by Kira Morgan
“Aye.”
Florie gulped, staring at the archer in horrified awe. She remembered crow-ravaged corpses of poachers twisting from the gallows at Stirling. If Rane was a poacher, maybe he was seeking sanctuary as well.
“I see,” Father Conan said thoughtfully.
“I’ve been doin’ so for weeks,” Rane confessed.
“But why, lad? Surely ye’re well provided for.”
“I am, aye. But some o’ the crofters…” He shook his head.
“Ye give the venison to them,” the priest guessed, “and to me.” Then he gave a dry chuckle. “And ye railed at me for my soft heart.”
Rane gave the priest back his hand, turned rueful eyes upon Florie, then furrowed his brows. “There’s more.” His mouth was grim as he lowered his gaze to her wounded leg, and she saw him swallow back shame. “Last night, while I was huntin’, I…” He steeled his jaw and spoke gruffly, but his voice still cracked. “God forgive me, I…”
Florie didn’t want to feel sorry for the varlet. But when she heard that crack in his voice, she couldn’t help herself.
The hunter clearly was not the sort of man to go about shooting maidens for sport. It had been an accident, an accident both appalling and unforgivable to him. He’d never meant to hurt her. Marry, the man had shot her while hunting to feed starving crofters.
Worse, he seemed the kind of person to torment himself over the misdeed for the rest of his life. And as much as her leg throbbed from his lapse of judgment, or lack of sense, or dearth of skill, she couldn’t let him do that. ’Twasn’t fair.
Florie prized fairness. ’Twas the hallmark of a worthy goldsmith. The man had done his best to make amends. He’d extracted the arrow. He’d dressed her wound. And he’d carried her to sanctuary. The least she could do was ease his guilt.
“What is it, lad?” the priest asked.
“I—”
“He found me lost in the forest,” Florie interrupted, “and brought me here.” ’Twasn’t a lie, not exactly. Wetting her lips, she explained, “Ye see, there was a… a mite of a misunderstandin’… and a mob o’ men chased me a great distance through the wood. I scarcely escaped them.”
The anxiety of deceiving a priest made Florie rattle on like a milkmaid with a fresh rumor. “At the edge o’ the forest, I… I fell, and this kind man helped me to the church. Since there was no priest within to grant me sanctuary, he offered to watch over me for the night.”
She glanced up at Rane. He was staring at her as if she’d grown horns.
The priest turned to him. “Is this true, lad?”
The archer lowered his brows. “Nae.”
“Aye,” she replied, glaring pointedly at Rane. “O’ course ’tis true. Ye brought me here, didn’t ye?”
He grunted assent.
“And ye watched over me.”
“Aye, but—”
“There. Ye see?”
“Rane McAllister,” the priest chided him, clucking his tongue at the perplexed archer, “ye know all are welcome in the house o’ the Lord… such as ’tis.” He inclined his head toward Florie. “Have no fear, my child. ’Tis a decrepit old church, nearly as decrepit as myself, but surely ye shall have sanctuary here. Lad, there’s a fridstool here somewhere, as I recall. I’ll unearth my books from the vestry.” Then he waddled toward the altar.
“Pray do not trouble yourself, Father,” Florie called after the priest. “I cannot stay here much longer. As soon as I’m able to walk, I’ll just be on my way and—”
“Nonsense, lass,” he replied, unlocking the vestry door with one of his keys and disappearing within. “O’ course ye’ll stay. Never let it be said that the charity o’ the…”
As the priest’s words dwindled out of hearing, Rane whirled about, sinking onto his haunches beside Florie. “Ye lied for me,” he accused. His eyes were suspicious and entirely too penetrating. “Why?”
She shrugged uneasily. “Ye didn’t mean to shoot me.” Then she gave him a sharp glance. “Did ye?”
His brows came together, as if she’d dealt him a bewildering blow. “I told ye before,” he whispered passionately, his gaze—more piercing than his arrow—leaving her breathless, “I would not for the world harm a maid.”
