Terror loosened her mind, logic unravelling. The ground dropped away, tilted. She staggered back, her arms flying outward, clawing the air, battling some invisible attacker. Her limbs sagged, as if someone had stripped the muscles from her legs and replaced them with wet, useless rope. Shocked, reeling, a sob tore from her throat, a raw, guttural sound that split the air. No, no, not him! How could he have found out where she was?
Eva sprang away from the gatehouse, unthinking, darting back the way she had come with Peter. Pure animal instinct drove her; she had to run, escape. A shudder tore through her at the thought of him catching her again; he would surely kill her this time, after what she had done. She stumbled forward, boots snagging on lumps of tussocky grass, keeping her gaze fixed on the line of oaks beyond the town walls: the forest; her refuge and a place to hide.
Peter’s slight figure emerged from behind the shrubs where she had left him, a worried expression on his thin face, flushed red with the cold.
‘Go to the castle, now!’ Eva gasped out as she rushed towards him. ‘It’s me they’re after, not you. You will be safe!’ Reaching out, she gave him a little push, as if to emphasise her point.
‘I want you to come too,’ he whined, catching at her sleeve, slowing her step momentarily. His bottom lip trembled.
‘No! Do as I say!’ Her breath punched out in truncated gasps. Wrenching the fabric from his grasp, she pulled away, biting her lip at the brusqueness of her words. But it was the only way. Peter was a sensible boy; he would understand when she had time to explain the situation. ‘Go to the castle now!’ His mouth trembled as he turned and began to run. Watching his bobbing flight, her eyes watering against the icy chill of evening, she realised the knights hadn’t moved from the gatehouse, clustered around John, talking to him. Was there the smallest possibility that they hadn’t noticed her? But she couldn’t take the chance, not with that man; she knew what he was capable of. Eva spun on her toes and took off, her step light and quick, like a startled deer.
* * *
‘Who was that?’ Gilbert asked John, turning to watch Eva’s flying figure, her wimple white in the gloom. ‘I had no idea the sight of us all would be so intimidating!’ His mouth turned up at one corner, quirking into a half-smile. ‘I hope you believe me when I tell you we have no intention of causing trouble.’
‘She’s Lady Katherine’s nursemaid,’ John explained, stamping his feet against the cold creeping up his legs. ‘She takes care of the three children.’
Gilbert sighed, leaning to one side of the saddle to ease his aching hip, silently cursing his old bones. The muscles in his neck hurt, his spine tingled painfully, and he couldn’t wait to drop out of the saddle and into a hot bath. But the Lady Katherine would need her nursemaid for the journey on which they were about to take her. ‘Then I will have to fetch her back.’
‘Nay, allow me.’ Bruin eased his horse alongside Gilbert’s mount. ‘My horse is fresher than yours, and…’ he grinned, a teasing light entering his metallic eyes ‘…I’ll wager I will catch her in half the time it would take you.’
‘I’m not about to argue.’ Gilbert smiled wearily at the younger man, holding out his gloved palm in a gesture of defeat. ‘I’m too old to be gallivanting around the countryside. But for God’s sake don’t frighten her. I have no intention of riling Lady Katherine any more than we have to and that includes scaring her nursemaid half to death. Did you see the girl’s face? As if she had seen a ghost!’
Bruin rounded his eyes at him, an expression of feigned surprise. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Me, Gilbert? Who do you take me for? Some sort of mercenary who goes around threatening the lives of innocent people, terrifying them out of their wits?’
‘Precisely.’ Gilbert’s voice was gruff. ‘You know who you are, Bruin, what you have been. Your time at sea after—after what happened. It’s hardened you. But you need to forget that now and tame your ways. Go easy on the girl. She is not your enemy.’ He eyed the fleeing figure. The maid was already on the far side of the town wall, almost up to the treeline, a pale outline of flapping skirts against the swiftly darkening hillside.
