by Julia Latham
But as she fell asleep, her thoughts kept dwelling on his not being allowed to choose sides in a war. Not allowed by whom?
Chapter 11
All the next day, they remained far west of the normal roads to London, hoping to mislead anyone who might have picked up their trail. Florrie felt that her three companions—she was starting to forget to think of them as her kidnappers—seemed preoccupied, as if their close call with the farmer had made them even more wary.
But since she had them to care for her, she tried to keep relaxed and positive about what she could accomplish helping Adam in the time remaining to her. Every time she pointed out a flowering bush or how the green of grain fields dotted the rolling hills in multicolored squares, he looked at her in confusion so complete that it was comical. Had he never before noticed the glory of the countryside? It was so very different from the barren moors of her home. She was determined to enjoy every moment that she could.
But that night, everything changed. They were not able to find an adequate barn or shed before nightfall, and they were forced to camp in a small copse of trees. Adam was obviously uneasy with this, and he forbid the use of a large fire. They ate cold meat left over from the midday hunting, and cheese that had been crushed into a damp lump at the bottom of a saddlebag. After dark, Michael took the first shift of scout duty and disappeared from the encampment.
With all the tension, Florrie had a hard time falling asleep, and couldn’t have been asleep for long when she heard a muffled oath. Adam was no longer behind her. She saw shadows and movement, but nothing made sense. She gasped as someone leapt the fire. Adam.
The sudden clash of steel on steel at last told her what she was seeing. They were being attacked, and she was a liability, she knew. She scuttled backward until she was at the base of a tree, needing to stay out of the way. Her heart pounded with fear, but not just for herself. If these were her father’s men, they would kill Adam and Robert. And what about Michael, who had been on guard? Was he already dead? Her throat tightened with tears, and she dashed at her eyes angrily. There was no point crying over the unknown.
Both Robert and Adam were defending themselves from two masked men dressed all in black. By the cut of their clothing and their skill with a blade, these men were not thieves. Robert and his opponent were fighting on the far side of the clearing, but Adam was nearby, as if defending her. His sword moved with incredible speed, flashing in the firelight. His expression, though strained with concentration, betrayed no doubt, no fear. He had been well trained to fight, to conquer. He jumped a slashing sword aimed at his legs, then boldly attacked, driving his opponent farther away from Florrie.
She not only felt frightened for him, but also mesmerized by his skill. She knew he fought a man of equal talent, yet Adam was winning. His size and his speed made him one of the best swordsmen she’d ever seen. And besides simple admiration, she felt deep inside her a frisson of dangerous excitement, that a man like him desired her.
His sword at last connected with the man’s arm, and she heard a grunt of pain. The man dropped to his knees, one arm cradled in the other. Chivalrous to a fault, Adam backed several steps away, his sword at the ready, even as he glanced in Robert’s direction.
As Robert backed up several steps, meeting each slash of his opponent’s sword with a strong parry, he stumbled over wood stacked near the fire. Adam rushed to his aid, and in that moment, Robert’s opponent gave him a sudden push, sending Robert colliding into Adam.
Though Florrie feared for the brothers, her gaze followed their attackers. The injured one lurched to his feet, the second man caught his uninjured arm to help, and they disappeared between the trees.
Adam steadied Robert. “Stay with Katherine.”
Even under stress, he did not use Florrie’s name where it might be overheard, she thought in amazement.
“I am fine,” she said to Robert when Adam was gone. “Go to help him.”
He looked at her as if she’d spoken another language. “Disobey him where you are concerned? I may be his brother, but his wrath would fall even on me. Do not fear for him. He can take care of himself.”
She rolled her eyes in frustration and came to her feet, feeling shaky. When she took a limping step toward the fire, Robert tried to help her.
“Did they touch you?” he asked, searching her face. “Are you injured?”
She shook him off. “Just the same old injury from childhood. I am well. Can we rebuild the fire? After all, my father’s men have already found us.”
“There were only two men,” Robert mused, gazing out into the darkness.
“And they’ll be reporting back to whatever small troop has fanned out over the countryside.”
Robert didn’t answer, only stoked the fire with more branches.
In a shared tense silence, the two of them waited. Florrie kept wondering about Michael’s fate. The man was not as easy to converse with as the two brothers, but he had treated her kindly, and now he’d defended her. Was it just for the money, or did he feel a loyalty to Adam for some greater reason?
And was he even now lying dead? The fact that the two men had gotten by him did not bode well for his condition.
She shivered, rubbing her arms, suddenly feeling the cold. Robert put a blanket about her shoulders, and she gave him a distracted smile of gratitude.
At last, they heard the sound of shuffling footsteps. Florrie rose to her feet, then found herself pulled behind Robert, whose sword was now held threateningly in his hand. She peered around his broad back, yet could still see nothing.
After an unusual call of a bird at night, Robert’s shoulders relaxed, and he lowered his sword. Ah, they were signaling to each other again, she thought. Adam came out of the trees, with Michael’s arm across his shoulder. Florrie felt a rush of giddy relief that Michael was doing his own walking, uneven though it was. And Adam looked unharmed.
