Lois Greiman (13 page)

S
omething whizzed through Keelan’s hair. He jerked backward. Air rushed past his ear.

“What the devil are ye—”

She came at him like a whirlwind. The staff caught him in the ribs. He hissed in pain, gritting his teeth, doubling over.

By the time he managed to glance up, there was little to see but her backside disappearing up the hill. He cursed and stumbled after her, crouching, babying his ribs, trying to breathe.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, for a nearly raped, half-dressed serving wench, she could run like a racehorse. And he was already winded, confused, hurting like hell. But his anger was foremost. He bottled it up, letting it drive him up the hill. She was already out of sight when he reached the top. He clung to the twisted trunk of
an elder, panting, holding his side, wondering if his innards were still in place.

If lightning hadn’t crackled overhead at that precise moment, he would have died wondering, for ’twas then that Charity struck again. The staff swung toward him. He jerked back. It scraped across his left ear. Her aim was improving, but rage propelled him sideways…toward her now, not away. He caught her about the waist, plowing her under. She went down hard, fighting like a caged cat. Arms, legs, claws, teeth.

He rasped in pain as her fingers found a dozen raw places at once, then realized belatedly that she was slipping away. Snagging the hem of her gown, he reeled her back in, grabbed her leg, and yanked her downhill.

“Not so bloody…ach…fook it!” he swore as her heel struck his shoulder. The old burn hurt like the devil, but he dragged himself over her, pressing her into the forest floor. “Not so fast!”

She was breathing hard. He was panting like a retriever. And even in the darkness he could see the spitting anger on her face. But there were more interesting things.

Breasts, for instance. Peeking between her shattered gown, pale as winter in the moonlight
but for that tiny mole. The mole he’d seen in his dreams. His breath left him again. Her body went still beneath him.

“Go ahead then.” Her voice was little more than a raspy whisper. “Have done with it.”

He glanced up. Her eyes were closed, squeezed shut, her face turned away. In a waning flash of lightning, a tear glistened on her cheek. Her lips trembled.

He shifted uncomfortably. “What the devil’s wrong with ye?”

“Better you than him,” she whispered.

“What the hell are ye talking aboot?”

“Me innocence.” She opened her eyes. Her voice trembled with agony. “’Tis all I have left. But if I’m to lose it…” She sobbed a little. Her bare breasts trembled against his chest. He eased off half an inch. “Better to someone like yourself.” Her voice was almost lost in a rumble of thunder. “Someone handsome.” She swallowed.

God, she looked small. Small and broken. No wonder she had fought like a wild beastie.

“Someone I thought I could care about,” she murmured.

He opened his mouth, then noticed the narrow strap that crossed her chest and attached to a pale reticule close to her hip. Damned thing
probably housed a cannon. Remembered pain reverberated in his skull. He shook his head. “Holy fook, ye’re amazing.”

She sniffled. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Who the bloody hell are ye?” he asked, and suddenly she was crying full out, her shoulders heaving, her face turned away.

“I’m just a girl. A simple maid with nothing to call me own except—”

But lightning flashed, illuminating the staff that lay not five inches from her arm. The head of it was as big as Keelan’s fist. An ungainly, tarnished lump of—

“Gold,” he breathed, staring transfixed. “’Tis gold.”

He could actually hear her breath stop in her throat.

“Holy God!” He should have seen it before, should have known all along. The old man never let the thing out of his sight. Not until he had tried to seduce her, at any rate. “’Tis solid, bloody gold.”

She wriggled wildly beneath him, almost breaking free. By the time he had her back under control, she was all but spitting.

“It’s mine,” she snarled.

Gritting his teeth against a score of searing aches, he shifted his gaze to hers. “What hap
pened to the sweet, little, simple maid, lass?” he asked. “The one what was crying?”

“Get the hell off me,” she hissed, and pushed at him with elbows and knees.

Every muscle groaned, but Keelan spread himself flat atop her, holding her down. “How long have you been planning this wee little trick, lassie?”

“I don’t know what the devil you’re—” she began, but suddenly her eyes went wide. “What was that?” she gasped.

He jerked, but realized in that split second that she was already reaching for the staff. “Clever minx,” he said, tightening his fingers on her arms. “But I’m na so daft as I look.”

“’Twould be all but impossible,” she rasped, pushing at him again.

