A Knight of Honor (9 page)

“It’s the only reason I agreed to travel tonight.
 
No one in his right mind would be out on a night like this,” Jared said.
 
He paused for a moment, thinking.
 
“You know what this means.
 
We sleep in shifts again.
 
In the forest.”

Taylor narrowed her eyes.
 
“Not quite yet,” she murmured.

Jared scowled at her.
 
“What do you have in mind?”

“I plan to teach the arrogant lord a lesson,” Taylor promised.
 
“One he won’t forget.”

Jared groaned.
 
“Sully.
 
You’re only going to make him more determined to find you.”

Taylor pushed the wet hair out of her eyes.
 
“After about a week, we’ll disappear.
 
He’ll never find us,” she said smugly.

“Don’t you wonder what he wanted?” Jared asked.

“No,” Taylor answered curtly.
 
“If he couldn’t tell us from the beginning, it couldn’t be good.”
 
True enough, but part of her couldn’t help but wonder.
 
She just wished she could have been there when he realized she’d gotten the better of him, to see the flash in his handsome blue eyes....
 
What are you thinking? she chastised herself.
 
Handsome?
 
Forget him.
 
You’ll never see him again.

For a moment, she felt strangely sad.

***

“She had a bruised and swollen face, and she was traveling with an older man,” Slane said.

The stable master nodded.
 
“Yeah,” he said.
 
“They were here early yesterday.”
 
He dumped a bucket of feed into a horse’s trough.
 
“They didn’t say much, but they stopped over by the inn.
 
They were gone by midday.”

They’re traveling at night, Slane thought.
 
Just as I would if I were them.
 
He cursed his brother quietly as he walked away.
 
If it weren’t for Richard, he wouldn’t be in this mess.
 
The little vixen was leading him a merry chase.
 
He didn’t have time for this.
 
Elizabeth was waiting for him.

“Which way did they go?” he asked.

“West toward Woodland Hills,” he replied.

“Thank you,” Slane grumbled, leading his horse out of the stables.
 
He looked west.
 
A child ran along the roadside.
 
A farmer led a horse, pulling a cartload of hay down the road.
 
But Slane paid them no attention.

She was heading away from Castle Donovan.
 
She was taking him away from Elizabeth.
 
But he couldn’t stop his pursuit of her.
 
Now it went beyond his debt to Richard.
 
It went beyond his allegiance to his family.
 
She had insulted him.
 
She had wounded his pride.
 
And she was laughing at him.
 
He would find her soon and show her that no one -- no one -- laughed at Slane Donovan.

***

Taylor threw back her head and laughed, her voice ringing out through the woods.
 
The small campfire Jared had lit shone brightly on her face.
 
“So, Slane was in town just yesterday?”

Jared nodded, poking the fire with a stick.

“Well, I must say one thing for him.
 
He certainly is persistent.
 
Any other man would have given up,” Taylor said, lying back on the bed of leaves she had made for herself.
 
“It’s been over a week now.”

“That blacksmith also said that there was another man asking about the ring and the woman who wears it.”

Taylor’s smile faded.

“He said the fellow looked like a mercenary.
 
He wore a sword and quilted armor.
 
I don’t like this.
 
If it were one man...”
 
He shook his head.
 
“But now there’s more than one.
 
I don’t like this at all.
 
Something dangerous is going on here, Sully.”

Suddenly, something shifted just at the corner of Taylor’s vision, a quick flash of movement in the forest.
 
She straightened up, reaching for her sword.
 
“Jared,” she whispered urgently.

Without hesitation, Jared snatched his sword from the ground and faced the dark woods before them.

Taylor quickly got to her feet, putting her back to Jared’s.
 
She held her sword before her, ready for any enemy, her gaze scanning the dark trees, assessing the area with a practiced eye.
 
They waited for something or someone to come out of the darkness.

But there was no movement from the forest.
 
Only the wind rustling the leaves of the trees answered their silent challenge.

“What did you see?” Jared asked.

“Something moved,” Taylor answered, straining to see into the shadows of the night.
 
“Someone’s out there.”
 
She cocked her head, listening.
 
But silence answered her.
 
No crickets chirped, no owls hooted.
 
All the animals had become silent.
 
Her grip tightened on the handle of her sword.

Jared turned and she moved with him.
 
“Maybe it’s just an animal.”

Taylor continued to stare at the shadows.
 
Maybe it was just an animal.
 
A boar, maybe.
 
Or a --

The forest erupted in a cacophony of movement!
 
Figures leapt from the darkness, seeming to come alive from the very trees themselves, men brandishing swords and axes.

Taylor swung instinctively at a man charging straight for her!
 
