Seize the Wind Read online

  “Sure you don’t need help?” Joshua called, laughing.

  “I’m quite fine, thank you.”

  “Er, um, shall you then be escorting our guest to camp, Shadow?” Joshua inquired, his voice still filled with laughter.

  “Indeed!” To camp! He was incredibly anxious to bring her to camp, to set her inside one of the warm wooden huts camouflaged by the denseness of the forest and the branches he and his men had dragged down to create a natural barrier between their haven and the trails throughout the forest. By God, he simply needed to be rid of her for the time being—before she managed to either kill one of them or bring great harm down upon them at the very least. After all, an injured rogue in the forest could do little good for an incredible cause.

  “Stop!” she commanded. She tried to rise upon his shoulder, still beating against his flesh, not at all admitting defeat. “You will let me go this instant, you will return my belongings to me—”

  “What belongings, lady?”

  “The wagon!”

  He started to laugh then, hurrying as he moved through the trees to reach his horse. “My lady, whether I take the wagon or your future husband does so, no belongings remain yours!”

  Quite purposely, he walked with a jaunty gait, causing her to slam against his shoulders as he took her unawares with a quick step.

  She swore, garnered her balance again.

  “You’re quite mistaken! The Duke of Manning is a noble and generous man—”

  “I’m quite afraid you are mistaken, my lady. The Duke of Manning is a coward, a bore and a selfish man, my lady. But then, it seems that he is your choice, since you are so very willing to leap to his defense. Not to mention your own. When you are returned to him, you—just like any other fixture within his dwelling—will belong to him fully. I promise you that.”

  “How dare you suggest—”

  “I don’t suggest anything. I am telling you the truth quite bluntly. But don’t fret, my lady, I will see to it that you are returned to your noble, generous lord. And if he is such a generous man, he may even wish to see that the contents of the wagon are purchased to be returned to your keeping.”

  “I cannot be kept a prisoner in this forest!” she cried.

  “Ah, but you can!”

  She beat her hands against his back once again. “Put me down, you oaf. Damn you, put me down—”

  He did so. He had reached Windrider, his magnificent black stallion, the only possession he cherished. But then, he didn’t actually think of the stallion as a creature he possessed. Windrider was, in his way, as free as the air surrounding them. No other man in the forest could ride him. Yet he came when the Shadow called his name. He served the Shadow with respect, and by something amazingly like mutual agreement.

  Now, the Shadow plumped his burden of wriggling woman upon the horse’s back. He stood back to mount, yet in those split seconds, she had managed to take up the reins. “Yaw!” she cried to the horse, setting her heels against Windrider’s ribs.

  Windrider, comrade in arms that he was, merely snorted and reared upon his hind legs, seeming to dance there until sending the ever-battling Lady Kate down to the dust-strewn forest floor.

  The Shadow reached for her instinctively, praying that no delicate bone might have been broken in the fall, yet he should have known—she was not so delicate as she appeared. She swore, refusing his hand, stumbling up, ready to run once again. He caught her and tossed her upon the horse. “Stay there!” he commanded, but not trusting her, he held her even as he leapt up from the ground to ride behind her.

  “Bastard!” she hissed at him.

  “Fool. A stallion like this could kill you.”

  “Because he is like you. Because he thinks that force will seize for him all that he wants. Because he idiotically fails to realize that logic and intelligence can win the day when brute force fails. Because—”

  “Indeed, yes! Do give me a speech on logic and intelligence after you have attempted to knife a man twice your size!”

  “I meant to let the air out of your puffed-up sails!” she informed him. “You diabolical renegades think you own these forests, you—”

  “Were we so diabolical, my lady, wouldn’t a more gentle prudence on your part have served you better?” he inquired huskily. He leaned closer to her ear. “Think on it! Dare you test my temper so? For were you sweetly a meek and mild maid, I could allow you sunlight and green trees, and surely have you freed from here within another day and night. But, alas, me being diabolical and you being a terror, um, perhaps I shall have to use you.”

