Arabella tried to remain calm, but she could not see Mary anywhere. All at once, the rumors of stolen women assailed her. She should not have left Mary’s side for even a moment. Running down the row of Gypsy wagons, she searched and called for her friend.
Frantically peering into every conceivable corner, Arabella came to a noisy row of Gypsy booths before she turned around.
“May I help you, my lady?”
A man touched her arm.
Stay calm. Arabella bit her lip, hard, to prevent herself from giving in to full-blown fear.
“No thank you, sir.” Jerking her arm out of his grasp, she stepped away from him.
“A woman alone must need some assistance.” The stranger was a well-dressed Bohemian, but Arabella did not appreciate the steely glint in his eye.
Beyond caring if she attracted attention, Arabella lifted her skirt to run and was yanked back so hard she cried out.
The man’s demeanor changed as he shoved her with unexpected force behind a large tapestry for sale at a merchant’s booth.
“Help!” Arabella shouted at the top of her lungs, a moment before the brute pushed her to the ground and clamped a ruthless hand over her mouth.
Tristan and Simon were already atop their horses and ready to leave when a cry pierced the din of the marketplace.
Requiring no words, the men sprang forward.
Tristan steered his horse through the crowded bazaar, ignoring protests from people forced to clear a path for him.
With a sweeping scrutiny, he quickly narrowed the possible places the scream could have come from. The two most likely spots were either in the back of a Gypsy wagon in a quiet corner of the bazaar, or behind an arras right next to it. Tristan held his horse motionless as he watched the two places simultaneously and listened with the finely tuned hearing of a man used to stealth in battle.
He heard not a sound aside from the shouts of disgruntled merchants in his wake, but he soon saw the tapestry move a fraction of an inch near the ground. Drawing his sword, Tristan slashed it down and watched it fall on top of two struggling forms.
Dropping to his feet, he turned aside the heavy arras to reveal a middle-aged Bohemian man and a rumpled pile of green velvet and dark hair.
A noblewoman.
“Move away from her now.” Though he spoke calmly, he felt the fury of growing bloodlust in his veins. The man wisely scrambled to obey his command.
The villain stuttered his protests as Simon yanked him away from the commotion, but Tristan paid no heed. His eyes were fixed on the woman before him.
Arabella Rowan, the distant beauty he’d met last night at Princess Anne’s reception. Only she didn’t look so immaculately groomed today. Now that she had been rolling around the ground she looked dusty and disheveled and…
Damnation.
Tristan could not believe his eyes as his vision of aloof Arabella Rowan melded with his memory of the green-eyed enchantress from the forest. They were one and the same.
Her hair, so shiny and luxurious the night before, was a formidable tangle around her head. She was covered with dust and smudged with dirt, recalling her forest appearance.
It was the wild glint in her eyes now, however, that confirmed her identity. Unlike her courtly appearance, she now exuded passion. Heat. Fear and anger radiated from her with palpable force. ’Twas clear at a glance this member of Anne’s royal party was not the noblewoman her princess believed her to be.
Arabella knew the instant he recognized her. Really recognized her. The flash of recall revealed itself in the darkening and narrowing of his eyes.
He stepped toward her. Arabella’s first response was to scramble backward but he was too quick. Huge, hard hands wrapped themselves about her waist and lifted her as though she were no more burden than a child. Setting her once again upon her feet, he released her swiftly, giving Arabella the impression the contact had disturbed him as much as it had her.
“You are unharmed, Lady Arabella?” The way he stressed “lady” sounded decidedly unpleasant, conveying his doubt that she deserved the title.
She nodded, her lack of voice betraying her discomfiture.
“The man accosted you?”
Forcing herself to converse with him out of the desire to see her attacker punished, Arabella cleared her throat and met Tristan’s hard gaze.
“He offered his assistance to find Mary. She had disappeared from my view for a moment and I became concerned she had met with harm.”
“And when you refused his help, he attacked you?”
“Yes.”
“When we depart Prague and you are in my charge, you will never wander around without a man to escort you. Do you understand?”
A strange dictate, considering she had been fine today until a man got near her. But perhaps the princess should have asked one of her guards to accompany them, since other noblewomen had disappeared recently.
Then again, perhaps Arabella should not have followed her heart’s desires and asked Mary to leave the safety of the carriage for the marketplace. Guilt pinched her hard, perhaps making her words more biting than she’d intended.
“I would hope that once I am in your charge, sir, I will not be attacked by anyone.”
“I cannot protect wayward lasses.”
Her eyes connected with his and she felt the keen edge of that remark. Tristan Carlisle thought her unworthy of the Bohemian court. He did not think she could be true nobility because he had seen her out in the oak ring, venting her fury to the heavens.
“Wayward?” His remark insulted her grandmother and her heritage as much as it insulted her.
“Arabella!” a small voice cried out moments before Mary appeared from the thick of the surrounding crowd and threw both arms around her friend. “Are you hurt?”
Anger cooling as she reassured Mary of her good health, Arabella decided it would be useless to explain herself to Tristan. He would believe what he wanted.
Heaven knows, most everyone in the Bohemian court already thought she was a wayward lady because of her unusual upbringing. What difference did it make that Tristan Carlisle agreed with their assessment?
What she regretted most about the day was that she had unwittingly broken her grandmother’s most important rule. In the course of an afternoon, she had become very much the center of attention.
After spending a fruitless afternoon trying to twist answers out of the Bohemian trader who’d grabbed Arabella, Tristan accompanied Simon back to the keep to continue their preparations for the journey home. They’d discovered the man’s name was Ivan Litsen, but had learned precious little else about his motive. The man had seemed unconcerned about his encounter with Arabella, assuring Tristan that many men of his acquaintance would have done the same had they spied a beautiful young woman unaccompanied in a crowded marketplace.
If such was the case, why had the princess allowed Arabella and Mary to ride about the city? Did Arabella have enemies at court?
“Arabella Rowan is a fair one,” Simon observed as he studied the horizon from his horse, trotting beside Tristan’s mount.
Simon had been attempting conversation ever since they’d left the alleyway across from the marketplace where they’d questioned Litsen at length and finally given the man into