He subdued her as best he could, gritting against the pain until she lay still once more. “Tell me, lass, have ye ever told the truth in the whole of yer life?”

She remained silent.

“I’ll take that as a no then,” he said, and she smiled, tilting her head the slightest degree.

“Someone truly is coming,” she murmured.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Forgive me, lass, but I dunna think ye’d be so
calm if ye expected Chetfield to come charging from the bushes at any blessed moment.”

Her body felt soft beneath his, almost relaxed. “He
is
going to be rather angry.”

“You think so?” he asked.

She was still smiling. “Until I explain that it was you that took the staff.”

He studied her from mere inches away. “Are you even human?”

She laughed, but the sound was cut short by the snap of a twig. Keelan jerked his attention to the rear. He could see nothing, but he felt it. Felt something.

“Shh,” he said, but when he turned back to her, he saw that her eyes were wide, her lips pale. “Someone’s coming,” he mouthed.

“That’s what I said,” she hissed.

“Shh,” he repeated, wincing as he levered himself to his feet and pulled her up after. She rose, jerked away, grabbed the staff.

A noise scraped in the darkness, something almost recognizable.

“Dogs!” she rasped.

“Run!” he said, but she was way ahead of him, racing through the darkness.

He sprinted after her. A branch cut his face. He slapped it aside. Up ahead, she fell to her knees, then stumbled to her feet with a curse. The sound
of tearing fabric ripped the night, and then she was running again, drawers flashing, leaving a ragged circle of torn skirts behind her.

The land dipped dramatically into the darkness, nearly pitching Keelan onto his face, but he found his balance and scrambled downward, slowing his slide with branches and roots. He hit the bottom with a jolt that slammed pain from his knees to his shoulder blades. Water splashed onto his legs. A bog. Dammit! But there was nothing for it. The maid was slogging straight through, and she had the staff. He plowed in. Mud sucked at his feet, pulling him down. It took all his strength to make it through, to drag himself up the far slope. Some yards away, she was panting, face streaked with mud, holding on to a tree, eyes wide as she glanced about.

“What are you doing?” The words hurt his chest. His lungs were burning, his legs shaking. “What are you looking for?” It struck him suddenly that she might have a plan. Merciful God! He wanted a plan.

A noise scraped in the forest behind them. Charity glanced back, eyes wide, then jolted off to the left. There was nothing to do but hold his ribs and stumble after.

Pain was all there was now. Pain and the vision of her bare calves darting through the woods.
Good God, she was all but naked. All but—

His foot struck a hole. Pain shattered his ankle. He hissed as he fell. A dog howled. He rocked back and forth, teeth gritted, watching her. For a moment he saw the pale oval of her face as she turned back. Her steps slowed. Their eyes met. She delayed a moment and then she was gone, turning like a wild goat to scamper up the hill and out of sight.

“Fook—” he began, but a crackle in the underbrush stopped his soliloquy. They were close. Closer than he knew. Reaching blindly to his side, he curled his hand around a branch. It felt hard and firm in his hand, but it would do him no good. He could see his own death in his mind. Still, he would fight. He hobbled to his feet, dragging the branch with him. “Who’s there?”

Someone snickered. Branches crackled.

“Come on out then.” Good God, he sounded like a warrior and not some barely breathing charlatan with one good ankle and a penchant for lying. “Come and fight me,” he yelled.

And Lambkin scampered into view.

The warrior loosened his grip. “Sweet Jesus Lord,” breathed the charlatan.

Lambkin bleated. Somewhere in the night a dog bayed.

Keelan gritted his teeth against the pain,
scooped the lamb into his arms, and turned toward the hill. It looked insurmountable, but he shambled up it, the lamb cradled against his chest, branch acting as a staff.

At the top he rested, breathing hard. Which way? He waited. Lightning flared. He scanned the woods below. There. A flash of white, not two furlongs away. He could yet catch her, he thought, but suddenly he recognized the sound of water, realized the truth. She had reached the river. It glistened misty gray, hustling along. And then he saw the bobbling little boat she’d pushed into the current.

Holy God, she
did
have a plan, but suddenly the night was shattered with noise.

“Loose them!” Chetfield boomed, and instantly hounds howled and bayed and snarled.

Keelan sprinted downhill. His ankle almost gave way, but he rushed on. He could see Charity now, throwing a rope onto the craft. Almost there. He was almost upon her. A howl split the night. He glanced over his shoulder. A wolfhound topped the hill, running full out, tongue lolling.

