Heart of the Hunter Read online

  Braedon grunted. He wasn't looking for an apology, merely meant to make a point. But now that he had, he wondered what he had gained. He wondered at her age suddenly, too, which had to be less than twenty by his guess. At least a decade his junior. Too young by far, and exceedingly too pretty to be traipsing around London without a full retinue of armed bodyguards.

  "This way," he said, and started walking once more. She followed along beside him, carefully avoiding looking at him at all.

  Although he intended to be rid of her within a few hours, and to put her out of his mind entirely not long after that, he could not curb his curiosity about the woman. And since he was cut and bleeding on account of her besides, he reckoned he had a right to know just what sort of pretty little fool he had risked his life to save.

  "I hardly think whatever bauble or silk you meant to purchase from Ferrand was worth the price, demoiselle."

  "I didn't come here to buy anything from him."

  "No?"

  "No. I came to London on a matter of business. Urgent business." She eyed her coin purse, which bobbed at his hip, neatly secured to his sword belt. "That money was to pay for my passage to France."

  "France?" he scoffed. "What could possibly be there that you would want to brave the Channel in the dead of winter?"

  "Nothing of your concern, I assure you."

  She made a hasty grab for the purse, but Braedon was faster. He jerked it from his baldric and caught it in his other hand. "Your disagreement with Ferrand down there was none of my concern, either, but you didn't seem to mind me stepping in to save your silly neck." He met her haughty glare and held it. "What's in France?"

  She scowled, her fine brow pinching, lovely mouth pursed. "If you must know," she relented after a moment, "my brother is there. I was going to Rouen to...to visit him."

  That was likely a lie, or at the very least, a partial truth. "Urgent business, this visit, was it?"

  "That's right. He...he needs me, and I have to get there as soon as possible. I will get there."

  Braedon snorted at her senseless determination. "Any brother who would expect his sister to brave ice squalls and rough seas for the mere pleasure of his company is either an idiot or a madman. Maybe both."

  That prickled her dander. His stride was purposefully long, but Lady Ariana kept up despite their difference in size. Her boot heels clipped smartly on the planks of the street. "My brother is the most honorable man I know. He would never willingly put my life in jeopardy."

  "I am glad to hear it, demoiselle. Then he will no doubt consider it a favor if I keep your purse and prevent you from further endangering yourself."

  "A fine excuse, coming from a common thief and scoundrel," she grumbled, not quite under her breath. "I could have you arrested for stealing, you know. No doubt a man like you is wanted for any number of misdeeds."

  "Your gratitude overwhelms me, my lady. Perhaps you would rather I left you at the wharf to deal with true thieves and scoundrels? I warrant you would have lost far more than just your coin."

  She grew very quiet as she absorbed the weight of his comment. Her steps slowed a bit, and the flashing impertinence he had been enjoying in spite of himself was fading quickly from her eyes. Braedon frowned, irritated that he should feel even a twinge of guilt for his goading of the girl. He stamped it out as quickly as it came, refusing to feel anything for a foolhardy girl who would walk headlong into a den of cutthroats and criminals on a whim to see her kin on the Continent.

  "Is Clairmont so far from London that no one advised you of its dangers? The docklands are no place for a lady of gentle breeding, particularly one wandering about practically without escort."

  He half expected an argument, or at least a hot retort, so he was surprised when she was silent, her gaze directed out over the river as they walked an open section of the bridge. "James tried to warn me," she replied quietly. She made a regretful sound in the back of her throat. "He told me he didn't trust Ferrand, but I...I didn't listen. Oh, poor James! I can't believe he's..."

  She bit her lip, evidently unable to speak the word. Turning away from him to head toward the wall of the bridge, she walked to the edge and looked out over the river. Her dainty gloved hands were braced on the waist-high wall, gripping it tightly as her shoulders quaked beneath her cloak. Despite her tenacity, she was obviously a sheltered young girl, and she had been through quite an ordeal; the weight of it bore down on her now. She turned her face against her shoulder, away from him, and softly wept.

