by Kira Morgan
A grin hovered at the corner of his mouth. The lass was all but shoving him out the door with her words. Yet a moment before, her smoky chestnut gaze had sent a completely different message. “I’ve no family here.”
She frowned. “Ye live alone?”
“I have my own quarters,” he admitted, washing his hands in the last of the clean water, “though I’m seldom alone. There’s always a fellow nearby to share an ale with, an adversary for chess, a—”
“Doxy to warm your bed?” she muttered, then winced as if her tongue had spoken without her consent.
He chuckled. “Sometimes.”
She made a moue of disapproval. “Ye should go home to them, then. I hate to think o’ the number o’ wenches languishin’ for your company, what with that curse and all.”
He fought back a grin, drying his hands on the hem of his linen undershirt. “I told ye, love, there’s no curse.” He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, just to watch her bristle. “But what about ye? Have ye got lovers in Stirlin’ languishin’ for your company?”
She audibly caught her breath, whether from his bold touch or his bold question, he wasn’t certain. “I most certainly do not. I’m a goldsmith.”
He cocked a brow. “Does one prevent the other?”
“It does if ye want to be a good goldsmith.”
“And are ye a good goldsmith?”
She proudly lifted her chin. “I’ll have ye know I’m the goldsmith to…” She hesitated. “To some very important people.”
He smiled. Nothing made a lass more tempting to Rane than a cocky streak. And indeed, he was feeling sorely tempted.
’Twas time to search for something to satisfy a less dangerous appetite.
He rummaged through the satchel Father Conan had brought and pulled out a thick slice of gingerbread and a knob of butter wrapped in a green leaf.
He broke off a morsel of the bread, slathered it with butter, and fed it to Florie. “The gold ye wear, is it from your master’s shop?”
Her mouth full, she could only nod. Now that there was space between them, her composure had returned. She reminded him of a feral cat, all purr and fur at a safe distance, nothing but teeth and claws when you tried to pick her up.
He buttered a piece for himself and bobbed his head toward the intricate chain about her wrist. “He does fine work.”
She swallowed the gingerbread and licked her lips. “Oh, I made this one.” She moved her forearms, displaying the various rings and bracelets. “These are all mine.”
“Indeed?” he said in surprise, inspecting them more closely. The lass had remarkable talent. The design on one of the gold cuffs resembled the stems of intertwined roses, and where each flower should be, a tiny pearl gleamed. One of her rings featured another pearl cunningly enwrapped in leaves of gold to mimic a rosebud. “Very clever.”
The way her eyes lit up at his compliment, one might have thought he’d sworn his undying love to her. “My master, o’ course, always had the true talent,” she said. “I mostly play at foliage and simple ring brooches, usin’ pearls and crystal. But he’s worked in enameled gold and cabochon gems and the most beautiful intaglio…”
He grinned, not at what she was saying, for he could understand little of it, but at how he’d finally found a subject about which she waxed enthusiastic. Her pretty brown eyes were as bright as gems themselves. ’Twas apparent she had great zeal for her craft. He couldn’t help but wonder if she’d display the same zeal in bed.
“Ye have no idea what I’m talkin’ about, do ye?” she asked, interrupting his lusty thoughts.
He shrugged. “Huntsmen have little use for gold, unless it comes in the form o’ coin.”
“Faugh, sir, ye’re made for gold,” she gushed, catching him off his guard. “With your tawny skin and flaxen hair, ye should have a thick gold chain with four-in-one links, like chain mail, and a pendant of sea-green chalcedony to match your eyes—” She stopped abruptly, as if suddenly aware she’d said too much.
He allowed a smile to curve his mouth. The lass had been thinking about this for some time, he could see. Tawny skin? Flaxen hair? Eyes of sea-green? Aye, she’d given him a lot of thought. He popped another crumb of gingerbread into his mouth.
She shrugged with studied indifference, picking at a nub on her skirt. “Anyway, ’tis a piece I could easily craft for ye.”
He stopped in midchew. Lasses offered him gifts all the time, mostly flowers and honeycakes and verse he couldn’t read. No one had ever offered him a thing of such value before.
