Through a Dark Mist Read online

  “If a man starves, it is because he is too lazy to work the fields. If he is punished, it is because he has committed some offense against the crown. As for the haughtiness and greed of which you speak, I suggest the worst offender is the cur of the forest who aspires to gain his wealth and recognition through thievery and murder … or do your own eyes suffer some difficulty in seeing the irony of your piousness?”

  Her quickness of wit and tongue was beginning to make an impression on his men and the Wolf could sense that part of their amusement was a result of his inability to bring her under his thumb. She possessed far more spirit than was healthy or wise. Spirit bred contempt and contempt fostered rebellion—something he had neither the time nor the inclination to tolerate.

  Conversely, fear bred caution, and both were qualities he would sorely prefer to see shading the vibrant blue of the widow’s eyes.

  “Robert … take the men on ahead and see that everything has been made ready for our guests.”

  “Aye. Shall I take this un for ye as well?” A thumb the size of a small anvil crooked in Servanne’s direction.

  “No,” said the Wolf, his grin a misty suggestion about the lips. “I will bring her along myself.”

  He took up Undine’s reins again and murmured a comforting “whoa” to the mare as the foresters and their burdened rouncies filed past. Servanne held Biddy’s worried gaze until the last glimpse of her luffing wimple had disappeared behind the wall of green, then she had no choice but to look down at the outlaw … which she did with the vaguest stirrings of unease.

  The Wolf was bareheaded under the blazing glare of the sun and his hair shone with red and gold threads tangled among the chestnut waves. He looked somehow bigger and broader, more powerful and far more dangerous on his own than he had surrounded by his men. And, as Servanne found herself earning the full brunt of his stare, she could not help but feel the heat of a threat behind it, a promise which coiled down her spine in a fiery ribbon and pooled hotly in her loins.

  “I believe I gave you a promise that no harm would befall either you or your waiting-woman,” he said in a calm, detached monotone. “But madam, as you are undoubtedly already aware, you present a worthy—nay, almost an impossible test for a man’s patience.”

  Servanne moistened her lips and fought to keep her voice equally cool and steady. “On the contrary, sirrah. When I am treated with respect and courtesy, most men claim they enjoy my company immensely.”

  “I am not most men. And you are not here to fulfill my desire for … company. You are my hostage, madam. A piece of valuable property to be bartered for and released when and if a suitable price is agreed upon by both parties. If at all possible, I should like to honour my pledge to return the property to its rightful owner in an … ah, undamaged condition. However, if some damage does occur—through negligence or sheer stupidity, as the case may be—I will hardly be driven to don the horsehair shirt and whip myself raw in repentance of a broken vow. In other words, Lady Servanne, you will behave yourself … or I will not.”

  “I doubt your behaviour could sink to any lower depths, rogue,” she fumed unwisely. “And I doubt you could cause me any further discomfort than you have already.”

  The outlaw sighed and turned his head away for a moment. Before Servanne could react, he reached up and clamped his broad hands around her waist, lifting her unceremoniously out of the saddle. Her legs, long ago gone numb from the hours on horseback, would have crumpled the instant her feet were set to the ground if not for his support. One of his arms snaked around her waist, forcing her to press against the iron-hard length of his body. His free hand cradled her chin and tilted her face upward at an uncomfortable angle that emphasized both his height—which was as immense and imposing as one of the towering pines that surrounded them—and her sudden vulnerability.

  At once, a mindless drumming caused the blood to surge through her veins and her heart to trip over several rapid beats. Her lips trembled apart and her fists curled into tight little knots as if the fingers could not bear the even more debilitating sensation of contact with a body that offered no apology for its granite hardness. Straining with virility, he crowded against Servanne so that there was no part of her left unaware of the intimacy of heated male flesh.

  “The challenge, I believe, was to cause you … discomfort?” he asked.

  Servanne had to catch at her breath before answering. “Better than you … worse than you have tried and failed!”

