Aislynn pointed toward the tree. “I…it was a face. I saw a man’s face there looking down at you.”

  Jarrod, sword in hand, was up and behind the tree before she could reach the fire. He moved around the tree, examining the ground as he went, then spun about to look into the depths of the forest, before disappearing into that thick darkness.

  Aislynn held her breath. It was only minutes until he emerged from the forest and came toward her and Sir Ulrick, who had risen from his bed to stand beside her. The fact that her father’s knight had drawn his own blade was not lost on Aislynn.

  Sir Jarrod looked down at her. “I can find nothing. Tell me what you saw.”

  She took a deep breath. “I told you. I saw a face, the face of a man, looking out from behind that tree. He was looking at you, Jarrod.”

  “Did you recognize him?”

  She shook her head slowly. “Nay, in the light of the fire, it was very strange, the angles exaggerated. I could not…” Aislynn grimaced. “But I do know it was evil. That much I know.”

  Jarrod rubbed a hand over the back of his neck as he looked toward the tree. “I can not see so much as a footprint.” He looked at her again, his gaze searching, “I heard nothing.”

  “You were sleeping.”

  He shrugged. “Aye, but I am a very light sleeper.” He frowned as he looked down at her now. “Pray what were you doing up and about alone.”

  Aislynn flushed. “I…I had to attend a personal matter.”

  Sir Ulrick spoke up. “My lady, you have given your word that you will not go off alone.”

  She scowled at him, surprised at this criticism from what she had considered a source of support. “I did not wish to wake either of you over such a small matter. I assure you that I never lost sight of the camp.”

  “Nonetheless, I trust you will not do so again,” Jarrod interjected.

  Aislynn swung around to face him, resentful of his commanding tone. “I trust you understand that I am able to complete some small tasks without your guidance.” Who indeed was he to tell her what to do when he cared naught for her?

  He glared down at her.

  Aislynn returned the look, saying, “And now that we have gotten that taken care of, wouldn’t it be wise to attempt to discover who I saw?”

  Jarrod shook his head, replying slowly, “Aislynn, I searched the surrounding wood. I saw nothing.”

  She gasped. “Are you saying you doubt my word?”

  It was Ulrick who answered. “Nay, my lady. I am most certain that Sir Jarrod is not saying such a thing. He is simply saying that you may be mistaken in what you thought you saw.”

  Jarrod nodded. “Aye. It is dark. You only glimpsed this face for a brief moment. Perhaps it was just a trick of the light in the shadows.”

  Aislynn drew herself up to her full height. “I know what I saw.”

  Jarrod shrugged, his tone not unkind as he said, “Who could it possibly have been, here in the midst of nowhere, in the dead of night? Surely thieves or anyone else who meant harm would have attacked.”

  Aislynn did not know who it had been, nor why they had run away when she saw them. Yet she did know that there had been someone there. She had not imagined it. She also knew that they could not have meant good.

  She looked from him to Sir Ulrick. She could see the doubt in the older man’s eyes. And his regret over it.

  So be it. They did not believe her.

  She held her head high. “The two of you may think what you will. I know what I saw. Do with the information as you see fit. And now I think I will return to my bed. Lest you have more to say to me.” She frowned from one to the other.

  Sir Ulrick bowed respectfully. Jarrod also bowed, but there were tight lines around his mouth. Without another word, Aislynn turned and stalked away from them.

  It was some time before she fell asleep.

  Jarrod went about the business of breaking camp with a heavy heart. He was completely conscious of Aislynn’s continued anger with him. It was obvious in the stiff line of her back and the way she ate and prepared for the day ahead without looking at either him or Sir Ulrick directly.

  He wished he could tell her that he believed her. But he had found nothing to indicate that anyone had been anywhere near their camp. It was true that the carpet of needles and leaves on the ground might hide footprints well, but there was not so much as a broken twig on any of the branches.

