The Dark Knight (9 page)

Sandor
crossed the field in her wake. On a rock in the stream, he saw the wet print of her shoe. Tonia would soon rue her cold feet. He cleared the water in two strides, then moved into the woods where he paused to listen. No point in calling to her. She would never answer. It did not matter, for she had left a trail that was easy to follow. He only hoped that in her rush, she had not disturbed any of the wild animals. Many predators were lean and hungry at the end of a long winter and they would not hesitate to attack a lone human.

Not too far down the hill, Sandor spotted Tonia ahead of him. It appeared that a thick bramble held fast to her skirts. Relieved to find her unharmed, though frustrated, he quietly descended behind her. When Sandor was close enough to hear her muttering under her breath, he stopped and leaned against the nearest tree.

“’Tis not the best place for a stroll, is it, Tonia?” he remarked.

She glanced over her shoulder, formed a round “o” with her lips then regarded her entangled skirts with disgust. “You seem to have an annoying habit of following me,” she replied.

Sandor
picked his way around the bush, then hunkered down to inspect the situation. “By the command of our sovereign lord, you are my responsibility,” he reminded her. He broke off a branch, pulled it free from the bush, then pried the cloth loose from several long thorns.

“I am well able to fend for myself,” she fumed, watching him free her clothing.

He flashed her a look that was gentle but carried a warning. “Can you kill a boar?” he asked, unwinding her ragged petticoat from another thorn.

Tonia gasped. “What boar?” With a shiver, she looked quickly around. “I see nothing. Methinks ’tis a trick of yours to make me afraid.”

Sandor broke off another branch that held her fast in its thorny clutches. “I speak the truth to you, Tonia. There is a boar hereabouts and a large one judging from the size of his droppings. He is the king of this mountain, and he will not take kindly to your invasion of his realm.”

Tonia continued to search the area, now a little less sure of herself. “A boar, you say?”

Sandor nodded. “A very large one, fit for the table of the lord mayor of York.”

“Perchance ’tis not hungry.” She chewed her lower lip.

“Boars need no excuse to attack,” he said, pulling the last of her skirt free. “They are hag-ridden brutes spawned by the devil himself.”

“So my father has said. He often goes a-hunting the boar in the winter.”

Sandor
offered her his hand. “Then let us quit this place.”

Tonia regarded him with a speculative gaze. “You could leave me to my own defenses. Mayhap the boar would do to me what King Edward most desires. ’Twould relieve you of your duty.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You may think me a monster, my lady, but I would not wish that bloody, painful fate on an enemy much less on you.”

“Am I not your enemy?” she asked in a low voice. “I am a
gadji.
”

He smiled at her use of his language. “You were never an enemy of mine, Tonia,” he replied. The depth of his feeling made his voice husky. “Take my hand,” he whispered.

Tonia hesitated a moment, trying to fathom his intentions but, as always, he shuttered his true thoughts behind a charming facade. There was no denying his charm now that he had discarded his headsman’s mask. With a sigh of resignation, Tonia gathered up her skirts in one hand then placed her other within his.

Sandor’s long fingers closed over hers in a warm, gentle clasp. A pleasurable shiver rippled through her. Her heartbeat increased. A wave of giddiness washed over her. Gripping his hand more firmly, she glanced up at him. His steady gaze bored into her as if he sought to read the very secrets of her soul. Then his lips parted in a wide smile that set her blood racing through her veins. Her breath came in small gasps.

Sandor helped her up the steep incline. When they were back in the meadow, he turned to her. Cupping her chin between his thumb and forefinger, he stared deeply into her eyes.

“I
know that I frighten you, Tonia,” he said in his deep-timbre voice. “And that fact is my misfortune more than yours. Please believe me when I tell you that there is nothing to fear. All I ask is that you trust me.”

T
onia rolled
over on her sheepskin pallet and stared at the low fire. Though she had been outside in the fresh air for most of the day, sleep refused to come. Her stomach growled, but it wasn’t her hunger that kept her awake so late in the night. Up until now, she had been able to suppress the panic that hovered on the edge of her every waking minute. From the first horrifying moment of her arrest and abduction, she had fought against the tide of black fright that threatened to engulf her. During the carriage journey to York when her younger companions had wept and bewailed their fates, Tonia had been an island of calm, soothing the others’ terror while she masked her own.