For a moment, she could only stare back. She’d been wrong about his eyes. They were far richer than chrysolite. They were as fathomless and crystalline as the most precious aquamarine beryl. The silence grew strained. His proximity and the way her heart was wobbling began to unsettle her. She wiped sweating palms on her skirts and gave a brittle little laugh. “How ye mistook me for game, I can’t imagine.”
He reached out, startling her by gathering a fistful of her skirt. “Your garments. They’re a most unfortunate shade.”
’Twas true, she realized. Her kirtle was pale beige. Half hidden in the branches, she must have looked like a ranging buck.
“Aye. Well. The next time I flee into the forest,” she said with nervous irony, “I shall be certain to dress in bright scarlet.”
He released her skirt, and she released her breath.
But he wasn’t finished with her. Without warning, he caught her under the arms and lifted her effortlessly up onto the low fridstool. And while she was reeling from that indignity, he propped up her chin with his finger to peer at the scratch on her cheek. She tried to draw away, but he held fast with his thumb and finger, apparently intent on scrutinizing her every scrape.
“Thank God ye’re all right,” he murmured.
Her face grew hot under his stare, her nerves strained. “Thank God ye’re a terrible shot,” she retorted.
His gaze held hers then, and he released her chin, but his mood was far from light. Indeed, he met her eyes with chilling sobriety.
“I never miss,” he told her. “If I hadn’t turned the bow aside at the last instant, ye’d be dead.”
Chapter 5
The priest returned at that moment, thumping the dust from his Bible, to hear her confession. “Vermin in the vestry, and Methuselah’s gone missin’. Lad, will ye meander outdoors and see if ye can find him?”
“Missin’? But I saw him only—”
“Lad,” the Father interjected pointedly, “I’m certain he’s somewhere outside the church.”
“Ah,” Rane nodded, taking the hint. “Aye.”
Florie was glad to see him go, for the man was definitely a distraction, and his uninvited touch had left her as bristly as a kitten in a lightning storm.
Now that the priest stood beside Rane, she saw how improbably tall the archer was. Taller even than Wat, who, when he wasn’t slouching, stood a full head over Florie. Rane’s shanks were long, his hips narrow, yet he clearly possessed no dearth of muscle. And verily, he was as handsome as an angel for all his mortal flesh.
Out of habit, she began to consider what jewels would best suit his build and coloring. A simple wide cuff of hammered gold about his wrist, she decided, and a medallion set with chalcedony upon his chest.
“M’lady?” the priest prompted.
She watched Rane swoop up his discarded cloak, shake out the wrinkles, and whirl it about his shoulders. It needed a gold cloak pin in the form of a bow and arrow, she thought, to set off his hair, which shone like a sheet of gold leaf.
“M’lady?” Father Conan repeated.
Rane tightened his leather belt, the one that bore the marks of her teeth, and Florie noted again how nimble his fingers were, probably from years of hunting with the longbow. The belt, of course, would have looked better with a heavy buckle of gold. She studied him as, giving her a nod of farewell, he swaggered down the length of the sanctuary—confident, agile, splendid. By the rood, he was magnificent, the perfect foil for a goldsmith’s wares.
“M’lady!”
The church door closed behind him. Only then did Florie whip her head toward the priest. “Aye?”
She would have sworn the Father’s filmy eyes sparkled. “Do I have your attention now?”
She cleared her throat
, painfully aware he’d been addressing her for some time. “Aye.”
“Poor lass, ye must be a victim o’ the curse,” he said enigmatically.
She frowned. “Curse?”
“Indeed.” He leaned forward. “Hearken, m’lady, and I’ll tell ye the tale.” He rubbed his palms together, warming to his subject like a well-traveled bard.
Florie couldn’t help feeling impatient. What would become of her goods at the pavilion? Was there any chance she could return to Wat if she hobbled like a hunched old crone all the way back? She planted her hands on the low arms of the fridstool and started to push up. “I really should be—”
“’Tis a short tale,” he promised, “and worth the hearin’.”
“But—”
“Long, long ago,” he intoned, undaunted by her protest, “a Viking warrior came to the Highlands to claim a Scots bride. He was a strong and stalwart man, generous in manner, but iron hard in his ways.”
