For all the spectacle and ceremony preceding it, the actual hanging was over in a moment. When her body dropped, of course, there were no death throes. The crowd assumed her neck had broken instantly. The rope squeaked in the ensuing hush as she twisted limply at its end, her hooded head lolling in the noose.
“So sins are punished,” Nicholas intoned. “A life for a life.” He gazed out at the villagers with mixed emotions, realizing it would likely be the last speech he’d give to them. “Go now. Go to Mass, and pray for this woman’s unfortunate soul.”
The crowd began to disperse, but as they did, the glowering constable shoved his way through the onlookers toward Nicholas, who suddenly felt a sick clenching in his gut. The shire-reeve might hold command over the constable, but one word from his underling and Nicholas’s deception would be revealed.
“Bloody hell!” the constable hissed between his teeth. He looked anxiously around him, then whispered tightly, “What the devil have you done?”
Nicholas’s heart pounded like a death knell. “What do you mean?” he murmured.
The constable cursed again under his breath. “I mean, who is...” He nodded to the corpse. “That?”
Nicholas swallowed hard. There was no point in lying. Sooner or later their perfidy would come to light. If only he could explain everything...
The constable was a reasonable man, after all. He’d taken the trouble last night to alert Nicholas to Desirée’s imprisonment. Like Nicholas, he had a strong sense of justice, as well as a penchant for mercy. That was why Nicholas had chosen him as his constable. Surely if he knew the whole story...
But there was no time.
Nicholas clenched the constable’s arm, beseeching him with an earnest gaze, “Give us an hour. We’ve done no wrong. I swear. I’ll send you a missive from...wherever we go, revealing everything.”
“Damn it! I...” The constable shook off Nicholas’s grip, then rubbed his palm over the back of his neck in aggravation. “You’re putting me in an awkward position.”
“I know. But trust me just this once. Give me an hour.”
The constable’s mouth worked in indecision as he studied Nicholas’s eyes for any sign of trickery, but Nicholas continued to hold his forthright stare. Then he bit out a vile oath. “That body’s already as cold as a gravedigger’s arse, isn’t it?”
Nicholas nodded.
“And when we cut it down, see who ‘tis, there’ll be some hellish knot to untangle?”
“Possibly.”
“Shite.” With a final glance at the corpse hanging from the gallows, the constable blew out a weary breath. “One hour.”
With a brief sigh of relief and a nod of thanks, Nicholas turned to the executioner and called out, “’Tis your vigil this time.”
The executioner took up his post before the gallows to watch over the body for the prescribed hour.
Nicholas clapped a grateful hand on the constable’s shoulder. “I won’t forget you.”
The constable shook his head. “To hell with me,” he muttered pointedly. “Don’t forget your damned satchel.”
EPILOGUE
"A church?” Nicholas asked with a laugh.
Snug beneath the covers of their enormous bed, with a purring cat at her feet, Desirée made ticklish circles atop Nicholas’s chest with her fingertip. He seized her fingers, making her stop.
She’d expected, after their deception four months ago, they’d never be able to return to Canterbury. But after Nicholas sent his missive of explanation to the constable, the man had painstakingly unraveled Philomena’s fabric of lies, revealing the truth about the mischief at Torteval.
Lord William’s nephew, a decent man, had subsequently inherited the holding. At the constable’s suggestion, the new lord had seen that Desirée’s kidnappers were appropriately punished for their crime, and he’d issued writs of pardon for Desirée, Nicholas, and even Hubert. Ultimately, the constable, for all his hard work in Nicholas’s absence, was granted the position of shire-reeve of Kent.
Nicholas didn’t seem to mind, and Desirée couldn’t have been more pleased. They’d survived the last four months by fleeing to Winchester, where Nicholas had taken up his old trade as a butcher. A widowed noblewoman had offered Desirée a sizable sum to teach her three children to read and write.
But Desirée had begun to miss the walled cottage with the lovely garden and the warm hearth and the enormous bed, and so, at the new shire-reeve’s invitation, the two of them had returned to Canterbury.
