By Grace Possessed Read Free

grasp on his sword, stepped forward with hard purpose.
    The outlaw’s eyes widened. He ran his tongue over his white lips. With a vicious oath, then, he shoved Lady Catherine from him so she stumbled forward, arms out-flung.
    Ross whipped his sword aside barely in time to keep from impaling her on it. Reaching with hard muscles well-oiled from the fight, he caught her with one arm, snatching her against him. Face set, heart pounding with terror for what he had almost done, almost been forced to do, he swung back upon the outlaw leader.
    He was almost upon him, his long knife raised to strike. A swift, backhanded slice, singing with its hard purpose, sent the man stumbling back. He crouched, clutching a long gash in his belly that might well be the end of him.
    With Lady Catherine firm in the curve of his arm and his sword in a hard grasp, Ross paced forward. The outlaw paled, looked around, saw that he was completelyalone. Being no fool, he turned and fled at a staggering run.
    In less than a heartbeat, the forest track was empty. The wood around them crackled with retreating footsteps, and then was silent.
    To let the pack of merciless brigands get away went against the grain. Had Ross been alone, he would have pursued them, laid at least one or two by the heels and seen them hung. The first to have his neck stretched would have been their leader. He deserved that and more.
    Ross couldn’t afford it. For one thing, the retreat was possibly an attempt to draw him to where he could be surrounded and taken down. Added to that, he was encumbered by the lady, who would become a liability if he had to move fast or fight off a surprise attack. The value of silence while tracking could also be an unfamiliar concept for her.
    Come to think of it, she was not making much noise now.
    She was making no noise at all.
    Ross frowned down at the woman pressed against his side. Her face was pale, her lips bloodless, and her eyes, though the pure blue of the Madonna’s robe, were stark and wide. Tremors shook her from the fine, springing blond tendrils that hung around her face to her long, white fingers that clutched his hard arm at her waist. Even the hem of her skirt fluttered, rattling the leaves where it swept the ground.
    “What is it?” he demanded, the words rougher than he intended. “Are you hurt?”
    She lifted her chin a fraction. “N-no. I just…I don’t know.”
    Comprehension struck him. He had seen the like before in street brawls and on the field of battle, where men who fought like devils incarnate while it was needful, then shook until their teeth rattled afterward. He’d just never seen it in a female.
    Releasing his hold with some reluctance, supporting her with a hand around her upper arm, he leaned to scoop up the cloak that had been torn from her shoulders. “Wrap this around you,” he said as he draped it into place. “Getting warm again should help.”
    “Yes.” She ducked her head as if to avoid his gaze as she tried to fasten the torn cords meant to hold her cloak. “I should…should thank you for…for…”
    “Nay, not at all. In God’s truth, ’twas a pleasure.” Bending, he picked up the small knife she’d dropped, returning it to the scabbard that hung from a chain on her girdle.
    Her pale lips trembled into a smile as if she understood his intent to make her feel safer by the return of her weapon. The valor of that effort, in spite of her shivering, sent a peculiar pain through him. Brushing her hands away from her cloak cords, he made a hard knot of what was left of them.
    “Nevertheless, you have my gratitude.”
    Her voice was stronger, he noted as he glanced at her from under his brows. A hint of pink crept across her cheekbones, mayhap from resentment at his presumption in touching her. It seemed progress that should be aided, one way or another. It was certainly better than draggingher into his arms and holding her so tightly against him that neither of them could breathe.
    “What