Conqueror (11 page)

He looked at her doubtfully. At the moment, balance seemed a credible accomplishment. Her hair lifted in the winds that surged amid the tree trunks, and her torso angled distinctly sideways. Her face was intent and childlike as she tried to smooth the wrinkles from her once-fine gown, and the whole scene sending a wave of such lust and unexpected tenderness washing through him that he felt weak.

This was madness. Enchanted she was, aye, like a demon, and he was furious for being cast in her spell. He reached for the anger like a drowning man.

“So what is it to be, mistress?” he asked curtly.

Gwyn continued brushing off her dress, her mind reeling. His question made the world tilt. Said in that husky, masculine rumble, hard-edged and taut with restraint, it didn’t speak of what he
had
done, it bored straight into her soul and whispered of what he was going to do.

What she would have let him do.

She stuffed her fingers in the folds of her dress and stared at the ground. Churning belly or no, she wasn’t so far gone to misunderstand that being wrapped in his arms was more dangerous than encountering sword-wielding foes on deserted highways. All they could do was assail her body. Pagan was reaching in deeper than that, channeling straight into the recesses of her soul and tapping the Ache.

She need fear much more than ravishment.

She swallowed thickly. She must keep her distance from him. The night was more spirit-filled than she could have imagined, and they were impish, mischievous, meddling things. King’s feasts and mysterious knights, besieged castles and sword fights. And kisses. Searing, passionate kisses that stoked straight down into her soul.

Far,
far
away.

“What is
what
to be?” she snapped, sounding as irritated as he.

A slow smile spread across his features. It was dark and dangerous. “I’ve mentioned an inn.”

“And I’ve mentioned an Abbey.”

“And do you insist, we shall wander the forest towards the monks’ retreat, encountering more danger as the night progresses, growing stupider as each hour passes.”

She drew herself up and filled her lungs with air. “Speak for yourself, sirrah.”

He shot her a dark look. “I am.”

The air left, deflating her. “Oh.”

“But this is not the time for a wolf’s head to be roaming the forests. Nor is the middle of a tempest,” he added ominously. His words were snatched by winds that were lifting into occasional gusts around them. Cold-edged, powerful gusts that smelled of rain. “Or, we can go to the inn, wash your wounds, tend your head, get some food and rest, and awaken with fresher minds and smoother tempers.”

“Your temper has not been so rough,” she said meekly, twisting a bit of torn fabric in her hands.

“I was not speaking of me.”

“Oh.”

“So what shall it be?”

She looked at him skeptically. “I don’t know of any inns in these parts.”

He sighed, a defeated sound. “I do.”

She stood in damp indecision, hope and suspicion strangling each other.
He would help her…he had just killed four men…she was not alone…in her defence…he was tunneling into a reservoir of dangerous emotions…his eyes…

She stared at a wet leaf pasted overtop her slipper. He was crouched on his heels beside the horse’s leg and brushed dried clumps of mud from the fetlock. Black boots rode up the length of his corded calves, and the tightly packed muscles of his thighs bunched beneath the chausses he wore. Against the purple-green forest, he was an outline of dark danger. And her only hope.

“We will go to your inn.”

Griffyn blew out a silent gust of relief, but looked askance when she strode to Noir and tried to mount without assistance. Her hand clasped over the horse’s withers, her foot fumbling for leverage on a downed tree. It was slippery with moss, but when he approached, she scowled so fiercely over her shoulder that he stepped back and crossed his arms to watch. The horse was almost seventeen hands high and towered above her like a small castle. He was also being remarkably patient.

Griffyn’s jaw tightened when she slipped. “Lady?”

“The world is not what I thought it to be,” she muttered, as if he’d asked a question to which that would be a fitting reply, and scrambled up Noir’s side.

Her head disappeared for a few moments in the trees and when she emerged, she had two or three sticks protruding at odd angles from her curls. Matted leaves lay flat on her shoulders, with one particularly wet clump lodged in the cleavage of her dress. She removed it with scornful dignity, her eyes fixed straight ahead.

He shook his head, took up the reins and clucked to Noir.

