She dropped the plates and took off running. The crockery crashed to the floor, spraying sharp bits of pottery and food against the wall and over the railing as she bolted up the stairs. Behind her, like a little army, thumped wood plates and mugs, bouncing down the stairs.
She lifted the hem of her skirts and hurtled up the steps two at a time, but her heart was sinking even as it was hammering, for she heard Jamie coming up behind—and he was taking them three at a time.
Ten
Jamie hit the landing just as Eva reached the room. She slammed the door shut behind her, no defense at all.
He kicked it open. She was clambering over an overturned bench, reaching for the bedstead, pulling herself forward. To what end, he didn’t know, as the only thing ahead of her was a wall.
He grabbed her from behind, his hand on her skirts, and she fell hard, her knees and palms on the floor. He put both hands on her hips and starting reeling her in, pulling her backward into him.
Her knees skidded over linen skirts and worn wood floor. She scrabbled for a hold. It was a battle silent but for their harsh breathing. He dropped to a knee behind her and curled his body over her back.
“Cease,” he said in her ear.
Instead she kicked, her hard boot making contact with the front of his bent knee and shoving it out from beneath him. He tipped forward, onto her body, but she was already scrambling forward, grabbing for the wooden bedstead to haul herself up.
He saved her the trouble. He fisted a handful of her hair and hauled her to her feet, then marched her backward to the wall and pushed her up against it, his forearm planted diagonally across her chest, her braid clenched in one gloved hand.
“Are you finished?” he demanded.
“Nay,” she spat, and flung her head to the side, her mouth open to bite his hand.
He closed his other hand around her jaw and forced her cheek to the wall, pressing his body up against hers as a bulwark, a solid press of muscle from hips to chest.
“Stop,” he murmured. “Or I will start breaking things. In your body.”
She stilled. They stood, both of them breathing fast. Their chests pressed together each time they inhaled.
“Where is he?” he asked.
“Who?”
Jamie glanced over his shoulder at Ry. “I’m going to need a rope.”
Ry nodded slowly and left.
“Jamie,” she said, not quite a gasp, not yet a whisper. “You cannot do this.”
He looked down. In the sunlight, she was more spritelike than she had seemed last night, all contrasts of light and dark: pale face with its graceful bone structure, clever gray eyes and the thin, ink-dark eyebrows above, and all that flowing hair, now braided and gripped in his fist. “Cannot do what?”
“This. Whatever you are intent on doing.”
“Should there be any questions on what I can and cannot do, Eva, let me remove them now.” He gave her braid a little shake. “Where is the priest?”
“I—I do not know.”
He smiled faintly. “Surely you served up better lies than this when you spoke with the gate porters last night.”
She stilled, her chest pushing against him as she breathed in swift, shallow pants. “Ah. The porters. I am pleased to hear it was effective.”
“’Twas not effective.”
“You were stopped.”
“I am now pinning you against a wall, Eva. It was not effective. Where is he?”
“Gone.”
Her lying breath came rushing out, drifting past a day’s growth of beard on his jaw and neck. Her breasts, bound beneath her tunic, still pressed up in soft mounds, and he could feel her heart pounding against his chest. The narrowing of his attention made Jamie briefly, acutely, aware of her femininity.
His hand sped beneath her cloak. He splayed his fingers and ran them down her leg. Even through the skirts of her tunic, he could feel the muscular curves of a body worked hard. He felt down farther, bending his knees, making her bend hers, her neck still arched back by his hold on her braid.
He found what he expected, a dagger plunged into the top of her boot. She held perfectly rigid, jaw clenched, as he ran his hand up her inner thigh, then splayed his fingers, enclosing both the hilt of a little misericord strapped there and the bare, chilled skin of her leg.
As if she were a metal filing, he felt an almost magnetic urge to slide his hand up farther. Instead, he plucked the blade free and tossed it onto the growing pile behind him.
