If she had her piano or another singer, she could create a harmony that would soothe the savage breast, but she did not. Fine then. If they spoke in riddles, she would take them literally.
She switched to the children’s lullaby she’d composed. Relaxing, Ian picked up the sword and used it as a brace to unfold his knees and sit down properly. He breathed easier, as if her singing truly did ease his pain. He leaned his head against a tree trunk while she struggled to wrap a pad of linen to his shoulder. The bullet had torn through the muscle and fortunately gone straight out the other side. He had to have been shot at close range.
Battening down her rage in favor of her concern, she continued singing while she examined the long scrape bleeding on Ian’s bronzed chest, but he caught her wrist and halted her.
“It’s a scrape. Tend Murdoch, please. I would take him back as prisoner, not corpse.”
“You would do better to leave me here to die and spare me the fate of having my soul ripped from my body,” Murdoch muttered.
Thinking him delusional from fever, Chantal frowned. She crossed the clearing to rest a hand on his forehead. He felt as cold as death, and she jerked her palm away. He had not seemed so injured as Ian. She hated touching him, but she would have to remove his clothing to reach the area that was bleeding beneath his torn uniform.
“You would escape as soon as I was distant enough for you to overcome your bonds,” Ian said wearily. “I cannot allow you to roam free after what you have done. You must see that.”
The anger had gone out of both of them, Chantal noticed. She continued singing, hoping reason would return soon. Besides, the song soothed her frayed nerves. She was not usually so easily pushed to the brink of hysteria. She needed the balance of believing that she was helping, that she was needed, to continue.
“I am no danger to our kind,” Murdoch protested as Chantal tugged his torn coat over his bulging shoulders.
With his hands tied behind his back, Murdoch could not aid her in pulling the coat any farther than his elbows. A gash bled copiously from his upper arm, saturating his fancy red waistcoat and shirt. She was amazed he still remained upright, although trying to sit down while on his knees with his hands tied would be difficult. He just resisted toppling.
“You are a danger to us simply by hoping to keep the chalice for yourself,” Ian countered. “Without it, the weather has become erratic, wells dry, and crops fail. There is no reason for our existence without the sacred objects.”
They continued to talk in riddles as far as Chantal was concerned. Humming softly, she probed Murdoch’s wound. It was a good thing her mother had taught her how to care for injuries. She’d nursed Jean for years, so she knew how to tend fevers and bedridden patients, too. She feared these two would die before they could ever do anything so sensible as retire to a bed.
“There is no reason for the island’s existence,” Murdoch asserted. He sounded weaker than earlier. “You do nothing for the greater good despite all your gifts. You have the power to command kingdoms, bring peace and prosperity to multitudes. Instead, you selfishly cower behind the walls you erect to keep the rabble out and cling to your wealth like dragons hoarding gold. I have no sympathy for your plight.”
“Power corrupts,” Ian replied without hesitation. “Already, the rot has invaded your soul. Tell me you covet the chalice for the greater good and not your own ambitions.”
“This is a charming argument,” Chantal intervened, “and I’m sure if we returned to Paris, you could join the Jacobins and Girondins or the troublemakers on the street and argue all day. May I suggest you use your energy more wisely and figure out how I will get you out of here?”
Murdoch grimaced as Chantal attempted to draw the raw edges of his wound together. Instead of responding to her suggestion, he addressed Ian in a voice dripping acid. “Her tongue may be sweeter than honey, but your mother will cut it out when you bring her home.”
Tired of being talked around, she ripped his linen off the crusting wound until it bled again. “This needs cauterization,” she told him. She chose to believe them delirious and shut out their nonsensical talk. “I don’t suppose in all your wisdom that you carry fire on you?”
When Murdoch glanced down at the knife in his belt, Ian shook his head. “Not now.” Resting his naked back against a tree trunk, he drew up his knee and propped his injured arm upon it.
Chantal thought she could easily expire of desire just watching his muscles ripple. As if he sensed her thoughts, he watched her with boldness. Amusement twitched at his lips, and she had the urge to smack him, even as she wondered when and how they could share a bed again.
