by Merry Farmer
Without warning his lips were suddenly on hers. Her eyes flew wide as his arms closed around her. She was too shocked to struggle. She was on the verge of pushing him away when a group of young girls passed by. They burst into giggles, pointing and whispering behind their hands, and rushed on.
Tom broke the kiss, face red, and set her at arm’s length. “Sorry,” he muttered, staring at the ground. “I know them is all.” He cleared his throat. “And now they’re going to think I like boys.”
She could only stare at him, mouth open, and blink.
“Come on.” He grabbed her hand, not quite able to meet her eyes. “I think I know a place where we can hide until it gets darker. There’s a lot of abandoned tents on the other side of the camp.”
“Right. Abandoned tents.” She let him pull her along, not entirely sure what had happened.
Lydia jerked away from the rip in Roderick’s tent, stepping on him as she did.
“What?” he asked, scrambling to look out of the rip himself. “What did you see?” He saw nothing so snapped around to frown at her.
She shut her mouth and took a breath as the sight sunk in. Then she grinned. “I saw Tom Tanner kissing a boy.”
“Huh?” Roderick made a face and then snorted. “I always thought he was too friendly with that pouf Toby.”
Lydia blinked at him, no idea what he was talking about. “No, you fool, it wasn’t an actual boy. It was that pip-squeak Madeline.”
“Jack’s Madeline?”
“Kissing Tom,” Lydia nodded, smirk spreading wider. “His brother.”
Roderick huffed a laugh. “Poor, poor Lord John.”
“There’s nothing poor about Lord John.” She headed for the tent flap. “But his charming brother just handed me the means to get everything I want.”
“What do you mean?” Roderick followed on her heels.
She stepped out into the path and checked to see if anyone was around. “I want you to follow them.” She rounded on Roderick. “Find out where they’re going and where they hide. Then I want you to find an excuse to hang around that area. Get Connor and some of his men to stick to watch them as well.”
“Do you want me to snatch them and string them up with my father and Jack?”
“No! No, I want you to make sure that they stay in a tent. Together. Whatever you do, don’t let them leave. But don’t let them realize that you know they’re there. At some point they’re bound to fall asleep. When they do, come find me at once.”
“Why?” He crossed his arms with a petulant scowl.
A sly grin spread into her eyes. “You’ll see.”
It started raining towards the end of the morning.
“Bloody hell,” Jack muttered, as raindrops splashed into his eyes. He turned his face up to the sky and let the rain wash over him. “Oy, on second thought, maybe not!”
It may have been cold and wet, but the rain felt good on his bruised and torn body. It stung his back to the point where his face contorted in a wince that wouldn’t go away, but it also cooled it. Best of all, as rivulets began to run down the side of his face he stuck out his tongue and licked at them, mouth open to catch as much rainwater as he could. When he turned to find Simon pressing his mouth to a trickle running down the post he burst into laughter.
“Oy, Simon, I had no idea you liked to suck the big ones.”
He let himself dissolve into light-headed hysterics when Simon straightened and scowled at him.
“If I do then clearly you have nothing to fear from me.” He nodded at Jack’s smallclothes.
Jack checked himself only to find the tattered excuse for clothes soaked through and drooping to the point of falling off, hiding nothing. Less than nothing in the cold rain. His laughter doubled.
“Oy, you’re not winnin’ any prizes yourself, mate.” He gestured with his chin to Simon.
Simon glanced down, brow shooting up. Then he did something Jack never expected. He laughed. It was a rich, quiet sound, rolling up from his chest and spreading into his face. He shook his head and leaned his forehead against his stretched arm. The two of them stood there like lunatics, naked and laughing in the rain.
Jack’s glance shifted over Simon’s shoulder. The guard set over them scowled off into the trees, ignoring them. Beyond him a trio of young women watched them with bright eyes, whispering to each other behind their hands.
“You got bets on which one of us is gonna drop drawers first?” he called out to them.
The guard shook himself to attention as one of the women called back, “My money’s on you, m’lord! And I’m hopin’ I win soon.”