  “Is that so? And I suppose you are hardened and worldly-wise enough to know what a man’s best and worst might be?”

  Servanne’s stare threatened to turn liquid. She knew, without a doubt, the man holding her with the possessiveness of a barbarian king was nothing so trifling as a man or a king.

  “Let me go,” she gasped, squirming to break out of his embrace. Her fists scraped against his chest, displacing the carelessly open V of his shirt so that her knuckles skidded into the curling mass of crisp, dark hairs. The flesh beneath was all muscle and steamy hot skin. There was no give, no indication she could have won a response with anything less than the business end of a quarterstaff.

  “Let … go!” she cried. “How dare you touch me!”

  “How dare I?” he repeated, his breath warm and promisory against her cheek. “You should pray I dare no more, my lady, than just touch you. Although”—the hand at the small of her back shifted lower, caressing the curved roundness of her buttocks—“the notion is fast becoming less of a trial than first imagined.”

  Servanne’s mouth dropped wide with shock. He was pulling her forward, holding her in such a way as to boldly forge the shape and contour of his thewed limbs upon hers. Heat met heat and pressed deep, scorching her through the layers of samite and silk as if the garments were made of air. A moist shudder convulsed deep within her, a reaction to his animal maleness that was beyond her control, and his arms tightened further, as if he had felt it and was offering more.

  “No!” she cried, beginning to fight like a wildcat to free herself, her arms flailing, her nails seeking to let loose rivers of blood. With a snarled curse, he merely squeezed her into the wall of his chest, pinioning her there until she discovered she could not breathe. Her struggles weakened, then ceased altogether. The simple act of clawing her fingers into the wolf pelts drained her and she sagged limply in his arms, drooping into the encroaching blackness of a faint.

  The Wolf eased his grip slowly, letting the air back into her lungs, and, as the blood flooded back into her limbs, he looked down at her, his face as impassive as marble. She was quiet enough now. Subdued. Drawing her breath in soft, broken gasps. He watched the colour flow back into her cheeks, the sparks of blue fire rekindle in eyes that would soon begin to fight back in silent, guarded hatred. He admired what he saw. The lush, provocative temptation of her lips drew his gaze and for a moment, he felt an arousal so intense, so completely unexpected and unwarranted, he almost drew her forward again to kiss her.

  Instead, he pushed her out to arm’s length and sprang away as if she had suddenly burst into flame. The rebuke permitted Servanne to stumble haltingly well out of reach. Her fingers flew up to cover the pulsing heat of her lips and while she could swear he had not kissed her, her mouth felt scalded as if he had.

  “Do you still have doubts that my behaviour could worsen?” he asked quietly.

  Servanne’s blood continued to roar through her temples, making it difficult for her to think, let alone speak. Her skin had seemed to shrink everywhere on her body, most urgently so wherever it had been branded with the contact of his own. Her eyes stung with unshed tears of indignation—tears he watched form and swell along the thick, honey-coloured wings of her lashes.

  “Well, my lady?”

  She looked up, the back of her hand still pressed against her lips, the fingers curled and trembling.

  “Will your stay with us be an easy one, or will I be forced to use harsh measures to win your cooperation?”

  “How … lo
ng do you intend to keep me prisoner?” she asked in a shaky whisper.

  “The shortest time possible, I promise you.” Aware of the tension that had caused his own body to tauten like a bowstring, the Wolf felt it break now, and the fire in his gaze burned down to smoky gray ash. “It will seem shorter still if we have no more need of these verbal jousting matches. Especially ones where the outcome is a foregone conclusion.”

  Servanne’s lashes were still damp, but the brightness sparkled with frost. He was laughing at her; mocking her futile efforts to defy him. Smug, arrogant bastard! He had insulted her, had dared to lay his hands upon her, and now, to make the degradation complete, was addressing her with the flippancy one used to pacify a simpleton!

