The Wolfe (120 page)

Jordan was fast. She chased the two women
back out into the small courtyard where she and Jemma had just come from, gaining
ground on them as they raced down the path veering for the pond. She could hear
William calling her name but she ignored him, wanting to at least get one good
punch in before he dragged her away. And she wanted Miranda. She would teach
the bitch a lesson she would never forget.

The path ended at the pond and for a
brief moment, Miranda and Vanessa were in panicked confusion. Vanessa turned in
one direction and Miranda in the other, but not before Jordan came upon them.
With a flying leap, she tackled Miranda and the two of them went sailing into
the shallow green water of the palace pond.

William came to a halt at the edge
of the water, fighting off the urge to laugh as his wife and Miranda came up
sputtering. Almost instantly, however, Jordan was on the woman and grabbing her
by the hair as she dunked her head under the water once again.

“I told ye what would happen if I
caught ye talking to my husband again!” she hollered In between sputters. Her
luscious hair had algae in it and it clung to her face. “You little slut! I
shall give ye a thrashing ye’ll never forget!”

Miranda’s screaming mouth was
silenced once again as Jordan plunged her head under for the third time. As a
rule, William did not involve himself in female fights, but he would make an
exception in this case.

“Jordan! Cease this moment!” he
ordered, plunging his leather boots into the water and moving for his wife.

She ignored him wholly, now intent
on ramming her knee into Miranda’s ribs as she continued to hold her head under
the water.

“Jordan!” William snapped again.

Miranda’s head came up, gasping for
air and screaming an unearthly howl. Jordan managed to get another knee-jab in
before William had her by the arms, pulling her up.

“Jordan, let go of her hair,” he
ordered. “Let go, I say.”

Jordan’s hand was still entwined in
Miranda’s hair even as her husband pulled her up simply for the pain she knew
it was giving the woman. When William tried to unwrap her fingers, she simply
coiled them tighter and began tugging as hard as she could, grunting and
cursing the woman in Gaelic.

“Dammit, Jordan, I said let go,” he
was still fighting off a smirk, but growing irritated at her refusal to obey
him. “I mean it.”

He managed to loosen her grip and
pull her hand away, but not before his wife had torn out a huge clump of hair.
Miranda screamed and cried and struggled to get out of the pond, falling and
slipping as she clawed her way out.

William had his wife around the
waist, clutched on his hip as he sloshed out of the water. His boots were
ruined as was her dress, but Jordan didn’t give a damn about that. She was
still furiously mad.

“Ye’d better run and hide, Miranda!”
she twisted and shouted in her husband’s grip. “If I see ye again, ‘twill be
worse than this.”

“Enough,” William hissed at her,
clapping a hand over her mouth.

She mumbled and thrashed, still
holding onto the grisly trophy as they came out of the water. Miranda,
fortunately, had the presence of mind to get to her feet and run as fast and as
far away as she could.

William didn’t dare put Jordan down.
Still holding her, and she was quite heavy with the water soaking her surcoat,
he carried her dripping and stiff all the way back to their apartments.

There was no one there and William
wondered briefly how Kieran was faring with Jemma. Knowing Jemma, the women
were probably dead by now. But that was not his concern; at the moment for he
had a very angry wife on his hands.

Jordan was angry, true, but now that
her thoughts had cleared a bit she wondered just how angry William was with her
for the display. Really, she didn’t care much because she had no idea how long
her husband and Kieran had been talking to the women and she felt he had some
explaining to do. For whatever level his anger had reached, she could match and
beat it.

William set her down and water began
to puddle all over the floor. Jordan pushed her hair off her face and turned to
her husband, glaring menacingly at him. He met her look impassively.

“How long had ye been standing there
with them?” she demanded harshly.

He cocked a slow eyebrow. “Not long.
And I do not think I care for your tone much.”

“I do not care what ye do not care
for,” she snapped. “I told ye to stay away from them.”

He was ever cool with her. “In the
first place, madam, you do not give me orders. And in the second place, they
confronted me and I was attempting to politely dismiss them when you came upon
us.”

She started to shake, more with fury
than anything else. “
Politely
dismiss them? I was quite rude with Daniel.
Why could ye not have become rude with them? Dunna ye know that unless ye are
blunt and to the point, they’ll never leave ye alone?” Her eyes suddenly
widened. “Unless…unless ye
like
the attention.” Before he could
respond, she burst into tears and threw the clump of hair she still held at
him. “Then go back and find yer precious Miranda and give her back her hair.
And be sure to be polite to her so she willna think ye a cad.”

She fled into their bedchamber and
bolted the door, crying as loudly as he had ever heard her. He sighed with
regret, moving to the door. My God, the woman could jump to conclusions with
the best of them.

“Jordan,” he jiggled the latch. “Love,
let me in. Please?”

Her response was to cry louder and
he heard something break. It dawned on him that his wife was having a
full-blown temper tantrum and he found himself fighting off the giggles.

“Jordan, unlock the door,” he asked
nicely.

She screamed in Gaelic and something
crashed into the other side of the door and shattered. Things were thumping and
falling as she ranted and cried and yelled and had he not been so concerned, he
would have been on the floor in convulsive laughter.

He could have smashed the door in if
he wanted to, they both knew that. But he didn’t want to, at least not yet. He
knew she was tired from the trip and her pregnancy was affecting her emotions,
and him crashing through the door like a pent-up bull would not help things.

William sighed again and leaned up
against the door, listening to his wife destroy their bedchamber. He reasoned
that as long as he could hear her moving about, she hadn’t hurt herself. So he
waited, an amused look on his face, and listened.