That had been a fortnight ago, and now that they’d swept the cobwebs from the cottage, tended the overgrown garden, and frightened away the bed fleas with hours of impassioned trysting, they needed to find something to occupy their time and earn a living. A lawful living.
“Aye, a church at the crossroads,” she told him, turning in the bed to drape her leg coyly across his hips, making him grunt. “But not just an ordinary church.”
He lifted a brow. “A church built by a lawman and an outlaw.”
“Reformed outlaw.”
He gave her a dubious smirk, but she wasn’t discouraged. She knew with the right...distraction...she could talk him into anything.
She coiled a lock of hair at the nape of his neck around her finger. “’Twould be a refuge of sorts.”
“A refuge?”
“Aye, for foundlings, wayward orphans, unwanted bastards...”
He chuckled. “Like us?”
“Exactly.”
He snorted. “You’d have to build an entire village to house all the unwanted bastards.”
“They won’t be unwanted for long. We’ll reform them.”
“Reform them? Us?”
“Aye. You’ll deliver sermons to frighten them out of a life of crime.”
“I see.”
“And I’ll teach them survival skills.”
“Survival skills. You mean like Fast and Loose, Three Shells and a—?”
She yanked hard at his curl, making him grimace. “Nay. I mean cooking, sewing, counting, writing. Things that will make them useful.”
He frowned. “Useful to whom?”
She eyed his delectably muscled arm and decided to punctuate her answer with a path of kisses. “The townspeople. The nobles. The craftsmen. Anyone who will hire them for their keep.” She nuzzled his shoulder, placing a final kiss there. “Like you did for me, Nicholas.”
Her furry accomplice, Snowflake, chose that moment to clamber up the covers and give Nicholas’s jaw a coaxing nudge.
He grimaced and pushed the cat back on his haunches, giving him a thorough scratching.
“I spoke with the shire-reeve yesterday,” she cooed, walking her fingers up his arm, “and he said he’d be grateful for anything to reduce the crime in Canterbury.”
“Is that so? And is he willing to pay for this church of yours?” With Nicholas’s store of coins gone to cover the taxes of the poor, they had just enough to live on.
She snuggled against him, combing her fingers through his hair. “I don’t think we have to worry about that. Ever since the Miracle of the Gallows—“
“The what?” He stopped petting Snowflake, and the cat jumped off the bed.
“That’s what the townsfolk are calling it, you know. Evidently, ‘twas unbearable for them to consider they might have been gulled by sleight of hand. They’ve decided Philomena’s death on the Sabbath was some godly miracle of justice.”
“Mary, Mother of...”
She traced the shell of his ear with her fingertip, making him shiver. “So considering your newfound status as a miracle worker, I figure the citizens of Canterbury will be most happy to make ongoing...donations to your church.”
“You,” he said, arching his brow, “are an incorrigible thief.” He flinched. “And stop doing that.”
“What?” she teased, running her finger lightly over his ear. “This?”
With a growl, he rolled her onto her back, pinning her arms beside her head. She grinned. This was plea
sant distraction indeed.
“By the Rood, you’re a wicked lass.”
“On the contrary, miracle worker. Haven’t you heard? I’m practically a saint.” She arched her hips upward in a most unsaintly way.
He groaned as his loins stirred to life against her. “If you’re a saint, Desirée, then you must be the saint of unrequited desire.”
“Oh, is it requiting you want?” she teased.
His eyes smoldered with lust. “You know ‘tis.”
It was so difficult to resist him when Nicholas looked at her like that, all smoky and sultry and inviting, with his wry smile and his darkly twinkling eyes and that tempting lock of hair that insisted on falling across his brow. But she hadn’t won her battle yet.
“What do you say, Nicky?” she asked, coyly dipping her eyes. “Will you build me my church?”
He gave her a lopsided smile and sighed. “I’ll think about it.” Then his grin faded and his gaze softened. He released one of her wrists to stroke the side of her cheek. “And what do you say, my precious saint?” His touch was as gentle as spring rain, and his eyes glowed with affection. “Will you be my wife?”
