Magic in His Kiss (12 page)

’Twasn’t often an earl felt powerless against so inconsequential an enemy as a bard, and Aubrey de Vere didn’t like the feeling.

“Take the thief to the castle and rid him of the hand that would have stolen a soldier’s boots.” Ignoring the thief’s panicked pleas for mercy, de Vere turned to de Chesney. “They must be found. If they are indeed headed for Wales, they are likely in the woodland beyond. I want patrols out there now, looking under every bush if needs be.”

From Oxford’s multitude of abbeys and churches, the bells called the clergy to the midafternoon office of
none.
The earl of Oxford strode back to the castle, praying the Welshman was found before the archbishop arrived so he could personally slip a noose around Rhodri ap Dafydd’s neck.

Nicole was out of breath, low on vigor, and devoid of patience when Rhodri finally allowed her to take what he warned would be a short rest.

She knew patrols would soon be searching the countryside, and Rhodri’s decision to keep to the concealment of the forest was wise. Still, she wished for an easier path at a less hurried pace, knowing neither was possible.

Rhodri, blast his hide, wasn’t short of wind or lacking fortitude, even though he’d covered the same rough ground. While she was grateful he allowed her to gather her vigor, she couldn’t help her vexation that he showed no weakness of his own.

Nicole plopped down at the edge of the trickling stream and filled her scooped hands with cool water.

The first two scoops she drank to ease her thirst. The third scoop she splashed onto her hot, sweated face. Sweet mercy, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d sweated from prolonged exertion. Years, surely. Likely since childhood.

“Better?” Rhodri asked.

“A bit,” she admitted, noting his face wasn’t red. Not one drop of sweat marred his brow.

“We need to put more distance between us and Oxford before nightfall.”

She groaned inwardly, every muscle in her body protesting movement, no matter the urgent necessity to move on.

Rhodri must have sensed her body’s unwillingness to budge. He extended a hand for her to grasp, a lending of the strength he possessed in abundance, which had been so evident and startling when he’d fought with the guards at the gate.

With a sure, warm grip, he pulled her up into an unsteady stance, the muscles in her legs twitching and her knees shaky.

Running again seemed impossible, but if she must then she would, or so she thought until a cramp in her calf nearly sent her back to her knees.

At her wince and sharp intake of breath, Rhodri showed not a dram of contrition for having pushed her to this pitiful condition.

“Legs sore?” he asked.

“I am unaccustomed to leaping over logs and pushing through underbrush!” she snapped at him, peevishly revealing the extent of her agony.

“By the time we reach Wales you will be able to leap logs with ease.”

“You may be assured that after we reach Wales, I have no intention of ever again leaping a log!”

His mouth quirked in amusement as he released her hand, but he said nothing as his muscular legs bent gracefully without strain, allowing him to dip his hand into the stream for his own drink of water.

Droplets glistened on his rugged chin, caressing two days’ growth of dark facial hair, until he wiped the water away with the back of his long-fingered hands.

Forcing herself to look away from the devilishly handsome man she had every right to be wroth with, Nicole walked out the painful cramp. Concentrating on which spots on the forest floor she placed her feet upon so she wouldn’t suffer the indignity of falling on her face, she didn’t realize Rhodri had risen until she almost ran into him.

“Listen,” he ordered, just above a whisper.

Nicole heard the bubbling water in the stream, the chirp of a bird in the breeze-rustled canopy of leaves overhead and, faintly at first, the unmistakable galloping beat of horses’ hooves, coming from the east.

Apprehension coiled in her stomach.

“A patrol,” she said in the same low voice Rhodri used.

“We must have come far enough west to now be near the road that leads to Bristol.”

Nicole reasoned that if she couldn’t see the road, then no one on the road could see her. Still, like hares hoping to go unnoticed by a circling hawk, they stood silently as the sound of hard-ridden horses became louder and more menacing, until at long last the thunder rumbled past them.

Now the patrol was ahead of them, and not behind, but no less a threat.

Not until she let out her held breath did she notice Rhodri’s hand on the hilt of the sword that he’d tucked into his belt. That small action stressed the depth of their jeopardy, even more than the thundering of hooves. More than Rhodri’s violent, bloody fight with the guards at Little Gate.

