The outlaw’s eyes widened. He ran his tongue over his white lips. With a vicious oath, then, he shoved Lady Catherine from him so she stumbled forward, arms out-flung.
Ross whipped his sword aside barely in time to keep from impaling her on it. Reaching with hard muscles well-oiled from the fight, he caught her with one arm, snatching her against him. Face set, heart pounding with terror for what he had almost done, almost been forced to do, he swung back upon the outlaw leader.
He was almost upon him, his long knife raised to strike. A swift, backhanded slice, singing with its hard purpose, sent the man stumbling back. He crouched, clutching a long gash in his belly that might well be the end of him.
With Lady Catherine firm in the curve of his arm and his sword in a hard grasp, Ross paced forward. The outlaw paled, looked around, saw that he was completely alone. Being no fool, he turned and fled at a staggering run.
In less than a heartbeat, the forest track was empty. The wood around them crackled with retreating footsteps, and then was silent.
To let the pack of merciless brigands get away went against the grain. Had Ross been alone, he would have pursued them, laid at least one or two by the heels and seen them hung. The first to have his neck stretched would have been their leader. He deserved that and more.
Ross couldn’t afford it. For one thing, the retreat was possibly an attempt to draw him to where he could be surrounded and taken down. Added to that, he was encumbered by the lady, who would become a liability if he had to move fast or fight off a surprise attack. The value of silence while tracking could also be an unfamiliar concept for her.
Come to think of it, she was not making much noise now.
She was making no noise at all.
Ross frowned down at the woman pressed against his side. Her face was pale, her lips bloodless, and her eyes, though the pure blue of the Madonna’s robe, were stark and wide. Tremors shook her from the fine, springing blond tendrils that hung around her face to her long, white fingers that clutched his hard arm at her waist. Even the hem of her skirt fluttered, rattling the leaves where it swept the ground.
“What is it?” he demanded, the words rougher than he intended. “Are you hurt?”
She lifted her chin a fraction. “N-no. I just…I don’t know.”
Comprehension struck him. He had seen the like before in street brawls and on the field of battle, where men who fought like devils incarnate while it was needful, then shook until their teeth rattled afterward. He’d just never seen it in a female.
Releasing his hold with some reluctance, supporting her with a hand around her upper arm, he leaned to scoop up the cloak that had been torn from her shoulders. “Wrap this around you,” he said as he draped it into place. “Getting warm again should help.”
“Yes.” She ducked her head as if to avoid his gaze as she tried to fasten the torn cords meant to hold her cloak. “I should…should thank you for…for…”
“Nay, not at all. In God’s truth, ’twas a pleasure.” Bending, he picked up the small knife she’d dropped, returning it to the scabbard that hung from a chain on her girdle.
Her pale lips trembled into a smile as if she understood his intent to make her feel safer by the return of her weapon. The valor of that effort, in spite of her shivering, sent a peculiar pain through him. Brushing her hands away from her cloak cords, he made a hard knot of what was left of them.
“Nevertheless, you have my gratitude.”
Her voice was stronger, he noted as he glanced at her from under his brows. A hint of pink crept across her cheekbones, mayhap from resentment at his presumption in touching her. It seemed progress that should be aided, one way or another. It was certainly better than dragging her into his arms and holding her so tightly against him that neither of them could breathe.
“What I fail to see,” he added as if she had not spoken, “is why rescue was necessary. Had you stayed with the hunt as you should—”
“What makes you think I left it of my own will?” she interrupted, meeting his gaze for the barest of moments before lowering her lashes again.
“You dropped back and let it go on without you, for I saw you.” He allowed a corner of his mouth to curl. “The question is why. Were you about nature’s business, or did you expect to meet a lover in some thicket?”
“As if I would do such a thing!”
That was better. Hot rose color had returned to her cheekbones and her lips were not so pale. “Many English lasses would, or so I’ve found. And most men are glad to tarry if a woman is halfway presentable.”
“If you followed me because…”
“Nay,” Ross said in hard disavowal. He’d not have her think him as bad as the scum he had vanquished. Not that he wasn’t well and truly aware of her womanly charms; he could still feel the imprint of her curves along his side, had her scent of lavender, warm velvet and well-bathed, gently reared female in his nostrils.
“Yet you are here,” she said with a small frown. “You must have a reason.”
She was quick, in spite of the shock of what she’d been through; he had to give her that. He had indeed followed her. He’d been far too aware of where she was and what she was doing all this long day, though that was something he preferred to keep to himself. His main regret was that he had not fallen back in time to prevent what had happened. Yes, and that she had been manhandled while he dispatched the boar that frightened her mare, and then paused long enough to discover exactly what he faced from her attackers.
“’Twas diplomacy,” he answered in irony laced with self-protection. “To show up the king by killing his stag for him would be more than a thought unwise. Besides, I heard the boar that fair scared the wits out of your mare, and thought to add his tough hams to Henry’s larder.”
She gave Ross a sharp look that showed more than a little doubt, but did not challenge his statement. It was a moment before she spoke again. “Now Rosie is gone. You might give thought to how we are to return to the hunt without her or your mount.”