Why should they? He was, after all, but a huntsman. He’d worn nothing but leather, linen, and wool his entire life. To have something so precious made especially for him, something crafted by her own hand…
Then he scowled at his own gullibility. She was a merchant. ’Twas in her nature to flatter men into purchasing her wares and then demand a king’s ransom for them. ’Twas a foolish notion anyway, he decided, an archer wearing a gold chain. ’Twas frivolous, a waste of coin, not worth considering.
“Faugh,” he scoffed, offering her another sweet morsel. “I spend my silver on simpler things.”
She ducked around the bite, glaring at him as if he’d insulted her. “I wasn’t thinkin’ o’ chargin’ ye.”
“A bejeweled huntsman,” he grumbled, silencing her with the bite of gingerbread. ’Twas absurd. He nodded toward the gilded girdle that she wore about her hips. “What about that piece? Did ye craft it as well?”
She swallowed, lowering her gaze to the golden links. “This? ’Tis my foster father’s work. He made it for a… for my mother.”
Rane picked up the pomander, turning it in his fingers. “And ye wear it,” he ventured, “because your mother’s… gone?”
She glanced up sharply, surprised by his guess. “She’s dead.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured.
She gave him a one-shouldered shrug. “It happened long ago, when I was a child.”
He examined the piece. The hinged lid was in the shape of a heart, carved with intertwined letters of gold. “What’s this?”
“F,” she told him, pointing out the letters, “and G. For Florie Gilder. ’Twas added when I was born.”
He nodded, picking up the trailing end of the girdle to examine a jousting scene captured in intricate detail on one of the links. “He must love ye very much.”
His words seemed to puzzle her. “Who?” she asked.
“Your master. Your foster father, to let ye wear it.”
“Oh. Aye.” She absently ran her thumb across the clasp of the girdle. “I suppose.”
Rane stared at the young lass. There was much unspoken in her eyes, and maybe one day she’d confide in him, but ’twas not the time to pry. At least he knew the reason she clung so tenaciously to that girdle—’twas likely all the lass had left of her mother.
With a nod of farewell, Rane scooped up Florie’s discarded kirtle. At the church well, he spent nigh an hour trying to loosen the smudge on it with water and a pinch of salt, scrubbing at the cloth. But he feared the garment was permanently stained with her blood. Just as her thigh was irreparably marked by his shaft. And just as his thoughts were indelibly scribed with her image.
He held the dripping kirtle before him. ’Twas simple, plain brocade, straight in cut. And yet it managed to hug the sprite’s curves with seductive allure. How could such a thing be? Surely ’twas a bewitched garment to work such magic. Or maybe his eyes were blinded by some enchantment when he looked upon her. He shook his head and hung the kirtle from an oak limb to dry. Whatever ’twas, his strange attraction to the lass and the way his ballocks tightened at the mere thought of her left him uneasy and convinced him to spend the remainder of the afternoon on the church steps, out of sight of her.
His gaze continued to stray, however, to the kirtle rippling with the breeze, taunting him with its beckoning sleeves. Eventually, weary from his restless night, he leaned back against the door, his arms crossed over his chest, and
dozed.
Even in his dreams, he saw the garment. But this time, it twisted slowly in his mind’s eye, and when it turned toward him, he saw with horror that it hung, no longer empty, but draping Florie’s pale and lifeless body, from a gallows. A thick hangman’s rope bit into her delicate neck, and as Rane watched, mortified, a hungry raven flew to perch on her shoulder, preparing to feast on her flesh.
He wakened with a start, his pulse racing. The sun had crawled halfway to the horizon. No wind stirred Florie’s kirtle now. Nonetheless, with the morbid vision still fresh in his brain, he hastened down the steps to snag the garment from the tree, gathering it against his still-pounding heart.
Then, with a jagged sigh, he slung the gown over one shoulder and trudged down the hill toward the pond. Maybe a sobering splash of cold water would steady his nerves.
’Twas folly, letting a dream frighten him. But it had seemed so real, like the visions his Scots grandmother claimed to have, visions that transcended the dream world and foretold the future. What did the dream mean? What did it portend?
“Ho! Rane!”
The familiar voice made the breath hitch in his chest. He froze in his tracks. So much for his sharp senses. Curse his wandering mind, he’d blundered into half a dozen mounted men-at-arms watering their horses by the pond. And the dark-bearded man at the fore in the amber tunic, the one clutching Rane’s missing arrow in silent question, was the man he most dreaded to see.
