LordoftheHunt (13 page)

Adam walked back through the village and cursed the rain and
his folly at suggesting the village well as a place to meet Christopher. Before
the storm, it had seemed a brilliant choice. It gave him a chance to speak to a
few villagers again whilst waiting for the minstrel. But the villagers had
added nothing to his store of information on poor Ivo’s death. In fact, they
clearly thought Adam witless to stand about in the rain asking questions.

The physicians had confirmed Adam’s suspicion that Ivo died
from a blow to the back of the head. Adam wanted to find the culprit for Joan’s
sake—or for his own, that she might not condemn him as completely brutal.

Worse than the soaking rain, Christopher had not appeared.
“Caught in the mud somewhere between here and Winchester,” Adam muttered.

All along the roadbed to the castle, the ditches were
rushing with water. Years of neglect had rendered them ineffective. When he was
lord of Ravenswood, he would see them cleared. As a result of the rushing
water, the road was awash and cut with deep ruts. He stepped onto the spongy
grass verge.

A shriek cut the air.

He stood where he could see the flat gray twist of the river
and the narrow inlet that fed the fish pond.

The shriek came again. He dashed toward the pond, hand on
his sword hilt, sinking into the soggy earth with every step.

Something stirred in the pond.

A woman. In the water. It took no more than a moment for him
to see she was trying to pull a body to the bank.

He tore off his mantle and shed his sword and belt as he
ran.

She went under.

The body spun like a weather cock on a barn where she’d
disappeared.

He leapt in after her. Frigid water snatched his breath. The
heels of his thigh-high hunting boots sank into the mire, and he gasped with
shock as icy water poured down them.

The water churned as the woman sought to rise.

He lunged forward and grasped her arm.

Joan
.

He knew her the moment he touched her. His heart, already
racing, now stuttered in his chest.

He snatched her into his arms. She fought him as she
surfaced, a cry of pain on her lips.

She caught at the cloth of his tunic, and he heaved her away
from the floating body.

The soft, slimy bottom made it difficult to bring her to
shore. Her frantic thrashing hindered his efforts as well.

“Be still, Joan. Be still,” he said, muddy water lapping his
mouth as she nearly pulled him under.

“Adam?” She quieted in his arms, her body rigid.

She gulped for air, clinging to him now, no longer fighting.
He pushed against the mushy bottom and lunged toward the bank. She began to
cough. He half-dragged, half-carried her from the pond, her woolen skirts
entwining his legs.

When he deposited her on the bank, she gagged, her face
concealed by the ropes of her hair.

He returned for the body. His boots offered him little
purchase against the muck of the bottom as he embraced the man and hauled him
to the bank through water now brown and thick as stew. He turned the man over.

Christopher
.

Rain beat upon Christopher’s gray, staring eyes, filled the
half-open mouth. Adam’s eyes stung with grief for this man he’d known but a few
days.

Adam made sure there was naught to be done, not a thread of
life to revive. No wish would resurrect him, no hope would add color to the
ashen cheeks.

Adam searched the minstrel as he knew he must. There was a
gash, the edges white and gaping, on the young man’s temple. He had no purse
and nothing hidden about his clothing, even in his hems and seams. Whatever
message he had carried, must have been in his head and was now lost.

Adam folded Christopher’s arms on his breast, passing a hand
over the face, to close the eyes, though he could not effect a change in the
staring countenance.

Joan still remained where he’d left her, and although he
wanted to go to her, for her own cheeks were pale, her lips almost blue, he
forced himself to walk along the edge of the pond for some sign of where
Christopher had gone into the water.

Adam inspected a place where the reeds and muck were
trampled. More than one man had made the prints, perhaps two or three. He waded
in to his thighs and snatched something from the water.

It was a small leather shoe, a sturdy one for a woman who
did not spend her time stitching useless pillows. He went to Joan. “One of your
shoes,” he said. “Where can I take you?”

His silent “without giving rise to a thousand questions”
hung on the air between them.