No, thought Bruin, as he kicked his heels into his horse’s rump, wheeling the animal around, that girl is not my enemy. Reaching down, he plucked the flaming torch from the gatehouse guard, ignoring the man’s protest. Guilt flooded through him. My enemy is within, like a noose around my neck.
* * *
Lungs bursting, scrabbling for air, Eva reached the trees, leaning against the nubbled bark of a trunk to rest for a moment, gulping precious air back into her body. Blood roared in her ears, thumping horribly. Sweat trickled down her spine, her arms, gathering uncomfortably beneath the linen cloth wrapped around her neck. She had pushed her body onwards, forcing her legs to move faster, harder, and now they ached, the muscles sore and painful. But this was nothing, she told herself, nothing compared to what that man would do to her if he caught her. The urge to wrap her arms around the tree and sink downwards to rest was overwhelming, but she stamped on the feeling, jerking her head upwards, staring into the dark forest beyond. In there, she would hide.
A shout forced her to turn. Her legs shook with fear at the sound, strength sapping. A knight was in pursuit, cantering up the hill at an easy pace, a burning brand shedding a flicking, spitting light across the sparkling steel of his helmet. How had he managed to get through the gate so quickly? Surely his horse was too big to have squeezed through that slight gap? But it was the older knight, she decided, judging from his slow speed. He would never catch her. Whipping around into the shadows, she set off again, feet dancing along a path that twisted and turned through the silent oaks. The glimmer of moonlight gave her just enough light to see by, the track disappearing off between the massive trunks. But if she could see it, then so could he.
She dodged sideways, plunging into a bundle of scrub and brambles higher than her head. Thorns tore at her skirts, but she fought a way through, pushing aside the lacerating tendrils. She would find somewhere to hide, a place where she could crouch down, catch her breath. Sheltered from the icy air by the tree canopy, the forest floor was muddy, squelching and sucking at her leather boots. Breaking free of the snarling brambles, she emerged into a clearing, the ground mossy and sinking, and she stopped for a moment, listening.
No sound. Nothing. Maybe he had given up on her.
She strode on with renewed energy, with the faintest trickle of hope that she had lost her pursuer, intending to plunge into the darkness on the other side of the clearing. If memory served her correctly, she was at the highest part of the woods; from here the land sloped down gradually to meet the river. She would have to hide herself soon, otherwise she would be cut off by the impassable sweep of water.
Stepping forward, she failed to see the animal trap set beneath a drift of grey curled leaves. Her foot pressed down on an iron bar, releasing a spring on toothed jaws to snap them tight against the rounded muscle of her calf. Pain shot through her leg, burning, visceral; she dropped to the ground, slumping sideways with a howl of pain, clutching at the metal around her leg. Her head spun; waves of dizziness surged behind her eyes, light splintering across her vision. Nausea roiled in her belly. She bit down on her lip savagely, willing herself to remain conscious, tears of agony coursing down her cheeks. It was well known that the townspeople left out the traps in the undergrowth to catch their food. How could she have been so stupid as to leave the track?
Pulling herself upright, leaning forward, she tried to prise the metal jaws apart, aghast at the blood soaking through her stocking. She tugged ineffectively at the cold metal; her arms seemed to have lost their strength. At her own puny weakness, a sob of sheer outrage spluttered from her lips; her hands dropped to the mossy ground and she laid her face against one upraised knee, weeping softly in sheer frustration. If she were quiet now, then maybe he would never find her.
But Bruin had heard the cry, carried on the wind. A wavering shout, keening, animal-like. The woman he pursued. Wrinkling his long, straight nose, he turned his head from side to side, trying to decipher the sound’s direction. Where was she? He had left his horse at the woodland edge; the heavily muscled animal would struggle to make any progress through the dense trees. Springing down, booted feet sinking into the spongy earth, he had followed the track, his long-legged stride light and fast, despite his weighty chainmail hauberk. His hair was bright, a flame against the dark trunks; he had given his helmet to another knight for safekeeping and now relished the freedom from the cloying metal.
