White Lion's Lady Page 19

  A strong hand cupped the base of her skull, warm fingers threading through her hair. A gentle arm eased her back down. “I'm here, Isabel. Be quiet now. You're all right.”

  “Oh, Griffin,” she gasped, so relieved to hear his voice. So glad to know he was at her side.

  Her eyes beginning to adjust to the gloom, she could see him now, his face taking shape through the dark--just the barest hint of the harsh planes of his cheeks, his stern jaw and chin, his mouth, set in a grim line of concern. The rest of him was nearly obscured by the blackness of the place, but he was there.

  He was whole and hale.

  And he was with her.

  Isabel settled at once, breathing a heavy sigh as her limbs and heart relaxed, her fear slowly dissipating so long as Griffin was there beside her. “Where are . . .” she said, then swallowed and tried again. “What is this place? Were we captured?”

  “No,” Griffin whispered. He smoothed her brow with the backs of his knuckles, a tender gesture that was there and gone much too soon for her liking. “We're safe,” he told her, an odd distance creeping into his voice as he withdrew his touch and sat back on his heels next to her. “We're in a forest cave on the outskirts of Derbyshire. No one will find us here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I am. This cave has had no inhabitants for centuries, by the looks of it. I doubt I would have seen it myself if my mount had not been startled by a darting hare just outside.” She felt movement next to her as he lifted something and brought it toward her face. “Open your mouth,” he instructed. “It's water. Drink.”

  Isabel parted her lips and let the cool liquid pass between her teeth. It tasted as crisp and clean as the spring he must have taken it from, a welcome draught that immediately quenched and soothed her dry throat.

  “Easy,” Griffin whispered, but in her thirst she took too much, too fast, and ended up coughing. The jarring of her body sent a stab of pain through her wounded arm. She winced, sucking in a sharp hiss of air. Griffin set the cup aside and held her head up until the spasm subsided. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Isabel nodded faintly and reached for his hand. She caught his fingers in hers and held them before he could withdraw from her again. “Griffin, I'm sorry. The things I said to you at Hexford . . . I should have never--”

  “My lady,” he interrupted softly. “Don't apologize.”

  But Isabel ignored his polite dismissal, determined to say what was on her mind. “I do apologize, for everything. And I thank you. I don't know what I would have done had you not come after me.”

  He exhaled a wry-sounding laugh. “I nearly didn't have the chance, truth be told. It seems Aldon had heard we were being sought by Dom and Prince John. He had plans to turn me over to Droghallow's soldiers while he took you directly to Lackland.”

  “What a fool I was to trust him,” Isabel replied, heartsick to think he would have suffered on her account.

  “No, you didn't know,” he answered, forgiving when he surely had every right to be furious with her. “You could not have known, Isabel.”

  She frowned, chagrined, and shook her head. “You tried to warn me, but I didn't want to see it. I was so confused, I suppose I was not thinking rationally. I wasn't at all surprised to find that you had already gone when I left Hexford with Father Aldon this morning.”

  “I was there,” Griffin replied. “There more or less, that is. I spent the night in Hexford's gaol, courtesy of the good father and a couple of enthusiastic castle guards.”

  She could hear the wry humor in his voice, but Isabel was only further appalled with her own naivety. “He had you gaoled? Griffin, I'm sorry . . . I had no idea. I looked for you in the bailey this morning, and when didn't see you I just thought . . .”

  He stared down at her, his gaze searching. Steady. “What did you think?”

  She glanced away from him, to the dark wall of granite that curved high over their heads. “You were so angry after what happened between us yesterday afternoon, I suppose I thought . . . that you had left me.”

  “No.”

  That one simple word filled her with a queer sort of elation, a flooding sense of relief that she surely had no right to feel. She stared up into his eyes, their golden-green depths made unreadable in the gloom of the cavern, and wondered if he could see the joy in her face. She wondered if he could see the swell of emotions churning inside of her, her sudden want to hold him close now that he was once again at her side and never let him go.

