by Kris Kennedy
She froze, her mouth open, chin tilted high.
He nudged the blade, using the tip to push aside loosened hair that had fallen over her shoulders, then he slid it down, folding down the top of her tunic. Then he stared at the exposed skin of her neck.
It felt tender and hot, not only because the baron’s fetid attention was riveted on it, but because it was the place where Tadhg’s mouth had bit her as he took her from behind, and in front, where he sucked on her with knee-wobbling skill. Tadhg had all but devoured her with his mouth, his teeth, his passion.
Surely it would have left a mark. A love bruise. On her neck.
Blood suffused her, a hot red flush that stained her skin.
Sherwood’s gaze followed the flush up to her eyes. “How much did he pay you, Magdalena?” he said, soft and cold. “Nothing?” He clucked his tongue softly. “Surely I could have paid you more.”
Her knees wanted to crumple. Forcing herself to stand straight, she gently extracted her collar, pressed it flat to her skin. “Get out of my house…traitor.”
Sherwood sighed. “I see Tadhg has been talking. That is too bad.”
At the door, the mayor pleaded, “Oh, sir, please—”
Sherwood pushed the door shut in the mayor’s face.
“Now, Mistress Magdalena,” he said in a soft, terrifying voice. “Why don’t you tell me where he is? We could avoid so many problems and unpleasantries.”
“I know nothing,” she spat, tripping backward to the wall.
“Your mayor said you had a tendency toward undue spirit. Do not let rear its ugly head now.” He began moving toward her. “Tell me what I wish to know, and I can make it worth your while in any number of ways.”
“No,” she whispered. “Never.”
He made a soft sound in his throat. “Never? You underestimate me, mistress.” He drew up in front of her and lifted the blade still in his hand, ran the side of its tip harmlessly down her neck. “I’m sure I could find some manner of persuasion.” Their eyes met. “At the least, I shall try.”
She shook her head, but it made no difference.
“Had you been wise, Magdalena, you would have spent the other night with me, and come away richer for your choice. But I offer the choice to you again: be good to me, tell me where the outlaw is, and I shall repay you in kind.”
She inched her head around a bare inch. “You will be good to me?”
Heat flared in eyes. “Oh yes, very.”
She smelled sweat and food and stale ale. She could hardly think, but she knew one thing for certain: Tadhg had hardly been gone long enough to walk to the quay, let alone sail away.
Nothing for it, then. Whatever was to come, would come, whether she met it willingly or no.
Head awhirl, heart pounding, she turned to the baron, her shoulders drooped and her chin down. She looked up tentatively, her eyes swimming in unshed tears. “Tadhg will be coming back very soon,” she whispered.
A smile touched his face. “I knew it.”
She swallowed. “How? How did you know to come back to Saleté de Mer at all?”
His brushed his mouth over her jawline. She closed her eyes. “Because of you,” he said softly.
“What matters me?”
“You matter, Magdalena. Of course, Tadhg could have simply arranged you an escort back to Saleté de Mer after he sailed—likely that was his original plan. Any other man would simply have abandoned you in whatever town was most convenient, once you served your purposes, but Tadhg…well, that is his downfall, is it not? He is weak, you know.”
“Tadhg? Weak?”
He slid his finger down the line of her arm and a cold shudder moved through her. “I know he seems quite the warrior, and then there is all his godforsaken charm. He is like a shiny penny, pretty to look at, but inside,” Sherwood tapped his chest, “softness abounds. He hasn’t the will, you see, the will for greatness.”
She looked up into his cold, determined eyes. “And you do?”
He sheathed his blade. “Let me show you my will.” He lifted his hands and cupped her face.
She waited until she felt a gust of moist breath on her lips, until his hands were holding her face very firmly, then she whispered, “Let me show you my will, sir,” and reached up with both hands, grabbed the baron’s smallest finger on both sides, and yanked back and down, hard, just as Tadhg had suggested.
One of them snapped.
