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  “Excellent,” he replied.

  Isabel watched the knight walk away, then she faced Father Aldon. “What is in Derbyshire?” she asked, this being the first she had heard of the apparent planned stop.

  “Nothing you need fret about, my child.”

  She did not trust his subtly patronizing tone, or the strange little smile he tried to hide behind the rim of his cup as he took a sip of his wine. Suddenly, Griffin's words of caution in Hexford's solar came back to her . . .

  You trust him--a man you know nothing about--more than you trust me?

  Looking at Father Aldon now, Isabel was not sure she trusted him at all. He had seemed so kind in Hexford's chapel, so understanding. So willing to help.

  Too willing, Isabel was beginning to think.

  She considered the gown of fine sendal that the priest insisted she wear for the ride, the dove-white color and delicate gold braiding at the hem and neckline seeming more fit for court than travel. Even her shoes winked with shiny metallic threads. She had been made to dress like a bride on her way to the altar, an observation that did not seem so alarming before, but now, in light of where she was heading--to Derbyshire, a favored lair of Prince John--Isabel weathered a prickle of ice-cold anxiety.

  Was she garbed as a bride . . . or a sacrifice?

  “You mentioned last eve that you had arranged a special escort for me, Father,” Isabel said, interrupting the old priest's enjoyment of a chunk of aromatic cheese. “Does this escort await in Derbyshire?”

  He looked up from his food, his wiry brows rising on his forehead. “Yes, child. We will be met there, just as I said.”

  “By whom?” she questioned, heedless of her challenging tone. “Dominic of Droghallow, or Prince John himself?”

  Father Aldon nearly choked on his mouthful of crumbly cheese. He started coughing, his lined face turning red, his hand clawing out to clutch his cup of wine. He took a long swallow, then, when it appeared that he could breathe again, he leveled a watery-eyed glare on Isabel. “I am pledged to serve my liege, my lady. I must act in accordance with the prince's best interests.”

  “The prince's best interests? I thought you were pledged to serve God.”

  The old priest merely chuckled at her hot retort. “Perhaps the horses are rested enough to continue on after all,” he remarked casually, snapping his fingers to call forth one of the knights. “The lady is growing fatigued with our company, I fear. Saddle our mounts so that we may be on our way, will you?”

  The soldier obeyed without question, carrying out Father Aldon's orders as if he knew the priest's commands came on higher authority. Isabel watched the guardsmen prepare the horses, mentally berating herself for not seeing Father Aldon's duplicity sooner. Cursing herself for placing her trust in anyone besides Griffin.

  Dieu, and what of Griffin? Isabel thought with a sudden, sinking dread. Had her foolishness endangered him as well? She prayed not. Hopefully he was leagues away from Hexford by now, well out of Dom's reach and following his own path. Just as she would have to follow hers, by way of Derbyshire, it would seem.

  She mounted up as directed, being careful to appear somewhat cooperative while inwardly she watched her escorts' every move and plotted her best odds of escape. With three of them against her, two of them armed to the teeth, she would never elude them on the road. And to wait until they arrived at Derbyshire would be the gravest folly.

  Factoring out and discarding nearly a half dozen hazardous plans, Isabel had all but given up hope when suddenly she heard something that made her pause. Someone was calling her name. It was a distant sound, so faint she wondered if she had really heard it at all. She turned to look behind her and then she saw him.

  Griffin.

  He was riding toward them at breakneck speed, a more welcome sight Isabel had never seen in all her days. Her heart elated, relieved beyond words, she bit her lip to keep from crying out her joy.

  Father Aldon was far less enthused. He hissed a surprisingly vivid curse the instant his gaze lit on Griffin. “Get rid of him,” he ordered the Hexford guards. “Now!”

  “No!” Isabel cried. She turned to see the priest's savage expression, horrified by the murderous intent she saw gleaming in his eyes.

  “Damn it,” he growled. “What are you idiots waiting for? Somebody kill the bastard already!”

  One of the knights reached for his crossbow and began to load it.

  Isabel's heart lurched when she realized the guard's intent. “No!” she cried. “Oh, God, no! Leave him alone! Don't hurt him, I beg you!”

  “Do it!” commanded Father Aldon.