  Braedon paused, uncomfortable with this female state of distress. Perhaps he had seen too much death in his lifetime to recall what it was like to grieve. Nor did he have the patience to console Lady Ariana when he could still sense Ferrand and his mates sniffing around the docks.

  "Come," he said, resisting the urge to touch her. "We should not tarry here. The sleet is getting worse again and night comes faster in a storm. We haven't far to go now."

  With a wobbly nod, she collected herself and turned to walk with him once more.

  Braedon guided her farther down the bridge, toward the rows of countless merchant shops that clung to each side of the street, some of them built out and over the edge of the bridge, their timber overhangs supported by thick oak-hewn struts. The street was dark, cast in shadow by the looming buildings flanking it and by the hautpas that stretched over the narrow walkway to afford more living space to the residents while strengthening the structures on either side.

  Shopkeepers' shingles hung some nine feet above the ground, high enough to permit horse and rider to pass beneath them. Colorfully painted pictures advertised the tradesmen's skills or the goods to be had within their shops. This near the City side of the bridge, the merchants catered to a higher class of customer, offering luxurious items such as gloves and hats and bolts of rich fabrics, to maps and books and musical instruments.

  Braedon passed all of these shops with nary a glance, taking his unwanted charge closer to the midsection of the bridge, where the street odors mingled with the spicy tang of incense, which drifted out like ghostly ribbons of perfume from the stone walls of the famed Chapel of St. Thomas à Becket. He felt Ariana pause and knew she could not help but gaze with wonder at the beautiful place of worship. The London Bridge was renown in places farther than the Continent, and the Chapel, named for the tragic bishop killed on order of the second King Henry, was its crowning jewel.

  "My lady," he said, prompting her past the towering chapel with its pointed towers and on, toward another tight cluster of merchant shops.

  They picked up their pace and darted beneath the sheltering canopy of another hautpas. "I had heard this bridge is like a city unto itself, but I had no idea it was so vast. Is this where you live?" she asked.

  "Nay, but I know someone who does."

  "A friend of yours?"

  "Once. A long time ago." He considered her innocent question with a measure of irritation. "I don't make it a habit to keep friends."

  "Why not?"

  He kept walking, answering without looking at her. "It's proved too dangerous."

  "Oh." He felt her gaze on him, wary with understanding. "To dangerous for them, you mean?"

  "Nay, demoiselle. For me."

  They stopped in front of a half-timber shop at the end of the row. Braedon blew out his breath and approached the door, glancing up at the shoe-and-hammer sign that swayed from its hinge above their heads. The shingle proclaimed the resident a cobbler, but in truth he was a knight when he Braedon knew him best. One of the greatest, most valiant men ever to wield a sword. They had fought many battles together, shared many adventures, celebrated untold victories.

  But that was before....

  "Step out of the rain," he instructed the girl, an impatient edge to his voice.

  He brought her before him under the eaves, then reached out and rapped on the old oak door. It opened a short moment later, creaking inward. From within the wedge of warmth and light, a woman about Braedon's age peered out into th
e drizzling rain. Her gaze flicked over the two sodden visitors standing beneath the eaves, her questioning brown eyes darting from the tall man standing back in the shadows to the girl huddled in front of him, shaking and wet.

  "Good morrow, Peg."

  The woman's gaze narrowed as she stared up at Braedon, now peering in scrutiny at his eyes, at the scar that jagged down the entire left side of his face. She frowned, no doubt trying to reconcile the vaguely familiar voice with the savage, wrecked face of a stranger. It took but a heartbeat for her confused disbelief to burn away into recognition.

  Once it did, her round face took on a harder mien.

  "Braedon," she said, her voice soft but not welcoming.

  "It has been a long time, Peg. You look well."

  Her mouth went tight at his pleasant greeting after more than a year of absence. A welcome absence, if the fractional closing of her door were any indication. She looked to his scar again, damage not present when last she saw him in London. If it raised any emotion in her to see it now, she seemed intent to swallow past it. "What do you want, Braedon? How did you find us?"

