"Well, my lady?"
She looked up, the back of her hand still pressed against her lips, the fingers curled and trembling.
"Will your stay with us be an easy one, or will I be forced to use harsh measures to win your cooperation?"
"How ... long do you intend to keep me prisoner?" she asked in a shaky whisper.
"The shortest time possible, I promise you." Aware of the tension that had caused his own body to tauten like a bowstring, the Wolf felt it break now, and the fire in his gaze burned down to smoky gray ash. "It will seem shorter still if we have no more need of these verbal jousting matches. Especially ones where the outcome is a foregone conclusion."
Servanne"s lashes were still damp, but the brightness sparkled with frost. He was laughing at her; mocking her futile efforts to defy him. Smug, arrogant b.a.s.t.a.r.d! He had insulted her, had dared to lay his hands upon her, and now, to make the degradation complete, was addressing her with the flippancy one used to pacify a simpleton!
A hot welter of resentment rushed to fill the void so recently drained by panic and in a moment of sheer and utter desperation, she whirled around and started running toward the same wall of trees that had swallowed Sparrow and Gil Golden so efficiently. She heard an angry curse explode behind her, but ignored it. She heard Undine nicker and whinny loudly, and guessed the outlaw had tried to push her aside to pa.s.s, but the horse had taken umbrage and valiantly stood her ground. It was enough. The extra seconds it took the Black Wolf to skirt the rearing hooves, combined with every last sc.r.a.p of energy Servanne could will into her pumping legs, carried her past the barricade of saplings and well into a dense weaving of juniper and alder.
Running with no thought other than escape, Servanne dashed under broken limbs and plunged through barriers of fern that closed into a solid wall behind her. Her skirts hampered her and the branches s.n.a.t.c.hed at the flying wings of her wimple as she ducked and darted her way deeper into the forest, but she neither stopped nor slowed to remove any hindrances. She was aware of angry, pounding footbeats thrashing through the undergrowth behind her, but they took a wrong turn, then another, and for a time she could not hear them at all over the loud slamming of her own heartbeat.
She stopped to catch her breath and listen, and that was when she learned to move with less haste and more caution, for it became apparent that he too stopped every few paces and listened as well. But she was a good deal lighter, and fear gave her the swiftness of a startled doe. Also, the shadows were dark and cool, kinder to the prey than the hunter, offering pockets of safety that became blacker and more frequent as the sun slipped lower in the sky.
Constantly twisting and turning in the labyrinth of vines and trees, Servanne ran until her sides ached and her legs grew b.u.t.tery with fatigue. She lost all sense of time and direction. Once she thought she smelled woodsmoke and, fearing she had inadvertently run straight into the outlaw camp, she backed away and fled in the opposite direction. She had no way of knowing how far she had traveled or how much farther she would have to go before a road or village might present itself. What slices of the sky she could see through the latticework of branches overhead were a dull, uniform pewter gray, indicating the sun was fading rapidly. She knew she had to find shelter and a safe place to hide before the darkness settled over the forest. There was already a thin veil of mist swimming about her ankles, soaking the hem of her gown and causing her toes to squeak with the wetness inside her shoes.
A low, hauntingly familiar sound brought her to a dead halt in the midst of a green sea of waist-high ferns.
She heard it again and released a misty puff of startled air.
A bell, by Mother Mary"s holy angels! A monastery bell tolling the hour of Vespers!
With the echo still ringing hollowly in her ears, Servanne waded through the ferns and stumbled to the bottom of a steep incline. At the base of the gorge, was a thin sliver of a stream that meandered between two enormous hillocks of rock and gorse. She picked her way carefully along the moss-blanketed bank, following the stream and eventually emerging from behind the hillocks to find herself standing less than two hundred yards from the long, low, lichen-covered walls of an abbey.
Gloom and pine-scented shadows cloaked the clearing in which the abbey stood, but the bell tower was plainly visible rising above and behind the heavy oaken doors that held the inhabitants cloistered from the rest of the world.