“You are like a little porcupine, Eva.” They were still crouched, facing each other. “Are there others yet?”
She looked over his shoulder and said nothing.
“I will stake you to the wall and undress you if needs must.”
Her gaze skidded back. She believed him. Smart woman. “My waist.”
He found it, a short dagger lodged in a sheath lashed around her belly, tangled amid the folds of her skirt. With a twist of his wrist, he plucked it free and straightened, forcing her back up to a standing position.
“Father Peter,” he said shortly.
“I tell you, he is gone.”
He looked at her more closely and saw her face was scratched and her jawline had a mark that might become a bruise. She had not had such marks yesternight. His fingers tightened as he pushed her face to the side, examining. “It will heal. What happened?”
“Men. They took Father Peter.” She smiled bitterly as he let her go. “There are a plethora of violent men out this day. You should be careful.”
He returned an equally mirthless grin. “Indeed. Pretty women should not play with them.”
“Ah, but you see how it is so much enjoyment, I cannot stop.”
“You’ll stop now.”
He pulled her away from the wall, swung her about onto a short bench at the foot of the bed. She slid across its smooth surface a few inches, sending her braid bouncing over one slim shoulder.
“Who took Father Peter?”
She hesitated. “I cannot say for certain.”
“Say it uncertainly.”
She swallowed. “Some very well-armed men and a churchman.”
He took her face between his palms, then dropped to a knee in front of her, so their faces were level and he could watch every shifting emotion that flickered across her beautiful, lying face.
“Eva, let me demonstrate honesty, since you struggle so to make its acquaintance. Regard how it sounds: I am come from King John.”
Slowly, her jaw fell, as it dawned on her this was not an example, but a revelation. Her face, already so pale, went absolutely white.
Then, slowly again, bright spots of color flowed back onto her cheeks, so she looked like a painting being formed: white skin, gray eyes, wild coal-black hair tumbling over his hands, and the flushing red of anger and fear on her cheeks the only color to be had.
“Mon Dieu,” she whispered. “You are from the devil himself. I ought to have known.”
“You may call me Lucifer if you wish. Kingdoms rest in the balance of what I do, and now, you. If I am not successful in my hunt for Father Peter, a great many people will be sorry. If you are the reason why, you shall be sorry.”
From her lips came a long, low exhale. He felt it whisper over his wrists.
“Now tell me: who sent you for the priest?”
He felt her trembling, but her gray eyes met his. “He is an old friend, I owe him a great debt, and I wish only to get him away from all this trouble. The archbishop called for his aid in the negotiations, and he came, foolishly. He is like that. You would be better off asking why your terrible king wants him than I.”
“I am fairly certain why the king wants him, so that mystery is solved. But you, woman, are enigmatic. Unless, of course, one assumes you seek the priest for the self-same reasons.”
She went still.
“What say you, Eva?”
Her eyes narrowed into thin gray slits, but she was able to emit a great deal of enmity from between them. “I say you
had best watch your back, Jamie Knight, for I may be sticking you in it one day.”
He clucked his tongue. “All that will do is keep you bound, Eva, perhaps for years, perhaps in the king’s Tower.”
She gave a small, bitter smile. He recognized it; he’d dispensed it himself, many times. “Well, then, Jamie, I suppose I am sorry I ever met you. We are all so sorry now.”
He moved his thumbs, a swift brush over her cheekbones. Someone watching might have called it a caress. They would have been in error. “I think you will be the sorriest one of all, Eva.”
Ry strode back into the room, extending a coil of rope. Jamie got to his feet. “Roland the innkeep reports a party of riders left just before we arrived,” Ry said. “Going fast. They had a priest.”
Jamie looked at him. Then the rope, then Eva. Back to the rope.
“You are greatly troubled by your choices,” she observed.
He looked up slowly.
“You ought to leave me behind,” she suggested. “How do you say this? I am expendable, no? Expend me, then.”
“I think you are misunderstanding the word,” he said drily.
