Heart of the Hunter Page 5

  "Oh, what does it matter, anyway?" she chided herself in a stern whisper.

  Shaking away thoughts of her broody rescuer, she reminded herself that she had bigger problems of her own to consider. Kenrick's ransom weighed like a heavy stone in the large leather satchel slung over her shoulder. At least Ferrand had not discovered that particular treasure. Nor Braedon, she thought with a prickle of sharp resentment. He had refused to return her coin purse, but she would fight him unto death before she surrendered the key to Kenrick's freedom.

  She would wait here until she could be sure Ferrand had lost her trail, as was Braedon's suggestion, and then she would search out another means of getting to France. Perhaps she would sell James's fine gelding, which she prayed was still stabled with her mare back near the tavern at Queenhithe. Surely if the boon was high enough, she could find an honest ship captain willing to take her to the Continent. Perhaps she would inquire after such a captain at one of the chapels on the bridge.

  Kenrick's ransom would be delivered to his captors, as planned. She would not abandon her mission to save him. She would not fail him, no matter what it might cost her.

  The renewed sense of resolve bolstered her as she carried the bandages and ointment out to the other room.

  Braedon was seated on a bench at a small table near the fire. He had already removed his tunic, thankfully without her assistance, and he now sat there bare-chested and wholly immodest, a cup of steaming wine caught in his hand. Peg straddled the bench beside him, cleansing the wound on his right forearm while he drank and conversed with her husband in low tones across the table. Ariana thought she heard Clairmont mentioned as she approached with Peg's supplies, but she could not be sure as the discussion ceased altogether by the time she reached the table.

  "Set them there, if you will," Peg said, gesturing to the empty space of table near her.

  Ariana did as instructed, her gaze locking for an instant with the unsettling intensity of Braedon's piercing gray eyes. She glanced away, feigning disinterest while Peg swabbed up the last few streaks of blood from his arm and reached for the pot of ointment. Before she could remove the cork, something began to bubble over and hiss in the fireplace.

  "Ach! My porridge," Peg exclaimed, leaping to her feet. She plopped the jar of ointment down in Ariana's palm. "Dress his wound while I see about your supper."

  "But I--"

  "Let me help you, wife." Rob swung his legs over the bench he occupied and hobbled away from the table to follow Peg to the hearth. He lightly swatted her behind when he reached her side, then retrieved two wooden bowls from a shelf on the wall. Something he whispered in his wife's ear made her laugh softly across the room.

  Against her will, Ariana turned her gaze on Braedon. Though he said not a word, he was watching her expectantly as he took a drink from his cup of wine. The firelight danced on his skin as he moved, illuminating a fascinating expanse of sculpted sinew and hard, lean lines. A dusting of crisp dark hair spread across the planes of his strong chest. His muscled belly looked as firm as granite beneath the loose waistband of his winter hose.

  Ariana felt her face flame as she considered his unclothed form, although she did not know why he should affect her so. She had seen men without their tunics on before. Indeed, very often in the summer months the knights at Clairmont would practice thus at their weapons in the yard. Kenrick had possessed no large measure of modesty around her, either, but there was something very different between her golden-haired brother's athletic physique and this man's swarthy and immense warrior's body.

  If Kenrick was beautifully formed, as her friends frequently assured her he was, then this man was profane in his masculinity. Everything about him was hard and imposing, from his savaged face with its strong dark brow, blade-sharp cheeks, and stern jaw, to the iron-hewn brutality of his massive shoulders and body, which exuded an air of pure power even at rest. Heaven help her, but Ariana found it difficult to tear her gaze away from him.

  "Here," he drawled from his seat on the bench, startling her gaze back to his with the deep sound of his voice. A smirk teased the edge of his mouth as he slid his cup of wine toward her on the table. "You look as though you could use this more than me. You're not going to swoon at the sight of a little blood, are you?"

  "Of course not. I am no stranger to dressing wounds," she told him, meeting the slight mockery in his tone with a haughty look of offense.

