Danger's Kiss (3 page)

Emboldened by Nicholas’s silence, Lady Philomena’s man smirked at the constable.  “How do you expect to thwart outlaws if the bloody wretches don’t suffer?”  He brushed the snow from his shoulder.  “Soon there’ll be murdering miscreants crawling all over Torteval Hall.”  He shuddered.  “My lady will be displeased,
very
displeased.”

As far as Nicholas was concerned, Lady Philomena could kiss his arse.  He wasn’t her damned servant, for God’s sake.  He was a servant of the law.  The woman hadn’t bothered to show up for the hanging anyway.  And as for this mincing Torteval steward...

The constable diplomatically interrupted before Nicholas could finish his silent threat.  “Well, the rest of the crowd was most impressed,” he told the steward.  “One need only whisper ‘Nicholas Grimshaw’ now to keep the outlaws of Canterbury quiet for weeks.”

That was what Nicholas hoped.  He was far more interested in preventing crime than punishing it.

Apparently, Lady Philomena’s man did not agree.  He narrowed his beady eyes in anger and, with a flip of his cloak that scattered snowflakes everywhere, stalked off.  “An hour, Grimshaw!” he called over his shoulder.

Nicholas cursed under his breath, then glanced at the executioner, who waited for his orders, his beefy arms crossed over his barrel chest.  From his earnings, he counted out the five shillings the man was owed.  “Go get yourself a pint.  I’ll put him in the ground.”

As the executioner gratefully retired to the nearest inn, the constable, shivering with the cold, tucked his hands beneath his arms, glancing around the nearly empty square.  “No kin?”

“He said he had a young granddaughter.”

“Living in Canterbury?”

Nicholas shook his head.  “They were passing through.”

The constable winced.  “Not pilgrims, I hope?”

“Nay.  The old man wasn’t looking for absolution.  He was a seasoned outlaw.”

The constable nodded, then began pacing back and forth before the gallows, clapping his arms and rubbing his hands together for warmth, glancing up occasionally at Kabayn’s body.  “Why do you suppose he
—
?”

“I don’t know.”  That wasn’t exactly true.  He could guess why Kabayn had leaped from the ladder before the executioner had a chance to force him off.  He’d spoken to the outlaw long enough to learn that, feeble as he was, Kabayn was a man accustomed to making his own rules and steering his own fate.  It was one final act of defiance for him to cheat the hangman.

Not that it mattered that he’d added suicide to his list of crimes.  Kabayn’s soul was already cursed by the sin of murder.  Nicholas would have to bury his body in unhallowed ground.

“An hour indeed,” the constable muttered.  “’Tis a stupid law.  The man’s neck is obviously broken.”

Nicholas agreed.  The law had been made for victims of simple strangulation, to ensure they were truly dead.  He sniffed.  “The law says at
least
an hour.”

“Aye?”

“If there’s no kin to know one way or the other, we’ll leave him for the night.  No one will steal the body.  Not even a carrion crow would brave this cold.  I’ll cut him down in the morn ere anyone’s up and about.”

Bidding the thankful constable good afternoon and casting one last glance toward the silent, snow-dusted corpse, Nicholas shouldered his satchel and trudged down the lane toward his lodgings, trembling less from cold than from fatigue.

At the moment, he desperately needed a belly full of ale and a good night’s sleep.  Early tomorrow, he’d bury Hubert Kabayn and seek out the man’s grandchild so he could honor the fellow’s last request.  It had been a long two days, and dispensing death always weighed heavily on his soul.

Desirée’s breath made plumes in the air as she crept on kitten-soft feet through the shallow snow, her footprints dwarfed by the giant who trod the path several score yards before her.  He was but a shadow in the distance, disappearing around corners and down winding lanes.  But few other souls braved the snow-covered streets of Canterbury now, so she had no trouble following his tracks.

He naturally didn’t live in the village proper.  Merchants of death like Nicholas Grimshaw lodged outside of town, away from decent folk, in order to thwart the kind of vengeance she was about to take.

Desirée shivered, as much from apprehension as from the cold.  She’d never killed anyone before.  She wasn’t even sure she could do it, despite the icy rage filling her veins.  But she knew she’d never find peace until she avenged Hubert’s death.

Hubert wouldn’t be pleased.  A good cheat would never succumb to passion, particularly anger.  A good cheat kept a level head, wore a guileless smile, and evened the score in more subtle ways, usually by lightening a man’s purse right under his nose.

Perhaps Hubert was right.  Perhaps Desirée wasn’t a good cheat, after all.  Perhaps she should retire from her life of crime.

And perhaps she would...right after she paid the ruthless shire-reeve back for his cruelty.

The man wasn’t as cautious as he should have been.  The stupid fool had no idea someone was following him.  He didn’t even bother to glance behind him when he arrived home, swinging open the wooden gate in the high stone wall surrounding his demesne at the edge of the forest.

Nonetheless, Desirée waited outside until snowflakes an inch thick covered the top of her boots, giving him time to settle in and drop his guard.  Then she lifted the latch and slowly pushed the gate inward.

She expected to find a lair befitting a malevolent savage behind the wall.  Perhaps a cave dripping with bats.  Or a squat, squalid hovel with yellow smoke boiling from the chimney.  Or a jagged fortress carved out of gleaming black jet.

What she discovered instead was an ordinary modest house of wattle and daub with a thatched roof.  Pale gray smoke drifted up from the chimney through the falling flakes of snow.  A pair of bare-limbed fruit trees stood sentinel over the cottage.  In the yard were furrowed rows where a summer garden had once grown, and a gruesome vision flashed through her mind of the shire-reeve harvesting cabbages with a great beheading axe.

With an apprehensive gulp, she stole forward along the cobbled path, grateful that his shutters were closed.  Upon his doorstep, she drew the dagger, then with painstaking caution forced the door open a crack.