Her lips quivered, and her eyes welled with joyful tears. His wife? She’d expected to be his maidservant and his mistress, but she’d never asked for more. His wife. She could think of nothing more perfect.
Still, she refused to surrender so easily, not while he yet owed her a church. She gave him a little shrug. “I’ll think about it.”
His brows shot up in surprise. Then he nudged her thighs apart with his own. “You think about it very...” He pressed his cock against her. “Hard.”
All her restraint dissolved then like mist in the wind. She knew Nicholas wouldn’t be able to say her nay, any more than she could resist him now. Happier than she’d ever been in her life, she embraced him with welcoming arms, opening her heart to him and offering him the haven of her body.
In return, he carried her off on a voyage to the very brink of heaven. As they strove together in selfless devotion, they left their sins far behind, and in the rarefied air of ecstasy, their spirits were reborn. The darkness of the past was forgotten, illuminated by the flames of their love. And all the promises they made in the depths of their passion, they kept, every single one.
Excerpt from PASSION’S EXILE
Rose let her gaze drift over the white wimples and gray habits of the nuns and pondered for the first time what life in a convent might be like. Now that she’d fled her betrothed, one of the options left her was joining a holy order. Most women her age shuddered at the thought. Internment in a convent was a common threat issued to wayward daughters. But Rose had heard favorable things about the church. In the service of the Lord, a woman might enjoy a great deal of freedom and, ‘twas rumored, aspire to great power.
And what of the disadvantages? As far as she could see, there were only two—celibacy and boredom. After the abomination she’d witnessed in the stable, celibacy seemed desirable. As for boredom...
She was still reflecting upon her future, absently stroking Wink, when her eye caught a flicker of silver from the darkest shadow in the deepest corner of the room.
She hadn’t noticed the man before. His black cloak and dark leather chausses made him seem part of the smoke-seasoned timbers of the inn. Even now she couldn’t see him well. His eyes were hidden by the hood of his cloak, which revealed only the lower half of his face—a grim mouth and a square, black-stubbled jaw—and yet somehow she felt he watched her.
A forbidding thrill shivered along her spine. She turned aside, raising her hand to her face so she could peer at the stranger in secret from behind her fingers.
His boots extended beneath the table in a lazy, almost insolent manner, and except for occasionally running a single finger along the rim of his cup, he scarcely moved. But when he lifted his arm to drink, she saw it again—the glint of metal.
Her heart bolted into her throat. He wore shackles. He was a criminal then. She’d heard about men like him, dangerous men who chose to go on pilgrimage as punishment for their crimes. She gulped. What might his villainy be? Theft? Adultery? Murder?
Maybe going on a pilgrimage hadn’t been such a wise decision after all.
But before she could change her mind, Father Peter clapped his hands together, calling for silence and summoning the pilgrims to draw near.
She rose from the table, and when she dared look again, she saw the man in shackles had come to his feet and thrown back his hood.
Her breath caught. He stood tall over most of the other pilgrims. The width of his shoulders and the breadth of his chest marked him as a man of uncommon strength. Candlelight illuminated the angled planes of his face, accentuating the hollow of his cheek and the depth of his brow. Dark hair slashed down in long, unruly locks over his forehead, shadowing his softly glimmering eyes.
Rose swallowed a rough knot of fear as she glanced at the irons shackling his wrists, wondering if the length of heavy chain slung between the thick cuffs would hold.
Father Peter spoke, issuing instructions for the pilgrimage, but she didn’t hear a word. All her attention was focused on the dark figure that seemed to reign over the room.
He must have sensed her scrutiny, for in the next moment, he slowly turned his head until he stared at her as intently as she watched him. His brow furrowed, and his mouth hardened as he studied her in a bold, leisurely manner from head to toe. His gaze commanded her own, for try as she might, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from him.
Yet ‘twas more than fear that held her. Something in his glittering eyes excited her, challenged her, aroused her. He was absolutely beautiful, sinfully so, she realized, more striking than any man she’d ever seen. But there was something terrible in his beauty, some dark secret that lodged within the handsome confines of his form.