She did not look at him, but at the corpse. “I can see to
myself,” she said, her words barely audible.

Her teeth chattered. Her hair was tangled with reeds. She
was almost unrecognizable.

“If that were true, you would not be here leaping into fish
ponds; you would be sitting by your hearth.” The words sounded harsh, as cold
as the water from which he’d dragged her, yet neither her eyes nor voice
accused him when she spoke.

“One of our dogs is missing. I must look for him.”

“Not until I have you dry.”

He knelt at Christopher’s side and said a prayer for the
young man’s soul. He tried to think, to calm his rage; he was assailed by an
uncontrollable need to find the men who’d made the prints by the pond so they
could pay for Christopher’s death. His hands shook with the need. He prayed for
control that he might not frighten Joan with the anger boiling in him.

She came to his side and sank to her knees. Her body,
encased in wet wool, shook as much as his hands did. She, too, prayed.

Joan touched his arm, but Adam slid from the contact. His
anger needed motion.

He strode back to the belongings he’d discarded, belting on
his sword. The action, one he performed every day, calmed him.

His mantle was scarcely drier than Joan’s clothing but he
swathed her in it anyway. She disappeared in the voluminous garment, and he had
to fold back the hood to see her pale face.

“Who is he?” she asked. Her eyes were almost black in the
pelting rain. Her lips quivered.

He skimmed his thumbs across her wet cheeks.

“His name is Christopher. He sang in the hall.” Although
Adam felt calmer, outrage and fury still held him in their grip. “If we do not
get you dry, you’ll take ill.”

A tear appeared at the corner of her eye. Or was it rain?
The drop ran quickly over her cheek and slipped into the corner of her mouth.

“I am—”

“Hush, Joan, you’ll do as I direct.”

He pulled her close, pressing her head to his chest, chafing
her back, trying to restore some warmth to her. Yet, she could not be warmed.
He scooped her into his arms.

She gave a small cry of pain.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve hurt yourself.”

“I bumped my arm, ‘tis all. Put me down and I shall fetch
someone for…him.” She struggled in his arms, but he held her tightly and she
fell silent and still, not at ease, but quiet.

He knew where he must take her.

The walk was torturous for his injured spine. Every footstep
needed to be taken with care as the way was slippery, sloping, and running with
water. His boots were wet, her skirts slapping the leather with every step.

When he reached Richard De Poitiers’ hunting lodge, the
ground surrounding it was smooth and unblemished. No one else had sought
shelter there.

Adam set Joan down on a broad, stone step at the lodge door.
He flung it open to reveal a large, single room, dim from shuttered windows. It
smelled clean. The hearth was laid as if Richard might yet appear—or others who
wished a private place to rendezvous. Adam made short work of lighting a fire.

“We must get you warm,” he said to Joan, who had not set
foot within the lodge. “Come in.”

She shook her head. Her face was almost as white as
Christopher’s, and her shivers had become deep shudders. She held back the
edges of his mantle and he saw what concerned her. Her muddy gown was plastered
to her body, water pooled at her feet.

He thought her overly scrupulous of a dead man’s floor, but
acquiesced when another thought flitted through his head. Before the impulse
passed, he reached out and tugged his mantle from her shoulders.

The step was flanked by a bench and a great, stout rain
barrel. Water sluiced down from the great sloped roof to form a small waterfall
enclosing them in a curious privacy.

She made an inarticulate protest, but did not fight him as
he pulled off her gown. It fell in a sodden heap at her feet. The shift
followed it.

Her skin was icy when he lifted her over the side of the
full barrel.

“Consider this your bathtub. I’ll give you but a few moments
before I come back for you. Call out if you need me.”

He searched the interior of the lodge and found several
moth-eaten tunics that had probably once belonged to the dead Richard. There
were no shoes, hose, or dry mantles. The tunics must serve.

He listened to the splashing sounds of Joan’s ablutions and
warmed his hands at the fire now blooming into a fine blaze.

“Adam?” she called and he swept a blanket off Richard De Poitiers’s
fine curtained bed and stepped outside.