Terror ripped through him like a blade.

He sped up, lungs tearing in twain. Twenty feet from the water now, but the girl was casting off. “Wait!” he rasped.

The hound was on his heels. He could hear it panting. Ten feet to go. He knew the moment the dog sprang, felt it in his soul. There was nothing to do but jump, to leap for his life. The water cracked like ice beneath him. He went under, bobbed to the roiling surface, went under again. Beneath the rushing waves, it was as dark as hell.

He tumbled in the black current and was suddenly shot into the air. Lambkin bleated, hooves paddling. Keelan twisted about, searching frantically for the boat. There! Just to his right, Charity’s eyes as wide as the sea. “Help me,” he rasped and grasped for the gunwale. But he was rolled under again. His head struck granite. Pain greeted him, but it was the blackness that overwhelmed him. Cold and hard and unforgiving, it pulled him inexorably into its grip.

K
eelan awoke to firelight. He opened his eyes slowly. Beyond the crackling flames, the world was as dark as sin. He glanced about. Where was he? Out of the elements. That much was certain. A cave, perhaps.

His chest ached. He rolled to his side, and stopped abruptly, for there, in front of his very eyes, was a woman. And, great God in heaven, she was naked. The merest sight of her soothed the ripping pain. She stood facing away from him. Her hair was wet and curled down her back in glistening tendrils. The firelight caressed her shoulders, turning them to molten gold. She was mesmerizing. The length of her endless legs, the swell of her butter-pale buttocks, the curve of her waist.

And then she turned with breathtaking slowness. Firelight kissed the swell of her breast, shadowed the shallow divots between her ribs.
Keelan’s body tightened as she faced him, full frontal, baring every luscious inch. Her belly was flat and firm, the hair between her thighs downy soft, her nipples so luscious and bright that—

But suddenly the world lurched and tilted. He felt himself falling an instant before he struck the water. The cold shocked him to the bone, freezing his heart, stalling his lungs. But in a moment, his instincts were kicked into scrambling lucidness. He was paddling before he was fully conscious, striving for something he couldn’t quite see, couldn’t imagine.

Coherency washed him in measured beats, like the pounding of his heart. He wasn’t drowning. He realized with flooding relief that he was lying on his belly. He stopped his kicking, coughed, rolled over. A boat bobbed restlessly in the nearby reeds. Beside him, in the softening darkness, Lambkin bleated. Keelan shifted his gaze, letting his mind take in these new, confusing circumstances. A body lay beside him, wet, breathing hard, half dressed—Charity, bodice torn down the midline. He recognized her breasts from his dreams. They were naked, heaving, tiny raindrops beading near the ripe nipples. The sight made him feel strangely thirsty and absolutely transfixed.

She caught him with her sultry eyes, and for a
moment she looked breathless, almost euphoric, as if she too had felt the magic of the dream. But in an instant her expression hardened, and she scowled. Keelan steeled himself for the disappointment of clothing, but there was little with which to cover herself, thus she tugged her sodden sleeves toward her shoulders, grabbed the staff, and pushed herself to her feet. A nipple popped out. Her legs were bare to the knees, the rest covered by fabric as sheer as a dragonfly’s wing. He watched her turn away. The view was no less inspiring from behind.

But the truth of the situation dawned on him with blinding accuracy. She and the staff were leaving him behind.

Standing up was a lifetime in hell. Every muscle screamed, but he managed to limp after her, mind bumbling weakly.

Lambkin trotted up behind. The country close at hand was open and rolling, but that gave him no clues as to their whereabouts. Still, the landscape seemed oddly familiar. The world was turning gray, chasing back the blackness, but his mind remained strangely foggy.

He remembered the wolfhounds closing in. Remembered his jolting panic, his leap, the knife-cold cut of the water, her face as she watched him go under. Then nothing.

He shivered. “Where be ye going?” he asked, though it seemed fairly obvious, even in his current state, that she was heading for a copse of trees some distance uphill.

She kept walking, but her pale shoulders were slumped, her steps dragging. Had she saved him? Had she pulled him from the gaping jaws of death?

“Lass.”

She didn’t stop. The rain was steady now, a drizzling coldness that chilled on contact.

“Ye must get dry. Rest.”

She turned slowly. He could feel her fatigue like a weight on his own shoulders. “It’s a bit late for you to lose your mind now, isn’t it, Scotsman?”