But the attacker parried, expertly nullifying her blow.
 
She deflected his blow in return and had to spin quickly to block another strike from a second attacker.
 
She feinted and lunged at the first attacker, catching him in the stomach.
 
But her blow bounced harmlessly off metal.
 
They were wearing armor beneath their black tunics!

The second attacker, not much more than a black shadow dancing in the light of the fire, lunged.
 
Taylor knocked the second attacker’s blow aside and lashed out with her booted foot, throwing the first man back as he tried to get near her.

She knew she had precious moments to rid herself of the second attacker before the first one rejoined the fight.
 
She drove forward, attacking the second man relentlessly, swinging, thrusting, lunging.
 
But he blocked all her blows.
 
She gritted her teeth and thrust.
 
Again, the man parried her blow, pushing her blade up away from him.
 
She snapped her wrist down sharply, tipping the blade toward his neck, and used every ounce of strength she had to thrust downward.
 
She was rewarded with a wet gurgle and then the man went down.

They were good, she thought, quickly moving away from the fallen attacker.
 
Too good for robbers or cutthroats.
 
She quickly glanced at Jared and saw him busy fighting off two more attackers of his own.
 
Another lay dead at his feet.

Footsteps came in fast behind her, and she whirled in time to sidestep a blow from the first attacker.
 
She swung her blade again and again, driving him back.
 
Suddenly, he stood his ground and thrust, but Taylor stepped away from the blow, countering with a swing of her own, catching the man’s outstretched hand.
 
He howled in pain, dropping his sword.
 
Taylor kicked the weapon out of his reach and waved her blade threateningly before him.
 
He cast a quick glance at his fallen comrades and abruptly whirled away from her and ran, disappearing into the woods.

Taylor turned to help Jared battle the last man standing.
 
He swung an ax at Jared, and Jared ducked at the last moment, letting the blade whoosh over his head.
 
From his crouched position, Jared thrust his sword.
 
The blade bounced uselessly off of the man’s armor.

Taylor swung at the man, catching him in his shoulder.
 
He yelped and swung the ax sharply at her, but she sidestepped the whistling blade and the ax buried itself into the ground.
 
Taylor lashed out with her foot, kicking the man back.

Jared finished the man with a blow to his side.
 
The blade pierced a gap in the attacker’s armor, and the man froze for a second before plummeting to the earth like a fallen tree.

Taylor whirled toward the forest, looking for any other attackers.
 
But no one emerged.

“Are you all right?” Jared asked breathlessly.

Taylor nodded, turning to him.
 
Her gaze swept her friend for any wounds, but there were none.
 
When her heart stopped racing and she allowed her battle lust to fade, she knelt down by the fallen man and pushed him over onto his back.
 
His face was covered with a black cloth, giving him the unnerving appearance of an executioner.
 
She checked his armor and the coal-black tunic that covered it.
 
She looked up at Jared.
 
“No crest,” she announced.

“What the hell is going on?” Jared demanded.

With one swift movement, Taylor ripped the mask from the man’s face.
 
She had half expected to know him on sight.
 
But she had never seen the face that was revealed.
 
She ran her blade across the mask she held in her hand, wiping it clean of blood.
 
She turned to Jared, her eyes dark with determination.
 
“That’s what I’m going to find out,” she vowed.

CHAPTER SIX

S
lane was surprised at how easily he had been able to track Taylor.
 
At first, Slane had dogged their steps, missing them by only as much as half a day.
 
But by the end of that first week, their trail had suddenly disappeared, as if they had vanished into thin air.

Slane realized with mounting fury that she had been toying with him.
 
She had allowed him to follow her, leading him through dangerous forests and crowded towns.
 
When the game grew tedious, she had simply ended it, leaving him stranded.

For another week, he had hunted for any trace of them, searched, questioned, and analyzed until he was left with no options.
 
Frustrated, disgruntled, and angry beyond rationality, Slane took a room at the Traveler’s Inn.

Now he sat alone in his room, pondering his misfortune within the confines of a large wooden tub.
 
He shifted, moving his body lower in the steaming water.
 
It was hopeless.
 
He grabbed a ceramic pitcher from the floor next to the tub and poured its contents over his head, sighing heavily as the warm water splashed over his body, cleansing the dirt away.
 
He would never find that deceitful wench.
 
He banged the pitcher abruptly against the side of the tub before setting it back on the floor.
 
His anger simmered hotly in his veins every time he thought of how easy it would have been to club her in the head, if only he had known she was the woman he was looking for.
 
The clues had been there -- her strange behavior, her quick knowledge of the ring -- but he had been too blind to see them at the time.
 
Too blind and just too damn stupid, he berated himself harshly.