by Kira Morgan
The thought made him tremble with rage. ’Twas apparent from the wealth of gold she already wore about her person that she was in no danger of going hungry. And worse, she’d lied to him, repeatedly.
Knowing all that, the only thing that kept him from coldly exhorting her to vanish into the forest as mysteriously as she’d appeared was his own guilty conscience and the fact that now he himself would have to pay for what she’d stolen. Unfortunately, though his skill with the bow afforded him fine quarters and a place at Lord Gilbert’s table, that glittering bauble the lass clung to so stubbornly looked to be worth more than all his possessions together.
He supposed he’d have to take it from her by force, as unsavory as that idea was. Maybe in a few weeks, when she was healed and when he no longer felt burdened by remorse for shooting her, ’twould seem less distasteful.
A few weeks at most. He had no intention of standing guard over her for forty days. Lives were at risk. Every day lost was a day closer to famine for the peasants. He’d not let them starve for the sake of one scrawny thief who was blatantly guilty of her crime.
Now he knew what the dream meant. Sanctuary or no sanctuary, in forty days, Florie would be tried and found guilty. No witness would dare come forward to testify againt Lady Mavis, especially when the careless lass had the stolen goods on her person. She was as good as damned already to hang for her crime. And Rane was vexed enough by the fact that the lying lass’s greed had thwarted his mission of mercy that he told himself he didn’t care if she did hang.
’Twas what he staunchly maintained until he returned to the church, snatched open the door, and looked toward the chancel to behold the delicate bundle of lass on the fridstool, bent forward over several pieces of parchment and one long, slender, shapely, and quite bare leg.
She sat alone, unaware of him, in a pool of sunlight, her dark spill of hair illuminated by the rays streaming through the red and gold and blue panes of the altar window, the sweet oval of her face fair and ethereal above his cloak of gray-green wool. She looked like a fallen angel, delivered to the earth upon heavenly beams.
Lost.
Helpless.
Irresistible.
A bolt of unwelcome desire shot arrow-swift through his body, leaving his pulse pounding in his ears and his blood sizzling in his veins.
He frowned at once. Loki’s ballocks! What was wrong with him? The wench was a thief, a felon, a fugitive. She wasn’t some winsome lass he might court.
Nor was he an untried youth who’d never laid eyes upon the female form. Quite the contrary. Now that he was of marriageable age, the lasses of the burgh foisted their attentions upon him at every opportunity. In the last year, he’d seen more naked maids than he could count. Seen and swived.
’Twas not even that he’d never sampled Florie’s forbidden fruit. He’d touched the soft skin of her thigh only last night, the silken, yielding, supple…
The oath brewing on his tongue was so vile ’twould have cracked the altar window had he voiced it. Instead, he smoldered silently at the treasonous hardening of his loins. And the damned softening of his heart. The tiny voice of Rane’s conscience taunted him, telling him he was sorely deceived if he thought he could stand silently by and watch Lord Gilbert drag the beautiful maiden to the gallows.
No matter how guilty she was.
In a rare fit of pique, he slammed the church door behind him with a satisfying crash.
Florie shrieked. Her heart jerked against her ribs. In a mad scramble, she gathered up the pages of parchment.
“What the devil!” she exclaimed, pressing a calming hand to her heaving chest.
The damned archer had scared her half out of her wits. And despite everything she’d learned about Rane’s generosity and loyalty and compassion, at the present his eyes burned with inexplicable rage. He whipped her kirtle from off his shoulder, and it snapped in the air. He clenched his hands as he swaggered toward her like the Norse marauder who was supposedly Rane’s forbear.
She pulled the cloak subtly, protectively to her bosom. No Scotswoman could resist Rane’s charms, the priest had said. At the moment, this son of Vikings seemed anything but charming. What had happened to alter him she didn’t know, but she’d seen her foster father change from mouse to monster with only the aid of a few tankards of beer. Nothing surprised her when it came to men.
Rane’s eyes narrowed to mistrustful slits as he continued to advance toward her. The sight of his dark, stormy brow inspired in her a powerful urge to clamber in retreat and take refuge behind the altar.