He considered her words. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

“What the hell are you talking aboot?”

“Do you see a palace nearby in which to warm myself? Or is it a mere cottage in your mind’s wild imagination?”

“Nay,” he said, and his dreams flashed back to him. “’Tis naught but a cave.” He wasn’t sure from whence the words came, but his fuzzy thoughts were not ready to question. “Yonder.” He nodded toward the east, where the land roughened into broken hillocks.

Morning was becoming more aggressive. He could almost see her expression now, but there was no real need. There would be curiosity melded with distrust. Well, join the fooking club.

“So you’ve been here before?” she asked.

Who the hell could answer that? Certainly not he. His mind felt as if it had been dunked too long in the brine and worn raw. He didn’t try to answer, but turned left and shuffled uphill. He was almost too tired to care if she followed him, and was somewhat surprised when he realized she had.

The copse consisted of poplar and fragrant yew. Up against a rocky embankment, thorny blackthorn battled with bracken fern. Pushing aside the unfurling fronds, Keelan gazed into the blackness of a cave. He could not see the depth of it, and yet, in some inexplicable way long denied, he knew. Knew the cavern would measure no more than thirty feet in length. Knew it would be uninhabited. Knew it would be safe…at least in a physical sense. Memories drove him past the rocky doorway, or perhaps it was the wind, biting cold and hard against his shivering back. Inside, it smelled of damp earth and pungent pine.

The remains of a fire lay on the rocky floor. A noise rustled at the entrance of the cave. He
glanced up. Lambkin toddled in. Charity followed. Backlit by the weakling morning light, she looked small and pale, her arms scratched and bleeding, her legs smeared with mud, her breasts just peeking…He turned away, immediately hard, absently gathering wood to steady his mind, to keep his hands busy. What sort of cruel magic made him hard for her? She had lied to him, struck him. Good Lord, she’d left him to die!

“What do you hope to gain?” She remained near the doorway, silhouetted against the misty gray morn. Her voice was unwavering.

He glanced up, only to find that her breasts were all but bare. Holy fook. He shifted slightly, trying to ease the chafing. “Mayhap ye should cover yerself.” The unfamiliar words grated against his throat, against his very temperament.

She took a step toward him. Outside, the wind was rising with the sun. He sensed her shiver, but when he glanced up, she stilled the motion and raised her chin.

“Have you an agreement with Chetfield?” she asked, circling a little as she drew the saturated reticule over her head. “Or do you simply hope he will compensate you when you turn me over to him?”

Keelan wasn’t sure what surprised him more, her perfect dialect or her assumption that he was somehow in league with the old man he hated with painful ferocity. He arranged the kindling before glancing up again, a scathing rejoinder ready, but she was still mostly naked.

The words died on his lips, shriveled to nothingness. He turned back to the wood, mind blank.

“Who are you? How do you enter my—” She stopped herself, took a breath. “Who are you?” she asked again.

He shrugged, irritated by his own foolish weakness, and remembered her pathetic words after Roland’s attack. “Just a simple lad.” He tried to emulate her earlier statement but found it impossible to dredge up the tears. If she didn’t cover herself soon, though, he’d be crying like a spanked babe. Still, he wiped away an imaginary tear with the back of his finger and managed a sniffle. “Me innocence be all I have left.”

She stared at him a moment, then snorted. “It was very nearly effective, you know,” she said, fishing a curved piece of steel from her reticule and tossing it to him.

He raised his brows and gratefully struck it with the flint. Sparks scattered. “Ye’ve an overactive imagination,” he said. But she was right,
of course. The sight of her sadness had nearly caused him to loose her, had almost turned him aside. Which, of course, would have given her every opportunity to crack his head open like a ripe melon. The surprising realization that he was a dolt did little to improve his mood. “I knew what ye were aboot from the verra—” he began, but when he glanced up, she was just stepping out of the remains of her gown. Her back was one long sweep of satiny skin, and through her short, saturated pantaloons, her ass looked as tight and luscious as a plum.

The flint clattered to the floor.

She turned her head, scowling over her shoulder. “I’m assuming you’ve seen a naked woman before, Highlander.”

