A Stolen Knight's Kiss
Автор
Melissa Oliver
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Chapter One
Nicholas D’Amberly was born a sinner and he would no doubt end his days a sinner, heaven save his soul. But at this very moment it was another soul that had captivated his attention. One who stood just a short distance away on the other side of the damnable busy tavern in London’s Southwark. In truth the young woman seemed rather out of place in this ramshackle place filled with many unsavoury characters, but the demure glances she threw in his direction surprised him.
He concluded matters with the informant he had been meeting, Brother Michael of St Albans—a self-righteous, pious monk who snatched the proffered coin while he looked down his bulbous nose at Nicholas, expostulating on the dangers of vice and licentious sin. The execrable churl! But then the man did have his uses since he was part of the Bishop of Winchester’s retinue, and happily provided valuable information for said coin. Which was just as well, when London was still rife with conspiracy, rumour and whispers of treachery.
It was this that Nicholas needed to uncover, using the secret contents of the missive that the man had just passed to him. It was with this that Nicholas would be able to determine whether there was treachery afoot with the Bishop and his retinue, or whether he was innocent of any involvement with The Duo Dracones, a notorious shadowy group bent on traitorous, subversive action against the Crown. And with the Bishop of Winchester being one of the most powerful men in the realm, he had to tread with caution.
Indeed Nicholas, along with his brethren of a secret group, The Knights Fortitude, were duty-bound to untangle and quash all of it. For King Henry. For the Crown of England. And for his lord liege, Hubert de Burgh, Regent of England until very recently.
In truth it was a good thing then that anyone could be bought for a price, especially obnoxious greedy monks, but Nicholas could hardly complain. They had only just exchanged hands, with a swift flick of his wrist as they passed one another, when Nicholas looked up and noticed the young woman from afar. With flame-red hair tucked beneath a sheer veil and exquisite features, she was indeed a beauty but carried an air of vulnerability about her that alarmed him decidedly.
Deftly he tucked the compact rolled vellum that the man had provided inside the leather pouch dangling from his belt, his movements quick, nimble and under the cover of his cloak. And all without breaking eye contact with the young woman. He took a sip of ale, wiping his mouth on the edge of his sleeve, watching in amazement as she began to weave her way slowly towards him. Well, now, this was a surprise. Yet there was something in the manner in which she moved and the way in which she carried herself that did not ring true. Her fixed smile, for one, was far too sweet and far too innocent for a dirty, unsavoury place such as this.
Oh, God, but the more the maid moved towards him, the more he realised that she seemed just as innocent and just as naïve as her smile. What on earth was she doing in this busy, stinking tavern crammed full of scoundrels and sinners alike? His mind whirled at the endless possibilities that might befall this young woman and none of them were particularly good. Unless, of course, she was a working moll. Nicholas might be on friendly terms with most of London’s prostitutes, especially since he paid good coin for information they might glean from their wealthy customers, but this woman did not seem to be one of them—not yet anyway.
His chest clenched with a sudden unexpected sadness. There were many things he might not be proud of in his life but hell would have to freeze before he would venture anywhere close to someone this innocent and naive. Mayhap he would talk to her and try to assist in some way. Coin usually settled a situation such as this. And, with any luck, the young maid would leave and put this behind her. He hoped she would, not that she was his problem.
Nicholas watched as she continued to make her way through the throng of people, when an old codger grabbed her around her waist and pulled her onto his lap. She gasped and tried to break free as the man clamped his hands around her, to whoops and cheers around them.
Nicholas ground his teeth together, knowing that this was something that he could hardly ignore. Reluctant to draw attention to himself and understanding the need for caution, he nevertheless had to offer help to the maid and intervene. He strode towards the group, who sat around a small table, and leant over, glowering at the old man.
‘Let the maid go.’ His voice was quiet but held enough determined steeliness to make the man swallow uncomfortably, loosening his hold.
‘It was only a jest. No ’arm done, sir.’
But Nicholas ignored him and the pathetic excuses often made when a woman was groped and mauled against her wishes. His eyes flicked to the woman who stood before him, biting down on her lip and nodding her thanks with a mixture of relief, gratitude and guilt before turning and taking a step back. His eyes followed her, ensuring that she moved safely through the tavern.