Nicole inwardly shivered at the remembrance of those few moments. She’d seen men fight before, in the practice yard at Camelen, but never when in earnest for their lives.

At Camelen, she’d observed soldiers spar with staves and swords, but had not seen them leave a victim sprawled on the ground, bleeding and senseless. Before today she hadn’t realized how fast and far a man’s head snapped backward when his jaw was struck with a solid, swift fist.

Truly, she didn’t want to witness what damage Rhodri could do with a sword to someone he considered an enemy.

The violence had upset her, but she also admitted the proof of Rhodri’s prowess was reassuring.

She might be possessed of some intelligence, and despite her current discomfort and petulant mood, she was neither delicate nor weak-willed. But neither was she foolish. A woman did
not
traverse the roads alone. Even Mother Abbess, her habit and reputation giving her some measure of protection on the road, always hired two or three of the village’s most imposing-looking young men to act as escort, her favorite being the blacksmith’s bulky and coarse son.

Mother Abbess would have loved a man such as Rhodri to serve as her escort. Not only was he wide shouldered and possessed of an intimidating scowl, he had a quick wit and magnificent voice.

Sweet mercy, had it been only yesterday they’d buried Mother Abbess?

Again following Rhodri, at a slower pace this time, Nicole tried not to allow her grief to well up again. But as the forest shadows deepened, from not far ahead came the clang of a bell, ringing
terse,
the early evening prayer.

At Bledloe Abbey the nuns would be gathering in the chapel to chant the office and then retire to the refectory for a light supper. It probably shouldn’t be surprising that at the moment she longed for the quiet order of abbey life.

And her body fair screamed for a long rest and a bite of bread.

“There must be an abbey or church ahead,” she told Rhodri. “We could beg a night’s hospitality.”

“We cannot chance it so close to Oxford. However, you are right about finding shelter soon. We also cannot risk lighting a campfire to keep away the wolves.”

Nicole shivered at the thought of spending the night in the forest with the wolves, bears, boars, and other dangerous creatures. Just when she could barely see her way in the dark and began to shiver again, this time from the chill of the night air, they came across an unoccupied cottage.

Rhodri kicked at the latch until the lock gave way. The door opened into a large room too well-appointed to have been the home of a peasant farmer.

“Some lord’s hunting lodge,” Rhodri announced with a tone of both surprise and pleasure. “Let us see how well it is provisioned.”

Rhodri found flint and stone on the mantel and used the twigs and split logs in the woodbox to start a small fire in the hearth. With light to see by, Nicole gave silent thanks to whatever lord was supplying unintended hospitality.

While Rhodri went out to the well to draw up a bucket of water, she searched for treasure—like food.

She ignored the bows, arrows, and spears leaning against the wall in favor of rummaging through the crates on the floor. From one she drew out a stout candle, which she lit and placed on the table along with tin cups, wooden bowls, and a small cauldron to hang on the hook in the hearth.

The only food to be found was a sack of oats, enough to provide them with gruel for their supper. ’Twould suffice. And afterward, she planned to curl up on one of the bearskins, toss a woolen blanket over her, and drift into an undisturbed, dreamless sleep.

Rhodri entered with the water bucket. While she set about making the gruel, which they would need to drink from the bowls because she’d found no spoons, he looked through the crates, too.

The more crates he rummaged through, the more it irked her. True, she’d done exactly the same thing not moments before. So why did it bother her that Rhodri did the same?

“What are you looking for?”

“Something we might find of use on the road.”

“Such as?”

From his scrunched position in front of a crate, he turned on the balls of his feet, holding up a length of rope. “Rabbit snare.”

Nicole placed the dipper in the cauldron and stirred the watery, unappealing gruel, doubting that adding bits of rabbit would make it less repulsive.

“’Tis a devilish long way to Wales. We will starve if we must depend upon snaring rabbits. I hope you have some notion of how to live off the land.”

He took immediate offense at her lack of trust in his ability to provide for them. “Believe me, had we been able to retrieve my horse and money pouch I would have done so. But I have had some experience in living off the land. We will not starve, princess.”

