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  There was a glimmer of humor in his eyes as he said it, but it was fleeting and more than a trifle rusty. Nevertheless, Isabel felt a reluctant smile curl her lips. She glanced down at her hands, busying her fingers with a crumbly piece of bread. “No,” she said. “My life at the abbey was peaceful enough. 'Twas before, when I lived at home--at Lamere--that I often had to fight using something more than words. The squires and pages who fostered with us used to tease me relentlessly about one thing or another: my hair, my freckles, my awkwardness.” She shrugged. “I had become long used to their jests and gibes, but when they turned their cruelty on the younger children of the castle, well, I suppose 'twas more than I could stand.”

  “So, my Izzy became a courtyard defender, taking on the bullies she once fled.” Isabel met his gaze, startled to hear him refer to her as 'his Izzy.' He seemed equally surprised by the idea, though he masked it well enough under a careless chuckle and a wry lift of his brow. “'Tis better to do unto others, before they have the chance to do unto you, I say.”

  Isabel frowned. She did not like his sudden, callous tone of voice. “That sounds to me more like something Dominic of Droghallow would say. Although I must admit I am finding it hard to tell the both of you apart now.” She watched his stony expression, the way he stared at her, a grim shadow of the bright, chivalric lad she recalled so fondly. “What happened to you, Griffin? How did you become like this?”

  “Like what, my lady?”

  It was a challenge, that simple, emotionless question. Isabel knew he was trying to intimidate her, but she could not help herself from asking, from demanding to know what had happened to the youth she had once adored. The boy whose courage had inspired in Isabel her own.

  “Where is your honor?” she asked him pointedly. “You once told me you meant to be a great man. A man of honor, you said. How did a youth who would look death in the eye to rescue a helpless girl turn into the rogue I see now: a mercenary fueled by greed, a common bride thief?”

  He hesitated to answer, as if he were actually giving it some thought. “Slowly, I imagine . . . day by day.” His shrug was casual, negligent. “As for honor, my lady, I have found it to be somewhat overrated. That's not to say I don't subscribe to my own notions of right and wrong.”

  “The very reason you would bring me to Montborne,” Isabel suggested. “To right the wrong of Dom's cheating you out of your reward for my capture?”

  He gave her a slight, assenting nod.

  “There is nothing honorable in that,” she told him. “What you seem to subscribe to is greed and revenge, a blackguard's brand of justice. I thought you were above such criminal behavior. I thought you were . . . different.”

  “A criminal, did you say?” he tossed back at her. “Ah, I see. And what excuse do you offer for the crime of stealing my medallion that day in Droghallow's woods?”

  “Stealing it!” she gasped, then saw from the glint of humor in his eyes that his accusation was meant in jest. Against her will, Isabel found herself returning his smile, then quickly glanced away embarrassed. “I did not steal your medallion. I found it lying on the ground after you left. There was a weak link in the chain--that's why you lost it, I suppose. But I was able to repair it. A goldsmith would have done a better job I'm sure, but still, I've taken care of it as best I can, and it's held up well these past ten years. I've been meaning to return it to you all this time. . . hoping, actually, that I would have the chance one day.”

  She was rambling now, chattering on mindlessly because she could not bear the knowledge that he was watching her. She felt his scrutiny like a physical caress, knew his gaze was too astute to miss the rising color in her cheeks, her bottom lip caught between her teeth to keep herself from prattling on any further.

  “Ten years,” he remarked quietly. “'Tis no wonder I did not recognize you on sight. The girl I recall was a plump ball of butter, a wide-eyed, freckle-faced child without the good sense to know when she was wandering headlong into danger.” She glanced up, just in time to see him give her an appreciative smile. It was a gesture that irritated her beyond toleration for the way she greedily soaked up even the most dubious scrap of his attention. “You have changed--and in some rather dramatic ways, at that--my lady.”

