The Wolfe (100 page)

De Troiu didn’t let go of her even
as she willingly climbed aboard his destrier. Purposely, she mounted facing him.

His booty retrieved, de Troiu let go
of her long enough to grip the reins and prepare for his escape. He had what he
had come for and was jubilantly certain that when she returned to Deauxville
Mount with him, she would want to stay. To hell with de Wolfe. In the end, he
alone would have the final satisfaction of the Scot woman. The champion’s wife
would be his whore and William, if all went well, would be killed by the baron’s
personal troops. ‘Twould teach a lesson to all of England that Daniel de Troiu
was not a man to be denied
anything
. But that was his last coherent
thought before his captive turned into a cold, calculating killing machine.

Jordan flipped up the visor to come
face-to-face with de Troiu’s sky blue eyes. They were the only part of the man
that was vulnerable. What she had to do would take lightning speed and the
courage of a lion. If she hesitated, she would be lost.
Do it!
her mind
screamed.
Do it now!

Gritting her teeth, she brought the
dagger around and plunged the blade as hard as she could into the earl’s left
eye, smacking the hilt with the flat palm of her right hand. Cold, hard steal
plowed through his skull and carved into his brain, searing pain and agony cut
off by nearly instantaneous death.

Blood spurted everywhere, all over
the white skin of her neck and into her hair. De Troiu did not even have time
to scream; he was dead before he hit the ground.

His soldiers, seeing that their lord
was dead, began to scream ‘retreat.’ Jordan bailed off the rearing destrier and
jumped back into the carriage, out of the way of the cursing, screaming,
fighting men. At her feet, de Troiu lay in a growing pool of blood and his men
were trampling his body in their attempt to withdraw. Sickened and terrified,
she turned her face away and pressed into the cold wall of the carriage.

As fast as it started, it was over.
De Troiu’s men retreated back into the woods like hunted rabbits, disappearing.
Jordan turned her face long enough to watch them go, then immediately her eyes
sought William.

He could get to her now. Driving his
horse toward the carriage, William jumped off before the animal came to a stop
and grabbed Jordan to him. She was gasping with panic, clinging to his neck
with a death grip. Holding his frantic wife, he turned to his men.

“We move!” he bellowed breathlessly.
“Take the wounded with us and leave the dead!”

William’s mind was like so much mud
as he moved mechanically toward his horse, just wanting to mount and get the
hell out of there. He could hear Paris and Kieran yelling orders around him,
getting the men and the carriage moving, but at that moment his entire world
was the shaking, sobbing figure in his arms.

“Love, you have to let go of me so
that I might mount,” he whispered.

She continued to gasp loudly as if
she hadn’t heard him. When he tried to put her down, she gripped him harder and
would not release him. Paris rode up beside them and William turned to him,
holding his arms out from his sides to show the captain that Jordan was
supporting herself entirely on her own. Her arms were around his neck and her
face was buried in them, her body trailing down the length of him. It was a
pitiful sight.

There was no way in hell she was
going to let him go.

“Help me, will you?” he pleaded to
Paris in a shaken voice.

Paris vaulted from his horse and
came around, trying to gently pry Jordan from William’s neck. She screamed and
kicked at him, but between the two of them they managed to get William
remounted and Jordan up in front of him. Hastily, the column moved forward.

It was an eternity before Jordan was
rational enough to loosen her hold. Hesitantly, she raised her head from her
protective ball and looked to her husband.

“Are ye all right?” she asked
hoarsely.

He flipped up his visor, his gaze
full of concern and relief. “I should be asking you that question. Did he hurt
you?”

Her eyes welled up and her lip began
to quiver. “I killed him.”

He could not stand it. He ripped off
his helm and it clattered to the mucky ground. Somewhere behind him, one of the
knights dismounted to retrieve it. His gauntleted hand grabbed her head and he
kissed her furiously with the force of his relief. He had never been so scared in
his whole life and he was so damn proud of her. Knowing her feelings about
murder and violence, her bravery had been nothing short of astounding.

De Troiu’s blood was caked all over
her, reminding her with every glance of what she had done. William was
desperate to get his troops out of the woods and into the open where they would
access their wounded and rest for the night. With de Troiu dead, there was
little chance of his troops returning. He was also eager to get Jordan bathed
and calm.

The movement through the trees went
agonizingly slow with the wounded they were carrying. It took most of the
afternoon but finally at sunset they broke through and into a vast, open plain
with sweetly rolling hills in the distance. The sky was gray and threatening as
they proceeded for a few miles before William ordered a halt.

Byron came forth from the carriage,
bag in hand, and immediately began to order the wounded congregated. William
had nearly forgotten the physician was with them and was greatly relieved to
see the little man take things well in hand.

He dismounted, pulling Jordan off
after him. She was dazed, he could see, as she pulled herself away from him.

“I must see to my sons,” she said
wearily.        

Fortunately, the carriage and the
babies were a few short yards away and he watched as she climbed into the coach
and disappeared. Knowing her mind would be occupied and she would be calm for
the moment, he took a deep breath himself to collect himself and began to see
to his men.

After checking on the men who were
mobile and establishing a perimeter patrol, he moved to where the wounded were
being tended. He had been so caught up In Jordan that he had yet to notice just
how many injured they carried.

He could see Byron and Paris
kneeling on the ground, bent over an armored figure. Dread filled him when he
saw that one of his knights was down.

Sir Broderick Marsh was severely
wounded in the abdomen, at the weak point in the armor where the breastplate
met the lower body protection. It was a huge, gaping wound and William could
see that Byron was trying to pack the man’s intestines back into the cavity.