“They escaped.” Adam bit off the words in obvious frustration.
He helped Michael to sit beside the fire, and she rushed to them, seeing the blood on Michael’s face.
Michael tried to stop her hands from tilting his head. “The bastards only hit me. I did not even have a chance to draw my blade.”
“Let me see to it,” she commanded.
To her surprise, he stopped fighting her, though he gave Adam a sullen look.
“Wet a cloth in some wine,” she said. When Robert had done her bidding, she parted Michael’s red hair and wiped gently at the wound. “The bleeding seems to have slowed.” She pressed down on the cloth. “Hold this to your scalp firmly.” When he followed her orders, she stepped back and looked at Adam. “Forgive me if you’ve already figured this out, but if these attackers had been my father’s men, wouldn’t Michael be dead?”
Adam and Robert exchanged a look, even as Michael stiffened as if he were affronted.
“They were not your father’s men,” Adam said at last.
“And they were not thieves,” Robert added.
Adam scowled at him.
Robert spread his hands wide. “She had certainly figured that out already.”
“I had,” she interjected. “What do you think is going on? Who else would be after us?”
“This is not your concern,” Adam said calmly.
“Not my concern?” she cried in disbelief. “It would very well have been my concern if you’d all died and left me here alone, at God’s mercy. I could not even have found my way back to the Aschams. You are using me against my father, and I am not fighting you. You owe me not just the truth, but even what you suspect.”
The brothers once again exchanged a look as if they could read minds.
And then suddenly, a memory returned to Florrie. “When those men found our camp after we had already gone, you were worried that they were from the League of the Blade. Has tonight confirmed your suspicions?”
Adam opened his mouth—then closed it again, rubbing a hand down his bearded face.
“You cannot keep waiting for me to fa
ll asleep before you discuss such things,” she pressed. “I’ll only pretend to sleep so I can listen.”
Adam sighed. “Aye, I believe the League of the Blade has become involved on your behalf.”
She gasped in surprise that he’d actually told her the truth. “How would the League—?”
“We cannot discuss this now. We have to leave, and we will remain silent while we travel.”
Even Michael moved quickly, and they were on the road again in the dark of night. The moon was just beginning to wax from half toward full, and although it occasionally was hidden behind clouds, it lit their way well enough. To her surprise, they retraced their journey, heading north, away from London, which would not be expected by anyone attempting to follow them. They even rode several hundred yards in the center of a stream, to make tracking them even more difficult.
Although Florrie soon slumped in exhaustion in the saddle, her mind continued to whirl. The League of the Blade wanted to help her? She’d always heard that they appeared in a desperate person’s life to right wrongs and bring about justice. And now they considered her a worthy recipient of their services? She could have giggled over it in disbelief, since she’d spent her childhood fantasizing about their exploits. But the League’s appearance meant danger now, and she did not want Adam and the others killed.
Yet the League hadn’t tried to kill them, as Michael’s survival attested. If they thought she was being held against her will, perhaps for a ransom, wouldn’t they consider Adam and his men expendable?
Unless…there was even more going on than she already knew. Several things began to come clear in her mind: when Adam said he hadn’t been “allowed” to choose sides in a war, as if he had to be impartial; the way he and the League attackers had seemed so perfectly matched in skill—as if they’d been trained the same way; and their attackers trying not to kill them.
Was Adam a Bladesman?
She shivered in growing wonder. That would explain so many things.
But by kidnapping her and intending to challenge her father, he was going against the League of the Blade. How could he possibly succeed?
As Adam rode at Florrie’s side, he could practically see the gears turning in her mind. He knew he would have to answer her questions later, but right now his own brain was churning all on its own.
The League was after him.
How had they discovered his plans? On his twenty-first birthday, they’d granted him the knowledge of his vast inheritance, though he’d known since childhood that he was an earl. But they would not speak the name of the man they suspected as his parents’ murderer. He’d been furious that they would withhold something so important. That night, he’d seen sympathy and guilt on his foster father’s face, and Adam was able to coerce him to reveal the identity of the killer. Sir Timothy had understood that power and wealth mattered little to Adam next to justice for his parents. Adam had promised his foster father that he would do nothing while the enmity of civil war still surged across the countryside. And of course, although he’d spent his life planning for justice, he could not leave his brothers, nineteen and eighteen, too young to defend themselves, not yet ready to face the world as Bladesmen. Adam had four more years to train them and expand his own experience.
But he had kept all his plans against Martindale secret even from Sir Timothy, knowing how the League would feel about him challenging a marquess. And then he’d left, as if setting out on his own. But he hadn’t gone to his ancestral lands, as the League expected, and they hadn’t known his plans—unless they’d coerced Sir Timothy into revealing that Adam knew Martindale’s name.
And then, of course, Lady Florence Becket had gone missing. That had given the League all the proof they needed.