She was trying to climb out of the barrel. It was like
watching a doe clamber up a steep hill. It was awkward and somehow graceful at
the same time. She tipped over the side.

“
Jesu
,” he said, catching her up in his arms. Her
skin was warmer now, slippery, clean, her hair in a wild tangle over her white
shoulders, breasts, and back.

He set her on the step and covered her with the blanket.
When he tried to help her dry off, she backed away and darted into the lodge.

Adam pulled off his clothing and dropped it beside hers. He
stepped to the edge of the eaves and allowed the rush of water to rinse him
clean. He was too large to fit in the barrel, so he used a dented copper ladle
and his hands to wash the remaining mud from his hair and skin. The barrel
water felt almost warm compared to that of the rain or the fish pond.

He rinsed their clothing and wrung it out. He used the time
and task to quell the arousal pouring through his veins like the rain pouring
from the thatched roof.

Desire ran like a deluge within him, raging along with the
anger at Christopher’s death, tangled and confused.

Inside, Joan had taken several furs from the bed and made a
nest for herself before the hearth. Adam snatched up a blanket and dried
himself. He pulled on one of Richard’s cast-off tunics and held another out to
Joan. While she pulled it on, he gave her privacy by spreading their clothing
to dry, draping the garments across two oak chairs near the hearth. The cloth
began to steam and the scent of the wet wool filled the room.

He had nothing more to occupy his time. He turned to Joan.
She knelt on the nest of furs, her back to him. Her shoulders shook. He did not
need to see her face to know she wept.

Adam knelt by her and she whipped around, rising to her
knees, a hunted look on her face.

As gently as if she was a frightened doe, he put out his
hand. He smoothed back the hair that had begun to curl around her shoulders and
brow. He skimmed his fingers across her wet cheeks, lifting her chin. She
looked like a wild creature of the forest, untamed.

“Forgive me,” she said, wiping at her cheek with the back of
her hand. “‘Tis just…Ivo and that man. He was so young. To die that way. It is
so—”

“Cruel,” he finished for her. His voice sounded overly harsh
in the silent lodge—silent save for the rush of the water on the thatch and the
whine of wind in the chimney. “You might have drowned,” he said.

She would have drowned had he taken the river way instead of
the road.

A lump rose in his throat. “Why did you do it? What
possessed you?”

“I thought it was you.”

Her words smote him like a hammer against an anvil. The lump
inside his chest twisted and knotted tighter. He could not breathe, nor control
the quick spasm of his arms that pulled her close.

She came easily into his embrace. Her lips were soft against
his.

He was ravenous. And lost.

She slipped her hands around his neck and her blanket
shifted, fell from her shoulders to pool at her knees. He dropped his alongside
it.

They knelt thigh to thigh, breast to chest separated by only
the thin linen fabric of the old tunics. She did not protest when he set his
hands on her hips.

“I thought it was you,” she said again. Tears ran down her
cheeks. “First Ivo. Then you. I—”

He stopped her words with his mouth.

A mix of fear, anger, and lust raced through his vitals. He
bore her down before the fire. It flared to life at the very moment he stroked
her hair from her face. The flames lighted her eyes so they shone gold.

The tunic she wore rode up her hips, and he felt her soft,
cool skin against his—cool because she had gone into a fish pond. For him.

He eased the two tunics up to their waists and moaned as she
embraced his hips with her thighs.

Her lips were soft, lush, wet, and he feasted there whilst
she ran her hands down his back to draw up his tunic, baring him further. Her
fingertips journeyed in the valley of his spine. An unmerciful surge of blood
rushed into his manhood, and gripped him like a fist. A groan was torn from
deep within him. Her hands flexed in response; her nails bit into his flesh.

He bent his head over her breast, nuzzling aside the loose
linen. Her nipple proved as hard as a pebble. He licked over it and savored the
hiss of her breath and the soft, answering moan when he took the taut peak
between his teeth.

She tasted of rain and outdoors.

“Joan,” he whispered and put his hand between her thighs.