Even after the white-whiskered judges had pronounced her doom and dispatched her to this forgotten fortress, Tonia maintained her facade of optimism. Her self-control had served Tonia well when the executioner finally arrived, but the constant dread of death grew during the days that followed, eroding her courage. Her clever wits dulled until she could think of nothing else except surviving one more day, one more night.

Since her
second escape attempt, Sandor had grown more distant. Every so often during the long afternoon, she caught him staring at her with a very grim expression on his face. By the time the twilight crept over the mountain’s crest, her grave yawned wide and deep enough to fulfill its purpose. Yet Sandor said nothing of his plans, not even when she had asked him outright what time he planned to kill her. Instead, he asked her again to trust him.

No rabbits, fat or otherwise, had wandered into his snares. Tonight, Sandor gave her the last piece of his cheese while he himself drank only water. Her intellect advised her to take a measure of comfort because he had fed her instead of himself, but her nerves had been rubbed raw over the past fortnight. Despite the warmth of the fire, she could not control her shivering.

Tonia sat up, drawing her cloak around her. On the table, a fat candle end glowed inside the lantern. Sandor always left it with her to keep the evil spirits at bay, but tonight, she could not find solace in its light.

She slipped on her shoes, tied their laces and then stood. Grasping the lantern’s handle, she tiptoed to the door that Sandor had not bothered to lock and pressed her ear against the wood. She heard nothing from the guardroom where she surmised the Gypsy slept. She cracked open the door wide enough to allow her to peer out. Light from his fire danced on the far wall at the turn of the passage, though she could not see Sandor.

She slipped out, then picked her way down the corridor toward the stairway that led to the wall walk. When she
stepped out onto the narrow parapet, the night’s cold wind slapped her cheeks and sent her unbound hair flying about her face. A half-moon hung over the opposite mountaintop. She lifted her face to its cold silver light.

When Tonia had been a child and was restless in the night, she had often communed with the moon, dreaming of the faraway places and strange people that the silver orb smiled down upon. She would wonder if there were any other children living in a distant land who were also awake, looking at the same moon and dreaming of meeting someone like her.

Behind her, Sandor cleared his throat. Tonia almost dropped the lantern over the crumbling wall.

“Do you make a wish?” he asked, drawing beside her.

Tonia cast a sidelong glance at him, but his face was shadowed. “I have always wished on the moon, but she rarely pays any attention to me.”

“Like many mortal women, the Lady Gana of the moon is fickle,” he remarked as he slipped his arm around Tonia, drawing her close against him. “You shiver with the cold,” he murmured in her ear. He draped his cloak over her so that it enveloped both of them.

The warmth of his body seeped into Tonia. She leaned against him, seeking what comfort she could. He wound his arms around her, locking her in his embrace. Tonia relaxed a little, basking in his strength.

“’Tis
a wet moon that looks down upon us,” Sandor continued. His uneven breath warmed her cheek.

“Why do you call it that?” Tonia asked, her gaze on the gleaming orb.

“’Tis when a cloud cuts across it. See, it comes again. There will be rain tomorrow. Or snow perchance.”

Tonia said nothing, but she imagined her grave filling with icy water. She huddled deeper within their cloaks.

“’Tis too cold for you out here,” he chided.

“’Tis warmer than lying in my tomb,” she replied. “Therefore I do not complain.”

With a deep sigh, he tightened his grasp around her as if he feared she might sprout wings and fly away. Tonia felt his thigh muscles tense against the backs of her legs. The power that he controlled within himself made her dizzy both with apprehension—and with appreciation. She wondered what would have happened if she had met him in another time and another place. Perhaps her life would have taken a different turning.

Sandor again cleared his throat. “Tell me, sweet lady, why did you never marry?”

