Dudley, who had remained in the saddle while Ralph went into the inn, gave a wry smile. “Well, now that his punishment is sorted, what of the lass?”
Ralph scoffed. “She can watch him die, then I’ll deal with her.” He hawked out a wad of saliva. “And that’s not all. It seems they are now three. According to the stable lad, they left with some ancient northern baron who had been traveling alone. He’s riding a chestnut palfrey. And the Abbot, rot his holy bones, lied about the other horse being a gray. It’s black, with odd colored eyes. Blue and brown.”
Dudley raised a brow. “And does the stable lad know which way they went?”
“Aye. ’Tis as I thought.” Ralph pressed his spurs to the horse’s belly and left his comment hanging in the air. “They’re heading north.”
Chapter Eleven
“You can’t get away. It’s pointless to struggle. You’re only wasting time and energy.” With one arm locked around Cristen’s shoulders, Turi pulled her harder against him. “Kick, scratch, do what you will, but you won’t escape. You can’t escape.”
Cristen sighed and went limp in his arms. “Maybe I don’t want to escape. Maybe I like being captured by you.”
Turi growled in her ear. “You’re supposed to be taking this seriously, my lady. It’s important.”
“I know.” She sounded contrite. “Forgive me.”
“Pull away from me again,” he said, “resist me. But this time, when I pull you back, turn your resistance around. Instead of pulling away, push back.”
“Against you?”
“Aye, with as much force as you can. Use my backward momentum to your advantage. Trust me. Do it and see what happens.”
She toppled him easily and they both landed in a heap. Cristen gasped. “I don’t believe it,” she said, rolling off him and onto her knees. “It worked. I knocked you on your back.”
Turi chuckled at her astonished expression. He rose, pulled her to her feet, and picked some leaf debris from her hair.
“The element of surprise can be useful. An assailant would not expect his captive to make such a move. ’Tis likely to be more effective, too, when you’re standing on a hard surface, like stone or cobbles. It’s a harder fall and, with luck, an assailant will crack his head. But in any case, it offers an opportunity to escape.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “And I pray you’ll never have need of it.”
“Impressive.” Gilbert, crouched on one knee by the fire, pushed a fresh piece of firewood into the glowing embers. “Do you think these rabbits are about cooked? I’m starving.”
Turi exchanged a smile with Cristen. In the three days since they’d left the inn, Lord Gilbert Allonby had proved to be a pleasant traveling companion. Good humored and unassuming. Remarkably robust, too, considering his years. And blessed, they had discovered, with a voracious appetite.
The two previous nights had been spent in the relative comfort and privacy of roadside inns. On this fine night, however, weary after a full day on horseback and with no inn in sight, they had decided to spend a night beneath the stars. The forest clearing, judging by the absence of undergrowth and remains of previous campfires, had obviously been used before. Conveniently, it sat not far from the road and close to a nearby stream.
Earlier, Turi had shot and trimmed two rabbits, both now roasting on a makeshift wooden spit, and being ogled by Gilbert.
“They’ll be cooked, aye. Help yourself, my lord.” Turi grabbed Cristen’s hand. “Excuse us. We’ll be back in a while.”
“Take your time,” Gilbert said, smacking his lips as he tore off a morsel of meat.
Cristen laughed as Turi dragged her off into the trees. “Turi! What are you doing? We shouldn’t leave him alone.”
“We’ll not go far.” He squeezed her hand. “There’s something I want to show you.”
“What?”
“This.” He stopped beneath a sturdy elm.
Cristen blinked and gazed up into the branches. “An elm tree?”
Turi opened his mouth to answer, but merely exhaled, caught unawares by a sudden rush of emotion. The past two nights with Cristen, ensconced in the privacy of an inn, had been a sharing of passion and desire. From not wanting to be touched, the lass now embraced the act of love with unabashed ardor. And Turi couldn’t get enough of her. She had crept into his heart and captured it.
Brows raised, she looked at him. “Is there something special about this tree?”
“You.” He turned her and pressed her back against the trunk. “Standing beneath it.”