And it was then that it happened. A sudden shift, a sudden stirring movement in just the blink of an eye. Nicholas might have missed the slight pull, had it not been for the fact that this was precisely what he did. He was trained to notice everything—every small detail, every single facet of every single person—and yet he had missed this.
Nicholas knew with a sinking feeling as he fumbled beneath his cloak that the pouch had been cut loose and taken. He looked all around the tavern but nothing seemed amiss. Damn, but he had been lax, his attention solely fixed on the maid... The maid! He now understood perfectly the look of shame and guilt that had flashed across her eyes quickly before being shrouded.
His head snapped up as he searched, his eyes darting around the tavern. But she was nowhere to be seen.
His heart pounded in his chest as Nicholas once again felt beneath his cloak, even though he knew it was futile. This could not be happening. The pouch had indeed been taken while he had been fooled into acting the knight, ensuring the maid came to no harm. But whom, he now realised, had been used solely for that reason—to distract him. Which meant that she must have had an accomplice.
His head darted in every direction, searching for her. Nicholas pushed through the groups of people and made his way to the door.
‘Have you seen a young woman with red hair beneath a veil and wearing a grey cloak, about this height?’ he asked a man who looked less drunk than the one beside him.
‘Who wants to know?’
He grabbed the man by the scruff of his neck, glaring at him. ‘I do, friend. With so few maidens in this damn hole, and pretty young ones at that, it cannot be too difficult to remember. Now, again—did you happen to see such a woman? Think!’ Nicholas was not one to use such a menacing tone in his voice, but in this instance he was forced to and used it with great effect. It was a matter of urgency and he needed answers quickly.
‘Yes...yes, I did, sir. She left just moments ago...with a young lad. Please do not hurt me.’
A young lad? Well, of course. Who but a lad would otherwise have the opportunity to cut the strings from the pouch attached to his belt? A person beneath his notice. And in this case a boy—one probably carrying a tray, giving the appearance of a serving boy in the tavern.
What an unmitigated fool he had been.
He ran out into the misty London road, looking in desperation, hoping that he might catch up with the culprits.
He knew with a sense of foreboding that the stolen pouch not only contained the missive with a possibility of damning treasonous information, but also his mother’s ring. It was all he had left from the only woman he had ever truly loved, made from hessonite and entwined with pearl—a token he always had on his person as a reminder of the past. The irony was not lost on Nicholas that he had deliberately placed the ring in the pouch for safe keeping before entering this unsavoury tavern, for fear of having it filched.
What a damn mess!
His chest tightened, knowing the huge mistake he had made on this night. He could not believe how easily he had fallen for a ruse designed to divert and distract him, as he went headlong into assisting a distressed maiden like the veritable dolt that he evidently was. He should have trusted his instincts, but then he never could walk away from someone, least of all a woman, in trouble.
Nicholas cursed under his breath, looking desperately in both directions, knowing he had to make it right somehow. And then he heard it in the distance. Fading footsteps echoing on the deserted cobblestones. Thank God, there was hardly anyone outside along these pathways in this part of London.
He stopped, turned and listened. Two pairs of footsteps walking in haste, practically running. There was only one thing for it and that was to give chase. Nicholas knew that he would be faster than a mere slip of a maid and her young accomplice. He sprinted towards the pair, who had now come into the periphery of his vision, as they jumped into the shadows down a narrow lane. They crisscrossed from one to another, up, down and across the empty winding lanes. And although he was mildly surprised by the duo’s stamina, it was nothing on his. He would have them in his clutches before long. Of that he was damn well certain.
He turned the next corner and saw them just ahead. They had hit a dead-end and had nowhere to go.
Good.
As he rushed forward, the young lad laced his fingers together and helped the maid jump over and to the other side of the stone wall.
‘Hell and damnation! Stop!’ he bellowed at the boy.