The fire on the hearth cast a golden glow over the interior of the cottage, in stark contrast to the wintry white of the outside world.  The pitch pop of burning wood made cheery music in the room, and shadows danced merrily upon the plaster walls.

Desirée hesitated, biting her cheek in indecision.  It wasn’t how she’d envisioned the den of a lawman.  This was no dank, dark dungeon.  The walls weren’t stained with the blood of unfortunates.  And the evil Nicholas Grimshaw wasn’t stirring a cauldron of boiling oil over the fire.

A long, soft snore issued from the cottage, and Desirée pressed the door open another inch.  From here, she could see only the man’s long legs stretched out toward the fire and his dangling left arm, the fingers of which loosely gripped an empty clay flagon.

She smiled grimly.  The fool was fast asleep.

He snored again, a low rumbling sound, and she pushed the door wide enough to slip her head through the gap.

He half reclined on a bench, pushed up against the interior wall.  He’d removed his boots, and his wet, stockinged feet, propped on a three-legged stool, steamed from the heat of the fire.  His cloak lay crumpled atop a nearby table, beside a keg of ale, where he’d likely filled his flagon.  And his sheathed sword was propped in the corner, a good four paces from where he dozed.

The knife felt heavy in her hand.  She wasn’t sure she could slay a man in cold blood.  But under the circumstances, it certainly seemed an easy task.  All she need do was steal up beside him and slit his throat.

No one would suspect charming Desirée of the crime.

Hubert Kabayn would have his vengeance.

And there was likely not a soul who would mourn the death of this beast of a man.

She opened the door wide enough to step through, closing it softly behind her as she dropped her satchel by the entrance and scanned the interior.  Naturally, she’d take a few things with her when she left.  The sword was likely valuable.  And the boots, if she could find anyone with feet that large.  He might possess jewelry, plunder confiscated from his victims, or treasures he’d accepted as bribes.  And she knew he had coin in his purse, the day’s wages.

She crept forward, belatedly wondering if such a man might keep a great mastiff in his home to ward off trespassers.  But as she edged closer to the bench, she heard no stirring, only the even sawing of the shire-reeve’s breath.

At her next step, the fire gave a sudden loud pop, and the man snorted, dropping his cup.  Desirée froze, her heart pounding, as he shifted on the bench and his head lolled toward her.  She tightened her grip on the knife, ready to defend herself.  He grunted once but thankfully remained asleep.

Now that he faced her, she could see the monster that the hood of the black cloak had concealed, and the closer she drew to him, the more her fingers faltered on the dagger.

He wasn’t the slope-headed, heavy-browed, pox-scarred mongrel she’d imagined.  And he was much younger than she’d thought, probably not yet thirty years of age.  His swarthy cheeks were lean and sturdily boned, his nose slightly aquiline, his mouth generous.

Dark hair fell in unruly locks across his brow and along his neck, and his wide jaw was in need of a shave.  A thin white scar ran along his chin, a second marked his forehead, and the fresh cut she’d given him high on his cheekbone was surrounded now by a blackening bruise.  But nothing could mar the undeniable rugged handsomeness of his face.

She wondered absently if his eyes were as black as they’d seemed in the village square.

From the corner of her vision, Desirée saw something white suddenly streak past the hearth.  Startled, she sucked in a loud breath.  Too late she realized it was only a cat.

Nicholas didn’t know what woke him.  He’d thought he was in a dead sleep.  But what he glimpsed, peering beneath his drowsy lids, made his eyes widen at once.

A maid stood over him with a dagger.  Granted, she was distracted at the moment, glaring at the hearth.  But there was no mistaking her intent.

Before she could act on that intent, he lifted up his sleep-dead left arm and seized her wrist.

She shrieked in surprise.

He clapped his right hand over the narrow guard of the dagger, intending to pry the weapon loose.  But the wily wench twisted in his grip and withdrew the blade, slicing the webbing between his thumb and finger.

He hissed in pain, making a second grab for her with his left hand, catching the folds of her skirt.

She tugged away, and when she couldn’t tug loose, she slashed downward with the dagger.  He pulled his hand back in time to avoid another slash, and she made a gash in her skirt instead.

Fully awake now, he vaulted to his feet.

She should have fled in fear.  He was twice her size.  One backward sweep of his arm could knock the scrawny wench unconscious against the wall.  But she only stared at him, her gaze as wild and piercing as that of a mother swan protecting her brood from a wolf.

He narrowed his eyes in sudden recognition.  “You!”  His fingers went involuntarily to the wound she’d inflicted upon him earlier.

To his astonishment, one corner of her lip curled up smugly.

His hand stung like the devil, and blood was dripping down his palm, but he still had one good hand.  That was all he required to subdue the spindly damsel.

He seized her by the throat, his fingers wrapping easily around her tiny neck, and picked her up.

Like an indignant kitten, she hissed and squirmed and tried to stab at him.  But with his injured hand, he caught her wrist and applied pressure till she dropped the weapon.  Then he kicked it, sending the dagger skittering halfway across the room.

She scrabbled furiously at his arm.  He wasn’t strangling her, not yet, but one squeeze of his fingers would be all it took.  Fortunately for the wench, unlike
her
, he wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer.

But she didn’t need to know that.

“I could snap your neck like kindling, child,” he growled.

“You don’t scare me!” she choked out with remarkable bravado.  “And I’m no child!”

He blinked.  It was true.  He could see now she was endowed with the ripe curves of a woman full-grown.  But what was wrong with the maid?  Was she diseased in the head?  No one challenged Nicholas Grimshaw.  People fled from him in terror.  She should have been begging for his mercy, not inciting him with taunts.  After all, she was little more than a mouse in his deadly talons.