His eyes narrowed upon her for a long moment, as if they delved into her soul. Her heart raced, her breath grew shallow, her knees weakened. Overwhelmed by a mysterious, powerful shock she couldn’t name, she gripped the table to steady herself. When he finally looked away, so intrusive and lasting was the impact of his gaze that Rose felt as if she’d been violated.
Blade scowled in the direction of the priest, his heart pounding far too forcefully. That woman, the one with the half-blind falcon, had unsettled him. And he was unaccustomed to being unsettled.
"Look penitent," Wilham hissed beside him.
Blade made the attempt, but soon the curious furrow crept back between his brows.
He’d spied the lass the instant she’d walked through the door, arriving on a stream of sunlight like an angel alighting from heaven. Her rare beauty had astonished him, and he wasn’t a man easily astonished. She was as small and slim as a child, yet she possessed enough womanly curves to be the mistress of a king. Her snug white underdress, exposed in the slits of a sideless surcoat the color of ripe cherries, revealed a delectable form that sent his heart racing and his thoughts spiraling along all manner of sins.
Her features were as delicate as a fawn’s, yet strong and pure in color. Her skin was pale and smooth, like cream, her lips the hue of summer wine. Fine black brows arched over impossibly enormous eyes of a curious color he couldn’t distinguish. And tumbling down past the swell of her hip, unbound sleek black tresses as shiny as satin reflected the flickering firelight.
But ‘twas more than her beauty that snared his eye.
She didn’t belong here. ‘Twas plain in the nervous darting of her glance. She was as out of place amidst the milling pilgrims as a lily in a field of thistles.
Where were her things? he wondered. Noblewomen always insisted on packing chests of clothing, necessities they claimed they couldn’t live without, even if they ventured but a day’s ride from their home. Despite the rich velvet of her surcoat and the quality of the fine silver chain and small polished carbuncle that dripped tantalizingly upon her bosom, this woman appeared to possess nothing but the garments she wore and the falcon. How coul
d she have planned to journey to St. Andrews without provisions?
Wilham elbowed him. "At least feign to listen," he muttered.
Blade lifted his head and attempted to focus on the fat priest jabbering on about rules and lodging and the sanctity of pilgrimage, but soon his mind wandered again. He lifted a hand, wincing at the clank of the chains, and scratched at his brow so he might peek at the woman between his fingers.
God’s breath, she was dazzling. Her attention was upon the Holy Father now, but by the rapid rise and fall of her bosom, ‘twas clear she was ill-at-ease. He slowly perused her again from top to bottom, lifting a brow at the state of her attire. Her gown might be made of costly velvet, but there was a small tear at the inside of one sleeve, the hem was muddy, and the lower quarter of her skirt was littered with bits of dry grass. What mischief had the lass been up to?
Everyone around him murmured, "Amen." He belatedly echoed the sentiment. Then the mob began gathering their possessions and shambling toward the door.
"Seven miles a day," Wilham said, shaking his head. "‘Tis a snail’s pace."
Blade slung his pack over his shoulder and tried to purge the entrancing angel from his thoughts, scrutinizing the pilgrims one by one as they filed past. There were two scheming culprits in their ranks, and he didn’t have much time to find them.
"‘Twould take us two days on horseback," Wilham complained, shouldering his own burden.
Blade grunted, not really listening. Who could the perpetrators be? Who looked capable of such villainy? The lass in red glanced fleetingly over at him again. Could she be an assassin? ‘Twas unthinkable. She had the sweet countenance of a cherub. Still, he was wise enough to know a bonnie face oft hid a black heart.
"Well," Wilham sighed, "at least we’ll be comfortable enough tonight—dinin’ on spun sugar and sleepin’ with hot-blooded nuns."
Blade absently nodded, then drew his brows together. Never mind the angel with the ebony hair, he chided himself. That brawny man with the week’s growth of beard and the threadbare cloak had a ruthless edge to his stare. Was he a killer?
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