Then she silently chided herself for her foolishness. After all, she’d claimed sanctuary. She was already protected by the church, wasn’t she? Still, she wished the priest belonging to the church was currently in residence.
She could scarcely draw breath when Rane halted but a yard away, towering over her like a conquering barbarian. Holy saints! The immense archer appeared to have grown several inches since she’d last seen him.
For a moment he seemed to struggle for words. His fists closed and opened, closed and opened, as if they debated whether or not to throttle her. And she dared not speak for fear of assisting them in their decision.
When she could no longer endure the suspense, she burst out, “Slay me, then, or leave me be! But don’t hang over me like a bloody executioner’s ax!”
Her words seemed to shake him from his silent rage. She glimpsed some momentary flicker in his eyes, some awakening spark of remorse or pain. Then he let out a heavy sigh, and the fire in his gaze slowly diminished to a low flame.
“I mean ye no harm,” he told her, though she suspected ’twas a stern reminder to himself as well, for his voice sounded as glum as a priest’s giving last rites. “I’m a man o’ my word. I’ve sworn to protect ye, and I intend to do just that.”
He didn’t sound very happy with his decision, and though he might reconcile himself to keeping his word, Florie knew good intentions often went awry. Her mother had vowed to protect her always, yet she’d died when Florie was but a lass. Her foster father’s drunken promises were forgotten as soon as he sobered. She’d learned to trust no one.
“I’ve said I’ll take care o’ ye,” he repeated, though his tone was so irritable, it sounded as if he’d promised to trim the devil’s claws.
“Pray,” she bit out, the words simmering off her tongue, “do not trouble yourself over my welfare.”
“If I didn’t wish to trouble myself,” he said with a scowl, “I would have left ye to bleed to death.”
Her jaw dropped.
Rane cringed inwardly at his own harsh words. Indeed, he didn’t mean them. He’d no more leave someone to bleed to death than he’d shoot a birthing doe.
’Twas only that he was frustrated. And vexed. And inexplicably aroused.
He cursed silently and regarded the lass he’d again wounded, this time with words. Her dark eyes smoked with fury, but they were also moist. Her pointed chin jutted rebelliously, yet it quivered. At first he feared she might burst into tears, but soon he realized by the defiant angle of her head and the glitter in her gaze that she trembled more with anger than with hurt. The wayward lass loathed him.
’Twas startling. He was unused to being loathed. Particularly by lasses.
Favored, aye.
Adored, aye.
Revered, sometimes.
Never loathed.
But then, he’d never shot one of them before. Nor had he threatened to let a lass bleed to death.
Suddenly he was filled with self-disgust. This wasn’t the Rane the burghers spoke highly of—the huntsman who put meat on their table, the friend who always had a spare coin, the lover who never left a lass unsated. Lust and frustration and wrath had turned him into a brute.
Whether or not he willed it, whether or not ’twas wise, ’twas clear he couldn’t simply walk away from the lass. He’d become involved the instant he shot her, committed the moment he carried her to sanctuary. Felon she might be, but he couldn’t send her
away into the woods to get herself killed.
Later, he told himself, in a few weeks, when she’d healed, when his moral obligations were fulfilled, he’d deal with her perfidy. In the meantime, his heart demanded he show her the charity for which he was renowned.
Her body was stiff with ire, and she glared at him with smoldering eyes that would melt iron. If she continued to despise him, she’d never assent to letting him treat her wound, and if he didn’t, ’twould likely fester. Somehow, he had to regain the trust he’d just destroyed.
He crouched beside her, raking his fingers through the locks of hair at the scruff of his neck. “Forgive me,” he mumbled contritely. “With the English attacks o’ late, I’m not myself. I assure ye, mercy is never a burden. I’m glad o’ the chance to make amends.” He blew out a harsh breath and placed a gentle hand upon her forearm. “I’ll see to your wound now, if ye’ll allow me.”
She snatched her arm free. “Nae, I will not,” she said coldly, staring stonily ahead, her brows slashed downward. “I’d rather burn in hell.”
He blinked in surprise.
