The Mercenary's Price Read online

  Thomas's horse darted away under his expert guidance, giving him time to draw his rapier. Before the attacker could strike again, Thomas's blade sliced through the air and bit into the man's shoulder.

  He screamed and fell back just as two more came through the darkness, swords raised.

  "Go!" Thomas said and Eliza urged her horse forward through a gap between the trees. She looked back and saw Thomas parry blows from both new assailants then take off after her. The men ran across the clearing in pursuit but stopped and doubled back. They would need horses to follow and to get horses they must waste time by returning to the mews on the other side of the castle. Eliza wondered if Thomas had hidden his horses as far as possible from the mews for that reason.

  "Are you all right?" he asked, drawing alongside her. He'd discarded his mask so she did the same, dropping it to the soft earth.

  "I'm unhurt," she said. But terribly shaken and frightened. "Where to now?"

  "Out of these woods."

  They emerged from the trees and were in the open once more, the hulking form of the old stone castle to their left. They picked up the pace on the good road but it was still very dark and riding fast beneath a starless night sky was dangerous. Thomas did not slow down. She didn't ask him to.

  They rode in silence, time slipping by like the shadowy hedges on the side of the road. Thomas never slackened the pace, nor did he follow the same road, but sometimes turned onto a smaller one or doubled back until Eliza had no idea in which direction they traveled. They didn't pass through a single village even though she knew there must have been some nearby. She had no doubt it was his intention to avoid them.

  An hour passed then another. Her back ached, twisted as she was in the side-saddle position, and weariness crept heavily over her.

  "Not much further," he said, glancing over his shoulder at her. "Can you manage?"

  "Of course." She thought she heard him chuckle but she couldn't be sure.

  True to his word, they rode into a village and through an arch to the cobbled yard of a small inn. She assumed Thomas would have to rouse the landlord but a servant greeted them beneath the single blazing torch. He must have been waiting up for them, expecting their nocturnal visit. Thomas dismounted and threw him the reins then turned to Eliza to help her. His hands grasped her waist and steadily drew her down. Her legs, unused to long, hard riding, buckled but he held her up as if she were merely a doll. His fingers massaged her through her clothing and he drew closer, using his body to support her. He smelled like leather and wind, and he was warm. So warm. She leaned into him and closed her eyes. It felt good to be so close to him again, to be taken care of by this capable man. She wanted him to hold her, caress her hair, kiss her worries away like he used to.

  She sighed and rested her cheek against his chest. His heart beat hard, fast and slightly erratic. But dear lord he was blessedly warm and—.

  He made a strangled sound then pushed her away and held her at arm's length. "Do I need to carry you?" His tone grated. He spoke through a clenched jaw then, as if disgusted, he turned away from her.

  Tears burned her eyes and her heart clenched. But she would not cry. Not in front of this man, not until she knew if his heart still belonged to her, or if it had broken beyond repair. She had her pride. "Don't be absurd." She jerked out of his grip. "Is Flora here?"

  He blinked. "Your maid?"

  Why did he make a question out of it? He should know of Walsingham's arrangement to send Flora on ahead. "Yes."

  He strode off towards the inn door. "There wasn't time to get her. Sorry." This last he flung over his shoulder.

  "Wasn't time...?" She had to walk fast to keep up, her heeled shoes click-clacking on the cobblestones. She caught him at the door which he held open for her. "But she was to meet me at our destination."

  "This isn't our final destination."

  "Oh." She frowned. "But what am I to do without her?"

  Thomas made that odd sound in the back of his throat again, the one that wasn't quite a laugh or a snort but was derisive nevertheless.

  "What?" She knew she sounded petulant but she didn’t care. Flora had been Eliza's maid since they were both sixteen. Flora was always with her, no matter if Eliza was at home with her parents, at one of the queen's residences or at some other noble's house. It was Flora who made her laugh when there was nothing in Eliza's life to laugh about, and it was Flora who tucked her into bed when the headaches came. Flora knew about the visions, knew all Eliza's secrets, even knew she'd never wanted to give Thomas up. The maid had been the one constant in Eliza's changing life and she desperately wanted her now.

