Soldier of Fortune: The King's Courtesan (Rakes and Rogues of the Retoration Book 2) (33 page)

He took a seat on a bench near the back of the room and sidled over to rub elbows with a bleary-eyed fellow who looked about ready to slide under the table. “Who’s that lot over there, eh?” he asked, sliding his new friend a pint of ale and half a crown. “They don’t look to be from around here.”

“Neither do you,” his drunken companion answered sourly, but he pocketed the coin and reached for the ale. “Too many strangers round here these days.”

Another commotion drew both their attention. An unkempt scrawny-looking youth carrying a heavy flagon of beer had done something to earn a string of curses and a cuff that sent him reeling to the floor. The boy picked himself up, expressionless, retrieved another flagon and continued serving as he’d been doing before.

“That be the mighty war hero, Colonel Harris, honoring us small folk with his presence. He’s the earl of something or other, or so he claims. He’s here and about often these days. Some say too often. Some say it’s tied to the doings in the woods, but he ends up here every night cheating at cards and dice. You want to be careful not to draw his attention. If he invites you to play there’s no refusing, and no leaving till your parted from all your coin.”

So…the arrogant fool had used his own name
. “And that lot with him?”

“Those be his men and the reason none dare complain. The lad is his son, poor bastard, and the woman one of his whores.”

“I’m no stranger when it comes to games of chance,” Robert said with a slow smile. “Perhaps I’ll see what I might take from him.”

“They say a fool and his money are soon parted. Good luck, friend. Beware he doesn’t also take your life.”

Robert rose and patted the man’s shoulder, then tossed him another coin. “Drink to my health at the wake.” He moved quietly through the shadows and they moved with him, coalescing into a dark shape that waited, just feet from its prey. His hand caressed his sword hilt and something within him snarled and came to wake. He could see the veins where Harris’ neck met his shoulder, pulsing life in rhythm with his heart. That this
thing
should live when his sister did not was unbearable. Harris could be dead within two seconds, but first he had to recognize and understand. He had to know that his casual slaying of Caroline was what ended his life now.

And so he waited, amazed they could be so complacent. So certain of their invulnerability they never once raised their eyes to scan the room. When at last he did feel a gaze upon him it was the boy’s. The lad’s eyes met his directly, cool, assessing, and he returned the stare. The boys cheeks were gaunt, his eyes filled with shadows. They flicked to the woman lying still on the floor, and then to Robert’s sword. Robert lifted his fingers. When he looked back the lad had turned away.

He had waited long enough. He leaned over, clamping Harris’s shoulder in a viselike grip. “Excuse me, Colonel, but I was wondering if we might have a quiet word outside.”

Harris’s grip was as strong as his own and his reflexes were fast. He seized Robert’s wrist and threw himself back in the chair, toppling it and freeing himself, shoving Robert back against the wall as he rose. The men, taken by surprise, watched in stunned silence before erupting into cheers, thinking it a drunken brawl and eager to see their leader break some bones. Holding Robert in a choke hold with only the back of his arm, Harris used his considerable strength to force him up the wall so only his toes touched the floor.

“What dog is this come snapping at my table? You’ll lick my boots, cur. Or I’ll slice you open from belly to throat.”

Gripping the man’s forearm and using it for leverage, Robert lifted his legs and kicked him in the stomach, knocking him backward and sending him flying over the table, scattering food, drink, and dice and sending his sword sliding across the floor. Leaping up onto the table he unsheathed his own. The Jeweled wolves eyes glittered like hellhounds and he and his steel thirsted for blood. “A man who mistakes a wolf for a hound is certain to come to a bad end. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Harris grinned, spat out a tooth, and then spat blood. “Well, well.... Young Nichols, is it? I remember you. All grown up, then? Last I saw of you, you were running away as your little sister pled for mercy.

“Aye. Her name is Caroline.” He jumped to the floor and kicked the sword toward him. “Get up.”

Harris reached for the blade and jumped to his feet. “Still squeamish when it comes to straight up murder are you, lad? It’s a nice gesture, though.”

