King's Warrior (Renegade Lords)

“’Tis them or me, lass.”

She nodded again.

“And up to you.”

He felt her swallow.

“I’m going to let go now.” He dropped his hand and backed up a step. If she screamed.... From the alleyway in the back, they heard more boots and voices.

A hard pounding came at the front door, then a shout to open up. She jumped, then looked between him and the door.

“It is not much of a choice, is it?” she whispered, looking at him.

“A rotten one indeed,” he agreed. “Now make it swiftly, lass, ere you get hurt.”

Chapter Seven

MAGDALENA’S HEAD SPUN, in equal measure from exertion, fear, and whatever she’d seen flickering in the hard eyes of this hard man. Something had shone there, for just an instant, swift then gone, something that snapped like a whip into the recesses of her heart and rent it open.

No. Not this. Not now.

Not to be fooled again by excitement or charm, to think the world could be something other than grey and endlessly flat.

Twelve years ago, such dreams were to be understood. She’d been young then, and piteously poor, and he’d been handsome, Augustus had, charming, full of laughter, exciting, and marriage to a tradesman had been fortuitous. A blessing.

Then he’d started drinking. In truth, he’d been drinking for years, but it grew worse, as such things were wont to do, and the laughter fell away, as did the money, and although the charm remained, it became a pale, cold shadow cast over the empty larders that followed all their lost contracts. Soon, it was

nothing but loss: income, reputation, clients. Then he’d died, funny, charming, shiftless Augustus, frozen to death out back of a tavern.

Somehow, she’d rebuilt. Regained customers. Regained a reputation. Became safe again.

Never to lose herself in false hope or windy hilltops again.

At the ripe old age of twenty-nine, Magdalena had to finally admit that hope was a lie, that life was made for toil, and she was thankful for it.

And now this…this outlaw had entered her life, and for all that he conveyed ‘danger’ with every breath, something about him made her burn from the inside out.

Something about him made her hope.

She heard herself say, “Get under the counter.” Without waiting to see if he did, she strode to the door and swung it open.

A nobleman stood there, dark against the dark night. He was tall and wore an ermine-edged cloak and leather gloves. Steely rivets affixed in an orderly fashion down the front of his blue velvet tunic, as if he’d been hard at revelry when he got the call that her place needed searching and had turned, mid-merriment, to ensure the deed was done.

“May I help you?” she asked coldly.

“I sincerely hope so, Dame Thread,” he said, ducking his head to step inside. “I am Lord Sherwood.”

Chapter Eight

TADHG DUG HIMSELF a space beneath the front work counter, silently pushing aside containers full of the tools of her trade: iron and bone needles, pricked through thick strips of leather; lucets; a small collection of spindles; heaps of thread wrapped around wooden dowels; and one extremely large, monstrously heavy linen crisping iron. He eyed it appraisingly. Too bad she hadn’t used that to bash Sherwood’s soldier on the back of the head.

He let fall the linen covering that hung in front of the tools and tugged it along its thread rod until it curtained him from view. He left a narrow slit open, and through it he watched Geoffrey d’Argent, Lord Sherwood, stride into the tailor’s shop.

“My apologies, Mistress Thread,” he said as he removed his gloves and took a quick, visual sweep of the room, “for disturbing you so late. It is my understanding my men had reason to visit you, and may have caused some disruption.”

For weeks now, this treacherous, murderous, cunning man had hunted him. Fury, pent-up and roiling, burned through Tadhg’s blood, hammered in his ears. But there were soldiers in the background, and an innocent merchant in the fore who could—would—be hurt, so he stilled the urge to slash and slay, and hunkered down, hoping against hope Magdalena the Tailor was better-equipped for subterfuge than she appeared.

Sherwood’s gaze skated over her disheveled state: the slipping-down, darkly golden hair; her flushed, triangular face. “I am sorry to have pulled you from your...slumber?”