Florie sighed, settling back onto the fridstool. Apparently the Father was iron hard in his ways as well. She supposed there was no way to politely evade the man’s story. He was a priest, after all, and Florie, unlike Rane, had been taught to respect men of God.
The Father continued. “He wedded and bedded his new young wife and soon got her with child.” He frowned, shaking his head. “But she despised her foreign husband. So spiteful was she o’ his Viking seed that she prayed the bairn would die ere ’twas born.”
Florie scowled. She hoped this wasn’t one of those long Norse sagas. Time was a-wasting.
“When the Viking learned o’ her prayers, he grew livid with rage. He damned the wicked wench and all her ilk with a powerful curse. For all eternity, he swore, no lass born on Scottish soil would be able to resist the charms of a son sprung from his Viking loins.”
The priest lifted expectant brows then, and Florie furrowed her own. Was that the tale? All of it? ’Twas not a very good one. It didn’t have much of an ending. Well, no matter, she decided. She might as well take advantage of the lull.
“A charmin’ tale. Thank ye for your charity, Father,” she said, pressing up from the fridstool once again.
“Rane McAllister,” the priest interrupted, “is such a son.”
Florie froze. Rane? The spawn of Vikings? That explained the size of him and his fair hair. But cursed with charm? Irresistible?
Faugh! Florie didn’t believe in bewitchery. Nor was she charmed by the archer, despite the way her heart stumbled in his presence. She only found him… unsettling. “I don’t hold much with curses,” she muttered, “nor, should I think, would a man o’ God.”
The priest quickly crossed himself. “Nae. Nae. Certainly not. ’Tis but a legend, after all. Only the Lord God steers the fate o’ man.”
But though he spoke the words with solemn haste, as if he feared lightning might strike him at any moment, Florie suspected Father Conan preferred such fanciful tales to his usual Gospel fare.
He also insisted upon hearing her confession. He wanted to know every detail of what had transpired, which she painstakingly related… except for her real reason for coming to Selkirk.
And the truth about the pomander’s significance.
And the bit about Rane shooting her.
About that, she told him merely that she’d injured herself in a fall… which was partially true.
Afterward, he made her swear to the customary conditions of sanctuary—to remain peaceful, to carry no sharp weapons, to aid if the church caught fire.
She restlessly endured the procedure, while the priest penned the tedious record of her confession in a book. He dipped his quill in a vial of black ink and, using one finger as a guide, scratched words across the page with such meticulous sloth that Florie was sorely tempted to snatch the quill from him and do it herself.
The morn grew later and later. Meanwhile Wat, back at the fair, was surely wondering where the devil she’d gone.
As he scribed, the priest spoke to her of thievery, as she supposed he must in good conscience, advising that she trust in God’s will and surrender herself to His judgment, for only then would her sins be erased. Only then might she leave sanctuary.
Of course, Florie had other ideas. She intended to leave sanctuary the instant she was able to walk.
At long last the Father made his halting way toward the door, muttering something about fetching supper, assuring Florie that she would be safe with Rane nearby, extolling the archer’s selfless attributes as if the man were a saint.
Florie wondered what the priest would say if she revealed that his saintly archer had shot her. It didn’t matter, she decided. She never would reveal it.
Now was her chance, she thought. With the priest gone, she could test her leg and see if it could hold her weight without reopening the wound.
But to her chagrin, no sooner did the Father close the church door than it swung open again, admitting Rane.
Her heart quickened when she saw him again, this time with the knowledge that he was the son of savage Vikings. Indeed, she found it far too easy, as he strode toward her, to conjure up visions of him in warrior garb, mounting an invasion, his jaw set, his ax in hand, his mind fixed on ravishing and plunder.
The fact that he wielded not a war ax but a bucket of water did nothing to ease her fears, for she knew why he’d returned. He’d come to collect his end of the bargain—the dubious privilege of tending to her wound. Already she could imagine him sweeping her skirts aside with his bold Viking hands to touch her wherever he willed.