Sherwood gave a howl of pain and wrenched his hands away. He stumbled in pain a few steps before his shoulder hit the wall and he fell to his knees, cradling his broken finger.
Magdalena flung herself across the bed, scrambling toward the door, which had been flung wide open. The mayor stood in the opening, his hand on its knob, staring slack-jawed at Maggie, crawling across the bed, and Sherwood, on his knees behind her.
“Dear God in Heaven—” he cried.
“Help me, you fool,” Maggie cried back.
With a roar of rage, Sherwood launched himself to his feet and grabbed a fistful of Magdalena’s tunic and dragged her backward across the bed. She went kicking and clawing, but his strength was greater than hers, and he pulled her to the edge of the bed in front of him.
“Now I do not think I shall pay you at all,” he said, and struck her backhanded, then unsheathed his sword.
She shoved back on her elbows. He loomed above her. Then they both froze as a loud thump came from downstairs.
It was followed by an even louder crash.
They stared at each other for a long, silent second, frozen. Then Sherwood leapt over her body and shoved the mayor aside as he hurtled out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
His boots suddenly stopped clattering
In the sudden dark silence, a voice spoke. “Where is Magdalena?”
Tadhg.
She gave a cry and flew to the door, pushing aside the mayor just as the baron had done, and whirled out of the room, then stopped short, holding onto the doorframe, her body pressed to it, panting, staring at the sight of Sherwood, frozen mid-stride, three steps down the stairwell, his hands up, sword out, his chin tipped high.
The steel-cold tip of a disembodied sword was pointed directly at the bulge in his throat.
Sherwood backed slowly up the stairs.
The almost ghostly silver sheen of the sword seemed to hover in midair as it followed after, then Tadhg’s figure materialized out of the darkness, cloaked and booted, holding the blade aloft, coming up the stairs. He knocked the sword out of Sherwood’s hand with a twist of his wrist, then pinned him to the wall at the top of the stairs.
For a few beats, the two nemeses stared at each other.
“So.” Sherwood swallowed, brushing the tip of Tadhg’s sword. “I found you.”
“Lucky you.” Tadhg’s gaze stayed on the baron as he said to Magdalena, “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she said softly, squeezing the doorframe.
A faint twist tightened the baron’s mouth. “How touching. Tell me, have I earned a reprieve by virtue of my restraint with Magdalena? Will you do to me as you have done to the scores of others you left in your wake these past weeks? Mercifully maim or dismember me, but never kill?”
“’Twas indeed a mercy not to kill them.”
“It was a weakness, for all those men could still talk. And talk they did. You should have at least cut out their tongues. How do you think I tracked you?”
Tadhg said nothing. Sherwood’s gaze moved to the sword, then further down, to Tadhg’s belt. “And the dagger? You have it yet? Tell me it was not all in vain.”
Tadhg stood motionless for a moment, then reached under his cloak with his free hand and held up the dagger. Its steely curved lines flashed and the ruby shone in the pale moonlight. Sherwood drew in a hissed breath. Tadhg swept it away, back under his cloak.
“It is beautiful, is it not?” The baron’s voice was almost reverent. “It could have won a kingdom.”
“It still might.”
Sherwood’s mo
uth twisted into a cold smile. “But not for me.”
“It was never for you.”
“Ah, but we can dream, can we not?”
“I do not dream of thrones,” Tadhg said coldly.
“More’s the fool, you,” Sherwood spat back. “You had potential, Irish. If you’d aimed higher, God knows what you might have accomplished.”
Tadhg smiled. “Aye, I might have killed you sooner.”
The baron’s mouth twisted into a return smile, then his gaze flicked up, ever so slightly.
Magdalena turned to follow it and saw two soldiers creeping the stairs behind Tadhg.
Tadhg shook his head softly at the poorly executed plan, and was just about to drive his sword forward into Sherwood’s throat, when the mayor blundered out of the bedroom.
Seeing Magdalena so close to such violence, the mayor gave a high-pitched scream, bent and swept up Sherwood’s fallen sword and, brandishing it with a wrist that bent under the weight, he tried to pull her back into the bedchamber.