“But you should. I will be naught but a burden. I eat a great deal, and tire easily, and you’ve no notion of how I complain. Ask Gog. Truly, Jamie—”
He grabbed her by the elbow and lifted her to her feet. “Let’s go.”
Eleven
Eva felt very much like cargo, bumping down the stairs behind Jamie. This was the sort of thought that was not comforting.
But the only other thing to think about was how his arm, thrust out behind him, appeared muscular straight down through his wrist. Or how his broad hand was clamped around her wrists, his fingers encompassing her arm like an iron band. She might be able to dislodge herself if a comet exploded overhead and knocked him senseless.
They hit the bottom stair and turned for the back door. Ry put a palm on it, then glanced at Jamie, who had pinned his back to the wall and was pushing Eva likewise with arm and elbow. Jamie gave a curt nod.
Ry nudged the door open, peered out, then kicked the door wide and leaped out into the yard, sword out. He looked to his right, his left, then gestured without turning. “Come.”
Jamie herded her through as if she were a sheep, he a silent watchdog.
“Are you expecting an attack?” she asked, slightly breathless.
“Always.”
This was even more disquieting than all the previous unquiet thoughts. Surely, though, she could get away. She was always able to get away. Getting away was her pennant, her battle standard, her coat of arms. No one was better at escaping than she.
She looked down at Jamie’s hand, locked around her wrists.
He might be better at keeping one captured, though.
“Did Roland give you any descriptions, Ry?” Jamie asked in a low voice as they crossed a stableyard raucous with an inordinate number of chickens. Eva saw no sign of Roger, and they did not seem to either. She felt a small rush of pride.
Jamie’s companion, brown-haired, brown-eyed, as tall as Jamie, leaner than Jamie, but looking almost as dangerous as Jamie, shook his head as they drew near the stable doors. “Nay,” he murmured. “He said he saw only their dust.”
Jamie released her when they were through the stable doors, into the dusty warmth. Eva backed away, resisting the urge to rub her wrists, for she would not have been rubbing away pain, as Jamie had not hurt her. She would have been . . . touching where he had touched.
Morning light rayed in through slats between the boards. Horses and hay were illuminated by thin strips of bright light, so they glowed golden and brown and chestnut red. The horses shifted in their stalls, turning to peer at them with liquid eyes, furry ears pricked.
Jamie and his companion led their horses out, still saddled. Clearly, they had anticipated a short stop. Perhaps she should be insulted by this.
Eva’s horse was standing down the row farther, a dim brown shape, her head half down, eyes lazily closed, a single spray of golden hay poking out from between her velvety muzzle lips.
Jamie patted his horse in a distracted way and tossed the reins up. He grabbed hold of a stirrup and looked at her. “Up.”
She blinked. “I, I—”
“Are getting on.” Then he paused and glanced down the row, the very direction her surreptitious little glance had gone. They both looked at the sleepy brown mare. “Yours?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it, suddenly unable to determine the need for a lie.
Revealing she had a horse would betray nothing of her purposes. Jamie could easily assume she had a horse. She’d never have made it this far without. She could claim every horse in the stable and Jamie would know nothing more than he did right now.
Yet notwithstanding all these sensible notions, Eva was engulfed like a wick by the bright, burning knowledge that the more Jamie knew of her, the more her life would become . . . irrevocable.
Eva lived for revocability. Decisions were nothing but footprints in the sand; everything could be washed away. At need, Eva revoked opinions, plans, pennies, entire personal histories.
But Jamie . . . Jamie was more the edge of the cliff than the shifting sand. No going back.
That thin scar carved through the corner of his lip and up over one high cheekbone, but did not detract a whit from the beautiful masculinity of him. Hands, blades, wits: everything Jamie bore was a weapon, and a blind man would see he was a thing to avoid. Right now he was watching her, his eyes never leaving hers throughout the lengthening silence.
