Never Kiss A Stranger (9 page)

“Lady Judith,” Sybilla began, seeming to have to force her mouth to form the words. “Fallstowe entertains other guests this evening.” She stopped, and Judith Angwedd’s face fell into an offended scowl. The woman’s discomfiture suited Sybilla, but she forged ahead with the invitation. “But I would be pleased if you and your son would join us for a meal before taking your leave.”

Judith Angwedd’s padded eyes widened to the best of their ability, and after one stunned moment, she curtsied.

“It would be our honor to dine in such a grand hall as Fallstowe’s, Lady Sybilla,” the woman simpered.

“Why, Judith Angwedd, it’s been three years, I’d wager.” Etheldred Cobb entered the hall with Clement and maid Mary on her heels, and the old woman seemed unreasonably pleased to see the Gillwick party.

Judith Angwedd straightened and her brows rose. “Lady Etheldred, Lord Clement. What a lovely surprise. You remember Bevan, of course. What brings you to Fallstowe?”

“Yes, ho there, Bevan. Eating well, I see.” Etheldred Cobb pulled her own sizeable mass onto the dais and took a seat at Sybilla’s table as if the chair had been inscribed with her name, while her maid moved alone to one of the common tables on the floor. “Clement and I decided to stay on a bit after the winter feast. Strange—I don’t recall seeing you among the guests.” The slight flew through the
air with the surety of the straightest arrow. “And, of course, with Clement and Lady Alys soon to wed … well, pray God one day you may know how loathe young people in love are to part from one another, eh Bevan?”

“Oh, Mother,” Clement admonished as he helped to push Etheldred’s chair in with an affronted screech to the stones beneath. He turned to the Mallorys. “Hello, Bevan. A good year for sweet grass, was it not?” He nodded politely toward the redheaded woman. “Lady Judith, you’re looking well. My condolences on the loss of your husband.”

Sybilla was feeling nauseous as Judith Angwedd preened girlishly. She hoped that whoever Graves sent to the ring would hurry. A serving boy came from the kitchen bearing a tray, but upon seeing Sybilla’s nod toward the newest guests, he ducked back through the doorway with rolling eyes. She made a mental note to reprimand the lad for his indiscretion later.

Sybilla’s toes curled in her slippers as she gestured to the empty chairs at her table. “Please, join us.”

Even when Piers had been wracked by pain from the beating he’d received, when he’d had his skin sewn up, his wounds painfully scrubbed, when his head had felt that it would explode while he vomited blood, he’d never felt as scared as he did now, running through the gloam from Fallstowe to the cover of the wood. The bite he’d received from Layla throbbed in time to his pounding footfalls.

Judith Angwedd and Bevan had followed him. They knew he was alive, and were at his very back now.

“Piers, wait!”

He ran faster. This was
her
fault! Had silly, childish, senseless Alys Foxe not chased after him in the first
place, had she not lured him back to her home like he was some biddable pet no more intelligent than the monkey, Piers would not be so close to the two people who were trying with all their might to steal from him what was rightfully his, and see him dead in the process.

He charged into the apron of underbrush before the forest, crashing into the cover of trees. His boot caught on a vine and he fell. He lay very still in the black night that had finally yielded up its shelter. It was only a pair of moments later that he knew she yet pursued him.

“Piers? I can’t see a bloody thing, but I can hear you breathing, so you might as well show yourself instead of hiding like a common thief.”

Anger filled him then and he did gain his feet, finding her so quickly that she hadn’t had time to gasp properly when he seized her arm and spun her around. From within the sack, Layla screeched.

“I
am
common!” he shouted in her face. “And you nearly got me killed just now!”

“I did no such thing,” she argued. “I lay still when you asked, I was quiet. Although, if you would have let me speak, I could have told you that Judith Angwedd was no one of any consequence—she couldn’t possibly know who you were running from. Now, let’s go back before we kill ourselves in the dark. I’ll have your coin and horse readied and you can leave in the morning.”

“It’s her and her bloody son that I’m running from!” Piers shook Alys. “You stupid child!”

She slapped him then—Piers thought as hard as she was physically able. He released her, his body shaking.