  A strange silence stretched out between them, unfurling slow and heavy, an unspoken awareness of the intimacy of their present position, the physical closeness they suddenly shared in that moment, their hands yet entwined in the dark with naught but the sounds of their mingled breathing to separate them. Griffin's fingers curled around hers, warm and strong, comforting. “I didn't leave you, Isabel,” he said, his voice soft, husky. “I would not have left you, not even in anger.”

  He gave a slow shake of his head and gently released her hand. “In any event, I should be the one thanking you, my lady. You saved my life back there. Though God only knows what was going through your pretty head at the time to make you take such a risk.”

  Heaven help her, but she almost told him. Looking up at his intense expression, the handsome planes of his cheeks drawn taut with concern and some other, unreadable emotion, Isabel was only a hair's breadth away from telling Griffin what had gone through her mind--what had gone through her heart--when she saw the deadly arrow flying toward him . . .

  She loved him.

  It was there, on the tip of her tongue, a confession that would have damned her as surely as it would have freed her soul. Dear God, she loved him.

  Perhaps she always had, from that first encounter more than a decade past. But that was merely adoration, she realized suddenly; a little girl's infatuation with an heroic image, perfect and unattainable. The love she felt now was for this man who knelt at her side--this gruff, flawed human being who seemed intent to bar her from his heart. This man she could never have, even if by some miracle he would want her.

  Isabel bit her lip to keep from blurting out the words she ached to tell him, watching with an odd mixture of regret and relief as he pushed himself up off the cavern floor to stand, putting a measure of space between them.

  “Now that you're awake,” he said, “I'll start a fire and have another look at your arm. I've brought you some food and wine. You should eat. The wine will keep you warm.”

  He helped her sit, then left her to sample the bundle of viands he had unwrapped at her side while he busied himself gathering up some dry twigs that lay scattered about the cave. Isabel tore off a piece of roast venison, washing it down with the rich red wine as Griffin put together a small pile of kindling. It took only a half dozen strikes of his flint to light the ancient wood and soon enough a modest fire crackled at the center of their stone shelter.

  Isabel watched the flames come to life, gazing in quiet fascination as they played over Griffin's features, illuminating his mane of wild tawny hair and gilding his handsome face with a warm, golden glow. He found a cracked old log and added it to the pyre, then tipped his head back to watch as a curling tendril of smoke spiraled up toward the roof of the cave and caught on a fresh draft of air coming in from the cavern's narrow mouth. The thin, chilly breeze ushered the sooty ribbon of ash up and away from the fire, carrying it deep into the night.

  “How long do you expect we should stay here?” Isabel asked him over the soft snap and hiss of the small blaze.

  He lifted his shoulder in a shrug as he glanced back at her. “Until you are well enough to travel. A couple of days, perhaps more.”

  She could see the guardedness in his features, could sense his underlying contemplation of their vulnerability now that they were hobbled by her injury. “But it's too dangerous for us to delay,” she told him, shifting in a weak attempt to sit up. “We must keep moving. I am sore, but I warrant I am fine to travel.”

  She
did not so much as press her hand to the floor to shift her position before a fresh jab of pain lanced through her. Isabel sucked in her breath through gritted teeth and fell back against the wall of the cave. A rush of perspiration instantly needled her brow, trickling along the fine hairs at her temple.

  Griffin abandoned the fire and was at her side in a heartbeat. “Fine to travel, did you say?” He shook his head, frowning at her in apparent frustration. “I will tell you when you're fine enough to travel. Let me see your arm.”

  Though his tone was gruff, he took her in tender hands, a strong warrior with a touch so light, Isabel could only marvel at the powerful fingers holding her now, inspecting her wound with such care. It seemed strange that a man so adept at violence and battle could, in turn, be so gentle. But then Griffin of Droghallow, this man with the face of a fallen angel and the devil's own smile, was a myriad of contrasts, having once been her hero, then her enemy. Her hired abductor, mercenary escort, and now her . . .

  What?