“I do not expect this journey to be pleasurable, but I do expect to be fed.” She lifted, then tilted, the dipper, allowing the gray gruel to drizzle back into the cauldron. The mixture smelled almost as repugnant as it looked. “If you manage to catch a rabbit with that snare, you had best know how to roast it, too, because I do not.”

“You never learned to cook?” he asked, incredulous.

“I never needed to learn. The only time I went into the kitchen at Camelen was to pilfer sweets, and Mother Abbess was of the opinion that each of the abbey’s residents should work according to her talents and interests. My interest was growing herbs, not adding them to stews.”

“You have certainly led a most pampered life.”

Pampered? Not hardly! But before she could refute the claim, he dismissed her, turning his back on her to again rummage through the crate. The wretch!

“Ow!” he said, shaking his hand.

“What?”

“Sliver. Damn crate.”

She smiled. ’Twas as if the crate pricked him for his nasty comment.

He came over to the hearth and leaned toward the flame to better see the sliver embedded in the pad of his right thumb.

Nicole ceased stirring, her body infused with warmth she couldn’t blame on the cooking fire. Now wasn’t a good time to become aware of Rhodri’s lean length. Or of how the fire’s light flickered along the jut of his strong jaw, or of how his brow furrowed as he concentrated on the irritating sliver.

Nor should she be so aware they were completely alone in a cottage deep in the forest.

The stirring in her woman’s places reminded her of the two superb kisses they’d shared today.

Rhodri had surprised her when he’d kissed her quickly in the tower, giving her no chance to feel more than light-headed surprise. The second kiss had lasted longer and still lingered on her lips.

His mouth had been warm, his lips supple and sure on her eager mouth, infusing her with arousing heat. And oh, how her thoughts were winding a wanton path to that most forbidden and so intriguing act of fornication, which the maids at Camelen had whispered about and the nuns at Bledloe Abbey had warned her against.

Rhodri let out an explicit curse that precisely reflected her unruly, unchaste thoughts, making her face hotter.

Except he wasn’t looking at her lustfully. He studied the thumb he squeezed, then stuck in his mouth to remove the sliver with his teeth. Judging from his aggravation, he wasn’t enjoying success.

“Still in there?” she asked, hoping her voice sounded calmer than she felt.

“All I managed to do was push it in deeper.”

She should leave him be, let him care for his own wound. However, having spent so much time in the abbey’s infirmary, Nicole had removed many a sliver. She could have it out in a trice.

“Would you like me to take it out?”

“I can do it.”

Stubborn? Or merely so accustomed to being self-reliant he foreswore assistance, even for so minor a thing as a sliver?

Deciding it wasn’t her thumb that wanted tending, Nicole used the thick square of cloth that had been stored with the kettles to remove the cauldron from the hearth’s hook.

All through their meager supper, which he ate without comment, he rudely pushed and scratched at the pesky sliver.

She forced down the gruel because it might well be the last thing she would get to eat for a while. Finished, she pushed the bowl aside and crossed her arms on the table.

“Rhodri, it needs cutting out.”

“So it seems.”

He reached down into his boot and drew out her dagger and began poking at his thumb. Nicole bit her bottom lip, withholding comment, her restraint not breaking until he drew a drop of blood.

She held out her hand, palm up. “Give me the dagger before you slice open your thumb.”

He ignored her. “Almost had it that time.”

“Rhodri!”

His eyebrow rose at the implicit command in her tone, which rather startled her, too. She was on the brink of begging his pardon for interfering in what was truly none of her concern when he placed the pommel of the dagger across her palm.

Now having begun, she must finish. The candle provided enough light to eat by, but she required more light so
she
didn’t slice open his thumb.

“Come into the light by the hearth.”

Nicole wrapped the thick cloth, with which she’d handled the cauldron, around the dagger’s blade, then knelt before the hearth. After an aggrieved sigh, Rhodri followed and knelt on the hearthstones, facing her, his right hand raised.

She took hold of his thumb; his fingers curled around her wrist, warming her blood. Could he feel her pulse beat harder, faster?