Kieran, with Jemma by the arm,
entered the apartments a few minutes later and William’s eyes widened at the
sight of his wife’s cousin; her dress was torn, her lip cut, and she had a lovely
bruise underneath her left eye.

“Good God, Jemma,” William exclaimed.
“What in the hell happened to you?”

Jemma was still full of venom. “Ye
should see
them
.”

Kieran looked embarrassed and proud
at the same time, if that was possible. He nodded at William to back up his
wife’s statement. “My God, it looked like a battle.”

Jemma froze when she heard Jordan’s
crying. “What’s wrong with her?” she demanded. “Why is she crying?”

William, leaning against the
doorjamb, shrugged lazily. “She is having a tantrum. I am simply waiting until
it subsides.”

“Is she hurt?” Jemma was very
concerned, upset with William’s nonchalant attitude.

“Nay, not a scratch on her.” He held
out his left hand clutching a big rat’s nest of hair. “But she left one of the
women bald on one side.”

Jemma and Kieran stared open-mouthed
at the prize. “Good for her!” Jemma crowed. “She’s a tough one when she sets
her mind to it.”

Kieran chuckled, getting a better
look at the hair in William’s hand. Then he chuckled again. “She did that?” he
asked.

William nodded, noting the disbelief
in Kieran’s question. “Aye, she did. And she was in the process of cracking a
few ribs when I stopped her,” he tilted his head in Jemma’s direction. “How far
did she get before you stopped her?”

Kieran shot his wife a reproachful
glance and Jemma deliberately looked away from him. “She had punched one of
them in the teeth by the time I caught up to them and was laying into the other
one’s face when I pulled her off,” he said. “The one she slugged in the teeth –
what is her name? Charlotte? Lost three teeth at least. There was blood all
over the damn place.”

William, too, shot Jemma a reproving
glance. “Kieran, I think we married a couple of ruffians.”

“Well, ‘tis yer fault.” Jemma shot
back. “Ye shouldna have encouraged them.”

“Encouraged them?” William repeated
with disbelief. “We did nothing of the kind.”

“Ye were talking to them,” she fired
back. “Ye should have ignored them and walked away. They are not worthy of yer
attention, either one of ye.”

William and Kieran passed glances at
one another; there was no use arguing. Then William realized that things had
gotten very quiet inside his bedchamber. He put his ear against the door and
listened, but heard nothing.

“Jordan?” he called softly. Hearing
no reply, he rattled the latch again. “Jordan? Answer me.”

Nothing. His initial puzzlement
began to turn to creeping apprehension. What if she had hurt herself and lay
bleeding, unconscious, on the floor at that very second? She had broken quite a
few things and he knew sharp edges were everywhere.

He shook the door harder. “Jordan,
dammit, answer me or I shall break this door down.”

His wife did not reply. Seized with
a great fear that she had somehow hurt herself, however unintentional, he took
a few steps back. Bracing himself, he struck out a heavy booted foot and kicked
the door at the stress point where the wooden bolt would have been. The door
cracked and popped, but didn’t give.

“Kieran, help me,” he motioned for
his second.

Kieran’s strength was incredible.
With their combined shoulders, they charged at the door again only to hear it
crack once more but still remain closed. Grunting with effort, they did it two
more times before the bolt on the other side finally snapped and the door went
flying open.

The two of them went stumbling into
the room with their momentum as the door opened, stepping on glass and broken
porcelain. William was gravely concerned for his wife and he immediately spied
her on the bed, sprawled on her stomach.

He rushed over to her in a panic
only to discover that amidst the screaming and yelling and crying, she had
fallen into an exhausted sleep.

Kieran was hovering over his
shoulder as Jemma ran into the room.

“She’s asleep,” William said, relief
flooding his veins.

“She slept through
that
?”
Kieran asked in disbelief.

William straightened up and ran his hand
through his thick hair. “Hell, man, I have seen her sleep through worse,” he
said, moving back around the bed and looking at the mess. “Damn, she did a job
on this room.”

“William, she’s all wet,” Jemma
pointed out. “She will catch a cold.

He turned to look at his wife again,
“Aye, I shall get her out of that surcoat. It’s ruined, anyway.”

“Why is she all wet?” Jemma wanted
to know as Kieran grabbed her hand and gently led her out through the minefield
of broken glass.

William didn’t answer her. Kieran
took Jemma into their bedchamber and closed the door, leaving a bit of privacy
for William and Jordan.

William went back over to his wife;
he knew what would wake her. He sat down on the bed next to her and instantly
she stirred. Her eyes flew open and she looked up at him with a sort of glazed look.
He smiled gently.

“You have got to get out of that wet
dress,” he said softly.

She blinked and sat up and he could see
she was still upset. Silently, she reached around her back and undid her stays,
batting his hands away when he attempted to help her. All by herself she moved
off the bed and let the dress fall around her ankles, stripping off her soaked
undergarments as well until she stood stark naked. She kicked the dress against
the wall and moved to the big wardrobe.

“I would not do that if I were you,”
William warned, referring to the broken glass on the floor.

She ignored him and retrieved a
pretty purple satin robe, wrapping it about her before moving back toward the
bed. Surely, on her very last step she came down on a piece of glass and let
out a yelp of pain.

William stood up and put her gently
on the bed. “Let me see,” he held her foot up in front of his face as she lay
back on the bed, still eyeing him with a pout.

“Jordan, quit looking at me like
that,” he said, plucking out the piece of glass and then meeting her stare. “I
am sorry you are upset, love, but I did not do anything intentionally. You know
me better than that.”

She turned away from him. “Aye, I
do,” she said in a small voice. Then she looked at him again. “But I also know
that I am fat and ugly and those women are more desirable than I am.”