What A Scoundrel Wants (9 page)

Since contracting her illness, she had dreamt of nothing but fire, a nightly pattern that comforted her with its consistency and rhythm. By day, she endured an endless, deep well of black, but in her dreams, she saw gold, amber, honey, and russet. Flashes of blues. Streaks of white. The colors of fire.

Never once had she dreamed of a man. Not even Hugo.

What she could not see of Scarlet in waking hours, her sleeping mind imagined with stunning clarity. The angular lines of his face. The arrogant tilt of his lips when he teased, when he kissed. The dusting of springy hair across his chest, tapering like a path to his rigid shaft. She had straddled him that night, but in dream, he was above her, covering her with the startling resilience and power of hard male muscle.

She wanted more, to know more. She knew nothing of his coloring. Brown hair or blond? Dark eyes? Fair skin? The combinations tantalized her as she fanned through endless possibilities. And all the while, the feel of his tongue ravaging her mouth and echoes of his sinuous voice pooled a delicious, maddening heat between her thighs.

She dug her forefingers into her eye sockets. Had she any courage, any dignity, she would dig deeper and gouge him from her thoughts. But she had neither, only a covetous need to hold fast to every forbidden memory.

Rubbing her hands, holding them over the fire, she waited for sensation to return to frozen fingers. The familiar crackle of the blaze soothed her, lulling her. It heated her legs through the fabric of her gown, tempting her with its familiar and dangerous call.

Fire—welcoming, dependable, and far safer than thoughts of Will Scarlet.

She used to appease the fires by feeding wood, wax, and cloth to open flames. As her curiosity developed, she tested a greater range of fodder. Practice and repetition yielded the results she found described in her father’s ancient book. Heating bitumen produced tar. Roasting vermillion rocks resulted in quicksilver, the strange liquid metal. Scalding seawater in the presence of clay created salt acid. She repeated them, glorying in the predictable pattern of nature responding to fire, especially when nature had played such an unpredictable trick on her.

Seated in the glade, she would have played with those flames had she been alone. But countless eyes likely followed her actions—Jacob next to her, Hugo skulking somewhere in the camp. And Scarlet watched her, she knew. His eyes touched her neck, her face, reminding her that the heat she had experienced with her enigmatic protector was more dangerous than any beckoning blaze.

And his offer still hung between them.

“We’re going to my cabin,” she said.

Across the fire, Will shifted and yawned. “No. To Nottingham.”

She wound her hands around a leather flagon of ale and drank, hoping he tolerated the night as poorly as she had. “My cabin first.”

He swore, his voice sluggish. “Your sister is in the city. Dryden can ease our meeting with the sheriff. Why delay? What need have we for an out-of-the-way dwelling?”

Once Jacob took the flagon, she aimlessly shredded dry leaves and fed them to the fire. “The person who will do best by my sister is me, and I won’t go into the city without supplies.”

“And a change of clothes,” Jacob said.

“Oh, and Jacob is coming too, even with his smart mouth.”

“Why?”

“He maintains a baffling affection for Ada, which is something we hold in common.”

The younger man spoke past a mouthful of food. “That and a fondness for explosions.”

“Asem is an asset too.”

“All I’ve seen Asem do is fetch,” Scarlet said. “They’ll only be a nuisance.”

He spoke in that tight way he did when he became angry, forcing words past a locked jaw. Making him angry fueled her confidence and helped banish disconcerting fantasies. She lifted her face to the sky. Still no sunshine.

“Jacob knows all of Charnwood,” she said. “He can show us the fastest way to my cabin and on to Nottingham, unless you’d rather spend more time in these woods you find detestable.”

His answering silence provided no clues to his thoughts. The long pause brought her attention back to the flames. Having incinerated everything within easy reach, the dearth of nearby leaves left her restless fingers without a diversion. She fished a piece of dried venison from her alms-bag and picked at its stringy grain. For each piece she ate, she tossed another into the fire.

“Fine. Jacob can come.”

She stood and stretched. “Will Scarlet makes a decision, and all without sainted Uncle Robin Hood.”

Scarlet followed. She checked the need to step away from the ripple of frustration radiating from the red center of his bones. “False gems be damned, I’m ready to risk the consequences to see you fail,” he said.

Irritation spoiled his speech, leaving her to wonder again at his strife with Robin Hood.