They walked in silence for a long time before either of them broke it. Not surprisingly, he noted crossly, ’twas she.

“Where are you taking me?”

He barely glanced over his shoulder. “I told you, Guinevere: an inn.”

She offered him an arched brow, which he saw even through his sidewise attention. “And I told you,
Pagan
: I know of no inns along this stretch of highway.”

“Perhaps,” he admitted, “’tis a bit off the highway.”

“A long bit, by the look of it. We’ve been riding for half an hour.”

“You’ve been riding, and it’s been nearer an hour.”

She raised her eyebrow another notch. “You may have your beast back.”

“We’re almost there.”

“Where?”

“Duck,” he said, and without looking back to see if she had, he did, bending his head beneath a low-lying tree branch. When he lifted it, they were in the centre of a clearing.

An old, disused path meandered away into the ferns at the far side. In its centre rose the battered remnants of a single building, huge and hulking, its wood and wicker walls half torn away. Only the stone portions stood, and even they were crumbling.

Gutted by fire and looters, most of it was only a half-shell now. Towards the back of the edifice, three gloomy stories rose, squatting sullenly over the crippled forebuilding. In a few windows yellow candlelight glowed, looking like gaps where the eerie maw had already lost its teeth. In the dark night, the battered structure looked sinister and imposing and almost alive.

He heard a sharp intake of breath from behind. His stallion threw his head in the air and sidestepped.

“Easy, Noir,” he murmured.

She was staring. “I thought you said you were taking us to an inn.”

“’
Tis
an inn.” He gestured with his hands for her to slide off into them.

“That,” she insisted in a squeaky voice, pointing, “is not an inn.”

“An inn houses travellers, no?”

She started to nod, then stopped. Her head fell to the side as she studied him. “No. I mean, yes.”

“Well, then,” he said, as if that settled the matter.

Extending his hands, he held them up again. She gave him a disdainful glance and, untying the bulky pouch she had tied around Noir’s saddle, she disappeared over the far side of the destrier. Noir kicked out with his hind hoof, barely missing her. From under the stallion’s belly, he watched her small slippers stumble to the front of the horse, where he met her with a cool glance.

“You’re determined to lose or injure every body part before the night is through, is that it?”

“Humph,” she snorted.

Injury to her body was the least of Gwyn’s worries at the moment. Much more worrisome was the thudding inside whenever Pagan looked at her. It harkened back to the Ache. Only this, while it lodged in the same places—heart, womb—did not lie on top like a smothering rag. It was different.

Dangerous.

“Humph,” she said again, and crossed her arms over her chest.

Every muscle in her body was sore. The autumn winds had thoroughly chilled her damp fingers and toes. Her clothes were beginning to dry in mud-caked wrinkles, and she was so addled by his kiss she could barely think straight. She stared at the façade of the building, pretending he wasn’t staring at her profile. “So, where is the innkeep?”

Just as she spoke, a man came hurrying out to them. Pagan lengthened his stride to meet him halfway across the clearing and she watched as they spoke swiftly, unable to hear the hushed conversation. The man reached out and took Noir’s reins, then disappeared into a far building.

A moment later, a pair of men rushed out of the crumbling building and into the stables. They raced out on horses a moment later and, lifting their hands to Pagan as they galloped by, disappearing into the woods.

Pagan returned, his face set in grim lines. “Come.”

“The innkeep?” she queried in an innocently sweet tone.

He did not look amused.

“And the servants, I suppose?” She smiled brightly, nodding to where the men had ridden away under the eaves of the forest.

He turned on his heel and walked towards the crumbling building.

Her gaze bored into the broad expanse of his retreating back with evil intent, but he did not seem to feel her enmity. Nor did he seem to care she was still standing there. He neither turned nor slowed.

Sighing, she followed him, tracing an erratic line through the high, mist-strewn grasses on one heeled and one unheeled slipper. “Methinks they must hurt for business, set so far from the highway,” she huffed in a loud and irritable voice.

“They’ve patrons enough,” was his curt reply.

She sniffed. “How fortunate.”

