What A Scoundrel Wants (15 page)

Strangling the reins with slick palms, she concentrated on maintaining her balance. The undertaking should have kept her from retracing her escape from Will, but the reverse proved true. Wandering thoughts only increased the difficulty of her task. She needed to stay seated, head up straight, and confident in the rightness of her decision.

But as her horse stepped onto solid ground, her assurance flagged. She felt conspicuous and vulnerable. In returning to the terror of an unknown blackness, the world constricted like a rope around her neck, stealing air and poise. She no more knew what she was doing than she knew the color of the leaves. At best, she could hazard a guess and hope for a lucky result.

Having partnered with Dryden, she expected certainty to erase the treacherous doubts. But her fears only increased. No matter his titles, his lack of confidence worried her.

“Do you need to stop for a moment?”

The nobleman’s tentative question rescued her from a circle of insecurities. He might prove far less willing to help if he suspected her lack of faith.

She caught her veil against a building wind. “What was that?”

“I asked if you need to rest,” he said, pulling the horses to a stop. “Perhaps to rest? You appear to be listing.”

“No, I am well.”

Time moved more slowly than the horse, needling Meg with the details of a nightmare she had constructed. Anxiety hastened her pulse as surely as would Will’s sarcastic voice near her ear. That voice, perfectly conjured by a mean-spirited trick of the brain, taunted her. It repeated what she refused to concede: She abandoned the man who had saved her life.

Repeatedly.

Dangerous thoughts swelled. She licked her lips, half expecting to taste sugar, to taste him and the warm pressure of his sweetened tongue.

Two deep drags of air cleared memories of the river. She pulled her back tall, a tree seeking sunshine. Following Dryden was sensible. She would find Ada and return to her cabin, to safety. Because despite his gallantry, notwithstanding the times he had stood between Meg and danger, Will Scarlet held a knife blade to her heart.

A rush of words merged in a mash of English and French. Individual accents and timbres rose above the sea of sound, proclaiming their uniqueness before blending, fading. Women spoke like larks and men like bulls, moving over each other in layered harmonies.

People. By sea and sand—everywhere, people.

Dryden slowed their horses. “Welcome to Nottingham.”

“Are we in the market?”

“No, the market is just inside these gates. We’re waiting to enter.”

Meg shrank from unknown, unseen bodies pressing against her ankles and calves. Her horse shied, stepping quickly to the side and magnifying her fretfulness. Dryden firmed his hold on the reins and steadily drew them through the crowd.

“Halt.”

She stiffened. The guttural male voice raised hairs on her forearms.

“Let us pass.” The surprising cool in Dryden’s command, although appreciated, sounded out of character. “I am Gregory Dryden, heir to the Earl of Whitstowe, and I have business with the sheriff.”

Meg had thrown in with the nobleman because of his influence, and gaining admittance to the castle would be the first test. Blood beat in her neck as she waited.

“Forgive me, milord. Proceed, if you please.”

The guttural voice continued to shout behind them, controlling the crowd and issuing orders. They passed through the gates. The jumble of bodies receded, but the sounds and smells only intensified. Grunts from autumn-fat pigs, slicing barks from dogs, and occasional whinnies from cordial horses mingled with the words of their owners. Tradesmen spiced the air with the noises of their professions, songs of metal and wood. Church bells added to the aural mélange.

Having grown up in the tiny hamlet of Keyworth before retreating to Charnwood, Meg had never known town life. The cacophony spun her imagination and tested her ability to interpret sound. Wonder battled with fear. She wanted to know more, to make sense of the wildness, just as she wanted to flee back home. Fond memories of her cabin had never seemed more comforting or more stultifying.

“Here we are.”

Dryden stopped their horses and dismounted, his leather saddle creaking with the motion. He helped her to the ground with detached courtesy. She repositioned the satchel crisscrossing her body, thankful for the brief reprieve from men who intimidated or tempted her.

“The castle is to your left, encircled by the Norman settlements on Castle Hill,” he said. “The older Saxon dwellings lay across the market to the north, at Weekday Cross.”

The surface of her eyeballs dried, but the market did not appear—neither did the swirl of people, their clustered homes, the city walls, or the castle. She kept from asking Dryden to describe the scene for her, swallowing the pathetic plea. But she would have asked Will. And he would have indulged her with amused efficiency, snagging her in a trap made of words.

Frustration forced her teeth into the soft flesh of her lower lip. She bit hard. She would have busted her skull like a clay pot against a rock had the violence promised to scatter thoughts of him. Yet the thoughts remained. Guilt and doubt kicked her repeatedly, and she found no love for her budding relationship with those two encumbering emotions.