Never had she been unable to lie. Never had she so much as paused in the deed. Lie, always. Run forever.
Do it, the faint call came up from inside.
“Yes,” she heard herself say. “She is mine.”
Well.
Jamie jabbed his chin into the air. “Ry, bring her out, will you?”
Ry strode over, and while he was being so obedient and bringing her mare out, Jamie tied Eva up.
Standing a head taller and an inch away, his dark head bent to attend the ropes, she had a strange, disorienting moment of imagining him doing something helpful as he stood before her, perhaps untangling a pouch, or showing her some trinket in secret, tucked between their bodies. She watched his thick fingers tug on the ropes and the dizzy sense expanded, down from her ridiculous head into her even more ridiculous body.
“These ropes, they are hardly necessary,” she announced.
“Consider me cautious.”
“Other words come to mind, not so greatly cautious.”
He tipped his head up. He had very long eyelashes. This was not right. “Such as?”
She sighed. “You seek compliments at such a time? About your eyelashes, no doubt.”
His stared at her; then the small, dented curves beside his mouth deepened ever so slightly. He bent back to his tying. “Ropes make it more difficult to escape.”
“But who is to say I wish to escape?”
“Fleeing and kicking me brought the notion to mind.”
She made a dismissive sound. She truly had no desire to escape, not anymore. Further reflection—the sort that came while being hauled down stairs—had shown her the truth of her straits: she had no hope of regaining Father Peter.
But Jamie did.
If one had to be in captivity, it was undeniably better to be held captive by one who had the power and inclination to take down every shared enemy in your path. Then, come time, you could simply steal away. With the priest.
She gave another sigh. “But you are so daunting with your weapons and your glowering looks—”
His hands stilled. “Glowering?”
“—what can I do but succumb?”
He gave a low laugh and resumed tying. “Once, you might have been able to make me believe that, Eva. Then I spent the night shackled in a cellar under the town walls.”
“It must have been quite cold and damp.”
He flipped an end of the rope overtop and gave a sha
rp tug. “Quite. I was kept warm by imagining just this.”
She sniffed and stared patiently at the wall, for regarding his bent head, the strands of dark hair falling by his hair-roughened jaw, did not help maintain the proper sense of outrage and loathing.
“These ropes, Jamie, I am sorry to say, they make you appear . . . afraid.”
He gave a final tug and yanked her so close their chests touched.
“You have been sorry to say a great many things in the short time I’ve known you, Eva, and not one of them has been true.” His softly spoken words dropped into the hot pocket of air between their mouths. “’Tis yourself who should be afraid, for if you do not talk soon, I will make you.” He bent to her ear. “It shall not take long.”
Fear had nothing on the chills his words sent cascading through Eva’s body. Which meant . . . this was not fear.
Oh, indeed, Jamie was peril of a most grave sort. The edge of the cliff, the tide coming in.
He put his hands on her hips and practically vaulted her into the saddle. Eva kept herself calm by reminding herself that she had only to do two things: ensure Roger stay hidden, and herself appear witless, with as much relevance to these matters as the little bits of twigs one found in uncombed wool. Which was to say, none at all.
Irrelevant. Irrevocable. Eva was determined to be a great many things that were never to be.
Twelve
Someone is following us.”
The group that rode through the spring afternoon was fiercely quiet. Jamie kept his head down for most of it, attending the earth and signs of what had passed over it. He had set a fast pace, but their quarry had gone faster.
It was not surprising; there’d been many possible turnoffs, little village roads as well as more populated tracks, forcing Jamie to a slower pace, ensuring he did not gallop past any sign of a turning.
Additionally, he had the task of monitoring whoever was tracking them.
Eva’s hands were bound, and her horse was attached by lines to both Jamie’s and Ry’s saddles, so the chances of her escaping, or even attempting it, were close to nil. Still, they made sure she was covered on both sides, fore and aft, like a ship that might founder, throughout their rollicking ride.
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