She smiled. “Go ahead and leave for Nottingham, if you wish.”

“And where will you be?”

She gripped his forearms, nearly standing on tiptoe to find the privacy of his ear. “I’ll be here. In the forest. With two dozen peasants who believe me a witch. And Hugo as their leader.”

He laced his fingers through the hair at the base of her neck, clutching, pulling her close. Quick breaths fanned across her forehead and nose. “You’re using last night’s bit of chivalry against me.”

“And your conscience, Scarlet. Don’t forget that. It really does work contrary to your ambitions.” She gave the muscled ropes of his forearms an appreciative squeeze. She exhaled, something too near a sigh. “Lovely.”

“Stop it.”

“What?”

“You say what you must to get what you want.”

He released her, like flinging a dangerous animal into the brush. Oh, but she could come to enjoy his lack of control.

“You believe my appreciation for your physique might be such a deception?”

“Is my conclusion absurd?”

She laughed. “If I can navigate a situation without the need for lies, I make do with the truth. No sense muddying clear waters.”

“Witch,” he said. “I can think of another word for you.”

“One lacking in originality, I’d wager.”

Hugo would have hit her, had she dared speak to him that way. Scarlet, however—she could almost hear him gnashing his teeth. She pushed, she pushed again, and still he refrained from violence. But the careening sensations he nurtured in her blood terrified her in new and unpredictable ways, tempting her to take ever-greater chances.

The Devil’s own offer, indeed.

But Meg’s question went unanswered. Jacob gripped his dog’s leash, barely restraining the massive animal. With his nose pointed into a thicket made ghoulish by the lingering dawn fog, Asem snarled and strained for release.

Will tightened his hand on Meg’s upper arm, not knowing when he had reached for her. “Get your things. Quickly.”

She turned without question or argument, retrieving nothing but her new walking stick. “Who comes?”

“I don’t want to chance learning, do you?”

“Me? Take chances?”

“Dryden, come. Let’s have done.”

With the suddenness of a spring shower, a trio of men burst from the thicket. Their scabbards rattled, empty and useless. Barren fists held neither sword nor shield but pumped vigorously, propelling the men across the clearing at a full run. Handsomely decorated surcoats flew behind them, but fright and sweat covered their faces.

Confusion enveloped the clearing. Peasants who had lingered over their midmorning meal scrambled and shouted, retrieving weapons, diving clear of the men.

Dryden collected his belongings and stood beside Will and Meg. Beneath his beard, his face told a story of surprise and concern. “What is this? Monthemer!”

From among the trio, a blond man spun and called Dryden’s name. He urged his two companions to circle back. “Cousin! Behind us! They are intent on murder!”

A dozen marauders wearing masks tore into the clearing. Slicing blades cleaved through shelters, and bows littered the air with deadly arrows.

Asem broke free and barreled into the nest of intruders. Although Jacob called his dog’s name, he did not appear ready to sacrifice his life in pursuit. He edged closer to their little band and loaded his crossbow. Dryden’s cousin retrieved a dagger, determination replacing panic on his face. Leaner, shorter, he seemed a pale pretender to Dryden’s dark looks and muscular build.

Meg frowned. “They’re wearing mail. Are they soldiers?”

“She’s right,” said Dryden, pulling on his helmet. “I can hear the metal.”

Fear leaked from Dryden’s skin like sweat. What happened to the vengeful warrior Will had fought by the riverside?

Tattered homespun garments disguised full coats of mail. The attackers scattered before Asem’s charge, only to fan across the clearing with the precision of a trained army, surrounding everyone. These were no ordinary highwaymen.

But Will did not intend to make sense of the violence. “They’re trying hard to appear otherwise. Anything in that alms-bag, Meg?”

“I used the last of it yesterday.”

“We’ll have to fight our way free.”

“Lead the way.”

“Oh, no,” he said. “Soldiers, danger, blind girl. These things don’t mix. And you cannot help your sister if you’re dead.” Without grace or care, he shoved her into a dense patch of shrubbery. “You stay hidden until we can get clear. Promise me.”

She smiled sweetly, said nothing, and burrowed deeper into the cover of foliage.

