“Don’t be silly, de Burgh, you’ve been kissing me all night,” she said, gasping.
He chuckled. “Sweet innocent, I mean kiss you down here.” His possessive fingers curled inside her. “Darling, when I take your virginity it will hurt you. My shaft is very large and will stretch you to the limit. I know you want to wait until we’re married for the consummation, but starting tonight I’ll make love to you with my mouth. By the time we are wed you will be more than eager to try something longer and harder than my tongue.”
She was shocked to her soul. Not really comprehending fully, she whispered in disbelief, “You would kiss me, there?”
“Like this, darling,” he said raggedly as his mouth took hers and he used his tongue deeply, intrusively, filling her totally with thrusting, dominant possession.
Her woman’s cunning was the only thing that saved her. “I don’t know how to do anything,” she said softly.
He smiled down at her and slipped his fingers from her delicious heat. “By morning you will, darling.”
“If you don’t hurry, morning will be here, Falcon,” she said breathlessly.
He rose from the furs and pulled on his boots. “Sweet, sweet, I’ll hurry,” he swore.
She was afraid to move until she was very sure he had gone, then she threw back the furs and stood up. She swayed dizzily, as she realized her legs had turned to water with fear. Fear of de Burgh, fear for Mary-Ann’s lover Robin, fear of the morrow’s manhunt.
De Burgh cursed silently as he moved about the camp. Because of the Sheriff of Nottingham’s incompetence, compounded by exaggeration of the outlaw’s daring deeds against the crown, his men were committed to take part in this travesty. He’d been ordered by John himself. When he learned that Chester, Nottingham, and Falkes de Bréauté were taking part, he had protested that it was superfluous to add his knights and men-at-arms to hunt down a few freemen, farmers, and peasants who used the forest for their refuge, but John had been adamant. John himself wanted to enjoy the manhunt and would feel safer with de Burgh’s men about him. It wasn’t that Falcon minded ridding the area of outlaws—he was in the business of killing—but somehow it seemed obscene to him to make a sport of it.
He spent longer with his men-at-arms this night than he did with his knights, for he knew common soldiers had a dread of the uncanny and the forests around Nottingham were legendary for their tales of the brotherhood of little people, of Mount Folk, Stone Folk, and Tree Folk who were supposed to rule the greenwood. Tales abounded of high mounds in the lonely deep forest where you could enter into entrancing lands of green twilight where lovely fiends dwelled and dreadful wizards worked their soul-snatching wiles and enchantment.
When Falcon returned to his tent he was sorely disappointed that Jasmine was not there awaiting his return, but he was not surprised. He had known somehow that she would flee the moment he left her. He knew she would have to be a wife, decently wed, before she gave herself to him. Even then it would be a reluctant mating on her part. He sighed. She was innocent, unawakened. No burning of the flesh, no hot desires, not even yearnings to be held in strong arms and stroked plagued sweet Jasmine.
He groaned aloud as he slipped inside the bed where her lingering fragrance clung to the furs. He closed his eyes and willed his demanding body to take rest while it could. His hot blood coursed through his veins, throbbing incessantly, making the heavy ache in gut and groin almost unendurable. He asked the impossible of himself. How could a man as hot and lusty as he rest at ease in a bed where his heart’s desire had just been lying almost naked? He made an endless night of it, his body’s frustration keeping him tense, aware, demanding. His thoughts prowled like a foraging wolf. Gervase must have been mistaken about the man. It may have been a thief climbing from a window, or some young squire scaling the wall on a dare, or the man could have sought a damsel other than Jasmine. His seeking mind went over the unlikely alternatives. Finally he groaned, gave himself up to the agony of her lingering presence, and buried his face in the fur’s female fragrance.
Dawn had not paled the sky when he arose. His mind and body demanded action and his men were probably in like case. A stag hunt would have been an ideal remedy, but the abomination that was planned for that day presaged a bad feeling inside of him. He made a quick decision and started to waken his men to give them their orders, beginning with Gervase. “Anyone spotted in the forests, round them up and take them prisoner. I don’t want a wholesale slaughter. No bloodshed unless your life is at stake.”
