Heart of the Hunter Read online

  "Come now, let us settle this like gentlemen," he said, a suggestion that earned a snorted oath from across the table. "Meet me at the dock on the morrow and I will gladly pay you your fair share of the trade."

  The man in the gray tunic shoved himself up off the bench, his large hands braced on the table's edge. He gave a forcible push as he rose, pinioning the merchant into the corner with the weight of the table across his torso. "You'll pay me tonight, Ferrand. I'm through with your stalling."

  Ariana had supposed the man was tall when she first spied him from across the room, but she had not been prepared for the sheer enormity of his person until she found herself a scant two paces from him at the table. He grabbed his mantle from the bench and whirled away from Monsieur Ferrand with a snarl, a move that brought him face-to-face with Ariana and James, who stood at her side, now pointedly clearing his throat as if to prompt an apology from the man. No such courtesy was offered.

  The dark-haired rogue drew up just short of trampling them and paused there, towering over Ariana in rude silence, a menacing expanse of muscle and scarcely contained fury. But if his considerable size and surly mood unsettled her, it was nothing compared to the jolt of horror she felt when she tipped her head back and looked up at his face. Too harsh to be handsome, he radiated an unforgiving, ruthless power that was made all the more chilling by the presence of a terrible scar that ran the diagonal length of his left cheek. The long silvery welt of skin marked an old wound that must have sliced him open from temple to jaw. It had been a savage cut, perhaps meant to kill him, had the blade continued its downward path to his throat.

  Ariana was vaguely aware of her hand, which had risen to hover protectively at her neck as she stared up at the stranger's angry scowl. She must have gasped upon seeing him, understandably so, but the man seemed unfazed by her reaction. Indeed, the wry twist of his lips, the narrowing of his smoke-gray eyes beneath the heavy slash of his dark brows, suggested he took a measure of amusement at her fright. He stared back a moment longer than a gentleman should, taking her in, from the top of her smart little traveling hat and crispinette, to the fashionably pointed tips of her sodden, calf-leather boots. She distinctly heard him chortle under his breath before he tilted his head slightly, a subtle move that made a hank of his shaggy black hair fall forward to cover part of the scar, although nothing could obliterate the savagery of his face completely.

  With a lingering glance at Ariana, then a belated acknowledgment of James, the man stepped around them without a word to stalk out of the tavern and into the wintry bluster outside.

  "Monsieur Ferrand, are you all right?" Ariana asked, once the stranger was gone. "Who was that awful man?"

  "Oh, him?" The Frenchman had extricated himself from his trapped position in the corner and now rose to greet them. "Pay him no mind, he is no one. Just one of my business associates." He wagged his hand in casual dismissal. "Sit, sit, please. Let us get on with our own business, eh?"

  When Ariana moved to accept his invitation to join him at the small table, James's firming grasp on her elbow held her back. "Do all of your business associates have to threaten you before you make good on your bargains, Ferrand?"

  "That man is a thief and a scoundrel, monsieur le chevalier. Now he seeks to add extortion to his bag of tricks. You saw him, after all, the insolent beast. Did he look like a man you would trust at his word?"

  "Not especially." The Clairmont guard grunted. "But then I'm not sure you do, either."

  "James," Ariana sharply interjected, shooting an apologetic smile at their host. "We don't want to insult Monsieur Ferrand, now, do we? Certainly not when he has so kindly agreed to provide us transport to France. Do you forget how many inquiries we made upon our arrival in London? There was scarcely anyone willing to make the crossing as quickly as we needed. Monsieur Ferrand's assistance is greatly appreciated, and I'm sure he is a man of his word."

  She could tell James remained skeptical despite her attempt to persuade him, but he said nothing more to indicate his mistrust. He knew what was at stake here. He understood the urgency--the near desperation--of Ariana's desire to get to France. James had served her family nearly all his life; he would not jeopardize Kenrick's safety any more than she would.

  "Yes, well, then," said the Frenchman in the moment of silence that followed. "Shall we firm up the terms of our arrangement, my lady, or does your husband speak for you?"

  "I am not married," Ariana replied, seating herself on the bench opposite Ferrand. "Sir James comes with me from Clairmont as my escort."