  "I need to talk to your husband," he said, understanding that her wariness of him--her distrust, even after all this time--was not entirely misplaced. Braedon felt another suspicious female gaze fix on him, this one coming from Ariana of Clairmont. She likely wondered at this cool reception at the house of a so-called friend. Perhaps she enjoyed a certain satisfaction to see it, although it hardly mattered to him what she thought. In a few hours, she would no longer be his concern at all. "Is he here, Peg?"

  "Nay. Not for you." She moved forward so she blocked the entrance. Her voice was tight and low, as if to speak without being heard from within the shop. "Haven't you cost him enough? We have a new life now, as you can see."

  "I won't stay long, I promise you." He gestured to Ariana with a slight jerk of his chin. "This girl is in trouble. I wouldn't have come, but I had hoped you might help--"

  Peg's answering scoff was brittle. "Trouble has a way of following you, doesn't it, Braedon? Perhaps I should call for the sheriff instead."

  There was a sudden shuffle of movement somewhere at Peg's back: the scrape of a chair on the wide planked floor, the irregular clop-scuff-clop of a heavy gait drawing near.

  "Who is it, my love?" called a booming voice from out of the gloom. The dragging footsteps and dull thud of a walking cane continued to advance. "Who the devil would be out in this weather?"

  Peg threw a frantic look over her shoulder, then glared back at Braedon. "'Tis no one, husband. Just a couple of lost pilgrims seeking the nearest tavern."

  Her husband's chuckle was rich and good-natured, just as Braedon remembered it. "Well, they will find not a one on the bridge. No cellars to store the ale, you see."

  "Yes," Peg replied. "As I told them, they will have to look elsewhere for what they want."

  She started to close the door on Braedon and the girl, but a thick forearm and a large, callused hand reached over her shoulder and pushed the panel wide. "The Bear at Bridgefoot is your closest bet, friends, but I wager you'll find a better ale at the Three Neats' Tongues on the City side..."

  The big man's voice trailed off when his smiling eyes settled on Braedon. Robert the cobbler, once known across England as Robert the Bold, stood and stared in dumbstruck silence. Though bearded now and balding, lame from the injury that had ended his years as a knight and relegated him to accept a cobbler's apprenticeship with Peg's sire, Braedon was glad to see there was still a glint of humor in his dark eyes. Still a light of conspiracy in his slow-spreading smile. "Christ on the Cross. As I live and breathe...Braedon. Is it really you, after all this time?"

  "Rob," he replied, smiling back despite himself as he reached around Ariana to clasp his old friend's hand in firm greeting.

  "I've long thought you dead, my friend. You should be, after what happened that day."

  Braedon shrugged off the note of concern in his old friend's comment. If he had been presumed dead, it was because he had wanted it that way. He still preferred to maintain his distance from reminders of his past. It was one of the reasons he had stayed away from Rob, despite having known for some time that he was living here on the bridge, just a few hundred feet from where he docked when he was in London.

  "Jesu, Braedon." The graying, plump ex-knight looked him up and down, then met his gaze and grinned. "You look like hell." He shook his head and let out a deep, rolling chuckle. "You look like bloody hell, but by my vow I've never seen a more welcome sight in all my years! Come in, come in."

  Peg had since drawn up beside her husband, a miserable look of regret tugging at the corners of her mouth. She loved Rob fiercely, and she would not deny him a happy reunion with an old friend, no matter how personally opposed to it she was. Braedon respected that about her, and he had no wish to add to her worries.

  He would not have burdened them with his presence at all, if it had not been for the unexpected--and wholly unwanted--problem of Ariana of Clairmont. He shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place, but now that he had, he was loath to leave her adrift in the city by herself. Rob would make certain she got back home without issue. As for himself, he planned to leave port and sail for warmer climes at the next tide.

  And in a private, weary corner of his heart, he knew the trip would likely be his last.

  "I'll come in, but I cannot stay. An hour at most, and then I must go."

