Heart of the Hunter Page 3

  Tamping down the fear that rose to choke the very breath from her lungs, Ariana held out her hand to her unlikely savior, and went to him.

  Chapter 2

  Braedon le Chasseur was not the sort of man inclined to come to the aid of damsels in distress. That he did so now, and for a highborn girl who had regarded him with nothing short of fear and revulsion when he first laid eyes on her, should have told him this was a bad idea. One look at the haughty young woman, richly garbed and poorly guarded, indicated just how far out of her element she was. As out of place in the dockland tavern as a lamb in the midst of a seething wolf pack, she was likely to be killed or debauched before the night was through. Not that it should be any of his concern.

  He should not have lingered at the Thames Street stable, where he had been waiting, sensing trouble soon to come after quitting his meeting with Ferrand. He should have walked away when he heard the scuffle and the feminine scream coming from the alleyway leading to the docks. He should have kept to his own affairs, turned the other way and headed for his cog, which was moored farther down the quays, near the old city bridge.

  He did not need the trouble he was stirring up now, not when he had spent most of the last year and a half moving within the cover of London's deep shadowlands, a ghost of who he once had been, all but anonymous now, deliberately avoiding his old notoriety.

  As it stood at present, he was but a moment from leaving the young woman there at Queenhithe when she finally blinked away her state of rattled shock and took his hand. He ran with her, off the dock and up onto the wide expanse of the wharf. Knowing that Ferrand and his two remaining henchmen could not be far behind, Braedon had planned to skirt the street and follow the backside of the buildings toward his boat downriver. But the girl's hesitation had delayed them a fraction too long.

  Ferrand came around the corner of a building on Thames Street, his two shipmates close behind him like hulking wolfhounds, loping along at their master's heels. From the head of the alley, Ferrand paused suddenly, spotting Braedon and the girl.

  "Get them!"

  The two men set off at a run on Ferrand's command, charging down the walkway and fanning out to head off either route of escape. One man drew a large sailor's knife from beneath his mantle. The other had a sword, and so did Ferrand, who hustled down the wharf at nearly the same pace as his snarling companions, enraged and screaming like a madman.

  "Ah, hell," Braedon cursed, winded from having played rescuer with the first two men and not at all looking forward to facing off against these next three comers.

  He was too old for this at thirty years of age. His bones ached with the relentless winter drizzle, and his head pounded with the knowledge that he could have been sleeping in his cabin right now, or better yet, warm in his bed with some pleasing female company. Instead, he stood a likely chance of getting his innards spilled all over the docks in the short time to come.

  "What are we going to do?" shrieked his unwanted companion in this mess, the very reason for his present predicament.

  "We?" he drawled, then chuckled at the irony as his hand went to his sheathed sword. "It looks like we have a bit more trouble to deal with tonight, demoiselle."

  Braedon swiveled his head, making a quick scan of their surroundings, looking for someplace to send the woman where she could make a clean escape, or at least be out of his way while he dealt with Ferrand and his mates. But there was nowhere for her to go and Ferrand's men were closing in. "Get back," he ordered, shoving her behind him with a sweep of his arm. "Just stay out of the way, back near the dock."

  "Wait!" When he started to walk away from her, she grabbed his sleeve, her grasp surprisingly strong for such a mere slip of a thing. "Are you mad? We must try to outrun them."

  "No time." Pulling his arm away from her, he drew his sword.

  "But you cannot mean to fight all three of them at once--they're going to kill you!"

  "Perhaps." He shrugged and threw her a look that was probably more reckless than he felt. "If they kill me, then I advise you to run."

  Stalking forward, sword at the ready, he met the first man to reach him, the one with the ugly-looking knife. Braedon dodged the first vicious strike, finding it tricky to maneuver in the slick, icy glaze that was beginning to settle on the wide planks of the wharf. He recovered his footing and lunged to deliver a counterattack, but the man saw him coming. He twisted out of the path of the blade and sliced at Braedon's sword arm, gashing him across the top of his wrist.