The rest of the men had stepped back, clearing a space, while the remaining townsfolk had run for the door, fleeing into the night.

“I just want to take my time with it, Colonel.... Savor the moment after all these years.” He sprang forward in a lightning move that left Harris cursing with an inch-wide gash from temple to jaw. “I think it’s more fun this way.” They were circling each other, eyes locked. Robert was a master swordsman, not a frightened child, and he could see the realization slowly dawning in the other man’s eyes. “She still thinks of you. She sent me to say goodbye.”

He lunged again and Harris gave a shriek of pain and rage as the giant blade pierced his left shoulder, cutting through muscle and tendon. Nerveless fingers opened and his sword clattered to the floor. Laughing and cursing at the same time, Harris pulled himself up against a table and tried to staunch the flow of blood.

“As you can see I am unable to wield a weapon. The duel is over. I’ll tell you what, Nichols. Why don’t you say hello to her for me? Kill him, lads.”

~

Cursing, shouting, screams and breaking crockery were doubtless viewed as ominous signs to most people, but for Hope and the sergeant they were a godsend. Ever since Hope had decided to turn around and head to Yorkshire instead of London she had been afraid of her husband’s greeting, but after searching the deserted Farnley Woods, and the towns of Farnley, Gildersome and Leeds, she began to fear that something might have happened to him on the way. Both she and Mr. Oakes agreed that asking questions might do more harm than good, but that reduced them to wandering from tavern to tavern, inn to inn, hoping to find some trace of him. If Oakes viewed the sounds of battle as promising, then so did she.

“I expect we might find him inside, my lady. Perhaps you should wait here with some of the men.”

“I’ve seen my share of tavern brawls, Oakes. I am not some delicate flower.”

They stepped into a chaotic mess. Tables and chairs were overturned. A woman lay unconscious or dead under a table, at least three men lay dead on the floor, and three others were fighting a fourth, who was laying about him with a giant sword that sang as it cut through the air. Robert!

“Why look, boys! ’Tis one of the king’s sluts herself come to call.” The words were spoken by a massive bald-headed man covered in blood. She knew him instantly from Robert’s description. There was a momentary lull in the battle as the entire room turned to stare. She stared right back. As Robert looked at her, stunned, one of the men rushed him from behind. He raised a gauntleted fist without looking, smashing the man’s nose and dropping him like a stone.

Robert heard the snick of metal behind him and turned just in time to deflect the blade of a wicked-looking
main-gauche
but he was too slow, catching the man in the thigh instead of through the heart.

“Get the woman, you fools,” Harris shouted, and his two remaining attackers rounded on her. Robert turned his back on the man who’d murdered Caroline and plunged his sword between the shoulder blades of one, while Oakes and one of his men did for another. Hope was safe in a corner, surrounded by five more of his men. At least she’d had the sense to bring them. Satisfied, he turned his attention back to the colonel.

“Now…you die.”

“I’m not inclined to humor you, Captain.” Harris reached behind a wooden pillar, snatching the skinny, battered youth by the hair and pulling him close like a shield. He held the razor-sharp short blade to the lad’s jugular. “We’ll be leaving now, Nichols, and with no interference or I’ll slit the boy’s throat.”

“No, you won’t.” Robert’s voice sounded disinterested and cold. “The boy is your son.”

Harris grinned and chuckled, shaking the boy’s head back and forth by the hair. “You think that will stop me? His mother’s a whore. That’s her on the floor, and him naught but a little bastard. I’ve plenty more where he came from.”

“Do you think it will stop me?” Robert sounded curious, almost amused. He took a step forward, resting the tip of his sword over the boy’s heart. “Beyond this lies your lungs. You took something from me. Why should I cavil at taking something from you?”

“Robert, no!”

“Listen to your bitch, Nichols. You’re scaring her.”

~

Robert turned to look at Hope, the tip of his sword never leaving the boy’s chest. What she saw horrified her. This was what he’d warned her about. This savage blood-covered ferocious man with the snarling voice, sword outstretched and death in his eyes.