  He simply could not encourage this fearful fantasy. Yet he felt a desire to soothe her hurt feelings. This desire was surely nothing but madness, for he did not mean for her to think…

  What had happened between them could never happen again. She was a passionate young woman and had only answered his own caresses. That the very memory of her response heated his blood, he would control. He must do so.

  As Ulrick led the horses away to drink before leaving, he found himself attempting to meet her gaze. To offer some form of apology, however silent.

  Once again Aislynn avoided him as she stood feeding her mare a handful of tender undergrowth that she had specifically picked for her. He took in the dark shadows beneath her eyes, which told of a sleepless night. And as he did so he realized that, far from detracting from her delicate beauty, this sign of vulnerability made her even more attractive to him. It made him want to take her in his arms and…

  He found himself approaching her. Surely there was no danger of anything happening between them here in the light of day. Nor any other time, he reminded himself quickly.

  She looked up at him, her gaze cool, and Jarrod felt a ripple of irritation pass through him. His inclination was to leave her to herself, but something, some sense of fairness would not let him.

  Impatient with his own timidity before this tiny woman, he spoke roughly. “Aislynn, I…” Her haughtily raised brows made him halt. He began again. “Lady Aislynn, I wish to tell you that I am sorry for any disturbance I might have caused you by questioning what you believe you saw last night. It was not my intent to do so.”

  Those brows remained high as she looked him directly in the eyes. “Do not trouble yourself, sir. You and I are nothing to each other.”

  With that, she swung around and stalked away, leaving Jarrod feeling as if she had slapped him in the face.

  The words carried him back to a time he did not wish to remember, a time that still had the power to bring an ache to his chest. They made him remember the woman to whom he had bared his yearning heart. That day he had felt as if a part of him had died. As he had stood in a tent, which had been erected on the fringes of an army camp, his shy but eager gaze had found her—a woman of dark and unusual beauty in spite of the differences in their ages and the ravages of her profession.

  Jarrod being barely twenty, was a man, yet he still retained many of a boy’s insecurities. He had come there with his heart in his hands. And she…she had faced him with a similar hauteur in her black eyes and said, “You, English boy, why do you come here and expect something from me? You are nothing to me.”

  Even now, nine years later, Jarrod felt the world tilt with the pain of that moment.

  He drew in a ragged breath, forcing himself to gain control. He would not allow Aislynn Greatham, with a handful of words, to destroy his hard-won self-possession.

  Yet he found himself watching her too intently as she allowed Ulrick to help her to mount with coolly civil thanks, still without so much as glancing in Jarrod’s direction.

  Unbidden, he realized that he now had some notion of what she’d felt when she’d accused him of ignoring her. Although that had been a completely different matter, he assured himself quickly. He had not chosen to withhold himself because of a fit of pique.

  Again Jarrod reminded himself that what Aislynn thought of him did not matter. It was, in fact, the best thing for both of them that she held him in such disregard. Yet as he mounted and waited for them to fall in behind him with deliberate calm, he did not feel relieved.

  All he felt was a sense of regret and an unfocused sadness that made the gray sky overheard seem bleak, the day before him long.

  Chapter Nine

  Throughout the morning, Aislynn felt Jarrod watching her from his stallion. She would not have given him the satisfaction of knowing that she noticed if he were Saint George himself. At the same time she could not help feeling that he had been quite disturbed by their brief exchange before leaving camp. He had looked…well…shaken was the only way she could describe it.

  This did give Aislynn some pause, especially as she had only repeated what he had said to Sadona the previous day. She thought her understanding of his feelings would please him greatly.

  It was no bother to her when conditions worsened so that simply traveling forward became a task that demanded her undivided attention. The road grew narrower and more rutted as they went on. To the right of them, the sea crashed insistently against the rocky shoreline.

  It was midmorning when Jarrod halted his stallion and leaned up in the stirrups. He studied the road up ahead of what appeared to be a sharp bend in the narrow track. After a moment, he turned and came back to meet them.

