The Cursed One

by Ronda Thompson

  “Hey!” the other man bellowed.

  Gabriel stepped forward and delivered him a sound punch that sent him reeling backward. The man with the bloody face charged Gabriel. They landed in the dusty road. Gabriel hardly fought by Oxford rules. He rolled, gained his feet, and kicked the man in the ribs. The man grunted and drew his knees up to his chest. Gabriel paused long enough to push his hair out of his face and wipe his sleeve across his bloody lip. He was attacked from the back.

  The other man had retrieved his friend’s stick and clearly intended to beat Gabriel senseless with it. He took one blow to the back. The stick landed hard on his injured shoulder and he stifled a groan.

  Wheeling to face the man, Gabriel was shocked when he saw Amelia jump on the man from behind. The man bellowed and easily threw her lighter weight off of him. Then he shoved her and she landed hard in the dirt. Gabriel saw red.

  He charged the man and easily wrestled the stick from him. His temper simmering, Gabriel broke the stick in half. The man’s eyes nearly bulged from his head.

  “We don’t hit girls,” Gabriel said, very low, nearly a growl. “Didn’t your parents teach you that?”

  Rather than answer, the man scrambled away, turned tail, and ran in the opposite direction.

  “Wait,” the other one yelled, staggering to his feet. He ran after his partner.

  Rushing to Amelia’s side, Gabriel helped her to rise. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “He just knocked the breath from me for a moment.”

  Gabriel sighed with relief. Then he got angry. “What were you thinking? I told you to stay put.”

  Her hair had come loose from the braid Mora had fixed for her before they set out that morning. Wispy blond curls framed her dirt-streaked face, and still she managed to look like a princess. Amelia placed her hands upon her hips. “I thought you needed help,” she answered. Her gaze suddenly landed upon the broken stick lying on the ground. “I guess I was wrong.” Her big blue eyes lifted to him. “How did you break that in half? I’ve never seen a man do anything like that before!”

  Gabriel had let his temper get the best of him. It wasn’t something he should do in front of normal folk, like Amelia. Rather than answer her, he glanced down the road toward Mora. “Come, Mora,” he called. “Pick out supplies for us. You’ll know best what we need.”

  The girl started toward them.

  “You didn’t answer me,” Amelia reminded him. “How could you possibly break a stick that thick in half as if it were no more than a twig?”

  He couldn’t explain his unusual strength any better than his unusual eyesight or his superior hearing. But Gabriel knew he must offer her some type of explanation. “Have you seen men brawl before, Amelia?”

  She frowned up at him. “Well, no, never, but still …”

  Gabriel moved to the back of the wagon with Mora. “Rage gives a man strength he might not otherwise have. The fool was lucky I didn’t snap his neck as easily as I snapped the stick. He shouldn’t have touched you.”

  “Sent those two running,” Mora remarked as she sorted through supplies. “Thought fancy men fought with fancy manners.” She eyed him oddly beneath her lashes and Gabriel thought it best to turn both women’s attention toward something other than his fighting skills.

  “What do we need here?” he asked the girl.

  Mora had separated a few items from the rest. “Jerky doesn’t have to be cooked,” she said. “Two loaves of bread. Some cheese. Apples. A jug of cider for when we can’t find water easily.”

  Pulling the tattered canvas from the wagon, Gabriel laid it on the ground to make a pack for their supplies. Amelia still stared at him suspiciously. He tossed her an apple to distract her. Hungry as she was, it worked. Once they had what they needed, he tied the canvas and toted it over his shoulder. He dug in his pocket, removed some coins, and tossed them on the back of the wagon.

  “You’re paying them?” Mora exclaimed. “After what they tried to do to you?”

  Gabriel had been taught well at one time in his life. He maintained those values, he supposed, regardless of what had later happened to his family. “If I don’t pay them for what I take, it makes me a thief, which is no better than what they are. Come, we need to get off the road.”

