by Kris Kennedy
“I know where this thing you seek lies.”
Chapter 16
He held motionless for one second, then burst off the ground, pulling her with him. He lifted them to their feet, but kept an arm around her back, holding her close.
“Where?” he demanded.
“Back at Rose Citadel.”
Back in the castle? Back in the godforsaken castle?
His arm tightened around her spine. “Is this a trick?”
“No.” It was more whisper than word. “I swear it.”
He smiled faintly. Bitterly. He was not in the habit of trusting people or believing in any oaths except the one he’d pledged to his dying father. But he had few options, and this woman may hold the key to his success.
But that did not mean he had to make it easy on her. And he surely did not trust her. She was her father’s daughter, and that meant treachery.
He slid his hand to the back of her head. “Now ’tis my turn to tutor you in having an Irish conversation.”
She lifted her chin, all defiance and beauty…and trickery?
“Tell me what you know,” he said softly.
“I know nothing of what foul dish you and my father have cooked up—”
“No. About my sword.”
Her body shifted but she did not try to move away. “Recently my father spoke of a sword that had come into his possession.”
Máel’s hands tightened. Come into his possession. The passivity of it infuriated, the way it sounded as if his sword had been magically transported into d’Argent’s coffers. He stilled the urge to smash something into small, broken bits.
“What did he say of it? How do you know it is mine?”
“He said it was a large sword. Very large.”
“And?”
“That it was old.”
“And?”
“It had a black pearl in the hilt.”
“And?”
“That there were spells wound about it.” Her eyes reflected moonlight as she stared up at him. “I do not know what sort of spells.”
“The sort that destroys Englishmen.”
She started, just a small thing, but it made her shift under his hands. He tightened his grip to prevent another mad chase through the woods.
“Anything else?”
“He said it was worth more than a small kingdom.” She paused. “He said it was worth more than me.”
“He’s right.”
That did make her struggle, but it was short-lived as he clamped his arm around the small of her back. “Anything else?”
She inhaled deeply, pushing her breasts up against his armor. “He mentioned it would come in useful.”
“Useful how?”
She shook her head. “I do not know his purposes. But I…I heard him speak of the king.” Her voice dropped lower, as if she was reluctant to reveal what came next. “I thought perhaps—”
“Perhaps what?”
“Perhaps he was going to turn it over the Crown to assist in paying King Richard’s ransom,” she said in a rush.
“The king?” he repeated incredulously.
“Yes. His ransom is 150,000 marks. All of England is being tapped to raise the money. Everyone must contribute, and my father…” she cleared her throat delicately, “…has found it difficult to comply. But whatever else he may be, whatever your opinion of him—or me—my father is a loyal king’s man, and he would turn this thing over to get King Richard back.”
Máel gave a harsh laugh.
Her forehead furrowed. He looked away, over her shoulder, his mind turning.
In no version of this tale would d’Argent turn the sword over to the Crown. Not to secure a ransom payment that would return the very king he was conspiring to overthrow.
But he might well be planning to turn it over to Prince John.
A great gift, born of betrayal, would go a long way in proving his loyalty to his new master.
It was precisely the sort of thing d’Argent would do.
And precisely the sort of thing that would make him reluctant to give it up if his new alliance depended on it.
Even if his daughter’s life also did.
Which was exactly why Máel must be swift and lethal in his response, for if Moralltach made it into the hands of a prince, or a king, he would never get it back.
He inhaled a slow, calming breath and stared up at the latticework of intersecting tree limbs. Her gaze was waiting for him when he brought it down again.
“So you mean to have me go back into the castle,” he said, “through rebels and king’s men, through soldiers and swords and pikes?”
“If that is where it lies.”
“That is a poor plan.”
“Have you a better one?”
Again, with his lack of planning.
“Of course, I could go alone, if that would help...,” she suggested, sounding hopeful.
He did not smile. Instead, he brushed her hair back and dipped his head, to whisper directly into her ear, “If you are lying, Cassia. it will not go well for you.”
She turned her head the barest inch required to meet his eyes. “I am noble,” she whispered back. “I do not lie.”
Her gaze burned with the light of truth.
But the real truth was, she did not yet know her line in the sand. Everyone had one. A boundary, a perimeter after which nothing mattered. And everyone, when pushed over it, became something other. Something worse.
She would too.
He dropped his hands. “How fortunate. I have found the only honorable peer in the realm. Let’s go.”
Chapter 17
Released from the bondage of his gentle, ironclad hold, and his relentless gaze, Cassia drew a deep breath and tugged on her skirts, straightening them.
She did not like Irish conversations.
But this one had secured her release. She’d bargained with an outlaw and it had paid off. She felt a small touch of pride as she gave her gown one last brush.
“I could not agree more,” she said coldly. “Let us go at once.” She turned to march off.
He caught the edge of her gown between two fingers. “Not so fast.”
“No, we must be quite fast,” she disagreed. “I must return at once.”