  Frowning, Aislynn halted her mare and watched Jarrod’s face as he dismounted and came back to stand at her horse’s head. His expression troubled, he pointed up ahead of them. “Come, I want you to see something.” If he had ever been upset with her, there was no sign of it now.

  So amazed and curious was she by this odd remark and behavior that she forgot her own anger and took his hand when he reached out to help her down. Yet Aislynn was not unaware of the current that ran through her in the brief and distracted contact.

  Jarrod made no sign of noting this.

  Holding back a sigh of irritation with herself, Aislynn followed as he led her to the spot where he had turned back on the narrow road. She was aware of Sir Ulrick coming behind them.

  What she saw when she peered around the edge of the bend in the rocks made her gasp.

  The track no longer followed the brink of the water from here. The cliffs ran right along the edge of the sea here, and the path, which was too narrow for more than one person at a time, rose almost straight up, seeming to be cut from the rocks by some haphazard hand.

  As she watched, Aislynn could see that the spray from the crashing waves had wet that ribbon-of-stone path. This road would surely be slippery at the best of times. She took a deep breath. “Dear heaven. It is no wonder that few people dare to journey here.”

  Jarrod turned to her. “Precisely my own thought.”

  She looked at him. “You are certain we have followed the directions correctly?”

  Aislynn did not require the nod Jarrod gave to know that they had done so. It was only a deep desire for it to be otherwise that made her ask such a pointless question.

  Sir Ulrick spoke from behind her. “You can not think to go on here, my lady.”

  Aislynn turned to Jarrod and found him watching the knight with approval. Clearly he had only said what Jarrod had been thinking.

  She drew herself up. “We must discover whether or not my brother is in this village. Or if he has been there.”

  Quickly Jarrod said, “I will go on alone and return to you with any news I learn.”

  Aislynn shook her head. She looked up at him, willing him to understand her position. “I can not agree to that. My father dreamed that I must be the one and I will honor his faith in me. I can not do otherwise.”

  He turned to stare out over the churning sea, the muscles in his lean jaw flexing. “Must you be so obstinate?”

  She did not care for this characterization, for she did not imagine herself stubborn at all. She preferred the term determined. Yet Aislynn did not waste her energy in attempting to convince Jarrod Maxwell of this.

  She simply met his eyes directly and said, “I will seek out my brother with or without your permission.”

  Sir Ulrick shook his head. “You father had no notion that you would be placing yourself in such peril when he charged you with this task, Lady Aislynn.”

  “My father would have me heed his dream. After the way he lost my mother, he would feel that he had no choice. You must see that I have no choice.”

  Sir Ulrick frowned, but said nothing. Aislynn was not blind to the fact that the stiffness of his posture indicated his continued objections.

  Issuing a grunt of exasperation, Jarrod swung around to face Ulrick, ignoring Aislynn completely. “I will see to her.” The other knight nodded, albeit reluctantly and took a deep breath as Jarrod went on. “You must remain with the horses, for we can not leave them and ’tis obvious taking them on would be impossible.”

  The older knight nodded again. “I will stay nearby with them.”

  Jarrod sighed. “A short distance back I did see a spot where you could erect the tent and await our return.”

  The knight nodded again. “I know the place.”

  Aislynn knew she should be pleased at this easy capitulation to her wishes. But she did not feel pleased. She did not care for the way they had dismissed her from the rest of the conversation.

  She told herself that she must ignore their opinion of her. She was only doing her duty in insisting on going on to the village. It was what her father had charged her to do.

  It took far less time to hand the horses over to Ulrick than she would have expected. It was clear that once the decision had been made, neither man wished to linger over the matter.

  Sir Ulrick’s observation that night would fall soon explained their hurry. Aislynn knew that the path around the cliffs would only be made more dangerous once darkness had fallen.

  She gathered the few belongings she would take and stood ready.