  She had dressed wounds, that was true enough, although she was not at all certain the sundry scrapes she had assisted with at Clairmont could compare to a knife wound like the one presented to her now. She stared at the small crock in her hand, then down at the ugly gash that had torn open Braedon's arm. It was bleeding again, less than before, but it looked painful and nasty, and she wondered how he could sit there and endure it as if it were nothing at all. As it was, she could hardly stand to look at the damage. But she refused to show her squeamishness, or betray the peculiar tremor of awareness that coursed through her at the thought of putting herself in such close proximity to him and touching his bare skin.

  Sitting beside him, her back to the table for she was not so bold as Peg that she would lift her skirts and straddle the bench as she had done, Ariana retrieved the damp cloth and blotted away the fresh blood from Braedon's arm. Her hands were slightly unsteady as she removed the cork from the pot of ointment and set it aside. The tincture was brown and sticky, and smelled of tree sap and spices and moist loamy earth. She dipped her finger in the pungent muck and carefully applied it to Braedon's wound.

  "This cut is deep. It really should be stitched or it will leave a terrible-looking...scar."

  She realized her slip an instant too late. She had done it again, calling attention to the scar he already bore, the knife-edge line of white that gave his face such a rough, savage appearance. Wincing inwardly, she lifted her gaze from Braedon's arm. He was watching her with mild interest, his dark eyes hooded, revealing nothing of his mood.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered, feeling ten times a fool and an insensitive clod. "I didn't mean..."

  He said nothing to excuse her or put her at ease, merely looked at her as he reached out to hand her a strip of linen bandage. Ariana worked quickly. She wrapped his arm securely to seal the wound, all the while feeling his gaze on her like a physical thing, warm and weighty, menacing and yet compelling. She bent over his arm to fasten off the ends of the bindings and felt his breath stir her hair. This close, her senses filled with him--the intriguing definition and form of his strong, muscular torso, the rain-washed, spicy scent of his skin, so warm beneath her fingertips....

  Nay, this was nothing like the ministrations she provided at Clairmont. This was something vastly different. He was different from anyone she knew, and she did not know why he should affect her so. Heaven help her, but she did not want to know. She could hardly wait to get the last knot tied and put a respectable space between them.

  All the better that she would soon put the English Channel itself between them.

  At last, Peg and Rob returned to the table. Peg carried a tray containing two bowls of steaming, yeasty-sweet porridge; Rob hobbled along beside her, one hand on his cane, the other wrapped around the neck of a decanter filled with more hot mulled wine.

  "Here you are. 'Tis not much, but it should warm you some."

  Peg placed the bowls on the table while Rob poured the wine. Ariana's stomach growled at the sight of the warm meal and she ate like she had just come off a long Lenten fast. She was hungry and cold, but the wine and porridge filled her, and the heat of the fireplace enveloped her like a blanket of thick downy wool.

  Though she fought it, sleep beckoned now that she was sated and warm. The lure of slumber peeled away the trauma of the day and a contented drowsiness began to descend, dimming Ariana's problems, muting the sounds in the room, dousing the light from the glowing hearth. Her eyelids grew heavy, her head a taxing weight on her shoulders. She sighed and felt herself succumbing to the quiet, needing the rest a
s badly as she had needed the sustenance of her meal.

  She stretched her arm out on the table, and slowly nestled her head in the crook of her elbow. She needed rest, but she could not afford to sleep for long. The satchel containing Kenrick's ransom hung reassuringly at her hip, a constant reminder of her task, her vow. She drew the pouch onto her lap, clutching it in her free arm, and let herself relax a bit.

  She would close her eyes for just a few moments, and then she would extricate herself from this place and these people, and be on her way once more....

  * * *

  "God's bones, Braedon. I see you here at my table and I wonder if I am sitting with a ghost."

  With Peg gone to the other room and Ariana asleep like the dead on the bench beside him, Braedon glanced up and met the gaze of his old brother in arms. Rob's jovial mood sobered now that it was just the two of them. They shared a dark bond, having survived a hellish night that had ended in a storm of blood and flames. Like an old wound that refused to mend, being in Rob's presence dredged up vivid images of things Braedon wished he could forget.