“Your father will send the carriage after us shortly,” Ian claimed. “You need only sing us to sufficient health to walk down to the road.”
“It’s a strange gift,” Murdoch murmured groggily, beginning to sway as she tried to staunch the flow of blood. “She charms and enchants in one voice, and shatters nerves in another. Can she really use her voice to heal?”
“Will the two of you quit speaking as if I’m not here? My head and ears work as well as yours, better most likely, if you think singing heals.”
“It’s a wondrous gift,” Ian agreed. “Trystan was right when he said we did ourselves no favor by ignoring Crossbreeds. Their talents are different from ours, admittedly, and not so obviously useful. They cannot defend with sword, perhaps, but with knowledge and creativity — ”
The rattle of carriage wheels on the road below interrupted this wildly improbable philosophical discussion, none too soon, in Chantal’s opinion. Without bothering to explain herself, she finished tying a knot in Murdoch’s bandage, then took off running down the path.
“She doesn’t understand, Ian,” Murdoch accused as soon as she was out of earshot. “It is like taking a baby sparrow from its mother and placing it in a hawk’s nest.”
“Only death can sever the bond between us.” Ian leaned heavily against the oak, acknowledging the guilt Murdoch bestowed upon him. “And the ring prevents me from explaining. By all rights, our kind should never leave the island.”
Awkwardly, Murdoch braced his back against a tree trunk, using it for support so he could climb to his feet, although sweat poured from his brow with the pain of his effort. “There, we disagree. Take her and leave me. The chalice is gone. You serve no further purpose by remaining in my world. Go back and hide from reality until the end of time.”
Ian closed his eyes against a great weariness and pushed aside Murdoch’s temper to focus on the imperative. “I cannot hear Pierre’s thoughts clearly, but I suspect the chalice offers promises to go where it wishes. He probably believes running with it will make his family safe.”
Murdoch glared at him. “The chalice talks?”
Ian shook his head. “I doubt it. It’s sentient in some manner, but I suspect its power lies in influencing the minds of those who behold it. It lured Trystan’s wife to take it from the island. I thought it had been leading me to Chantal. Or to you. If so, now that I’ve found you, it’s changed course. Pierre seems to be heading for the coast instead of Austria.”
“Perhaps he is catching a ship to Ireland. Or the Americas. What does it matter? The chalice is gone again. What will you do now?”
Ian heard the thread of hope in Murdoch’s question and shook his head. He had found Chantal and Murdoch. He was in no condition to attempt to hold them and capture the chalice as well. He fought the weakness of sorrow and anger at his failure. “My task is to return you, the chalice, and Chantal to Aelynn. I cannot let you go in hopes of achieving the chalice.”
“You have to sleep sometime,” Murdoch pointed out. “You cannot hold these bonds forever.” He’d already made it to his feet.
Ian knew full well that Murdoch had the ability to set fire to rope stronger than those vines, once Ian’s mental reinforcement collapsed. Iron might hold him, but such manacles would be hard to come by in the few hours remaining before Ian passed out from exhaustion and loss of blo
od. They had reached another impasse.
“Give me your word of honor that you will not harm me or mine, and I will let you free so we can go after the chalice together,” he suggested.
“Why?” Murdoch scoffed. “I need only wait until you fall asleep to free myself.”
Ian shook his head sadly. “So much talent, so little wisdom. You are reacting without thought again. You were taught better than that.”
“I was taught I ought to rot in your grotto thinking how wonderful it is to be an Aelynner and submissive to your god-almighty parents,” Murdoch said scornfully. “I have better things to do than regret what I can’t have.”
Ian understood that Murdoch meant Lissandra. If the pair truly shared an amacara bond… He shook his head at the impossibility of such a cruelly disparate match.
The overwhelming realization that he would undergo the fires of the damned if he had to give up Chantal didn’t hit Ian as hard it should. It simply was. He’d already accepted the bond, even though it hampered his ability to go after the chalice. He could only imagine Murdoch’s torment at being forever denied his mate. Ian didn’t understand why the gods chose to torture them with such impossible companions, yet he would not go back to his former sterile life.