  Whether Jarrod approved of her haste, she could not tell. He said not a word to her, only bidding Ulrick Godspeed as the older knight moved off with the horses.

  Without a word to her, he turned and started up the trail, showing less care in traversing the rocks than she thought wise. But he could do as he would, could he not?

  Gingerly Aislynn followed.

  Pray God, Christian would be in Ashcroft at the end of this dreadful expedition.

  It immediately became apparent that the trail was even more treacherous than it had appeared from below. The rocks were slimy beneath her slippered feet and the path was so narrow in places that her feet became stuck if she did not pay close heed. Aislynn was forced to attend to where she placed each careful step.

  From the lead, Jarrod kept glancing back. Although Aislynn knew it was only because he had to look after her because of his promise to her father, she felt somewhat moved by this sign of care. It made her wonder what it might be like to be Jarrod Maxwell’s woman, to have him there to care for her well-being.

  But she knew that thinking on this served her naught but ill. Thus when Jarrod fell back to reach out a helping hand, she raised her head high and told him she required no assistance. Knowing her own susceptibility to him, she could not allow him to touch her.

  The rigid set of his profile when he turned away would not sway her. Jarrod had made his intentions most clear and she could not allow her heart to soften toward him.

  Her close attention grew increasingly more important as the path steepened toward the top of the cliffs. More than once, Aislynn stumbled and only managed to right herself in time to keep from tumbling back down the rocky cliff face. Only the knowledge that Christian might be at the end of this impossible trail kept her from stopping and telling Jarrod that he was right, that she did not wish to continue.

  Finally she looked up to see Jarrod holding out his hand to help her the last long step to the top. Utterly exhausted, Aislynn did not meet his searching gaze as she took his hand.

  When she stepped up onto level ground, he instantly let go of her hand and moved away from her. Aislynn did her best to ignore him, falling to her knees in the damp short grass as she sought to bring her breathing back to normal. She realized that her shortness of breath was caused more from the sustained anxiety of falling coupled with her own unhappy thoughts.

  Jarrod waited there for a few moments, still not speaking, staring out at the wide view of steely-gray ocean and sky, which Aislynn had to admit would have been awe-inspiring under different circumstances. As it was, she could think of nothing save getting to Ashcroft and leaving it again—with Christian.

  Thus it was she who turned to Jarrod as soon as she was able and said, “Let us go on.”

  He nodded, then hesitated. “I know you are angry, but I would we could make a truce for now, Aislynn. I would not be distracted from finding Christian.”

  Surprised but unwillingly admiring of his directness, she could not but acquiesce. She dipped a deep curtsy. “As you will.”

  He bowed with equal formality then turned and led the way.

  The village, if one could call it that, was a cluster of no more than six or seven rather small but well-tended cottages, a blacksmith shop, and another building that appeared to be a business of some sort. At the center of the village was a well. There was no indication of life other than an elderly woman, who stood bent over the well as they approached. She looked up with obvious curiosity and even more obvious caution.

  Aislynn was not surprised by this reaction at seeing strangers. She was certain that the method of getting here kept all but the most determined travelers away.

  Suddenly Jarrod broke his silence, startling Aislynn somewhat though his tone was soft. “If you will permit, I will do the talking. The village folk may see so few strangers that they are leery of them.”

  Aislynn nodded, having come to the same conclusion.

  Jarrod said no more, approaching the woman, who now stood watching them, with deliberate unconcern. Aislynn attempted to adopt a similar demeanor though her heart was pounding with anticipation at the thought that Christian might be close by.

  Jarrod nodded to the woman and smiled. “Good day.”

  She bowed, her gaze taking in the fineness of his and Aislynn’s garments. “Good day, my lord, my lady.”

  Aislynn nodded, deliberately feigning a casual stance to match Jarrod’s.

  Jarrod drew the woman’s attention back to himself. “Wouldst you care if my lady and I availed ourselves of your well, good dame?”

 

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