And they meet! Violence and lust. Are you ready? :)
How long had it been since he lost the baroness? An hour? Two?
Christian's jaw tightened, and he wished he'd had spare a moment to note the position of the sun when he returned to the battlefield. Time was strangely elastic in battle, and he could make no estimate of how long it had taken to finish off the last of the Astlingsmead men. Finish off-that phrase was more appropriate than it usually was, even to war. Few of the enemy knights had surrendered until they were disabled or disarmed even long after it had become clear that they could not win. He shook his head. What kind of woman was it who could inspire such madness in her men?
Christian's group passed another party of searchers, crashing through the forest. Not that his own patrol was much more stealthy, what with nearly a dozen mounted men in jingling mail and brilliant surcoats, their great helms bouncing against their saddles. Christian had wanted to track the baroness, but with the dozens of men who had already crisscrossed through the woods that morning, the effort had quickly proved futile, so now he was left with the patrols that he hoped were placed close enough together that no one could slip through.
A glimpse of movement brought his drifting attention sharply back into focus. He could hear another patrol nearly even with them, somewhere ahead and on the left, but what he had seen was closer, much closer. The patrols had already found half a dozen Astlingsmead soldiers, trying to escape capture on the field. Was this another, more crafty than his companions? Or could it be the baroness herself? Anticipation gripped him, but he forced it down.
He peered past one of his squires at the slope that angled up from their position. What was it? A dozen more yards, and he would be free of the screening trees—
Christian straightened, and that movement saved his life. An arrow swished past his nose, and he froze, stunned into immobility for an instant. The first quarrel was followed by a rain, ripping through the underbrush. Caught between Christian and the deadly shower, the squire shouted as three arrows pierced his mail in rapid succession. The man's eyes widened with fright and pain, and he turned frantically toward his lord.
But before Christian could do more than reach out, a forth arrow skewered the man's throat, the metal point glistening with blood as it emerged on the other side. Cursing, Christian wheeled his mount and plunged back through the milling and panicked men.
"To me!" he shouted, but when he looked back over his shoulder, none of his men had followed, too caught up in the chaos to heed his words. A moment later, two riders broke away from the confusion and pressed up the hill, charging the defenders' position on the slope.
Fools. Christian drew his sword and turned his horse again, angling up the slope toward where he estimated the flash of motion to have originated. He'd take them on the flank, where they were unprepared—
Hoarse shouts erupted ahead, approaching rapidly. The infantry patrol had joined the fray. A breath later, Christian's charger burst around a tree, and the struggling figures came into view. Brown-clad archers, dead or at sword point; a grizzled knight in Steele green slashing madly at the Greyholm soldiers who surrounded him-and another green-clad figure, slipping lithely through the underbrush away from the fight, a mantle lapping at its heels.
The image of his squire's body bristling with arrows filled his mind with a hot rage, and Christian felt his lips part in a snarl. His hand tightening on his hilt, and he spurred his mount after the slight form. But the figure must have heard his horse's hooves even over the clash of the fight, for Christian caught a flash of a pale face, and then it dove into a thicket too dense for his mount to pass.
Christian pulled his charger to an abrupt halt. He swung from the saddle, dropping the reins and trusting his mount to stay ground-tied as it was trained. Sheathing his sword, he shoved through the thicket after the retreating form.
Ahead of him, the figure ducked and wove nimbly. Even the green mantle seemed unnaturally deft at slipping past the twig that caught and pulled at Christian's clothes. Muttering a prayer against witchcraft, he pressed on.
The thicket ended abruptly, and reaching the edge, the figure broke into a run. By the time Christian had torn himself free, it had doubled its lead. Doggedly, he lowered his head and pounded after.
His prey—that small and slender, Christian decided, meant it could not be more than a boy—seemed to know his advantage, and he chose the most difficult path, crashing between bushes, wriggling through close-growing stands of trees. Christian's bulkier frame could not match the agile speed of the smaller one, and Christian made up ground on every clear stretch only to lose it again as he battled through the next tangle.
His anger spilling over into frustration, Christian surrendered to the futility of trying to chase the boy directly, and when the figure slipped into a patch of brambles, he did not attempt to follow. Instead, he skirted the patch, keeping the youth in sight. The figure emerged at the other side before he had made it a quarter of the way around, but when Christian fell in behind, he discovered that he was closer than before.