Servanne moved toward it as if in a trance, her feet gliding soundlessly through waves of long gra.s.s, her skirts trailing fingers of displaced mist. At the gates, she spread her arms in supplication and collapsed against the support of the dew-stained wood for the time it took her to compose herself. Fighting back tears of relief, she pulled the rusted iron chain that hung down the wall, and nearly sobbed aloud when she heard the corresponding tinkle of a small bell inside the courtyard. When she rang it a second time, her attention was drawn to her hand, to the dirt and gra.s.s stains that marked not only her skin, but marched up the sleeves and down the skirt of her tunic. Her face would be in no better condition, she surmised, but for once, her appearance did not concern her. Nothing concerned her other than the welcome sound of wooden-soled sandals hurrying toward the gate to investigate the disturbance.
A small square window in the oak portal creaked open a cautious inch. A single brown eyeball peered through the gap, flicking back and forth over the span of the meadow before thinking to angle downward. A second eyeball joined the first as the window opened wider, the two eyes surmounted by a worried frown.
"My child?"
"Father ... help me please."
"Good heavens-" An eyebrow arched upward in surprise, temporarily unseating the frown. "Are you alone?"
"Yes. Yes, I am alone, but there is a man chasing me-"
The window snapped shut and an instant later, the iron hinges of the gate heaved a mighty protest as one of the double doors was swung open. The cowled monk stepped out and immediately stretched out his hands in gentle concern.
"What is this about a man chasing you?"
"Please, good father," she gasped. "I beg you, please hide me. There are outlaws in the woods. They are chasing me, hunting me; they mean to kidnap me and hold me to ransom. I managed to escape them once, but ... !"
"My child, my child!" The monk caught her hands in his. They were smooth and warm and not a little callused from long, thankless hours of toiling at G.o.d"s labours. The face beneath the coa.r.s.e gray hood was serene and unlined; a scholar"s face; a face filled with compa.s.sion. "Are you hurt, my child? Did they hurt you in any way?"
Servanne struggled for breath and words. "There was an ambush. They took me hostage ... killed the guards ... now they are chasing me. The Wolf. The Black Wolf of Lincoln, he calls himself. He means to kill me, Father, I know he does. Please ... you must hide me. You must give me sanctuary until a message can be sent to Lord Lucien, Baron de Gournay."
The name seemed to have no effect on the acolyte and she began urging him back through the abbey gates when she heard the ominous beat of horse"s hooves cutting through the gorge. She did not have to look back over her shoulder to know it would be him him, yet she did, and the sight of him riding out from under the canopied froth of trees caused her belly to commence a sickeningly slow slide downward.
"It is him," she managed to whisper, cowering behind the cowled shoulders. "It is him ... the Black Wolf. Please ... you must help me. You must not let him take me away."
"Have no fear, child," the monk declared calmly. "He will not be taking you away from this place."
Not entirely convinced by the note of a.s.surance in the monk"s voice, Servanne regarded the Black Wolf"s approach with only slightly less trepidation than that with which she had welcomed the first time a chirurgeon had attached a row of slimy leeches to her arm to drain the ill humours of a fever. There was anger, cruel and unyielding, etched into every line and crevice of the outlaw"s face, bristling from every tautly held muscle in his body. His jaw was clenched, the veins in his throat and temples stood out like throbbing blue snakes.
He reined the enormous black beast he rode to a halt in front of them, his figure blotted darkly against the faltering sunset. Servanne experienced another deep, moist shudder; this one pressing so heavily over her loins that her knees almost buckled from the strain.
She was terribly, physically conscious of the way the ice-gray eyes inspected every smudge and scratch she bore. And when she was summarily dismissed, like some minor annoyance, and his attention focused on the monk, she felt a further clutch of fear stab at her belly. Who was to say he was not above slaying a man of the holy order? Who was to say he would respect the sanct.i.ty of the church or obey the unwritten law of sanctuary? This wolf"s head was a law unto himself, acknowledging no authority but his own, no rules but those of his own making.
The Black Wolf swung one long leg over the saddle, the leather creaking softly in the misty stillness of the air. Servanne flinched reflexively as he walked slowly toward them; if not for the monk"s stalwart protection shielding her, she was certain she would have fainted from the sheer tension that approached with him.