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth and her eyes shone as they gazed at him. Turi moved closer and placed his hands flat against the trunk on either side of her head. He was harder than steel and ached to touch her. To kiss her. But he waited, finding pleasure in the mere anticipation of it. Since they’d become lovers, Turi was learning to manage his emotional onslaught whenever they were separated. The anguish, once so totally consuming, had become nothing more than a temporary discomfort, easily remedied by a simple touch.
The smile that had played on Cristen’s lips disappeared. “Turi, there is something I wish to say.”
Turi moved closer, still resisting a torturous urge to press his body to hers. His gaze fell to her lips and then to the gentle rise and fall of her chest.
“Then say it,” he said, looking once again in her eyes.
“I was right.”
“About what?”
“About love being a rare creature.” She touched his unshaven jaw. “It is terribly rare, which is why I consider myself fortunate to have discovered it.”
A blade of guilt twisted inside him. He wasn’t ready to tell her the truth. Not yet.
You don’t know me, little bird. You don’t know who and what I am. All that I have done.
“Cristen, there are –”
“I don’t care.” Her lips quivered as she smiled. “I don’t care what you’ve done in the past, Turi. Nothing you tell me could ever change how I feel. I only wish you would trust me with the truth as I have trusted you.”
And nothing you could ever imagine would come close to the truth.
“You have changed my life, fy aderyn bach,” he said. “I feared nothing till I met you.”
She frowned. “What is it you fear?”
Turi clenched his jaw and moved forward to cover her body with his. His arousal throbbed against her belly as he bent to kiss her. Reaching down between them, he tugged her skirts up over her hips and sought out the hot wetness of her center. She writhed in response and moaned against his mouth. Turi, balancing on the edge of climax, broke their kiss on a gasp.
“’Tis some kind of spell you cast. I cannot wait.” He gave freedom to his cock and then lifted her, bringing her hips level with his. A shudder of ecstasy gripped him as he slid into her. “Wrap your legs around me,” he murmured, “and hold on.”
It was an urgent copulation. A frantic blend of love and lust that lasted mere moments, both of them coming together in a silent but delirious climax.
“Losing you,” he whispered, feeling the intense rattle of their two hearts together. “That is my fear, Cristen. My only fear. Losing you.”
*
Something startled Turi from sleep. He opened his eyes to a lavender sky and an exuberant chorus of birdsong. Wondering what discordant sound had roused him, he cocked an ear and listened. Gilbert’s steady snores drifted over from the other side of the sluggish campfire, which blew out a lazy curl of smoke from the ashes. The steady trickle of water over stones could be heard from the nearby stream.
Then a badger barked and Cristen, tucked into the crook of Turi’s arm, fidgeted. He glanced down to see her frowning, even though her eyes remained closed. He pulled her a little closer. Her eyes opened and the frown turned into a smile.
“You’re awake,” she whispered, her breath warm against his throat.
“Aye.”
“I think I’m lying on an acorn.” She grimaced and fidgeted again.
Tu
ri chuckled. “I doubt it. None of these are oak trees.”
Stifling a yawn, she sat up. “I’ll be back in a little while, Turi.”
“Just remember what I told you,” Turi said, sitting up as well. “Stay within sight and earshot of the camp and stay alert. Don’t forget your dagger.”
“All right.” She rubbed her eyes and rose to her feet. “I’m going to the stream to wash, too.”
Turi grunted. “Call me when you’re ready and I’ll go with you.”
She wrinkled her nose at him, picked up her dagger, and wandered off into the twilight. Turi watched her leave, noting her direction.
“Aye, that’s far enough,” he muttered, as she ducked behind a tree.
A mild sense of unease, separate from his usual emotional fare, pestered him. He stood and glanced about, searching his senses and instincts for any hint of trouble. Scratching his jaw, his gazed drifted to the horses, their heads drooping as their tails flicked away the first flies of the day. They appeared calm, disinterested in their surroundings. Turi released a slow breath.
It occurred to him that Cristen’s effect on his sensibilities might have dulled the sharp edge of his instincts. Since finding her, his mind had been in a state of flux, and the contrasting emotions were extreme. Unbalanced.
