Scoundrel's Kiss (13 page)

"Ah," he said quietly.
"Then you let me win."

"Do I seem like the kind who
enjoys losing?" She leaned across the chessboard, one still replete with
his tiny pale army. He held all of her pieces but, at her approach, his
expression shied toward panic. She smiled, needing to restore the balance of
power between them, to offset her growing fascination. "Who are you,
exactly?"

"A novice to the Order of
Santiago."

"So I've heard." Looking at
his lips made her lick her own, wondering at the feel of him, this strange
riddle of a man. "Keep your secrets," she whispered. "For
now."

His dark, bottomless eyes widened.
"You don't frighten me."

"Oh, but I do."

The door to their room careened open.
Scattered rushes did little to cushion where her elbows met marble, startled
backward. Gavriel rolled to put his body between her and the door.

"Come with me. Quickly!"

The unfamiliar female voice in the
doorway did nothing to dispel her confusion. Ada blinked against the harsh
light, unable to discern the face behind a lit torch held aloft.

"Come away now or find yourselves
before the magistrate," the woman said. "They are raiding La Senora's
home. Hurry!'"

Chapter 9

Beyond the doorway, shouts and the
splintering of furniture broke the night silence. Gavriel jumped to his feet.
Ada tossed the chess set in her satchel. Her knees gave way as she stood, but
he caught her beneath her arms. "Can you walk?" he asked.

"I will." She furrowed her
brows and managed to stay upright, leaning heavily against his side.

With both bags over his shoulder and
Ada's dagger tucked in the tie of his breeches, he nodded to the faceless woman
and followed her into a narrow corridor. The flickering play of light and
shadow guided their way to the rear of the dwelling. He no more trusted their
unknown guide man he would trust Ada— or himself—but he followed
for lack of an alternative. The shouting and violence was to their rear, which
helped put one foot in front of the other.

"Keep with me,
inglesa,"
he
said, half hauling her along the narrow corridor. "We've outstayed another
welcome."

"I sense a pattern. We should
notify wise men and report our discoveries."

He frowned at her, the only alternative
to laughter. "I know only clergymen and knights."

"No learned men there. And I see you
trying to remain grim. Does that effort grow tiresome?" She sighed.
"Forget I said a thing. You won't answer."

Gavriel fled from mysterious villagers
and followed an equally mysterious guide, while Ada settled into his body with
neither worry nor malice. And the minx was teasing him. He did answer then,
perhaps because his tired mind and restless, traitorous body had loosened the
frantic grip on his emotions. "Yes,
inglesa.
It grows
tiresome."

The sharp blast of night air hit her
face with force enough to rouse Ada completely. She had been happy to take
shelter against Gavriel, almost free from the terror and pain. Only for a
moment Neither distant nor scornful, he had seemed caring— a person,
freed from his stoic nature. She had seen a glimpse of that man as they sparred
over the chessboard. He was competitive, yes. A natural strategist. He was also
strangely reassuring company, quiet, with the driest sense of humor. She could
have hidden in that room forever, working into his mind just as his chess pieces
slid past her defenses.

But the warmth and comfort had
disappeared. They faced exile again, her sickness driving him from even the
negligible refuge of that tiny room.

The woman who guided their flight
pushed the head of torch into the damp dirt outside the dwelling's rear door.
Darkness enveloped them in an instant.

Ada blinked into the night, her eyes
slowly adjusting. The impairment sent her mind back through time and distance,
across water and land to England, to Meg, her blind sister— the sister
she missed at that moment more than she could bear.

Contemplating how low she had fallen
and how far she had traveled could consume the remaining days of Ada's life.
But the immediacy of their new peril pushed maudlin thoughts away. For that, at
least, she welcomed the unexpected danger.

"This way," said their guide.

"Who are you?" Gavriel asked.
He took Ada's hand as they followed the woman to the north, through the
courtyard.

"My name is Blanca. La Senora is
my great-aunt"

"You're the herbalist she
mentioned?"

Blanca tossed a sour look over her
shoulder, her round face like the moon hanging overhead. "She mentioned
that? La Senora only refers to people by what they might offer her. She didn't
take you in for charity's sake. The old man from your order—what was his
name?"

"Pacheco?"

"Yes. He gave her money."

"We did, too," he said.

Blanca laughed quietly. "Then she
did well for herself. Perhaps if she's lucky she can buy her way out of
trouble."

They turned the corner around the
converted cathedral, but when they did not stop to take shelter there, Ada and
Gavriel exchanged questioning looks.

"Where are we going?" Ada
asked, her mind beginning to work and see arid breathe once again. Yes, like
breathing after a year below water. She had never stopped to realize how
demanding her cravings had become. The damage that could have been done, if she
had been sold into slavery—she shivered and swallowed a bitter copper
taste.

"Out of sight," Gavriel said,
tugging Ada into a brick alcove between buildings. "They're in pursuit."

Blanca squeezed into the shadows with
them, the fine sheen of sweat on her forehead dampening the band of her dark
cowl. Her skin smooth and firm, she appeared no older than a girl. The flat
bodice of her modest wool gown, some color between blue and black, raised and
lowered with each quick breath. The whites of her eyes fairly glowed, no matter
how deeply she slunk into the black.

Her whisper stretched across the scant
inches between them. "I'm helping because I hate that old witch. She'd
keep me as her servant for the rest of my days."

"What will happen to her?"
Ada asked.

'Trial by fire or water, perhaps. No
man will stand as her second, so she'll not be asked to endure trial by
combat—not as a lone old woman. But now that
los guardias
have
her, I'll need help getting out of the city. No young woman travels beyond its
walls alone."

