The Conqueror

He did not look amused.

“And the servants, I suppose?” She smiled brightly, nodding to where the men had ridden away under the eaves of the forest.

He turned on his heel and walked towards the crumbling building.

Her gaze bored into the broad expanse of his retreating back with evil intent, but he did not seem to feel her enmity. Nor did he seem to care she was still standing there. He neither turned nor slowed.

Sighing, she followed him, tracing an erratic line through the high, mist-strewn grasses on one heeled and one unheeled slipper. “Methinks they must hurt for business, set so far from the highway,” she huffed in a loud and irritable voice.

“They’ve patrons enough,” was his curt reply.

She sniffed. “How fortunate.”

She continued on, arms wrapped around her body, fingers clutching the satchel with her father’s love letters in them. She dared not think any further back than the past half hour. What could she do about any of it just now?

She began threading her fingers through her tangled hair as they tramped through the long, wet grasses, but her fingers shook. Everything was warped, and even the earth beneath her felt wobbly.

As for Pagan, he had turned from an engaging, mysterious saviour into a dangerous, sensuous rake, then into a close-lipped beast of a man in about as long as it would take to fill a bathtub. And now she was at a remote inn with him. Wonderful. What joys still awaited her this evening?

It started to rain.

Chapter Thirteen

It came down in torrents, as if the heavens had grown weary of their load and decided to leave it to the earthbound creatures to manage. A bright flash of lightning seared the heavens and a few moments later thunder fell through the crack, rolling and pitching as it came. Hard darts of rain slanted from the sky, driving wet pellets into their eyes and between the folds of their clothing. They entered the building with water streaming from their fingertips.

Pushing back her hood, Gwyn heard voices spilling through the walls, but saw no one. Laughter and jocular voices rose momentarily from a far room, then fell away again. The place was clean, she decided, with wide, open spaces. Even the stairs were broad, not close and curving like the Nest. Odd that no travellers were in sight, but it seemed well-tended enough to serve for the night.

From out of the shadows peered a small, feminine face. For the only human in sight, it was strange indeed to have her gaze at them from the shadows, as if she didn’t want to be seen. She smiled at Gwyn, who returned the gesture, feeling odd. Then her face turned to Pagan. “My lo—”

“We need a bath,” he said firmly, propelling Gwen up the stairs in front of him. “The innkeeper’s wife,” he said when she angled her head around in mute enquiry.

They climbed the rest of the way in silence, passing through a darkness alleviated by a series of torches set in iron cressets bolted to the walls. The light was soft and welcoming, if the shadows a bit eerie. Her silhouette was short and squat, then long and jagged, but always, plastered on the wall above her head, Pagan’s shadow was the darkest thing about.

“My room,” he said at her back, gesturing to a door at their right.

She stopped short. “And where am I to stay?”

“These are the only rooms.”

She chose to neither reply nor move, waiting instead until his thigh brushed against hers as he strode ahead and pushed open the door.

Someone had prepared for his return, and Gwyn couldn’t stifle a relieved sigh when she poked her head through the doorway. The rooms were small and clean, holding an antechamber and, in the distance, a bedchamber set mostly in darkness. The doorframe was low, so low Pagan had to stoop as he entered. Wicker walls reflected a golden glow from the fire burning in a brazier, and dark red tapestries, worn but clean, covered two walls.

Through a small doorway hung with another faded tapestry she spied a bed piled with a mountainous covering of furs. She sighed again, feeling a tiny bit of hard-packed tension ebb from her shoulders. She swung her neck in a small circle, stretching it.

“First, a bath,” he said.

Her shoulders hunched back up. “What?”

A knock came at the door. Pagan opened it and in came a short succession of servants bearing a round, fat tub and steaming buckets. How did he arrange such a thing so quickly? In no time a bath was ready and the room empty again but for her and Pagan.

She stared at the tub, her back to him. She was not going to look at him. No, because she knew as surely as her head hurt he’d be staring at her with that steely-eyed stare, or, worse yet, smiling that small, heart-shattering grin. And then the thudding would begin.

She heard his bootsteps start towards the door. “Sir, might I…?” she said. His boots stopped moving. “You mentioned a messenger?” she said directly to the wall.

“I will arrange for it.”

She half-turned her head. “But…all the way out here?”