the smooth satin of her skin. Her mouth was a red swatch of colour that dropped open as she stared at him.
How had he only realised at just this moment how beautiful she was? He’d had a glimpse of it two nights ago in his chamber, but there she’d been turned golden and delectably human with the candlelight. Here the silver light made her look like a goddess stepping through the trees.
He swallowed thickly, shaken by the thought. She broke the spell when she looked over her shoulder to check the path behind her as she stepped into the clearing. Her gait had altered, not smooth and confident, but halting and worried. It was apparent that she was upset about something. Her eyes swung back around to settle on his sword, sliding along its length before coming up to meet his.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked into the growing silence. His thoughts turned to Hilde and how she had seemed gentle, all the while plotting behind his back. Was he doomed to only be attracted to women who would betray him?
She swallowed, her throat working before finding her voice. ‘Aye.’ She glanced back once more in the direction she’d come and he stepped closer. Wyborn hurried over to her, sniffing around the hem of her skirts as if he’d found new smells. She buried her fingers in his fur and knelt down to pet him, murmuring softly. From her place at his feet, she looked up at Rolfe. Her face seemed paler than was natural against the rich darkness of her hair.
‘Are you ill?’
She shook her head and her gaze moved back to his sword. ‘Are you planning to cure me with that if I am?’ Her lips quirked upwards in a brief attempt at a smile as she rose to her full height, leaving Wyborn sniffing around her heels.
Appreciating the fact that the sword was menacing, especially to a Saxon woman who distrusted him, he slowly lowered it to his side. However, he didn’t put it away, because he couldn’t quite dismiss the feeling that something was wrong. Attempting a smile, he shook his head. ‘It’s more of a remedy than a cure.’
Her face went blank for a moment, but then she let out a burst of laughter as if she hadn’t expected the
humour. Colour rose in her cheeks and she wasn’t quite so pallid any more. ‘You’re not what I expected, Dane.’ Then as if the moment hadn’t even happened, she stepped lightly around him to retrieve one of the wooden swords where they rested against a tree trunk. Turning towards him, she swung it out so that it was pointed right at him. With a nod towards the sword at his side, she said, ‘I expect you’ll have an unfair advantage if you’re practising with the real thing.’
For the first time since she emerged from the forest, Rolfe found himself smiling genuinely and that feeling of unease drifted away in the face of her humour. ‘Fortunately, I don’t need a sword to hold the advantage. I already have it.’ Stepping across the blanket of pine needles, he returned his sword to the sheath fastened to his saddle and retrieved a wooden sword.
‘I’m surprised to hear such arrogance from a man who will be fighting with only one arm.’ She nodded pointedly towards his left arm which was without its sling, though he still held it tucked against his side.
‘It’s much better.’
‘But not healed. Perhaps we should postpone the sparring until you won’t risk reopening the wound.’ Her brow furrowed with concern and he found himself believing it to be genuine.
He swung the sword around with his right arm, loosening his wrist as he walked a slow circle around her. ‘I apologise for my lack of a sling. My nurse was abed this morning and not able to help me.’
She smirked as she turned with him, her feet too close together and her posture far too rigid for proper combat. ‘You’re teasing me. You managed quite well yesterday morning without my help.’
Could that be jealousy flashing in her eyes? Probably not, but he couldn’t help but goad her to make certain. ‘Do you mean Claennis?’ She was one of the girls brought from the villages to work at the great hall since the Danes had taken residence in Alvey. She’d dogged him relentlessly the previous winter and his absence had seemed to change nothing in regard to her intentions. The girl was free with her favours, but Rolfe was careful never to take his pleasure with a house servant. It led to bad feelings that close proximity didn’t help when the girl eventually expected more than the occasional lay. Nevertheless, Claennis hadn’t given up hope and had presented herself to him the morning after he’d returned home, before he’d even managed to pull himself from his bed. Instead of accepting her offer, he’d asked her to help him with the sling.
Elswyth raised her chin a notch. She probably didn’t even realise that she had done it, but the movement revealed the long, smooth column of her throat and the soft, silken skin that disappeared beneath the high neck of her underdress. The urge to put his mouth there and taste her gripped him with a near-visceral force and refused to let him go. Across the sparse distance, he could see the flutter of her pulse and the way she swallowed hard. She was jealous. A flare of satisfaction moved through him, urging him to go to her. His boots scraped over the rough ground as he took a step away, not trusting himself in the grip of this sudden madness.
‘Claennis does not share my bed.’ He didn’t know why the words came. One moment he was thinking of ways to prod her jealousy and in the next he’d admitted to the truth. ‘She helped me with my sling.’ He added that last as if it somehow erased the first.
Her full bottom lip dropped open the slightest bit, but enough to draw his gaze to settle on the lush curve. Fuller than its counterpart on top, it looked as soft as a flower’s petal. He wanted to draw it into his mouth and scrape his teeth across it until she gasped in pleasure. Then he’d dip his tongue into her. She’d probably taste like honey from the cake. The knowledge sent a rush of blood to his groin.
He swallowed hard, bemused by his own thoughts. Elswyth was a challenge, a woman whom he was meant to seduce and here he was being seduced by her. And all she had done was hold a wooden sword on him and look at him as if he’d betrayed her in some way.