  "At least a year and a half it's been since that night, but I vow it could have happened only yesterday." Rob blew out a curse. "What kept you away all this time? How could you let me think you had perished out there on that tideswept crag like the others?"

  Braedon shrugged, then took a drink of his wine, considering the day he led five loyal men to their graves. It was supposed to have been a victory celebration, a very lucrative one, funded by a wealthy man who'd pressed upon Braedon's vaunted reputation with an irresistible offer. Retrieve a certain trinket, and he would be paid a sizable reward. Double the boon, should he also bring in the thief who stole it.

  Braedon had come through--the relentless le Chasseur never failed--and he was eager to collect his promised due. Too eager, it turned out. For on the night of the exchange, what awaited him and the small band of men he trusted like brothers, was betrayal by one of their own and an ensuing, horrific bloodbath. Braedon should have seen it coming, but he'd been blinded by his own arrogance. Invincible, so he'd come to think. Until that night proved him worse than a fool.

  That he had lived when other more worthy men had not provided little comfort, then or now. In truth, he had been trying to escape that night ever since, but it seemed no amount of running carried him far enough away from the horror of what he witnessed.

  Rob expelled a heavy breath. "Jesu, Braedon. I can still see that blade flashing down across your face. The bastard meant to lay you open. 'Tis a miracle you survived. A miracle we both did, truth to tell. The devil himself was on that cliff that day."

  "Not the devil," Braedon replied. "Just a man."

  Rob leaned in, lowering his voice to a near whisper. "A man whom steel can't fell?"

  Braedon stared at him, then lowered his gaze to his cup, refusing to acknowledge his friend's statement. But Rob, despite being so many months away from the matter, seemed unwilling to give it up.

  "It was the devil, my friend. How do you explain the evil we saw?"

  Braedon shrugged. "My strike was off. I missed my mark, that's all."

  "You never missed your mark--not in all the years I've known you. Your blade struck true as ever. I saw it, and you did, too."

  "I don't know what I saw."

  "And what of the girl we delivered there?" Rob asked. "Don't tell me your eyes failed to see what haunts me to this day, Braedon. How do you explain the way she died?"

  Braedon's jaw clamped tight at the mention of the thief he'd been sent to locate and return. A fey thing, with silver-blond hair and a timidity that seemed wholly at odds with the boldness it had taken for her to steal a priceless artifact from a man as powerful as the one who'd hired Braedon. An artifact she refused to touch with her bare hands for fear that it would destroy her. How mad she'd sounded to him. How mad it still seemed to him to think on it now.

  "We intruded on some black brand of magic, Braedon. She tried to warn us. We should have let her go--her and that accursed cup she'd stolen. We should have listened to her. By the Rood, but how could we have known she spoke the truth?"

  "I didn't come here to talk about her, Rob. Or anything else that happened then." His voice was clipped, an angry growl that rang in his ears. His hand was gripped tight around his tankard, but somehow he managed to effect a calmer timbre as he looked up and met his friend's uncertain gaze. "It's over, what happened that day, Rob. It is done. Let us speak no more on it."

  Rob nodded. "As you wish, my friend. I did not mean to dredge up memories best left buried."

  But the memories were unearthed, and a pall of thoughtful silence descended on the small shop room. Braedon took a long drink of wine that did nothing to assuage the rise of bitter bile in his throat. With little effort, he could still see the incredible explosion of fire that had erupted atop the cliff. He could still feel his confusion--his rage--as the blood of his men began to spill all around him, chaos loosed by his own failing. He could still feel his blade cleaving the air, could hear it sing as it descended, could see it hit the flesh and bone shoulder of his enemy...and pass clean through without leaving so much as a scrape.

  And now he could not help thinking about what happened on the docks a short while before, when Ferrand de Paris all but evaporated from his grasp.

