Suzanne Robinson (23 page)

“But there has to be some mistake,” she said. “Eadmer wouldn’t harm anyone. He’s an honest young man, honest and good. What are you going to do to him? Father won’t like it if you hurt him. The stripping bandit has outwitted you again by placing this mask where it doesn’t belong to delude you.”

Startled by this flood of protestations, Gray studied her while smoothing the reins through his hands. She was almost dancing with agitation, and her hands were trembling. She shouldn’t be so distressed by the apprehension of a thief—unless she knew him, perhaps had some knowledge of his activities. His fingers wrapped around lengths of leather and squeezed.

“What do you know of this Eadmer?” he snapped.

She’d still been chattering, but the flow ceased with this question while she fluttered her lashes and went pale.

“Well?” he asked. “You were conveniently nearby to watch when I came back after being robbed. Christ’s curse, Juliana, have you suspected this man and not spoken?”

“I—er.”

She wet her lips and stuttered some more while he stared at her. Then, without warning, she gasped, turned her back to him, and covered her face with her hands. To his consternation, he heard weeping. Dropping the reins, he rushed to her and took hold of her shoulders. They were shaking.

“What ails you? What’s wrong? Juliana?”

He held her for a few moments until her weeping subsided. She lifted eyes shimmering with tears and gave him a pleading look.

“Eadmer saved my mare’s life once. Her name is Elise,
and I’ve had her since she was a foal. She hurt her foreleg last year and Father wanted to put her down, but I couldn’t. Eadmer saved her. He would never do anything so dishonorable as fall in with bandits.”

He could find nothing to say as she dropped her head on his chest and sobbed. He’d known Juliana was soft of heart, but clearly she hid the depths of her compassion and sensitivity from everyone. To be so gentle-hearted in this age of cruelty would mean a life of constant pain. Something in him shuddered, and he was flooded with a fierce desire to protect this woman whose compassion surpassed that of anyone he’d ever known.

“Sweet joyance,” he whispered to her. “I can’t let this Eadmer go without speaking to him, but I promise to be evenhanded. If he’s innocent as you believe, I’ll not send him to his death. You have my word.”

“I want to come with you.”

“No, and don’t bother trying to convince me to change my decision.”

“Unless you lock me in my chamber—”

“Peace,” he said as he stepped away from her. “Don’t think I won’t if you try my forbearance.”

The silver fire returned to her gaze, and he welcomed it.

“Just you attempt it, Viking. Just you try.”

He smiled at her, remembering how she’d bucked at his touch in the cave, and saw her flush. “Juliana, do you wish to ride back to the castle tossed over my saddle like a dead doe?”

Her gasp was his answer. She whirled away from him, gathered her mare’s reins, and mounted. He tried not to grin as he led the way down from the hills, but battles with her were so hard won it was hard not to gloat.

• • •

The sun had almost set by the time his plans came to fruition. He had returned Juliana to the castle only to find it in an uproar over the disappearance of cousin Edmund. He hadn’t been seen all day. His chamber still held his belongings, and none of his party were missing. Gray suspected he was wallowing in some haystack with a village maid, but he’d been too preoccupied with the need to question the blacksmith’s son to worry about Edmund’s rutting. He’d gone with his men to the blacksmith’s house in Wellesbrooke village where he’d confronted the young man.

An hour’s browbeating and rough handling had produced nothing but protestations of ignorance and innocence. Gray knew that harsher methods would bring Juliana’s wrath, but he detested such measures in any case. He’d experienced too much brutality to take any pleasure in meting it out to others. And so he did what he would have done even without Juliana’s prompting. He set a trap.

Pretending to send Eadmer to neighboring Chessmore where he could be questioned away from his family and friends, he sent the prisoner on his way with only a small escort. He let his plans be known throughout Wellesbrooke and then loudly announced his intention to search for the leader to the south. Then Gray and his knights followed Eadmer in secret.

If he was right, the stripping bandit wouldn’t hesitate to snatch his minion before he could be made to confess. The bastard was bold and insolent in his moves. He’d be unable to resist making a fool of Gray. Shadows lengthened as he, Lucien, Arthur, and the others followed the escort party deeper and deeper into the forest. It had rained earlier, and the paths were thick with rain-slick leaves.

They crossed the stream near where he’d first encountered
Juliana and wound their way north along the muddy track. Gray guided his horse around the mud hole that had provided him with such pleasure at her expense. Ahead the trees closed in until they almost obscured the path. He rode on until the man he’d sent ahead returned to say that Eadmer’s party was making camp. Darkness would fall soon. Gray signaled to his men, and they left the path, vanishing into the trees, wraithlike and silent. By prior arrangement, they would form a loose ring around the camp and wait for their quarry to strike.

Taking up a post behind a tree near the clearing in which the guards had camped, Gray settled down to wait for darkness. Most thieves preferred the cover of night. Drawing his cloak around him, he watched the three guards he’d chosen for this task. One watched Eadmer while the other two built a fire, a big bright one that would attract attention.

By the time the shadows were at their longest and the light a deep gold, the two guards had succeeded in lighting the fire. They were standing before it warming their hands when a loud whistle and a barrage of arrows assailed the forest quiet. The bold whoreson hadn’t waited for dark after all. Gray watched him ride into the clearing with several other thieves holding crossbows. Mask in place, leaning insolently on the neck of his horse, he ordered Eadmer released.

Smiling evilly, Gray dropped back from his post and ran quietly to the squire who held his horse. He heard Lucien’s signal—the call of a hawk. He returned the signal, mounted, and rode back to the clearing. The bandits were engaged in forcing his guards to strip.