  A hot welter of resentment rushed to fill the void so recently drained by panic and in a moment of sheer and utter desperation, she whirled around and started running toward the same wall of trees that had swallowed Sparrow and Gil Golden so efficiently. She heard an angry curse explode behind her, but ignored it. She heard Undine nicker and whinny loudly, and guessed the outlaw had tried to push her aside to pass, but the horse had taken umbrage and valiantly stood her ground. It was enough. The extra seconds it took the Black Wolf to skirt the rearing hooves, combined with every last scrap of energy Servanne could will into her pumping legs, carried her past the barricade of saplings and well into a dense weaving of juniper and alder.

  Running with no thought other than escape, Servanne dashed under broken limbs and plunged through barriers of fern that closed into a solid wall behind her. Her skirts hampered her and the branches snatched at the flying wings of her wimple as she ducked and darted her way deeper into the forest, but she neither stopped nor slowed to remove any hindrances. She was aware of angry, pounding footbeats thrashing through the undergrowth behind her, but they took a wrong turn, then another, and for a time she could not hear them at all over the loud slamming of her own heartbeat.

  She stopped to catch her breath and listen, and that was when she learned to move with less haste and more caution, for it became apparent that he too stopped every few paces and listened as well. But she was a good deal lighter, and fear gave her the swiftness of a startled doe. Also, the shadows were dark and cool, kinder to the prey than the hunter, offering pockets of safety that became blacker and more frequent as the sun slipped lower in the sky.

  Constantly twisting and turning in the labyrinth of vines and trees, Servanne ran until her sides ached and her legs grew buttery with fatigue. She lost all sense of time and direction. Once she thought she smelled woodsmoke and, fearing she had inadvertently run straight into the outlaw camp, she backed away and fled in the opposite direction. She had no way of knowing how far she had traveled or how much farther she would have to go before a road or village might present itself. What slices of the sky she could see through the latticework of branches overhead were a dull, uniform pewter gray, indicating the sun was fading rapidly. She knew she had to find shelter and a safe place to hide before the darkness settled over the forest. There was already a thin veil of mist swimming about her ankles, soaking the hem of her gown and causing her toes to squeak with the wetness inside her shoes.

  A low, hauntingly familiar sound brought her to a dead halt in the midst of a green sea of waist-high ferns.

  She heard it again and released a misty puff of startled air.

  A bell, by Mother Mary’s holy angels! A monastery bell tolling the hour of Vespers!

  With the echo still ringing hollowly in her ears, Servanne waded through the ferns and stumbled to the bottom of a steep incline. At the base of the gorge, was a thin sliver of a stream that meandered between two enormous hillocks of rock and gorse. She picked her way carefully along the moss-blanketed bank, following the stream and eventually emerging from behind the hillocks to find herself standing less than two hundred yards from the long, low, lichen-covered walls of an abbey.

  Gloom and pine-scented shadows cloaked the clearing in which the abbey stood, but the bell tower was plainly visible rising above and behind the heavy oaken doors that held the inhabitants cloistered from the rest of the world.

  Servanne moved toward it as if in a trance, her feet gliding soundlessly through waves of long grass, her skirts trailing fingers of displaced mist. At the gates, she spread her arms in supplication and collapsed against the support of the dew-stained wood for the time it took her to compose herself. Fighting back tears of relief, she pulled the rusted iron chain that hung down the wall, and nearly sobbed aloud when she heard the corresponding tinkle of a small bell inside the courtyard. When she rang it a second time, her attention was drawn to her hand, to the dirt and grass stains that marked not only her skin, but marched up the sleeves and down the skirt of her tunic. Her face would be in no better condition, she surmised, but for once, her appearance did not concern her. Nothing concerned her other than the welcome sound of wooden-soled sandals hurrying toward the gate to investigate the disturbance.

  A small square window in the oak portal creaked open a cautious inch. A single brown eyeball peered through the gap, flicking back and forth over the span of the meadow before thinking to angle downward. A second eyeball joined the first as the window opened wider, the two eyes surmounted by a worried frown.

  “My child?”

  “Father … help me please.”