Raising the burning brand high in his fist, he whipped the torch around as he walked, searching for traces of the maid’s flight on the ground, in the bushes alongside the path: a broken branch, a disturbed scuffle of mud. Piles of decaying leaves deadened his step. He paused, listened, ears tuned to the silence, with an instinct honed from years of fighting, of tracking enemy forces. After that single drawn-out scream there was nothing, nothing but the crackle of the torch, the frantic squeaking of a disturbed mouse as he passed by. In the distance, he could hear ducks calling on the river, the compressed sound strident, disjointed. But although there was nothing to turn him in one direction over another, he sensed the girl’s presence, the tense curtailment of her breath as she waited for him to pass. She was hiding nearby, of that he was certain.
The flickering light fell on brambles, torn awry. She had left the path. He plunged through the rent in the undergrowth, thorns scraping against his mail coat sleeves, dragging at the fine red wool of his surcoat. His pace did not falter until he sprang into the clearing and saw what had happened.
Sitting, her whole body hunched forward, folded inwards, the maid appeared to be asleep. Her face was buried in one knee, a slim arm wrapped around her head, as if trying to protect herself. Her other leg lay flat upon the ground, skirts bunched up, the teeth of an ugly metal trap gouging into her flesh. Blood stained her woollen stocking, running down the outside of her leather boot, trickling steadily.
Bruin cursed. Twisting his leather belt so that his sword lay to one side, he dropped to his knees beside her, driving the torch into the muddy ground. Close up, the poor quality of the maid’s garments was pitifully evident: a loose sleeveless over-gown constructed from a coarse mud-coloured cloth over a fitted underdress of lighter brown. Threads unravelled at her cuffs, fraying dismally in the light. She wore no cloak, her slight figure trembling in the evening air. He grimaced; his winter cloak was packed in his saddlebags, otherwise he could have draped it around her shivering shoulders. He adjusted the torch carefully so the light was cast over the mess of her leg.
The girl’s head rose slowly. The pale oval of her face, wrapped tightly in her linen veil, stared unseeingly at him for a moment, her expression hazy, unaware. In the flaring light, her skin held the creamy lustre of marble, polished and smooth, untouched by blemish or freckle. Her eyes were huge, sparkling orbs fringed with long, velvety lashes that dominated her face; in the twilight, he couldn’t see the colour. Then her eyes rounded, her head jerking back in horror, and she started hitching away from him, palms flat on the ground, yanking the trap with her. A chain and long pin secured the trap into the earth; they rattled, clinking together as she tried to pull back, the iron teeth tearing deeper into her skin.
‘Stop,’ Bruin said firmly, leaning forward to seize her shoulder, to prevent her moving backwards. ‘You’ll only hurt yourself more.’ He nodded down at the rusty trap, her mangled flesh. ‘I will take it off.’
‘No! Go away! Get away from me, you…you barbarian!’ she spluttered inexplicably, wriggling her shoulders roughly from his grip. ‘Move back!’ With quicksilver speed she grabbed the torch, wresting it from the ground with a strength that belied her diminutive stature, and swung the flame haphazardly in front of his face. Cruel, lacerating pain scythed through her leg at the jerky movement. Bruin lurched back instinctively, to avoid being burned.
Irritation flashed through him. He was used to men following his command immediately, without question, and yet this chit was physically threatening him, ordering him away as if she were the Queen of England! He was tempted to walk away and leave her to fend for herself. Another nursemaid for Lady Katherine’s children could be found, surely? But he supposed he ought to try; Gilbert and the rest of the knights would certainly have something to say if he returned empty-handed. Bruin raised both hands in the air, a gesture of surrender, keeping his voice deliberately calm, slow. ‘Look, I’m going to help you, don’t you understand? I’m not going to hurt you.’