He stood over them as they worked,
knowing there was no way to survive a wound of such magnitude. Broderick was a
young, smaller knight who would not live to see his next day. He was conscious,
however, and his brown eyes found William.

“How is your lady wife, my lord?” he
asked weakly.

William forced a smile. “Well,
thanks to my brave knights,” he said. “’Twas an honor to fight with you,
Broderick.”

Broderick’s pale lips smiled. “My
lord, the honor was entirely mine. I shall be able to tell my grandchildren
that I fought with the mighty Wolf.”

William nodded curtly, turning away.
Not two feet from Broderick sat Corin with Kieran bandaging his shoulder and
upper arm. William frowned at him.

“What in the hell happened to you?”
he demanded.

Corin looked sheepishly. “Caught a
blade in the joint, my lord. Stuck me pretty good.”

Kieran glanced up and smiled at
William, letting him know that the lad would suffer nothing more than a scar
for his troubles. William put his hands on his hips in severely.

“Think not, Corin, that this excuses
you from battle. You will remain fully functional. I will tolerate no sickly
pups in my command.”

Corin smiled. “Aye, my lord.”

William had always found that
sympathy on wounded men was an invitation to self-pity, and that was usually
deadly. He may have sounded callous, but in his experience maintaining a positive,
expectant attitude worked as well as medicine.

He caught movement out of the corner
of his eye and turned to see his wife marching around him and pushing Kieran
away.

“Why dinna ye tell me Corin was
injured?” she demanded. “I would see to him.” With that, she proceeded to
unwrap all of Kieran’s careful bandaging.

Kieran didn’t stop her, instead,
going to stand by William. Jordan inspected the wound and seeing that it was
indeed not life-threatening, cautiously rewrapped it.

William watched her confident
movements, knowing it was all for his benefit and that she was really a quivering
wreck. She was still covered with the earl’s blood and he knew that it had to
greatly disturb her. But he let her go, tending to the wounded, walking among
them and helping Byron dispense his medicines and potions. If it made her feel
better to be busy, then he was content to allow it. But other than a few short
words, she had yet to speak to him since the occurrence.

William hadn’t realized that the
knights had gathered about him, watching Jordan just as he was.

“How does she fare, my lord?”
Michael asked.

“She will be fine,” he replied, not
sure how to answer him.

“She looks as if she has seen the
worst of it,” Marc remarked. “Is that de Troiu’s blood?”

“Aye,” Ranulf replied grimly. He had
seen the whole thing quite plainly. “She was true with her aim and her bravery.
I do not know many women who would have had the presence of mind to do what she
did.”

“Bravest damn thing I have ever seen
a lady do,” Deinwald concurred with conviction. “She ended the melee right then
and there.”

“De Troiu deserved what he got, the
bastard,” Jason said firmly. “I envy Jordan being the one who got to kill him.”

William would hear no more. He broke
away from his men and sought out his wife. Paris and Kieran passed glances at
each other, imagining the depth of emotion he must be feeling at the moment.
Their leader was the consummate warrior, but in the past year he had become a
husband above all. What happened today shook him to his soul.

Jordan was helping Byron tend a
severed finger when William came upon them.

“Come with me,” he said softly.

She looked up at him. “But…Byron
needs me.”

“Nay, he does not,” William reached
down and pulled her up. “Come with me.”

He led her back across the field of
wounded and to a small tent that had been pitched for him. He gently pushed her
inside, bellowing for hot water before he followed her.

“Sit down before you fall down,” he
ordered tenderly.

She sank to the fur pallet that was
there, allowing herself for the first time to feel her fatigue. She had fought
it off for the sake of appearance and duty, but now in private, her exhaustion
overwhelmed her.

“Oh, William,” she grasped her head
in her hands.

His attention was always magnified
when she called him by his Christian name. He continued to watch her lowered
head, standing by the tent opening until a soldier brought him an iron pot of
steaming water. He spoke a few words to the man before he disappeared and
William turned back into the tent.

“Let us wash the blood off of you,”
he said, kneeling down before her.

Using a linen rag, he began to clean
his wife. His touch was as tender, as she knew it to be, as he rubbed off the
dried blood. Her hair proved a little more of a challenge because it was
literally everywhere. He took to rinsing water through it until the water ran
clear.

“Tell me how my sons do?” he asked
softly.

“They sleep,” she replied in a thin
voice. “They slept through the entire battle.”

“I will check on them later,” he
promised.

She smiled a little, watching him
work with huge eyes. “Why did he do it?”

He gazed at her, swallowed up by her
stare. “Because he was a fool.”

“Did he want me that badly or did he
feel that ye shamed him with yer aggressive behavior the night he came to call
on me?”

“Probably both,” William replied,
rubbing at an ugly black clot. “De Troiu was a vain, arrogant man, but I never
believed he was stupid. He had always been a great ally of Northwood.”

She lowered her gaze, wanting this
day to be over with. She didn’t want to think about de Troiu anymore nor talk
about what happened. She just wanted to put it all behind.

The soldier returned then and
William went to the opening, retrieving the bundle in the man’s arms, Jordan
glanced up at it.

“What is it that ye have?” she asked
softly.

He knelt down and unrolled the
package. She immediately recognized her brush, a cake of soap, all wrapped in
her pretty purple satin surcoat.

“I thought you might want to change
out of that dress,” he said, looking at her with a smile.

Sweet Jesu’
, she was lucky to
have him. She smiled back gratefully. “Aye, I would, English.”