  "The lady's bodyguard," added James, "should things take a misfortunate turn."

  Monsieur Ferrand bared his teeth in a rather poorly effected smile. "A task you undertake with admirable zeal, I see. Who wouldn't, when the body one is guarding is as lovely as hers?"

  Ariana did not like the implication in that statement, nor did she miss the tension creeping into James's features as he stared down at Monsieur Ferrand. "Your terms, merchant. Let's get to them without further delay and have done with this meeting."

  "I believe we agreed upon seven sous sterling, did we not, Monsieur?"

  Ferrand turned away from James to deal instead with Ariana. "Yes, my lady. That was the sum."

  "Very well." Ariana reached for the coin pouch on her girdle and proceeded to count out the somewhat steep price of passage. "There you are, " she said, sliding the small pile of coins toward the merchant seaman. "Payment in full, upfront, as you required."

  The Frenchman's stubby fingers curled around the silver, which disappeared quite neatly into his waiting purse of fine brocade. "A pleasure doing business with you, demoiselle." He grinned, then signaled to a serving wench to bring him another cup of ale. "Join me in refreshment, won't you? Then I will show you to my ship. I would advise you stay the evening below deck, so we might set sail for France with the next tide."

  Ariana declined when the serving woman came to the table and offered her a cup of ale. "If 'tis all the same to you, monsieur, would you take us to your ship now? The past couple days have been rather long and taxing. I would very much like to rest awhile in preparation of our crossing."

  Ferrand grunted into his full mug of ale. "As you wish," he said, setting the drink down with a shrug. Standing up, he donned a dark blue cloak that hung on a peg of a nearby beam. "I am docked just below Thames Street at Queenhithe. This way, s'il vous plait."

  They followed the merchant toward the door. A rough-looking huddle of seamen slouched at a table at the center of the room--some of Ferrand's acquaintances, evidently, for he hailed them in French and cuffed one on the shoulder as he walked by. Five hairy faces looked up at the merchant's greeting, some of them openly leering at Ariana.

  "Something is wrong. I don't like the looks of this, my lady," James whispered as they stepped out into the street with Ferrand. She could feel the knight tense beside her, knew his battle instincts were on alert even before she saw his hand come to rest on the pommel of his sword in anticipation of trouble.

  It did not take long to arrive.

  Ferrand pulled on a pair of leather gloves as he stood beneath the sheltering eaves of the tavern roof. It was still spitting drizzle and cold, still dark as dusk though it was not long past noontide. The merchant seemed not to mind the weather overmuch. He stood there, grinning expectantly.

  "Which way to your vessel?" James asked. "We don't want to stand around in this freezing muck all day."

  "I told you, serjant," Ferrand drawled, using the derogative term for a soldier of the lower class. "I am docked at the quay below. But you'll be staying here, I think."

  Ariana's gasp underscored James's vivid oath. "What is the meaning of this, Monsieur Ferrand? We paid you for passage--"

  "You paid me for your passage, demoiselle. Not his. He stays."

  James took a step forward, ready to lunge for the little merchantman. "Why, you cheating bastard. I knew you carried the stench of a thief on you."

  Before he could get near en
ough to grab him, the group of seamen from the tavern poured out into the street behind them. Two of the big men seized James's arms and wrenched them back until his face contorted in pain. As he struggled futilely, another man stole his weapon and brandished it before him, chuckling maliciously.

  "Wait, please!" Ariana cried, terrified for James and seeing her chances of reaching Kenrick in time begin to slip away. With shaking hands, she widened the drawstring of her coin purse and fumbled around for another seven sous. She thrust the handful of silver at Monsieur Ferrand. "Here. Take it. Now, please, let him go. We don't want any more trouble. You agreed to take us to France and we have paid you to do so. What more do you want?"

  "This is not about the money," James said through gritted teeth as the Frenchman took Ariana's coin.

  Although Ferrand did not deny it, he reached out and yanked Ariana's coin purse from her hands. There was not much left in the little pouch, but it was all she had and the loss of it sent her into a fit of rage. With a cry, she flew at Ferrand, scratching at him, kicking him, beating him with her fists.