His measured tones reached out to Eva through the dancing panic of her brain. His voice seemed different. And yet it was him, surely, the same man who had ordered her abduction? This man had the same bronze-coloured hair and sharp-angled cheekbones, the square-cut chin? And yet the voice from all those months back, the voice that had shouted and bullied her, had been silky smooth, with a subtle threat to every word. Although he looked the same, this man also spoke with an odd, foreign inflection that hitched his tone with a low, guttural melody, twisting the vowels. But how could she be certain he was not him? She could not afford to take any chances.
‘I don’t believe you!’ she whispered. Her body shook, beset with uncontrollable trembling. The brand wobbled alarmingly in her grip. ‘What you did—!’ A sob stopped her speech, as she glared at him fiercely, her shoulders sagging inwards. ‘Haven’t you done enough?’
‘What are you talking about?’ Bruin growled at her. He sat back in his heels, skin creasing between coppery brows. ‘Did you hit your head when you fell? You’re not making any sense!’ Flakes of snow drifted down between them in a lazy spiral, hissing as they hit the torch flame, one by one.
‘How can you forget?’ Fear twisted her voice. A residue of tears clung to her bottom lashes, tiny diamonds sparkling. Beneath the ill-fitting gown that she wore, her chest rose and fell quickly. The light slanted across her eyes, revealing depths of the most astonishing blue: like the shimmering sea at noon, shot through with golden streaks.
Bruin’s heart jolted oddly and he shook his head, clearing his fanciful thoughts. Something was not right here; the maid spoke as if she were acquainted with him, yet he could swear that he had never met her before. He would have remembered. Remembered those beautiful eyes, that sweet oval face. The precise curving line of her top lip.
‘Do you know me?’ he asked brusquely. His voice was husky and he cleared his throat. ‘Or are you muddling me up with someone else?’ Could she have met his brother? It seemed unlikely; his brother had been at the King’s side for the past few years and Edward never ventured this far west.
‘Do you really need to ask that question?’ Her voice was low, halting, as if she were frightened of the answer. The words staggered out of her; she held the muscles in her body taut, almost to the point of collapse, teetering on the brink of unravelling completely.
He loomed over her, this big hulk of a man, tough and intimidating, the man who had terrified her days and nights, until she had finally given in to his demands, exhausted by the days of relentless torment. His hair was more tousled than she recalled, the bronze locks falling forward across his brow. His face was leaner, shadowed furrows slashing down from high cheekbones to his jaw. He was taller.
Wait. Her mind was playing tricks on her. No man would be taller, it wasn’t possible. She tilted her head, sticking her pert nose in the air, and frowned. Embroidered across his tunic was a crest that she did not recognise: black and red lions on a gold background, a crown above. Was she mistaken about this man’s identity? The frantic beat of her heart gradually slowed, the burning brand in her hand giving her confidence. The flame created an effective barrier between them, preventing him from coming any closer. Doubt sifted through her. ‘How did you find me? How? Who told you where I was?’ she asked.
His eyes gleamed like pale frost, a glittering icy fire. Her questions made no sense. ‘No one told me. You ran away; I followed you from the castle.’ Frustration, tightly held, laced his voice.
‘Not now,’ Eva hissed at him. ‘Before. Who told you?’
‘No one told me anything,’ he replied bluntly, dismissing her questions with a cool, detached look. ‘I have never seen you before.’ Uninterest bordered his tone; he glanced pointedly at her leg, the blood on her woollen stocking. ‘I need to take this trap off and stop the bleeding.’ He leaned forward and she thrust the torch out instinctively, a quick vicious movement. She wasn’t sure who this man was, but she had to be careful. There was a crackle and the acrid smell of burning hair.
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ He made an impatient sound between his teeth, almost a snort, plucking the brand easily from her fingers. He stuck it firmly back into the ground, out of her reach. ‘Stop playing games with me.’ His voice was laden with deadly intent.