  “Use—me?” Her back was very straight.

  “Ah, yes! This is the forest primeval, my lady. Druids roamed these lands, spilling blood for their sacrifices, specifically the blood of maidens stripped bare to tender and innocent flesh—”

  She sent an elbow flying back into his ribs. Luckily, his black-painted mail protected him. She surely hurt her elbow more than his ribs.

  “You’ll not scare me!” she assured him.

  “But you’re already frightened.”

  “No, rogue, I am not.”

  “Now you’re a liar, as well.”

  She would have none of it. Her voice was suddenly pure sweetness, her eyes like glittering gems as she twisted to search out his mask-covered face.

  “You’d let me be free—within this camp of yours, of course?”

  “You mean in the copse? Where the leaves bring the gentlest shadows, where wildflowers grow, where the air is kissed by the sweet freshness?”

  “In the copse, aye, in the copse.”

  “It’s so lovely there.”

  “Oh? I am anxious to see it!”

  “Well, then, you must look quickly—before you are tied up in the prison hut.”

  The glitter in her eyes was suddenly a furious one. “I shall boil you in oil myself!” she promised, slamming his ribs again with such a vengeance he did feel the blow. “Rip out your blackguard’s heart—”

  “Ouch! What words to fall from the tongue of one who would appear to be such a tender damsel!”

  “Oh, do shut up! And dear Lord! Watch where you ride, you will take both our heads from our necks,” she cried, ducking against Windrider’s neck.

  Soft branches fell around them. Windrider had unerringly brought them through the trail that couldn’t be seen. They passed through an alleyway of soft branches that fell back around them.

  They came to the copse the outlaws called their home. What he had said about it was true. Wildflowers grew at the foot of numerous heavily laden trees. A creek meandered inward, circling around many of the trees like tendrils of soft hair. The air was kept fresh by the sweet scent of the flowers, the water and the sunlight that filtered through. Beyond the small copse, even here, the woodsmen’s huts could scarcely be seen, for such a cover of brush and branches had been put up around them.

  He dismounted quickly as two men and a plump, middle-aged woman emerged from the foliage to meet him.

  “All went well?” a tall man inquired.

  “As well as might be expected.”

  The tall man, with handsome features, lean face and graying hair, frowned. “Was there difficulty? Were our men injured in the quest?”

  The Shadow reached up, setting his hands around his captive’s waist. Before he could bring her down, she kicked out, catching him in the chest. She was primed and ready to run again, but he was prepared now for her every trick. He turned her quickly within his grasp so that her flailing arms and kicking feet were aimed harmlessly away from him.

  “None of our men has been injured,” he said, then inhaled deeply for the air his captive was costing him. “Lady Kate is simply less than eager to be among us!”

  “Lady Kate!” the woman gasped. “Ah, and what a beauty she’s grown to be, Lord Gregory’s daughter! And betrothed to that jackanapes, the Duke of Manning!”

  “And imprisoned here by a wretched batch of thieves!” Lady Kate cried out, greeting them all with her fi
re. But then she paused, staring at Beth. “You knew my father—Lord Gregory?”

  “Years ago. I saw you when you were just a wee child. Lord Gregory was the finest of men.”

  “Ah! So now you are with the ruffians who would rob from his daughter,” she snapped, still struggling with the Shadow, who struggled in return to hold her.

  “It isn’t your father we rob from, it is the Duke of Manning,” the Shadow said flatly.

  Kate ignored him, except for trying to aim another kick his way. She stared at Beth. “Who are you that you knew Lord Gregory?” she demanded.

  “No one, lass, a serving wench grown into a serving woman. Born in these woods, and at times healer to many men who thought they ruled their great estates nearby, midwife to their ladies. And I’m pleased to see you, child, and to serve you.”

  “Beth, you needn’t be serving this vixen—” the Shadow began, swearing as she caught his shin with one of her wild kicks.