Simon looked up, past Jack in the direction of the guard. He twisted to see who Jack was shouting to. His eyes flashed to purposeful awareness. “Keep talking to them.”
He flickered a glance to Simon and nodded to one of the other women. “Oy, what about you, love?”
She turned bright pink, giggling as she shouted, “I’m with you, my lord!”
“Keep smiling,” Simon whispered, his words fast, his eyes trained on something behind Jack. “Flirt with them.”
“You gonna come help me keep my dignity intact after you win your bet?” he winked.
The women’s faces suddenly paled, their eyes flashing with alarm. Jack was just glancing over his shoulder to see what they were seeing when Roderick grabbed his shoulders and slammed him into the post. White sparks shot through his vision. When they cleared he was standing face-to-face with Lydia. Two thick men with maces stood behind her.
“Oh I see how it is.” The smile on her lips didn’t reach the malice in her eyes. “You swear your fidelity to that little mouse Madeline, you throw me off, but when someone young and pretty comes along you’re all smiles?”
Jack turned his head to Simon, a look of ‘why the bloody hell did you tell me to flirt with the girls?’ in his eyes. Simon met his scowl with a steady expression that demanded trust. At least one of them bloody well knew what was going on.
Lydia grabbed his jaw and wrenched him to face her. Her smile returned and she batted her eyes, raindrops sticking her lashes together. “I’ve come to take you on a walk, Lord John.”
“Lovely afternoon for a walk.” Whether it was the rain or the exchange with the women or Simon’s coaching, in that moment Jack felt like he could take on Lydia and win.
“Untie him,” Lydia ordered.
Face sullen, Roderick reached over Jack’s head to fumble with the knots. Jack grinned at him as if nothing was out of the ordinary, but as Roderick’s frustration mounted Jack switched to studying the young man. Knowing what he knew now it was clear the wanker took more after his aunt than his father.
“I can’t get it,” Roderick growled. “Ropes’re swollen.” He reached for the long knife in his belt and cut the rope, leaving Jack’s hands bound.
“Oh well,” Lydia shrugged. “I think I like him better a little helpless anyhow.” To prove her point she snatched at the dangling end of the rope from his hands and held it like a leash. She gave it a jerk. Jack had to jump to keep from being pulled over. As it was, his smallclothes sagged down to his thighs. The guards she’d brought with her snorted.
“Oy!” he shouted in protest.
Lydia turned towards him and laughed when she saw his predicament.
“Oh, so you like showin’ off the prize you’re after do ya, mate?” he snapped.
Lydia’s smirk dropped. She darted an envious glance back and forth at the people who watched from the outskirts of the common. Her eyes met Simon’s. Whatever she saw there whipped her back straight and her chin up. “Fix his drawers,” she gestured to one of her guards. “And go find him a cloak.”
The first guard ran off to search for a cloak. The second grumbled as he yanked Jack’s pants up and tied the drawstring too tight. Jack ignored him. He’d just made Lydia do something he wanted her to.
“You plannin’ on leaving Simon tied up in the rain?” He worked to find a way to stay one step ahead of her. “Only he could
come with us.”
She scowled at him, pulling the hood of the cloak she wore over her head to fight off the raindrops. With a deep breath her cloying smile returned. “Roderick can keep him company. I want us to be alone.”
He matched her with a sham grin of his own, guessing what she had in mind. “I apologize for disappointing you in advance.”
“Jack, Jack, how could you ever be a disappointment to me?” She moved in close and spread a hand on his wet chest. You certainly weren’t a disappointment to me before,” her fingers trailed lower. “At least not until you chickened out.”
“Things have changed,” he told her, glad that the rain and his myriad injuries kept nature from taking over.
“We’ll see,” she lowered her lashes.
“I found this.” Lydia stepped back at her guard’s arrival with a cloak.
“Good. Throw it over his shoulders and make sure he’s modest.”
Jack laughed at her change of tactics. Lydia scowled and tugged on the rope.