“I think I will make you suffer a little longer for your insults,” Ian said genially, hearing Chantal returning.
Murdoch gave a derisive snort. “At least I’m on my feet.”
Relaxing against the tree, Ian grinned. “I have good reason to save my strength.”
Chantal entered the clearing as he uttered this and shot him a look that boiled his blood.
“I should hope so,” she said. “There’s apparently a troop of National Guards asking after us already.” She stood aside to reveal two strangers in the sabots and tunics of farmers. “Pierre generously hired these gentlemen to act as drivers in his place, since he seems to have run off with your precious chalice.”
Murdoch slid down the tree trunk, unable to hold his ears against the agony of her sharp words.
“Do you begin to understand, my friend?” Ian asked softly. “She only wishes to beat me over the head with my staff. You, she would flay to shreds.”
Murdoch twitched from the pain. “How do you turn her off?”
“Not angering her helps,” Ian answered in satisfaction, climbing to his feet and catching Chantal’s arm before she could decide to swing at him.
And once she was in his arms, it was too much for a man to bear to resist kissing her.
“I came back,” he reminded her with a murmur. “You owe me for not dying.”
Twenty-two
On the carriage ride back to the inn where the rest of their party had taken refuge, Chantal closed her eyes and leaned against Ian’s uninjured shoulder, sheltered by his wide chest and strong arm, his heated kiss still burning on her lips. She had stood on her own for so long that even though she knew better than to depend on anyone else, she craved the comfort of sharing a moment with a man who at least pretended to care about her. She loved her father, but she knew she came second after his zeal to make France a better place — rightly so, but once in a while…
Of course, she would never have dared accept this luxury had Ian been awake, but he’d dozed off some miles back — after his prisoner in the seat across from them.
Both men were striking in their harsh, angular features and lean, hard bodies, but Ian’s mouth could be tender, and his gaze held peace and assurance, whereas Murdoch possessed nothing soft or safe about him. She wished Ian could have left him behind or turned him over to the authorities for whatever he’d done. She could see no good coming of traveling with a man who was willing to kill for what he wanted.
“Just shriek if he breaks loose,” Ian murmured into her hair, proving he did not sleep at all.
She should have jumped in startlement, or at least eased away so she was not so comfortably ensconced in his embrace, but she remained where she was, absorbing the steady beat of his heart. “I do not shriek,” she asserted. “I merely hit notes others cannot.”
Ian chuckled, and she loved the rumble of it coming from deep in his chest.
“His ears are more sensitive than mine. Speak to him sharply and he stumbles. Shriek — ” He winced as she elbowed him. “Speak more loudly, and he falls. You are my secret weapon.”
“That is nonsense. Go back to sleep.”
“I warned you not to let the chalice go,” he murmured again. “Learn to heed me, and all will be well.”
Fine for him to say. He intended to go home. She couldn’t. She wanted to rage against the unfairness, but she still couldn’t believe they were forever banned from her beloved France. She loved the sea and fresh scent of scythed grass at their country estate. She adored the hotbed of ideas and discussion in their circle of Parisian friends. She couldn’t live without her piano. It simply did not seem reasonable that she should lose everything because the king had chosen to escape the same day they’d left town.
“Maybe I’ll listen to you when you listen to me,” she retorted, to fight back tears.
“I listen,” he said. “I just do not always agree. Your tongue is persuasive, but not always reasonable. You have your areas of expertise, and I have mine. We will learn together.”
He gave her more confidence than she deserved, and she enjoyed the idea of learning together too much. He did not even scold her for abandoning the precious object he’d come so far to recover. She tried to sit up, but Ian tugged her back. She didn’t fight him.
She had to blame the madness that was Paris these days as much as she blamed Pauline and Ian for their predicament. Keeping a king hostage was an open invitation to war. Blaming everyone else for their problems would not provide solutions. Filling the streets with weapons carried by unregulated, desperate men was a recipe for anarchy.