  “So have you, my lord,” she retorted in a less-than-flattering tone of voice. “I expect the man I see before me now would let that boar gore me to shreds before he stepped forth to offer his aid.”

  Griffin tilted his head and regarded her with a wry twist of his lip. “Quite the contrary, demoiselle. It would sorely aggrieve me to see you meet with harm, now as ever. I can only guess, but I'm fairly certain your bridegroom's anticipated show of appreciation would discount significantly were his bride to be delivered to him in multiple pieces.”

  Isabel glared at him, appalled and fuming, at an utter loss for words.

  “My thanks, incidentally, for the return of my medallion,” he offered, lifting the small disc of bronze into the sunlight as if to appraise it. “I suspect I might be able to get at least a few deniers for it at market somewhere.”

  That he would even think to sell the amulet after all it had meant to her--after all she had done to keep it safe for the past decade--incensed Isabel beyond measure. “God rot you and your bloody medallion,” she shot back at him, one of the few times in her cloistered life that she had ever allowed a curse to cross her lips. She swallowed down the lump of hurt and anger that lodged itself in her throat. She would not rail at him. Heaven help her, she would not give him the satisfaction of goading her. She stared at him, forcing herself to hold his hard gaze. “You're a beast, Griffin of Droghallow. A lowly scoundrel and a common thief. To think for all these years I have--”

  Adored you, she thought, thankful that she was able to bite back the damning words before they further condemned her.

  If she had not known it before, she well knew the truth now. The boy she had practically worshiped for his honor and goodness was gone. Evidently many years gone, though what might have happened to him, Isabel could not be sure. Nor did she think she wanted to let herself get close enough to this stranger who bore his name to find out.

  No, the boy she had loved for so long was dead. And Griffin had buried him deep, Isabel realized suddenly.

  She could only stare at him now, angered at him for embroiling her in this profound confusion and furious with herself for allowing him to so affect her. She was unsure of what to say in that moment, unsure what to think of him now. She wanted to hate him.

  She wanted to, but heaven help her, she could not.

  Unable to abide the snarl of confusion that twisted inside her when she thought of him, Isabel stood up and brushed some of the leaves and forest debris from her skirts. When she started to take a step away from the camp, Griffin reached out and grabbed her by the arm. She pulled free of his grasp with an offended scoff. “I suppose it would be too much to ask for a few moments of privacy, sirrah?”

  He did not answer, nor did he deny her. And from the glint of warning in his eyes, she knew better than to even consider trying to escape him again.

  “A few moments,” he said finally. “No more, demoiselle.”

  * * *

  Griffin watched her storm off into the woods, her slender spine held rigid as a lance. He knew he had upset her, knew her want to be away from him probably had more to do with her offended principles than it did with answering nature's call. It didn't really matter, so long as she would not be foolish enough to use his permission as a chance to slip away. He rather doubted she would. As odious as she likely found him, she needed him if she was going to make it to Montborne and her betrothed.

  And he needed her betrothed's reward if he was ever going to get away from what he had allowed himself to become during the past few years at Droghallow.

  Isabel had been right when she said it was difficult to tell him apart from Dom. He had been coming to that conclusion himself in recent days, though he had not paused to give it much thought unti
l now. Not until Isabel had so justly accused him of a lack of honor.

  He thought about Lady Alys now, too, and Sir Robert. How disappointed they both would be to see him now, how rightly appalled. He and all his talk of chivalry and greatness and worthy, noble quests. It was nothing more than youthful nonsense, the shattered dreams of a man whose hands had since been stained with blood and villainy. Considering it now, he wasn't entirely sure that any amount of silver would change what he had become in his heart: a mercenary knight with less virtue than a back alley whore.

  The morose direction of his thoughts was diverted when he heard movement coming from the area of the brook. He had left his haughty little hostage alone for ample time to relieve herself; perhaps she had decided to take to the stream and make her escape after all. Tossing aside his cup of wine, Griff stalked down the embankment and past his mount, his eyes trained to spot Isabel's pale green gown and copper pate amongst the similarly resplendent palate of the autumn woods.