Chapter 8
Rane drew a steadying breath. He’d anticipated this inevitable, fateful meeting for weeks. Now that the time had come, ’twas almost a relief. Despite the damning evidence of his crime in Lord Gilbert’s hand, he found himself curiously unafraid. He straightened slowly, looking destiny squarely in the eye. “My lord.”
But ’twas not poaching Lord Gilbert had on his mind. Indeed, the lord looked relieved to see him. “Ye’re safe, then. After the raid last night at the fair, when ye didn’t return to the tower house…” He twisted the arrow distractedly between his thumb and finger. “I’ll admit I feared perhaps ye’d been run through by an English blade.”
Rane forced a levity to his voice he didn’t feel. “Why, my lord,” he said with a wink, “ye know my Viking hide’s too tough for that.”
“Well, I’m glad to see I was wrong.” Rane glimpsed fleeting fatherly affection in the older man’s eyes before Gilbert straightened, dismissing his sentiments with a frown. “Good huntsmen are hard to come by.”
Rane acknowledged the compliment with a nod. “Did ye find the culprits, my lord?”
“The whelps are long gone, though I’m sure they’ll be back. But ’tis another hunt I’m on at present.”
Rane glanced at the arrow Gilbert rolled idly between his fingers.
“Tell me, Rane. Ye know the forest better than anyone. Did ye happen to see a strange lass walkin’ in the woods in the last few days?”
“A lass?” The arrow spun slowly, back and forth, back and forth, in Gilbert’s glove. Perhaps the lord didn’t even realize to whom it belonged.
“Aye. A thief. She was seen fleein’ into the forest.”
Rane’s gaze snapped up to Gilbert’s face. “A thief?” he echoed. A prickling began at the back of his neck.
“Maybe ye’ve seen some trace o’ her,” Gilbert insisted, “footprints, anythin’.”
“A thief,” he repeated, absently rubbing the cloth of Florie’s kirtle between his finger and thumb. It couldn’t be. Yet Father Conan had warned him that Florie had powerful enemies. Had it been Lord Gilbert’s men who’d ridden past the other night?
“Aye. She accosted my wife at the fair, stole a gold bauble o’ hers, and somehow managed to elude my constables.”
The news hit Rane like a bolt in the chest. Was it true? The girdle Florie guarded with her life—had she stolen it? Had she lied about being a goldsmith, about her dead mother? Had she made up that story about the pomander? Rane didn’t know his letters—she might have lied about them as well. Odin’s teeth, was she no more than a common thief?
“Ye’re sure?” he said tightly.
“O’ course I’m sure. There were several witnesses to the incident.”
Rane felt ill. It couldn’t be. Surely Florie wasn’t capable of such deceit. This was the lass who’d shielded him from blame, who’d invited him in from the cold, whose eyes lit up when she talked about gold. Aye, he thought bitterly, the same way a robber’s eyes lit up when he spoke of silver.
He didn’t want to believe Lord Gilbert. Worse, he didn’t want to admit that Florie—faerie-faced, doe-eyed, mouth-watering Florie—had utterly beguiled and deceived him. To think he’d imagined her some unfortunate victim of abuse. What a half-wit he’d been, gulled by her sweet face. The little outlaw had led him a merry chase. And, curse his soft heart, Rane had helped her to escape.
“Well?” Lord Gilbert pressed, reining his restless mount away from the pond.
Rane hesitated. Her betrayal stung, and beneath his carefully controlled expression, righteous indignation began to smolder. The scheming lass had intentionally misled him with her dewy gaze, audaciously lied to him through her soft, sweet lips. He should turn her over to Gilbert at once. She deserved whatever punishment he would dole out.
But despite her outright deception, Rane still found himself hesitant to expose her. Perhaps because he was riddled with guilt over shooting her, some perverse sense of obligation made him want to protect her. Even now. Even though she’d played him for a fool.
Still, honor would not allow him to speak falsely. Sooner or later, Gilbert would discover that the thief he sought resided in the church. He may as well hear it from Rane’s lips. There was no need to add harboring an outlaw to Rane’s growing list of crimes. The lass had claimed sanctuary, after all. She was safe enough there, at least for the moment.