“God damn it, Oakes!” he snarled. “I’ll have your head for bringing her here. Get her out. Now! Take her back to London and the king where she belongs.”

She stared at him in shock. “Robert, please. You can’t—”

“Leave. Now,” he growled. “You have no business here. Go and don’t come back.”

“That poor child!”

“You needn’t fear for him, my lady. The captain—”

“Wouldn’t hurt him. I know. You told me you’d never seen him harm an innocent and I believe you. But when we left he was holding him at sword point. And to have one’s own father use you as a shield. What kind of man does that?”

“The kind who needs killing, I expect, my lady. The captain wouldn’t go after a man for no reason.”

“No. He had reason enough, no doubt. I am sorry if I’ve dragged you into trouble with him, Oakes.”

“I’m a tough old badger, my lady. I can weather the storm.”

“I should not have asked you to turn back, or to abandon His Majesty’s escort at a coaching inn—but the further we got from Cressly the more convinced I became that he was on a path that would do him far more harm than good. I was a fool to think he needed rescuing. He is clearly a man who can care for himself and all I did was make a mess of things. I have never seen him so angry.”

“Neither have I. But the mess was made before we got there, my lady.”

“We quarreled before I left, you know. He is quite done with me now I think.”

“Do you, ma’am? I think he was more angry that you saw him like that than he was with you.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “There’s a name for men who release something savage in battle. It’s said they glory in it.”

“Aye. The Vikings called them berserkers. The captain, he is a fearsome man in battle. He’s good at staying alive and that means he’s good at killing. But it doesn’t control him. He controls it.”

“You told me that at times before battle he had eyes that looked like ice. I saw that look tonight.” She shivered.

“Aye. I noted it, too. But no berserker stays his sword in the midst of battle or stops to see his lady safe. Remember that when you ask yourself what things he holds most dear, or what it is that rules him.”

Oakes patted her hand before leaving her to her thoughts, joining Jemmy on the box to ride musket as the coach took her back to London.

She settled back against the cushions, still haunted by the image of the bruised and hollow-cheeked youth, an innocent trapped between the hatred of two grown men, both whose duty it should have been to protect him.

Oakes is right. Robert wouldn’t harm him
. But there were other ways to harm than using sword or fist. His words came back to her over and over, churning to the rumble of the coach.
You don’t want to know. I go hunting. If you knew who I really was you wouldn’t like me much. You might even be afraid
.

He had told Oakes to take her back to the king, where she belonged. He’d told
her
not to come back, and after seeing him, she was far from sure she wanted to. He had warned her, yes…but some things no words could adequately convey. She wasn’t sure she would ever forget the sight of him, blood-covered and snarling with bodies all around. She very much feared it was burned in her memory. It was part of who he was and now it was a part of her.

Oh, God! Just as his sister’s death is forever a part of him, and Harris’s death will forever be a part of his son.
Hope felt a deep sense of despair. Robert wasn’t the pure and shining knight of her dreams, nor the monster of his own. He was honorable and kind and tried to do right, but whether born to it or brought to it by circumstance, he was also a warrior, battered and scarred by wounds so deep they might never heal.

She had said his mistress was revenge and Oakes had said it was war. Could a man like that ever settle for the kind of life she wanted? As husband, father, lover, friend? Was it fair to ask him to choose, or to blame him for following the only path he knew? And did any of it matter anymore when he’d sent her back to Charles?

Oxford Kate’s, London

Robert Nichols was far more comfortable giving help than asking for it, and William de Veres wasn’t making it any easier.

“Good God, man! You mean to say you’ve misplaced her? She’s a wee little thing I’ll grant you, but a fellow really should try and remember where last he left his wife.”

“And where is Elizabeth?” Robert asked though gritted teeth. “Perhaps she would know where a woman of quality might lodge if not at the palace. I’ve always found her very resourceful.”

“Lizzy? Damned if I know. Probably off in a gambling hell fleecing the life savings from some off-duty footmen. She’s very partial to them you know.”

“No…I didn’t know.”

“You are fond of the girl then?”

“Of course I am! She is my wife.” They paused their conversation as a barmaid came with bread and beer.