by Kris Kennedy
The sound of furtive sniffing jerked her gaze down the hallway. A pair of small, round eyes, glittering flatly in the gloom, met her startled gaze; a rat snuffling at a pool of fetid water. What nourishment could it gain from that bracken watering hole? She shivered and looked back at the heavy door. Now or never.
Planting her palm against the iron handle, she pushed it open.
The soldiers leapt to their feet exactly as they’d done earlier. She smiled through the flickering candlelight.
“Sirs.” She inclined her head as if she were arriving at a social gathering a few moments early.
They goggled at her exactly as they had earlier.
“My lady,” the tall one gasped, fumbling to pull out the small bench he’d been seated on. Exactly as he’d done earlier.
If only their wits are as dim as earlier, Senna decided, I shall be fine.
She lifted her skirts and sat. Their mouths hung open half an inch. Easy prey. She closed in for the kill with absolutely no sympathy for what they might suffer as a result of the escape: they had helped to hang the dog.
She thumped down a flask of whisky on the table, filched from the baron’s cellars, and looked up with a smile. They smiled back, gap-toothed.
In almost no time, they were well sodden and stupid, not a far cry from where they’d started the night. But this drink had an added spice, a powdered tincture of valerian root filched from the herbalist, which would ensure they slept for a long time. It took three swigs, maybe four, before they crumpled to the floor, leaving Senna standing, legs braced, breathing so fast her head spun.
No turning back now.
Plucking the keys off the taller one, she crept down the hall toward Finian’s cell. A single torch lit her way.
“Angel.” His rough voice drifted down to greet her.
“I am come,” she announced in a low whisper, as if it were needful, completely ignoring the fact that his voice made her smile in the dark.
He was standing tonight, and Senna was a bit awed by his height and strength. Firm, corded muscles were tensed in the darkness and his voice had to travel some distance down to her. She’d picked a strong one.
They fumbled through the keys, found the one that fit, and after swinging open his cell door with an ear-piercing screech that would have awakened the dead—but not the guards—they crept back along the dank corridor.
“What happened to them?” she whispered, gesturing to the empty cells.
“The Irishmen who witnessed your kindly welcome in the hall were all killed soon after, lady, and in intriguing ways, too, rest assured,” he replied gruffly, following her up the hall.
Looking back, she found his jaw set hard, his eyes dark and impassive. She turned forward again, her fingertips trailing along the slime-ridden wall. Were her men to have been killed, she would be spitting for blood. Waving a sword and howling. He was so…restrained.
She repressed a shudder and pushed open the door to the antechamber.
He stared at the crumpled guards. “Ye have gifts I would never have suspected.”
She frowned a little. “I have a few hidden talents.”
He regarded her sideways, briefly. “Aye.”
He nodded his thanks when she handed him bread, then they swung the packs onto their backs. They were off, creeping across the shadowy courtyard. All they needed to do was steal a few weapons, sneak through both baileys, and scramble over the castle gate without being spotted by the guards.
Senna tried not to consider anything other than the next obstacle. Thinking too far ahead made her nauseous.
Crouched and watchful, she guided them to the blacksmith’s hut. It was an elaborate affair, made of stone, two stories high. They stared up at the window on the second floor, far above their heads.
“It didn’t look that high in the daylight,” she muttered.
Finian’s hands closed around her hips. A startled breath whooshed out of her. “I’ll boost ye up,” he murmured, and his fingers tightened as he lifted her up against the side of the stone building.
She reached as far as she could, stretching, aware of the power of him through his thick curled fingers, his shoulders, the steady strength holding her body up in the air. She curled the tips of her uninjured fingers around the window ledge, and that was as far as she got. The injured hand was still strangely numb, and therefore, while it did not hurt, it did not seem to have strength either. It certainly would not help her scale the side of the building.
“More,” she whispered.
“I haven’t got any more.”
She scrabbled silently, panting and scraping her elbows and knees, but she wasn’t a fly, and there was no way she could climb up the side of the wall.
“Stand on my shoulders,” he said, a gravelly command.
She stilled, then bent her leg back. She must have kicked his chin or something, because he grunted. She slowed her movements and nudged her toe backward, felt for the ledge of his shoulder. She planted her foot on it, then did the same with the other. It gave her just enough lift to get her elbows on the ledge.
She pushed at the shutters. Locked. Stifling the urge to smash them, she felt around in her pack and pulled out a strip of dried meat. Working it between the two shutters, she lifted upward, unhooking the latch that held them closed. A small metallic clink rang out, loud as a shout, and the shutters creaked in opposite directions, one in, one out.
Quickly, she shoved them inward and shimmied through. Thrusting her arms out, she dropped to the ground. Her palms hit first and the rest slithered behind, until her knees hit the floor with a muted thump.
She scrambled to her feet. Her vision quickly adjusted to the deeper shadows. A black opening gaped straight ahead. The stairway.
Another black gaping hole appeared to her right. The blacksmith’s bedchamber.
She swallowed dryly.
She hurried down the stairs, weaving her way between tables and anvils, and tiptoed carefully around the oven, which was still heated to a pale orange glow. She swung the latch up on the door and inched it open. Finian stepped inside.