‘Go away!’ she hissed at him. Vulnerability flooded over her; she wanted to cry at the unfairness of the situation. ‘I would rather have the Devil help me than the likes of you!’ She pushed at his huge shoulders, the mail coat links rippling against her chill fingers, attempting to shove him away, but he was immovable, an enormous, unwieldy rock. She thumped down on his shoulders, small fists banging ineffectually. ‘Don’t you dare touch me!’
Bruin chuckled at the maid’s ridiculous threats, the false bravado threading her voice. Who did she think she was? She spoke as his equal, yet she was only a nursemaid, a lowly servant. Her feisty, combative behaviour should have made him angry, annoyed, but instead he wanted to laugh. Her shrill tone bounced off him like darts against a drum skin. He couldn’t understand why she was so frightened of him and this misplaced fear, obstructive and stubborn, was slowing him down. The quicker he took her back to the castle, the quicker he would be able to undertake his brother’s quest. And time was not on his side; Steffen was dying. He needed to remember that.
The snow was gathering strength, falling more thickly now. He blinked away the flakes stuck to his lashes. With gauntleted hands, he grasped the toothed iron hoops and prised them apart with a snap. Muscles bulged in his upper shoulders, rounding out the tight flex of chainmail. Eva sucked in her breath, a sharp, tearing gasp as pain radiated through her calf.
‘There was no other way,’ Bruin said, watching the tears pool in her eyes. Her cheeks were flushed red, as if the cold air had slapped her.
‘Yes, there was,’ she bit out, a sob stifling her voice. ‘You could have left me alone.’ She wrapped her arms tightly around her middle. The teeth of the trap had ripped ragged holes into her stocking, beneath which her skin was purple, bruised with ugly puncture marks, some bleeding heavily. But she was free, free of the awful iron cage. She tried to move her leg, tentatively, but the pain was too great. Unconsciousness threatened, blurring the edges of her mind, hazy fingers of oblivion eager to drag her down.
‘Out of the question,’ he said, gruffly. ‘No one would leave you out here, on your own. Who do you take me for?’
Him. I thought you were him. Eva cleared her throat, nibbling at her bottom lip. But now, she was almost certain he was not the same man. She took a deep shaky breath, the muscles binding her chest and torso relaxing. Failing to answer his question, she wriggled her hips around awkwardly, crawling on to all fours, intending to stand. The gleaming lions on his surcoat wobbled in front of her vision. Nausea roiled in her belly, a sickening lurch. The air around her loosened, shifted; suddenly she found herself incapable of holding herself upright. She began to tip, slowly, sideways.
‘Careful.’ The man caught her upper arm, supporting her, propping her wilting frame against him.
Her stomach churned dangerously; her forehead was clammy, sheened with a faint sheen of sweat. ‘I’m going to be sick,’ Eva spluttered out in panic. Oh, God, no. Not in front of him!
‘No, you’re not,’ he responded, his low voice close to her ear, the air from his lungs sifting across her skin. ‘Take deep breaths…there.’ Grasping her shoulders, he lifted her so that she was sitting on the ground again. His face was alarmingly close, silver eyes sparkling mere inches from her own. ‘You’ve had a shock. That’s why your head is spinning. You must keep still.’
Eva clamped her eyes tightly together, fighting the rolling waves of sickness, willing her head and stomach to settle. Snowflakes landed on her face, tickling gently. His hands were heavy on her shoulders; she could smell woodsmoke on his skin and clothes. A strange sensation looped through her chest; the muscles beneath her ribs contracted, involuntarily.
Opening her eyes, she pinned her gaze to a muddy streak across her skirts, mouth set in a straight line, determined to show this man that her nausea, her near-fainting, was merely a temporary weakness and not part of her character. ‘Who are you?’ she asked through the drifting snow. ‘What is your name?’
‘My name is Bruin, Count of Valkenborg.’
Not him. Not the same man. Thank God.