Dryden, smelling of horses and the wolfsbane he administered to his cousin, leaned close to her ear. “Entering the castle will not be as simple as riding through the city gates.”

“I am ready,” she said, filling the words with a certainty she might feel again someday. “Tell me what I need to do.”

“If you can, keep from revealing your blindness. That will give you away to Finch’s men. I don’t want to spark an avoidable confrontation.”

She arranged her veil, checking to ensure the thin linen covered her eyes. “Give me your arm and lead on.”

Jacob would rather miss the final twenty years of his life than the awaiting confrontation.

A tiny twinge of guilt surfaced when he thought of the baron. Monthemer, hardly older than Jacob, lay buoyed by sleep and wrapped in an assortment of healing herbs from Meg’s pharmacopoeia. He had to trust that the young nobleman would turn for home when he awoke.

The question of whether he would awaken at all niggled in Jacob’s ears. He had knowledge enough to help the man, but the skills and potions he learned from his father held none of the allure of combat.

Asem, as fine an animal as ever Jehovah created, worked his massive shoulders, putting more and more distance between them and the cabin. The muscles of his haunches bunched and roped. His sides heaved. He did not bark or whine, but he held his muzzle to the unseen trail, presumably leading Jacob along the path Meg had taken.

But the giant mastiff did not find Meg. He found Will Scarlet—divested of weapons and shoes, lashed to an oak, and lifeless.

Or apparently lifeless. His head slumped forward and his spiky, straight hair cast shadows over his eyes.

“Scarlet?”

When the man did not reply, Jacob edged closer. The idea of Scarlet dying while tied to a tree, helpless and without the means to fight, struck him as particularly unfair. What manner of creature would behave with such ungallant menace?

Hugo, a name synonymous with dishonor and deceit, jumped to the fore of his brain. Meg’s name followed closely behind. Although Jacob admired and feared her in equal measure, her schemes held no appeal. Her antipathy toward Ada also rankled his sense of chivalry. He would not put it past either trickster to force Scarlet into such a predicament.

Asem settled his haunches near the oak, sitting far taller than the bound man. A thunderous bark cleaved the woodland silence.

Scarlet’s head snapped back, slapping the rough bark of the tree.

“For grace!”

“You’re alive!”

Jacob dropped to his knees and produced his dagger, cutting the ropes with an efficiency he admired in himself.

“Yes, I am alive. At least she did not poison me.” His grouse spoke of frustrations and weariness, but also sounded…
amused
.

“She? Meg, then?”

Scarlet shrugged free of the ropes and massaged the back of his skull. A smear of blood colored his lean fingers. “Yes, and Dryden with her.”

“Shall we follow her to Nottingham?”

Upon standing, he idly scratched Asem behind the ears. The dog panted, a smile gracing his wide, sloppy jowls. “We?”

“I rescued you.”

“You did, but I cannot let you accompany me.”

“Why not? You’ve said yourself that I am skillful with a crossbow. Do not tell me I’m too young.” He was horrified to hear his voice crack.

“I wouldn’t dare.” Grinning, Scarlet retrieved his weapons, arranging daggers, quiver, bow, and sword across his person. He transformed from a defenseless, bound man into a warrior—a warrior without boots.

“I was your age when Robin Hood aided King Richard,” Scarlet said. “They besieged Nottingham Castle where John thought to usurp his brother’s reign. I was in the thick of the morass, and I would’ve shot a man between the eyes had he said I was too young.”

He swelled with admiration. “Then you’ll let me come with you.”

“No.”

“Please!”

Scarlet picked up the jumble of ropes. “You have two choices, my young friend. You can take your beast back to Meg’s cabin and do what you can for Monthemer, or you can take my place here in the woods.”

“You would tie me up after I helped you?”

“Terrible, yes,” he said, chuckling. Meg was not the only soul in the forest gone touched. “I’m following the example of a rather unscrupulous woman we both know.”

“Why can’t I come with you?”

“Monthemer is a valuable man. Chance that may befall Dryden today, or any of us, Monthemer can bear witness to the plot—something he cannot do if he’s attacked or killed.”

Jacob stilled, excitement thrusting a rapid rhythm beneath his sternum. He loathed the mundane task of keeping Monthemer well, but he had not considered that the man might be a target. And soldiers yet traveled through Charnwood.

“You want me to guard him?”

“Precisely. Take him to Monthemer’s family estate at Winhearst. We’ll convene there.” He smiled, gripping Jacob’s shoulder and infusing him with the heavy, happy weight of his duty. “Now lend me your boots.”

