Defiant (9 page)

It was Jamie and in daylight he looked more powerful, more determined, and much more dangerous than ever.

Gog’s face paled, perhaps a result of the way she herself had gone white. She’d felt the blood draining away.

“Is that he?” he whispered. “The hammer-knight?”

“’Tis.” She turned her back to the archway. “Go now, Roger. Swift as swift can be.”

He took a step toward the door. “And if he should recognize you?”

“I worry on you, Roger. You do not worry on me. Go saddle the horses. I will slip out the back and join you.” She gave an encouraging smile and slipped the rest of her coin into his hand. “In case of need. You will charter a ship and go—”

“I will not.”

“—and await me at that little town with the artichokes by the river Garonne.”

Gog turned away, reluctantly but obediently. Running for one’s life had such an effect. They had relied on one another for many years now, and being eight years the elder had given Eva sufficient standing to make her orders law.

Then Roger turned back. With his head bent, he muttered, “If anything happens, I will follow after.”

“No—” she whispered, but he was already walking away, striding boldly past Jamie and his companion and all their steely blades with great calm, never once looking over. Eva felt a rush of pride. He would be a brilliant man, if only he made it so far.

She gave him a moment to make it to the stables. This was useful in that it also gave her a moment to rebuild the ramparts of her courage. Its walls had fallen apart into thin, sticklike reeds the moment Gog disappeared from view. Bravery had always come in the form of protecting Roger. She was a wall that held up nothing without him.

But maidservants did not stand about staring at walls to gather reedy valor. They picked things up, delivered plates, shouted to cooks, and generally bustled about, drawing no more attention than a fly. Eva would be such a fly.

Keeping her back to the doorway, she reached out awkwardly for a plate on the nearest table. The three occupants of the table looked taken aback, likely because she’d taken a bowl half full of stew.

“Mold,” she explained, nodding to the bread still dunked in it. “Terrible, with the rains. I’ll see you’ve another right off.”
She reached for the next bowl. The man pinched the edge of it, pulling it away, scowling at her.

People did not scowl at flies. She was drawing too much attention.

She moved on, table by table, picking up plates of food off one, setting down mugs of half-drunk ale at another, edging her way ever backward in pursuit of the smoke-grayed archway and stairway beyond.

Jamie and his companion stood with their armored backs toward the common room, conversing with the bad-tempered innkeep as she passed under the archway.

She held her breath, her arms full of dirty plates. Turning slowly, she walked by and put her foot on the bottom step. It creaked terribly, so she hurried to the second, breathing fast, inhaling the odor of garlic and fish rising off the plates. She pressed the ball of her boot onto the third step, then the fourth, and drew in a thin breath of hope. The worst was behind her. Five steps now. From the back, she would simply appear to be a maid going about her business.

She hit the sixth step, hurrying now, and—

Felt
Jamie’s dangerous attention turn to the stairs.

There was a small outbreath of air through his nostrils, like a soft laugh. Then, quietly, came a single rumbling word: “Eva.”

She dropped the plates and took off running. The crockery crashed to the floor, spraying sharp bits of pottery and food against the wall and over the railing as she bolted up the stairs. Behind her, like a little army, thumped wood plates and mugs, bouncing down the stairs.

She lifted the hem of her skirts and hurtled up the steps two at a time, but her heart was sinking even as it was hammering, for she heard Jamie coming up behind—and he was taking them three at a time.

J
amie hit the landing just as Eva reached the room. She slammed the door shut behind her, no defense at all.

He kicked it open. She was clambering over an overturned bench, reaching for the bedstead, pulling herself forward. To what end, he didn’t know, as the only thing ahead of her was a wall.

He grabbed her from behind, his hand on her skirts, and she fell hard, her knees and palms on the floor. He put both hands on her hips and starting reeling her in, pulling her backward into him.

Her knees skidded over linen skirts and worn wood floor. She scrabbled for a hold. It was a battle silent but for their harsh breathing. He dropped to a knee behind her and curled his body over her back.

“Cease,” he said in her ear.