  “He's too far away,” complained the bowman as he took aim on Griffin's approaching form. “That's it, keep coming, ye bastard. He'll be close enough in a moment.”

  “Griffin, no!” Isabel shouted, pivoting back to face him and heartsick to see him galloping forward so urgently. “No, stay back!”

  “Shut her up,” the priest ordered.

  When the other guard moved to knit her in, Isabel jerked her horse's reins and wheeled the beast around. The knight made a grab for her, but she eluded his reach, dodging away when he swung his arm out to snag her.

  “Griffin!” she cried. “Turn around! You must go back!”

  With a burst of sheer determination, Isabel broke out of the guards' tight ranks. She slapped the reins against her palfrey's flank, sending the horse into a dead run.

  “Get her!” bellowed Father Aldon. “God's blood, get the both of them, damn you!”

  Isabel rode as if her very life depended on it. In truth, it did. If anything were to happen to Griffin, she would simply die. She had to save him. “Griffin, go back!” she screamed, panicked to the depths of her soul.

  Behind her some untold yards, she heard the Hexford knight's dooming words: “He's close enough. I've got him now!”

  Isabel's heart was in her throat as her palfrey sped on. She kicked her mount into a hard gallop, feeling the landscape whiz past her in a breezy blur of color and eerie, expectant silence. Ahead of her, Griffin had finally hauled on the reins and pulled his mount to a halt.

  But he did not turn away.

  Heaven help him, but now he was just standing there, watching Isabel ride toward him. “Griffin, go back!” She rode harder, determined to reach him. Determined to spare him in whatever way she could.

  Distantly, she heard the guard release the trigger, the staccato snap of the crossbow being discharged ringing like a clap of thunder in her ears.

  She begged her horse to run faster, pleaded with God to deliver Griffin from the bolt's lethal path.

  Suddenly, she saw Griffin glance past her, saw his expression freeze and turn to stark alarm. She thought she heard him call her name, thought she heard him tell her to watch out. But she was not concerned for herself. He was all that mattered. She had to reach him in time.

  Heaven help her, she had to.

  Isabel raced on, close enough to see his face clearly now, close enough to see his fear, close enough to hear him say, “My lady! Oh, God, Isabel! No!”

  She felt something strike her from behind, a breath-stealing jolt that knocked her forward against her palfrey's neck. She felt the searing burn of torn flesh, the liquid heat of blood seeping out of her, trickling down her side. She felt her world tilt crazily, felt the ground come up beneath her, enveloping her in a blanket of fluffy, soundless darkness.

  And then she felt nothing at all.

  Chapter 18

  “No!” Griffin's anguished, animal roar tore out of him like a living thing when Isabel lurched forward and fell from her saddle. He could not believe what he was seeing, could not accept what had just happened in that terrible moment.

  Isabel had been struck.

  The stunning horror of that realization took hold of him with icy talons as he spurred the roan and raced to the spot where she lay. He jerked back on the horse's reins, staring down in fury and helpless despair at Isabel's crumpled form as his mount reared beside her.
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  “Isabel!”

  He said her name again--his voice strangled, urgent--but she did not so much as stir. She was so still. So lifeless. A dark, wet stain had begun to soak the grassy earth beneath her.

  Blood.

  Isabel's blood, spilled to save him.

  Damnation, she had done this--she had knowingly put herself in the arrow's path--for him!

  Griffin's self-loathing was matched in that moment only by his profane contempt for Father Aldon, the man who had pledged his protection, then delivered Isabel into peril. Griff's angry gaze snapped up, locking on the old priest. Aldon must have sensed the heat of that murderous stare across the distance of the field, for he immediately wheeled his mount around and gave it his heels, pausing only long enough to shout an order to the two Hexford guards to finish Griffin off.

  While the bowman nocked another bolt and took aim, Griffin charged forward. His stolen Hexford mount had the benefit of its dead owner's shield fastened to its saddle; Griff made good use of the boon, yanking the kite of leather-bound wood free and raising it--just in time to deflect the arrow's swift assault. He shouted a war cry as he drew his sword and bore down on his attackers.

