The Dark Knight (30 page)

She recalled all the men who had also eaten from those poisoned pots. Were they dead? Why was she still alive? She rubbed her temple with her free hand and tried to make sense of the news.

“Rami, occuparsi di cavalli,”
he said. After the boy moved away from them, he asked, “Do you feel sick?”

She nodded and then he, too, walked away.

So much for his consideration, she thought, although she should have known there would be no more kindness from him. He was no longer her knight to command, or her lover to seduce. He was a man feared throughout England for his ability to murder anyone, anywhere, at any time. And she was his prisoner to do with as he pleased.

That thought should terrify her. Instead she felt strangely calm. Aye, there was a good measure of fear, but not panic. It was as if she were watching all of this happen to someone else. She supposed it was the poison that had dulled her senses. For now she was still alive and that was all that mattered.

She tried again to look around her. The sunlight was not quite so painful now that her eyes had adjusted to the light, but her vision was still a little blurry. She rested on a small hillock above a wide, grassy meadow. Rami was a few dozen paces away, tending to their saddled horses, while Oliver and Armand were busy tying more than a score of unsaddled horses to a long picket line that stretched beneath a stand of poplar trees. She wondered who the horses belonged to and then realized they were likely the Segraves’ mounts. The absence of Faulke and his men spoke volumes.

He returned and held out a water bag. “Here, drink some of this.”

She eyed it warily. Her hands began to tremble, whether from the poison or from fear, she could not say. “Do you … do you intend to kill me now?”

“If I had wanted you dead, you would be dead long ago.” His voice was toneless.

She believed him. Although she heard Sir Percival’s
voice when he spoke, this man was a stranger. “Then why—”

“Drink this,” he repeated, as he dropped the bag into her lap. “ ’Tis some of the willow bark tea you brewed for Rami. It will help calm your stomach.”

“Th-there is no poison in it?” she asked, as she picked up the bag. And then she remembered Faulke’s theory about why she was still alive. It was beginning to make the most sense.

He folded his arms across his chest and remained silent.

“Why did you take me away from Coleway?”

“If I recall correctly, you left Coleway with me quite willingly. Indeed, our escape from the fortress was entirely your idea.”

It was the truth, and yet it was wrong. Everything about him was wrong. Two days ago she had thought everything about him was just right. Today she knew better. There would be no magical explanations that would make everything right. Her perfect knight had deceived her. How he must have laughed at her willingness to help in her own abduction. He was no better than John. Indeed, he was much, much worse.

“You must have thought me a fool,” she said in a soft voice. She removed the stopper from the water bag but still could not bring herself to drink before she knew the full, damning truth. “Faulke told me that you are not my father’s knight. Faulke said you were sent by the king to murder or abduct me so that Faulke could not marry me. He claims you are an assassin. The King’s Assassin.”

He remained silent.

“You do not deny his charges?”

“Does it matter?” he asked. “You have already decided
that I am the enemy. I can see the fear in your eyes.”

She had no answer for that bit of truth. The man who stood before her was not Sir Percival. He was not the kind, chivalrous knight she had thought him to be. In addition to her pain and anger, this man frightened her. “Is Faulke dead?”

He said nothing for a long moment. “Why do you care? He blackmailed your father into a betrothal and intended to force you into marriage within the next few days, willing or not. You were his prisoner as much as you are mine.”

There was only one way he could know all of that, and she recalled the feeling of being watched while she was in Segrave’s camp. How had he managed it? “You heard everything Segrave said to me?”

“Do you care for him?” he countered.

What an odd question. She lowered her head and stared down at the water bag, unwilling to let him study her face as she considered her answer. “How could I care for a man I just met?”

His next remark cut more effectively than a knife.

“You developed an affection for me rather quickly.”

“That was different!” She regretted the words before they were out of her mouth. There was no way she could explain the difference without sounding pathetic. “Everything Faulke told me came as … quite a shock. Still, I do not want to be the cause of his death. I do not want to be responsible for anyone’s death!”

“You should have thought of that before we left Coleway,” he said. “What did you think I would do if Lord Brunor and his men had caught up with us?”

“There would have been too many of them.” She realized even as she spoke that she was being hopelessly naïve. His surrender would have meant his death. He
never would have handed her over without a fight if they had been caught. She would have been responsible for unleashing this weapon upon her own family.

“Drink the tea,” he said again, in a voice that brooked no argument.

She followed the order in a daze and began to take small sips.

“Segrave and his men are alive,” he went on. He sounded as if he spoke of something that disgusted him. “I did not use enough poison to cause any lasting damage. You will all recover within a few hours.”

Her head and stomach didn’t think so. Still, there was a sense of relief that he intended to keep her alive. For now.

“Your face is the color of parchment,” he said, as she swallowed the tea. “You will be of no use to me if you are too sick to ride.”

And that would likely be the extent of his concern for her welfare; whether or not she was healthy enough to aid in her own abduction. She took several more sips of tea, relieved that it did, indeed, have a calming effect on her stomach. Even her head felt clearer. Still, nothing made sense.

“Where are they?”

“Who, the Segraves?”

Her gaze went to Oliver and Armand, who were still tending the horses. “Aye.”

“They are more than a half day’s ride from here, probably feeling much as you do right now.”

She had only his word that they were alive. He had lied to her from the moment they met. Nothing he said could be trusted. On the other hand, if the Segraves were already dead, why would he take their horses only to leave them on the road? Surely he would only go to this much trouble if he needed to delay their pursuit.