Instead she kicked, her hard boot making contact with the front of his bent knee and shoving it out from beneath him. He tipped forward, onto her body, but she was already scrambling forward, grabbing for the wooden bedstead to haul herself up.

He saved her the trouble. He fisted a handful of her hair and hauled her to her feet, then marched her backward to the wall and pushed her up against it, his forearm planted diagonally across her chest, her braid clenched in one gloved hand.

“Are you finished?” he demanded.

“Nay,” she spat, and flung her head to the side, her mouth open to bite his hand.

He closed his other hand around her jaw and forced her cheek to the wall, pressing his body up against hers as a bulwark, a solid press of muscle from hips to chest.

“Stop,” he murmured. “Or I will start breaking things. In your body.”

She stilled. They stood, both of them breathing fast. Their chests pressed together each time they inhaled.

“Where is he?” he asked.

“Who?”

Jamie glanced over his shoulder at Ry. “I’m going to need a rope.”

Ry nodded slowly and left.

“Jamie,” she said, not quite a gasp, not yet a whisper. “You cannot do this.”

He looked down. In the sunlight, she was more spritelike than she had seemed last night, all contrasts of light and dark: pale face with its graceful bone structure, clever gray eyes and the thin, ink-dark eyebrows above, and all that flowing hair, now braided and gripped in his fist. “Cannot do what?”

“This. Whatever you are intent on doing.”

“Should there be any questions on what I can and cannot do, Eva, let me remove them now.” He gave her braid a little shake. “Where is the priest?”

“I—I do not know.”

He smiled faintly. “Surely you served up better lies than this when you spoke with the gate porters last night.”

She stilled, her chest pushing against him as she breathed in swift, shallow pants. “Ah. The porters. I am pleased to hear it was effective.”

“’Twas not effective.”

“You were stopped.”

“I am now pinning you against a wall, Eva. It was not effective. Where is he?”

“Gone.”

Her lying breath came rushing out, drifting past a day’s growth of beard on his jaw and neck. Her breasts, bound beneath her tunic, still pressed up in soft mounds, and he could feel her heart pounding against his chest. The narrowing of his attention made Jamie briefly, acutely, aware of her femininity.

His hand sped beneath her cloak. He splayed his fingers and ran them down her leg. Even through the skirts of her tunic, he could feel the muscular curves of a body worked hard. He felt down farther, bending his knees, making her bend hers, her neck still arched back by his hold on her braid.

He found what he expected, a dagger plunged into the top of her boot. She held perfectly rigid, jaw clenched, as he ran his hand up her inner thigh, then splayed his fingers, enclosing both the hilt of a little misericord strapped there and the bare, chilled skin of her leg.

As if she were a metal filing, he felt an almost magnetic urge to slide his hand up farther. Instead, he plucked the blade free and tossed it onto the growing pile behind him.

“You are like a little porcupine, Eva.” They were still crouched, facing each other. “Are there others yet?”

She looked over his shoulder and said nothing.

“I will stake you to the wall and undress you if needs must.”

Her gaze skidded back. She believed him. Smart woman. “My waist.”

He found it, a short dagger lodged in a sheath lashed around her belly, tangled amid the folds of her skirt. With a twist of his wrist, he plucked it free and straightened, forcing her back up to a standing position.

“Father Peter,” he said shortly.

“I tell you, he is gone.”

He looked at her more closely and saw her face was scratched and her jawline had a mark that might become a bruise. She had not had such marks yesternight. His fingers tightened as he pushed her face to the side, examining. “It will heal. What happened?”

“Men. They took Father Peter.” She smiled bitterly as he let her go. “There are a plethora of violent men out this day. You should be careful.”

He returned an equally mirthless grin. “Indeed. Pretty women should not play with them.”

“Ah, but you see how it is so much enjoyment, I cannot stop.”

“You’ll stop now.”

He pulled her away from the wall, swung her about onto a short bench at the foot of the bed. She slid across its smooth surface a few inches, sending her braid bouncing over one slim shoulder.

“Who took Father Peter?”