“Begone!” she said. “I don’t need ye. I shall have Father Conan fetch me a doctor to attend my wound,” she decided, crossing her arms stubbornly over her small heaving bosom.
He narrowed his eyes. ’Twas clear the young thief didn’t fully comprehend her situation. She was in a strange place. She was friendless, as far as he could tell, apparently without coin, and as good as imprisoned here unless her fellow robber Wat returned, if indeed he hadn’t abandoned her. From the moment she’d stolen that girdle, she’d put herself in the hands of fate and at God’s mercy. He almost pitied her.
“Lass, do ye not understand? ’Twill be difficult, if not impossible, to find a doctor willin’ to… a doctor charitable toward a thief.”
She speared him with an indignant glare. “I’m not a th…” The reply died on her tongue as she read the knowledge in his eyes, assimilating his words and the larger meaning behind them. “Who told ye I was…?”
“Lord Gilbert has been looking for ye.”
She paled. “The sheriff? Here?”
“Ye’re safe for now. He’s gone. And he’s a God-fearin’ man. He won’t violate sanctuary.”
But Florie didn’t look convinced of that. Maybe now she understood. She was a fugitive of the law with no rights, no sustenance, no wherewithal, nothing but the sheer veil of sanctuary to shield her from her accusers.
Fresh moisture began to well in her eyes, not tears of rage this time, but desperation.
Ah, nae, he thought, don’t cry. Nothing reduced him to awkward despair faster than a lass’s tears.
“Listen!” he bade her. “I’ll protect ye. I’ve sworn I would. Remember?”
A drop quivered on the rim of her lower lashes, beneath eyes that looked wide and lost. ’Twas hard to believe that so innocent a face harbored so guilty a felon.
He rested a placating hand on her sleeve, but she stiffened, so he quickly removed it again. He ran his hand over his mouth, racking his brain for something, anything he could say to change the course of their conversation, to distract her, to keep her from weeping.
“Maybe…” He studied the half-concealed parchments tucked beneath her knee. She’d been scrawling something with bits of charred wood. “Maybe ye’ll show me what ye’ve been drawin’.”
Her chin trembled, but she wiped away the tear with the back of her hand. “’Tis nothin’.”
“I’d like to see.”
She raised her chin a notch. “Maybe I don’t wish to show ye.”
He’d learned enough about Florie from their short time together to know that though she was stubborn, she put a price on everything. He draped her laundered garment over his knee. He decided, perusing her form, that the fawn-colored kirtle wasn’t an enchanted garment, after all. Florie looked just as delectable sitting there in the oversized sack of woad wool.
“Your kirtle,” he bargained, “for a look at the parchments.”
“’Tis my kirtle already.”
He lifted a brow. “And they’re the Father’s parchments.” She must have pilfered the pages from the storage room.
She bit at her lip, considering his offer. “Is the bloodstain gone?”
“As much as ’twill ever be.”
After a long while, she reluctantly withdrew the pages. “Very well.”
He offered her the kirtle as she handed him half a dozen pieces of parchment.
She examined the kirtle.
He examined the pages.
The drawings were expertly done, as fine as the illuminations he’d glimpsed in Father Conan’s Bible. But one stood out among the rest. ’Twas a rendering of a pendant, a noble piece, simpler than those she wore, heavy links woven like miniature chain mail. At the bottom hung a dark oval stone, and crowning the top of the oval were branches shaped like the antlers of a stag. ’Twas the piece she’d spoken about, the one designed for him. And ’twas the most extraordinary thing he’d ever seen.
Guilt shot him straight through the heart. If Florie ever suspected that he now guarded against her escape, she’d likely offer to craft him a noose of gold. He scowled.
“Ye don’t like it,” she said flatly, not bothering to look up.
“Nae,” he said, overwhelmed. “Nae. ’Tis brilliant. Magnificent. How did ye…? Ye drew this?” How could a common thief design such a thing? Maybe there was some truth to her claim she was a goldsmith. “Ye could… craft this?”
She shrugged. “Aye, at my master’s workshop.”
He narrowed his gaze. Who was this inscrutable lass? Thief or merchant? Trickster or innocent?