She was right. His hunter had disappeared in company with the outlaws, and there was no sign of her palfrey.
Ross cursed in blistering Gaelic phrases as he turned in a circle to scan the encroaching wood. He would not have been laggard in noticing their loss if not distracted by the lady. Still, that was no excuse. He should have noticed, should have prevented it.
He considered plunging after his own beast, chasing down those who had taken him. His reason for not doing so was unchanged, however. He could not drag Lady Catherine with him any more than he could before, nor could he leave her alone in case the outlaws circled back.
The hunter was as fine a piece of horseflesh as Ross had ever straddled, and he hated to see him go. At least he need not mourn the poor beast too much, as he had been borrowed from Henry’s stables.
Lady Catherine sighed and then drew away from him, turning toward the track along which they had come. “I suppose we had best start walking.”
“Nay,” he said with a slow frown. “I think not.”
“No? But surely…”
He lifted a shoulder, readjusted his plaid, which had slipped from it. “It will soon be full dark. To find our way back through the wood in broad daylight and on horseback would be hard enough, but afoot in the night is too great a risk.”
She stared at him as if he had gone mad. “We can’t stay here!”
“It’s better than wandering in circles until we’re lost, or freezing to death while we’re at it.” He did not think her able to make the long trek just now, though he would not say so.
“Oh, but—”
“Besides, the king should have sent out searchers for you. We have wood here for a beacon fire that will surely bring them to us.” It would also serve to help warm her, as would constructing a shelter. But mentioning either need was another thing that seemed unwise at the moment.
“And if it doesn’t, if we are not found before morning?”
“Then it will be later,”
he said with finality.
“You may be satisfied with that, but I, sir, am not!”
He cocked his head, frowning at her as she stood facing him with blue fire in her eyes and the bearing of an injured queen. “Meaning?”
“We will be expected to marry. Had you not considered that point, or is it that you anticipate taking an heiress to wife?”
Anger stirred Ross’s blood to a slow simmer. “You think I would keep you here of a purpose, to force you to the altar?”
“It’s been done before.” She glanced at him and then away again.
“Not by me,” he countered in hard deliberation. “I’ve no use for a Sassenach bride.”
More hot color flared in her face for his plain speaking, and her chin came up. “Excellent,” she said in clear disdain, “because I have no use for a Scots husband. No, nor any other kind.”
“None at all?” He could not keep the surprise from his voice. To be unmarried was an odd ambition in a woman, or so was his experience.
“I’ll not be the death of a man.”
She was so certain in her pronouncement, and so grim withal. He couldn’t prevent the salacious grin that curled one corner of his mouth. “His death, is it? And from what cause might that be?”
“Not what you may suppose!” she answered with fierce ire and another flood of rose-red in her face. “Have you not heard of the accursed Three Graces of Graydon?”
“Oh, aye, that.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You may treat it as a jest, but I assure you it is real.”
“Sisters who may be married for no reason except love, is it? And who can cause the death of any man who betroths himself to them without it? It’s a tale bandied about the court. I heed it not.”
“So you would accept whatever consequences may befall.”
He watched her, enjoying the stiff disdain on her features, glad of that show of temper compared to her earlier pallor. “I see little reason to get in a bother. No one can force us to marry. The scandal may affect your marriage prospects, but that hardly matters if you don’t expect to wed.”
“You are forgetting King Henry.”
“And what has he to say to it?”
“A great deal, as I am a royal ward by his grace. He has been contemplating the best match for me for some few weeks now. Suppose he should decide an alliance with the son of a Scots laird would suit him well?”
Unease spread through Ross. God’s blood, but she might be right again.
He had been left behind in England after James III of Scotland made peace with the Sassenach back in the summer, pledged as a hostage to keep his father in check. That randy old goat took savage delight in feuding with his English neighbors, raiding across the border any time boredom moved him. The results did nothing to ease border tensions. Ross had endured five months of enforced English hospitality, had supped at Henry Tudor’s table and become a boon companion of the solemn-faced conqueror of the last Plantagenet king. Henry could easily decide to attach him permanently to his court with a marriage tie. That was, if he had no better match for the lady.
“I am of Scotland and answer to King James alone,” Ross said in harsh reply. “Never will I bow to the will of an English king.”
She stared at him, her eyes darkly blue. It was as if she weighed him, not just his outward appearance but what he was inside. An icy trickle moved down his spine that was very like a warning.
“Do you swear it?” she asked.
Ignoring the presentiment, he raised his clenched fist and thumped it upon his chest above his heart. “You have my word.”
Her smile was as wintry as the evening sky. “And will remember it, as I have no defense of my own against Henry’s intentions. See that you do the same.”
It was then, as they stood facing each other with the determination to avoid marriage standing like a drawn sword between them, that the first flakes of snow began to fall. They drifted down, swirling around, over and between them like the ashes of a Samhain fire.