  He caught sight of her a few short yards down from their camp, where a large granite boulder thrust out of the bramble and into the stream, creating a bend in the water's flow, and a flat dry surface on which she sat. She had rinsed her face and was now in the process of plaiting her hair; the long auburn tresses hung over the front of her shoulder in damp waves, their shade nearly burgundy having been wetted from the stream. She combed through the silken mass with her fingers, her face turned up to the sun, eyes closed.

  Griff wondered how often she had been able to enjoy the simplicity of a pleasant afternoon spent outdoors, how often her head had been bared to the sun since she had been sent to live in the convent. The girl he recalled seemed the sort to relish freedom and the ability to follow her whims; there was an unspoken sadness about the woman he saw before him now, as if she had somehow come to understand that freedom and fancy had their price.

  He supposed he had already done a great deal to prove the fact in the few hours they had unwillingly spent together.

  Watching the smooth line of her throat, the delicate arc of her neck as she stretched to feel the full warmth of the sun's rays, Griff wondered what else he might be tempted to prove in the days--and nights--that were yet to come between here and Montborne. Hungrily, his eyes drifted lower, to the rise of her breasts, the bodice of her seafoam-colored bliaut wet in places from her dripping hair. The water must have been cold, for her nipples had risen to hard buds beneath her gown, two perfect pearls that hinted at the loveliness of her firm round breasts. She moved with the innate grace of a feline, her arms lithe and slender, her elegant white fingers rhythmically stroking her hair as she weaved it into a thick plaited rope, unaware of the predatory gaze fixed on her across the way.

  Griff's blood quickened while he stood there, intruding on her privacy and stealing this glimpse of her like the base thief she had accused him of being. Lust pooled swift and heavy in his loins when she finished off her braid and leaned back on the boulder, propped on her elbows in a position that called to everything that was elemental and wild in him.

  He wanted her, and in the past that had usually been enough. He had never stooped to rape; seduction had always proven far more sporting. But when he looked at Isabel in that moment, something primal stirred inside him, something that whispered insidiously of how he truly was no better than Dom. No less an animal in so many other ways, so why not this?

  Though he did not move, could hardly breathe for the torment of his own thoughts, Isabel suddenly sat up. Her eyes flew open to meet his heated stare. Griffin said nothing, his every muscle tense. His senses measured the moment, noting the way her lips parted to suck in a gasp of air, her fingers trembling as she brought them down into her lap and watched him, her gaze uncertain and not a little fearful. She slid off the rock and stood against it, looking small and cornered and far too innocent for the indecent bent of his thinking.

  “We've delayed here long enough,” he growled when the wary silence stretched out between them. “I know of a village a few hours out where we can find shelter and supplies. We'd best be on our way.”

  Isabel said nothing as she hastened past him, her eyes downcast, hands gathered protectively at her neck. She said nothing to him for the rest of that day's ride, either, their collective mood as heavy as the dark rain clouds that were beginning to bunch in overhead, creeping down from the northern sky.

  Chapter 9

  A cold, sprinkling rain followed them well until dusk. Griff considered the inclement weather to be something of a blessing, for it kept the roads and woodland trails they traveled all but deserted. Only a few straggling peasants remained in their fields or gathering up livestock when he and Isabel arrived at the village where Griff hoped to find shelter for the night.

  The tiny hamlet crouched along Droghallow's northernmost border, comprising little more than a handful of cottages and a humble tavern, a way station that Griff and his men had used on occasion when business for Dom brought them to the area. Though he doubted the simple folk would recognize him without his retinue of soldiers, as Griff guided his mount along the village road, he kept his head low, his face turned away as if to shield himself from the spitting drizzle. Isabel was nestled against him as she had been for most of the day's trek, presently obscured from view by the wide edge of Griffin's mantle tucked around her shoulders.