‘No. Let her go, sir. It is me you want.’ The lad wore a mask over his eyes, and a hood over his head for some strange reason. And he held his hand, dangling a pouch—his pouch—between his nimble fingers. ‘Now, you are better than most, and I had not expected that. Impressive and fast too!’
‘Why, you little miscreant knave!’ he spat out as he took a step forward. Too late! The boy tossed him a wry smile, a mock salute and jumped over the wall. And all without any assistance. Now that was impressive, but Nicholas was in no mood to reflect on such talent. Instead, he was seething at his own ineptitude and lack of foresight. The eventide had brought one calamitous situation after another. And the moment that he’d get his hands on the damn impudent boy could not come quickly enough. God help him but he had to get that pouch back one way or another. He ran and scaled the wall.
Eva Siward looked behind her, knowing that the man she had been forced to steal from would soon climb the stone wall and continue his pursuit of them. Only this time they would no longer be in such a desolate and deserted area of Southwark. No, they would, as she had known, be much closer to the busy riverbank with its muck, its toil and its veil of cloudy fog that hugged the marshy terrain. She smiled to herself, knowing that she would not even need to venture that far.
With her mission nearing its end, relief flooded her senses. Not that it was over yet. Nearly there, she reminded herself. Nearly...yet there was still much to do. Much to negotiate. And mayhap, when this was all over and she had avenged the murder of the only man she had ever cared about—Simon the Rook—at the hands of a Crown Knight, she might finally find some semblance of peace. God, but she hoped that would be so.
Simon’s death was still so raw and still so recent that Eva wanted to scream and rage at the world for taking him away and leaving her to fend for herself again. He had been the only one who had come to her rescue and looked after her when she had nowhere else to go, after she had run away. And he had been more of a father to her than the man who was her flesh and blood.
She fought back the tears that inevitably came whenever she thought of Simon and her loss. This had been for him, she reminded herself. She had done this in part for revenge and for retribution. The other reason: for silver. And although she knew that this man was not the one responsible for Simon’s death, it mattered not. They were one and the same. Besides, with the success of this theft, she would gain enough coin to leave London for good. Start again, somewhere new and far from the dangers it posed. Especially the strange man who had hired her to steal from this Crown Knight in the first instance and who had made her feel as though she had little choice in the matter. And, in truth, Eva doubtless did. She shuddered and fixed her mind on the coin she would receive for services rendered. It would do—it would be enough. It had to be.
Eva turned a corner and walked through an archway and took off the mask she had fashioned to conceal and protect her identity as a woman.
‘Marguerite?’ she whispered into the cool night air. ‘Are you here, Marguerite?’
‘Yes, I’m here and I have done exactly as you requested. I’ve taken off the kirtle I wore earlier and changed it for the boy’s clothing you left behind.’
She had left Simon’s leather saddlebag—the only item she had left of him—with a change of clothing in a deep opening between three large stones in the wall.
‘Thank you. You did very well earlier, by the by, and performed your part precisely as we had discussed.’
‘I did. Was it not exciting? Everything went exactly as you planned it would—except for the disgusting old man. In truth, I was thankful, if a little surprised, that the Crown Knight came to my aid.’
Eva frowned as she glanced at her young friend. Yes, she too had been surprised at the turn of events. She had not expected Sir Nicholas D’Amberly to intervene in that manner. It certainly marked him as a man of integrity and even honour, but she did not want to dwell on that. No, she had not anticipated that. It had been far too disconcerting and for a moment she had been stumped, before she’d pushed away the twinge of remorse and played her own part. Indeed, everything had gone to plan and far better than she had ever envisaged. And yet the feeling of apprehension remained with her.
‘Indeed, but it is not over yet. Not by any stretch of the imagination, Marguerite.’ She began fumbling inside the leather saddlebag, where she had placed female clothing to change into. ‘We still have to get away from here, as the man whom we stole from, Sir Nicholas D’Amberly, is still on the hunt for us. There is still much danger to avert. Do you think you are up to the task?’
‘I believe so, yes. You know I shall provide aid in any way I can.’
‘And I thank you. You are a good friend to me.’
‘As you are to me, Eva. I doubt I would have survived the streets of London without you.’