Still, Adam had a right to challenge a man who’d harmed his family, and he was furious that the League would not trust him in this. Aye, he’d kidnapped a woman, but they’d raised him, so they damn well knew he was honorable enough not to hurt her.
Weren’t they supposed to dispense justice? Then why not for his family? For the first time, he felt that their pure purpose seemed…tarnished, especially after this attempt to capture him. His brother Paul had never trusted the League, had angrily told Adam he was foolish to believe in them. Had Paul been right all along? Adam felt like his world was beginning to shift.
Several hours later, they slept in an abandoned shed. If it had been raining, they’d have been drenched due to the holes in the roof. But Adam felt more secure being out of sight. He did not know how seriously wounded the one Bladesman had been, and he knew the second man would attend to the first, even see him to safety while waiting for reinforcements. The League had always trained their men to work in pairs when they could, rather than alone. Adam and his men had some room to breathe, to choose ways to London that no one would suspect.
He knew the League and its methods better than most other Bladesmen. No one was going to stop him.
They headed due east first thing in the morning, still not in the direction of London, and Florrie recognized that once again, they were trying to do something no one expected.
Adam seemed in a grim mood, his gaze scanning the road that was barely more than a farm path. Robert and Michael were taking turns riding far in front and far behind, scouting for anything suspicious.
Florrie needed answers, and now she had some privacy. She glanced at Adam. “So how long have you been a Bladesman?”
His expression didn’t even change. He was trying to intimidate her, but she was not so easily fooled anymore. He was a Bladesman, a man deemed worthy to be one of the best, a defender of innocents, a bringer of justice.
No one had brought justice for him—he had to do it on his own. Inside her she felt an ever-in-creasing softness for him that was getting harder and harder to ignore.
But ignore it, she had to. Though he was honorable, loyal, honest where he could be—he was not a man for her. She was not foolish enough to think so. That dependency would only get her hurt, something she’d fought against her whole life.
“You can ignore me all you want,” she mused, “but it does not change the truth. You and your opponent both fought with much of the same skills and techniques last night. And they were trying not to harm you—otherwise Michael would be dead, as you said yourself. Why would the League care about men who’ve kidnapped the daughter of a marquess, unless they care about you personally?”
He thinned his lips into a flat line.
“And then there was your revealing statement of not being allowed to choose sides in a war. Who would not allow such a thing—but the League?” She leaned closer to him, holding herself in the saddle with the pressure of her thighs and her foot in the stirrup. “I already know so many of your secrets, Adam. Why withhold this one?”
“Are you withholding secrets from me?” he asked.
She straightened. He was focusing on her now, his dark blue eyes alive with intensity.
“I know not what you’re talking about,” she said, trying to look innocent. “I have been your prisoner for days now, yet I’ve been helping you. Do not my actions speak for me?”
He looked at her as if he were trying to see into her, as if he could read everything in her soul by what showed in her eyes. There was a moment where she actually considered telling him more—as if she could trust him.
She was a fool. She had learned long ago not to give people the ability to hurt her.
At last, he sighed. “You can never in your life speak of this to anyone.”
She tensed, shocked that he was going to trust her with something so secretive. And the fact that he was trying to prove he deserved her trust made her…distrust him. That was better for her peace of mind.
“So you are a Bladesman?” she practically whispered, even though there was nothing but rolling barley fields as far as the eye could see.
He nodded.
“And is it true that you had to do some great heroic deed for them to choose you?” She wondered if he w
ould tell her what it was.
“For most Bladesmen, aye, there has to be something that brings one to the notice of the League. You cannot find them or contact them.”
“But as a Bladesman, you can. You used their messengers to take your missive to London so quickly.”
He nodded.
“You said most Bladesmen come to the League’s notice. But…not you?”
“I came to their notice, aye, but when I only had six years.”
She inhaled swiftly. “When your parents were killed.”
“The League took us in to protect us.”
She nodded, her thoughts coming so fast she had to sort through them. “You said you lived isolated to protect you from—my father. But…could not the League have placed you with a family?”
“We presented the League with an unusual situation. Three brothers with no family. Several members of the League council decided to try a bold experiment they’d only been contemplating: raising and training Bladesmen from childhood. Sir Timothy, our foster father, did not like it, but a vote was taken and he was outnumbered.”
“So you were like…little soldiers to them?”
He took a deep breath, his head lifted with pained pride. “It was an honor never before granted to anyone. From what I’m told, it was not so very different from other young men raised to be knights in noble households.”
“From what you’re told,” she echoed, feeling suspicious.
He glanced at her, one corner of his lips curved up. “I have had long conversations with Michael, who was raised on the outside. From childhood, we learned the fighting techniques that other Bladesmen never learn until they’re accepted into the League. We had access to the best education—history and languages and mathematics.”
She felt a pang of envy that she quickly squelched. He’d also had so many disadvantages. She guessed he was only just beginning to learn that.
“But Robert said there were no women.”
“He did not say that.”
“He hinted, and that was enough. No women, Adam? Ever? Not dairymaids or brewing mistresses?”
