Defiant (10 page)

She looked down at Jamie’s hand, locked around her wrists.

He might be better at keeping one captured, though.

“Did Roland give you any descriptions, Ry?” Jamie asked in a low voice as they crossed a stableyard raucous with an inordinate number of chickens. Eva saw no sign of Roger, and they did not seem to either. She felt a small rush of pride.

Jamie’s companion, brown-haired, brown-eyed, as tall as Jamie, leaner than Jamie, but looking almost as dangerous as Jamie, shook his head as they drew near the stable doors. “Nay,” he murmured. “He said he saw only their dust.”

Jamie released her when they were through the stable doors, into the dusty warmth. Eva backed away, resisting the urge to rub her wrists, for she would not have been rubbing away pain, as Jamie had not hurt her. She would have been . . . touching where he had touched.

Morning light rayed in through slats between the boards. Horses and hay were illuminated by thin strips of bright light, so they glowed golden and brown and chestnut red. The horses shifted in their stalls, turning to peer at them with liquid eyes, furry ears pricked.

Jamie and his companion led their horses out, still saddled. Clearly, they had anticipated a short stop. Perhaps she should be insulted by this.

Eva’s horse was standing down the row farther, a dim brown shape, her head half down, eyes lazily closed, a single spray of golden hay poking out from between her velvety muzzle lips.

Jamie patted his horse in a distracted way and tossed the reins up. He grabbed hold of a stirrup and looked at her. “Up.”

She blinked. “I, I—”

“Are getting on.” Then he paused and glanced down the row,
the very direction her surreptitious little glance had gone. They both looked at the sleepy brown mare. “Yours?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it, suddenly unable to determine the need for a lie.

Revealing she had a horse would betray nothing of her purposes. Jamie could easily assume she had a horse. She’d never have made it this far without. She could claim every horse in the stable and Jamie would know nothing more than he did right now.

Yet notwithstanding all these sensible notions, Eva was engulfed like a wick by the bright, burning knowledge that the more Jamie knew of her, the more her life would become . . . irrevocable.

Eva lived for revocability. Decisions were nothing but footprints in the sand; everything could be washed away. At need, Eva revoked opinions, plans, pennies, entire personal histories.

But Jamie . . . Jamie was more the edge of the cliff than the shifting sand. No going back.

That thin scar carved through the corner of his lip and up over one high cheekbone, but did not detract a whit from the beautiful masculinity of him. Hands, blades, wits: everything Jamie bore was a weapon, and a blind man would see he was a thing to avoid. Right now he was watching her, his eyes never leaving hers throughout the lengthening silence.

Never had she been unable to lie. Never had she so much as paused in the deed. Lie, always. Run forever.

Do it,
the faint call came up from inside.

“Yes,” she heard herself say. “She is mine.”

Well.

Jamie jabbed his chin into the air. “Ry, bring her out, will you?”

Ry strode over, and while he was being so obedient and bringing her mare out, Jamie tied Eva up.

Standing a head taller and an inch away, his dark head bent to attend the ropes, she had a strange, disorienting moment of imagining him doing something helpful as he stood before her, perhaps untangling a pouch, or showing her some trinket in secret, tucked between their bodies. She watched his thick fingers tug on the ropes and the dizzy sense expanded, down from her ridiculous head into her even more ridiculous body.

“These ropes, they are hardly necessary,” she announced.

“Consider me cautious.”

“Other words come to mind, not so greatly
cautious.
”

He tipped his head up. He had very long eyelashes. This was not right. “Such as?”

She sighed. “You seek compliments at such a time? About your eyelashes, no doubt.”

His stared at her; then the small, dented curves beside his mouth deepened ever so slightly. He bent back to his tying. “Ropes make it more difficult to escape.”

“But who is to say I wish to escape?”

“Fleeing and kicking me brought the notion to mind.”

She made a dismissive sound. She truly had no desire to escape, not anymore. Further reflection—the sort that came while being hauled down stairs—had shown her the truth of her straits: she had no hope of regaining Father Peter.

But Jamie did.