The breakfast fires were lighted and the men were arming themselves and readying their horses. De Burgh mounted and rode off toward the River Trent. Perhaps if he doused himself in the cold river water, he’d be able to shake off the dirty feel of contamination. As he rode toward the river the sky began to lighten imperceptibly and for a moment he thought his eyes were playing a trick on him. Damn it all to Hellfire, it wasn’t his eyes that were playing tricks, it was the wench he’d almost given his heart to who was playing the tricks! She had just emerged from the forest, riding directly in his path, and he had seen her before she had seen him. The moment she spotted him, she jerked on the reins, then wheeled her mount back into the trees. He touched one knee to his war-horse and its powerful muscles gathered then surged ahead, overtaking the smaller horse in less than a minute. He reached out one long arm and snatched the reins from her, bringing her palfrey to a quivering halt beside the heaving, dangerous destrier. He was on the ground before the horses stopped, quickly looping their reins to a tree.
Jasmine lifted her riding crop, but he gave her no opportunity to bring it down. He reached up and wrenched it from her hand with such force she lost her seat and came tumbling down to him in a flurry of skirts and petticoats.
His emerald-green eyes were blazing with anger. He slashed her short, heavy whip against his boots to release some of the anger he felt, for before God he needed all his willpower to keep from striking her. She had been to meet someone—a man—and by the divine power of St. Jude he’d know his name now! “Whom do you secretly meet?” he demanded.
“I was out riding, I saw no one,” lied Jasmine.
“That is an outright lie. Whom did you meet?” He slashed his boot again and the sound of the whip was ominously threatening.
She turned her face from him and caught her breath on a sob. Cruel fingers took a firm grip on her chin. “You will look at me when I speak to you. Whom did you meet?” he shouted.
“No one,” she denied, her face drained of color.
“Don’t impugn my intelligence by treating me like some gullible fool. ’T is obvious you’ve just come from a tryst. Have you been out all night? Did you leave my bed and go straight to his arms?” The questions came swiftly. He took her shoulders in his hands and began to shake her like a rag doll. “Answer me! Have you no brains? Don’t you know these forests crawl with outlaws?”
At his last word her fear became so palpable that suddenly he knew. “Splendor of God, that’s who it is! You lured the information from me last night and you’ve been to warn him! You treacherous little bitch.” He snatched his hands from her as if he could not bear to touch her and she fell to one knee. He taunted, “I had no stomach for this hunt, but suddenly it’s an event I’m anticipating with relish. I hope you measured him for his shroud last night.”
“De Burgh, please,” she cried, “you don’t understand.”
A jealous anger shot through him. “You plead for him?” He laughed. It was a bitter sound. “I understand, all right. You once told me my children would be bastards … like yourself!” he couldn’t resist adding.
She recoiled from his words. If she had been afraid for Robin Hood and his men before, it was nothing compared to the fear she now felt for him. De Burgh would have no mercy. Robin had not even taken her warning too seriously. He had laughed and told her to stop worrying. “The forests of Sherwood, Ettrick, and Sheffield cover more than a hundred miles. They won’t find hide or hair of us,” he had boasted, bu
t stacked against de Burgh’s fury and determination they would go down like trees before the ax, like barley in a hailstorm.
Suddenly Falcon heard the king’s hunting horn sound and knew he could dally no longer. He snatched Jasmine up and set her in her saddle.
“Get to the castle. Seek your chamber and remain there!”
He had tucked her whip into his belt and as he untied her reins, she reminded him, “My riding crop, de Burgh.”
“I’ll return it tonight, after I’ve flogged you with it!” He gave her palfrey a resounding smack across the rump almost to show her what she could expect at their next encounter.
The day turned out to be a nightmare of frustration for the hunters, and at its end, after crashing about the vast, deserted forests, a good majority of the men believed Robin Hood to be nothing but a myth. Others, like de Burgh, had different ideas. There had been an uncanny atmosphere present, as if every move they made had been watched.
