At some point, Scarlet had abandoned his leather gauntlets. Bare fingers enveloped hers. Abruptly, he wrestled her into a clump of forest shrubbery and pinned her. “Hendon’s right behind us.”
A parade of heartbeats passed before he eased his grip. His thigh settled between hers. She shifted, a startling awareness streaking through her limbs. “Did you have to manhandle me?”
“They would’ve seen us. And I cannot fight them.”
“Your arm?”
Defeat colored his voice. “’Tis foul.”
“May I touch it?” He stilled, hair tickling her forehead when he nodded. “If we weren’t this close,” she said, “I wouldn’t know a nod from a blink.”
“Do what you must.”
She traced the wound, striving for gentleness. The gash was relatively shallow but longer than her palm, extending from his collarbone to the thick muscle of his upper arm. Splinters of ruined mail peppered hot flesh. Warm fluid slicked his skin. He hissed despite her caution.
“You won’t be conscious in an hour,” she said. “Already, you have a fever.”
The sound of snapping branches and rough steps interrupted. She held still, imagining herself a rabbit. What that made the man sprawled on top of her—she could not decide.
“Surrender, Scarlet, or we’ll ravish the girl.”
Hendon.
“I assume you have eyes,” she whispered, her lips pressed against the coarse stubble of Scarlet’s jaw. “Eyes that work?”
“Yes.”
“Then your choice of hiding places disappoints me.”
“You choose next time.”
“Can you handle your sword?”
His hair fell across her face again, teasing her with their intimacy. “I said I cannot fight, woman. I am…blast, but I’m dizzy.”
“I said nothing of fighting. Can you
stab
? And be my eyes?”
“I don’t understand.”
She loosened the laces of her alms-bag and retrieved the small copper vial it contained. A tiny bubble of laughter wiggled free. “No thinking, Scarlet. Follow my lead.”
She shoved the hard wall of his body until he relented and rolled aside, leaving behind an unsettling sense of disappointment. Standing side by side, she groped for his bare hand and clasped it tightly. The frustrating tremor in her limbs eased, ushering a return of clear thought.
Strange, that rush of calm. Simply holding his hand. Hours earlier, she would have fought the Devil’s own army for the right to gut him.
And she might again, as soon as they killed Hendon.
She tipped her head to the side. “Do you mean to imprison him or kill him?”
“He murdered Whitstowe,” Hendon said. “We’re taking him to Nottingham.”
Scarlet tensed. “You did him treason, butcher!”
She placed a hand on his abdomen, stilling his surge of candid anger. He had told the truth; the earl was dead, and these men intended a more public form of execution. That left Meg for their sport and Scarlet her only ally. Fever ravaged his body, adding urgency to her gambit.
“Why to Nottingham?” she asked. “Surely his son will want him hanged at Bainbridge Castle.”
“I’m not going to hang!”
“Quiet, Scarlet,” Hendon said. “How would you know what he wants?”
“Why else would I ride with Whitstowe’s party?” She smiled, keeping her eyes low. The woman she heard sounded distinctly like Ada. “His son and I were well…acquainted. You’ll be rewarded if you return me to his safe keeping.”
“Whore.”
She shrugged. “All the better for you, I should think.” Sliding her hand down Scarlet’s body, she reached his groin and offered a quick squeeze. He groaned, a most convincing performer. “But this one will prove a calmer prisoner if you allow us another moment alone.”
“Come here, woman.” Hendon sheathed his sword. Breathless impatience colored his command. Both sounds encouraged her; she had his full attention.
Scarlet’s grip tightened around her waist, his wounded arm surprisingly strong. “Don’t, Meg.”
“I must.” She clenched the copper vial and smiled. “They outnumber you, although I doubt their swords are larger.”
Hendon ripped her from Scarlet and into hard, unkind arms. The soldier clamped his mouth on hers, the sour tang of it balling her stomach. She fought the instinctive need to cry out, to fight and kick.
Instead, focusing on her dodge, she submitted to Hendon’s brutal hold. Deep beneath her disgust, she reveled in the game, eager for the chance to bring low those who underestimated her. She returned his rough kiss, enthusiastically wetting his lips with her tongue.
But when a greedy hand clutched her breast, her tolerance splintered.
“Scarlet!”
She pushed back and dashed the contents of the copper vial at Hendon’s face. He roared in anguish, flinging her. Meg scrambled from his shrieks. She feared another pair of coarse arms encircling her, any moment dragging her back to that grasping hold.