  “If you’d just let me go!” she grated to the Shadow.

  “Gladly!”

  He let her loose, allowing her to sprawl in the dirt before him.

  “Gawain,” he said, addressing the handsome, graying man. “And you, Thomas!” He spoke to the second man, a shorter fellow with a fine head of thick, curling brown hair. “And mostly you, my good Beth—she is your responsibility now. I haven’t slept in nearly two days and will do so now!” He spun on his heel and walked quickly to the underbrush.

  “Come, my poor, poor dear!” he heard Beth saying.

  “Never!” declared the captive.

  “Now, my lady…” Gawain must have tried courtesy. The Shadow suddenly heard a deep, masculine cry, and he smiled.

  Gawain had met their captive in truth.

  “Ah, but she’s dangerous!” Thomas cried.

  And the Shadow laughed softly to himself. The three were aware. And they would never let her go. Never.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “She’s gone.”

  “Gone?” he said incredulously.

  “Gone!” Beth repeated, wringing her hands. “Yet she can’t have fled far for I brought her warmed wine just minutes ago!”

  He leapt up from the simple wooden bed and down mattress where he had slept, taking Beth by the shoulders.

  “Just minutes ago?”

  Beth nodded worriedly. “I swear, it was just minutes! She was in the far shelter. She did not leave by the door for Gawain was watching it all the while. He and Thomas have already gone in search of her—”

  “On foot?”

  “Aye.”

  “She will try to steal a horse,” he said with conviction. “I had best find her quickly!”

  “Your mask!” Beth warned.

  “Aye! My mask!”

  After giving Beth a quick kiss on the forehead that brought red roses to her cheeks, he paused long enough to slip into his black mask and tie the black band about his head, knotting it at his nape. Then, gently pressing Beth aside, he quickly exited his humble abode within their forest community. He tried to reason as their unwilling guest might have done. She had fled by a window, and she would keep close to the darkness and shadows of the huts while she looked for their makeshift stables. He silently hurried to the dwelling she had so recently vacated, discovered the window by which she had managed her escape and exited as she had done. He crept along the side of the hut, then eased to the next, and the next.

  Then he saw her.

  There was a hunter’s moon that night. Full and glorious it rose over the forest, casting a golden glow upon the forest and everything within it. She had discovered the stables, like all else in the glen camouflaged with brush and branches. She had seen the entry, though, or perhaps she had heard the whinny of one of the horses, and she was silently and determinedly making her way to the trail amidst the green, slipping silently toward the stable.

  He started off across the exposed copse, moving swiftly. He was nearly upon the stable when he sensed noise and movement behind him. He spun and was just in time to avoid being completely engulfed in a massive blanket of fur.

  “Got you, my lady!” he heard.

  Throwing his arms up, he fought off the burly hold upon him and the suffocating sweep of fur.

  “You little vixen—” Joshua began.

  “Hardly!” the Shadow protested.

  “Shadow!” exclaimed the giant. “By the Blessed Virgin, my apologies, my lord! I’ve been following the girl—”

  “As I have I. But we are hardly of a size!”

  “The moon slipped behind a tree. A hunter’s moon. I could not be blinded, then suddenly I was. I beg your pardon.”

  “Aye, Joshua, but we must move quickly now—”

  Even as he spoke, she suddenly came bursting out of the stables and camouflage, dragging branches and brush along with her. “He-yaa, he-yaa!” she cried to her horse, a handsome bay mare he had taken from a very fat and bejeweled merchant who had erred across his path. She raced the mare straight at the Shadow and Joshua, causing them both to leap aside. Even as they fell—eating dust—she disappeared into the night, only the mare’s diminishing hoofbeats proof that she had been there just seconds before.

  “Blast!” Joshua cursed, leaping up.

  The Shadow was already on his feet, running for the stables. He burst into Windrider’s stall. Eschewing the use of a saddle for the sake of haste as Lady Kate had done, he was atop the stallion and racing in her wake within a matter of seconds.