"Friar," he said quietly.
"My son," was the equally unruffled response.
The Wolf"s gaze flicked over to the pale face that was peeping from around the monk"s shoulders, and he grinned like a sleepy lion.
"Ringing the bell seems to have been a worthwhile risk after all," he mused. "It saved us the time and bother of scouring the woods for you. You can thank Friar for the idea; he worried your soul might become easy prey for the Devil if you were left on your own throughout the night." A wider grin brought forth the flash of strong white teeth. "Not to mention what wild boar and wolf might make of you."
"Ahh, now," the monk sighed. "Can you not bend a little from your usual tactful and gallant self? The poor child is already half-convinced you mean to kill her and devour her whole."
"The idea has growing appeal," the Wolf replied dryly.
The monk turned then, one of his lean hands reaching up to brush back the hood that had concealed a full, untonsured shock of jet-black hair. "Forgive me, Lady Servanne, but the deception was necessary, if only to ensure you did not spend the night alone and unprotected in the woods."
Servanne was too shocked to respond, too stunned to do more than brace herself against the waves of blackness that threatened to engulf her.
"Are the others inside?" the Wolf was asking, his voice sounding low and distant, as if it was coming from the far end of a tunnel.
"All but the extra sentries Gil and Sparrow dispatched to ensure the bell did not attract any unwanted visitors. Not that I think it will. This mist is thick enough to m.u.f.fle the sound and direction well."
The Wolf glanced back over his shoulder, noting with a grunt of agreement that the drifting white stuff had already obliterated the exit to the gorge. "You are probably right, but we shall keep a sharp eye out until morning anyway. There is no sense in inviting more trouble than we already have."
This last comment was said with a direct and caustic glare toward Servanne, who did not think it worthy of a rebuke.
"What is this place?" she asked. "What have you done with the real monks?"
Seeing the glint of villainy in the Wolf"s eye, Friar was quick to intervene. "The abbey has been abandoned for almost a hundred years. As you will see in a few moments, the buildings are scarcely more than sh.e.l.ls, sacked and put to the torch long ago."
"Surely the local villagers would know of its existence and direct the king"s men to search here first," Servanne pointed out, somewhat surprised at the oversight.
"Local villagers," the Wolf said succinctly, "if you can find any who will admit to knowing of the existence of Thornfeld Abbey, will also tell you the ruins are haunted. Plagued by pagan Devil-worshippers. Cursed by demons who breathe fire and feed on human flesh. All of which suits our purposes well enough," he added, "if not our intent."
"If it ... ah, gives you any comfort," Friar interjected hastily, "I once attended a seminary and came within a chasuble"s width of being ordained. It appeases the men, who call me Friar, to have me offer daily prayers to ward off any evil spirits who may linger about the woods."
"I am not so easily frightened by tales of witchcraft and deviltry," she said, her words a little too shrill to be entirely convincing.
"Good," the Wolf remarked. "Then you will not question the source of the blood pudding you find before you on the tables this night."
With a slight, sardonic bow, he took up the stallion"s reins and walked past Servanne, his stride fluid and powerful, coldly dismissive. Friar, his brows folded together in a frown, won back her startled gaze with a gentle touch on the arm.
"Come. Your maid is inside, and the chambers we have prepared are really quite warm and comfortable, despite appearances."
Appearances, Servanne thought bitterly. A monk who was not a monk; a man who was a wolf, who claimed to be another man who she was beginning to believe had only ever existed in her mind. The dream had become a nightmare. The nightmare a reality.
With weary, leaden steps, she walked through the abbey gates. Cobbles underfoot were broken and upheaved with tangles of weed and bracken growing wild from every nook and crevice. Pathways, once groomed and even from the daily shuffle of sandaled feet, were choked with brambles, overgrown to the point where only a keenly discerning eye might yet detect their true course.
