Danger's Kiss Read Free

hoarse cry of pure fury, hurled it forward with all her might.
    To her astonishment, it sailed true, striking the shire-reeve in the face.  He staggered back, pressing his hand against his cheek, drawing back bloody fingers.
    “Seize her!” the constable cried, drawing his sword.
    But the shire-reeve took one look at her and stayed the constable’s arm.  “’Tis only a child.  Leave her be.  ‘Tisn’t the first stone I’ve caught.  Won’t be the last.”
    The constable reluctantly sheathed his sword, but Desirée was already beating a hasty retreat down the lane.  She might  be reckless, but she was no fool.  Nor was she a child.
    Huddled behind the stone wall of a butchery shop, she peered down the long, narrow street.  The snow was falling more heavily now, but she could still make out the silhouette of the black-cloaked man striding past the distant gallows, defiling the white landscape, like a crow waiting to feed on the spoils of his kill.
    She would wait for him.  She knew he was mortal now.  He could bleed.  She fingered the short dagger cached in her skirts.  The blade was cold and sharp and merciless...just like revenge.

CHAPTER 2

    " G od’s hooks!  ’Tis colder than an old trot’s teat,” the constable complained.
    Nicholas stomped the snow from his boots and nodded toward Hubert Kabayn’s still-hanging body.  “Go on,” he bade the executioner, “cut him down.  He’s not getting any deader.”  The sooner he got this business over with, the sooner he could see to the nasty gash on his cheek and the sooner he could drink himself into oblivion by a warm fire.  Anything to erase the dreadful image of Kabayn’s death.
    “The law’s the law,” said the squat, pig-eyed steward of Torteval, who stood between them, jabbing a scolding finger at the air in front of the constable’s nose.  “A full hour.”
    Nicholas ground his teeth.  Abiding by the law was one thing.  Following it to absurd limits was another.
    “You owe it to Lady Philomena,” the steward insisted.  Then, as if Nicholas were both blind and deaf, the man jerked his thumb toward him and confided in a loud whisper to the constable, “He cheated her.”
    Nicholas frowned down at the steward, who was small enough to squash with his thumb.  “Cheated her?  How?”
    Like a spooked squirrel, the man trembled at being directly addressed by the shire-reeve.  Then he licked his lips and blurted out, “The outlaw didn’t suffer in the least.”
    “The man’s dead,” Nicholas said.
    “But Lady Philomena specifically requested — ”
    “I don’t give a bloody damn what...”  Nicholas bit his tongue.  He knew better than to get into an argument of ethics with the steward from the richest holding of Canterbury, the household that paid the bulk of his wage.
    Emboldened by Nicholas’s silence, Lady Philomena’s man smirked at the constable.  “How do you expect to thwart outlaws if the bloody wretches don’t suffer?”  He brushed the snow from his shoulder.  “Soon there’ll be murdering miscreants crawling all over Torteval Hall.”  He shuddered.  “My lady will be displeased, very displeased.”
    As far as Nicholas was concerned, Lady Philomena could kiss his arse.  He wasn’t her damned servant, for God’s sake.  He was a servant of the law.  The woman hadn’t bothered to show up for the hanging anyway.  And as for this mincing Torteval steward...
    The constable diplomatically interrupted before Nicholas could finish his silent threat.  “Well, the rest of the crowd was most impressed,” he told the steward.  “One need only whisper ‘Nicholas Grimshaw’ now to keep the outlaws of Canterbury quiet for weeks.”
    That was what Nicholas hoped.  He was far more interested in preventing crime than punishing it.
    Apparently, Lady Philomena’s man did not agree.  He narrowed his beady eyes in anger and, with a flip of his cloak that scattered snowflakes everywhere, stalked off.