If one had to be in captivity, it was undeniably better to be held captive by one who had the power and inclination to take down every shared enemy in your path. Then, come time, you could simply steal away. With the priest.

She gave another sigh. “But you are so daunting with your weapons and your glowering looks—”

His hands stilled. “Glowering?”

“—what can I do but succumb?”

He gave a low laugh and resumed tying. “Once, you might
have been able to make me believe that, Eva. Then I spent the night shackled in a cellar under the town walls.”

“It must have been quite cold and damp.”

He flipped an end of the rope overtop and gave a sharp tug. “Quite. I was kept warm by imagining just this.”

She sniffed and stared patiently at the wall, for regarding his bent head, the strands of dark hair falling by his hair-roughened jaw, did not help maintain the proper sense of outrage and loathing.

“These ropes, Jamie, I am sorry to say, they make you appear . . . afraid.”

He gave a final tug and yanked her so close their chests touched.

“You have been sorry to say a great many things in the short time I’ve known you, Eva, and not one of them has been true.” His softly spoken words dropped into the hot pocket of air between their mouths. “’Tis yourself who should be afraid, for if you do not talk soon, I will make you.” He bent to her ear. “It shall not take long.”

Fear had nothing on the chills his words sent cascading through Eva’s body. Which meant . . . this was not fear.

Oh, indeed, Jamie was peril of a most grave sort. The edge of the cliff, the tide coming in.

He put his hands on her hips and practically vaulted her into the saddle. Eva kept herself calm by reminding herself that she had only to do two things: ensure Roger stay hidden, and herself appear witless, with as much relevance to these matters as the little bits of twigs one found in uncombed wool. Which was to say, none at all.

Irrelevant. Irrevocable. Eva was determined to be a great many things that were never to be.

S
omeone is following us.”

The group that rode through the spring afternoon was fiercely quiet. Jamie kept his head down for most of it, attending the earth and signs of what had passed over it. He had set a fast pace, but their quarry had gone faster.

It was not surprising; there’d been many possible turnoffs, little village roads as well as more populated tracks, forcing Jamie to a slower pace, ensuring he did not gallop past any sign of a turning.

Additionally, he had the task of monitoring whoever was tracking
them.

Eva’s hands were bound, and her horse was attached by lines to both Jamie’s and Ry’s saddles, so the chances of her escaping, or even attempting it, were close to nil. Still, they made sure she was covered on both sides, fore and aft, like a ship that might founder, throughout their rollicking ride.

Short breaks every few miles to rest the horses were spent in silence, Eva looking directly at Jamie. Whenever he returned her look, she’d give an indifferent sniff or one of her nonchalant little shrugs and turn away. But Jamie always spent an extra moment looking, in part because in the sunlight she was a startling display of unintended, curving sensuality.

She also had bollocks. Unfortunately, he was going to have to break them.

He slowed the group to a walk and pushed back the mail coif on his head. A small breeze ruffled the damp hair stuck to the back of his neck, for it was a warm spring day, and the sun beat down hard on men in mail.

He nodded to Ry, beckoning him forward to ride alongside him. The ropes to Eva’s horse stretched out behind them like those to a barge, comely, dangerous cargo.

“I thought I detected a visitor as well,” murmured Ry when Jamie shared his thoughts. “What do you make of it?”

“I do not know. Why would you track us?”

Ry paused. “You mean if I were seeking Peter of London?”

“If you were seeking anything, for what reason would you track
us
? Were you a bandit and you’d foolishly selected us as your target, you would simply hit us and hit hard. We’ve passed enough copses to host a score of attacks. Yet, nothing. Alternately, should you be seeking Peter of London, you would not be following us at all.”

Ry looked over. “And if you were after Eva?”

Jamie rested his hand on his thigh. “My thoughts exactly.”

Ry nodded. “How do you think she plays in?”

“In the way that seeking Father Peter plays in.”

“That is a wide net, Jamie. Upon a time, Peter of London meant high Church business, messy power struggles with the king, and illuminations on rather a grand scale.”