Tonia stiffened. Did this Gypsy possess the skill to read her mind? She searched for an answer she could tell him. She didn’t want to confess to him that she had never found anyone that had interested her enough to consider matrimony. For a reason that she didn’t understand, Tonia did not want Sandor to think that handsome, intelligent men might find her unappealing. “I preferred to devote my life to God,” she finally replied.

He snorted under his breath. “Your pardon, Tonia, but that is not what your body tells me.”

Glad that the darkness hid the hot blush that rose in her cheeks, she pulled herself a little away from him but not so far that his cloak would not cover her. “Methinks
you have a wealth of nerve to presume the workings of my…er…mind.”

“Ha!” Sandor rumbled. “I may not be able to decipher words on a parchment, but I can read the heart of a horse—and that of a woman. You should have married years ago.”

Tonia laughed to cover her annoyance at his candor. “You make me sound as if I am a dried-up spinster. I am only three-and-twenty.”

“A Gypsy woman would have had five children by that age,” he observed, unruffled by her cool tone.

Stung by his remark, she snapped, “I am not a Gypsy.”

He tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “But you
are
a woman—one who possesses fire and the spirit of passion.”

His shocking words and gentle touch sent a pleasurable quiver through her veins. Tonia’s breath stuck in her throat as Sandor smoothed another one of her windblown tresses beside the first. Though his fingers barely grazed her skin, gooseflesh rose on the back of her neck. She burrowed deeper into her cloak.

“You are right—it has grown much colder,” she muttered, not daring to look into his eyes. “Let us go inside.”

He slid his hand under her elbow and turned her toward the archway that led to the spiral stairs. “You still have not answered my question,” he remarked as he guided her back to her cell.

He is as stubborn as a terrier chasing a rat.
Aloud, Tonia replied, “Nor have you answered mine.” She sat down on the stool.

“What question is that?”

“What do you intend to do with me?”

Turning
away from her, Sandor tossed several more logs on her fire. The greedy flames licked the wood. Staring at his handiwork, Sandor said in a low voice, “I must leave this place at dawn tomorrow.”

Tonia stifled a cry in the back of her throat. Of course she had known this moment would come, but now that it had, she discovered how unprepared she was—and how angry she was at this handsome rogue for beguiling her into a false sense of security.

“Will you kill me now or then? I need to know so that I may ready myself.” She gripped the folds of her cloak to keep her hands from trembling, though the ploy was pointless. She shook all over. “You did promise me some time of preparation.”

Sandor rotated on the balls of his feet so that he looked fully upon her. “I must go down the mountain to seek food. There is a good-sized village a half-day’s ride from the fork in the road that leads here. Even Baxtalo needs a good meal.”

Tonia drew in a breath. “And what of me?”

His clear eyes gave her a tortured look. “Aye, there’s the rub of it. I do not know
what
to do with you—and that is God’s own truth.”

The fire’s golden light made Tonia appear far younger than her years. Her lower lip quivered before she caught it with her small, white teeth. Sandor didn’t blame the maid for being afraid of him. He wished there was something he could say or do that would banish all her fears.

Tonia lifted her chin. “Let me come with you on the morrow. Like your horse, I too could use a good dinner.”

Sandor grinned at her. What courage she possessed! She would breed brave sons—if she were allowed to live long enough. Sandor longed to give her those sons. With a jerk, he turned away from her before her allure drove him over the brink.

He jabbed
the burning logs with a rusted poker. “Tell me true, Tonia, would you be content merely to ride behind me or would you flee at your first opportunity?”

She said nothing in reply.

He nodded. “As I thought. ’Tis why I must leave you here.”

She swallowed. “Alive or dead?”

He couldn’t tell her of his decision not to harm her—not yet. She would be clever enough to use that knowledge against him. First Sandor had to cobble together a plan that would satisfy both his conscience and the hard-hearted
gadje
in London. “You will sleep in peace tonight.”

“Ha!” she snapped. “You speak in a ghastly riddle, Gypsy. Is it your pleasure to taunt me into madness? Kill me now and be done with it.”