2
The fire crackled, leaping toward the lower limbs of the great oak overhead. Sparks flew up to mingle with the branches before being extinguished by falling snow. The dancing flames gilded the hands of the man who had built it as he held them out to the warmth, outlining their hard strength in orange and blue light, glancing over myriad white nicks and scars. Above them, the planes of his face were sculpted in fire glow and shadow, with a raptor’s nose and guarded eyes set in a handsome, yet masklike visage that appeared hard and distant, impervious to the emotions that plagued other men.
He seemed dangerous. That was not at all a comforting observation for Cate, given that she was about to spend the night alone in his company. That it must happen grew ever more certain as the minutes passed. Darkness had fallen more than an hour ago, and there was no sign of a search party. It gave her an odd feeling in the pit of her stomach, one that spread deep into her lower body as it grew more intense.
She stirred uncomfortably on the log where she sat, just inside the small lean-to he had formed by propping logs against the oak’s wide trunk and weaving boughs through them. “Do you think the outlaws will return?” she asked with a brief glance beyond the fire’s glow. “I mean, now that it’s dark.”
“Might.” He reached for a twig and began breaking bits from it, tossing them into the flames.
“Mean you to sit up all night to guard against it, then?”
“I do.”
“It’s my belief they are cowards, as they ran away so easily rather than face you.”
“Nay, milady. Only men who have discovered it’s better to retreat than die for no reason.”
“For no reason?” They had expected to take her, after all. Was she not worth some little effort as a prize?
“None at all.” He gave her his attention for a flickering instant. “The poor fools saw there was no hope of keeping you, so abandoned the effort for easier prey tomorrow.”
“There being no shame in retreat for a brigand? I pray they stay away.” She shivered under her cloak.
“Mayhap they’ll be happy with the hunter as reward.”
“At least my palfrey made her escape. Last I saw of her, she was galloping down the track. She may not stop until she reaches her stall at Winchester Castle.”
“Aye,” Ross said in laconic agreement, “but I don’t depend upon it.”
The palfrey showing up at the stable without her would suggest something had befallen her. Whether the stable master would take notice, or be concerned enough to discover if she had returned with the others, were different questions altogether.
She sighed. “No.”
She opened her mouth to ask what he would do if the men came back, after all, but then closed it again. There could be only one answer. He would fight as he had before.
“That’s why you made such a great fire, isn’t it,” she said instead, “so you can see them before they get to us. You don’t really think the king’s men will be guided by it.”
“No way to tell.”
“The hunting party either failed to notice my absence or thought I went back ahead of them. Surely they know by now that I’m missing.”
“To send out searchers in the dark would be foolish. The snow has covered all sign of tracks.”
“Yes, but still…”
“Then they’ll have noticed, not being blind, that I’m also among the missing.”
She frowned at him. “You believe that will relieve their minds?”
He tossed a piece of his stick into the fire, speaking without meeting her eyes. “Or set them smirking, if they have any imagination.”
Cate’s heart sank inside her as she saw his point. Henry would surely be torn between worry that she might be alone and exposed to danger, and annoyance that she was in the Scotsman’s company. She could not think his plans for her future had ever included such a misalliance. “I’m sorry to be the cause of concern,” she said with a frown. “Henry has enough to plague him at the moment
.”
“You’re thinking of the whispers that a son of Edward IV still lives? That tale has been around since Bosworth.
He can’t credit it.”
“Can he not?” The two young sons of the late King Edward IV had been heirs to the throne before they were declared illegitimate and confined to the Tower by their uncle, Richard III, so he might snatch the crown upon his brother Edward’s death three years ago. After Richard was killed at Bosworth Field, the Tower had been searched most diligently. No sign of the two boys had been uncovered. The countryside had been scoured high and low, but the princes, brothers to Henry’s queen, Elizabeth of York, seemed to have vanished as if they had never lived.
Cate had never met Edward’s sons, as she had arrived at court only a year ago, after Henry’s coronation. She had seen miniatures of them, however. They had been so fair, so young and proud in their sturdy strength. What fate other than vicious murder could have caused them to disappear so completely? Though it would have sparked more strife and bloodshed between York and Lancaster factions had they emerged from captivity, their deaths were still a horror beyond words.
“The Thames runs close by the Tower,” Ross Dunbar said without inflection, answering her thought, “and has carried many a soul out to sea.”
“Some whisper that Henry’s supporters did away with the boys in secret, to clear his way to the crown.”
“While Richard had them in his charge, watched day and night against just such a trick? Don’t be daft. The warders of the castle might be corrupt on occasion, but not when they could hang for it.”
“They even say Henry’s mother might have seen to it.”
Ross snorted, breaking another twig and tossing it into the fire. “Yon duchess of Richmond and Derby is an officious little busybody, I’ll grant you, with more to say about Henry’s business than most men would allow. She busied herself with putting her son on the throne, right enough. Yet she’s so godly a woman that I’d as soon suspect the Holy Mother.”
“I suppose,” Cate said in agreement. Lady Margaret was well known for devotion to the church, her good works and the black gown she often wore like the habit of a nun.
By Grace Possessed Page 2