Return to normalcy. To feasts and wine and men who complimented her and did not hold her hostage. Men who did not awaken powerful desire in her body. Men who did not use her.
As Father does.
The thought flitted through her mind like the beat of wings, but it just a baby bird’s wings, the faintest flutter. And thus it was easy to set aside, seeing as the man holding her tunic exuded a much stronger presence.
The eyes staring down at her were as hard and dark as the black pearl she’d seen glimmering in the hilt of the sword her father had shown her six weeks ago. The same night he’d informed her they were traveling north, to a grand tournament at Rose Citadel.
The night he told her she would be offered as the prize in a joust.
“You will be wed to one of the greatest knights in the realm,” he’d said.
And she’d thought, “I will be out from under your thumb.”
The notion had reconciled her to the reduced circumstances of marrying a knight without a title. Dreams of chivalry burned bright in her mind. A man to honor and protect her. To esteem her above all else.
After all, she’d consoled herself, once we are wed, he will indeed be noble.
And a chivalrous knight would not gamble her future away, as her father had.
She recalled how her father laid the huge sword on the dais table that night. How golden light flashed across its steel blade, even in the dim firelight of their cavernous, empty great hall, where echoes skidded along the stone walls, as if something were always running away.
She reached out to touch the beautiful thing, inlaid with lines of silver and the flat, black stone in the hilt.
“Where did you get this?” she asked. The echoes of her question chased the echo
of steel down the stone corridors. Always fleeing.
“A gamble paid off,” her father replied, pride in his voice.
She looked up sharply at that. It was not surprising her father had gambled; it was surprising he’d won. He was an inveterate gambler, but he was an even more inveterate loser. Thus the almost-empty castle with the running-away echoes. Thus the poverty masked by a title: Baron of Ware.
Sadly, all the title earned her father was another chance to lose something that mattered.
Once he’d come home shirtless and bootless. Once he’d come home without a hunting lodge. Once he’d come home without her dowry.
She much preferred when he did not come home at all.
But he’d returned just the same, six weeks ago, bearing this grand sword and news of a joust for her hand, and seemed happier than he had in a decade. Almost exultant. Hectically so. He chuckled and smiled, indulged in conversation with her as he had not done for years—“I am having the solar roof repaired,” and “There are rumors Prince John has been spotted in England,” and “I have ordered more peppercorn; you will like that.” Random, meaningless bits of information.
But the thing that assured her he was in some strange mood was how he’d been tolerant of her questions.
Incessant, he usually called them. “Must you know everything?” he would complain. But not that night. He’d indulged her questions, even as he kept eyeing the sword, reaching out to touch it over and over, as if it did indeed cast some spell.
“This will come in very useful,” he’d murmured. “A king’s ransom indeed.”
Which may explain why he had tried to murder the Irishman for demanding it back. The Irishman who now held her tunic—and her life—in his hands.
“I am sorry to disappoint, lady,” Máel said, “but we cannot go back to the castle right now, not with you looking like a ban sidhe—”
She blinked. “A what?”
“—In the dark, after curfew. We will never get in. The gates are locked. There will be questions.”
“I am the Lady of Ware,” she announced.
“Not tonight you’re not. Not until we get my sword back. Until then, you are mine.”
They looked at each other, then she lifted her chin. “Well then, where are we going?”
“I told you. Into the wild.” He swept out a hand, for all the world as if he was ushering her into a great hall.
She gathered her gown and took a regal step forward, then felt a wrenching pain in her ankle. She drew up.
He sighed and wiped his hand over his face. “If you’re going to run, my lady, do so now, so that we may get it over with.”
“I am not going to run,” she retorted, as if this were some absurd notion of his. “I am simply gathering my wits.”
Truthfully, she would never have run in the first place if she’d known what a dense, terrifying place the forest was. In the songs and tales, they were places of romance and adventure.
She decided she’d lost all appetite for adventure.
She tried to march off again, but her ankle gave out immediately. She stumbled and would have fallen if his arms hadn’t been there, catching her, lifting her back to her feet.
“Your ankle?” he surmised grimly.
“Is perfectly fine.”
“Is it? For it looks as if you wrenched it, to be honest, running like a ban sidhe through the woods.”
“Oh yes, by all means let us be honest,” she snapped, ignoring the way the rich, indecipherable Irish words sounded so perfectly fitting for a moonlit night in a ghostly forest.
They looked at each other, then down at her ankle. She either walked on it, which would take a very long time, or he carried her. Which would kill her.
Judging by the look in his eye, he was realizing this as well, and was equally unhappy. Perhaps because he feared she might stab him. Which she might. If only she had a blade. She would have to see about getting her hands on one.
He tilted his head back as if offering a prayer. Mayhap something about women and never being so foolish as to hostage one again.
She decided if her life served that one purpose, it would suffice.
He sighed and, without a word of warning, bent and scooped her into his arms.
