Champion of the Heart (19 page)

“I never turned my back on you. I –”

“You left us. You left me!” Fox hollered. “Without even so much as a farewell.”

Jordan was shocked at the vehemence in his voice.

“How can you say you never turned your back on me?” Fox continued, his tone hot.

Jordan frowned, then gestured toward Fox with an open palm. “I tried to help you. I did everything in my power to get your title and lands back. I wrote the king, I –”

“You did everything but remain my friend,” Fox ground out. “That was too difficult for you, wasn’t it, Jordan? You promised I wouldn’t lose you, that you would always be with me. But you lied.” He turned away from her, moving past her to the shuttered windows.

Hurt by the pain she heard in his voice, Jordan felt guilt weigh heavily about her shoulders. “You have no right to accuse me of that. It wasn’t I that refused to see you.”

“It certainly wasn’t I that left the castle without a word.” He slammed the shutters closed with a bang.

Jordan felt desperation burn in her heart. She approached Fox, standing before him, making him face her. “Father commanded me to denounce you,” she said softly. “He wanted me to have nothing further to do with you.”

“You did that all right, didn’t you?”

Jordan frowned at Fox. His words were not making any sense to her. “But I went against his wishes, Fox. You know that. I wrote you letter after letter.”

Fox nodded, his eyes narrowing. “Just like you wrote the king?” His lip curled in contempt. “I never received any letters from you.”

Shocked by his response, Jordan could only stare in silence. He hadn’t received her letters! But... what had happened? She had given the letters to Evan, who swore he would deliver them. Why had he told her Fox refused to take her letters?

Fox read into her silence. “Caught in your own lies!” he snapped. “I have heard enough. You and Vaughn belong together.” He whirled and stormed toward the door, but then paused once more to glare at her. “And have no fear. You will not escape this room.” He shut the door with a resounding thud.

Jordan sat heavily on the bed. Fox had never received her letters. He hadn’t refused to see her. He hadn’t even known she wanted to see him all these years.

The fact that he hadn’t refused to see her should have relieved her, but instead she felt a horrible churning in the pit of her stomach.

Why had Evan lied to her?

***

Letters, Fox scoffed as he stormed toward the meal room. His fists were clenched tight, his jaw ground. There had been no letters. No letters to him, no letters to the king on his behalf. She was an unfaithful liar. He should want nothing to do with her.

As he stormed down the hallway, he saw Beau at the door leading into the meal room.

“Is she all right?” Beau asked as Fox neared.

“Just fine,” Fox retorted shortly and swept past him into the room. He paced for a moment, then sat heavily on a stone bench.

“Fox, might I suggest this might be the wrong way to go about getting your title and lands back?”

Fox lifted burning eyes to Beau.

Beau grinned and held up his hands defensively. “Or it might be a perfect way to do it.”

“It’s the only way,” Fox said. “Jordan is my only chance at getting what was stolen from my father.”

“Your meeting with Vaughn is tomorrow night,” Beau said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Do you really expect him just to hand over the lands?”

“No,” Fox admitted.

“Then what will you do?”

Fox sighed. He rubbed at his temples, closing his eyes. “I don’t know yet.”

“Have you considered it might be a trap?”

“I would expect that traitorous Vaughn to do no less.”

“Then why not let me and Pick accompany you?” Beau sat beside him. “At least that way you might come back without a sword in your back.”

“I need you here to watch Jordan, especially now that Michael has returned.”

“Scout can –”

“I need Scout out patrolling the north.” When Beau opened his mouth to reply, Fox added, “And Pick needs to patrol the south.”

A moment of silence passed between them.

Finally, Beau shook his head, voicing both their concerns. “I don’t like this, Fox. I don’t like this at all.”

A
fter a fitful night of little sleep, Jordan watched out the window as the rays of the sun stretched over the walls of the castle. Long ago, when she had first known Fox, she couldn’t understand why he liked this room so much. The view was anything but spectacular. There was nothing to see, only stone walls and a glimpse of the countryside beyond. From her spot at the window, she could see the stone archway of the inner gatehouse and, beyond that, the rusted portcullis of the outer gatehouse. Then she remembered long ago Fox’s telling her why he liked this room so.

“You can see who comes in,” he had told her. “If I don’t like any of my father’s visitors, I can hide and not see them all day.”

Jordan imagined Fox used the room for much the same reason now, keeping a wary eye out for unwanted guests.

The door opened and Scout entered, carrying a trencher of food. She placed it on the bed. Jordan frowned at her. The woman was always so quiet in her presence. Eerily, uncomfortably quiet.

Jordan’s gaze moved past the enigmatic woman to the doorway where Mary Kate stood forlornly, her little hands clenched before her, her large brown eyes gazing at Jordan. Her gaze swung to the trencher on the bed, then quickly back to Jordan.

Jordan lifted her gaze to Scout to say something to her about Mary Kate, but the woman was already moving toward the door. Jordan quickly waved for Mary Kate to enter. Mary Kate looked at Scout then hurried into the room. Scout seemed not to notice. She closed the door behind her as she departed the room, leaving Mary Kate behind like some forgotten piece of baggage.

Jordan sat on the bed and glanced at the food. A piece of bread and some porridge. Despite the hunger gnawing at her belly, the fact that the bread from the previous night was still sitting heavy in her stomach left her more cautious about jumping right into the meal. Jordan wondered if the cook used iron to make the bread.

She lifted the trencher to her lips, but stopped short as the little girl pulled herself onto the bed and sat at the far edge of it. Her gaze was still wide and uncertain, the expression on her small face making her look as though she were ready to flee at any moment.

