Scoundrel's Kiss (17 page)

Ada had already abandoned the bathing
room, the last flash of her pale calves disappearing as she shimmied up the
inclined passageway. He twirled the sword to readjust his grip, leaving the
maimed man alive, and cast one last glance around the engulfed room. None of
the other swordsmen remained. The man wearing the de Silva signet ring was
nowhere to be seen, if he yet lived after Blanca's nasty assault.

Too many questions remained unanswered,
making the necessity of that violence even more revolting. He had fought for
their survival, but against what enemies? Why?

Dizziness returned, leaving him
lightheaded after the close-quarters duel. He shook away the questions and
focused on escape. Weapons in hand, he clambered after Ada.

The incline of the passageway became
steeper and more difficult to climb as she neared the light at its end. Ada
lifted her knees and hiked the kirtle up to her thighs to keep it from tangling
as she crawled. Darkness swallowed her courage. She tried not to anticipate
what awaited her upon emerging from those tight, dark confines, hoping to find
only Blanca at the top of the narrow shaft. Blanca, and a little light.

Behind the strip of linen Gavriel had
tied in place, her nose burned and her throat scratched with every breath. She
smelled nothing but smoke, that reeking scent of charred sulfur. No matter how
she tried, she could not clear the thick taste from her mouth.

Wracking coughs overcame her. She
stopped crawling and doubled over, burying her face in her skirts to muffle the
sound. Pain gripped inside her ribs as spasm after spasm stole her breath.
Tears dripped from her eyes. The sudden violence of that cough reminded her of
the sickness she had endured for the past week. She had nearly forgotten its
horrors. Those recent pains and humiliations already seemed distant, like
someone else's struggle. She did not want to go back to being that pathetic
creature.

Catching her breath, she heard the
rustling and panting of a man climbing behind her. The bulk of his body blocked
most of the light from the fire at the tunnel's base, and the light from a
distant exit was not bright enough to illuminate his features. His shuffling
advance was accompanied by a scraping echo from whatever weapons he dragged.
Was it Gavriel? One of the swordsmen? In that dim half-light, she could not
see.

She pulled the dagger from its sheath
and struggled to turn around in the tight passageway, preparing to face that
menacing male shadow. A full-length sword would be useless in there. If she
could get one clean strike, she might have the advantage.

"Put that thing away,
inglesa,
and
keep moving."

She crumpled. Days spent bedridden had
left her fatigued and weak: But his rich voice reached out in the near-darkness
and kept her from losing all fight. The ordeal of their time together made her
eager to prove herself to him. But why? They owed each other nothing.

Yet she wanted to show him that the
pathetic creature he had rescued was not her. Not truly.
She
was more.
And she had not believed such a thing of herself in a very long time.

The dagger back in its sheath, she
wiggled around to face the distant exit and continued to crawl. They shared the
darkness, she and Gavriel, and the darkness did not seem so threatening. His
even breathing followed close behind. The scraping metal that had been such a
menace now offered comfort He was armed No matter what awaited them at the end
of the passage, he would endeavor to protect her.

What a strange novice. And what a
strange thing, to think of trusting him.

Ten feet from the exit, he tapped her
on her calf. She gulped down a startled noise. He held a finger to his lips to
indicate silence, then crooked that finger to beckon her closer. Slowly,
quietly, she angled her ear nearer to his mourn. He smelled of sulfur and blood

"Fast as you can," he
whispered. "Get clear of the opening and find cover. I'll be right behind
you with my sword."

She silently agreed. The anticipation
of danger melded with his warm breath, speeding through her veins.

"But
inglesa,
do not try to
help me. I need to know you'll be out of the way."

She pulled away just enough to see him.
A man of shadows. But the intensity of his eyes burned bright and hot.
Something had let loose inside Gavriel, something bleak and far more
threatening than she could have imagined.

Ada nodded before pressing a quick,
chaste kiss to his roughened cheek. He blinked. His intensity did not dim, but
she felt released from its spell. She smiled, uncertain how much of her face he
could see. "I'll only obey because I feel sorry for you."

"Oh?"

"No chance for a bath. You
would've enjoyed the hot spring."

"Too hot now," he said.
"Ready?"

He jumped free of the opening and
landed in a defensive stance, his sword at the ready. But the room was empty,
entirely empty save Ada and Blanca huddled low to the ground, just to his left.
No soldiers, no furnishings. Only a single window and a waist-high door.
Moonlight illuminated the steady stream of smoke flying free of the window
casing, lending a dreamlike quality to their newest place of refuge.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"Another hiding place for people
who don't want to be found," Blanca said.

He moved to the window and looked
outside. "On the top story?"

Blanca nodded. "Yes, at the rear
of the building. The door leads down to the main baths. This used to be a place
to store belongings for wealthy patrons, but they must have found more benefit
in this secret arrangement."

He stood and watched the dark smoke
funneling out of the secret room and into the night Anyone who yet wished to
find them, no matter the reason, would only have to follow that dark, billowing
line. "We must leave this place," he said. "Gather your
things."

Sword in hand, he slid the blade
between a strap hinge and the wall. Two quick jerks later and his sword sliced
through the leather. He repeated it with the lower strap, opening the door. He
grabbed the torch and glanced back. The women stood at the ready—a most
unlikely complement of warriors. Ada held her dagger and satchel. Smoke and the
filth inside that narrow passageway had stained her kirtle. Blanca used both
hands to lift the bloody mace.

"You cannot use that," he
said.