With one eye on the spot where she’d disappeared, he wandered over to the closest tree and pissed against the trunk.
“Is something wrong, lad?”
Turi glanced over his shoulder at Gilbert, who was sitting up, sleep-ruffled hair resembling a white cockscomb.
“Nay.” Yet his unease remained as he returned to his surveillance. Where are you? As if in response, she appeared, waved at him and then pointed toward the stream. Relieved in both mind and body, Turi nodded his understanding. “Everything is fine. Did you sleep well, my lord?”
“Very well.” Gilbert struggled to his feet, arched his back, and then hobbled over to the same tree Turi had used, marking it in similar fashion. “We’re making good time, Turi. And it’s nice to have company, I must say.”
Turi bent to retrieve his sword belt and fastened it around his hips. “Our meeting was fortuitous,” he said, frowning as he glanced over at the stream. Where is she? “Excuse me, my lord. We’ll be back shortly.”
Gilbert grunted and glanced at the sky, now suffused with a silver hue. “Sun will be up soon. I’ll see to the fire and the horses, Turi, and then we can be on our way.”
Turi nodded his thanks and headed off toward the stream.
He found Cristen’s dagger on the bank, discarded, half-buried in a clump of grass. Turi bent to retrieve it, his heart beating so hard it shook his ribs. He straightened and studied the weapon, hilt worn, blade clean. It had originally belonged to Cristen’s assailant, of course. The one from the inn. The bastard had cut her with it, albeit a tiny wound that bled but a drop or two. Turi inhaled through his nostrils. At the time, the injury had seemed insignificant. But now, the thought of anyone harming Cristen, even in the smallest way, turned his guts. Images of that night arose in Turi’s mind; the thick fog, a defenseless girl, unknown to him at the time, locked in a hopeless struggle with a man three times her size, his filthy hands groping her.
Turi had saved her, promised to protect her. Had he failed so soon?
A hoarse cry snagged the back of his throat, a sound born of utter disbelief and bone-chilling dread. Sight blurring, his gaze swept the length of the stream, left and right. He had to be mistaken. He had to be. He would have heard something. Seen something.
He found the force in his voice and called for her. “Cristen!”
A flock of jackdaws took flight from a nearby treetop, filling the air with the sound of flapping wings and harsh cries. Turi spun round at the distant sound of hooves on the road. He drew a lungful of air and held it, his heart thrumming in his ears.
As the birds returned to their roost and fell silent, the full realization of Turi’s worst fear hit him with the force of a lance. His body trembled with the impact of it. He released the breath he’d been holding, gritted his teeth, and gave his darkest emotions full rein.
Anger burned through his veins like molten steel. Everything he had ever been, everything he had ever done, came to bear on his desire to kill whoever had taken Cristen from him. Instinct, honed by the experience of thirteen centuries, rose up, bristling like the hackles of a wolf on the hunt. The flood of rage all but blinded him. He was even beyond prayer.
Cristen’s assailant – Ralph St. Clair being the most likely suspect – could not have gone far. But why had she not cried out? There were several possible answers to that question, of course, each one gut-churning. Bile scorched the back of Turi’s throat as his gaze fell to the ground, seeking signs. Signs of a struggle. Footprints.
Blood.
Turi found footprints only. Two sets, which puzzled him, since one of them belonged to Cristen. The other belonged to a man. A single assailant? Given what Turi knew, it made no sense. Surely Ralph St. Clair would not be traveling alone.
Cristen’s footprints ended at the stream, where she had, no doubt, squatted to wash herself. Her assailant had apparently come from behind, taken her by surprise, and somehow cut off her ability to cry for help. Fresh bile burned the back of his throat, although the lack of blood gave him a small measure of relief.
“Turi?” He spun round to face Gilbert, the old man’s face as gray as the pre-dawn twilight. “What’s happened? Where is she, lad?”
Turi replied with a shake of his head. He couldn’t bring himself to speak the words. She has been taken. I have failed her. “I have to go,” he said, his voice detached and calm as he pushed past Gilbert. “You are not obliged to come with me. Indeed, ’tis perhaps best if you wait here.”