"You want us to be your
escorts?" Ada covered her smile with one hand, ignoring the seething male
at her side. "Won't that be nice, Gavriel? Another traveling companion for
you?"

"I would toss you both in the
Tagus, if I could."

"Hardly charitable, novice,"
she said, her smile refusing to be contained. Realizing she still held his
hand, she gave it a squeeze. He dropped her fingers as if they were live
embers.

"You strip me of my charity,"
he said. "Thank you for your assistance,
senorita,
but we can offer
you nothing but gold. I cannot assume more burdens in this journey."

"I won't accept gold," Blanca
said with a shake of her head. Tears forged silvery paths down her cheeks.
"You must understand that gold is useless to one such as me. I'm tainted
by my aunt's illegal business. No one will meet my eyes in the marketplace.
I've no chance for proper suitors. This town is a prison."

That word may as well have been a
streak of lightning flashing between them. Gavriel flinched and averted his
gaze. Ada felt something tighten in her chest, a sense of unexpected kinship
pinching below her ribs. How often had she thought of Charawood Forest as just
such a prison? The taint of her sister's ailment and her eventual
blindness—not to mention Meg's passion for the mysteries of
alchemy—had endeared them to none of their superstitious neighbors.

She had since endured the horrors of
true prisons, both in Sheriff Finch's dreaded dungeon and in the clutches of
her opium thirst, but Blanca's youthful need for an escape brought those years
in Charnwood back to life. She remembered believing that any sacrifice would be
worthwhile, that anyone offering an escape was a saint

"We've difficulty enough,"
said Gavriel. "You must understand. My apologies."

If she had not known better of the
taciturn man, Ada would have sworn his words sounded more like a plea. She
almost felt sorry for him.

"You can come with us," she
said.

A group of men in armor chugged past,
the clamor of their metal skins louder than their shouts. Ada wondered at the power
of fear. A rabbit hiding from a wolf's jaws could not stay as still as she did
Gripped by that unnatural stillness, she felt Gavriel's body pressed against
hers. He hardly breathed. Did his pulse race as hers did? Did he wonder at the
heat where their limbs touched?

She had only just experienced the
terrible aftermath of her withdrawal. Now the same reckless part of her that
still craved the bitter taste of opium was taking stock of the potent male at
her side. That she had so little sense heated her cheeks, part from shame, part
from a delicious sort of nervousness.

"Shall I signal for them?"
Blanca asked, her voice a strangled whisper despite the threat.

"Save your breath" Ada said.
"Gavriel is bound to care for me, which means if I won't leave without
you, neither will he."

"We could always try those ropes,
inglesa"

Ada tried to see his face, but
Gavriel's dusky skin was made for hiding in shadows. "What does that mean?
Do you intend to tie me up and haul me to Ucles?"

"No," he said, the word a low
warning that his temper had been stretched to breaking. "It means she's
coming with us."

* * *

They entered the bathhouse with a key
Blanca pulled from the bag at her belt. She carried nothing else.

Gavriel eyed her with no small measure
of suspicion. If she wanted to leave the city, did she truly intend to do so
without any possessions? And how did an herbalist come by a spare key to the
public bathhouse? Much like darkened buildings on the streets of Toledo,
bathhouses after hours only housed the worst sorts of people and the most
blatant of temptations.

He followed the women into the
pitch-black entryway like a sleepwalker. Lack of rest only accounted for a
little of his numbness. Ada, however—Ada had disrupted his judgment and
scrambled his life to such an extent that any direction seemed viable.

But his goal remained unchanged, no
matter the crooked and thorny path he traveled. Left to Toledo or the
countryside of Castile, he would be hunted and killed by the de Silva family's
far-flung agents. Left to the dictates of his own soul, he would reverse that
scenario, tracking down the exiled Joaquin de Silva in order to run him
through. Hunter or hunted, he could be neither. He needed the security of a
permanent place with the Order of Santiago. If rescuing Ada Keyworth from
herself was the price of that place, so be it

Perhaps this shifty girl Blanca could
be of assistance. The less time Ada spent focusing on her own pain and
bitterness, the more willingly she would walk to Ucles. Whether or not she
genuinely empathized with the girl's plight did not matter. More likely, she
only wanted the girl tagging along to aggravate him.

But a bathhouse?

God had stopped listening to him,
surely—if He had ever listened

"Why do you have a key?" he
asked into the black.

"Where else would
una covigera
rather
conduct her business? Illicit meetings are best done in secret places."

"I wouldn't know," he
muttered. "And you opened the bathhouse for these couples? Or did you just
palm the key tonight?"

"I started coming when La Senora
could no longer make the foot journey. I've had custody of the key ever
since."

Blanca sounded unbearably weary for one
so young, but he crushed that shimmer of understanding.

"Did you call
los guardias?'
Ada
asked.

"No," Blanca whispered.
"The
alcalde's
wife was caught sneaking to a tryst—not in the
act, mind, but with evidence enough to enrage the officials. That was last
night."

"And the scandal was the last
straw?"

"The people elected him. They were
embarrassed on his behalf and could no longer turn away from my aunt's
ventures."

Gavriel shuffled through the entryway
until he found a wall sconce and a torch. He rummaged through their satchels to
find a small leather pouch among his possessions. A few clicks of flint later
and the flames jumped to life. "And you knew enough to leave," he
said.

Blanca nodded as Ada stepped into the
circle of torchlight. "She's clever," Ada said. "Which means she
won't be a burden."

"You're clever and a burden,
both."

Looking into her eyes was like meeting
an entirely different woman. He searched for signs of weakness or pain or
mindless desperation but found only Ada—whoever that might be.