  "Pull this hissing cat off me!" he shouted to his men while he tried to fend off her assault.

  She felt one final, satisfying rent of his skin where her fingernails raked his face, but then she was caught in a vise of sweat-soured wool and beefy resistance. The last two seamen each had a hold of her: one locked her arms at her sides, hoisting her off the ground while the other grabbed her flailing legs and clamped her feet tight in his fists. She pitched and roiled, but there was no escaping their grip on her. Even her screams proved of little use, all but devoured by the howling of the winter wind.

  "Take her down to the ship and lock her in the hold," Ferrand ordered. "And mind you don't bruise her too badly. Skin that fair will fetch me a handsome price on the slave market, even after I take my use of her."

  "Damn you, Ferrand!" James roared. "I'll send you straight to hell if you so much as breathe on her!"

  Ariana struggled anew against her bonds, fighting her captors for all she was worth as they began to haul her away from the tavern and toward an alley leading to the docks. She caught one last glimpse of James, still held by Ferrand's men and bucking like a man gone mad. The third seaman drove his fist into James's stomach, doubling him over before slamming his knee into the knight's face.

  Ariana called out for her old protector, the knight who came with her so willingly into this misfortune, who warned her of the risks in trusting a man like Ferrand yet stayed at her side despite his personal doubts. She cried for him to forgive her, but she doubted he would hear her. She was halfway down the alley now, icy rain stinging her face, the smell of fish and brine assailing her nostrils as she was carried nearer to the docks.

  She prayed Ferrand's men would not hurt James too badly, that he would somehow overpower them and get away. He was a strong man, after all, and quite skilled as a knight. If there was a way, he would free himself. Dear Lord, he had to.

  Just as she must find a way to escape her own bonds now.

  She continued to scream and thrash, determined that she would not go easily into whatever fate awaited her on Ferrand's ship. At last, her struggles were given a modest reward. She jerked and kicked, and finally got one leg free. Her booted foot thumped onto the wooden plank of the dock and within a heartbeat the other followed. The relentless sleet had slackened the knave's grasp on her enough that with a renewed bout of twisting and bucking, she was standing up on her own, still held by the arms, but halfway to freedom.

  Freedom, however, was a relative term, for all around her churned the foamy darkness of the Thames. In order to escape Ferrand and his men, she would either have to break past them and run back up the docks, or take a frigid leap into the river and hope she would be strong enough to swim to safety somewhere along the quays.

  Neither option seemed overly promising, but she kept fighting, kept working toward escape.

  "Hold her still, will you!" barked the man who was frantically trying to recapture her legs. "The bitch is going to break my fingers with her thrashing!"

  The iron-like vise around her arms and breasts tightened to the point of pain, and the man holding her chuckled now, breathing hotly against her ear. "She's a fighter, this one. Full of fire, jes the way I like 'em."

  "Animals!" she cried. "Let me go! Someone help me, please!"

  Her plea went wholly ignored, as she knew it would, her near hysterical screaming drowned out by the men's amused laughter and the continuing storm. Ariana heard thunder rolling somewhere behind her, a rhythmic rumble that shook the wooden planks beneath her, reverberating in the soles of her sodden boots. She was dripping wet in the cold and tiring fast, her breath rasping out of her aching lungs in thin puffs of steam. She pulled against the bonds that held her, but in truth she did not know how much longer she could fight.

  "What say you give us a little taste 'fore the captain comes down, eh, ma petite?"

  Revulsion coiled in Ariana's belly at the ale-soured suggestion that fanned her neck like a hot, groping hand. With all the strength she had left, she bent her head forward then snapped it back, hard. With a brutal-sounding smack, the back of her skull connected with the cartilage and bone of her captor's face. He howled and lost his grasp on her to clutch at his nose. Ariana lunged forward to make her escape but only managed two steps, caught at once by the second brute.

  "You shouldn't have done that," he snarled. "My friend, Rene, he is very vain about his looks."