“Oh, nay,” Gilbert said, falling into stride beside him. “I am most certainly coming with you.”
Turi shot a dubious glance at the old man. “With respect, I think it better if I –”
“Since I’ll be on horseback, I’ll not slow you down. Melchior’s legs are as strong as Samson’s.” Gilbert, who had a fierce and determined gleam in his eye, patted the weapon at his hip. “My sword arm is not what it was, but not useless either. Do not deny me this. I’ve grown fond of the lass. Of both of you, in truth.”
Turi frowned. “As you wish, then. But until this issue has been resolved, our agreement and your title carries no weight with me, nor am I under obligation to either one. This is my fight and I will handle it my way. There will be no quarter given to this bastard. When I find him, I will kill him, and any man who rides with him.”
“I understand fully and am yours to command.” Gilbert kicked earth over the still-smoking fire. “Is it St. Clair, do you think?”
“My gut tells me it is.” Turi gathered his things and hoisted himself onto Samson’s back. “’Tis odd, though,” he said, looking back toward the stream. “The footprints indicate one man only. And I question why he would take her in such a careless fashion. He must know we’d be in close pursuit.”
“An ambush, perhaps?”
“I see no reason for such a tactic. A covert attack on our camp would have carried the same element of surprise.”
With a grunt, Gilbert climbed into the saddle. “Do you know which way they went?”
“South.” Turi gestured toward the road. “I heard hooves on the road, a single set only, which again makes me wonder. I swear there is something strange about this entire thing.”
“We’ll find her, Turi.” Gilbert grinned and patted his sword. “They don’t know who they’re dealing with.”
A particular type of anticipation arose in Turi’s gut. He recognized it. Knew it well. Like an invisible weapon, it always accompanied him into battle. The gods, he dared to believe, were with him.
Chapter Twelve
Since leaving the Bird in Hand, Ralph and Dudley had followed Cristen’s trail with ease. The recent rain, and the subsequent lack of it, had worked in Ralph’s favor. The damp earth kept a r
ecord of all who had gone before, but Ralph soon learned to distinguish the hoof prints he sought. One set, slightly larger than the other, had a back right shoe with a nick in it. An easy identifier.
Cristen, the man named Turi, and the elderly baron, had apparently stayed at two more inns on the Gloucester road. On each occasion, adding heat to Ralph’s simmering ire, Cristen had bedded down her so-called protector. The man, apparently, had the bearing of a warrior and was armed with sword and bow. The sword certainly implied status of some kind. Knighthood at least. Yet the mystery of his origins remained. In any case, he appeared to have left an impression with those he encountered, and for different reasons. The whoreson cast a large shadow, in or out of the sunlight.
But Ralph had remained undeterred. He was no slouch with a sword, either. Plus, he had the advantage of surprise, since he’d seen nothing to suggest they knew about their pursuers. With each daylight hour, the gap between hunters and hunted diminished and Ralph’s excitement grew. One more day, he reckoned, and he’d be right on their tail.
But the following morning, Dudley, curse the man, had begun to show signs of illness. A damp brow, face flush with fever, the struggle to stay atop his horse evident. Ralph, recalling the death knell at Abbotsbury, wondered if the pestilence had followed them and said as much.
Dudley waved the comment away. “’Tis merely a touch of ague, my lord,” he insisted, and spurred his horse onward. But by that afternoon, it became clear the man was failing. By nightfall, Ralph realized their plan of attack would have to change, and drastically.
So far, it had gone well. Perfectly, in fact.
He had her.
At first, Ralph feared he’d hit the lass too hard and killed her. The blow to the back of her head had not drawn blood, but she’d crumpled like a slain deer and nigh on tumbled into the water. Draped belly-down and limp across the horse’s withers, she still appeared lifeless. Her face was as pale as snow, with bluish circles beneath her eyes. As he had several times already, Ralph placed the back of his hand to her lips, glad to feel a whisper of exhaled air.
The Sentinel (Legends of Love Book 3) Page 13