There were inevitable casualties, poor devils who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The bodies were tallied at day’s end. An old woman who had been gathering wood. A freeman farmer searching for a lost sow and a young boy who had been setting snares for rabbits, but nary an outlaw had been spotted, let alone bagged.
At twilight just as the hunt was about to be called off, de Burgh had felt the presence of death’s angel. At a cry, he turned swiftly in time to see Gervase fall from his horse with an arrow in his back. It had punctured his squire’s protective mail, proof that the arrow had been shot at very close range by a powerful longbow. De Burgh knew the arrow had been meant for him, and he gnashed his teeth to think that Jasmine’s outlaw lover had almost eliminated him by superior stealth, cunning, and marksmanship. He was off his horse in a flash, kneeling beside his loyal squire. He thanked all the saints in Heaven Gervase had not fallen on the arrow to ram it deeper into the pierced flesh. The arrowhead was barbed, and Falcon knew he needed better light to extract it cleanly from the mangled flesh. The lad was unconscious, saints be praised. Now if he would just live until de Burgh tended him. He snapped the arrow’s shaft in strong fingers as gently as he could and stuck the feathered half into his own quiver. Perhaps it would provide a clue to its owner’s identity, though he was already convinced who wanted him dead.
He lifted his friend Gervase in his arms, held him secure against one broad shoulder, and mounted his destrier. The other horse followed as he walked his mount carefully back to the castle. He scribbled a hasty note to Dame Winwood, stamped the wax with his falcon seal ring, and dispatched it with a young page.
The boy found the frightening witchwoman scolding two young women who sat huddled miserably on a tester bed. Their eyes were liquid with apprehension as they awaited the day’s outcome. This greatly puzzled the page, for the young queen and the other noble ladies had spent the day playing and laughing and dancing.
Estelle read the note quickly. “De Burgh asks my help … an arrow in the back. Mmm. I’ll need alkanet and rue,” she said to herself as she took out the box containing her medicines and ointments, “and borage for the fever that will come in the night.”
Jasmine’s eyes were wide with the unasked question. She opened her mouth, but the words would not come out.
Estelle looked at her wisely. “Nay ’t is not de Burgh who took the wound.”
Mary-Ann’s tongue was loosened by this information. She grabbed the sleeve of the young page and demanded, “What news of the manhunt?”
The page giggled. “It was a mixed bag—a pig herder, a rabbit catcher, and an ’owd woman. If you ask me there’s no such man as Robin Hood!”
“Well, we didn’t ask you,” Estelle said sternly. “Get to the kitchens and get me a jar of vinegar. Take it to Lord de Burgh’s tent and don’t dally or I’ll have him deal with you.”
Relief had washed over the two young women, leaving them almost limp, but Jasmine didn’t want to examine her relief too closely. From the sound of things the manhunt had been a colossal failure, almost a joke, and they thanked God and St. Jude that Robert had heeded the warning and fled.
Jasmine had dreaded the moment de Burgh would search her out to carry on where he had left off this morning. Though one of his men was wounded and he was busy at the moment, she didn’t delude herself into thinking he would not return, perhaps on the morrow, to give her the beating he had promised.
When Estelle arrived at de Burgh’s tent, he had already had a bed set up in it for Gervase and was in the process of removing the barbed arrowhead from the mangled flesh. The wound was swollen and angry and oozed blood rather than spurted it profusely.
The young man had regained consciousness for a while, but the pain when de Burgh drew out the offending lump of metal had rendered him unconscious once more.
De Burgh looked into Estelle’s eyes. “Thank you for coming,” he said evenly.
“I want something in return,” she said shortly, brushing aside his thanks.
The page came in with the jar of vinegar. She took it from him and dismissed him sharply. Such sights were not for the eyes of babes. “Hold him while I cleanse the wound with vinegar,” she directed.
“He’s unconscious,” Falcon pointed out.
“He won’t be,” she promised.
De Burgh held Gervase prone on the bed, pressing down upon his shoulders. As Estelle tipped the whole jar of vinegar into the wound, Gervase rose up like a rearing horse, screaming his pain.