So perhaps her home was not the home it once had been.
The carriage rocked to a halt in the shelter of a beech grove, and Ian instantly stiffened. The driver slid open the speaking door. “There’s soldiers blocking the road ahead,” he said in his crude accent. “If ye’re after avoiding them, I’ll let you out here and pretend I’m working on the wheel until ye’ve gone around out of sight.”
Chantal glanced questioningly at Ian, who nodded agreement. Murdoch was already awake and watching them.
“They’ll be my men,” he said.
“You wear the colors of a royal officer,” Chantal objected. “Men loyal to the king have no reason to pursue us.”
Murdoch shrugged. “The king is now a prisoner, and those loyal to him are fleeing the country. Those men out there are mercenaries who follow me now, and I’ve set them to hunting you. Let me go, and I’ll call them off.”
Ian sent him a look of scorn, then clambered from the carriage and offered his good hand to help Chantal. She clung to it, needing the reassuring squeeze of his fingers to keep fear at bay.
Murdoch remained inside. “Come and get me,” he said with a weak chuckle.
“I could, but I told you I’m saving my strength,” Ian replied peaceably. “Chantal, he is endangering your father and godchildren by his recalcitrance. What do you have to say to him?”
“That I’ll come in and drag him out by his bad arm?” she suggested, still thoroughly puzzled by Ian’s and Murdoch’s odd quarreling.
Silence from within the carriage.
Ian nodded approvingly. “Now say it as if you mean it and directly to him.”
“Will the two of you quit playing games!” she said in her lowest shout. “You could both bleed to death if we don’t find a physician soon.”
Murdoch miraculously appeared in the doorway, leaning heavily against the frame, looking haggard and pale. “The Inquisition could have used her talent,” he grumbled.
Ian used his good arm to help his prisoner down. “Who says they didn’t?”
Chantal knew her voice wasn’t that bad. Murdoch’s pretense that her fury hurt him must be some kind of game he and Ia
n played.
Briefly, she remembered other people wincing at her angry words — like the printer who’d escaped under his press when she’d received the note about Pauline’s imprisonment. Perhaps she spoke more sharply than she realized.
“The two of you don’t look well enough to walk two steps, much less half a mile.” Deciding to ignore the nonsense about her voice, she gauged the distance between the carriage and the curl of smoke ahead. The path through the woods would not be difficult for her, but she would never be able to lift either of the men should they fall.
“Do not worry about us,” Ian told her, keeping his hand wrapped around Murdoch’s uninjured upper arm. “Start down the path ahead of us, and we will follow. Don’t go too far ahead, though, in case Murdoch thinks me unarmed and helpless, and tries something stupid.”
Since Ian wore both swords and carried his staff, he was scarcely unarmed, but loss of blood had left them both close to helpless, as far as she could see. Still she saw no point in arguing with opinionated men who thought they were invulnerable.
Instead, she addressed the driver. “You will tell the soldiers you merely went in search of the stallion?” Rapscallion was tied to the back of the coach.
The driver raised his crop to his cap in a salute of agreement.
Gathering her ruined skirt and petticoats, humming under her breath, Chantal proceeded down the rocky shortcut through the woods. She heard the men trampling the underbrush behind her. They moved with remarkable speed despite their weakened conditions. She hurried a little faster. Their speed increased.
She was all but running by the time she reached the inn’s kitchen garden. The men were right behind her, striding comfortably as if taking a stroll in the park. She didn’t know why she’d worried about them.
She abruptly swung around and was nearly crushed by the two giants stumbling into her. She started to scold them for their haste, then noted how pale they were beneath their stoic demeanors. Blood seeped through their bandages. She’d found Ian’s robe to cover him with some decency, and pulled Murdoch’s clothes back up his arms again, but they still looked as if they’d survived a royal battle — which they had, apparently. She had no intention of asking over what. Cocks fought, in her experience, and these were two prime cocks.
Mystic Rider Page 19