Sandor recognized the knife edge of hysteria in her voice. She shivered so much that both their heavy cloaks shook around her shoulders. The tension between them increased with a stifling intensity. Pity overcame Sandor’s logic. He reached for her.

With a cry, Tonia threw up her arms as if to shield her face. Crooning endearments in his own language, Sandor gathered her into his arms. Cradling her against his chest, he laid her head on his shoulder. He stroked his fingers down her stiff spine, wishing he could sweep away her terror.

“Hush,
sukar luludi,
my sweet flower, I am not a demon.
Jaj!
You are colder than iron.” He hugged her tighter.

Though
frightened, Tonia softened in his embrace, allowing her body to mold itself to his contours. She buried her face in the hollow between his neck and collarbone. Her ragged breath warmed his skin—and his desire. He swallowed before he spoke again.

“May God strike me dead if I harm you tonight or tomorrow, sweet Tonia Cavendish. I am not your killer but your protector. You must trust me.”

“’Tis easy for you to say,” she whispered into his shirt. “You are the one with the warrant and the weapons.”

Nay, your fire has already slain me.

A sudden blast of wind howled through the arrow slit, slamming the cell’s door shut and extinguishing the candle, despite the lantern’s housing. Sandor muttered a quick prayer against evil ghosts. Hawksnest was filled with ill fortune. He had sensed it from the moment Baxtalo had walked under the main archway. The sooner they left this place, the better things would be.

“What did you say?” she asked.

He brushed his lips across the top of her head. “’Tis a message for God, not for you,” he replied in a husky voice. “I asked him to lend me some of His wisdom.”

Tonia looked up at him. “I didn’t know that Gypsies really prayed.”

Her beauty wrung his heart. “This one does.”

“Did God answer you?” Her sugar-sweet lips hovered too near his.

“He suggests sleep for both of us while he ponders our problem.” Sandor tucked the ends of the cloaks under them to keep out the draft.

Tonia touched the deep cleft in his chin with the tip of her finger. “And you promise that I will awake in
this
world come the morning?”

He gave
her a squeeze. “Upon my life, I swear it.”

Sandor laid her down on the sheepskin beside him. Tonia curled herself against his side, pillowing her head on his shoulder. He said nothing but reveled in her nearness. At length, her shivers abated. Soon he could tell by the evenness of her breathing that Tonia was finally asleep.

Sandor leaned over her. He pressed his lips against hers, then covered her mouth. Her breath mingled with his. Sandor felt giddy, as if he had been drinking strong summer wine. He pulled himself away before his carnal desires took hold of his reason. Willing his throbbing body to ignore Tonia’s proximity, he stared up at the low ceiling and began to count the stones.
Yek…dui…trin….
He drifted into sleep sometime after he passed one hundred.

Though the grave-digging, as well as the day’s physical tension, had fatigued Sandor, he slept lightly as was his habit born of a childhood filled with sudden escapes from
gadje
sheriffs who often came calling at midnight. Now a stealthy movement woke him, though he did not open his eyes. He realized that he still lay on the sheepskin, but that his bed partner no longer slept in his arms. Tonia knelt beside him, looking down at him. He could feel the heat of her gaze even with his lids closed.

Sandor maintained the pose of sleep, though he was ready to give chase if Tonia decided to bolt for her freedom. Why couldn’t she realize that the forest surrounding Hawksnest held more danger for her than the man who lay beside her? Sandor breathed steadily while Tonia decided what she was going to do.

Then
he felt her fumbling at his belt. Sandor willed his body to ignore her feather-light touch and remain still. Did she search for the garrote? Would she throw it into the fire? Her fingers skimmed over his
putsi
wherein lay the lethal cords. Then she touched the hilt of his razor-edged
chiv.
Sandor slitted his eyelids. Tonia bent closer over him, chewing on her lower lip. The low firelight illuminated the grim determination on her face.

She closed her hand around the dagger’s leather handle and gave it a little tug. The blade moved in its sheath. Tonia paused, watching Sandor with the concentration of a cat at a mouse hole. The short hairs on the back of Sandor’s neck prickled.
She means to kill me!