“Don’t ever dare to call me stupid again,” she said, her voice cold and even. “And never put your hands on me in anger. If you do, ‘twill be I who is most likely to see you dead.”

He had lost control of himself, and he knew it. But he had neither the time nor the inclination for an apology. The girl had no idea the threat he was under, couldn’t possibly fathom what was at stake.

“For the last time, go back to Fallstowe, Alys. This is no game.”

He bent and dug around in the tangle of brush for his pack. Seizing a strap, he swung the bag onto his back and began walking.

“If you leave me here, I
will
go back,” she called to him.

“Good. Go,” Piers threw over his shoulder.

“And when I do, they will send riders through the wood until they find you.”

Piers stopped in his tracks. “They wouldn’t, unless you betrayed me.”

She approached him now. “Piers, listen to me: I know you think that stumbling upon your enemies at Fallstowe was a near disaster. But, where as before this day you might have grown complacent in your travels, now you know that they are at your heels, and you can take even greater care to avoid them. I know the roads from Fallstowe. I know the way they are likely to go if they are indeed following you. I can help you, Piers. Let me.”

He couldn’t see her face in the black, but he could feel her presence, trembling with youth and heat and ridiculous optimism. He could feel the warmth of her, as if she was a stone oven hidden in the shadows of the night forest, keeping secret her blazing fire. Such a little fool. She could not help him. He wanted to kiss her then, to show her the very real folly of becoming involved with such a desperate man.

But she was right—now Piers knew exactly how high the stakes had risen. He was confident he could find the way through Fallstowe’s thick wood and then along the
roads to London well enough. He could travel more swiftly alone. He didn’t think Alys Foxe would set his enemies to his trail, but he could not be certain. If he left her behind, he might never know the depth of her resentment at his refusal of her help until it was too late. He could not tarry to debate the matter—his foes were too close.

“I do not trust that you wouldn’t betray me,” he admitted. “But I will not be responsible for you should you insist on following me. If you cannot keep pace with me, I will not wait. I will not feed you, tend to you like some servant.”

“I won’t hold you back,” she promised, her voice carrying a hint of breathlessness. “Only let me change my gown and shoes.”

He cursed under his breath and then nodded curtly, feeling as though he had just sealed his fate as a traveling corpse. She was already holding him back. “Hurry up.”

She rustled through the underbrush, away from him. Her voice went periodically muffled as she continued to talk to him while she undressed. Piers tried not to think of her firm, compact body naked just steps away from him. He had been a long time without a woman.

Too bad Alys Foxe was still a girl.

“We’ll find the road and cross it to travel the south side. A river follows on the north, and most of the way to London it’s filled with washes and ravines—largely impassable. Turn it loose, Layla—give it! Yes, yes, alright—get out then.” A pause, a shuffling and sliding of cloth. “We’ll go as far as you wish tonight, to put as much distance between us and Fallstowe as possible. But then I do think you should consider traveling in the daylight. Oh! Dammit, Layla! I’ve dropped my slipper.”

Piers rolled his eyes. “Come on, come on!”

“I’m trying! It’s black as the devil’s ear here, Piers, and my shoe is brown.”

“If you hadn’t brought your entire wardrobe you wouldn’t need look for an additional shoe.”

He heard her sigh of exasperation. “You could help, you know, as opposed to standing there berating me uselessly. It’s rather difficult going, hopping about on one foot.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” He walked toward the sound of her voice. “Does milady loathe the feel of dirt on her sole?”

“We’re standing in a briar, half-wit. Take off
your
shoes and walk about and see how you fancy it, eh?”

Piers kicked though the tangle of vines with his boots, knowing he was near her when he could once more feel her heat and hear her breathing. He bent over.

“Did you find it?” she asked.

“Certainly. I’m only seeing how long I can stay bent over in such a manner before I am beset by cramps.”

He heard her hop closer. “Piers!”

“Shut up, I’m looking.” His hand brushed smooth, supple leather. He snatched up the shoe and rose. “Here it—”

He collided with Alys and she began to fall backward, shrieking and windmilling her arms. Without thinking, Pier’s left arm shot out and went round her waist, pulling her to him in the next instant.

“—is,” he finished, more quietly now that her face was only inches from his. He pressed the slipper into her hand.