  "Nothing," he said so quietly she almost didn't hear him. "You've changed, that's all."

  "I'm not the only one. Once upon a time you'd never have derided me. Never have spoken harshly to me at all."

  The landlord emerged from a door behind the taproom bar, a candle in one hand and a blanket around his shoulders. His nightcap drooped over one eye and he stifled a yawn. "Sir," he said, bowing. He pushed his nightcap up and fixed both sleepy eyes on Thomas. "Your rooms are ready. Would you like refreshments?" He eyed Eliza's elaborate beaded gown, partially obscured by the cloak, with open curiosity. "Does your good wife require the assistance of a maid?"

  Wife? Eliza glared at Thomas but his attention was on the landlord.

  "Thank you, refreshments in my wife's room if you please. No maid is necessary."

  No maid! How was she supposed to get out of the gown? It had taken two maids to get her into the contraption, complete with enormous wheel farthingale under the countless layers. She may be a seer but she was no magician. Had Thomas lost his good sense abroad as well as his good humor?

  They followed the landlord through the taproom, the twin smells of ale and sweat still lingering in the cozy space. He led them to one of the upstairs bedchambers, equally cozy but thankfully smelling only faintly of wood smoke. He stoked the fire to life in the grate then lit the candles on the mantelpiece.

  "Your room is next door, sir," he said. When Thomas didn't move, he cleared his throat. "I'll return with wine and bread."

  Thomas thanked him and the landlord left. "I'm sorry this room is much smaller than you're used to," he said to Eliza.

  She looked around the bedchamber. It possessed little in the way of furniture, just a bed, trunk, table, stool and chair, but the rushes seemed fresh and a ewer of water sat warming on the hearth. "I don't care how small it is as long as the mattress is clean."

  He nodded in what seemed to be a kind of approval. Of her attitude to the room? Odd. "I needed to take the bigger room. It has a better view over the street."

  So he could see anyone approaching the inn, she assumed. "You think I care about the size of my room?"

  "I don't know. I don't know anything about you anymore, Eliza." It was the first time he'd said her name all night and it was like a ribbon of silk floating in the air—a beautiful thing. She wanted to hear him say it again, breathier, deeper, the way he used to whisper it in her ear right before he kissed her.

  She felt her face heat at the memory and he must have noticed because his eyes widened, just a little, and she thought she saw his lips curve in a smile.

  Then he cleared his throat and the moment passed. He was back to being dark, hard Thomas Blackstone who'd disappeared for seven years. "May I take your cloak?"

  She removed it herself as Thomas stepped forward and dropped it on the bed, leaving him standing there with his hand outstretched. He closed his fingers then folded his arms across his chest.

  "There are suitable clothes in that trunk for tomorrow's journey," he said, looking at the trunk and not her. "We'll need to leave early. I can't take any risks, that's why I refused the offer of a maid. The fewer people who see us here, the better. Your safety is my priority."

  She nodded and sat on the stool because the chair's back would interfere with her skirts. "I see." It made sense, but it rankled that he'd refused the offer of a maid without check
ing with her first. He might be pretending to be her husband but he didn't have to behave like one.

  "I can help you with your gown if you like."

  "Later," she said, not wanting to contemplate that particular scenario. Her nerves could only take so much in one night.

  "I know you want to be left alone but I need to speak to you."

  The last thing she wanted to be was alone. She hadn't slept alone since she was sixteen. Flora had always been with her. She hugged herself, cold despite the fire warming the room. "About what?"

  "Well..." He drew in a breath and she closed her eyes, hoping he wouldn't drag up old pains. The night she'd refused him was long in the past and that's where she wanted it to stay. "About you and why I was ordered to collect you."