His tardy gallantry, his hand on Maggie’s arm, the ineptly-handled blade, it all distracted Tadhg for the faintest second, long enough for Sherwood to fling up an elbow and spin to the side, so Tadhg’s sword sliced a gash through his cheek and ear, rather than pierce the center of his throat.
Blood gushed. With a shout of rage and pain, Sherwood struck out with his forearm as Tadhg’s blade swept past and, using the momentum to push Tadhg aside, he hurtled down the stairs, knocking his men over as he went. Hitting the bottom, he sprawled on his knees, cast one wild glance back up, then got up and ran out the door, leaving his men to bear Tadhg’s wrath.
It was not long in coming. He was already turning back around, sword up. As he spun, he reached toward the mayor and wrenched the sword out of his startled hands, and flung it away. It clattered to the floor.
“Do not touch that again,” Tadhg ordered curtly, then spun to the stairs.
The mayor stared in open-mouth astonishment as Tadhg sent the first soldier to Heaven or Hell, wherever he was eternally bound, with a single slash of his sword. The second man, directly behind him, got sprayed with the blood of Tadhg’s brutal efficiency. The dead man fell back on him and, half-carried by the body, half-scrambling in retreat, he tumbled down the stairs.
Tadhg went after him, a silent dark shadow. Boots heels thudded on wooden floors, then there was a single, steely smash, a grunt of pain, a loud thump which sounded like a head, then utter silence.
Magdalena crept across the narrow landing. “Tadhg?”
His face appeared at the bottom of the stairs. In one hand, he held his sword, hanging down by his side. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head mutely. Dumbly.
“I must go.”
She nodded again, still just as dumb, just as mute. Unshed tears burned her eyes.
He lifted his hand, silent invitation.
Her heart began hammering, hard, fisted punches against her ribs.
“Heed me,” he said in a rasp, as if the words did not want to come. “To come means naught but danger and peril. If you were wise, you’d say no—”
“Yes.”
He exhaled slowly, as if he’d been holding his breath. “Then come, love. Let’s go home.”
Heat suffused her, followed by a giddy sense of being…lifted, right up off the floor. Weightless, buoyed, as if swept away by a strong wind or tide. By Tadhg.
As if she’d finally leapt off the cliff.
She floated down the stairs.
At the top of the landing, the mayor stared down, wide-eyed and stunned, clearly unable to cope with the enormity of the awful events that had transpired under his watch. A vital mission thwarted. A nobleman attacked. Dead soldiers lying everywhere. The goodwill of King Philippe…oh, it was all in ruins.
And yet… he straightened a little. He had drawn a sword in protection of a demoiselle in distress. That did not happen every day.
Maggie reached Tadhg’s side, and as he reached for her hand, he looked up at the mayor.
“Not a word about the ship till dawn,” he warned.
The mayor shook his head with a jerk. “Not until nightfall.”
Then, as if it was a dream, Tadhg took Magdalena’s hand and led her away from all the possible things she had but did not want, into a world full of impossible dreams she’d always been told she could never, ever have.
Chapter Thirty-Six
CAPTAIN DIDIER WAS WAITING, all the ropes thrown off but one. The moment Maggie’s toe touched the deck, he threw that one too and they were off, pushed by men with long poles, drifting silently out onto the dark water, as moonlight rippled across its silky black waves.
She stood, trembling with the aftereffects of confrontation and escape. Tadhg threw his cloak around her shoulders as the captain came and stood beside them. The shoreline quickly receded but they could see all along its edge, dark soldierly figures, hurrying from ship to ship.
“You made it by the skin of your teeth,” the captain said in approval. “They were coming on fast.”
“They always are,” Tadhg agreed.
“Do you think—” Maggie began shakily.
Before the words were out, he’d pulled her to him, dug his gloved fingers into the thick fall of her hair, cradled her head and kissed her ragged and breathless and perfect. Then he tore his mouth free and said in a rough, almost angry voice, “You are certain you are not hurt?”