As her despondent gaze roved farther afield, the shape of the ruined buildings grew out of the shadows and gloom. Roofs, once comprised of great wooden beams and slate tiles, were now grotesque arches of skeletal black ribs, strangled by ivy, jutting up over scorched walls. Two long wings of decayed stone formed the almonry and pilgrim"s hall. Flanking the far end of the courtyard were the remains of a priory church and refectory, both scarred and corrupted by wind and weather. The outer wall that had seemed so formidable and protective from the greenslade, was a breached and crumbling facade, long ago conquered by an army of trees reclaiming it for the forest.
The darkness had fallen so swiftly Servanne had not noticed it. But now, being led toward the looming stone hulk of the pilgrim"s hall, she could clearly see the pulsating, misty saffron glow rising from the campfires within.
Her footsteps faltered and she pulled back from the smell of roast meat, woodsmoke, and careless camaraderie. She would have preferred the company of wild wolves and boars to what awaited her here. She most desperately would have preferred to have never heard of Lucien Wardieu, Baron de Gournay; to have never suffered the prideful notion of becoming his future wife; and to never, ever have thought her former life as Lady de Briscourt dull and boring and needing a change for the better.
3.
Less than twenty miles to the north, beyond the verge of thick, dense forest known as Lincolnwoods, stretched a low-lying moor of bracken and long, slippery gra.s.ses. Spring was the only time of year there was any colour on the moor to break the monotony of metallic gray skies, dull granite cliffs, and windswept beaches that were treacherous to man or beast. Tiny crimson anemones stubbornly thrust their heads through the mire in early April and, depending upon how long it took the deluge of icy rains and merciless winds to turn the land into a bog of rotted gra.s.s and muck, the moor glowed red from morning till night. Some might have likened the sight to a carpet of scarlet silk thrown down by an apologetic G.o.d to alleviate the forbidding hostility of the sea coast. Others, especially those who had lived through wars and crusades and seen firsthand the aftermath of slaughter on a battlefield, compared the landscape to a sea of blood.
The stone keep built at the farthermost tip of the moor had been inhabited by the second kind of man. Draggan Wardieu, from the district of Gournay in Normandy, had crossed the Channel with William the Conqueror in 1066, and for his loyal, enthusiastic efforts in defeating and subjugating the Saxons, he had been awarded, among other parcels of fertile land and estates in Lincoln, this remote, desolate strip of coastline. Flanked by violent seas, fronted by an impa.s.sable moor, Draggan"s eye for natural defenses bade him construct his castle there, at the very edge of the eagle"s eyrie.
Towering sixty feet high, built from huge stone blocks quarried from the cliffs it sat upon, the original Bloodmoor Keep was hardly more than a three-storey square block of rock and mortar. The ground floor was without windows or doors and served as a huge storage area for the grain and livestock taken in t.i.thes from his serfs and tenants. The second floor consisted of the great hall, and was just that: one enormous, vaulted room that served as living quarters for the entire household. Family members were only distinguished from the servants and guards by way of the small, private sleeping chambers hewn into the twelve-foot-thick walls. The rest of the inhabitants of the keep worked and slept in the common hall, which was also the dining hall, the armoury, the judiciary court when necessary, and the core of the keep"s defenses. The uppermost floor was roofless, the walls high and crenellated with s.p.a.ces on the battlements every few feet where archers could stand and launch a hail of arrows down on the unprotected heads of any attackers. There were no windows. Archery slits cut high on the walls of the great hall and reached by means of a narrow catwalk that surrounded the chamber, never allowed in enough light to alleviate either the gloom or the dampness. Cooking and heating fires were built on an iron grate in the centre of the hall, the smoke left to its own initiative to find the exit cut in the ceiling. Smoky, dark, perpetually damp and malodourous, the early keep was not the pleasantest of places to live, an even less accommodating place to visit unexpectedly.