"No, but I can carry it until you
need it"

He nodded and ducked through the small
doorway. The corridor extended to his left, empty and lit only by the torch he
carried. Dense curtains of cobwebs shuddered as the flames moved stagnant air
laden with dust Low, bare crossbeams jutted from the ceiling to either wall
like ribs, making the narrow space feel even more confined. His instincts
demanded freedom and hasty movements, but he fought those impulses. They would
need calm in order to escape.

The women soon followed him into the
corridor. Ada pushed her back against the half-sized door, which blended almost
entirely with the surrounding wood. Despite what Blanca had said about the
room's original purpose, he suspected it had always been used for subterfuge.

They-encountered no one as they
descended two flights of stairs, silent save the rustling burn of the torch.
Gavriel focused on his breathing lest he become complacent His senses sharp, he
listened for any noise, any threat. But even as they reached the rear exit on
the ground floor, they remained alone.

The focus and intensity he had summoned
to confront even more combatants found no release. Hours of overwhelming
impulses and sickening violence festered in his gut. He should have been
thankful that the necessity for killing had passed. Instead, he wanted to hurl
the sword and beat the bricks.

The image of that last man and his
twisted, ruined leg pricked his mind's eye like a thorn. Then, layering atop
the fresh carnage came the long-buried memory of another killing, that of his
half-brother. He remembered a severed head and the screams of horses. So long
ago. Sancho. Dead by Gavriel's hand.

Without preface or ceremony, he doubled
over and retched. His tolerance for any more temptation or murderous excitement
spilled across the hallway floor. Legs trembling and lungs straining for air,
he dropped to his knees. The sword clattered and the torch fizzled against the
flagstones.

Ada was at his side before he could
tell her to keep way. "Are you injured?"

He wiped his mouth. "Leave me be.
This I ask of you."

Her indecision became a tangible thing,
the shimmering tension of a body locked between staying and going. "I will
not," she said. "I must know if you've been wounded."

Gavriel exhaled, his head bowed low.
She refused even his one small request. He needed a moment of solitude to
better contend with his fresh failures. But still she did not obey. Violence he
had thought exhausted rekindled beneath his skin— violence toward this
woman and his hateful fate as her guardian. Those dark urges were easier to understand
than lust, tenderness, admiration.

Tentative fingers rested on his
shoulder. "Gavriel?"

"I'm not injured."

"Thank you," she whispered,
almost too. softly to hear. "You saved our lives."

He should have shied from her touch,
but he wanted to lean deeper into her offer of comfort He held still,
compromising between desire and his best intentions. "You said thank you,
inglesa,
and your head did not melt."

Chapter 13

"I should have pushed you in the
fire," she said, pulling away.

"Perhaps." Gavriel stood, his
legs aching. "Instead you charged upon two warriors in the midst of a
sword fight, distracting me and putting yourself in danger."

"Warriors? And here I thought you
were a humble novice from the Order of Santiago."

Madre de Dios.

He had not thought of himself as a
warrior in a twelvemonth. To no avail, he wiped sticky hands along his hips.
Blood had fused to his skin like metal to metal.

"Inglesa,
any
of the
guardias
could have taken the opportunity to gut me. You behaved
rashly."

"Forgive me. I hadn't time to
inform you of my plan. I took a chance, one that worked out for the best. And
unlike my offer of thanks, I've heard nothing of the sort from you. Only
mockery."

"How can I thank you if I don't
even know what happened?" The thunder of his voice in that small corridor
made Blanca gasp. He had completely forgotten about the young woman's presence.
"You set the pool on fire? Intentionally?'

She nodded toward their wide-eyed
companion. "I told Blanca to do it My task was to see if you might want to
join us in a fortuitous escape."

"But what happened down there? How
does water catch fire?"

Ada crossed her arms. "Are you
asking because you want to know or because you want another chance to mock
me?"

"Because I want to know."

This time she wore an unexpected smile.
She could be laughing at him and he would not care. That smile was simply too
beautiful. "My sister would've noticed the oil in that pool long before I
did. With enough of it, even water can burn— just like an oil wick."

"How did you know?"

Ada lifted her forearm and pushed back
the sleeve. "Smell," she said, raising bare skin to within inches of
his nose. "That smell like rotten eggs?"

Gavriel looked not at her arm but into
her eyes. With one inhale, he detected the earthy stench of sulfur beneath the
pungent residue of smoke. "Yes."

"And do you see how my arm
glistens? That's what burned, not the water."

Only then did he drop his gaze. Indeed
her skin shimmered in the weak moonlight

"You do this on purpose," he
said, cursing the rough thickness of his voice. "Why? To taunt me?"

'To see what you'll do next
Unpredictable men are entertaining men."

"We're vulnerable here," he
said. "Out now, toward the eastern gate."

Ada peered over his shoulder toward the
abandoned courtyard. Although fleet of guards, the city's nighttime defenses
would stand between them and the freedom of La Mancha.

They may as well have been walking
through a market at midday for what cover could be found.

Blanca nodded to the north. "If we
want horses, we should try the archbishop's stables. A line of shrubs
decorating the perimeter should provide cover beyond the courtyard, and a low
stone wall beyond that."

Ada and Gavriel turned to look at her,
men at each other. She had been so unobtrusive; hearing her speak was like a
statue coming to life or a cat showing an aptitude for language.

Ada smiled at the girl's
resourcefulness, but Gavriel shook his head. "Skulking amongst bushes just
before dawn," he said. "I don't like it."

"Which part of you objects—warrior
or novice?" Ada asked

"If it means escaping Yepes
without further bloodshed, I don't object at all. But we should leave the
horses. We can walk to Ucles if need be."