His legs were beginning to ache, heavy with the weight of the armor he bore, and the air stabbed his lungs with every breath. How much longer could the boy continue? Surely he must be more tired than Christian was.
Again, the lad plunged into a tangle of brush, and again, Christian ducked around. The boy cast back over his shoulder, turning away from Christian, and a moment later, he slowed to a stumbling jog. He thought he'd lost his pursuit, Christian realized, and he shifted his own strides to muffle the jingle of mail as he tried to close the gap silently.
It wasn't long before the boy's jog became a walk. It seemed to Christian the boy did not choose to slow so much as that his shuffling legs stopped flinging out to catch him; by then, Christian was a scant dozen yards behind, but the youth's ragged pants were so loud that he had no fear of discovery.
Finally, the lad stumbled to a stop, his mantle falling forward over his shoulders as he leaned against a tree, head down and gasping for air. Step by careful step, Christian closed the distance. He kept his eyes fixed on those heaving shoulders, visible on either side of the slender tree, and rested one hand lightly on his hilt. Three yards. Two. One more stride—
Some muted jangling or crackling leaf must have given him away, for an instant before Christian's fingers closed around the boy's arm, the youth's head jerked up and he turned to meet Christian with a wide-eyed stare.
She turned to meet Christian with a wide-eyed stare. For the flared cap was secured by a woman's barbette under her chin, and that soft-featured face could never have belonged to any male. The baroness.
Shock made him slow, and even as his grip began to tighten on her arm, she jerked back, gasping, and hurled away from him, yanking her sleeve from his grasp. An instant later, he was after her again. Her feet drummed frantically on the forest floor; he could hear her breath sobbing in her lungs even above the rough sounds of his own breathing. But she did not slow as she flung herself between the trees.
He saw her goal ahead of them—a wide thicket, snarled and dark. 'Sblood, not again! With a burst of strength, he lunged for her, his shoulder slamming against the small of her back. Her feet flew out from under her, and they hit the ground with a bone-jarring smack.
She lay boneless for a stunned instant, and then she was struggling, her legs thrashing, her hands reaching back to claw him. He fought his way into a crouch, and she wriggled under him, her knee catching him hard in the stomach. With a growl, he threw himself full-length on top of her, trying to immobilize her with his weight.
She went limp.
Panting, she spat leaves from her mouth and glared up at him through wisps of brown hair.
"And so we meet at last, Lady Steele," he said.
"Fitz Grey," she hissed, making the word an oath, her sharp blue eyes narrowing to slits.
Was it the baroness? he wondered abruptly. The ballads spoke of blue eyes, true, but her hair was not flaxen, and though under the dirt and blood her skin was fair enough for any poet, and though her face had a softness about it, her features were stronger than the fashion, her lips lush instead of infant-small, her nose wider than a blade-fine arch, her chin firm and stubborn rather than softly retreating. And she was thin. Not the bird-boned tinyness of some women, but certainly not the shapely, willowy figure that was currently praised.
He dashed away his uncertainties. It had to be her. Jongleurs were notoriously flexible with the truth, and it would be stretching credulity to the breaking point to believe there were two women in Steele green wandering around the forest that day.
And she was attractive. Perhaps not fashionably so-those lips were more suitable for a temptress than a saint-but undeniably, unavoidably attractive all the same. He was preternaturally aware of how close his face was to hers, how their bodies pressed together, the softness of her breasts crushed against his chest as she panted for air. Adrenaline still hammered through his veins, and anger, and they merged with his incipient lust to form one heated welter that tightened his body with anticipation-
She must have read his expression, for she jerked her hand free with a snarl and raked her fingernails across his face, twisting and struggling against him. Cursing, he freed one hand and grabbed his dagger, pressing it to her throat. She froze.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he snapped, shaken at his own reaction. The ludicrousness of those words when he had a knife a hairsbreadth from her skin struck him forcibly, but he shoved the thought away. He wasn't going to kill a woman any more than he would rape her, whatever momentary devil had seized his mind. Disgust at himself colored his words. "Keep still, and I swear upon my honor that no one will be hurt."