“I believe the maid ye seek is in the old church,” he said softly. “She said she was seekin’ sanctuary.” But though Rane wouldn’t blatantly lie, he was no martyr. He omitted mentioning that he’d carried the fugitive to the fridstool himself.
Gilbert’s eyes flared with surprise. “What? She spoke to ye?” Surprise turned quickly to ire. Lord Gilbert’s temper had grown short over the past several months, ever since he’d brought his new wife home. “Ye let her escape, and now she’s claimed sanctuary?” He pounded his fist on his pommel. “God’s bones! Ye bloody fool!”
Rane’s jaw tensed. Aye, he might have let a thief escape, but he took exception to being called a fool. He straightened proudly and scowled. “Escape? I hunt game, my lord, not fugitives.”
Lord Gilbert’s dark beard quivered with rage. “’Twas my wife’s gold girdle the wench stole,” he bit out. “And Lady Mavis paid a king’s ransom for it.”
Rane doubted that. He’d never seen Lady Mavis offer a king’s ransom for anything. Indeed, Gilbert’s petulant bride made a practice of bullying merchants to sell her their wares for far below what they were worth. Rane knew ’twas not only the damaging rains and the English attacks, but the economic devastation Lady Mavis had wrought over the past months, that had left the commoners half-starved… and turned Gilbert’s huntsman into a poacher.
“Damn ye, sirrah!” Lord Gilbert roared. “Forty days ye’ve cost me now! Forty days!” His horse sidestepped nervously as he grumbled, “And forty for the guard I’ll have to post against her flight. Sanctuary. Faugh!”
He wheeled his horse about to choose a man for the task. Rane noted that none of them would meet their lord’s eye. He couldn’t blame them. ’Twas an irksome duty. To be confined for forty days to the perimeter of a church, guarding a fugitive, knowing that if the felon escaped, the guard would be held accountable for the crime…
When Gilbert turned slowly about again, Rane didn’t care for the sly smirk on his lord’s face.
“Rane, lad,” he said, twirling the quarrel between his fingers as he closely inspected the bloodstains, “this is your arrow, is it not?”
A dire chill slithered
up Rane’s spine. “Aye, my lord.”
“Yet I never granted ye leave to hunt in Ettrick.”
Rane’s fist tightened in the fabric of Florie’s kirtle. “Nae, my lord.”
Lord Gilbert stared at him a long while, as if measuring his value, then whispered, “I could have ye hanged for poachin’.”
Rane refused to make excuses, refused to show fear or remorse. He’d done what he felt he must do. “Aye.”
For a lengthy moment, neither man looked away. Finally, Lord Gilbert hurled the arrow, burying its point into the ground at Rane’s feet. “Ye shall stand guard against her escape, forty days and forty nights.”
“What?” Rane exploded, his brows drawing down sharply.
Him? Rane? Gilbert’s huntsman? He couldn’t stand guard over an outlaw. Not for forty days. ’Twas madness. Not only was he unequal to the task, but he couldn’t afford to foreswear hunting, lawful or not. The crofters depended on him for food. In forty days the deer would be gone, hunted by spoiled, overfed nobles, and there would be no winter provender left for the peasants.
Muzzling his outrage only by dint of great will, he said evenly, “My lord, I’m not a man-at-arms. With all due—”
“If she escapes, ’twill be upon your head. And at Lady Mavis’s mercy.”
Before Rane could reason further with him, Lord Gilbert wheeled his mount, and he and his men thundered up the rise toward the main road.
For several moments Rane stood mute, his fists clenched, his thoughts running as wildly as scattering rabbits.
In the distant fields, through the slowly clearing dust of Gilbert’s departure, Rane glimpsed the hunched backs of a dozen scrawny peasants planting crops for the lord’s table. He steeled his jaw against a current of rage.
The lass, the thief, had just doomed them all.
Her greed had likely cost her not only her limb or her life, but the lives of countless crofters for whom Rane would be unable to hunt, helpless families who’d likely starve come winter without his assistance.
He might have been inspired to pity if he thought she’d stolen the girdle to pay for food. After all, such a crime was no different from what Rane did when he poached deer for the peasants. But his motivation was mercy. Hers was greed.