She hesitated. “I cannot say for certain.”

“Say it uncertainly.”

She swallowed. “Some very well-armed men and a churchman.”

He took her face between his palms, then dropped to a knee in front of her, so their faces were level and he could watch every shifting emotion that flickered across her beautiful, lying face.

“Eva, let me demonstrate honesty, since you struggle so to make its acquaintance. Regard how it sounds: I am come from King John.”

Slowly, her jaw fell, as it dawned on her this was not an example, but a revelation. Her face, already so pale, went absolutely white.

Then, slowly again, bright spots of color flowed back onto her cheeks, so she looked like a painting being formed: white skin, gray eyes, wild coal-black hair tumbling over his hands, and the flushing red of anger and fear on her cheeks the only color to be had.

“Mon Dieu,”
she whispered. “You are from the devil himself. I ought to have known.”

“You may call me Lucifer if you wish. Kingdoms rest in the balance of what I do, and now, you. If I am not successful in my hunt for Father Peter, a great many people will be sorry. If you are the reason why,
you
shall be sorry.”

From her lips came a long, low exhale. He felt it whisper over his wrists.

“Now tell me: who sent you for the priest?”

He felt her trembling, but her gray eyes met his. “He is an old friend, I owe him a great debt, and I wish only to get him away from all this trouble. The archbishop called for his aid in the negotiations, and he came, foolishly. He is like that. You would be better off asking why your terrible king wants him than I.”

“I am fairly certain why the king wants him, so that mystery is solved. But you, woman, are enigmatic. Unless, of course, one assumes you seek the priest for the self-same reasons.”

She went still.

“What say you, Eva?”

Her eyes narrowed into thin gray slits, but she was able to emit a great deal of enmity from between them. “I say you had best watch your back, Jamie Knight, for I may be sticking you in it one day.”

He clucked his tongue. “All that will do is keep you bound, Eva, perhaps for years, perhaps in the king’s Tower.”

She gave a small, bitter smile. He recognized it; he’d dispensed it himself, many times. “Well, then, Jamie, I suppose I am sorry I ever met you. We are all so sorry now.”

He moved his thumbs, a swift brush over her cheekbones. Someone watching might have called it a caress. They would have been in error. “I think you will be the sorriest one of all, Eva.”

Ry strode back into the room, extending a coil of rope. Jamie got to his feet. “Roland the innkeep reports a party of riders left just before we arrived,” Ry said. “Going fast. They had a priest.”

Jamie looked at him. Then the rope, then Eva. Back to the rope.

“You are greatly troubled by your choices,” she observed.

He looked up slowly.

“You ought to leave me behind,” she suggested. “How do you say this? I am expendable, no? Expend me, then.”

“I think you are misunderstanding the word,” he said drily.

“But you should. I will be naught but a burden. I eat a great deal, and tire easily, and you’ve no notion of how I complain. Ask Gog. Truly, Jamie—”

He grabbed her by the elbow and lifted her to her feet. “Let’s go.”

E
va felt very much like cargo, bumping down the stairs behind Jamie. This was the sort of thought that was not comforting.

But the only other thing to think about was how his arm, thrust out behind him, appeared muscular straight down through his wrist. Or how his broad hand was clamped around her wrists, his fingers encompassing her arm like an iron band. She might be able to dislodge herself if a comet exploded overhead and knocked him senseless.

They hit the bottom stair and turned for the back door. Ry put a palm on it, then glanced at Jamie, who had pinned his back to the wall and was pushing Eva likewise with arm and elbow. Jamie gave a curt nod.

Ry nudged the door open, peered out, then kicked the door wide and leaped out into the yard, sword out. He looked to his right, his left, then gestured without turning. “Come.”

Jamie herded her through as if she were a sheep, he a silent watchdog.

“Are you expecting an attack?” she asked, slightly breathless.

“Always.”

This was even more disquieting than all the previous unquiet thoughts. Surely, though, she could get away. She was always
able to get away. Getting away was her pennant, her battle standard, her coat of arms. No one was better at escaping than she.