Surrounding the keep was the bailey, an outer courtyard where the stables and pens were located. Protecting this was a high curtain wall, again of solid stone, forty feet high and twenty feet thick, with walkways all around to hold patrolling sentries. The outer wall was connected to the keep by a drawbridge, which could be raised against the keep wall at the first alarm to completely seal off the only entrance to the main tower. The outer wall was, in turn, surrounded by a moat and protected by a second drawbridge, guarded by a barbican tower built to hold a thick iron portcullis gate. The walls were also fitted with overhanging projections through which burning pitch or boiling oil could be poured, and were serrated with meurtrieres meurtrieres-V-shaped vertical slots that gave the archers inside a wide range of movement to fire upon the enemy, but conversely presented a narrow, almost impossible target for returning fire.
This was the crude but effective fortification Draggan Wardieu built and successfully defended during his long lifetime. His sons, William and Crispin, along with their sons and grandsons, built on additional courtyards, halls, palisades, gatehouses, and towers until the original keep occupied only a small, isolated corner at the northernmost end of the stronghold. Within the sprawling outer bailey, there grew a self-contained village of tradesmen. The castle boasted its own smithy, tannery, armoury, alehouse, and mill, as well as vast stables, barracks, gardens and fruit orchards, all within the barrier of the stone walls. Farmers and outside tradesmen had attempted, over the years, to construct dwellings within hailing distance of the forbidding castle walls. But the terrain proved to be so unforgiving, the moor so wet and bleak, the sea such a thunderous scourge against any fishermen who tried to tame her, that the huts of mud and wattle that cringed in the shadow of the castle walls lasted only a season or two before being abandoned into ruin.
Only the immediate inhabitants of Bloodmoor suffered no lack of luxuries. The walls were thick enough and high enough to buffer the coldest and sharpest of winds. The castle was perched high enough on the cliff"s edge to mock the fury of the turbulent seas churning below. No one came to Bloodmoor uninvited. No one stayed unless they were wanted. And no one dared turn back once the huge iron-clad gates were swung closed behind them.
"If you want me to leave, just say so. It is not very often my company bores a man to lethargy and great, vast lapses of silence. Frankly, I could better waste my time elsewhere."
The woman spoke with a low, sultry voice, emphasizing the more pertinent words with a moist, rolling purr of the tongue. Nicolaa de la Haye was a beauty and needed no confirming glances in polished steel mirrors to tell her so. The shocked look in men"s eyes was confirmation enough. The forthright rise in the front of their tunics was proof she was as desirable now, in her thirtieth year, as she had been in her thirteenth-the age at which she had left her first lover a gasping, sweating hulk of quivering exhaustion.
There had been many lovers since then, some good, some bad. Some so exceptional she had maintained her affairs with them throughout the years, needing them as urgently and as frequently as some women required possets of henbane and opium to help them endure their dreary lives.
Slightly taller than average, Nicolaa undulated rather than walked, and was proficient in using her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, hips, and hands in communicating with a man in ways unknown by the spoken word. Her hair was black as coal, parted in the middle, and streamed in an ebony cascade halfway to the floor. Her eyes were so dark a green as to be almost black, heavy-lidded to suggest she was constantly on the verge of arousal-which she usually was. Her lips were full and sensuous, naturally tinted a deep shade of vermeil that teased a receptive eye into speculating where, other than on another mouth, they could bestow the most pleasure.
At the moment, most of her considerable prowess and charm was indeed being wasted. Her husband, Onfroi de la Haye-a wretched, sullen pustule of a man-was somewhere in Lincolnwoods awaiting the arrival of the widow De Briscourt. Nicolaa had hastened ahead to Bloodmoor Keep, ostensibly to help oversee the preparations for the upcoming nuptials-oh, how her teeth ground together each time she heard that word-but in reality, she had wanted this time alone with the most magnificent of her lovers, the Dragon himself, Lucien Wardieu.
Had there ever been a man created to see so perfectly to a woman"s every need? The mere sight of him was enough to take anyone"s breath away: a tall blond giant of a man with herculean shoulders and eyes more dangerous than the thrust of a lance. The sound of his voice triggered liquid shivers along her spine. The scent of him encapsulated the sun and the wind and the savage primitiveness of the moor he called home. The touch ... the lightest touch from the veriest tip of a long, blunted finger set rivers of heat raging through her loins, rivers that swelled and burst into torrents from the instant his flesh plunged into hers, to the moment of blinding madness that welcomed the last hot spurt of his fountaining seed.