  Shoulder stinging, leg throbbing, he led the women off the road and back into the brush. At least they now had food, so they wouldn’t starve. But how long until whatever was tracking them caught up? Gabriel saw no signs of trouble. He didn’t smell either man or beast on their trail. It was eerie. It made him more nervous than if they’d had to fight every step of the way they’d come so far. Like everything else that had happened to him since he’d arrived at Collingsworth Manor, this did not make sense.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Night was close to falling by the time they stopped to rest. Amelia was nearly too tired to chew the stringy jerky they’d taken from the wagon earlier, but she tried and she did not complain. She watched Mora bandage Gabriel’s shoulder using torn strips from her petticoat. The stick had broken the wound open again, but Mora said it wasn’t too bad.

  Amelia’s gaze drifted over Gabriel’s powerful chest, the bulging muscles in his arms. He was strong as an ox, anyone could see that, but was any man strong enough to snap a thick stick in half, as if it were merely a sapling twig? She didn’t need to have seen a brawl before to know Gabriel’s strength was not normal.

  And how did he seem to know when to stop and wait, when to move, when to rest, when to push on? She’d watched him and it was almost as if he heard things no one else heard, saw things no one else saw. Amelia supposed she was being silly. Perhaps what he said was true and during a battle a man did possess more strength than seemed humanly possible. Gabriel had played in these woods as a boy. Perhaps that was why he seemed so at home in them. She feared she’d become paranoid with all that had happened to her since she’d arrived at Collingsworth Manor.

  “Now the leg,” Mora said, bringing Amelia back from her thoughts. “I should take a look at that, too.”

  “The leg is fine.” Gabriel shrugged into his shirt. He reached for a loaf of bread and broke off a small chunk. “If you two want to clean up in the creek, better do so now. We’ll settle in shortly and sleep.”

  “I’m too tired to care about cleaning up,” Amelia said. And she was. She felt as if when she closed her eyes she would be instantly asleep. Besides, she imagined the water would be chilly and she was already anxious to settle in beside Gabriel and let his body heat warm her. She wished they could have a cozy fire to sit before, but Gabriel said it wouldn’t be safe.

  “I’ll go,” Mora said. “Need to wash my hands.”

  “Don’t be long,” Gabriel instructed. “If you hear or see anything suspicious, call out to me. I’ll hear you.”

  Amelia’s gaze roamed their secluded spot for the night. The creek was only a short distance, lined with trees for good cover. She supposed if Mora screamed, the sound would carry to them easily enough. She should go with the girl, but her legs refused to obey the wishes of her mind. Instead she finished chewing the stringy jerky and swallowed it down.

  “For future reference, any time I am confronted from this night forward, you are to remain hidden as I told you to do,” Gabriel said.

  Her gaze snapped to him. The moonlight danced upon his hair, almost illuminating the pale streaks interwoven with the darker color. “You’re welcome,” she said. “If I hadn’t distracted the men, you might not have gotten the upper hand.”

  He stared back at her intently. “If I had not gotten the upper hand, do you have any idea what they planned to do to you?”

  The possibility had not occurred to her. Amelia assumed a man wouldn’t hit a woman; of course she’d been proven wrong quickly enough. She’d also assumed no peasant would dare assault a lady of her obvious station. Wrong again, she supposed. “I didn’t think about that at the time,” she admitted.

  “I have come to realize there is a clever
brain inside your pretty head. You should use it more often. And from this night forward, you must listen to my instructions and obey me in all things, Amelia.”

  What a backhanded compliment. Amelia had decided being a widow might not be too bad. She would have no one to answer to, and now he was suggesting she answer to him.

  “You are not my husband, my father, or any relation to me,” she said. “Not that I planned to ever obey anyone who was or is anyway, but that is beside the point. As a gentleman, it is your duty to protect Mora and me. As a lady, I have no obligation to you except to be grateful.”

  He took a bite of bread and slowly chewed, staring at her all the while. It unnerved her more than if he’d raised his voice to her. She squirmed on the stump she sat upon.