But Scarlet dispatched them. The swift play of swords rang over the rush of blood in her ears. “Meg, wait! They’re dead. Meg!”
Arms encircled her, yes, but she gave herself over to relief. Scarlet held her. They trembled, panting, holding each other on the forest floor.
He pulled away first. “Explain.”
An uncomfortable flush warmed her nape, like too much time spent in the sun. She retreated from the lap of the man who had imprisoned Ada.
“I know you’re unwell,” she said. “But these thoughts of yours—a single word isn’t enough to help me read you.”
“What did you do? Why’d he cry out?”
“Pain will do that.” She opened her hand and showed him the emptied copper vial. “Lye’s exceedingly painful when it burns wet skin.”
“Wet?”
She kissed the air to demonstrate. “A means to an end.”
“Would you’ve used it on me?”
“Had you given me reason, yes.”
“Are you a witch?”
“Certainly not. Any soap-maker will agree that lye is the most dangerous part of their trade.” She placed a hand to his forehead. Fever flared beneath her skin. “We must seek shelter. And I have an idea to help your arm.”
He had tugged Meg through the surrounding holt to a patch of dry ground beneath an outcropping. After an arduous struggle with his tunic and mail, he sat bare-chested before a tiny fire. She slid delicate fingers over his skin and pulled coils of warped metal from the wretched gash. That she carried flint and a piece of dried meat in her bag…he could hardly muster a hint of surprise.
But this—he could not accept what she proposed.
“I told you,” she said. “I’ll use the lye on your arm.”
“That man would yet scream if I hadn’t sliced him open.”
She nodded. “You did him a better end, actually.”
“You didn’t see his face!” Recalling the hideous, bubbling skin of Hendon’s mouth and his twisted grimace, he shuddered.
“Hold still.”
“And you want to do the same to me?”
“To help you.”
“How? How will this help me?”
“Lye will seal the wound and allay the bleeding. But more than that, when your body does not have to fight the fever, the wound will heal faster.” Her forthright, reasoned explanation echoed quietly around the shelter, a sentence just short of death.
The spiraling flames cast a flickering play of light across her intent face. While he enjoyed the candor of observing a woman without having to check his stare, he could not settle. The memory of her body struggling under his collided with the feel of her hand clenching his shaft. He shifted uncomfortably on his seat made of rock.
“No, I don’t believe you,” he said, honing his frustrations into a weapon. “You’re aggrieved because of your sister and because I left you by the river. Now you want revenge.”
“I did when you left me. Had the Devil provided me a club, I would’ve beaten you and fed you to his hounds.”
“You harbor those ill thoughts in your skull, woman?”
She laughed like bell chimes. “You believed me a simple, infirmed girl made of sugar?”
“Yes. And I would’ve agreed to a large and foolish wager that you’re more naïve than your boldness implies.”
“Do you make such wagers often?”
“No,” he said. “Gambling is a harder means of living than swordsmanship.”
“Good. Never wager on what you know of me.”
“As ever I ate bread, you’re a madwoman.”
She pulled hard at an iron coil. “I’m
not
mad.”
Will flinched. He could all but see anger in her sightless eyes.
Saints be, none of it mattered. Hendon was dead, but Carlisle would take word of the successful ambush back to the sheriff. Marian was still in danger. If Meg was important enough for Finch’s men to threaten a nobleman’s family, she was still useful. Instead of offering the truth about Whitstowe’s murder, hoping to be believed, he would trade her for a pardon and a guarantee of Marian’s safety.
A surge of pain twisted his gut. He should not have eaten the dried meat.
“And what do you want from me in return for this—well, I hesitate to call it a kindness.”
She tucked her bottom lip into her mouth. “Deliver me to a safe destination.”
“Your cabin?”
“No. My cabin is five miles distant, but Asher ha-Rophe lives only a mile north of Asfordby. He and his son will see me home.”
“Jews?”
“My father’s friends, yes.” Her face turned to moonstone, hard and unreadable. “After the wrong you did Ada, I’ve no wish to prolong our association.”
He no more trusted her motives than she should trust his. But though he might be a fool to agree to her strange medicine, his wound already ached and throbbed. She might accidentally do him a sympathy if she settled on revenge and killed him.
“Tell me more,” he said.
“The treatment will be painful, yes, but you’ll not suffer as Hendon did.” She pulled a glass vial from her bag. “This is vinegar. When applied to the lye, the burning stops.”
“How?”
