Danger's Kiss Read Free Page B

cruelty.
    The man wasn’t as cautious as he should have been.  The stupid fool had no idea someone was following him.  He didn’t even bother to glance behind him when he arrived home, swinging open the wooden gate in the high stone wall surrounding his demesne at the edge of the forest.
    Nonetheless, Desirée waited outside until snowflakes an inch thick covered the top of her boots, giving him time to settle in and drop his guard.  Then she lifted the latch and slowly pushed the gate inward.
    She expected to find a lair befitting a malevolent savage behind the wall.  Perhaps a cave dripping with bats.  Or a squat, squalid hovel with yellow smoke boiling from the chimney.  Or a jagged fortress carved out of gleaming black jet.
    What she discovered instead was an ordinary modest house of wattle and daub with a thatched roof.  Pale gray smoke drifted up from the chimney through the falling flakes of snow.  A pair of bare-limbed fruit trees stood sentinel over the cottage.  In the yard were furrowed rows where a summer garden had once grown, and a gruesome vision flashed through her mind of the shire-reeve harvesting cabbages with a great beheading axe.
    With an apprehensive gulp, she stole forward along the cobbled path, grateful that his shutters were closed.  Upon his doorstep, she drew the dagger, then with painstaking caution forced the door open a crack.
    The fire on the hearth cast a golden glow over the interior of the cottage, in stark contrast to the wintry white of the outside world.  The pitch pop of burning wood made cheery music in the room, and shadows danced merrily upon the plaster walls.
    Desirée hesitated, biting her cheek in indecision.  It wasn’t how she’d envisioned the den of a lawman.  This was no dank, dark dungeon.  The walls weren’t stained with the blood of unfortunates.  And the evil Nicholas Grimshaw wasn’t stirring a cauldron of boiling oil over the fire.
    A long, soft snore issued from the cottage, and Desirée pressed the door open another inch.  From here, she could see only the man’s long legs stretched out toward the fire and his dangling left arm, the fingers of which loosely gripped an empty clay flagon.
    She smiled grimly.  The fool was fast asleep.
    He snored again, a low rumbling sound, and she pushed the door wide enough to slip her head through the gap.
    He half reclined on a bench, pushed up against the interior wall.  He’d removed his boots, and his wet, stockinged feet, propped on a three-legged stool, steamed from the heat of the fire.  His cloak lay crumpled atop a nearby table, beside a keg of ale, where he’d likely filled his flagon.  And his sheathed sword was propped in the corner, a good four paces from where he dozed.
    The knife felt heavy in her hand.  She wasn’t sure she could slay a man in cold blood.  But under the circumstances, it certainly seemed an easy task.  All she need do was steal up beside him and slit his throat.
    No one would suspect charming Desirée of the crime.
    Hubert Kabayn would have his vengeance.
    And there was likely not a soul who would mourn the death of this beast of a man.
    She opened the door wide enough to step through, closing it softly behind her as she dropped her satchel by the entrance and scanned the interior.  Naturally, she’d take a few things with her when she left.  The sword was likely valuable.  And the boots, if she could find anyone with feet that large.  He might possess jewelry, plunder confiscated from his victims, or treasures he’d accepted as bribes.  And she knew he had coin in his purse, the day’s wages.
    She crept forward, belatedly wondering if such a man might keep a great mastiff in his home to ward off trespassers.  But as she edged closer to the bench, she heard no stirring, only the even sawing of the shire-reeve’s breath.
    At her next step, the fire gave a sudden loud pop, and the man snorted, dropping his cup.  Desirée froze, her heart pounding, as he