  Braedon roared at the growing burn of the cut, but not out of pain. Feeling his flesh tear under the punishing edge of steel, seeing his blood darken the light gray of his tunic sleeve, the metallic smell of it filling his nostrils with the scent of combat and rage, wakened Braedon like a man coming out of a long, dead sleep.

  He pivoted, raising his sword on a guttural oath. The blade came down, hard and heavy and fast. The man with the knife moved his arm to swing again. Not fast enough. Braedon's weapon bit into flesh and bone with a jarring thud, hacking off the man's hand in one clean strike and sending it catapulting into the darkness of the river. Seizing on the moment of horror as the man gaped at his arm, mouth open, mind too shocked to scream, Braedon swung with his blade and knocked the dead man off the pier.

  "You're next, Ferrand," he taunted in lethal calm as the Frenchman closed in on him with his last remaining man. "I wager your death is long overdue."

  "I'm sure we can work this out, you and I," Ferrand replied, lifting his shoulders in a casual shrug. "I have no wish for violence. If you want the wench, take her."

  Ferrand grinned, but even in the hazy gray mist of the day Braedon could see the glint of fear in the Frenchman's eyes. He caught the subtle direction that was passed to Ferrand's shipmate, a flick of a glance that commanded the man to move in on Braedon from the other side. Let him come, he thought, pretending not to notice the trap and inching backward to lead the two men farther out onto the wharf.

  The girl saw the trouble coming, too. From behind him he heard her whispered warning. "Be careful," she said, her light footsteps retreating to the back of the pier, toward safety if he survived, or an isolated dead end if he did not.

  Ferrand's man made his move, suddenly, and with a roar of bloodthirsty malice. He charged from the right and bore down on Braedon, forcing him backward on the dock while Ferrand brought up the rear. Braedon's sword crashed against the other man's, the grate of metal on metal--once, twice, and then again--swelling in the air around them. Braedon pushed against the force of his opponent's weapon, driving him backward, but the man was an ox. He kept coming at him, kept artlessly swiping his blade like a cleaver.

  "Kill him, you idiot!" shouted Ferrand. The merchant had since backed off from his attack. Braedon saw him slowly retreating from the fight, evidently deciding he might rather flee while he had the chance.

  Braedon was not about to let him get away. He felt his boot heel snag in something on the ground at his back--a cargo net, heaped in a careless pile on the dock. Nearby it stood a group of large oak barrels. He grabbed the rim of one with his left hand and hauled it down in front of him, throwing the obstacle at the big man's feet. It knocked the brute off balance and lost him his weapon, which Braedon kicked away. With a bellowed oath, Ferrand's man teetered at the edge of the dock, then fell in with a splash. Braedon meant to leap in after and finish him off, but his attention was drawn over his shoulder, toward the sound of fast retreating footsteps.

  Ferrand was already halfway up the wharf and heading for his own ship.

  Braedon took off at a dead run, his boots pounding the wet planks of the docks as he pursued the portly merchant coward. Bloodlust thrummed in his veins with each step that drew him closer. He reached for him and missed, a failure that only compelled him on more fiercely. With a savage cry, Braedon leaped on Ferrand and threw him to the ground. He tried to scramble away, clawing at the planks of the wharf, thrashing beneath Braedon's weight.

  Latching onto his shoulder, B
raedon flipped him onto his back and threw a punch into the Frenchman's face. He backed off and flung his arm out to reach for his sword, which had been lost to him in capturing Ferrand.

  "Stand up," he ordered the merchant. The blow had dazed Ferrand. At his waist, one of his coin purses had come untied and lost some of its boon. Braedon reached down and yanked the pouch from his belt, affixing it to his own baldric with a nimble slipknot. "On your feet, and take up your weapon, unless you prefer I skewer you where you lie."

  Ferrand shook off his disorientation with a curse, coming up on one knee as he glared at Braedon. "You think I don't know you? Oh, yes," he said around a wheezing chuckle. "I know who you are, monsieur. I know all about you."