Once he had the thieves in sight, Gray drew his sword. The hissing ring alerted the thieves, but they were too late. Gray bellowed his battle cry, “De Valence and God!” His knights echoed it and charged.

Destriers thundered into the clearing. Crossbows were aimed, but the delay caused by surprise was enough. Lucien hurled a mace at one man, who took a blow to the head and dropped to the ground. Another didn’t see Arthur’s war horse until it bashed into him from the rear while the third bowman let fly a bolt that went wild. Before he could reload, Gray cuffed him with the flat of his blade. He too plummeted to the ground. In less than a minute Gray and his knights had surrounded the only thief to remain on his feet—the leader.

Gratification, triumph, and anticipation all surged in his veins as he walked his horse over to the bandit. He’d been cheated of true vengeance upon his betrayers of long ago. He’d never had the power to retaliate against those who enslaved him. But this man would never escape.

Riding close, Gray bent down, grasped the leader’s mask and yanked it off his head. He looked down at a face covered in soot, at eyes set off by the blackness so that they seemed to shine like the polished steel of an Arab scimitar. His mind went blank. It was as if he stood outside his own body and watched the group surrounding the bandit. No one said a thing. His men didn’t move. Not a word was uttered. The absence of speech filled the clearing with a painful void. He detected the muffled clink of a bridle, the soft snuffling of his horse, the snap of a twig under a boot. These things reminded him of the physical world, and yet his mind refused to credit what his vision revealed.

The bandit was a woman. No, not a woman, a witch with damascened eyes. He began to curse, in English, French, and Arabic.

“Holy blood of Christ, God damn you to eternal perdition.” He dismounted and grasped lengths of black hair in his fist, drawing the bandit’s face up to his. “Juliana.”

His mind was working again, and it burned with an ugly thought—Juliana had been the one to shame him. And he had thought Saladin cruel. His knights had retreated, and they all hung suspended in silence for a brief moment. Then she spat in his face. Swearing, he thrust her from him and wiped his cheek, then grabbed her as she sprang into flight.

“Oh, no, mistress thief, you’re not running away this time.”

He tangled his fingers in her hair again as she tried to escape. Holding her by long tresses, he watched her struggles. God, he’d believed her lies, her tears. She’d made a fool of him before his own men, before the whole countryside. She’d stripped him naked and laughed at him. Rage burned through his mind, obliterating all else. His blood burned with it, liquid fire. A small part of him whispered warnings of actions born of hurt and later regretted. He didn’t listen.

“Look,” he said to his men with a nasty laugh. “We’ve caught a she-devil instead of a thief, a bitch masquerading as a lady.”

Jeers rose up to taunt her, and he listened to them with pleasure. Juliana snarled at him and swung her fists, but he held her at arm’s length.

“Mon
Dieu,”
Lucien cried. “Never have I seen such a creature. Is it a man or a woman?”

“Oh,” Gray retorted, “I assure you, this is a woman, when she’s clean. A right lusty wench, ripe and ready.”

Juliana stopped trying to hit him for a moment and gaped into his eyes. Her curses flew at him with the force of crossbow bolts, but he merely laughed at her again.

“Well, Lucien, I suppose we can’t hang her, so what will we do with her?”

“Je ne sais pas, messire.”

Gray’s eyes locked with Juliana’s, and his smile widened
and its evil deepened. “Ah,” he said softly. “I know. A biblical punishment. ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.’ ”

She was looking at him with confusion, so he released her hair. She had been leaning away from him, and the sudden movement caused her to topple backward and fall on her rump. He planted his feet apart, put his fists on his hips, and looked down at her sputtering form.

“Take your clothes off, mistress thief.”

JULIANA FELT HER JAW LOOSEN AND DROP. HER thoughts went blank as his order resounded inside her head.
Take off your clothes
. All she could do was stare at Gray de Valence in disbelief.

Already confused by the frightening and miraculous events of this day, she continued to gape at this golden knight who stood over her like some barbarian raider, thighs planted wide apart and straining at the leather that encased them. He had revealed to her a wondrous secret—that men were good for something besides cruelty, fighting, and making trouble. They, and especially he, were good for pleasure beyond dreaming. And in the aftermath of their lovemaking she had realized that perhaps she would never feel such miraculous pleasure with anyone else.

She didn’t understand him. He’d refused to admit that he no longer needed the pretense of a betrothal. She was beginning to believe he would carry out his threat to marry her, and she didn’t know what to think. Thunder of God, this man, this heir to power and beauty, said he intended to marry her.

But that was before she was unmasked. Why hadn’t she suspected this trickery from him? He was known for his stratagems in warfare, and for him, this was war.

“I’m waiting, Juliana.”

Thunder of God, she was still gaping at him from the ground! She glanced around the circle of mounted men.
They’d grown quiet and were casting uncertain glances at their lord.

“Juliana,” he said again.

She met his chilly gaze and found no hint of the seductive gentleness that had won her trust so short a time ago. Well, she was accustomed to belligerent men. Standing, she shut her mouth and lifted her jaw. Sticking her thumbs in her belt, she fixed him with her most wolflike stare. “No.”

She hadn’t expected him to burst out laughing. She flushed as his men joined in, but maintained her defiant stance.

“By the Trinity, I was hoping you’d refuse.”

He began walking toward her.

“What are you doing?” she asked as she backed away.

“I’m going to take your clothes off for you.”

“Stay away!”

She scuttled backward until she hit the bulk of a knight and bounced away from him. Gray followed her while his men began to whistle and utter salacious calls. She managed to dart under Gray’s swiping arms and continued her evasion. He was playing with her, or he would have caught her. The longer they played this game, the more excited his men grew. The air filled with the scent of primitive need, of lustful anticipation. Gray ignored it; Juliana feared it.