  “Good heavens—” An eyebrow arched upward in surprise, temporarily unseating the frown. “Are you alone?”

  “Yes. Yes, I am alone, but there is a man chasing me—”

  The window snapped shut and an instant later, the iron hinges of the gate heaved a mighty protest as one of the double doors was swung open. The cowled monk stepped out and immediately stretched out his hands in gentle concern.

  “What is this about a man chasing you?”

  “Please, good father,” she gasped. “I beg you, please hide me. There are outlaws in the woods. They are chasing me, hunting me; they mean to kidnap me and hold me to ransom. I managed to escape them once, but … !”

  “My child, my child!” The monk caught her hands in his. They were smooth and warm and not a little callused from long, thankless hours of toiling at God’s labours. The face beneath the coarse gray hood was serene and unlined; a scholar’s face; a face filled with compassion. “Are you hurt, my child? Did they hurt you in any way?”

  Servanne struggled for breath and words. “There was an ambush. They took me hostage … killed the guards … now they are chasing me. The Wolf. The Black Wolf of Lincoln, he calls himself. He means to kill me, Father, I know he does. Please … you must hide me. You must give me sanctuary until a message can be sent to Lord Lucien, Baron de Gournay.”

  The name seemed to have no effect on the acolyte and she began urging him back through the abbey gates when she heard the ominous beat of horse’s hooves cutting through the gorge. She did not have to look back over her shoulder to know it would be him, yet she did, and the sight of him riding out from under the canopied froth of trees caused her belly to commence a sickeningly slow slide downward.

  “It is him,” she managed to whisper, cowering behind the cowled shoulders. “It is him … the Black Wolf. Please … you must help me. You must not let him take me away.”

  “Have no fear, child,” the monk declared calmly. “He will not be taking you away from this place.”

  Not entirely convinced by the note of assurance in the monk’s voice, Servanne regarded the Black Wolf’s approach with only slightly less trepidation than that with which she had welcomed the first time a chirurgeon had attached a row of slimy leeches to her arm to drain the ill humours of a fever. There was anger, cruel and unyielding, etched into every line and crevice of the outlaw’s face, bristling from every tautly held muscle in his body. His jaw was clenched, the veins in his throat and temples stood out like throbbing blue snakes.

  He reined the enormous black beast he rode to a halt in front of them, his figure blotted darkly against the faltering sunset. Servanne experienced another deep, moist
shudder; this one pressing so heavily over her loins that her knees almost buckled from the strain.

  She was terribly, physically conscious of the way the ice-gray eyes inspected every smudge and scratch she bore. And when she was summarily dismissed, like some minor annoyance, and his attention focused on the monk, she felt a further clutch of fear stab at her belly. Who was to say he was not above slaying a man of the holy order? Who was to say he would respect the sanctity of the church or obey the unwritten law of sanctuary? This wolf’s head was a law unto himself, acknowledging no authority but his own, no rules but those of his own making.

  The Black Wolf swung one long leg over the saddle, the leather creaking softly in the misty stillness of the air. Servanne flinched reflexively as he walked slowly toward them; if not for the monk’s stalwart protection shielding her, she was certain she would have fainted from the sheer tension that approached with him.

  “Friar,” he said quietly.

  “My son,” was the equally unruffled response.

  The Wolf’s gaze flicked over to the pale face that was peeping from around the monk’s shoulders, and he grinned like a sleepy lion.

  “Ringing the bell seems to have been a worthwhile risk after all,” he mused. “It saved us the time and bother of scouring the woods for you. You can thank Friar for the idea; he worried your soul might become easy prey for the Devil if you were left on your own throughout the night.” A wider grin brought forth the flash of strong white teeth. “Not to mention what wild boar and wolf might make of you.”

  “Ahh, now,” the monk sighed. “Can you not bend a little from your usual tactful and gallant self? The poor child is already half-convinced you mean to kill her and devour her whole.”

  “The idea has growing appeal,” the Wolf replied dryly.