  Thank goodness. She wasn't sure she had the stamina to explain it all again—how her mother had ordered her to refuse him, how she'd obliged because, well, she was a dutiful daughter and she hadn't been entirely sure she'd been in love with Thomas anyway. That clarity had only come later, when he was gone. She didn't think she could sit through a round of accusations or hear the catalog of ways in which she'd betrayed him. She'd reprimanded herself so many times since that night, she didn't think she could listen to them coming from his lips too.

  But she knew, with a sickening certainty, that she would endure them at some point on their journey. Perhaps not tonight but before they parted. She just hoped she had the courage to not fling herself at him and beg him to forgive her. She only hoped he would forgive her anyway.

  "Collect me?" she said, with a shake of her head. "You make me sound like an egg in the hen house."

  He shrugged one shoulder. "I was informed that you have a national treasure in your possession and I was to collect you and it. So what is it? A jewel? A document?"

  She stared at him. He truly didn't know. Walsingham hadn't told him. And if the spymaster hadn't said anything about her visions, then perhaps she shouldn't either.

  "Tell me, Eliza." He sat on the chair opposite and leaned forward. He put out his hands as if he would grasp hers then quickly withdrew them. "What do you have that the Spanish want so badly? Tell me or just give the damned thing to me. You'll be safer without it on your person."

  She sighed. Safe. It sounded wonderful. But impossible. "It's me," she said and shrugged. He had to know at least part of the truth in order to keep her safe rather than continue to believe he was protecting an object.

  He blinked those long eyelashes at her. Then burst out laughing. "My sweet, you are beautiful but you’re hardly a treasure. For one thing, I still bare the scar from where you bit my wrist that day after the hunt."

  She smiled. "You deserved that. You were trying to kiss me."

  "Indeed I was, until your unladylike response. And your mother's untimely arrival. How is the old crow? Still forcing her will on lesser mortals?"

  "She's alive and well, if that's what you mean."

  "Pity."

  "She's not that bad. She only ever wanted the best for me, as any mother does."

  "Would she want this for you? Fleeing across the countryside in the hands of the man she rejected for you and without so much as a maid to accompany you?"

  A fair point but she would not concede it. His superior attitude made the blood pound in her veins. "It's not her fault that I..." She bit her lower lip and shook her head.

  "What?"

  "Came to the notice of Walsingham."

  "Yes and why is that?" His voice sounded thin, stretched, low on patience.

  "If you don't know, then it's not my place to tell you. It is a national secret after all."

  "Yes," he said through tight lips, "thank you for pointing that out." He pressed his thumb and forefinger into his eyes and sighed.

  A knock at the door made Eliza jump. Thomas rose and withdrew his sword. "Yes?" he said through the door.

  "Refreshments," came the landlord's voice.

  Thomas sheathed his sword and opened the door. The landlord entered, placed the tray on the table then backed out of the room, bowing as Thomas closed the door.

  "We might as well eat," he said, pouring wine into a goblet. He handed it to Eliza and she took it gratefully. She was so thirsty.

  He watched her, his eyes narrowing, and she lowered the goblet. "What is it?" she asked.

  "I think I understand," he said, voice distant. He nodded slowly, and frowned deeply. "Yes. I see now."

  "What?"

  "You're a bargaining chip, aren't you?" He picked up a trencher with cheese and bread but didn't hand it to her or eat himself. He stood beside the table and simply stared at her. "Her Majesty wants to marry you off to some foreign prince or duke to garner an alliance or wealth or both."

  She almost dropped her goblet. "I'm hardly a princess!"

  He waved the trencher in dismissal. "It is a high price, even for an earl's daughter but there are no English dukes anymore and only a single marquis so I suppose an earl's daughter will have to do. Certainly you're too good for anything less than an influential noble," he sneered.

  Too good for a baron's son, he meant, and second son at that. So. It would seem he was still hurt by her refusal of him. That was good. It meant he still cared for her, otherwise he would be indifferent. Wouldn't he?