“Vinegar has anesthetic qualities. It hurts only in the beginning,” she soothed. “Dry it with the linen while I get the alkanet ointment. It will draw out any poison.”
“Good God, you don’t think the bastard used poisoned arrows, do you?” Falcon asked with alarm.
“Nay, I meant the body’s poison that forms in wounds.” She spread a thick coat of the ointment, which was made from the red flowers of the alkanet and had an almost pleasant odor. “His kidney has been damaged. Don’t be alarmed if there is a lot of blood in his piss.” She pointed to the brazier. “Boil some water and wine and I’ll put borage in for the fever he is sure to produce in the night. In a couple of days we will change the ointment to rue. It has a strong, unpleasant odor, but it heals wounds with hardly a mark.”
“Then you think as I do, that he will recover?” he asked gravely.
“Only because I’m here to tend him,” Estelle said pointedly.
“Will you stay all night?” he asked quickly.
She looked at him with her shrewd, hooded eyes and wondered why he asked her. She knew he was capable of nursing his own squire. It must be something very important he had to do to keep him from this duty. “I’ll stay. But, de Burgh, if the king goes on to the border shortly, you will have to leave him here. His kidney won’t heal if jarred constantly in the saddle.”
“Of course,” agreed Falcon.
“I had heard you expected superhuman endurance from your men.”
“I expect every last ounce they are capable of; no more, no less.” He brought the borage mixture to the bed and touched it to Gervase’s lips. “This will be bitter,” he warned gently. Then he looked across at Estelle. “You said you wanted something in return.”
She stood up to her full height. “When we first met you know I was set against your marriage to Jasmine. I have changed my mind. I want you to marry her and get her away from this court.”
His nostrils flared. “Perhaps I have changed my mind,” he said stonily.
She looked a question. He flung out his arm to Gervase. “I’ve had enough hurt from her.”
Estelle wondered how Jasmine could have anything to do with the squire’s wounds. “I thought her beauty enchanted you as no other had,” she said quietly.
“She is exceeding beautiful, but still a woman and therefore treacherous.”
“We are still the better half of the human race,” Estelle said staunchly.
“Then may God help us,” he said bleakly.
Chapter 19
The last thing Fa
lcon de Burgh wanted to do was leave his faithful squire now, when he was sorely needed. But something inside him knew what he must do. He knew in his bones that the outlaw would risk all and come tonight. The lure of Jasmine would be irresistible. Wherever she went, he would follow, drawn against his will by the exquisite face, angel’s hair, and tantalizing body. She had a magic power about her that was a siren song. Well, tonight it would literally lure a man to his death, he thought grimly as he found a concealed niche beside a stone archway.
He drew back into the shadow silently and prepared himself for the long wait. His mind darted about, touching upon one thing, then another. Why had Estelle changed her mind about him? Perhaps she hadn’t really, perhaps he was simply the lesser of two evils. Jasmine … Jasmine … he had tried to understand that the delicate girl brought up to abhor and despise men would be cold to him, but with patience and determination he had thought she would have warmed toward him. His mouth formed a grim line as he fingered the scar her whip had left on his face. This morning when he caught her sneaking back from her rendezvous with the outlaw she had raised that whip again.
His blood ran cold when he thought of the outlaw. He swore an oath to avenge the wound Gervase had taken for him. His mind conjured a picture of the king and he spat upon the ground. This realm was in trouble. He’d sounded out men belonging to every northern baron and had not yet found one who had any loyalty to John. They had loyalty for their own barons, as he had for Salisbury, but he didn’t believe there was a man left breathing in England who didn’t despise and hate John for the weak coward that he was. He had inflicted private injuries on many of the barons and members of their families and Falcon sensed revolt coming, perhaps even civil war. The thing he found difficult to stomach was that he’d be on the wrong side in any conflict. Mayhap he’d hand the precious Jasmine back to Salisbury and be finished with the Plantagenets. Mayhap he’d go to Wales or Ireland.