She must be a craftswoman. No mere outlaw could design such a work of art. Yet she’d obviously stolen Lady Mavis’s girdle. It made no sense. Unless she’d pilfered the piece to copy the design. He imagined that the competition between goldsmiths was as fierce as the battle between rival hunters. One had to be an exceptional talent to stand out from the crowd. And the girdle was certainly an exceptional piece. Still, if she’d stolen it…
Maybe now was the time to convince her to remedy her crime.
“Listen. Ye’re obviously a lass o’ great talent. Ye could make a dozen such girdles. Why do ye not simply confess your misdeed and return the piece? I’m sure Lord Gilbert will—”
“’Tis mine,” she said fiercely, closing a possessive hand over the links as if he might wrench it from her. “It belongs to me.”
He frowned. Surely she’d not risk her life for the thing.
“Indeed,” he lied, shrugging, “’tis not such a remarkable design. I’ve seen the like before in—”
“Faugh! Ye’ve seen nothin’ like it in your life,” she countered, bristling. “There is nothin’ like it.”
“It hardly seems worth the trouble. You’re a lass o’ some means. Give the lady back her bauble and buy yourself another.”
“I told ye. The piece belongs to me. ’Twas my mother’s.”
“Then how did Lady Mavis happen to come into possession of it?”
“She… bought it.”
He arched a brow at her.
Florie’s gaze dipped. “But she wasn’t supposed to buy it. ’Twas a mistake. And I gave her back her coin.”
Clearly the mistake was Florie’s, he thought. Regardless of the girdle’s origins, even she had to admit Lady Mavis had paid her for it. Florie’s only hope for mercy then was to let her have the thing. But that looked to be a long, tough battle. One for which he must fortify himself.
He pulled the costrel of ale from his belt, uncorking it and first offering it to her. “Ale?”
As she reached for it, she intentionally let her fingers close over his. For once, rather than withdrawing her hand, she held it there, meeting his eyes. “I know ye don’t believe me, but there are others who were there, who will surely bear witness for me. Ye’ll see. I’m no thief.”
Her blind faith left him sick at heart. Witness or no witness, Florie was clearly in
the wrong. And she sadly underestimated her enemy. Lord Gilbert’s justice would be swift and uncompromising, and his cruel wife would demand punishment to the fullest extent of the law.
He couldn’t bear to tell Florie how hopeless her situation was. He couldn’t bear to explain that no one would dare gainsay Lady Mavis, that the word of a goldsmith’s apprentice was worthless, that she’d likely march to her death in forty days.
Most of all, he couldn’t bear to reveal that he, Rane, the one man in whom she’d placed her faith, was cursed with the duty of guarding against her escape, a duty he was growing to despise more and more with each passing moment.
Against all reason and against all wisdom, his heart went out to the young outlaw. Rane began to wonder with a fearsome dread if he hadn’t the will to hold Florie hostage, even for his lord.
Chapter 9
Florie woke the next morn, shivering violently despite the sun filling the sanctuary. But how could she be cold? Plaids swathed her body, and sweat beaded her forehead. Still, she couldn’t cease trembling.
She lifted her lead-heavy head, far enough to see that Rane no longer slept by the church door. But then, the hour was late. She could tell by the angle of the light that she’d slept far past dawn.
What was wrong with her? Whatever ’twas, her troubles were multiplied by the urge to relieve herself. She needed to get to the door and outside, with or without Rane’s aid, quaking or not.
She managed to prop herself onto her elbows but noticed at once a thick pressure around her leg, as if the bandage were tied too tightly. She frowned. It hadn’t felt that way last night.
She struggled slowly onto her good knee, fighting a weighty dizziness that enveloped her like a shroud. Then she tried to stand, and everything went black.
The next thing she saw as she pried open her heavy eyelids was a head of long blond hair draped across her body. Rane appeared to be listening to her chest. ’Twas strange. How she’d come to be lying flat on the floor, she didn’t know, and what ministrations Rane practiced were a mystery. She tried to demand an explanation of him, but all that came out was a groan.
