By Grace Possessed By Jennifer Blake
1
England
December, 1486
She could not bear to be present for the kill.
It was not that Lady Catherine Milton was unduly squeamish, only that she could not stand to see such a noble stag pulled down by the hounds. He had given them a gallant run through open meadows and into the thick growth of the king’s ancient hunting preserve known as the New Forest, eluding the hunt with cunning and bursts of supreme power. Now he was flagging. Soon the king and his courtiers would close in for the coup de grace.
Cate reined in her palfrey to a walk, allowing the others to pull away in their crashing pursuit along the narrow animal track. She had been at the laggard end of the crowd of courtiers, peers and their ladies for most of the afternoon. She could give the need to rest her mount as an excuse for dropping back. With luck, the worst of the bloody business would be over by the time she rejoined them.
She’d rather have avoided hunting altogether today, would have except for the king’s invitation, which was as good as a command. Henry VII liked company during his efforts to supply venison for the hundreds that flocked to his tables, and had need of extra meat for the Christmas season, which was upon them. More than that, he was particularly concerned that the heiresses summoned to his court display themselves on horseback to prospective suitors. He had overcome the dread curse of the Three Graces to make an advantageous marriage this past summer for Cate’s older sister, Isabel, and was determined to repeat the triumph twice more. Isabel was in the north of England with her husband and six-month-old Madeleine, King Henry’s love child entrusted to their care, but their younger sibling rode with the others somewhere ahead. Marguerite would not be overly concerned if she noticed Cate had gone missing. This wasn’t the first time she had fallen back at the end of a hunt.
The afternoon was drawing in, growing dark with lowering clouds. The feel of snow was sharp in the air. Cate would much have preferred to be sitting before a fireplace with embroidery in hand and a beaker of mulled cider close by. Though her upper body was warm enough under her ermine-lined cloak, the tip of her nose was half-frozen, and her feet and gloved fingers had little feeling. At least the end of the chase meant the return to Winchester Castle where, please God, a roaring fire and a hot meal awaited.
Abruptly, her gray mare threw up her head and curveted to the side. Cate tightened her knee on the horn of her sidesaddle, controlling the palfrey even as she glanced around. Fair Rosamond, dubbed Rosie within an hour after she was named, was not usually of a nervous habit. She must have sensed something she didn’t like.
Nothing moved beyond the stirring of a light wind among the bare limbs of the great oaks, beeches and alders that meshed above the forest track. The thudding hoofbeats, calling voices and horns of the hunt that faded into the distance left behind an unnatural quiet. The scent of leaf mold, disturbed by their passage, shifted in the air along with a hint of damp moss and lichen.
Something else drifted toward Cate, as well, something rank, familiar and malodorous.
The boar burst from the underbrush. Squealing with rage at the invasion of its territory, it came straight at them. It kicked up dried leaves and dirt as its sharp hooves found purchase. Its small black eyes were narrowed and its snout lowered, while the gray evening light caught wicked gleams from the knife-sharp points of its curving tusks.
The mare whinnied in fright, rearing up on her haunches. The instant Rosie came down she leaped into a gallop and plunged into the deep woods.
The boar gave chase.
Cate could hear it snuffling and snorting behind them. Once, it gave a piercing squeal of pain or rage. She had no time to look back, but gripped the reins in one hand while leaning to grasp the mare’s mane with the other. She let Rosie run, trusting her to escape the danger at their heels. Behind them, the thudding sounds of pursuit made the boar seem a veritable monster.
Limbs slapped at Cate, ripping her flowing skirt, snatching the hood from her head, catching her veil and tearing it free. She almost left the saddle a dozen times as Rosie leaped fallen logs, dodged around thickets, splashed twice through the same winding stream. Clinging like a burr to the mare, Cate ducked and weaved, heart pounding as she prayed in breathless phrases.