  "As I explained at the time, Thomas, I refused you because it went against my mother's wishes and that of the queen." He snorted and returned the trencher to the table which received a great deal of his attention. She squeezed the stem of her goblet and tried not to think about throwing the contents over his head to startle some sense into him. They'd been over this, years ago, but still he failed to see. "They both had other plans for me in the matrimonial stakes but...that has changed." The queen didn't want her wed to anyone now, not since the importance of Eliza's visions became known. As an earl's daughter, she'd always been considered someone else's property but as a seer, she was even more so. Her will was most certainly not her own and never would be again.

  "You could have run away with me," he said, still studying the table.

  "And had what kind of life?" She placed the goblet on the floor and came up behind him. She hesitated briefly then placed her hands on his arm. He stiffened but didn't move away. "If I hadn't done what my mother and the queen ordered we would have been chased and I would have been sent to a nunnery and you would have been—"

  "Nunnery?" He shrugged her off and strode to the fireplace. Away from her but at least he met her gaze once more. "You're not a Papist, and there are no nunneries anymore."

  "The sentiment is the same—hunt, capture, imprisonment in a tower with only old crones for company."

  He gave her a rueful smile. "You always knew how to make me laugh, Eliza."

  "You're not laughing, you're giving me sarcastic little smiles. You've changed too, Thomas." She picked up the trencher and nibbled the crust of bread even though she didn't feel hungry.

  "I grew up," he said.

  "So have I. Seven years will do that."

  "You mean you don't always do what your mother wants anymore?"

  "No, but that's because I do what the queen wants now. And Walsingham. I don’t have any other choice."

  "Ah yes, the national treasure." In two strides he was before her, towering above her. He tilted her chin back and locked his gaze with hers. "Tell me, Eliza, why are you so important to England?"

  Chapter 3

  Eliza opened her mouth then shut it again with a snap of back teeth. "I probably shouldn't. If Sir Francis—."

  "Damnation, Eliza! Why can't you trust me?" Thomas stalked back to the fireplace and picked up the fireiron. He viciously stabbed the burning embers a few times then returned it to its position beside the wood box.

  "I do." Should she go to him or stay back, out of the way of that fireiron and his temper? She very much wanted to put her arms around him, caress his cheek, touch him in some small way. But he didn't seem to want her physical contact anymore. He'd shrugged her off when she'd touched his arm, and
earlier in the yard when she'd rested her head against his chest. It was completely the opposite reaction to the one he used to have when around her. He used to always want to touch her, even if it was just a lock of her hair. "I trust you," she said again.

  He leaned one hand on the mantelpiece and gazed at the dancing flames. "No, you never..." He shook his head. "You don't trust me."

  "Never? That's not true. You and I were close once. I told you my innermost thoughts and dreams. I wanted to share everything with you and if circumstances hadn't—."

  "Circumstances!" He spun round and she stepped back beneath the force of his glare. "The only bloody circumstances that got in the way of us being together was your lack of faith in me." He tapped his chest with his finger. "You never believed I could keep you safe from them. You never trusted me."

  "It had nothing to do with trust!" she shouted back. Stupid, stupid man, how could he not see that? "I felt I had a duty to my family to marry well, but I also knew that to deny my duty was folly. Worse than folly, it would be catastrophic. I would have been locked away and you could have ended up in prison. Or worse." She moved a step closer to him, no longer afraid despite the rage still burning in his eyes. "I was trying to keep us safe from them."

  "I could have kept you safe if you'd let me." His voice may have lowered but it still simmered with anger and something else. Hurt?

  She shook her head. "You are only one man, Thomas. One very capable man, true, but they would have found us. My mother's resources may have been limited but she can be relentless. And although the queen didn't have the same level of interest in me then as she does now, she wouldn't have wanted me to elope without her consent. She is very particular about her noblewomen in that regard."

  Thomas stepped forward until he was within arm's length and he regarded her through half-lowered lids. "I would have kept you safe." He said it very slowly, deliberately, as if forcing out every word.

  "Oh Thomas, I—."

  He grasped her around her waist and pulled her against him, knocking the breath out of her. Before she could recover, he kissed her. Hard. There was nothing tender about the kiss, nor was it a possessive one. It tasted of his anger and frustration with a large dose of bitterness.