  A queer prickle of expectation crept along the back of Braedon's neck. He stared hard at the fat little man, despising the glint of amusement that lit the merchant's gaze. He felt his hand tighten on his sword, his blood thrumming heavily in his temples. He grabbed the merchant by the shoulder of his cloak and hauled him up, his sword arm prepared to strike. "You had your chance, Ferrand. Now you die."

  Braedon raised his weapon--and heard a feminine scream of terror ring out in the distance behind him at the docks. He threw a glance over his shoulder. Through the sleeting rain, he saw the young woman struggling with the man he should have taken the time to kill before setting off after Ferrand. The cur was still half-submerged in the river but coming up on the dock to get her.

  "Damn it!"

  Braedon had a split second to decide: finish Ferrand, or go to the girl. His every battle instinct commanded him to cut the oily little merchant down, but it would cost him precious time. Ferrand calculated the problem at the same time. He twisted slightly in Braedon's grasp, his chuckle small, but full of amusement. "Another time, monsieur."

  Braedon felt a queer tingle light in his fingertips, a tingle that quickly spread into his hand and up the length of his arm, raising the hairs on his skin. He swung his head back toward Ferrand...and found he held nothing but empty air.

  "Jesu," he gasped, astonished and not at all sure his eyes registered the truth.

  The merchant was gone. In his hand one moment, the next, simply vanished into the sleeting rain. On the wharf a few paces away from him, scrambling low to the ground, was a large brown rat. It paused--God's wounds, did it stop to look at him?--before fleeing into the shadows of the docks.

  Nay.

  Impossible.

  The heavy sleet, the dark misting fog--all of it conspired to confuse him. His grasp on Ferrand must have slackened enough for him to slip away. The storm was pounding hard enough that it might have disguised his retreating footsteps. The sleet itself could have masked the merchant as he fled to a hiding place somewhere on the wharf.

  People did not just disappear into thin air. Flesh and bone did not slip away like so much vapor.

  And yet...

  The girl screamed again, drawing Braedon's attention away from the unsettling feeling that was prickling in his belly. He slicked the rain from his eyes and put Ferrand from his mind to focus wholly on the girl. He saw her bend down and grab something--the net, he realized when she struggled with the sodden weight of it and tossed it onto her attacker. It slowed him down, but he still managed to reach out and seize her by the ankle.

  Braedon was on the dock and running toward her before her rump hit the planks.

  She clung to one of the heavy barrels, shrieking as the bulk of her attacker's form lurched up out of the water. He still had her ankle, but she was fighting furiously, kicking him with her free leg and hanging on to the barrel for all she was worth to keep from being dragged into the river. Ferrand's man made a grab for his sword, which lay just an arm's length from him on the docks. His fingers never gained purchase.

  Braedon thundered down the dock and drove his blade into the man's spine, killing him instantly.

  The girl kicked away the slack grip on her ankle and scrambled back near the barrels, her breath quivering and shallow. Braedon sheathed his weapon then reached out his hand to her.

  "Are you all right?"

  She nodded, but he could see that she was shaking violently, her face ashen. Beneath the skewed tilt of her ridiculous little hat, her blue eyes were wide with terror, her gaze glassy with shock. The webbed crispinette that held her thickly coiled blond hair neatly behind her head had been ruined in her struggle. Torn and drooping, the slender threads of damp silk hung limply at her neck, trembling as she did. She was a wreck, and adjudging from her stricken pallor, he doubted very much that she would have the wherewithal to walk away without his support.

  "Come on," he growled, pulling her hood up over her head to shield her from the drizzle. "It's over now. Let's get out of here."

  She took his hand, turning her face into his arm as he led her away from the carnage on the wharfs. He brought her up onto the street, then hurried around a corner that opened at the front of an old church dedicated to St. Magnus the Martyr.

  "Where are we going? Please--where are you taking me?"

  "To the bridge," he said, deciding just then and gesturing to a stone archway ahead of them. Sturdy chains hung between two wooden poles, marking the line where London's rule ended and the jurisdiction of the Bridge's powerful merchant class began. "You're best to wait the next few hours outside of the city in case any more of Ferrand's men come sniffing around."