  “Rouse the men!” he called to Joshua. “Have them form a circle around the outer perimeter and warn the guards there already. I shall follow her and seize her long before that point, I swear!”

  “She’s a wily one!” Joshua warned. “She may well escape you!”

  “She’ll not escape me!” he stated angrily. Sweet Jesu, but the wench was causing no end of trouble! “She’ll not escape me,” he repeated, “but…”

  “But?”

  “If she should,” he said dryly, “you’ll see that the men are prepared!”

  “Aye!” Joshua answered. The Shadow nudged Windrider, and they began their flight once again, following the trail Lady Kate had taken.

  She was not difficult to follow, for her wild race through the forest was a reckless one. The earth was churned up where she rode, branches were broken, small trees were bent. Yet as the minutes passed, he found himself frustrated that she was horsewoman enough to keep up her pace, not knowing where she rode, yet unerringly seeming to head toward the north, toward the very stronghold of the Duke of Manning. Not that he truly feared at this moment that she would break through his barriers. There were seventy-eight men in his band of outlaws, though many of them came and went from other lives, as he did himself. Tonight, twenty-five men sat high atop the trees that encircled the dense forest, long before the lines where the simple folk of the duke’s community dared walk and long before the place where his armored guards might venture, as well.

  Yet still…

  Some instinct caused him to halt. “Whoa, my good fellow,” he said softly to Windrider, slipping down from his horse’s bare haunches. He studied the ground and the trees and realized, feeling very much like a fool, that she had doubled back. She had ridden hard through the trail on purpose; she had led him in a circle.

  He cursed himself and prayed he had made the discovery in time. He cut across her circle with a madman’s speed, but then drew in Windrider’s reins. The massive stallion crept through the foliage with the quiet and grace of a dancer.

  The Shadow was grimly pleased to discover his beauty at last. Dismounted, she walked along a pine trail, breaking branches in a backward motion as she returned to her mare.

  The Shadow slipped from Windrider’s back and circled behind her. He stepped back each time she did so. “Ah, easy now, my fair lady!” she whispered to the mare she assumed to be close behind her. “You’re a good creature, unlike that heathen spawn from hell ridden by that wretched forest blackguard!” She eased a hand behind her as if to pat t
he mare’s fine shoulders.

  She froze, for rather than the mare’s flank her touch fell upon the leather-clad thigh of a man.

  She spun, oddly seeming caught in time beneath the hunter’s moon, moon gold hair spinning in the light with the most ethereal beauty. Her eyes touched his, vivid, gemlike blue, touched by the fire of fury.

  “You!” she exclaimed.

  “Indeed, my lady.”

  He bowed deeply.

  She turned to run.

  He caught her by her elbow but she doubled back into his hold, trying very hard to kick him where she might do the most damage, managing to get his knee solidly instead. He grunted and groaned, and when she tried again to escape him, he released her—allowing her own momentum to bring her crashing down to the forest floor. Before she could rise he pounced upon her.

  “Alas! Is this the way we must carry on all our conversations?” he demanded, pinning her wrists to the sides of her head.

  “Nay, sir, we need not carry on conversations at all!” she seethed.

  “Not even a goodbye?” he taunted. “Have we not tried to make your stay as comfortable as possible?”

  “I am not comfortable at the moment, I do assure you!”

  “You bring about your own distress. You had only to accept our hospitality for a brief time—”

  “I will not be a prisoner to a barbarian thief!”

  “But you are, my lady. You are. And I might strongly suggest you cease your determination to be free. It is my intention to return you to the Duke of Manning in just circumstance for a bride, but lady, most times when I assume this position with a woman, it leads not to conversation, but other intercourse.”

  She tried to strike him, but he held fast. “Lady Kate, will you please behave nicely?”

  “An outlaw, asking me to behave nicely? You are demented!”

  “Fair warning, then. I will take what measures I must against you!”