  They attracted scarcely the mildest of interest as they passed, the villeins more focused on returning their goats and cattle to their pens for the eve than they were on the bedraggled pair of pilgrims. Nor did anyone take notice when, near the outskirts of the retiring burgh, Griff slowed his mount and walked it off the road toward one of the village's storage barns.

  “Where are you going?” Isabel asked quietly as he dismounted, the first words she had spoken to him since they had stopped earlier in the day. “Are we to stay here for the night?”

  “'Tis as good a place as any,” Griff answered as he pulled her from the saddle.

  He tried the door of the outbuilding and was pleased to find it unlatched. Inside, the large shed was dark and warm. It smelled invitingly of fresh hay and fleece, the vague oily-musky scent wafting off the bales of wool that were stored there from the last shearing. The spacious barn held ample room for the both of them and Griff's horse, a fine alternative indeed to spending the night in the rain.

  “Come,” he said to Isabel when she hesitated outside. “We'll be safe here.”

  She followed him in, seating herself on a plump sack of fleece as Griff led his mount past and began to remove the gray's saddle and riding gear. He heard her yawn behind him and by the time he turned to offer her a blanket, he found that she was already fast asleep, curled up and slumbering like a babe.

  Griff strode over and covered her with his mantle, taking care not to wake her. She would need her rest for tomorrow they would have to make haste; the more distance they could put between them and Droghallow, the better. Indeed, he thought wryly, and the more distance he could put between himself and lovely Isabel, the better. Despite efforts to convince himself otherwise, she was fast becoming pure temptation, a distraction he damned well did not need--not when a careless inattention could cost both of them their lives.

  He supposed now that that determination had been at the root of his behavior earlier in the glade, when he had knowingly, deliberately, provoked her anger. He did not want her to look upon him with favor or fond regard and so he had mocked her, from the harsh exaggeration of his initial impression of her as a half-wit little girl wandering lost in Droghallow's woods, to his scorn of the kindhearted young woman who had painstakingly restored, preserved, and borne around her own delicate neck the misplaced medallion of a boy she knew nothing about, and would, had fate not intervened, likely never seen again. Even now, with the small bronze half disc lying cold and solid against his chest, Griffin could scarcely believe he had it back.

  At last.

  After ten long years of scouring every inch of the woods in vain, a decade spent regretting the cheri
shed pendant's loss, finally, he had it back. It was all he had of his true family, the only tangible bit of evidence existing in this world to give him even a hint of who he was. He would never part with it; his flippant statement that he would pawn it on first chance had been a bald-faced lie intended to mask what it actually meant to him--what it meant to him to know that Isabel had cared for the amulet on his behalf all this time. He could scarcely reconcile his good fortune, no more than he could fathom the intriguing woman who had brought it to him after so many years.

  Lady Alys, second wife to Robert of Droghallow and the only mother Griffin had ever known, once said to him that nobility was something a person carried in their heart, not hung about their necks like a chain of gold. At the time, Griffin had thought it to be just a pretty saying intended to soothe the feelings of a dejected young boy who had lost the only thing of value he had ever possessed, but now, looking at Isabel, he had to wonder.

  For what had not been the first time, he pictured her reclining on the rock near the stream, imagining her lying there unclothed instead, welcoming. He relived the moment he had kissed her in Droghallow's keep as well, remembering all too vividly the sensual meeting of their mouths, the savage quickening of his blood. The keen response of his body to hers. He wanted to know that feeling again--knew he would, in fact, if given half a chance. While carnal pleasure was a pursuit he seldom shied away from, defiling doe-eyed virgins had never been to his taste. And only a man with a fool's lack of sense would risk any portion of his anticipated reward by delivering the Earl of Montborne's affianced in a condition even so much as a shade less than healthy, hale, and wholly untouched.