family had taken all of her jewelry from her and kept her dowry as well, so surely his cursed sons by his first wife owed Iana something for enduring their father without complaint. There should be at least three mounts enclosed in a stable somewhere thereabout.
Iana lifted her skirts and quickened her pace. If she was to become a reiver tonight, then she had best be about the business of it before good sense took hold.
Henri opened his eyes to total darkness. There were no stars above him. No moon. Nothing. For a moment, he believed death had claimed all but his awareness and the ever-present pain. He sensed he was enclosed somehow, not out in the open. Then he heard Everand’s almost inaudible snoring nearby, interspersed with the distant, soft whuffle of a horse. Was this a stable?
“Ev?” he whispered.
A cool hand brushed his brow. The woman. He drew in her scent, that of sweet grasses and the underlying essence that marked her gender. “Where are we?” he asked.
“In a cave,” she answered, her voice dulcet and comforting. She placed something to his lips. “Chew upon this. It will aid your rest and cool your fever.”
He accepted it and tasted green bark. Foul stuff, but given that she had sewn him up and rescued him from the elements, he granted her that modicum of trust. Henri chewed for a few moments, then removed the bitter residue from his mouth.
“We leave here come morning,” he told her.
“So eager,” she commented with a soft laugh. “I fear it will be at least another day before you are well enough to ride, good sir.”
“I have sailed the entire length of England in worse condition. I daresay a few days on horseback will not prove any more life-threatening.”
“As you will, then,” she replied softly. “But now you must sleep, sir.”
“Henri,” he whispered, groping about for her hand until he found it and threaded his fingers through hers. It helped to feel grounded here in this dark place, so he would not go flying off into the beyond. The feeling of hanging suspended in purgatory when he’d awakened must have affected him more than he realized. “My name is Henri.”
He realized he must be more fevered than he thought, to invite this informality with a woman. Even his mistresses did not address him so, and he had never before encouraged such a thing. However, she thought him but a simple knight, apparently. That made sense, for when they had set out upon their voyage, he had instructed Everand not to call him “lord.” Most of the time Henri preferred the simplicity of being a knight among other knights, instead of the heir to the Trouville dynasty. It afforded him more friendship and camaraderie. He definitely wished a friendship with this woman, he thought with an inner smile.
“I am Iana,” she said.
“I remember. Iana,” he added, for no reason but to say it, tasting her name on his tongue. Like honey, it sweetened the bitter taste of the bark. “Your father is called Ian, I would wager.”
“My grandfather,” she replied. He could hear the smile in her voice.
“I know an Ian,” he told her idly, his words slurring as his mind grew heavy with fatigue. “A rogue, he is.”
Again, she laughed, a mere flutter of sound that soothed him immeasurably. “Rest now…Henri,” she advised softly.
The sharpness of his aches had subsided. The coolness of her palm seemed to draw the heat from him. “Magic,” he commented, smiling into the dark.
He listened, imagining he could hear her heart beating a steady rhythm, or mayhaps it was his own. A horse whuffled again and Ev made a sleepy sound of protest, likely in response to a dream. For the first time in weeks, Henri felt safe enough and well enough that he could willingly embrace sleep without thinking of death.
“These are your horses, lady?” Everand demanded. He stroked the neck of the smallest mount, a mare who tended to nip.
She shrugged. “They are now.”
He grinned impishly, showing fine white teeth and dimples. “You stole them, did you not? I knew it last night when you returned after so many hours. Did you kill someone for them?”
“Of course,” she said, then wrinkled her nose at him in jest. Iana held tightly to the rope attached to the large cob, allowing only enough slack for the horse to bend its neck and drink from the stream. “In truth, I left a link of the silver for payment.”
With her free hand, she patted the knight’s chain, coiled within the sack attached to her belt, and took pleasure in the clinking. “When the moment arrived to take the beasts, I found I could not become a thief.”
“Aha,” he acknowledged with a sage expression. “An honorable soul. I do admire that in a woman.”
The lad’s sudden transformations from child to jaded gentleman and back again amused Iana. ’Twas hard not to laugh at his pretentiousness. “How old are you, Everand?”
“Fourteen summers. And you, lady?”
She did laugh then, but answered him honestly. “You should not ask such of a woman. I am two and twenty.”
He looked aghast. “I swear by the saints, I would have guessed not more than ten and seven. How well you wear your years!”
Iana could not contain her mirth. “An accomplished flatterer. I do admire that in a man,” she declared, giving him back his compliment. “Now come, we must get these mounts back inside that cave ere someone happens along and sees us with them. I should not enjoy swinging from a gibbet!”
“But you paid more than their worth,” he argued. “What is to fear?”
She turned to lead the cob and the roan back to their hiding place. “Aye, but I did not strike a deal with their owners. It may be they were not willing to sell. Now hurry along, your master will be waking soon and wonder where we are.”
Everand paused to fill the wooden bucket Iana had appropriated from the stables where she gleaned the horses. Hauling that with one hand and leading the mare with the other, he followed her.
“Two and twenty, eh? You said you have no husband. Have you never wished to marry, lady?” he asked as they walked. Though he had had the care of Tam the night before, he still avoided mentioning the existence of the child, who now lay nestled against Iana’s back.
“No, I never wished to wed, but I did so all the same,” she answered curtly, unwilling to lie to the boy, but also disinclined to share her tale of woe. If he and his master knew the entire story and the plans her brother now had for her, they might well leave her behind to avoid trouble. “My husband perished last year, and I will speak no more of him.”
“Aha,” the lad said, “so this is how you became impoverished. Poor lady. You should marry again, this time to one who would have a care to provide for your future. And that of your child,” he added, commenting for the first time on Tam’s presence. Iana supposed the fact that he now thought the bairn had a father made her acceptable enough to mention.
“’Tis none of your affair,” she snapped. “Be silent ere I box your ears.”
“Ooh, a woman with pluck,” he crooned in that too-adult