She screamed.
“Hush,” he ordered and started walking.
She beat on him with her fists.
He stopped short. “I can set you down now, Cassia, and you can stumble over the ruts, or you can quiet your self and let me do this thing for you. Which I very much do not want to do.”
She lifted her chin. “I would rather stumble through a briar patch than—”
“Think of your gown,” he interrupted ominously.
She stilled. This gown had cost four pounds. More than her clothing allowance for the past five years. It had been purchased specifically for the tournament.
She and the blackguard glared at each other, their faces very close, seeing as she was being cradled in his arms. One powerful arm was behind her back, the other hooked under her knees. Places no man’s arms—or any other part of a man—had ever touched.
She turned her face away and pointed. “Very well. Go then. Walk.”
He strode, shifting her in his arms, which made her roll about. “Stop ordering me about, lass, or I’ll drop you on your arse right here.” Then he gave a low, piercing whistle.
She clutched at him. “Who are you calling to?”
“Fury.”
“Is that one of your bandit companions?” she whispered.
His eyes met hers. “What makes you think I have bandit companions?”
“You seem the sort,” she confided. “Are we going to your…lair?“
“Lair?”
“Do you not have a lair?”
“I do not have a lair.” He paused. “I have a cave.”
“Caves can be lairs,” she pointed out, still whispering, and craned her neck to peer over his shoulder.
“Know a lot about lairs, do you?”
“I have heard of them.”
“Where?”
“In the chansons the minstrels recite, they speak of bandit lairs. I translated one myself, and it distinctly said—”
He stopped short. “You translated a romance about a bandit lair?”
“There were things in the tale other than the lair,” she told him loftily. “Although I’m sure yours is a very nice lair,” she added, not wishing to anger him.
“Lass, my lair is by the sea, a hundred or more miles gone from here, and I am far too weary to take you there tonight.”
She send up a swift, silent prayer of thanks.
“I am taking you to a river so we can eat, and I can wash. Then we are going to sleep. Then we are going to get my sword back.”
“And then you will release me?”
He nodded. “You will never have to see nor think of me again.”
“My fondest wish.”
“And mine.”
“We are aligned in our purposes.”
“Aye.”
“Good.”
“Aye.”
“Excellent,” she said more forcefully.
“Aye.”
She frowned. “Stop saying ‘aye.’”
He hefted her in his arms, making her roll about. “You simply wish to get in the last word.”
She snapped her face forward, determined not to speak another word to the beast. A moment later, she muttered, “Hmmph.”
“That counts,” he said quietly.
“As does that,” she retorted.
She couldn’t tell, but it looked as if he might have smiled.
Underbrush crackled in the distance, the sound growing closer. Footsteps thumped on the loamy earth behind them, then, from out of the woods, appeared his horse.
She sagged in his arms and aimed a disgusted look his way. “You could have told me Fury was a horse.”
“I wanted to hear about the bandit lairs.”
The horse trotted up, tossing his he
ad and snorting. He seemed quite happy to be reunited with his evil master.
Said evil master patted the horse’s neck, spoke a gentle Irish word, then began walking again. The horse ambled along behind as if his owner wasn’t carrying a wounded woman in his arms.
Perhaps this sort of thing happened all the time.
“You could put me on the horse,” she pointed out.
His gaze swung to her. “Could I?”
“Indeed. It would be easier and—”
“How fast do you think you could run away on a horse?”
She pressed her lips tight and said no more.
They left the ruined little track behind, her spirits sinking like a rock in a pond. Trees towered on every side, draped with vines and moss.
He moved through them quite comfortably, even with her in his arms, as if she weighed no more than a basket of rose petals. She wondered briefly if Sir Bennett could do so, with his weak ankles.
“Do you know these woods?” she asked.
“I know all woods.”
That was not remotely reassuring.
The land began to rise. The climb grew steeper, then the land stopped abruptly at an edge as high as a cliff. Below stretched a ravine, like a cloven hoof pressed into the center of the dense forest. At the bottom was a clearing, banded by trees, and farther on, the river.
His arm tightened, pressing her closer to his body. “Hold on,” he warned.
She gave a cry of alarm then he leapt over the lip of the hill and, because he was a madman, followed a trajectory straight down the side of the steep hill.
Bits of earth and pebbles shot out from beneath his boots as he all but loped down the hill, her in his arms.
“Are you mad?” she gasped, clinging desperately to him.
“Hold tight,” he said, as if she would not, then he let go of her with one arm and reached back, dragging his gloved hand behind him as they galloped down the hill, his horse following valiantly after.
He and the horse were both full mad.
Somehow they got to the bottom.
“You a’right, lass?” he asked.
She could barely draw breath. “Yes, of course. I do that sort of thing regularly.”
He exhaled a small breath that could be laughter but was more likely irritation, and strode with her across the clearing to a mossy, downed log, where he dumped her, quite unceremoniously.