She continued on, arms wrapped around her body, fingers clutching the satchel with her father’s love letters in them. She dared not think any further back than the past half hour. What could she do about any of it just now?

She began threading her fingers through her tangled hair as they tramped through the long, wet grasses, but her fingers shook. Everything was warped, and even the earth beneath her felt wobbly.

As for Pagan, he had turned from an engaging, mysterious saviour into a dangerous, sensuous rake, then into a close-lipped beast of a man in about as long as it would take to fill a bathtub. And now she was at a remote inn with him. Wonderful. What joys still awaited her this evening?

It started to rain.

It came down in torrents, as if the heavens had grown weary of their load and decided to leave it to the earthbound creatures to manage. A bright flash of lightning seared the heavens and a few moments later thunder fell through the crack, rolling and pitching as it came. Hard darts of rain slanted from the sky, driving wet pellets into their eyes and between the folds of their clothing. They entered the building with water streaming from their fingertips.

Pushing back her hood, Gwyn heard voices spilling through the walls, but saw no one. Laughter and jocular voices rose momentarily from a far room, then fell away again. The place was clean, she decided, with wide, open spaces. Even the stairs were broad, not close and curving like the Nest. Odd that no travellers were in sight, but it seemed well-tended enough to serve for the night.

From out of the shadows peered a small, feminine face. For the only human in sight, it was strange indeed to have her gaze at them from the shadows, as if she didn’t want to be seen. She smiled at Gwyn, who returned the gesture, feeling odd. Then her face turned to Pagan. “My lo—”

“We need a bath,” he said firmly, propelling Gwen up the stairs in front of him. “The innkeeper’s wife,” he said when she angled her head around in mute enquiry.

They climbed the rest of the way in silence, passing through a darkness alleviated by a series of torches set in iron cressets bolted to the walls. The light was soft and welcoming, if the shadows a bit eerie. Her silhouette was short and squat, then long and jagged, but always, plastered on the wall above her head, Pagan’s shadow was the darkest thing about.

“My room,” he said at her back, gesturing to a door at their right.

She stopped short. “And where am I to stay?”

“These are the only rooms.”

She chose to neither reply nor move, waiting instead until his thigh brushed against hers as he strode ahead and pushed open the door.

Someone had prepared for his return, and Gwyn couldn’t stifle a relieved sigh when she poked her head through the doorway. The rooms were small and clean, holding an antechamber and, in the distance, a bedchamber set mostly in darkness. The doorframe was low, so low Pagan had to stoop as he entered. Wicker walls reflected a golden glow from the fire burning in a brazier, and dark red tapestries, worn but clean, covered two walls.

Through a small doorway hung with another faded tapestry she spied a bed piled with a mountainous covering of furs. She sighed again, feeling a tiny bit of hard-packed tension ebb from her shoulders. She swung her neck in a small circle, stretching it.

“First, a bath,” he said.

Her shoulders hunched back up.
“What?”

A knock came at the door. Pagan opened it and in came a short succession of servants bearing a round, fat tub and steaming buckets. How did he arrange such a thing so quickly? In no time a bath was ready and the room empty again but for her and Pagan.

She stared at the tub, her back to him. She was not going to look at him. No, because she knew as surely as her head hurt he’d be staring at her with that steely-eyed stare, or, worse yet, smiling that small, heart-shattering grin. And then the thudding would begin.

She heard his bootsteps start towards the door. “Sir, might I…?” she said. His boots stopped moving. “You mentioned a messenger?” she said directly to the wall.

“I will arrange for it.”

She half-turned her head. “But…all the way out here?”

“The innkeeper’s son serves as a courier at times. He will take your message.”

“Oh.” Steam from the tub rose against a backdrop of red tapestries. She could feel his presence behind her, standing motionless, watching her. She sucked her lip in between her teeth.

“Guinevere.”

“What?” she mumbled.

“Get in.”

The edge of the sloshing, steaming tub warranted all her attention. She could barely rip her gaze from it. “You…you…”

“Are leaving.” The door squeaked open. “But I’ll be back.”

She jerked her head around, but he was already gone.