Even now, standing as he was in the shadows of the window embrasure, his back turned to the room, Nicolaa had difficulty keeping the tremors out of her voice. Moving, let alone walking, was a trial of balance and control. The slightest friction of her tunic against breast or thigh drenched her in such heady waves of erotic antic.i.p.ation, she was growing concerned the eager dampness would begin to puddle at her feet.
"Lucien?" she murmured petulantly. "Have you heard a word I have said?"
"I have heard you, Nicolaa, my love. How could I not?"
"Then it must be I am disturbing you, and you would prefer your own company tonight."
The low purr of sarcasm broke his concentration and he turned slowly from the window. The cloud of distraction lingered a moment longer, dulling the incredible azure blue of his eyes, but in the next instant it was gone, brushed away by the thick sweep of lashes.
"Nicolaa," he said with a soft laugh, "any man who admitted such a sight disturbed him"-he paused and lowered his gaze to where the flimsy silk of her tunic was molded around the generous swell of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s-"is not much of a man."
The wife of the sheriff of Lincoln returned his smile. "A certain Lionheart might argue the sentiment."
Wardieu shrugged and drank from the goblet of mead he was holding. "Richard has his preferences, I have mine."
"I am relieved to hear it. How the women of Lincoln would flock in droves to hurl themselves off the nearest cliff, should the news reach them that the mighty warlord, the Dragon de Gournay, has taken to heaving himself at the b.u.t.tocks of young boys."
"Tastefully put," he remarked dryly.
"Tis a distasteful image one conjurs at the thought," she countered evenly, then sighed. "Especially when one considers the waste of such a splendidly virile specimen as Richard, Coeur de Lion. In truth, I did not believe it for the longest of time."
"And no doubt attempted to disprove the rumours yourself?"
"Well ..." The tip of her tongue slid along her full lower lip to moisten it. "I did have an opportunity to seek a private audience with the king when Onfroi was vested as sheriff."
"I would have given a thousand crowns to witness the exchange," the baron said, his eyes glinting with humour.
"No doubt you would, you beast. I felt quite sorry for him, myself-and even sorrier now for the innocent little Berengaria, his intended bride."
"You? Feel sympathy for another woman?"
The dark eyes narrowed. "It has been known to happen a time or two."
"Usually only after you have crippled, maimed, or blinded one of them. Come now, Nicolaa, false sentiment does not become you. Turn soft and sincere and there truly would be a ma.s.s plummeting of mankind over the cliffs-out of fear."
"Melancholy. It happens whenever I am feeling neglected."
"Neglected? How so?"
Nicolaa sighed with mock frustration. "It has been over a month, my bold l.u.s.ty lord. Four weeks. Thirty-two days and a good deal too many hours since these poor thighs have held a real man between them."
The azure gaze strayed downward, following the deliberately laid trail of a meandering finger as it flowed from throat to breast to waist to thigh. She wore nothing beneath the pale yellow tunic. Her nipples were clear, dark circles straining against the fabric, and where her thighs met, the nest of down bushed against the cloth like a mossy hillock.
It was rumoured she bathed in blood to keep her skin so supple and startlingly white. For a certainty, she employed the skills of several herb-women who fed her insatiable vanity by supplying creams to prevent wrinkling, powders to keep her teeth white and her lips red, possets to leave her hair smelling always like wild musk on a spring breeze. She had once ordered a clumsy dressmaker boiled in oil for scratching her flesh with a needle. Another waiting-woman had found herself impaled on a stake for daring to whisper, within Nicolaa"s hearing, that her mistress made love as often to a mirror as to a man.
As for her to have gone so much as a sennight without something hard and hot between her thighs, it would have had to have been because of a grave, life-threatening illness striking her p.r.o.ne. Even then, she would have found better ways to raise a sweat than with hot poultices.
"How do the plans for the wedding celebration progress?" she asked sweetly. "I suppose I should ask, since it was my excuse for arriving early."