  This he said to his friend, however his pledge was directed in deference at Peg. She met his meaningful gaze before stepping aside to admit Ariana and him into her home. "We've just finished supper, but there is still some porridge left in the pot if you'd like me to warm it along with some wine for the both of you."

  She looked at Ariana, who had grown quite still and quiet in the time she had spent with Braedon on the bridge. He could see the girl was exhausted. She removed her hood and her ruined head covering, which had not done much to keep her dry amid the deluge. Thick tendrils of her long hair had come loose of their braids and now drooped over her brow, soaked like the rest of her. She was trembling and wrung out, standing there in weary silence. She flinched when Peg came over to help her out of her soggy mantle.

  "I'll just put it by the fire, where it can dry. Here, let me have that heavy bag, child."

  Ariana's hands slammed down on top of the large leather satchel at her hip, as though in reflex. "Nay. Not this. This stays with me."

  "As you wish." Peg gave the girl a reassuring smile that dimmed somewhat when turned on Braedon. "Your mantle, too," said, thrusting out her hand for him to give her his cloak.

  As he shrugged out of the wet garment and surrendered it, he saw Peg's questioning gaze fix on his injured arm. "I had a small disagreement with a couple of men down on the docks. 'Tis nothing."

  Peg glared up at him and clucked her tongue. "Nothing, he says, while he bleeds all over my floor. Stay put," she ordered him, some of her sternness lost in the huff of resigned exasperation she blew out. "I'll fetch some cloths to clean and bind your arm. Your lady can help you undress."

  Chapter 3

  Tired and cold, Ariana felt as though she had somehow breached a barrier to a strange new land, a land much different than that of her home at Clairmont. London was indeed a dangerous place, and she was alone here, save for the dubious companionship of the man who had delivered her out of harm's way and promised shelter with these good people on the bridge.

  The selfsame man who had stolen her purse from Monsieur Ferrand and claimed it for his own, she hastened to remind herself when the warmth of the cobbler's shop began to thaw some of her good sense.

  That the cobbler's wife could assume she and this man--Braedon, had they called him?--shared some sort of personal connection snapped Ariana out of her torpor like a hammer dropped on glass. Help him undress, indeed! She ignored the steady dark gaze that pierced her from where he stood, and hurried after the woman, who disappeared into an adjacent room of the shop.

  "Yo
u should know that man is not my...that is to say, we are not--"

  "Is it a knife wound, or something other?"

  Ariana gave an uncertain shrug. "Knife, I believe."

  With a disapproving grunt, Peg opened a cabinet and took out a folded swatch of old white linen, which she proceeded to tear into several long strips. She turned and handed them to Ariana, then retrieved a small corked pot of ointment from a shelf containing an array of like-shaped containers. "Are you injured as well?"

  Ariana shook her head. "I have a few bruises, but I am fine. Some bad men attacked me near the docks. They killed my friend and stole my money, but he...Braedon," she said, reluctantly testing the name on her tongue, "he saved my life."

  Peg eyed her skeptically as she handed her the pot of salve. "Well, then. I'd say you were most fortunate. The Braedon I know would sooner walk away from people when they need them most."

  She stepped past Ariana without another word, leaving her to stand there and wonder what he had done to make this woman so distrustful of him. The harsh words she greeted him with echoed back to Ariana in a cool rush of memory: Haven't you cost him enough? Trouble has a way of following you, doesn't it, Braedon?

  Standing beside him under the eaves of the shop's front door, Ariana had looked up at him as he absorbed those words. She had not missed his slight flinch, or the muscle in his jaw that went tight in reflex at his unwelcome reception. But he had not said anything to counter Peg's vague accusations.

  Nor had he seemed surprised to hear his friend, Rob, say that he had thought him dead.

  We all did, after what happened that day.

  Ariana felt a tug of curiosity pull at her. That he had been away for some time was clear enough, but why? Who was this scarred, unreadable man who had spared her from death--or worse--at Monsieur Ferrand's hand? Who was he, and what was it that haunted him? For it was clear that he was a man haunted by something that went deeper than any flesh wound....