A man assaulted him from behind. He leapt aside to get clear of a broadsword’s downward arc, rushing away from Meg’s hiding place. His opponent followed. Will ducked and drew his own weapon. Catching each blow, he shambled toward where Dryden and the others confronted another pair of soldiers in disguise. He caught his foot on a gnarled tree root and landed awkwardly, his sword flying free.

When his opponent reared for a killing strike, Will swept his right leg, buckling the man’s knees and pulling him forward. The sword drove into the ground near Will’s head. He wrenched a dagger from the fallen man’s belt, driving it between his shoulder blades.

Retrieving his sword, he turned to see Jacob plant an arrow between the eyes of a man bearing down on them. “Gramercy,” he said.

The lad exchanged his empty crossbow for a pair of exotic curved knives. “If we can get north, the swamps will aid our escape.”

“Swamps? I think I prefer the trees.”

“Anything is preferable to this place.”

Will clambered to a nearby shelter and scooped up a dead woodman’s bow. Drawing three arrows from a quiver, he stabbed them into the yielding earth and took a knee. With more haste than precision, he fired each in quick succession. A blaze of pain in his shoulder ruined his accuracy, but he managed to clip two marauders. The first tumbled and rolled, clutching his upper thigh. The other arched and collapsed, an arrow protruding from his gut.

Looking across the picture of chaos, he searched for allies. Hugo, Fuller, and the other peasants stood their ground, armed and ready in little clumps around their shelters, but the peculiar highwaymen no longer paid them any mind. The trio of running men fighting alongside Jacob and Dryden seemed their only intent.

And then he found Meg.

Nearly concealed from the chaos, she knelt behind the largest structure in the glade, a makeshift waddle-and-daub shelter suitable for four people. She cut off a hank of her hair with a dagger and piled loose, dark locks atop a small stack of kindling.

His brain registered her intent even before she pulled a wedge of flint from her alms-bag. He tossed the bow and quiver and broke into a run, dodging skirmishes and jumping over bodies, but the first spark proved all she needed. Hair and kindling transformed into flames, engulfing the shelter. Meg sat before that ever-strengthening bonfire like a parishioner at Mass, penitent, reverential. She lifted her hands and her eyes to the gathering heat.

Will slipped on a slick patch of grass and skidded, landing next to her. Searing smoke slipped into his mouth; he doubled over and coughed. Eyes closed, he tugged on her wrists and pulled her from the flames. Only when they reached a safe distance did he turn and catch her face between his hands, pushing wild curls back.

“Are you injured?”

That reverential expression did not change. Her lips turned upward in a private smile. Her nostrils flared, dragging in deep breaths of smoke-tainted air. “Tell me how it looks.”

His jaw fell open. “What?”

“Describe it to me. The fire.”

She pointed her face to the inferno but saw none of its destruction. Yellow and gold flames leapt into the sky, sending showers of hot rain over the dell. Mischievous winds passed the fire from shelter to shelter until half of the clearing glowed and throbbed with menacing heat. People who started their day from within those crude structures screamed and ran for safety, collecting loved ones and scant possessions, the blaze at their backs.

“You don’t want to know what I see.”

“That’s not true,” she said harshly. “Show me filth and pestilence, and I’d be happy to look upon it.”

Will clasped her upper arm and hauled her into the thick of the woods. She tripped. And again. “I half believe you drag your feet purposefully,” he said.

“I half believe you enjoy it.”

“What? Your clumsy bearing?”

“No, having an excuse to be angry with me.”

He whirled, flinging her arm away. Outrage and anger bubbled in his chest. Her ability to send him careening from enemy to protector, from lunatic to sage, left him reeling. “You set half the grove on fire!”

“I saved our lives.”

“Those people—that was likely all they owned in the world.”

“Of all the double-minded tripe,” she said, her lips curled into a nasty sneer. “They would’ve hanged you without me. You’re only upset because I saved you again.”

“I’m upset because you seem completely unaffected by the damage you do!”

“You’re allowing a few scruples to take precedent over our survival. I won’t stand for it.”

“It was unnecessary, Meg.” He furrowed restless fingers through his hair. The tart stink of smoke clung to him. “Those men were soldiers in disguise, like you said. But they weren’t engaging the woodsmen.”

The man with silvery blond hair emerged from the thicket, Dryden and Jacob right behind him. His fair skin appeared ghostlike in the gauzy webs of smoke. “You’re right, Scarlet,” the pale man said. “They were after me.”