Her prayer seemed answered as they struck a beaten pathway and Rosie turned down it. It had some width, as if it might be used by foresters gathering wood for the king, or gamekeepers en route to the castle. The palfrey slowed, blowing, jolting into a trot.
Cate glanced back as she tried to catch her breath. The boar was not there, could no longer be seen or heard. They had cleared its part of the forest, or else it had lost interest and abandoned them. She closed her eyes an instant in thankfulness before facing forward again.
Her relief was short-lived. As the forest track curved, a large brush pile appeared ahead of her, barring the way. It stretched between two great oaks whose thick limbs overhung it.
Cate pulled up, frowning in consternation at the untidy heap of rotted logs and dead limbs. She’d half formed the intention of following the pathway in hope it would join the track taken by the hunt. To go over the brush pile seemed impossible; it was too high, wide and deep. She might go around it if she made a wide enough circuit, but would have to pick her way with care so she did not lose the pathway she was following. The New Forest belonged to the king, an expanse of many uncharted leagues where no one was allowed to live and few ventured except on royal business. Those who became lost in it were sometimes found too late, if at all.
A rustling noise overhead drew her attention. Directly above her, a man rose from where he had been lying along the thick width of a limb. Rough-haired, garbed in odds and ends of once fine raiment, he gave her a gap-toothed leer. Then he grasped a limb and dropped to the ground, landing on his feet in front of her. As Rosie backed and whinnied, trying to rear, he sprang to grab the mare’s bridle and pull her head down.
Sick dread burgeoned inside Cate as she controlled Rosie to prevent more pressure on her tender mouth. Never go into the wood alone, she had been told again and again. Fearsome beings lived there, trolls and beasts with the faces of men who feasted on tender flesh. Or if not these, then lawless scoundrels who lived by their wits and what they could take from others.
From women, they wanted one thing. That was, of course, after they had taken everything else of value.
Cate wore a gold cross that had belonged to her mother, a ring of gold set with a ruby that had been a gift from Isabel, and, at her waist, an Italian poniard given to her by her first love, with silver filigree on its ebony hilt and a finely pointed steel blade. She would surrender no single treasure without a fight. Slipping her right hand inside her cloak, she grasped the hilt of the small knife, where it hung from her leather hunting girdle.
“Well, now. What have we here?”
The man’s voice was layered with equal amounts of insolence and anticipation. He stood with his legs spread and gloating triumph beneath the grime that coated his face. From his accent, Cate judged him to be some petty noble, mayhap one removed from his holdings during the endless wars of recent years, or else a renegade from the defeated army of Richard III. He was no mere villein or cottager turned forest outlaw; he was too cocksure for that.
His purpose could not be good. Still, it would be foolish to show her alarm.
“Well met, sir,” she said, her heart threatening to choke her even as she gave him her best smile. “I was with the king’s hunt, but lost my way through misadventure. Could you direct me how best to rejoin it?”
“The king, is it?” he said, an avid gleam in his eyes as he stepped forward. “No doubt you are a favorite of Henry’s, a lady sure to be missed.”
His voice carried snide suggestion, as if she must be on terms of intimacy with the king. Cate cared no more for it than did Rosie, who blew through her nostrils as she tried to sidle away from the man’s stench. Or no, it may have been from his followers, a dozen or more in number, who slipped from among the encroaching trees. They eased forward with weapons in hand, a few bows and arrows, the knives carried by all for eating and a scattering of age-blackened swords.
Who had they meant to take in this crude ambuscade? The king, mayhap, had he chanced to come this way? It would have been a dangerous undertaking, for Henry made no move without his yeoman guard. No, their quarry would have been any straggler.
Gathering her reins with a firmer one-handed grip, Cate lifted her chin. “A favorite of the queen, rather,” she said in tart reproof. “Can you or can you not direct me?”
“I can do many a thing for you, milady, and better than any king, I’ll warrant. Get you down and I’ll be pleased to show you.”
A shudder of revulsion moved down her spine at the loose-lipped grins and chuckles of the men who crowded closer around her. “I must not linger or I’ll be caught by darkness,” she answered in tones as icy as the clouds that hung low above the treetops.