They crept back up the stairs, where the items in for repair and new works of deadly art were stored. Where the blacksmith was stored, along with his wife and children, but, praise God, no dog. After tonight, there would be one for certes.
They worked swiftly, without words. Within minutes, Finian was garbed in the powerful protective covering of an Englishman’s mail hauberk, flinching just slightly as the weight of it settled on his back. There was none to fit Senna. She picked up a knife that looked the right size for Finian, which he immediately strapped around his thigh. He grabbed another one and she belted it for him, around his left arm. She grabbed one for herself, a long, wicked thing that looked just right.
At that moment, the blacksmith spoke, muttering a few garbled phrases. They froze, staring at each other. Silence, then a murmured, “Move over.”
Good heavens. The smithy’s wife was awake.
Coldness spread across Senna’s chest. A few feet away, Finian extracted the blade from its arm-sheath. She shook her head wildly, silently. He tipped his head to the side, one palm up, looking at her like she was crazed.
She gestured adamantly to the sheath on his arm. He just lifted his brows, but, as the silence extended, he slowly redeposited the blade. She smothered a sigh.
It felt like hours before they moved again. First Finian, then she, slunk back to the stairs, hunched over and breathing fast. Senna spied something out of the corner of her eye. She moved closer.
A broadsword, in a beautifully adorned sheath stitched with bright threads resembling fantastical shapes of animals and lettering in an unknown language. It looked like a warrior’s sword, a king’s sword. It looked like Finian’s sword.
Without another thought, she lifted the massive weapon, staggered down the stairs, and hissed at his back.
He spun, his eyes glittering in the darkness, his body reflexively crouching into a fighting stance. The fi
re-glow of the oven lit up dark shadows on his face. He looked wild and dangerous, and she was about to hand him the hugest sword she’d ever seen.
“Here,” she whispered.
“My blade,” he murmured, stepping close.
“Yours? Truly?” She’d only thought it looked like a sword he might have.
“Aye.” He took the weapon and held it reverently, handling its weight as if it were a dinner platter. He slid it halfway out of its scabbard. The flat glitter of steel flashed in the firelight. “The scabbard, too,” he whispered. “I thought ’twould be quickly assumed by another, although the spells woven in it would not work well for any other. And never a Saxon.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “I am doubly indebted.”
They left the smithy’s building and crept along the side of the open exercise field, a labor in madness which frightened her into a dry mouth and prevented her from talking for a good three minutes. Finian seemed impressed. They ducked between the buildings, silent moving shadows: one-room cottages, a chapel, the stables.
As they passed the kitchen gardens, Senna stumbled in a rutted furrow and muttered a curse. It sounded like a shout in the quiet nighttime. She snapped her head up.
Finian stared at her, frozen.
Then, keeping time with her hammering heart, the boot steps of a soldier drew near.
Chapter 11
They threw themselves against a wall, barely breathing. The soldier walked by, striding on a path perpendicular to them. Senna held her breath. He kept walking, never looking over, and finally disappeared behind another building. She rolled her head to the side and looked at Finian.
“I think—” she whispered, so quietly she could barely hear herself.
He shook his head sharply. Another five minutes of silence, then another soldier came by. Senna pushed the back of her head into the wall and focused on looking like a pile of refuse. The guard passed.
Ten more minutes and no more soldiers came. Finian let his body relax off the wall. Senna followed suit. She opened her mouth. Swiftly, and in utter silence, he cupped the back of her neck and pulled her forward.
“Patience and silence, lady,” he murmured. “For God’s and my sake, patience. And silence.”
Now, why on earth did her body warm up at his words?
Nodding curtly, she swung away, leading them to a corroded section of the inner bailey wall, an easy ascent of some eight feet. Gripping the loose, crumbling footholds, she scrambled up. A small stream of rubble broke loose, and she went sliding halfway back down the wall.
Finian stopped her with his shoulders and arms. They froze, holding their breaths, completely still, his hands firm and warm on her ribs, her buttocks resting on one of his shoulders. She tried to ignore the startling rush of heat his touch brought to her face and other, less moonlit regions of her body. Nothing moved in the night. She looked down, he looked up, then he cupped her bottom with both hands and pushed her the rest of the way up the wall.
Flinging herself to the top, she spun and crouched down, hand extended. Finian leapt up without effort and without touching her hand. He smiled as he came up, just the slightest all-knowing, roguish lift to the corner of his mouth. That was about how he’d touched her when he hoisted her up the wall. She ignored it and turned, still in a crouch, to peer over the other side.
He crouched beside her, his body hot and strong. Ten feet below was a small pile of clippings from the castle garden. Ten feet was nigh on two of her.
“’Tis a long way down,” she whispered tautly.
He turned in her direction. His face was shadowed. “Not so far, lass.”
“Far enough.” Could he hear panic in her voice? It had frozen her fingers to the lip of the wall.
He nodded slowly. “It seems far.”
“I don’t think I can.” Shameful, shameful fear. Was she to crouch here on the bailey wall then, until someone spotted them?
“Would it help if I pushed ye?”