‘I don’t particularly care what you do with Claennis. It’s no business of mine,’ she lied. He could tell by the way her eyes dipped to the side as she spoke. He should be gratified that he had this hold on her—and a part of him relished it—but he found himself wanting to comfort her.
‘I’ve brought the sling. Come help me with it?’
‘Why didn’t you say as much before now?’ Her eyes flared with annoyance. ‘You could have harmed yourself.’
He forced himself not to smile as he walked to his horse and retrieved the cloth from the sack tied to the saddle. She tossed the wooden sword to the side as she took it from him, drawing it out in lengths that she measured between her hands.
‘Is Claennis the reason you left the poultice for me last night instead of seeing to my wound yourself?’
She hesitated. He probably wouldn’t have noticed how her hands faltered in their manipulation of the linen if he hadn’t been so intent on her every movement. The slender fingers paused, twisting the material, before picking up their previous rhythm and smoothing it out again. ‘You seem far more concerned with Claennis than I,’ she murmured. ‘Last night I was tired and, anticipating the early morning, I went to bed rather than wait for you.’
She’d kept her eyes downcast so he couldn’t tell if she was lying. When he opened his mouth to prod her further, she said, ‘Lean down’, and held the sling up so that she could put it over his head. He obliged and she set it against his right shoulder and held it down so that he could tuck his elbow into it. She made herself appear extraordinarily busy smoothing out the fabric and turning the edges so it sat just so against his chest.
‘There, I only hope you haven’t set yourself back in healing time. The more you reopen the wound the longer it will take to mend.’
Her eyes were depthless pools of the deepest green when she looked up at him. An intoxicating mix of innocence and strength swirled within them. He could feel them tugging at him like a siren in a story he had heard once, tempting him to dive in and give himself over to her. At that moment he would have sworn that his instincts lied and she had no part in her father’s crimes. It was proof that he lost his sense of right and wrong and duty when he was around her. Her hand had come to settle on his chest and the heat from her palm sank into him, seeping through the layers of his clothing.
The touch was so unexpected that he had to look down to make sure he hadn’t imagined it. She jerked it away, curling her fingers towards her palm as if she hadn’t realised what she’d done until he drew her attention to it, and he was sorry that he had moved at all. She looked stunned, her eyes wide and her lips parted.
‘You don’t have gloves?’ he asked to break the strange awareness that had settled between the two of them. To bring attention to anything else except the way his heart pounded and his blood flowed thick and heavy through his veins.
She shook her head. ‘Nay, I don’t own a pair.’ He wasn’t surprised. Leather gloves were expensive and, while not destitute, he was under the impression that despite being important to Alvey, either her farm didn’t produce much wealth, or her father was a miserly sort.
As gently as if he were approaching a serpent, he took her wrist. She was fine boned so his fingers slipped around it effortlessly. She watched him without breathing, her chest still and her lips slightly parted. Bringing her hand to his, he placed their palms together. She had long graceful fingers, but he could still have closed the last joint of his fingers over the tip of hers. ‘How did you ever make it through the winters?’
‘My friend Osric made me a pair once, though they were more like wool sleeves that fit over the end of my fingers. They only lasted a couple of winters. Perhaps I’ll request a new pair.’ He released her as soon as she said the name and she gave him a hesitant smile as she took a step backwards, putting space between their awkwardness.
He didn’t know why the name startled him. She was from Banford and it had been almost certain that she knew Osric, yet he hadn’t expected such a personal connection between them. �
�Osric?’ he asked, because he couldn’t let the name settle between them without comment.
She nodded and walked back to where she’d tossed her wooden sword. ‘He works on my father’s farm and is a good friend to me.’
Swallowing, he bent to pick up his own sparring sword while forcing himself to remember they were probably all traitors, including her. ‘How good a friend is Osric?’ he asked before he could stop himself.
She swung on him and would have hit him across his right shoulder had he not seen the movement from the corner of his eye and swung to block her. She seemed stunned, but ultimately impressed that she had been thwarted. A smile lightened her features. ‘Not as good a friend as Claennis is to you,’ she said with honeyed sweetness.
Osric had not bedded her. Rolfe knew that there were a hundred things he could have taken away from that statement, but somehow the most important was that they were not lovers. ‘Claennis is not my friend.’ The words came out as a grumble that made her laugh. The sound of her laughter unexpectedly tugged at some long-hidden knot within him, pulling at the tightly intertwined string until it loosened and he felt lighter than he had in a long time.
‘He’s only a few years older than I and he’s worked on the farm as long as I can remember. He’s like an older brother to me, only nicer, because Galan is frequently insufferable.’ She kept her voice light and he didn’t know if that was intentional or an indication of her affections for them both.
What would she think of him once she knew that Osric’s brother was dead because of him? That he’d burned Osric’s home? The significance of a battle that had been hardly more than a skirmish to him suddenly grew by a hundred. It settled like a weight on his chest, threatening to slowly squeeze the air from him.
‘Loosen your stance. Your legs are too stiff and your knees too straight. One strong blow will knock you over.’ His voice was coarse and harsh. Her eyes widened at the change, but she immediately tried to adjust her stance. He kept his voice more even as he explained, ‘You must keep your limbs loose so that you can absorb the jolt of an impact.
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