“I—” She hesitated, frowning. A childish splash of satisfaction washed over him when she faltered. “I know not. No one does. But lye and vinegar counter each other.”
“And you carry them with you?”
“I make a habit of carrying items for many possible events.” She eased the last ring of steel from his shoulder and pressed a strip of her kirtle to the bleeding flesh. “How else would I protect myself?”
“At least that explains the smell.”
“What smell?”
“You, your hair and clothes. You smell of vinegar.”
She scowled and withdrew, wrapping slender arms around her middle. “I have wolfsbane to ease the pain, but if you’d rather, I can toss it into the fire.”
Spiteful witch.
But resignation and a sick helplessness smoothed his internal struggle. He only wanted to succumb to the lassitude stealing beneath his skin, lulling him despite the pain.
“I’ll see you to the Jew’s cabin,” he said, his words slurring. “Do what you must.”
Only a few feet away in the crude shelter, Will Scarlet lay still. His even breathing rasped. He moaned from beyond the veil of sleep, a sound like laughter compared to his agonized cry at the first touch of lye. But he had endured, even steadying his right hand to help aim the neutralizing vinegar.
That he promptly collapsed into unconsciousness had not surprised her. That she was relieved at the end of his suffering had.
But her concern was born of necessity, nothing more. She needed his eyes.
She rubbed her hands together, working to banish the cold numbness, and crawled to his side. Gently, she skimmed shivering fingertips along the dressing. Sticky blood soaked the fabric, but none of it felt fresh. She would wait until he awakened before changing the bandage.
If he awakens.
Through the perpetual black, she found his forehead and slid her hand to the base of his skull. While he did not burn with the blistering vigor of a body gripped by fever, his skin pulsed with heat. He did not sweat or shiver—although, as the cold bored into her bones, she would not have begrudged him the latter.
Despite having appeased her concern for his well-being, she lingered. Her hands still cupped the back of his neck, fingers woven down to his scalp. Had she been able to see, she would have been acquainted with his appearance for hours. But she knew only impressions formed by his words and mannerisms. Curiosity urged a brief exploration.
She lightly mapped the contours of his face. Above sloping cheekbones, closely set eyes crowned by thin, arched brows created the impression of a wolfish look. Scant wrinkles radiated from the corners of his eyes. Lines drawn from his straight nose wrapped around firm lips that kindled dark imaginings.
He’s beautiful.
If not for Will Scarlet, none of the day’s horrors would have happened. She would be at home, safe, as would Ada. She should hate him for reasons of prudence alone. But he had saved her life. Twice. And the more she discovered, the more she wanted to know. Hunger compelled her, the elemental yearning for human contact—a contact long denied her.
She smoothed her hands along his strong jaw to the hollow at the base of his neck. Stubble scored the pads of her fingers. She shivered. Like an explorer, she found the muscled cap of his good shoulder, the firm resilience of his bare chest, and the flat, taut wall of his abdomen. The lightest dusting of curled hair tickled her sensitive skin.
A restless ache pressed against her lungs, flowed between her thighs. The call of desire. Her body responded to its insistent push, urging her closer to the man lying defenseless before her. The feel of him—polished and hard like a gemstone, warm like a beckoning fire—tempted her with the thrill of knowing more.
Long accustomed to drawing from her other senses, she found no satisfaction in mere touching. She inhaled the masculine power of him, her nose mere inches from his naked skin. The river had not completely cleansed the primal tang of blood, metal, and sweat, but she reveled in the heady scent. Fascination washed across her like a waterfall, drowning her in a bright, hot world of sensation.
Bracing her hands on either side of his torso, she parted her lips, breathing against his bare flesh, hoping each draw of air would satisfy her strong and desperate impulses. She damned herself for the lonely, desolate creature she had become, but no measure of damnation, no press of fear, could dissuade her. Fear, in fact, mingled with the power to determine every move, urging her on. She wanted to search and push and be the bold one.
That she wanted these things with the man who had jailed Ada—a spiteful part of her reveled in the danger, the sick game of it.
As when the scent of food only whets a hungry appetite, Meg wanted to feast. She pressed the sensitive tip of her tongue to his skin. Salt and spice enveloped her tongue, soaking her senses in raw male essence. A steady, wicked fire gathered in her blood. She shifted against the wet pleasure of her arousal, ready to take more.
Strong fingers clutched her backside, squeezing her flesh. She moaned.
So did he.
“Stop now, Meg, or I’ll slide into you without one regret.”