  The bowman who shot Isabel fell first. Griff smashed the crossbow up with the flat of his blade while the knight struggled to reload. The guard then fumbled for his sword, but it was an effort made too late to save himself. Griffin brought the razor-sharp edge of his weapon down hard into the man's side, nearly cleaving him in two.

  The second knight was on Griff at the same time, coming at him from his left, less than an arm's length away, weapon slicing toward him. Griffin caught the movement in the corner of his eye and pivoted in his saddle, meeting the first blow with the broad face of the Hexford shield. The heavy blade skidded off the shield and narrowly missed biting into Griff's thigh, an irritation that only heightened his rage. While the knight made to strike again, Griffin brought his sword around and thrust it forward, an unforgiving jab to the guard's midsection. The Hexford soldier froze in shock, then toppled off his horse with a pained gurgle, likely dead even before he hit the ground.

  The two knights dispatched to the Hereafter, Griffin wheeled his huffing mount around and headed after the fast-retreating Father Aldon. It did not take long to catch up. The priest's flowing mantle billowing behind him like a red velvet sail, he threw a quick glance over his shoulder as Griffin gained on him. Griff leaned in, blood pounding furiously as he approached and came up alongside. He reached out, latching a hold of the rippling waves of Aldon's cloak and jerking the old man out of his saddle. Griff threw him down, then reined in his mount and leapt to the ground.

  “Stay away,” gasped the priest as he rolled to his back and faced Griffin's wrathful expression. He crossed himself, then held up his skinned, trembling palms in surrender. “Stay away, I say! I am a man of God!”

  “Then prepare to meet Him.” Towering over the panic-stricken clergyman, Griff withdrew his dagger.

  Eyes bulging, Father Aldon let out a shriek of terror. When he tried to scrabble away, Griffin placed his boot firmly on the edge of his robes, pinning him to the spot. “P-please, sir!” Aldon sputtered. “Have mercy--I beg you!”

  Griff fisted his hand in the old man's vestments and wrenched him to his feet. The dagger's slim blade rested flat against the Father's jaw. He swallowed hard, his knobby throat scraping the edge of the knife. One flick of his wrist, Griff thought, and the treacherous priest would join Isabel's other assailants. Aldon had earned his death, to be sure.

  “Please,” Father Aldon sobbed. “Please. Have mercy.” He was shaking now, voice robbed by fear, mouthing the word, “Please,” over and over again.

  Griffin stared at him in disgust, this weak man with a heart so vile, so corrupt, he could turn it against an innocent woman for his own selfish gain. It struck him that the same could have easily been said of him. The thought sickened him. Sobered him.

  Who was he to judge this man? Who was he to judge anyone? Isabel's blood was on his hands just as much as it was on Father Aldon's. Perhaps more so.

  Griffin let out a sigh and relaxed his hold, letting the dagger slowly fall away from Aldon's neck. “Be gone.”

  “M-my lord?”

  “Get out of my sight, priest,” Griff ordered coolly. “Tell Lackland you failed him in this. Ask him for mercy and see how far it will take you.”

  The priest stumbled back a pace, but his eyes remained wide and fearful, his panic only seeming to deepen as Griffin's offer sunk in. He no doubt knew that being granted his freedom now was merely another sort of death sentence. One to be meted out by Prince John's own order if the Father was fool enough to return to Derbyshire without his prize. Griffin doubted the cagey old priest would be so naïve about the prospect of his own welfare. Either way, he was certain this would be the last he would see of Father Aldon.

  Griff hardly noticed when the priest turned and ran. His thoughts focused entirely on Isabel, he swung back onto his horse and hastened to her side, praying for the best and dreading what he might find.

  She had not moved in the slightest, still in the place where she had fallen, looking so small and fragile. So lifeless. Griff jumped off his mount and rushed to where she lay, dropping to his knees in the grass beside her and gingerly turning her over. His hand came away sticky and crimson-red.

  “My lady,” he whispered. “Ah, God.”

  So much blood. It covered most of her left arm and spread in a deep, ugly stain across the front of her creamy white gown. He lifted the edge of her mantle and carefully laid the fabric aside. Isabel moaned as he gathered her up to inspect the damage wrought by the crossbow bolt, the faint sound and weak breath she drew into her lungs flooding Griffin with profound relief.

  She was alive at least. Thank God for that.

