launch unseen poisoned darts into the broad back of the wolf’s head who dared to call himself Lucien Wardieu. She had already given him a host of truer appelations—madman, poseur, traitor, charlatan, impostor, bedlamite, crack-brain …
Each seething glance resulted in a new term to describe an audacity that was beyond belief. Who, in all of England, did not know the great golden countenance of the real Baron de Gournay? What man or woman in possession of all their senses could believe for one instant that this coarse, ill-bred, unkempt, murderous creature of the forest belonged at the same table with kings and queens? The mere notion of such a ruffian even being permitted into the servants’ gallery was preposterous. The stables, perhaps. The pigsty or the muck pit where the refuse from the castle latrines was collected … maybe. But as liege lord of the castle itself? As baron lord of Bloodmoor Keep?
The snort of disdain she was unable to repress caused the dark chestnut head to turn slightly. A wry smile suggested he had felt every barb and intercepted every thought that had passed through her head over the last two hours, and the sight of it fueled her anger a notch higher.
“The scenery displeases you, my lady? You see stretched before you nature at its very peak. She offers here a tranquility and solitude found nowhere else; a wild purity shared only by other virgins who have not yet experienced the taint of man’s interference.”
“She bears your taint, wolf’s head,” Servanne remarked dryly. “And that must surely spoil her for all others.”
“Ahh. Spoken with the true sentiment of wedded bliss. Might I assume your previous marriage left something to be desired?”
Servanne’s eyes flashed blue fire. “You may presume nothing whatsoever. My marriages—past or future—are no concern of yours. How dare you even speak to me of them, or of anything else for that matter. There is nothing your twisted tongue could say to me that could be of the least interest, and I insist you do not insult me with it again.”
The outlaw’s broad shoulders shrugged beneath the black wolf’s pelts. “A greater hardship on you, I fear, for I have yet to encounter a woman who could maintain as good a silence as a man. Especially not when her brain is overtaxed with righteous fervour.”
Servanne opened her mouth with a ready retort, saw the mockingly expectant brow arch in her direction, and pressed her lips tautly together again. She averted her gaze and stared straight ahead, but the resentment that bubbled within her could not be as easily diverted.
“I have seen Lord Lucien with mine own eyes,” she declared stridently. “How dare you presume to mock him.”
“Do I mock him, my lady? I thought you would be flattered I envied his choice of brides.”
“Flattered!” Her voice was brittle with anger. “You could flatter us both by dropping dead this instant and saving the baron the trouble of rooting you out later! As for envying his choice of brides, I would sooner win the praise of a crimp-kneed, foul-breathed Saracen infidel than possess one attribute the likes of you would find appealing! I would sooner an arrow pierce my heart and rend it in two than find myself the object of a wolf’s envy!”
The Black Wolf studied the stubbornly flushed features of his hostage a moment longer before dropping the reins of her horse and unslinging his bow from his shoulder. With her tongue stuck fast to the roof of her mouth and the echo of Biddy’s shrill screech reverberating along her spine, Servanne watched in horror as the outlaw braced his long legs wide apart, swung the grip of the bow from hip to shoulder, and sighted along the shaft of an arrow. At the last possible instant he corrected the aim so that when he snapped his fingers to release the missile, it did not pierce the wildly beating thing that sought to escape her breast, but hummmm-ed in a long, sweeping arc over Servanne’s head and disappeared somewhere in the trees beyond.
The silence that followed was complete enough to hear the low droning of a swarm of bees in the distance. It was complete enough to hear the swish of Undine’s tail as she chased away an annoying gnat. Complete enough that when a clean, sharp fff-bunggg left the quivering shaft of a returned arrow buried in a nearby tree trunk, both women nearly lifted off their saddles in fright.