He gathered his wits with fumbling difficulty. “Dozens,” he said, collecting some tinder and striking the steel again. His brow felt damp and warm. What he said was true, of course, but for the past hundred years or so, most of his naked companions had been confined to his lurid dreams. And recently they had all been she. Only the dreams couldn’t do her justice. His brain was starting to simmer, but he refused to look up. Still, he could see her perfectly in his mind’s eye. She was sculpted like a revered statue, every curve as smooth and firm as marble. “Mayhap
scores.” He tried repeatedly to strike a spark. He was champion at starting fires, the best of all the boys at school, but his fingers seemed strangely numb today. ’Twas just the cold, of course. Although his mind didn’t feel all that much more capable. Still, he rambled on, words accented by the sound of flint on metal. “Once, while in Versailles, I was with three lassies all—”

A noise distracted him. He glanced up. She had turned around. The world stood still. Her breasts were small and firm, round and pale and topped with a heavenly bright cap of red. Somewhere in his soggy mind he wondered why he had ever preferred buxom women. Shortsighted of him really. Stupid. Just plain ruddy daft.

“Close your mouth,” she said. “And move back.”

He couldn’t.

“Or don’t,” she said, and shrugged. He watched the movement, mesmerized.

It was then that he realized a flame was smoking between his legs.

“Fook!” He skittered backward.

She stretched her hands toward the fire, though the flame was naught but a tiny orange tongue.

He realized then that her lips were tinged blue. There was a bruise on her upper arm, big as his
fist, and her ribs were scraped raw. He turned his attention to the infant flame, mind churning.

“How did you get me out of the water?”

She didn’t answer. He glanced up. She was shivering again, but adroitly turned the movement into a shrug.

“You caught hold of the side. I couldn’t get shed of you.”

“I dunna remember it quite thus.”

She shrugged, unconcerned. “’Tis no more than I deserve, I suspect. I should have thought to stash an oar. But my reticule was too small.”

He watched her, waiting for an explanation, but she only smiled, the expression as perfect as sunlight, amazing in its innocence.

“Oars tend to stop the most determined of men, no matter how hard their heads might be.”

He snorted and turned to the flame again. Seconds ticked by. The fire flickered higher. Lambkin pressed close to Keelan’s side, seeking warmth.

“And what of the lamb?” he asked. “Might she have caught hold too?”

A muscle danced irritably in her cheek. Her dimples winked perversely as she struggled with the chill. “You dragged the damned thing in with you.”

“Over the gunwale while soaking wet and unconscious?”

“Would you rather believe I was too concerned with your welfare to let you drown?”

“That would indeed be more pleasant,” he admitted.

“Believe this,” she said. “If I’d had an oar, you’d be bobbing downstream like a bloated bullock by now.”

“And the lamb?”

“Mutton’s not my favorite, but…” She shrugged. Lambkin looked from one to the other, wet ears drooping.

“You’d eat Lambkin?” The idea was revolting, almost cannibalistic. Of course the idea of his own bloated carcass floating toward sea wasn’t all that appealing either.

“Right now I’d eat
you
,” she said.

“Well…” he admitted, looking straight at her. “I’ve had me thoughts about ye too.”

For a moment he almost thought she blushed, but then she snorted and turned away. Her buttocks bunched and separated as she squatted to lift her tattered garment, and for a moment he was afforded a glimpse of heaven.

“That wasn’t me,” she said and rising, held her torn bodice in front of the weakling fire.

He stared at her. Not that he had a choice.

“The girl you thought about…that wasn’t me,” she explained.

“Who then?”

“A maid I met once. Very sweet, but not terribly bright. I believe her name was Charity?” She said it with her former accent.

He stared at the dark, tiny circle on her left breast, then turned back to the fire. ’Twas the hardest thing he had ever done. “She had yer mole.”

Surprised, she covered the pigment with her hand, but he could see all in his mind’s playful eye.

“Na to mention yer scar.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Right thigh,” he said, nursing the blaze. “A hand’s breadth from yer hip.”

She glanced down, but the mark was hidden beneath her drying drawers.

“I realized you weren’t what you seemed,” she said. “But I didn’t expect you to be peeking in my window.”

“Should have,” he murmured. “But it didn’t seem right. Na with a sweet lass such as yerself.”

“That was the other girl too,” she said. “The one who wouldn’t kill you if you turned your back.”

“So the other maid be the one with the scruples.”

“But no brain.”

“Aye well,” he said, and nodded as he glanced up again. “A conscience can come in handy, I suspect. But it canna compare to yer stunning lack of modesty.”