  He shook his head, thrusting aside the illogical track his mind was want to take and focused on issues rooted in the here and now, namely Lady Ariana of Clairmont and his desire to relieve himself of her welfare as soon as possible. He explained the situation to Rob, who readily agreed to see her home within the week.

  "Anything you need, Braedon. You know you have but to ask and I will be there for you."

  He rose and took Rob's hand in a firm grasp of friendship. He did not waste words on excuses or farewells. Fetching his tunic, which had since dried before the fire, he shrugged into it and fixed his baldric around his hips. There were less than four hours until the tide came in, and he meant to set sail as soon as the river swelled enough to permit safe travel out of London.

  "You won't be coming back." Rob did not pose it as a question. As always, even after all this time, he knew him still. "Where will you go?"

  Braedon shook his head. "Wherever fate sees fit to carry me, I suppose."

  Rob nodded, understanding. "Might you see fit to help me carry this child to a proper bed before you go?" he asked, hooking his thumb at Ariana, who had begun to stir where she slept draped over the table.

  Braedon carefully lifted her slack weight into his arms. She opened her eyes as her head came to rest against his shoulder and murmured something about taking care of her satchel. A moment later she was dozing again, as delicate as a sparrow, her arms wrapped around his neck, her breath fanning warm and light against his bare chest. He brought her into an adjacent room and set Ariana down on a small pallet within.

  Rob was waiting outside the door when Braedon came out a few moments later to retrieve his mantle. He turned and reached for the latch on the shop door.

  "Stay, Braedon. Let's talk some more. You can leave on the morrow's tide."

  He paused for the slightest moment at Rob's entreaty, then without a word, he opened the door and walked into the gathering darkness outside.

  * * *

  Ariana was lost in a blissful dream. In the haziness of her sleep-drenched mind, she felt the inexplicable sensation of weightlessness, of being protected and sheltered, carried in strong arms away from a roiling sea of danger and placed with gentle care into a nest of soft wool. The dream stretched out, washing over her in languorous waves. Timeless, seductive.

  A comforting brush of hard, warm fingers traced her cheek, then tenderly smoothed her hair. Ariana snuggled deeper into the phantom caress, deeper into the dream, relishing the feeling of safety, of peaceful, quiet calm.

  Through the muted veil of slumber that cocooned her, a low, soothing whisper caressed her temple, so near she could feel the words form against her brow. "Sleep, little sparrow,
and Godspeed...."

  The voice was deep and cultured, yet laced with an edge of danger. It was a warrior's voice, as rough as the calluses on his sword-worn fingertips, yet speaking words as soft as the finest velvet. There was a sadness in that voice as well. A loneliness. A solitude that touched something deep in Ariana's soul.

  It beckoned to her, like a wary, wounded animal, and against everything she knew to be prudent, Ariana found herself reaching for it.

  Reaching for him.

  "Braedon..."

  "He's not here, child."

  Peg's voice jolted Ariana awake. She pushed herself up on the pallet that had been her bed and blinked away the cobwebs of sleep. Her hair was loose from its plaits, disheveled and hanging in her eyes. She raked it from her face and met the taxed gaze of the cobbler's wife.

  "I must have been dreaming," Ariana offered, somewhat embarrassed to have called out Braedon's name in her sleep, and thankful that he had not been the one standing there to witness it himself. "What hour is it?"

  Peg stood in the doorway of the small antechamber, her arms crossed over her chest. "The chapel bell will soon toll Lauds."

  "Nearly daybreak?" Ariana drew aside the thin wool coverlet and pivoted to place her feet on the floor. "I have slept far longer than I intended."

  "You looked as though you needed the rest," Peg said. She shoved off the doorjamb and crossed to open a shuttered window on the adjacent wall. The storm had cleared overnight. Now the slim light of the coming dawn spilled into the dark chamber and cast Peg's face in a pale pinkish glow as she looked out over the river below. "You should attend your toilette now. My husband has gone to fetch a cart and horse. He'll be back anon, and I trust you'll be ready when he returns."