  He was her protector, certainly, but that was merely the simplest of definitions for a relationship that had become anything but simple. What she felt for him was complicated, more complicated than anything she had ever felt before. It was love, that much she was certain, but it went beyond that somehow. The connection she felt to him went soul-deep, a connection that seemed a part of her every fiber and feeling.

  To Isabel's mind, there remained only one simplicity in the chaos of her current existence, a sole truth that she would be a fool to deny: Whatever she and Griffin might share on this journey--whatever bonds they might form--would come to an end the moment they reached Montborne.

  It was that sobering fact that kept her from reaching out to him now, kept her hand at her side when all she wanted to do was cup his strong jaw in her palm and caress the proud slope of his beard-grizzled cheek. Knowing that the heartache she felt now would only deepen the closer she allowed herself to get to him was all that kept her from telling him how confused she was, how frightened she was.

  How desperately she needed him to hold her, just hold her.

  An involuntary shudder swept over her and Griffin looked up to meet her gaze. “I am hurting you.”

  Isabel shook her head. “No.”

  “Here,” he said, holding the wineskin up to her lips. “Drink what you can. It will help ease the pain.”

  “'Tis not entirely unbearable,” she insisted after swallowing a mouthful of the bitter wine. “Really, Griffin. It does not pain me overmuch.”

  “Mayhap not now, but I have to clean the wound. I will be as gentle as I can, but the duller your senses, the better.” He pressed the lip of the wineskin to her mouth. “Drink, my lady.”

  Seeing the gravity of his expression and trusting that he knew more about such things than she did, Isabel obeyed. She tipped the wineskin up to her lips and drank what seemed like half of its contents. The wine seared her throat as it slid down, but then, as she swallowed more great gulps of the stuff, it slowly mellowed, generating a heat of its own that warmed her from the inside out. She sighed and handed the container back to Griffin.

  “I think I'm feeling rather tingly.”

  He gave her a small smile. “That's a good start. Try to relax for a moment while I prepare some fresh bandages.”

  Grabbing a length of snowy-white silk from a pile of similarly shredded swatches that lay beside her makeshift pallet, Griffin then withdrew his dagger and sliced the cloth in half, creating two wide streamers. The edge of one glinted with threads of gold, the metallic embroidery sparkling in the firelight. It was the dress Father Aldon had made her wear that morning, she realized, suddenly becoming acutely aware of the scratchiness of the wool mantle rubbing against her bare skin.

  “I'm sorry about your gown,” Griffin said when he returned. “I didn't . . . I fear I had no other choice.”

  “'Tis of no great consequence,” Isabel said, feeling shy for her nudity but trusting him implicitly. “Perhaps between here and Montborne we will be fortunate enough to find an alewife with an old kirtle to spare.”

  Griffin chuckled at her jest, but his expression remained serious. “No more old kirtles for you, my lady. I shall buy you the finest gown in England at first opportunity. You'll arrive at Montborne looking like a queen.”

  Isabel smiled wistfully, half hoping that day would never come.

  “Lie back,” Griffin instructed her, taking her hand and stretching her arm out so he could dress it. “I'm going to take off the old bandages, then clean the wound with the wine. You'll let me know if the pain is too much?”

  “Yes. I am in your hands, my lord.”

  She had not expected the unwrapping to burn like it did. Although it was clear that Griffin took extra care to be gentle, Isabel's arm felt afire as Griffin stripped off the last layer of bindings. She sunk her teeth into the sides of her mouth through the worst of it, keeping up a brave front while Griffin worked expediently to undress and wash the wound. A second dose of wine was applied, and then a third, the pain dulling to an achy sort of heat by the time he paused to blot the wound dry. He looked up at her, his eyes tender with concern.

  “How are you faring so far?”

  Isabel managed a weak smile, knowing he only did what was necessary to make her better. “I vow I would fare no better under the care of the abbess of St. Winifred herself, and people traveled many leagues for the benefit of her skills.”