She almost laughed. “Aye, that would help immen—”
He put his hand on her shoulder and pushed her off the wall. She didn’t have time to scream or even feel scared, before she landed with a soft bump on the mound of rotting flora. She scrambled to her feet just as he dropped down beside her.
“You’ve lost your wits,” she hissed.
In a flash, he towered above her. The heat from his powerful torso shimmered between them, hovering at the edges of her tunic. Senna threw her head back, startled.
“Mistress, I’m fairly certain ye’re a few stones shy of a full load yerself.” He lightly touched her upper arm for emphasis. “Now, hush.”
She shivered at the rush of something his fingers created. She could not rip her eyes from the sight of him, so close. His torso was long and lean but sturdy, wide shoulders tapered in clean, muscular lines to trim hips and powerful thighs. Corded muscles in his neck and arms were defined by the moonlight, and tangled black hair spilled down past his shoulders. His face was carved in moonlit angles, his chin square and firm. The growth of hair on his face made him appear rough-hewn and wild, but then there was that heart-stopping smile.
The Irishman was sinfully handsome.
Her breathing grew shallow, but the rush of heat to her face was simply a result of the drama of the escape. Surely.
It was the rush of heat to her loins that was so bewildering.
His dark eyes flicked back to hers in question. “Which way?”
She looked around. The castle grounds, while tumbling into disrepair, were enormous, built over the years into a veritable village within the castle walls, filled with twisting turns and dead ends. Keeping an eye on the buttressed main gate was only minimally helpful, because they could not take a straight path toward it, across the wide-open training fields. They must keep to shadows and corners.
A series of low, thatched buildings ran in a fairly straight line away from them just now, and would provide some concealment. But beyond that dubious shelter, there could be anything. Guards, swords, battle.
“This way,” she said firmly, starting off, then hesitated. “I think.”
His eyes gleamed in the moonlit dark. “As ye say.”
“But I am not certain—”
“Ye’ve a better sense of the keep than I,” he said shortly. “Do not doubt yerself.”
She marched off. “You’d best be alert, Irishman, for I’ve no idea to what end I lead us.”
“I am ever alert. There is no need to caution me in that.” His soft voice wafted through her hair, and her skin prickled in unwelcome response.
Soon the main gate loomed before them, black and bone-like. Finian gripped her arm and, to ensure her silence, put his finger over her lips. She inhaled sharply at the touch. His eyes darted to hers. He shook his head in silent warning. Her head dipped in a nod.
He disappeared for a few moments, then his hunched form reemerged out of the darkness. “The sloth of the guards is inconsistent. The gate is occupied, although perhaps not guarded too well.” She looked at him. “There is a fine argument brewing. Something about gambling. And a woman. They are drinking.”
“A fight and liquor will bring even more puppets to the gatehouse,” she predicted glumly.
“Well, then,” he murmured, “let us have a hope they are all as inept as their lord.”
That was a dim hope. These were the baron’s men, fed on his evil, and while they might not be bright, they did not need to be particularly accomplished in their wits to notice two people slinking around the castle gates long after Lauds had rung. Especially not when one was a six-foot Irishman who was supposed to be shackled in the baron’s prisons.
The cloud of gloom beginning to billow over her must have been noticeable even through the darkness, because Finian considered her a moment, then leaned close.
“Courage,” he murmured.
“I haven’t a bit of it,” she whispered in reply.
“Ye’re made of it.”
She almost laughed. “Hardly. What I am is r
eckless and headstrong and I don’t listen particularly well—”
His arm wrapped around her shoulders. “I don’t need to be told those things, lass,” he whispered directly into her ear. “Ye’re the candle at night, nothing to hide. Ye also talk a great deal, and were ye to find it in yer heart to save a poor Irishman’s life, please do so now by shutting yer lush mouth a few moments.”
Her tongue was nailed to the roof of her mouth as she stared into the dark Irish eyes inches from her own.
Just then the outline of the two patrolling soldiers walked by in a circuit around the castle walls. Finian froze. The weight of his muscular arm, slung over her shoulders, was oddly comforting. They heard a rough laugh, then there was silence.
Senna inhaled a shaky breath and her life slowed to the pace of a languid breath of air on a hot summer day. She wanted to stand just as they were for a very long time. She wanted his hand to dangle, just as it was, barely brushing against nipples grown tingling hard.
How odd and strange everything was. Here she was, in a foreign land, fleeing a man who wanted to force her into marriage. Here she stood, shivering outside a prison wall, tucked under the arm of an Irish warrior, her body behaving as it never had before.
Strangest of all, this didn’t seem strange.
He removed his arm. She shivered, suddenly noticing the chill. They started for the gate, only to hurl themselves against the side of a building a moment later when a clamor of shouts and curses rang out. The two guards ran back to the guard tower, now ablaze with lights. Out on the rampart stood several dark figures.
“Bollocks,” came a hushed, almost reverent whisper, at odds with the crude curse. The penitent was bowed almost in half over the edge of the stone tower, gazing into the shadows below.
“By your balls indeed,” another agreed, his harsh voice bouncing down the ramparts to them. “The pricker threw Dalton right over the battlement!”
The shouts grew louder. Finian and Senna looked at each other.