  After he swallowed, he said, “This is not some social tea we are involved in. This is life-or-death. And I am no gentleman. It would make the task of protecting you and Mora easier were you to listen to my instructions and obey them. If you have no wish to reach Wulfglen alive, then I suppose the choice is yours to make.”

  She blinked at him. She’d expected he’d insist. “You don’t care if I live or die?”

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand; then he looked at her again with his unsettling eyes. “If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t ask.”

  His admission immediately defused her temper. Amelia felt silly for arguing with him in the first place. Of course he cared what happened to her and Mora. He would not still be with them if he didn’t. He’d risked himself today to see that they ate tonight. She should be more beholden to him.

  “You are more gallant than you will admit,” she said. “It was a good lesson you taught Mora today about thieves. You say that you are no gentleman, but I haven’t seen you act in any way that would lead me to believe your claim. It is obvious to me you had good training by your parents, regardless of what they did later.”

  Glancing away, he scanned the tree line of the creek as if in search of Mora. Amelia had hit a sore spot with him. She was curious, and she’d never been one to stanch that curiosity.

  “Do you think of them often?” she asked. “Your parents?”

  Gabriel didn’t look at her when he answered, “No.”

  She found his answer odd. “Why not? You must have fond memories of your life before. I mean before they—”

  “I do not think about them,” he interrupted, turning to look at her. “Or my life before. Leave the matter alone.”

  Amelia tried. She failed. “But why—”

  “Because it hurts,” he interrupted again. As if he’d revealed too much of himself, he glanced away again. He stared out into the darkness as if he saw things that she could not.

  Gabriel Wulf might be a man, big, strong, beautiful, but now Amelia saw something else in him. She saw his vulnerability. She saw the young man he must have been at one time, hurt by the uncaring decisions of his parents. She rose and went to kneel beside him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to stir painful memories.”

  He glanced down at her, now masking the vulnerability she’d seen a moment earlier. “Yes, you did. Because you are a woman and that is what women do. You are not satisfied unless you are wrenching some emotion from a man. Anger, lust, pain, it’s all the same to you.”

  Amelia blinked up at him. What a horrible notion to have about women. “Have you never had a woman be your friend?” she asked. “A woman you could trust with all your secrets? With all your hopes and dreams? Do you even like women?”

  His eyes, cast now with a faint blue glow, moved over her. “Women serve their purpose. No, I do not hate them.”

  Blood rushed to her cheeks. She understood his insinuation and it angered her that he would view women in this unfavorable light … that he might view her the same way. “If you feel that way, you don’t really like women then.”

  He leaned closer to her. “Is that what you want, Amelia?” His voice was very low. It raised gooseflesh on her arms. “Do you want me to like you? To share my hopes and dreams with you?”

  Staring into his eyes, she was tempted to say the first thing that came to mind. Yes. She did want him to like her. She did want him to share his deepest thoughts with her. But she could not confess as much to him. She was barely a widow and he was a man who had once been her dead husband’s friend. Judging by what he’d just said, he was also a man who wouldn’t know what to do with a woman’s love if she gave it. And besides, Amelia did not believe in love.

  “I suppose you could start by telling me why you have developed such a nasty attitude toward women, or is it just me you’re angry at?”

  Her question made the sensual smile hovering around his mouth disappear. He pulled back from her. “I’ m not angry with you. A little annoyed about your actions today, putting yourself at risk when I am capable of handling any situation on my own. More than a little annoyed that you seem to have difficulty following simple instructions.”

  He wanted to be in charge, Amelia understood. He was the man and therefore the smarter, stronger one among them. It was an attitude most men shared. One that drove her crazy at times. Amelia had trouble dealing with men who thought just because she was pretty she was also useless except for decoration. She knew her attitude was not readily accepted in her social circles. At least Robert had patronized her by pretending to be interested in her views and outspoken opinions on just about everything.

  “Women, along with children, are meant to be seen, not heard, is that what you’re saying?”