While he truly did appreciate Jacob’s fortuitous rescue—disproving the notion that no one in the forest would offer Will aid—he could not permit the boy to accompany him to Nottingham. Odds against success demanded that he keep Jacob safe.

Not that he had a notion of what might constitute success.

But he would have given his left hand to keep from hurting the boy’s pride. He had nothing but respect for Jacob’s young dignity, not that his responsibility was a trivial matter.

When Will had accompanied Robin and King Richard against Prince John, he believed himself a grown, capable man. Robin’s every attempt to coddle and care had grated against his youthful arrogance. Had he been so young, in truth? As young as Jacob? Had he been so in need of protection, from both himself and life’s dangers? Perspective sullied righteous memories of those days, giving unwanted credence to Robin’s blunt attempts to guide him.

He stomped his heels into Jacob’s tight boots and tied the laces at his inner calf. Running shaky hands through his hair, he shrugged the tension from his shoulders. The half-full quiver settled at the center of his back. He hated to admit the truth, but taking up the bow again had proven gratifying. The easy rhythm of drawing and firing, the satisfaction of finding his mark—the weapon had reinvigorated a part of him that reveled in being skillful, proficient.

Spiting himself because of Robin made less sense than ever.

Anemic sunlight spread like a bird’s wings across the steel-colored sky, approaching noontide. If he was lucky and quick, he could be out of the castle before dusk, his business with Finch over and done. His quick pace chewed lengths of road, infused with an unease he did not care to examine.

After crossing the Trent, he rushed across the bridge and out of easy sight. High walls made of imported granite eclipsed the city’s southeast side, imported because the native sandstone was too yielding to create valuable defensive works. At the southeastern gate, dozens of merchants, farmers, soldiers, and revelers sought admittance.

The color brown, both functional and concocted from the dust and dirt of peasant life, outweighed every other shade. Amidst the ferment of people and their animals and wares, the occasional coat of silver mail or a brightly dyed tunic protruded like an oak in the middle of a sown field. With long hair following her as would a faithful pup, a young girl wearing a sky blue tunic nipped in and out of sight.

Will surveyed the scene, appreciating color as he never had. Meg’s vexing influence spread to the very senses he employed to observe the world. She was a wind gathering before a rainstorm, an elemental presence, and she was in there somewhere.

From the quiver on his back, he removed a leather pouch. He could not imagine how a full-scale army would have used Meg’s explosive black powder, but with it, thinning the glut at the gate might prove easier. He tucked a handful into the leather cuff of Jacob’s boots and held the others at the ready. The drooping hood of his felted cloak would obscure his face from determined observers, even though it limited his field of vision.

He spotted a procession of four lightly armored warhorses within sight of the gates. Norman knights sat tall and impervious among the commoners, their blue and white tunics fluttering on a rising wind. The silver of their mail shone a dull gray under the overcast sky.

Sidling through the crowd, head low, he fastened his eyes to his objective: the lead horse. It pawed the stone slabs at the city’s entrance, beset by a tide of people and merchandise. On the animal’s back, the lead knight—an impressive collection of weapons and armor wrapped around a stick-straight spine—handled the reins with casual disregard.

After a quick prayer to the amiable saints who watched over fools, he jumped in front of the massive charger. He slammed a handful of the linen twists under its steel-shod hooves. A dozen sharp cracks burst forth like thunder on a clear day.

Mayhem erupted. The large stallion reared, its forelegs flailing in the air above Will’s head. He ducked and flung his body away, running smack into the young girl in sky blue. Their legs intertwined, all knees and tangled fabric, until they careened into the dirt. Swathed by Will’s faltering limbs, the girl promptly hurled a screech into the expanding mêlée.

The knight tried in vain to calm his crazed steed. Will tried to calm the screaming girl. He met her wide eyes. Sky blue. Like her tunic.

Impossibly, those eyes widened even more. She pitched her scream to curdle blood.

Over his shoulder, Will caught sight of what she feared: the half-mad stallion rearing above them. Hooves like flashing daggers raised high, exposing the animal’s pale, bare belly. He wrapped the girl in his arms and rolled, rolled again, until dizziness and dirt soiled his vision. Free of the charger, he hauled the girl to her feet and pushed her against the city’s outer wall.

“Stay here.” Dust and adrenaline abraded his voice to a dull rasp.

The girl cowered, looking ready to dart without regard for direction or safety. Fear dulled her indistinct gaze. Her dirtied tunic blended with the stale brown of every other peasant. He caught her sliver of a chin. “Did you hear me? Stay here until this calms.”

Weakly she nodded, granting the only permission he sought before making his escape.