Before her wits could completely crumble she rattled out, “Well, now that I’ve been absolved o’ my sins, I should practice walkin’ so that I can make my way to the fair before too long. I’m certain my servant is wonderin’ what’s become o’ me. The fool can hardly tell his left foot from his right, let alone display wares without upsettin’ both the goods and the buyers.” The closer he got, the shriller her voice became. “Please give the Father my thanks and—”
“If I didn’t know better,” he said, lowering the bucket to the flagstones next to her, “I’d say ye were tryin’ to worm your way out of our bargain, merchant.”
Against her better judgment, she rose to the bait. “Worm my…” She straightened her spine. “I, sirrah, am apprenticed to a member o’ the guild and a woman o’ my word. I do not worm my way out o’ bargains.”
Still, when he crouched beside her and rolled up his sleeves, she instinctively drew her leg back.
He cocked an eyebrow at her.
Florie’s mind raced. “Ye’ll… ye’ll rip the bandage loose all at once,” she blurted. “I know ye will. Or… or ye’ll poke about and cause more damage. Maybe if ye were a light-fingered artisan, I’d not mind. But ye… fightin’ men with your bows and arrows and swords and pikes, ye have little finesse. And less patience.”
If ’twasn’t quite the truth, Florie thought, ’twas close enough. She’d die before she’d admit that her pulse raced when he looked at her… that she couldn’t breathe properly when he drew near… that she warmed dangerously when his fingertips brushed her skin.
Still, she considered she must be daft to give insult to a man twice her size, a man whose veins ran with the blood of Vikings, a man upon whom, at least for the moment, her welfare depended.
But to her astonishment, he didn’t rage at her. Instead, surprise registered on his face, and he gave a bark of laughter. And aye, as she’d imagined, his smile was indeed brilliant. Not that it mattered. She wasn’t some callow maid to swoon over a man’s smile.
“Never fear,” he said. One side of his mouth still curved upward, turning his grin devilishly coy and undeniably charming. “I’m not, as ye seem to believe, a fightin’ man. I’m a huntsman. And if it puts your mind at ease, I’m told I have quite a soothin’ touch.”
It didn’t ease Florie’s mind in the least. She wondered who’d told him that. Likely one of those Scotswomen who had fallen under the spell of that ridiculous Viking curse.
Still,
whatever her reservations, she was a woman of her word. She’d told him she’d allow him to treat her wound, and she supposed she must. The sooner she let him do so, the sooner she could take her leave. “Ach! Do your worst, then.”
He grinned and crouched beside her, peeling off his jerkin and pulling his outer shirt free of his belt to tear yet another patch from his undershirt. As he rent the linen, her breath suddenly stuck in her throat, for beneath the cloth she briefly glimpsed the narrow strip of his stomach. Unlike Wat’s plaster-white belly, which she’d unfortunately seen on occasion when he hitched up his hose, Rane’s stomach was firm and flat, lightly gilt by the sun.
For a fleeting moment her mind was assailed by another image of him as a Viking of old, leaping from his dragon ship, swinging a broadsword, charging bare-chested across the shore, his long hair blowing back over his broad, golden shoulders. The vision brought an inexplicable giddiness to her head and swift heat to her face.
“Do ye feel well?” he asked with a concerned frown, brazenly planting his palm upon her forehead again and startling her from her thoughts. “Ye look fevered.”
His words irked her. She nervously knocked his hand aside. Curse her childishness, she was blushing like an infatuated maid.
“Nae, I’m not well,” she snapped, her heart racing. “I’ve been chased into sanctuary. I have a gapin’ hole in my leg. And ’tween the hard floor and the chill o’ the night, I hardly slept a wink.”
“Indeed?” If she expected sympathy, she didn’t get it. In fact, she would have sworn he smiled as he dropped a linen square into the pail of water. “Your squirmin’ didn’t trouble me in the least.”
“What?”
He only smiled enigmatically, then nodded toward her leg. “Let’s see how the wound fares.”
Still blushing, she nonetheless acquiesced, consoling herself with the fact that soon she’d leave and never have to face him again. She eased aside the cloak to reveal the unsightly dark red stain marring the pale brocade. Then she carefully pushed up her outer skirt. The linen skirt beneath was still stubbornly stuck to the wound.
