might have noticed the strange gleam that mellowed the gray of his eyes, softened them, even, to a shade verging on pale blue.
“I trust you are feeling better for your rest?” he asked.
Servanne said nothing until he had come to a full halt before her. When she did speak, it was in a voice so low he almost had to bend forward to hear.
“I trust you enjoyed the liberties you took while I was resting?”
“Liberties, my lady?”
“How dare you touch me,” she snapped, “let alone remove so much as a slipper from my foot!”
“Ahh,” he said, and straightened. “Those liberties. You would have preferred to sleep in cold, wet clothes?”
“My clothing was not wet,” she objected. “I was no nearer the edge of the water than I am to you now.”
His grin broadened. “You were very nearly headfirst into the mud and weeds had I not caught you in time. Furthermore …” His gaze raked appreciatively down the shapeless form of the cloak and left no doubt as to what he recalled seeing beneath. “I did what any chivalrous fellow would do to save his lady the possible discomfort of fever or flux.”
Servanne clenched her small hands into fists. “I am not your lady. And if you were so concerned over my health, why did you not call my waiting-woman to attend me?”
“I could have,” he agreed blithely, “but I thought it a convenient opportunity to assess the precise value of the goods I am holding to ransom. Had I done so earlier, I heartily believe I would have put a much higher price on returning them undamaged.”
“Then … you did not—” Servanne bit her lip, resenting the flow of ruddy colour that made his smile widen further.
“I am crushed, indeed, my lady, that you should have to ask.”
“Biddy believes you did more than see to my comfort. She does not believe I have no recollection of what happened after I fainted beside the pool.”
“My reputation as a lecher will be in shreds,” he murmured.
“Did you or did you not take ill advantage, sirrah?” she demanded, giving her foot a little stamp of annoyance.
“If I did?”
“If you did”—she searched his face in vain for a trace of humanity—“then you are a lower, viler creature than ever I could have imagined.”
The Wolf laughed. “I was under the impression your estimation of my character could sink no lower than it was already.”
“I have erred before in crediting a man with too much character,” she retorted. “For that matter, most men in general tend to show a glaring lack of consistency when their true faces come into the light.”
“Spoken like a woman who is tired of being sold into marriages with one stranger after another.”
“Nay, wolf’s head. I am simply tired of men who continually deign to know what is best for me and who then proceed to rearrange my life to suit their needs.”
“And what needs, might I inquire, would you prefer to have tended?”
Servanne flushed again. “Mon Dieu, but you are an exasperating cur! Will you or will you not answer my question truthfully?”
“Truthfully—” He said the word in such a way as to raise a spray of gooseflesh along her arms. “Had I seen to my own comforts as well as yours, you would not now have the shield of a blank memory to hide behind. Nor would there be a need to ask what manner of liberties I had taken, for your body would still be singing their effects loudly and clearly.”
Servanne’s jaw dropped inelegantly. She took a small, stumbling step back, and then another, but before she could turn and run from the mocking gray glint of his eyes, a sharp fff-bungg! split the air and left an ashwood arrow quivering in the wooden arch beside her. A shriek sent her jumping forward and the Wolf suddenly found himself standing with an armful of trembling, soft femininity.
“Runner coming in, my lord!” someone called.
“Who?” the Wolf asked, not troubling himself to turn around.
“Sigurd’s handiwork,” said Gil Golden, noting the arrow’s fletching with a wry grimace. “No one else wastes so much quill.”
None of the other outlaws contributed comments. None even appeared to have heard Gil’s, or so it seemed to Servanne. Everyone—the men at the tables, the men not yet in their seats, even the two women who bent over the cooking fires—all of them stood frozen in place, like statues turned to stone. Apart from the hiss and crackle of the fires, there was only silence. A silence