  Gabriel ran a hand through his hair and made a snorting noise. “Seems to me you’re the one doing all the talking, and putting words in my mouth while you’re at it. It’s simple really. All I want from you is to follow my instructions while we are in the woods. Once I get you to safety, I don’t really care what you do.”

  Amelia supposed she loved a stimulating argument as well as the next person, but his words hurt her. He only cared about his duty, or what he felt was his duty. That of getting her to safety. He didn’t really care about her, as a person. And that meant when he’d kissed her, he’d only kissed her because she inspired something in him other than gentle emotions. It bothered her that she cared when he obviously didn’t. And she was afraid her expression might give her away.

  She rose. “I should check on Mora,” she said. “And probably clean up while I’m there, although as I said, I’m so tired I’d rather just go to sleep. Of course I only go with your permission,” she added sarcastically.

  His lip quirked. A half attempt at a smile. “Permission granted,” he shot back just as sarcastically.

  Back straight, Amelia set off for the creek. She felt his eyes following her. He wasn’t at all the man she’d molded him into with the aid of her silly daydreams. In her imagination, he had shared all his secrets and his dreams with her and she had shared hers with him. She had no idea that he was closed off and secretive, a private person, although it had also been silly of her to assume that he wasn’t exactly what he was. The Wulf brothers had always been shrouded in mystery. She certainly should have taken that into account.

  Amelia realized in that moment that the reason she hadn’t thought rationally about Gabriel Wulf in the past was simply because she hadn’t thought rationally about anything. She’d convinced herself she was different from her boring debutante friends; then she’d lined up for the marriage mart like a lamb to the slaughter just like the rest of them. She’d married a man she did not love because he seemed like a sensible choice to her parents.

  She’d done what was expected of her. She wasn’t brave or shocking at all. The realization deflated her somewhat. If Amelia had been brave enough to have refused Robert’s proposal of marriage, she wouldn’t be in her current predicament. She’d still be safe and blessedly ignorant that the world wasn’t what she once perceived it to be upon first glance.

  Lost in her reflections, she was surprised when she stumbled across Mora in a state of half dress and without the worn work b
onnet that Amelia had never once seen her without.

  In the moonlight, Mora’s pale blond hair shimmered in waves down to her hips. Her back was turned, her work dress and chemise pushed down around her waist while she washed. There were binding strips lying on the ground next to her.

  “Mora?” Amelia called, so as not to startle her, but of course she did. The girl jumped up and wheeled around. As an afterthought, Mora splayed her hands over her breasts, but not before Amelia got a look at them. And they were not the breasts of a girl.

  “I’ m sorry,” Amelia blurted, and she knew she should turn her back and afford Mora privacy, but she couldn’t help but stare. Then she glanced at the bindings lying on the ground and she knew what they were for. “Why do you bind your breasts, Mora? Why do you hide your hair?”

  Mora stared at her defiantly for a moment; then as if she remembered herself, she bowed her head. Her glorious hair swung over her shoulders to hide her face. “It was my brother’s idea,” she answered. “He was afraid for me to work in a fine house where the lord of the manor might take too much notice of me. He said I was to bind my breasts and hide my hair, and pretend to be younger than I am so that I would not bring shame upon myself.”

  Amelia moved closer. “How old are you?”

  Turning her back, Mora picked the bindings off the ground and began wrapping her breasts. “Eighteen last fall.”

  The servant was barely younger than Amelia, and Amelia did not consider herself a child. “Do you feel you must follow your brother’s wishes, even though you are no longer at Collingsworth Manor? You are with me and Gabriel.”

  It took Mora a moment longer to finish her bindings and pull her chemise and dress back up. “Lord Gabriel is a man. A young, virile man. I don’t think my brother would like me showing myself to him.”

  When Mora turned to face Amelia again, she saw for the first time how truly lovely the girl was. She had done everything to make certain she appeared plain and uninteresting. Like an insect that changed its color to blend with a branch or a leaf so that no one would notice it.