“So you will, now. Too bad.”
The threat and raw suggestion in his colorless eyes were mixed with overweening confidence. He thought she was cowed, his for the taking. His hand was lax on Rosie’s bridle. His gaze rested on Cate’s breasts beneath her cloak, giving her a squirming sensation like worms crawling over her skin.
If she was going to get away, it must be now.
Cate gave a high-pitched yell, tugging Rosie’s head around. She prodded the mare with an urgent heel.
The outlaw leader lost his hold, but jumped up to fasten a hand on Cate’s arm. She clung to her sidesaddle with thigh muscles clamped around its horn as Rosie backed and whinnied. A second outlaw ran forward to catch the bridle on the other side. The outlaw leader scrabbled with his feet in the dirt of the track, jerking at her, using his weight to bend her toward him.
It was too much. Cate gave a cry of angry despair as she felt her saddle girth slip, felt her knee slide free of its anchor.
Pain burst through her as she struck the ground. Her breath left her in a gasp so sharp it seemed to slice into her lungs. A red mist appeared at the edge of her vision.
The palfrey reared in terror, then broke the hold on her bridle and danced out of reach. Whinnying, shaking her head, she kicked up her heels and raced away, back down the track. The outlaw leader paid no heed, but leaned to catch Cate’s arm in a numbing grip. He hauled her upright so fast she staggered, almost fell against him.
Her chest ached with the sudden return of air to her lungs. White-hot rage flashed over her. She did not pause to think or plan, but grasped her poniard’s hilt again, snatching it from its scabbard. She threw back the edge of her cloak and struck with all her might.
The blade ripped through tattered velvet and soiled linen, found flesh and bone. Her assailant howled and reeled away, even as the knife point struck a rib, then tore free. Cate, sick yet exultant, skipped backward with her skirts trailing over the half-frozen ground.
The outlaw clapped a hand to his chest, lifted it to stare at the blood that stained it. His face twisted as he clenched his fingers into a fist and started after her. Two of his dirty band fell in behind him, followed by more, and yet more.
It was then that a great shout rang through the forest. Savage, full-throated and deep, it rose to a battle cry that lifted the hair on the back of Cate’s neck and sent a chill spiraling through her. Wild-eyed and with her poniard still in her fist, she swung in the direction from whence it came.
He rode toward them at a hard, flying gallop, his plaid of blue and green shot with red billowing in the wind of his passage. His long dark hair rippled with waves beneath his bonnet and his face was set in deadly determination. The hilt of a great sword loomed at one shoulder, and the thighs that gripped his mount’s sides were bare above knee boots crisscrossed by leather thongs. His mouth was open with a cry that sang of retribution, justice and the fierce, steel-hard joy of battle.
The Scotsman, Ross Dunbar.
Cate recognized the rider with a sudden, amazed acceleration of her heart.
All at court knew of the man, though none claimed to know him well. Women sighed as he passed with his plaid swinging against strong, well-formed legs, his bonnet at a proud angle on his head, broad shoulders squared in defiance, and his eyes, blue as the lochs of his native land, set straight ahead. Men gave him a wide berth, for he had a coldly effective temper, little patience with fools and bleak disdain for Henry’s court. There only as a pledge for the goodwill of his father, an irascible old border laird too fond of raiding across the line between Scotland and England, Ross Dunbar despised his enforced attendance upon Henry VII. He scorned to drink and dice with most of those he called Sassenachs, and named none among them friend. Few were willing to meet him on the practice yard, for when he unlimbered his great sword with its silver chasing, someone always suffered.
He had been with the hunt, Cate knew, for she had marked him among its leaders. How he had come to be on this track she could not think. Nor could she see what he, one man, hoped to do against outlaws armed to the teeth and careless of lives that were worth nothing if they were caught by the king’s men.