  Lying in his arms, Isabel began to stir. She sucked in a broken breath of air, her eyelids fluttering open weakly. “Griffin,” she gasped, then said his name again, her voice thready, urgent.

  “Shh, my lady,” he said softly, taking her hand in his when she reached out for him. “I am here.”

  “Did they . . . hurt . . . “ She swallowed, blinked slowly, and tried with obvious effort to force the breath out of her lungs once more. “Tried to . . . save you.”

  “I know.” Griff shook his head, humbled as he gazed down at her. “I know what you did, brave little fool.”

  “I'm very tired,” she said in a small voice, her eyelids drifting closed. “I'm just . . . so . . . very tired.”

  Shock was descending on her quickly. Griff knew he had to act with haste. He had to get her wound cleaned and bound and get her warm. “Don't worry,” he told her softly. “Don't worry, Isabel. I'm going to take care of you. I promise.”

  Scooping her up into his arms, Griffin got to his feet and carried Isabel to his waiting mount. She hardly roused as he shifted her weight to one arm and stepped into the stirrup, settling her onto his lap atop the roan's broad back. Holding her limp body against him, he smoothed a damp tendril of hair from her brow and placed his lips to her cool skin. “You're going to be all right, Isabel,” he whispered, his voice rough and fierce with raw emotion. He had to clear his throat to dislodge the lump of pain that threatened to choke him.

  “Please, God,” he begged of the heavens above him. “Let her be all right.”

  Chapter 19

  “I thought you said he was your puppet, Droghallow.”

  John Plantagenet leaned back in his wide, ornately-carved and cushioned chair at the high table of his residence in Derby and eyed Dom over his short, steepled fingers. “Your puppet, you said, and yet your foster brother seems to be the one pulling all the strings in this recent debacle of yours.”

  Dom weathered the criticism with a look of polite, if unfazed, confidence. He was none too pleased to have been summoned to a royal scolding with the prince, particularly when it would call him away from the rousing bedsport he had been enjoying with Felice at Droghallow. “He has eluded cap
ture thus far,” he admitted, “but we will find him, Your Grace. My men are searching every corner of the realm as we speak. He won't get far.”

  Lackland looked less than convinced. “Would that I had not allowed you to persuade me to let you choose the man for this job,” he complained, his dark wiry brows furrowing into a scowl. “I warned you that he was too arrogant, too brash to be entrusted with a matter of this importance. I warrant you have let your hatred for him cloud your judgment, Droghallow.”

  Mayhap he had, Dom reflected as he stared at the king's brother. Although John Plantagenet surely knew what it was like to despise his own kin, Dom doubted anyone would understand the seething contempt he harbored for Griffin, the orphaned nobody who had been found at Droghallow's gates when Dom was just five years old. He was golden even then--a brawny, smiling babe with sparkling green eyes and a crown of bright curls.

  Dom had hated him on sight.

  He could still remember his outrage when his stepmother brought the swaddled infant into the castle early one summer morn. Dom had been pleading unsuccessfully with his father to take him on the day's hunt when Alys and two of her maids burst into the solar, full of giggling female excitement. At the sight of his beloved new bride, Robert of Droghallow all but ignored his son, eagerly turning his attention to the three chattering women and the strange little bundle that Alys carried in her arms. Dom had glanced up with sullen irritation, not at all interested in what new wonder might have had his young stepmother so lit up.

  Until he saw a plump pink fist thrust upward from the loosened wrappings.

  “A baby, my lord!” Alys had told her husband in breathless awe. “I found him lying just outside the gates when I went to deliver alms to the village. I think he's been abandoned, poor dearling. Is he not the most precious thing you've ever seen?”

  Dom thought he was probably just a peasant's castoff, a commoner's leavings, not so unlike the mangy runt pup he had tried to take in that spring past, only to be refused by his father who worried that the mongrel would bring his disease and filth into Droghallow. Instead of gaining a boy's first pet, Dom had been made to toss the pup in a grain sack filled with stones and drown it in the river. He had not dared disobey his father's cruel orders, no matter how it destroyed him to have to carry them out. For months afterward--in truth, at times, even still--Dominic heard those helpless, muffled whimpers in his dreams.