Jamie nodded. Peter of London had been a well-known, well-respected object of royal irritation. Intelligent, self-styled, gifted, and far too subtle in thought to bend to John, even early on, when the promises were good and the follow-through not yet so befouled. The king disliked Peter of London almost as greatly as he did Archbishop Langton. Jamie’s father had admired them both. Peter had fled ten years ago
and had been in self-imposed exile—some said
hiding
—ever since.

Now, suddenly, the archbishop had called for his old friend to assist in the negotiations between the rebels and the king. Why?

More to the point, why had the rebels, who had as much interest as the king in reaching some unarmed agreement—which was to say, none at all—suggested bringing Peter of London over in the first place?

But suggest they had, weeks ago, just before they had renounced their fealty. That act had tarnished the goodwill of their request to a great degree, but then, surprise, surprise, the king had seconded the request.

It was the only thing the king and the rebels had agreed on in the past three years. Yes, by all means, bring over Peter of London. Aye, aye, aye.

It was an agreeable, collaborative, sensible solution and thus reeked of subterfuge and duplicity.

Jamie rubbed the back of his head. “There is more here than meets the eye, Ry. More than contracts and illuminations. And in some unfathomable way, it involves Eva.”

Neither of them had so much as tipped his head in her direction. Their voices were pitched so low that Jamie strained to hear Ry, riding directly at his side. Nonetheless, he felt Eva’s attention home in on him, hover against his armor like fireglow.

“And therefore, whoever is following us.”

Ry nodded. “What do we want to do about him?

Jamie glanced over. “Flush him.”

Ry nodded again.

They needed nothing but simple words to communicate elaborate plans. They’d been through too much together, relied on each other too heavily, knew each other’s mind and responses too deeply, to require more. Sometimes they did not need to
speak at all, which was occasionally unnerving to whoever was in the room—or on a battlefield—with them.

“Now?” Ry asked.

Jamie shook his head. “Let us see what Eva does. Follow my lead, and once we have him”—he looked over slowly—“leave me alone with her.”

Ry had been nodding in agreement, but he looked over sharply at that. “Do not, Jamie. She’s defenseless.”

He snorted. “Before you lament her frail state overly much, recall she almost dislocated my knee earlier and was prickled with daggers. We do not have a ward in our keeping, Ry. We have an enemy combatant.”

It was much easier to have enemy combatants in one’s keeping than a soul requiring care. Jamie could not even manage a squire. There’d only been two, both failed attempts at human relations. He’d quickly set them up with other lords, less self-ruinous men, better able to give them both a future and a present. A squire, hell, Jamie could not even manage a dog. Not anymore. Not after London—

“What we have is a woman who weighs less than my saddle.” Ry’s voice drew him back from the streets of London, all those years ago.

Jamie tightened his leg against Dickon’s side and the horse turned smoothly. He met Ry’s gaze with a hard one of his own.

“What we have is a woman valuable enough to be stalked by a companion when their quarry is far on ahead. I shall discover what I must, how I must, Ry. As I ever have done. I cannot be cried off now. Kingdoms ride on the consequences.”

A
messenger stumbled into the great hall of the mighty Baynard Castle in London.

Robert fitzWalter, lord of Dunmow and Baynard Castle, leader of the rebel forces, glanced up in irritation, then gazed
back out the slitted window he’d been looking through, brooding, for half an hour.

All around, his compatriots continued their drunken binge, celebrating their triumphant coup of the great City. FitzWalter had every reason to join them, for they’d just completed the coup no one could have forseen; his rebel army had just taken London.

London was his.

They had taken it with nary an arrowbolt fired. That was unfortunate, of course, the lack of fighting, but when the citizens opened the gates, one could hardly mow them down.

She burned now, of course, in pockets, as the men looted the Jewish ghettos. Soldiers must be paid. Plunder was easy. The Jews were the easiest yet and had the additional benefit of homes that could provide stone for the retrenchment of the City walls. Which was not to say they weren’t also making use of raided monastery coffers. FitzWalter was impartial when it came to such things. This fight was hardly over.