  But a broken nose was the least of the other man's present worries. From out of the gloom behind him came a dark figure, large and imposing. Ariana strained to see a face within the hooded cowl of the man's mantle, but the sleet and snow was driving down at a blinding slant now, concealing all but the massive bulk of his body and the huge broadsword that was a slash of silver in the charcoal gray of the wintry afternoon.

  James! Ariana thought in a flood of panic and sudden, profound relief. It had been his approaching boot falls she heard, not thunder. By God's grace, he had found her after all. But how had he managed to get away from Ferrand's men?

  The old knight had never looked so formidable, nor so capable of doing harm as he did when he stalked toward Rene. One moment the miscreant was coughing and wheezing bloody curses at Ariana, the next, he was dead at the end of her rescuer's unforgiving blade, his slack body tumbling off the edge of the dock and splashing into the icy river below.

  "What the devil--"

  Rene's friend swore an oath and scrambled to draw his own weapon, thrusting Ariana aside with force enough to send her skidding to her knees on the dock. She crashed into a bunch of barrels that were lashed to one side the gangway, the rough oak containers and a surrounding web of cargo nets being all that spared her from a plunge into the frigid black water of the Thames.

  Ahead of her some dozen paces, the two men had since engaged in deadly battle. Their swords rang out above the lolling creak of the docks, and the steady pelting of the storm. Ariana watched in terrified fascination as James expertly dodged each blow that came from Ferrand's man, only to deliver a barrage of punishing thrusts and swipes that left his opponent huffing and scraping onto one knee.

  The seaman was well beaten. He dropped his weapon and clutched at the edge of James's cloak, begging quarter. Ariana relaxed somewhat, glad it was over. She let out a small sigh of relief, waiting for James to accept the surrender as honor would compel him to do. For a long moment, he did not move, merely stood there, his breath rolling between his lips in a frothy plume of pale steam while Ferrand's man continued to beg for his life.

  Ariana brought herself to her feet as though in a daze, curious, and not a little shaken. She took a hesitant step forward, in time to see that Ferrand's man would receive no mercy whatsoever. In time to see that the face concealed from her until now--the face that pivoted toward her in fury as she approached--did not belong to James at all.

  It was him.

  The rude stranger from the tavern--the roguish man with t
he hideous scar.

  He hardly seemed to notice her astonishment. Indeed, he hardly seemed to have a care for her at all. His piercing gaze flicked back to the blubbering huddle at his feet. His massive sword arm came up from under his cloak, then with an ease that said he had done it a thousand times before, he flipped his weapon in a downward arc and embedded the length of steel in the other man's chest, killing him with swift efficiency and an utter lack of remorse. He retrieved his blade, wiped it clean on the dead man's bulk and sheathed it before kicking the lifeless body over the edge of the dock. Then he turned once more to Ariana.

  "Come with me," he instructed her, his large gloved hand outstretched.

  "N-no." Ariana took a step backward, half stumbling over the cargo net at her heels. She shook her head, numbed by what she had just witnessed, terrified that this man was her unlikely rescuer--perhaps her only hope. "Stay away from me. I have to find James--"

  "Your man is dead. They killed him, left his body in the alley up there. I saw it."

  "No," Ariana whispered, her heart breaking at the thought. "No, it can't be."

  "Give me your hand, demoiselle." He scowled at her, impatience tight around his mouth and in his tone of voice. "Your hand, lady. I mean you no harm."

  Ariana stared at that extended offer of help, at the strong, steady arm reaching out to her through the misting rain and snow. Her options were few and fleeting the longer she remained on the docks. She had lost all of her coin and her means of transport to France. Heaven help her, but she had even lost James, a thought that nearly sapped what little strength remained in her shaking legs.

  She stared at this scarred and deadly stranger, sensing it could be dangerous to trust him, yet knowing he was likely her only hope of surviving the night. And she had to survive. She had to figure out another way to get to France before her brother's captors acted on their threat of harm.

  He moved toward her, his boot heels thudding hollowly on the planks of the dock. His black hair was dripping and spiked where it lay against his sharp cheekbones and brow; the sinister scar on the left side of his face gleamed silver-white as he spoke. "Now, my lady. Unless you'd rather take your chances with that whoremonger, Ferrand."