  Beyond the tall gray tollgate was an elevated street suspended over the Thames by no less than two dozen arches of varying sizes, which spanned the width of the churning brown river. Crowded with shops, residences, and chapels, the London Bridge was a living stretch of stone and timber and humanity that linked London town with Southwark, its seedier neighbor on the other side. Normally the bridge would be overrun with carts and people and wandering animals, but with today's inclement weather, the twelve foot wide street beyond the tollhouse looked all but deserted.

  A guard on watch called for them to halt and pay the toll. Braedon loosened the coin pouch on his baldric and felt the girl's eyes light on him in accusation.

  "That's my purse," she said. "'Tis my money in that pouch--Ferrand stole it from me."

  Braedon grunted, but he was not about to let go of the purse. The way he saw it, Ferrand owed him at least this much for his recent cheating. To say nothing of the gratitude this highborn lady rightly owed him for rescuing her from the vile French whoremonger and his henchmen. Ignoring the sullen glare he received from the girl at his side, Braedon dug into the pilfered coin purse and withdrew the two farthings it would cost them to cross. They walked briskly beneath the steep stone archway of the tollgate, sheltered momentarily from the sleet outside.

  "Do you have a name, demoiselle?" Braedon asked her as they traversed the dark hollow of the corridor. For a long moment, the only reply was the wet sound of their boots slapping on the cobbles and echoing over the steady rush of the water some thirty feet below.

  "Ariana," she answered finally, as if reluctant to divulge any information to him. "Ariana of Clairmont."

  He had not heard of the place, but it was clear from the cultured timbre of her voice that she was a young lady from a good house of high degree. And he was certain, even without asking, that she did not hail from London or its nearby towns, for he would have seen her before now, and he would not have forgotten a lovely face like hers.

  No, after all he had been through, ironically, he had not lost his appreciation for beauty. He remembered fine things and pretty faces, and he sometimes lost himself in pleasant memories of a life abundant with both. He did not miss the pretension of those days, or the arrogance of the stupid young man he had been. So careless, so caught up in his own indulgences and blinded by his own glory. All it took now was an accidental glimpse of his reflection--in a pool of water, or in the frightened, wary gaze of a gently bred maiden like the one hurrying along beside him on the bridge--to remind him of what that life had cost him.

  Braedon jerked his thoughts away from memories of the past, before more
troubling reminders could surface. He and the girl came out from under the covered portion of the bridge gate and stepped back into the elements. The icy rain stung his face but he made no move to draw his hood farther over his head, well aware that his scar was in plain sight of her. He didn't care.

  Let her look at it, he thought grimly, willing himself to ignore the furtive glances coming from over her right shoulder as they walked in silence. Let her stare like everyone else and shrink away.

  He had lived long enough with the travesty of his face that he could almost count the time it would take for someone to have their fill of it and avert their eyes. Gasps and stares no longer affected him, but to his utter irritation, he found he could not bear this woman's quiet scrutiny after all. He sensed a hidden trace of pity there, and it angered him more than any open display of fear or disgust ever could. He stopped walking and abruptly turned to face her straight on.

  "W-what are you doing?" she asked, frowning up at him. "Shouldn't we keep going?"

  "I thought it might be easier for you to stare if I held still a while."

  "Oh." Her wind-nipped cheeks reddened deeper as she quickly averted her gaze. "I'm sorry."

  "For the condition of my face, or your rude perusal of it?"

  She glanced up sharply. "Both."

  He raised a brow.

  "Neither," she corrected, huffing a little sigh of discomfiture. Her gaze flew down once more, shuttered by golden brown lashes several shades darker than her hair. A lock of that honey-colored silk peeked out from under the hood of her mantle, glossy and butter-yellow against the russet red of her fox-lined cloak. She worried her lip, frowning in consternation and clearly unsure what to do with her gaze now. "Forgive me for staring. I meant no offense. I am sorry."