The nearness of food to her mouth was too much for Jordan to resist and she continued to raise the hard crust of bread to her lips, taking a sip of the porridge the trencher contained. It was cold and too thick, but it was better than nothing. She placed the trencher back on the bed and noticed the girl was still watching her with those wide brown eyes with a fearful silence.

“Would you like some?” Jordan asked.

Mary Kate looked at her and then looked at the food. She nodded.

A head full of knots and brambles. Jordan was sure of it from the looks of the child’s matted hair. Poor girl, she thought. She obviously has no one to take care of her.

Jordan picked up the bread and struggled to tear a piece off. It was so hard she felt guilty giving it to Mary Kate, but the poor thing looked so hungry. She held it out to Mary Kate and the girl practically snatched it from her hand.

Jordan watched her gnaw at the hard bread. “Didn’t you eat this morning?” she asked.

Mary Kate shook her head. “There wasn’t enough,” she answered around a mouthful of bread.

Jordan looked down at the trencher of porridge. There wasn’t enough for a child? She pushed the trencher toward Mary Kate. “You can have it. I’m not that hungry.”

Mary Kate lifted rounded eyes to Jordan. She inched closer on the bed and reached out a hand to take the trencher.

Jordan grinned at her, but there was no warmth in her smile. Not enough food. She saw how thin the girl was. “You should eat every day, Mary Kate,” she told her softly.

“I know,” she said. “Fox told me I have to or I might get sick again. But my mother needs to eat more than I.”

Jordan clenched her teeth. What mother would deny her child food? But she knew no matter how cruel parents were, a child would always defend them, so she didn’t press the subject. “You were sick before?”

Mary Kate nodded. “Once. I had the fever.”

Jordan’s heart missed a beat. “The fever?” Maggie had the fever. It had killed her.

Mary Kate nodded and put a piece of bread into her mouth. “Fox said I almost died.”

Jordan stared hard at the girl, trying to mask her disbelief. How had Mary Kate not perished when Maggie had? “When?”

“A little bit ago,” she said, concentrating on chewing the food.

Jordan couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. “What happened?”

Mary Kate lifted her large brown eyes to Jordan. “Fox got some herbs for me.”

Jordan’s chest constricted as she stared at the girl and tears welled in her eyes. Fox had stolen Maggie’s herbs to save Mary Kate. Jordan covered her mouth and turned away to hide her incredulity. Maggie’s life for Mary Kate’s. Fox hadn’t done it to get back at her, or take vengeance on Evan. He had stolen them to save Mary Kate’s life.

Damn you, Fox Mercer, she thought. You aren’t the cold-hearted outlaw you pretend to be, are you? There’s still some of the Fox I knew inside you somewhere.

“Are you all right?” Mary Kate asked.

Jordan slowly looked back at Mary Kate, but found the strange mixture of relief and sorrow left her unable to speak. All this time, Jordan had thought he stole the herbs for some selfish, vengeful reason, perhaps even to spite her. But that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

With a saddened heart for Maggie, Jordan knew she would have done exactly what Fox had to save one of her children.

Suddenly, there was a tugging at her elbow. Jordan lowered her gaze to find Mary Kate sitting beside her. The child lifted one of her hands and held out a piece of bread to her.

Jordan smiled and laughed. She wanted to embrace the little girl, but held back her emotions because she didn’t know what would happen if she let them loose. Maggie died so this little girl sitting so innocently before her could five. Was her life more important than Maggie’s? Did her life justify what Fox had done?

Jordan did not know the answers, and she knew she would never have an answer that would put the questions to rest. Instead, she took the bread from Mary Kate and gently stroked her knotted hair.

She had misjudged Fox. As he had her. Perhaps there was still time... to make a friendship.

***

The fire in the hearth of the Harvest Moon Inn was slowly dying, the final flames nothing more than weak sputters. Outside, visible through a small window in the wall near the hearth, the moon had long since risen in the sky and was well overhead.

^“
Where is the varlet?” Evan whispered to a man sitting at a table behind his. “It is almost midnight.” His gaze swept the room imperiously.

The innkeeper was leaning against the doorframe of a rear room, almost falling asleep. Another one of Evan’s men sat alone at a far table, clutching a mug of ale in his hand. Behind him sat a group of hooded monks -- monks who wore chain mail beneath their robes. They were his men as well, all waiting to spring the trap. They had arrived well before dusk, the scheduled meeting time.

But the Black Fox had yet to arrive.

One of the monks threw back the last drops of ale in his mug and then stood, moving toward the door. Evan watched the man step outside and then thought of doing the same thing. It had been hours since he had relieved himself, and his bladder was full from all the ale he had consumed. But he quickly dismissed the thought. He would take no chance on missing the Black Fox’s arrival, no matter how slim that chance might be.

The logs in the hearth sputtered again, growing ever weaker as the minutes passed, until the last flame spit out a final spark and then died completely. Gray-white smoke drifted up from the charred embers.

“He is not coming,” Evan finally announced and stood up.

A small boy rushed into the inn, but Evan paid him no mind. He began to pace before the cold hearth. The insolent cur, Evan thought. Coward.

The boy stopped at his side. “Excuse me, sir, but are ya Sir Vaughn, strongest knight in all of England?”

Evan looked down at the boy as he nearly knocked him over in his pacing. “What boy? What do you want?”

The boy repeated his question. “Are ya Sir Vaughn, the strongest knight in all of England?”