The tracks from the horses would be easy enough to follow. When and if the Segraves recovered, they would probably send a search party to retrieve the horses, and then return to the camp for their gear and saddles. A half day’s lead had just turned into a lead of at least two days. If they really were still alive, and unless something else drastic happened, the Segraves would never catch them before they reached London.

“We have already lost too much time,” he said. “You will need to ride your own horse for the rest of the day.”

The thought of sitting on a horse made her stomach give an alarming lurch. The thought of riding with Sir … Liar or one of his men was equally distasteful. Now that her vision had finally returned to normal, she braced herself, locked down every ounce of weakness, and forced herself to look up at him.

It helped that he had moved to one side, out of the direct line of the sun, but she still had to shade her eyes to see his face. The pain was not as bad as she had feared it would be.

He looked the same; his head held at an aloof angle, his green eyes pierced with intelligence, his face devastatingly handsome. Whatever she had expected to see, evil, or avarice, or anger, she did not find it. No enemy should look so … appealing, although his lingering appeal almost made her feel better about being so easily deceived. Surely his virtuous manner had deceived countless people. Perhaps she was not quite so stupidly gullible as she had first thought. He was most definitely the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing. Her traitorous heart skipped a few beats and she wondered if the sudden heat in her face revealed a telltale blush.

She lowered her gaze before he could see the unexpected wave of longing that washed over her. What was the matter with her? She
knew
that he was her enemy.
She knew that he was … Good lord, she did not even know his name.

“Who
are
you?” she asked. “That is, what is your real name?”

He remained silent for so long that she began to think he had no intention of revealing a secret that many in England would likely kill to learn.

“My name is Dante Chiavari,” he said at last. “Segrave made another correct guess; I am a foreigner, an Italian by birth.”

“That much I had already guessed,” she said, mostly because it helped explain his effect on her. She recalled the way the Italian merchants treated the women at Coleway, the way they made each woman feel as if she were the most beautiful and fascinating creature they had ever encountered, and she had watched the women melt into simpering puddles at their feet. Their intense and seemingly genuine appreciation of women was a common trait among the Italians, not a crafted skill, but a mannerism they were all seemingly born with. Dante had simply used the brand of charm on her that had been bred into him. “You speak Italian, Rami speaks Italian, both of your men speak Italian. I realized quickly enough that you were all Italians masquerading as Englishmen.”

Her boldness amazed her. She could still speak with him as easily as she had when she thought him to be Sir Percival. In her defense, he looked and sounded the same as her knight, even down to his mannerisms. She watched one eyebrow rise.

“Actually, Oliver and Armand are Englishmen, and Rami is Circassian.” His lips curved upward, as if he found humor in her ignorance. “I am the only Italian.”

His smiles had always been her downfall, and it was an unpleasant realization that she was no more immune
from them now than she had been before. It should be a crime, how handsome that grin made him. It drew her eye to the masculine lines of his face and the rough stubble that spoke of his days away from a shaving blade. Was that small smile designed to lull her back into his deceptions? Or was she simply a weak-willed idiot where he was concerned? Oh, he was good at his craft.

When her mind wandered to the sinful ways he had touched and kissed her, she looked pointedly away from him. There was most definitely something wrong with her. The problem became clearer the longer she refused to look at him.

It would take time for her heart to accept what her mind already knew. None of the attraction she felt for him had been real. It was simply another part of his deception. He would deceive her again, if she allowed it. She had to push aside the curtain of infatuation and see the truth. He was not charming her with a smile. He was laughing at her.

She focused her gaze on a point just past his shoulder. “Did you murder the real Sir Percival?”

He shook his head. “I have never met the man.”

Well, that was a point in his favor, she supposed. “But you are the King’s Assassin?”

“Aye.”

The answer was expected, and yet to hear it aloud was more crushing than she had anticipated. It was the final nail in the small coffin of hope that this had all been some sort of terrible misunderstanding. “So, you have no intention of taking me to my father?”

“None,” he confirmed.

“Are we still bound for London?”

“Aye.”

It was another expected answer that sank her hopes to even greater depths. Faulke had been right about everything.
There was no marriage in her future. The King’s Assassin had done her no favors by allowing her to live. She would be imprisoned in the Tower for the remainder of her life.

“ ’Tis time to leave.” He reached down and took the water bag before she knew what he was about, and then he turned and walked toward the horses. He spoke to her without turning around. “Be on your horse anon, or you will ride with me until you can manage a horse on your own.”

It was an effective threat. She struggled to her feet and staggered after him.

She still wasn’t sure how she had managed it. Her stomach lurched constantly during her first few hours in the saddle.
Poisoned, powerless, prey
.

All afternoon she had kept her mind busy by thinking up words that started with the same letter to keep her thoughts from even darker places.
Bruised, battered, betrayed
.

The exercise had not been much of a success.

They kept up a hard pace throughout the day until they reached the outskirts of a small village late in the afternoon. A signal from Sir Percival … 
Dante
 … sent Armand along a fork in the road that led into the town while the rest of them slowed their horses to an ambling gait and continued toward London.

Not that she had much control of her horse’s gait. Rami had removed her reins and a long tether now stretched from Bodkin’s halter to Dante’s saddle. Her horse simply followed the lead of Dante’s horse. She supposed they were worried that she would try to escape.