It took more concentration than Jack wanted to admit to keep his back straight and his face from showing pain as Lydia dragged him away from the muddy common and along one of the paths that wound through the tents, the guards following. The camp had grown twentyfold since the days when Ethan had started it. Jack didn’t recognize anything or anyone. But they recognized him. He remembered the words that Simon had whispered to him to keep him from breaking.
Faces peered out of tent flaps and from behind trees. Young people and old stood by and stared at him in awe as he passed. Simon was right. Their eyes were filled with admiration. The three girls Simon had urged him to flirt with glared at Lydia with pure venom as they passed. Clever Simon. He’d turned at least three of Lydia’s people dead against her. Everyone they passed looked like they could turn on her. It didn’t matter that he looked like a drowned rat that had been mauled by a dog in his smallclothes.
He stole a quick glance to Lydia. She walked with assurance in her hips, expression caught between bright and dark as her eyes avoided the forest folk. She didn’t see them as anything more than obstacles.
“I have something I want to show you,” she hummed as the rain picked up. “Something I think you’ll find very, very interesting.”
“Oh yeah?” he feigned only casual interest. “Is it a carriage on its way to Derby? ‘Cuz that’s about the only thing I’m interested in seein’ right now.”
“No, it’s much more interesting than that.” The smile she gave him made him shiver in spite of his efforts to appear unmoved. “I’m going to show you your future, Lord John.”
“Oy, you taken to tellin’ fortunes to get by?”
His toe hit a stone and he stumbled with a grunt. A wiry man in his middle years lunged forward from the front of a tent and steadied him. He was old enough to be Jack’s father and yet respect shone clear from his eyes.
“Get away from him!” Lydia barked.
“Many thanks,” Jack ignored her. One of the guards pushed the man aside. Jack nodded to him, straining to hold his back straight and his shoulders wide.
“My lord,” the man nodded and backed away. He shot a bitter glance to Lydia as they moved on.
“They should know better than to step out of line,” Lydia sniffed as they turned a corner. “Miserable, filthy scum.”
Jack swallowed the barb that came to his lips. “We gonna tour your camp here for long? Only I got better things to do.”
“This will only take as long as it takes you to see reason.”
He huffed a laugh.
They stopped at a huge tent that was being guarded by at least two heavily armed men that he could see. He was on the verge of asking what the hell it was when the guards stepped aside and Lydia pushed back the tent flap. A heartbeat before he stepped into the dim tent he remembered what Madeline had told them early that morning.
The tent was packed full of treasure. His jaw went slack at the sight of it. Part of him thought Madeline had been imagining things, but no, there it all was. Gold coins filled strongboxes and chests that were stacked three and four high. A barrel of bulging velvet purses stood against the tent post. Two tables full of jewelry and ornamental swords rested in the center of the space, the light of two lamps glinting off of it. There was even a pile of brocade cushions and bolts of fabric piled on one side. It was more money than he’d seen or hoped to see in his lifetime. It was enough to feed and clothe an entire shire. It was enough to pay Derbyshire’s portion of the king’s ransom. If Crispin could see this loot he’d either go ballistic at Ethan’s thieving or fall on his knees and thank his lucky stars that so much money had fallen into his hands.
Except that it wasn’t in his hands. It was in Lydia’s.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” She scooped a handful of coins from one of the strongboxes and let it fall in a rhythm that matched the rain on the canvas roof.
“Yeah, but it’s not really yours, mate,” he shrugged. The motion shot fire through his back and he winced.
“Who says it isn’t?” She sauntered over to the table and picked up a thick gold bracelet encrusted with rubies and pearls. With a smile she clasped it around her wrist and held her arm up to the lamplight to admire it. “Ever heard of the phrase ‘to the victor goes the spoils?’ Well it’s true. And in this case I am the victor.” When Jack didn’t reply one way or another she lowered her hand and fixed her hawk-like eyes on him instead. “It can all be ours,” she flashed a smile as she swayed towards him. “All of it. Mine and yours. We could be the richest lord and lady in the shire.”