Eva nodded her thanks and removed the pouch that she had stolen and held it up in the air.
‘And it was all for this,’ she murmured absently, turning it in her fingers.
‘Shall we see what is inside?’
‘No, best not.’ The less her friend knew the better.
‘What will you do with it, Eva?’
‘Leave it here for safekeeping...for now. Until the time is nigh.’ And that moment could not come quick enough, so that she could be done with this business. When the man who’d hired her would arrange to collect it and give her the money he owed. Not that she needed to explain any of her trepidation to Marguerite and her reasons why she needed to hide the pouch. Eva knew instinctively that it might somehow provide her with a small measure of security. But from what, precisely? It was too soon to tell. Yet the man who had hired her might attempt to employ underhand methods to procure it, especially if he wanted to renege on the exorbitant amount of silver that he had offered. No, it was prudent to employ caution.
She pushed the pouch inside the clothing she had been wearing while resembling a young boy and placed it all neatly into the saddlebag. She then shoved it back inside the secret opening in the wall and covered it with three large loose stones, concealing the gap to the eye. She turned and smiled, pulling on the kirtle over her tunic and tying the laces at the front, turning her back into a maid.
‘You look very well as a boy, Marguerite,’ Eva said as her friend hid most of her red hair beneath a coif cap before covering her head under a large scallop-edged hooded cloak. This somehow managed to drown her diminutive petite figure in so much material, but there was very little to do about it now. It would simply have to do.
‘Do you think so?’
‘I do... Well, mayhap a small boy. Now, are we ready to leave?’
‘Yes, I suppose we are. Shall we?’
They ambled out of the shadows which had concealed them and back through the archway, stepping out on the road. Eva held out her hand to her friend, their roles completely reversed now. Although, in truth, she always felt far more comfortable in a boy’s attire than the burdensome layers worn by her own sex. And, if Eva was honest with herself, it was more to do with the fact that she felt so awkward and ungainly wearing women’s clothing. For as long as she could remember, she had disguised herself as a boy for her own protection, the streets of London being a dangerous place for a young maiden, alone as she had been.
That had been Simon’s idea, and one that she had been happy to abide by as it not only protected her but offered her the freedom that few maidens could hope to experience. In truth, he had encouraged her to act and behave as a young boy, and in exchange he had taught her all of the skills and tricks that he knew, from wielding a dagger to the clever ploys used to steal. From the moment Simon had encountered Eva as she had tumbled out from the back of a wagon making its way into London, he had taken her under his wing. He must have seen something in her that he knew he could use—something that made an impression on him, standing out from the other waifs who found themselves lost and bewildered in London.
Indeed, they had made a good pair, thieving their way to survive. And for Eva it had been a choice between learning to thieve beside Simon, dressed as a boy, or the inevitability of becoming a prostitute as a maiden, alone and friendless in London. No, there had never been a choice in the matter.
She gave Marguerite’s hand a gentle squeeze as they hurried along the busy thoroughfare, hoping that her friend had remembered to keep her head down low. They could hardly risk Nicholas D’Amberly somehow stumbling upon them now.
Nicholas D’Amberly... Now, there was a fine-looking example of sinewy yet beautiful masculinity. Eva had never encountered anyone like him before. His presence in the tavern had both irritated and fascinated her in equal measure. He’d seemed so self-assured, so supremely confident, exuding an inner steely resolve that made Eva suddenly doubt herself and question whether she should be stealing from such a man. She had felt a jolt of something that she’d never experienced before, especially when she had ventured close enough to take the pouch from his person. Whatever it was had arrested her then, in that very moment the blasted man had gone to the aid of her friend, challenging her preconceptions. And it frightened her. The reality of the man, her confusing reaction to him, not to mention what she had agreed to do, had made her feel as though she could no longer breathe.
But then she had shaken herself out of it. She had not given into the restless unease that had suddenly crept under her skin. And while this whole commission had come at a high cost, Eva hoped that it would in some way go towards avenging the murder of Simon at the hands of a Crown Knight. A faceless coward and mayhap not Nicholas D’Amberly, but they were all the same arrogant bastards after all. Every single one.
