‘Should we send out two more?’ Nicholas asked. Though he knew Nicholas was circumspect, Rhain looked around from where they sat. They’d stopped the horses to rest and stretch, and most of the men were throwing daggers at targets. Helissent had left for the woods and would soon return.
‘We send any more men, they’ll be noticed. York is merely days away. We’ll meet halfway before we run into any trouble.’
‘You think there will be trouble?’
Rhain took out his mother’s necklace and let the silver strands slide from one hand down to the other. Back and forth until in the afternoon light it looked like water.
‘Reynold shouldn’t know we’re anywhere near this part of England, but York is large and there are many places to hide if he lies in wait for me.’
‘But not for me?’ Nicholas said blithely. ‘The way you cut me out of the discussion, I could get my feelings hurt.’
‘Who cares for your feelings when it’ll save your head?’ Because he could, Rhain gazed pointedly downward until Nicholas and he laughed.
And it felt good.
‘We haven’t talked like this since…’ Nicholas stopped, shook his head.
Rhain’s laughter left him. ‘Are you going to mention her again?’
‘No, it changes your mood of late. You’re growing surly on me.’
Surly was a mild word for the raging of emotions clashing inside him. He’d begun training again if only to release some of the tension. It didn’t help when Helissent watched.
‘Perhaps some of that mead will help. Do we have any of it left?’
‘From Tickhill?’ Rhain lifted a shoulder. ‘I doubt we’ve drunk it all in the half a day since we left.’
‘I don’t trust the men from Flanders. They keep leaving to hunt food. Who knows what they’re pilfering?’
‘We’re eating their food, and you think they have time to steal?’
‘Then we could have a celebration of sorts.’
‘A celebration when there’s a madman after us and you and I will soon be dead?’
‘Yes, precisely for that reason. Danger’s always a good reason to drink.’ Nicholas exhaled roughly. ‘I could use some mead now.’
Rhain recognized that tone. ‘You are talking of her.’
‘You did take her again.’
He owed Nicholas an explanation though he didn’t know what the explanation would be. ‘You were there this morning—you think I had a choice?’
‘There is always a choice. You thought to leave her at Tickhill, and then you didn’t.’
‘How do I not know that Reynold is riding mere days behind us? I couldn’t leave her undefended.’
‘You used that argument when you sent riders ahead of us to watch for Reynold. Come, you used to be more quick of tongue and mind. Surely you can conjure a stronger argument than that.’
Rhain stilled his hands. ‘We’re not working with a logical man, why should my moves be logical?’
‘Well, at least you admit to being illogical.’ Nicholas paused as they watched Helissent emerge from the woods only to bend down around the trees.
At this angle, Rhain could see none of her scars, only the beauty she was born with and she had copious amounts. From her tall slender form to the delicate upturn of her nose and the stubborn tilt of her chin. Now that he knew her story, he knew her true beauty was revealed by her scarred side. Her true worth was somewhere in the very heart of her.
He’d wanted to taste her lips, to steal a kiss. He’d made his want all the worse when he agreed to listen to her story.
Nicholas’s eyes tracked Helissent’s progress with the herbs. ‘Though I still can’t perceive why you’ve refused the other women, at least with her, I appreciate why you won’t let her go.’
Was he so transparent? His interest in her kept increasing, from that moment he opened the inn’s door and tasted her cakes. Then that last night in the village. While rage still seethed through his veins from Rudd, desire coursed through his very marrow as he tended her injuries and watched her eyes darken in candlelight.
Fascination. Desire. More than he’d felt in years, more than he’d felt ever. Still, because of Reynold, because of who he was, he should have walked away.
Except now she’d told him how she rushed into her flaming home to rescue her sister. It only took a few words for his resolve to weaken. His fascination and desire turning to need. He struggled not to find excuses to be alone with her. He failed every attempt to not track her with his eyes.
‘I’ll let her go, just as I have the others.’ Though to let her go now would be equivalent to him stopping his own breath.
The irony was not lost on him. He was a dead man anyway. At least by letting her go, she might live.
Nicholas’s watchful gaze was both warning and triumphant. ‘So sure of that?’
Rhain clenched the necklace in his hands. He’d handled it more now than he ever had in five years and knew he did it to remind himself.
He might need Helissent now, but he was not worthy of her. His very blood would taint her. ‘York will be her new home, but it won’t be ours.’
* * *
It was only the end of the first day away from Tickhill, and the air was laden with Rhain’s remarks, his studying amber gaze and his shadows.
Carlos was still attentive, but more reserved. His eyes darted to Rhain every time she asked about the burn on his arm. Which made her contemplate more on the words they exchanged that day in the garden.
It had sounded like a warning, something territorial. It felt territorial to her now once she combined his remarks with Carlos’s politeness and Nicholas’s secretive behavior.
Nicholas who equally smirked and watched her as carefully as she had her cakes when she first began baking.
But all of it, even as busy as she was gathering kindling, cooking, through it all, she watched Rhain.
Alone outside Tickhill, he didn’t bother with the hood. She should be getting used to the graceful litheness of his body, the angle of his jaw, the warm hue of his skin, but it wasn’t possible. It was like getting used to a combination of ingredients that should have been ordinary: a nose, lips and shoulders. But somehow with him, combined, he was something sublime. Like when he walked or simply ate, or when he touched the hilt of his dagger at his waist.
The grace and competence of it fascinated her. It wasn’t a nervous gesture, nor one that seemed to reassure him, but something born of habit, a part of him.
He was acutely effective at it and it compelled her to watch.
How he separated his fingers so that each one felt the length of the three leather-ribbed strips circling the hilt.
Then his hand would still and his forefinger would arc to the hilt and caress the well-worn metal pommel. Around, around, around.
Always three times as if to inspect the rounded hilt and sides. All the while the rest of his hand would stroke upwards and his fingers would meet again. Before he’d finish, he’d cup his hand along the top and rub like a ritual.
Sometimes that same hand would do nothing at all, just rest on the edge of a chair arm. Most days he’d simply use it to tear his bread or throw his cloak over his shoulder.
His ritual was never over for her. Hours afterward the caress thrummed and vibrated through her. At night she only needed to remember and a wave of heat would arc through her.
She knew she’d never feel such a caress from him. Though something was different when it came to him. There was enough silence in the day for her to wonder about it. Perhaps it was how he and the other mercenaries treated her.
For the first time in her life, and on several occasions now, she’d forgotten she was scarred and full of shame. It was a revelation to her, but it didn’t change the facts. She did have scars, she did carry shame.
And she didn’t deserve to forget no matter how much she was beginning wonder, or long for caresses. As soon as they reached York and other people cringed from her, she’d be brutally reminded of who, and what, she was.