  “I am no healer,” Griffin said, dismissing her praise as he reached for the ribbons of torn silk and began to carefully wrap the bindings around her arm. “I have tended my own battle injuries, but never another's. Never a lady's. Your skin is so delicate, and the bolt was . . . unforgiving. God's blood, Isabel, when I think what you did . . .” his voice trailed off, his gaze sliding askance to meet hers. “You might have been killed.”

  “I wasn't,” she replied, unable to keep from smiling up at him if only to reassure him. “Besides, I warrant I owed you as much. You saved my life once; now I have saved yours. We are finally even, my lord.”

  “Even?” he scoffed mildly, looking both annoyed and tortured by her remark. “There was no score between us to settle, my lady. You owed me nothing.”

  “I couldn't let them harm you,” she said, her voice soft but steady. “No matter what might have happened.”

  Instead of warming to her earnest declaration, he scowled and went back to work on her arm, finishing the first wrapping and looping the outer bandage around to secure it in place. “You should not have risked it. It was madness, Isabel.”

  “Perhaps,” she admitted quietly. “But I would do it again, and without a moment's regret.”

  He tied off the ends of the last bandage and his fingers went suddenly still in their ministrations. He pivoted his head to regard her, firelight dancing in gay contrast across the stern, stark angles of his face.

  “I would take a thousand arrows for you, Griffin. I swear it.”

  Something flickered in his hooded gaze, an elusive spark of emotion that was there for an instant and gone, vanished under the deepening slash of his brows. His mouth curved slightly, but Isabel saw more anguish in the effort than she did elation. “You're speaking nonsense. The wine has gone to your head, making you say things you don't mean. Things you may later regret.”

  “It's not the wine, Griffin. I know exactly what I'm saying.”

  His gaze intensified as he looked upon her in the lengthening silence, the muscles in his jaw growing taut. His eyes seemed to look into the depths of her very soul, his face naught but a scant few inches from hers.

  “My lady.” His voice was a deep masculine growl, his breath warm against her cheek. Slowly, almost tentatively, he leaned in and placed a tender kiss on her mouth. It was sweet and heady and much too brief, a chaste meeting of their lips that still managed to make Isabel melt inside. Griffin kept his face close to hers even after he ended their kiss, his forehead pressed against hers, his hand woven into the hair at her nape, cupping her skull a
nd drawing her close. His lips brushed her mouth as he spoke. “Never have I known such fear as I did in that moment you turned into the arrow's path. And I don't ever want to know it again, do you understand?”

  He moved away from her then, a distance Isabel immediately mourned. “Besides,” he added, his voice quiet, oddly reflective, “I'm not worth what you did. No one--nothing in this world--is worth the price you might have paid today. Honor is for fools, Isabel, trust me. The sooner you learn it, the better.”

  She shook her head. “I don't believe that and neither do you.”

  His answer was swift, brittle. “Don't I? Mayhap you should tell that to all the men I've killed in service to Dom. Tell it to their wives and children, or the folk I've made homeless in the villages I've helped to sack.” Isabel felt herself shrink away from him a little, not sure what to make of the darkness that had begun to creep into his eyes. Her timid reaction did not seem to surprise him; he gave a harsh, almost sad laugh. “My hands have been bloodied hundreds of times with the sacrifice of decent, noble men. They did what their honor commanded them to do, but they're still dead.”

  “You can't hold yourself responsible for what you did at Droghallow,” she told him gently. “You were only doing what you had to do. There's no dishonor in that.”

  “No? I expect the daughter of Droghallow's reeve would beg to differ with you on that score, my lady.”

  Isabel frowned. “You mean the woman Dom attacked?”

  “I didn't tell you everything that happened,” he said, his voice too level for the heavy burden that showed in his eyes. “When we spoke of it at Hexford that night, there were things I left out. Things I am ashamed to tell you, even now.”

  Although she feared what he might say, Isabel reached out her hand to him. “You can tell me anything, Griffin.”

  To her relief, he did not pull away. He wouldn't look at her, but he caught her fingers and held them, his grasp firm, needful somehow. His thumb idly stroked the back of her knuckles as he spoke, staring at their clasped hands. “You remember how Sir Robert had made provisions for the woman and her new husband?”