“I’m not interested.” Jack turned his head towards the wall. And yet if he could get his hands on it, if he could hand it over to pay Derbyshire’s portion of the king’s ransom not only would his position be safe, Crispin’s would be too.
“How can you not be interested in power?” She reached him, sliding her hands up his arms to his shoulders. “How could you not want to live a life of luxury? Especially considering where you come from. You could crush them all, you know. Everyone who ever laughed at you, put you down. Everyone who turned up their nose at you and thought you were lesser. Every lover who rejected you.”
He glanced back at her, eyebrow raised. “Is that what this is all about?”
“Oh yes!” her eyes flashed. “Think of how that would feel, Lord John. Revenge. Think of how it would feel to have the ones who cast you off begging for the scraps from your table.”
“Not sure I like the idea of anyone begging for anything.”
“Jack,” she pressed herself against him. He ground his teeth to keep from shouting at the pain her rubbing caused. “I have so much to teach you.”
“I doubt that,” he growled.
She sighed and tried to lean in for a kiss. He jerked his head to the side. She responded by laughing.
“I see you need more convincing,” she hummed, sliding back. She unclasped the bracelet and tossed it into the closest strongbox. “Look at it, Jack. All this could be yours. Join forces with me, marry me and share your title and power with me, and you can have all this and more.” She traced her fingers along the neckline of her gown as if she was a treasure he could have as well. “The outlaws in this forest work for me now. Think of how much more they could bring in.”
If his hands had been free he would have crossed his arms and looked bored. Instead he merely stared at her.
She quirked an eyebrow, pressing her lips together and gliding forward again. “I have something else I want to show you.”
She grabbed the rope tying his hands and lead him out of the treasure tent. The skies had darkened, the rain intensified, drumming against the canvas village like a hundred drums rolling. A small crowd had gathered outside in spite of the rain. They kept their distance, eying the guards with suspicion. He doubted they knew what the tent held. When he straightened after coming through the flap the forest folk rose as well, straining to see him. Too many of them had tattered clothes, eyes filled with hunger in spite of the wealth o
nly feet away from them. Simon’s words rolled back through his mind again. Think of all the things you could do for them.
“I understand your hesitance to give your heart away,” Lydia talked as she yanked him down one path and up another. “It’s so hard to find love in this world. It’s even harder to be faithful to that love once you find it, isn’t it.” She spoke as though she were a sister sharing sage advice. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s sweet of you to fancy yourself in love with that spiky-haired snippet.” He scowled straight ahead. “But you know you want more than she knows how to give. You can try to deny it, but I know firsthand how virile you can be, Jack. I saw how you looked at those little harlots who were watching you earlier.” She finished the sentence as if she’d swallowed a sour bug. “Do you really think a former nun can keep up with your needs? I bet she’s never shared a bed with a man in her life. Then again….”
He clenched his jaw and stared straight ahead, trying not to hear her. She was driving at something.
They slowed at the beginning of a row of particularly beat-up tents. A single guard stood in the middle of the path, arms crossed in front of him. Jack narrowed his eyes and studied the shelters. There was nothing out of the ordinary about them. There weren’t even forest people hanging around the edges watching them. The whole area was silent and deserted.
“I don’t really care if you’re faithful to me,” Lydia told him in a low murmur, leaning close. “I certainly don’t intend to be faithful to you. But I have the feeling you still value that silly old so-called virtue, don’t you? Faithfulness?”
He turned to stare at her, face as blank as he could make it. His back itched with more than just fresh scrapes and older bruises. She was baiting him. He knew it. His pulse pounded as if he’d run all morning.
She twisted to the guards following behind them. “Give me your dagger.”
One of the men took a blade from his belt and handed it over to her. She turned and sawed through the ropes binding Jack’s hands. As the ropes fell away Jack rubbed his wrists, wincing, debating whether it would be worth the beating he was sure to get if he tried to strangle her.