Ross was barely aware of the figures that ranged themselves behind the outlaw leader. All he saw was the blood on the man’s filthy doublet and the knife in Lady Catherine’s small, white fist. She was no match for the man she had injured or his overweening pride that would demand she suffer for it. Regardless, Ross had never seen so fierce a warrior queen. She was magnificent in her defiance, valiant beyond hope of any man’s equal as she faced them with only her courage and small blade as weapons.
She had been insulted, manhandled, brought to earth like the most hunted of vixens; he had seen it happen. Regardless, she would not be taken. He would see her safe or die in the attempt.
The power of the hunter he rode was in his favor. The great steed with its flashing hooves scattered the forest scum in all directions. Before they could gather their wits, he was among them, sliding from horseback, drawing his sword before he hit the ground. The long blade flashed silver fire as he whirled to face an attacker similarly armed. A single blow of his heavier weapon, and the other man’s rust-pitted sword broke in half. As its owner threw it down and turned to run, Ross helped him along with a boot to the backside. Whirling then, he slashed and hacked, kicked, feinted and plunged to face two attackers, three, four, sending them into headlong flight. It was a brutal and dirty business without finesse, but then little was required. His foes had scant honor and no restraint; else they would never have laid hands on the lady.
Their leader had circled behind him to take her again. Seeing his men defeated, the outlaw used her as a living shield, backing away as Ross rounded upon him. His eyes were feral and he held a dirty knife against the fine white skin of her throat.
For a single instant, Ross allowed his attention to stray to Lady Catherine. One arm was twisted behind her back, and her knife, a poniard, now lay on the ground at her feet. Yet she met his gaze, her eyes bright blue and steady, shadowed by knowledge of her danger, yet without defeat. Her valiance touched some fastness inside him with such sudden fierce need that he tightened his grasp on his sword, stepped forward with hard purpose.
The outlaw’s eyes widened. He ran his tongue over his white lips. With a vicious oath, then, he shoved Lady Catherine from him so she stumbled forward, arms out-flung.
Ross whipped his sword aside barely in time to keep from impaling her on it. Reaching with hard muscles well-oiled from the fight, he caught her with one arm, snatching her against him. Face set, heart pounding with terror for what he had almost done, almost been forced to do, he swung back upon the outlaw leader.
He was almost upon him, his long knife raised to strike. A swift, backhanded slice, singing with its hard purpose, sent the man stumbling back. He crouched, clutching a long gash in his belly that might well be the end of him.
With Lady Catherine firm in the curve of his arm and his sword in a hard grasp, Ross paced forward. The outlaw paled, looked around, saw that he was completely alone. Being no fool, he turned and fled at a staggering run.
In less than a heartbeat, the forest track was empty. The wood around them crackled with retreating footsteps, and then was silent.
To let the pack of merciless brigands get away went against the grain. Had Ross been alone, he would have pursued them, laid at least one or two by the heels and seen them hung. The first to have his neck stretched would have been their leader. He deserved that and more.
Ross couldn’t afford it. For one thing, the retreat was possibly an attempt to draw him to where he could be surrounded and taken down. Added to that, he was encumbered by the lady, who would become a liability if he had to move fast or fight off a surprise attack. The value of silence while tracking could also be an unfamiliar concept for her.
Come to think of it, she was not making much noise now.
She was making no noise at all.
Ross frowned down at the woman pressed against his side. Her face was pale, her lips bloodless, and her eyes, though the pure blue of the Madonna’s robe, were stark and wide. Tremors shook her from the fine, springing blond tendrils that hung around her face to her long, white fingers that clutched his hard arm at her waist. Even the hem of her skirt fluttered, rattling the leaves where it swept the ground.
“What is it?” he demanded, the words rougher than he intended. “Are you hurt?”
She lifted her chin a fraction. “N-no. I just…I don’t know.”
Comprehension struck him. He had seen the like before in street brawls and on the field of battle, where men who fought like devils incarnate while it was needful, then shook until their teeth rattled afterward. He’d just never seen it in a female.