“Barely,” she whispered.
He cursed softly and held her face, studying her in the clouded moonlight. The hilts of his weapons bumped against her as he tipped her face side to side, his warrior’s gaze traveling over her features. “Sherwood did this to you?” he demanded, almost a snarl.
She touched her face in surprise, remembering the pain, the fear. The joy when she’d heard Tadhg’s boots. Saw him surge out of the shadows to save her.
“It does not hurt,” she assured him. Much.
His jaw tightened. “Jesus God, I am sorry to have brought this all upon you.”
“And now you are taking me away from it,” she reminded him.
“Into peril,” he pointed out grimly.
But despite the peril and the oncoming storm, or perhaps because of it, all Magdalena felt was…excitement.
Wild, reckless little threads of it unfurled through her body like sea grass being struck by lightning. Salty, wet wind blew against her face, and as the lights peeking out of buildings back on shore twinkled into nothing but little pinpricks, they looked like little golden stars fallen to earth.
Ahead was darkness and a distant shoreline, the vast unknown and…adventure.
And right here at her side, Tadhg. Warrior who’d been through darkness but somehow not become the darkness. Outlaw who’d broken open the shell of her life and said, “Come home with me.” Man who’d come back for her when everything—safety, reason, royal orders—bid him leave her behind.
“I am not afraid,” she whispered.
Tadhg looked over her head at the black shoreline too. Wet, salty sprays of water splashed across their faces as the boat rolled and sank on wave after ceaseless wave. He slung King Richard’s heavy mantle off his own shoulders and wrapped it around Maggie’s, then put his arm around her shoulders, holding her close.
“I will keep you safe,” he said, as if she’d asked.
“I know.” She didn’t seem to mind the pitching rolling waves. “I am not afraid.”
No, she didn’t look afraid. She looked magnificent, bold and excited. Which was good. They would need brave spirits in the days and weeks to come. The boat rolled over another wave. And strong stomachs.
“I have one last deed to do, Maggie, and then we go home.”
“Very good.” She snuggled into the warmth of his chest and mantle as the winter wind blew against their faces. “What is this one last deed?”
“I must deliver the dagger.”
“To your ‘greatest knight in all of Christendom,’ William the Marshal of England?�
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He nodded. A gust of crosswind blew her hair up in fluttering arc before falling again. “And do you know where this fearsome marshal is?” she asked.
He pulled the hood up over her head. “Yes. I know precisely where he is.”
“Then this should not be too difficult,” was her bright prediction.
He stared into the darkness, beyond which was England, a land had never been anything but complication and trouble to him, for all that he’d served her king.
“Let us hope,” he said.
“Oh yes, hope.” She tipped her face up and smiled at him. “That, I can do now.”
AS THE SUN STREAMED through the windows of Mayor Albert’s hall the next morning, Albert stood in a beam of the bright light, staring dolefully at Baron Sherwood, who had returned not an hour past with his remaining men, the lot of which now stood warily watching their master’s face get stitched up.
No one in the room was happy. Least of all Albert.
He had awoken that morning feeling quite the swashbuckler, after his adventure with the Irish outlaw. Indeed, his own role had taken on the overtones of sacrifice, so resplendent in his mind, so chivalrous, that he’d been inspired, gone so far as to buckle his own sword belt around his waist, which he hadn’t done in years.
It was a rather a small sword, but made him feel stalwart. Brave. The sort of man who would save a demoiselle in distress.
Then Sherwood and his men had marched in, all shivering from the cold and quite bloody, and Albert’s bubble of self-approving bonhomie had been pricked.
It deflated entirely when Sherwood stalked past him, snapping, “Where the hell did you go last night?”
“Came right back here,” Albert assured him, nervously touching the hilt of his sword.
Sherwood saw the movement and his mouth twisted derisively, then he waved his men in to sit at the mayor’s table.
“You are certain you do not know where the outlaw and Magdalena went?” Sherwood snapped as his men took their seats.