“Thank you.” She sniffed. “You smell like a cow.”

Piers felt his face heat. “I work a dairy.”

“It’s nice,” Alys said lightly.

“I’ll steady you while you put on your shoe.” His fingers kept a loose grasp on the curve of her waist as she leaned to the side. He held her weight easily, unable to
ignore the limberness of her back and stomach. She was like a young, green reed, strong and pliable and smooth. Bent as she was, the monkey on her shoulder was now face to face with Piers. Layla reached out of the black and tweaked his nose hard. Piers slapped at the air before his face with a growl.

“I’m finished.” Alys stood aright once more.

“Good,” he said gruffly. “May we continue now, milady?”

“Only if you turn me loose,” she said in a teasing voice. “Unless you’d rather we—”

Piers released her in a blink, walking away from her surprised cry and ensuing crash as she fell to the forest floor.

“Ouch! You bastard,” she muttered, and the monkey chattered madly in accord. Piers kept moving as she gained her feet noisily and caught up with him. “That was unnecessary. I think I’ve got a thorn in my bottom.”

“Now you know how
I
feel,” he muttered, as his face crawled with heat.

Although, were he to be honest with himself, the uncomfortable sensation he felt was not in his bottom at all—more to the front side, actually.

Sybilla had done little more than push her food about her platter throughout what had to be the longest supper ever known. Her head pounded, her stomach churned, her ears rang from the incessant, nonstop, eternal, and relentless posturing and boasting of her begrudged female guests. With every utterance, each woman backhandedly insulted her dinner mate. Bevan Mallory had said not a word, only belched wetly on occasion. Clement was the only civil one at the meal, including Sybilla, if she was to be honest about it. She knew she was behaving imperially,
not deigning to take part in any of the conversation, but she didn’t care. That was her reputation, and this night, she was happy to live up to it.

Just when she thought herself to go mad and murder them all with her eating knife if only to make them
shut up,
Graves appeared through her private door located in the wall behind the dais, a sweaty soldier on his ancient and sure heels. He came to her at once. Her rude and noisy guests were completely uninterrupted by the servant’s arrival.

“Should we be alarmed, Madam, that, while Lady Alys was not at the Foxe Ring, a bit of blood was found on the center stone?”

Sybilla’s entire body went icy cold.

Alys!

“Yes, Graves,” Sybilla said quietly. “Yes, that is indeed cause for us to be alarmed.” She rose from her chair and turned to face the people at the table. Clement looked to her attentively, wiping his mouth with a cloth. Bevan’s face was still in his platter like a pig at trough. The women remained oblivious in their haranguing of each other over the rude clatter of cutlery.

“I will have silence in my hall!”

Etheldred Cobb and Judith Angwedd both turned their faces toward Sybilla, owl-eyed and affronted.

Now that she had their attention, Sybilla continued, speaking around the knot in her throat. “I fear I have potentially very grave news to share that concerns each of you.”

Alys wondered if she would ever see daylight again.

It was hard traveling through the seemingly eternally dark forest, even in the wide wake of Piers’s crashing passage. Each score of steps found one or both of them tripping, stumbling, or completely falling over some unseen obstacle. Although the moon was still largely ripe, the thickness of the bare branches of the deciduous trees as well as the full and towering evergreens threw deceptive shadows on the tangle of forest floor, disguising downed limbs and rocks and burrows. They had been walking for hours, and Alys’s feet and knees and buttocks ached. Layla was an additional liability, riding atop Alys’s shoulder once more, but the monkey had refused in quite an impolite manner to continue the journey in the relative safety of Alys’s bag.

Even though the terrain was nearly impossible, she was glad they were not on the open road—the silent man she followed would have already left her far behind by now. Alys Foxe had no desire to become separated from Piers, the dairy hand, or whatever he was, and she thought
mayhap it had little to do with them being in the thickness of a dangerous forest.

He’d nearly kissed her in the briars near Fallstowe. The way he had held her, his breathing going shallow and ragged, his arm tightening almost imperceptibly around her middle. Alys had only been truly kissed once, by a lad from the village this past May Day, so it wasn’t as if she had much experience at it, but she had known when the young village man had been about to kiss her, and she had known tonight with Piers, although the two sensations had been worlds apart.