Releasing his hold with some reluctance, supporting her with a hand around her upper arm, he leaned to scoop up the cloak that had been torn from her shoulders. “Wrap this around you,” he said as he draped it into place. “Getting warm again should help.”
“Yes.” She ducked her head as if to avoid his gaze as she tried to fasten the torn cords meant to hold her cloak. “I should…should thank you for…for…”
“Nay, not at all. In God’s truth, ’twas a pleasure.” Bending, he picked up the small knife she’d dropped, returning it to the scabbard that hung from a chain on her girdle.
Her pale lips trembled into a smile as if she understood his intent to make her feel safer by the return of her weapon. The valor of that effort, in spite of her shivering, sent a peculiar pain through him. Brushing her hands away from her cloak cords, he made a hard knot of what was left of them.
“Nevertheless, you have my gratitude.”
Her voice was stronger, he noted as he glanced at her from under his brows. A hint of pink crept across her cheekbones, mayhap from resentment at his presumption in touching her. It seemed progress that should be aided, one way or another. It was certainly better than dragging her into his arms and holding her so tightly against him that neither of them could breathe.
“What I fail to see,” he added as if she had not spoken, “is why rescue was necessary. Had you stayed with the hunt as you should—”
“What makes you think I left it of my own will?” she interrupted, meeting his gaze for the barest of moments before lowering her lashes again.
“You dropped back and let it go on without you, for I saw you.” He allowed a corner of his mouth to curl. “The question is why. Were you about nature’s business, or did you expect to meet a lover in some thicket?”
“As if I would do such a thing!”
That was better. Hot rose color had returned to her cheekbones and her lips were not so pale. “Many English lasses would, or so I’ve found. And most men are glad to tarry if a woman is halfway presentable.”
“If you followed me because…”
“Nay,” Ross said in hard disavowal. He’d not have her think him as bad as the scum he had vanquished. Not that he wasn’t well and truly aware of her womanly charms; he could still feel the imprint of her curves along his side, had her scent of lavender, warm velvet and well-bathed, gently reared female in his nostrils.
“Yet you are here,” she said with a small frown. “You must have a reason.”
She was quick, in spite of the shock of what she’d been through; he had to give her that. He had indeed followed her. He’d been far too aware of where she was and what she was doing all this long day, though that was something he preferred to keep to himself. His main regret was that he had not fallen back in time to prevent what had happened. Yes, and that she had been manhandled while he dispatched the boar that frightened her mare, and then paused long enough to discover exactly what he faced from her attackers.
“’Twas diplomacy,” he answered in irony laced with self-protection. “To show up the king by killing his stag for him would be more than a thought unwise. Besides, I heard the boar that fair scared the wits out of your mare, and thought to add his tough hams to Henry’s larder.”
She gave Ross a sharp look that showed more than a little doubt, but did not challenge his statement. It was a moment before she spoke again. “Now Rosie is gone. You might give thought to how we are to return to the hunt without her or your mount.”
She was right. His hunter had disappeared in company with the outlaws, and there was no sign of her palfrey.
Ross cursed in blistering Gaelic phrases as he turned in a circle to scan the encroaching wood. He would not have been laggard in noticing their loss if not distracted by the lady. Still, that was no excuse. He should have noticed, should have prevented it.
He considered plunging after his own beast, chasing down those who had taken him. His reason for not doing so was unchanged, however. He could not drag Lady Catherine with him any more than he could before, nor could he leave her alone in case the outlaws circled back.
The hunter was as fine a piece of horseflesh as Ross had ever straddled, and he hated to see him go. At least he need not mourn the poor beast too much, as he had been borrowed from Henry’s stables.
Lady Catherine sighed and then drew away from him, turning toward the track along which they had come. “I suppose we had best start walking.”
“Nay,” he said with a slow frown. “I think not.”
“No? But surely…”
He lifted a shoulder, readjusted his plaid, which had slipped from it. “It will soon be full dark. To find our way back through the wood in broad daylight and on horseback would be hard enough, but afoot in the night is too great a risk.”
She stared at him as if he had gone mad. “We can’t stay here!”
“It’s better than wandering in circles until we’re lost, or freezing to death while we’re at it.” He did not think her able to make the long trek just now, though he would not say so.
“Oh, but—”
“Besides, the king should have sent out searchers for you. We have wood here for a beacon fire that will surely bring them to us.” It would also serve to help warm her, as would constructing a shelter. But mentioning either need was another thing that seemed unwise at the moment.
“And if it doesn’t, if we are not found before morning?”
“Then it will be later,” he said with finality.
“You may be satisfied with that, but I, sir, am not!”
He cocked his head, frowning at her as she stood facing him with blue fire in her eyes and the bearing of an injured queen. “Meaning?”
“We will be expected to marry. Had you not considered that point, or is it that you anticipate taking an heiress to wife?”
Anger stirred Ross’s blood to a slow simmer. “You think I would keep you here of a purpose, to force you to the altar?”
“It’s been done before.” She glanced at him and then away again.
“Not by me,” he countered in hard deliberation. “I’ve no use for a Sassenach bride.”
More hot color flared in her face for his plain speaking, and her chin came up. “Excellent,” she said in clear disdain, “because I have no use for a Scots husband. No, nor any other kind.”
“None at all?” He could not keep the surprise from his voice. To be unmarried was an odd ambition in a woman, or so was his experience.
“I’ll not be the death of a man.”
She was so certain in her pronouncement, and so grim withal. He couldn’t prevent the salacious grin that curled one corner of his mouth. “His death, is it? And from what cause might that be?”
“Not what you may suppose!” she answered with fierce ire and another flood of rose-red in her face. “Have you not heard of the accursed Three Graces of Graydon?”
“Oh, aye, that.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You may treat it as a jest, but I assure you it is real.”
“Sisters who may be married for no reason except love, is it? And who can cause the death of any man who betroths himself to them without it? It’s a tale bandied about the court. I heed it not.”
“So you would accept whatever consequences may befall.”
He watched her, enjoying the stiff disdain on her features, glad of that show of temper compared to her earlier pallor. “I see little reason to get in a bother. No one can force us to marry. The scandal may affect your marriage prospects, but that hardly matters if you don’t expect to wed.”
“You are forgetting King Henry.”
“And what has he to say to it?”
“A great deal, as I am a royal ward by his grace. He has been contemplating the best match for me for some few weeks now. Suppose he should decide an alliance with the son of a Scots laird would suit him well?”
Unease spread through Ross. God’s blood, but she might be right again.
He had been left behind in England after James III of Scotland made peace with the Sassenach back in the summer, pledged as a hostage to keep his father in check. That randy old goat took savage delight in feuding with his English neighbors, raiding across the border any time boredom moved him. The results did nothing to ease border tensions. Ross had endured five months of enforced English hospitality, had supped at Henry Tudor’s table and become a boon companion of the solemn-faced conqueror of the last Plantagenet king. Henry could easily decide to attach him permanently to his court with a marriage tie. That was, if he had no better match for the lady.
“I am of Scotland and answer to King James alone,” Ross said in harsh reply. “Never will I bow to the will of an English king.”
She stared at him, her eyes darkly blue. It was as if she weighed him, not just his outward appearance but what he was inside. An icy trickle moved down his spine that was very like a warning.
“Do you swear it?” she asked.
Ignoring the presentiment, he raised his clenched fist and thumped it upon his chest above his heart. “You have my word.”
Her smile was as wintry as the evening sky. “And will remember it, as I have no defense of my own against Henry’s intentions. See that you do the same.”
It was then, as they stood facing each other with the determination to avoid marriage standing like a drawn sword between them, that the first flakes of snow began to fall. They drifted down, swirling around, over and between them like the ashes of a Samhain fire.