Scowling, Finn stepped over a puddle in the rutted road. “Very well, my lady. Ask me what questions you will, and I’ll do my best to answer.”
Now that he was willing to respond, she wasn’t sure what to say. She would start, she decided, with his half brother. “What has your half brother done that’s more shameful than stealing?”
The Irishman’s jaw clenched and his strides lengthened a little, as if he’d like to hurry away from her. She wasn’t about to let that happen, so she quickened her pace. “You said you would answer my questions,” she reminded him.
Before he could, a pheasant, roused from the verge of the road, flew up into the sky in a flurry of wings, and they both checked their steps. In the next moment, an arrow caught the bird, sending it plummeting into the bushes ahead of them.
“Good shot, Garreth!” the Irishman exclaimed. “No need to worry about our supper tonight.”
“Aye!” Garreth replied as he jogged down the road toward his fallen catch, leaving Keldra and the others behind.
“While Garreth’s getting the bird, we’ll rest a bit,” Finn said. He gestured at a nearby stump. “Keldra, you sit here. Garreth won’t be long.”
He turned an inscrutable gaze onto Lizette. “If you’ll walk over there with me, my lady, I’ll answer your questions in private.”
Lizette told herself it was proper that he speak so formally. That denoted respect, and a necessary change from his casual insolence. After all, he was an outlaw and a thief. She was a lady and the king’s ward.
The Irishman led her a little farther down the road and pointed at another stump for her to sit upon, out of earshot of Keldra, although not out of sight.
Finn leaned his weight on one leg, crossed his arms over his broad chest, fixed his steadfast brown eyes on her and said, “Ryder and I had the same bitter, broken mother, but different fathers. For the past ten years, Ryder’s been in a monastery in the north, studying, or so the plan was, to be a priest.
“Lately he decided against the priesthood. Celibacy, apparently, was not for him.”
If Ryder looked anything like Finn, Lizette thought, celibacy would be a waste.
Embarrassed by that thought, she immediately lowered her head so Finn wouldn’t see her blushing, even as she tried to stifle her wayward imagination and the vision of Finn in a bed, smiling and waiting for … some woman.
“So Ryder left the monastery and came looking for me. He thought being an outlaw an exciting life. He managed, by a miracle, to find me and when he did, he quickly learned the folly of his notions. Life as an outlaw is not adventurous, or even comfortable—sleeping rough, eating when and where you can, hiding, always on the move, never at home, never at peace, wondering every day if your luck’s going to run out and you’ll be caught and hanged.”
Although she’d always craved an adventurous life, at least she’d had a home—a place to lay her head, and where she could always be sure of food and a certain respect, if not happiness. “I’m not surprised you wanted something else for your brother. Yet surely there were alternatives other than the priesthood and thievery.”
“Aye, and so I told him,” Finn replied. “But he’s young, like Garreth, and he resented my advice and my refusals to let him try his hand at robbery. He took to finding solace in drink and picking fights to prove he could defend himself, that he was as tough as his brother and worthy of respect. One night, he laid into some of Wimarc’s men—too many, as any man of sense could have told him, but Ryder was drunk and I was with a woman.”
Lizette swallowed hard and stared at the toes of her boots. Of course he must go with women. Between his handsome face, magnificent body and the romance of being outside the law, he probably had to beat them off with a stick. She shouldn’t think the less of him for that. He was a very masculine man, after all, and men had their needs …
“Disgusted you, have I?”
Disgusted? No. Rendered envious of the women who enjoyed his nocturnal company, yes—although she wouldn’t say so. “It’s a little disconcerting to hear a man admit he was with a woman.”
“I’m no priest,” Finn replied. His gaze seemed to grow even more penetrating. “How do you know I wasn’t with my wife?”
Wife? Lizette thought, stunned. “I didn’t think outlaws married.”
“Oh, they do—common law, same as peasants.” He smiled as if enjoying her discomfort. “Not that I have.”
“But you said—”
“I said, how do you know I wasn’t with my wife? You assumed I was with a whore, didn’t you?”
He was right, so she didn’t reply.
“I may not be married, but I don’t use whores. I know what that life did to my mother.”
It had clearly affected him, too. “Yet you’ll make love with a woman outside of wedlock?”
“Aye, if she’s willing, and I am.” He regarded her with cool deliberation. “Would you hold a peasant to a higher standard than the nobles of the court? Even the courtiers who are wed take their pleasure wherever they can get it.”
She had heard that from Adelaide, too. Nevertheless, she had no intention of commenting on the morality of the court, or thinking about his conquests, so she returned to the original subject of their discussion. “And while you were with this woman, your brother was captured by Wimarc’s men.”
“Aye,” Finn said grimly, “and by the time I heard what was afoot, three of them had him pinned, and when I went to help him, Garreth stopped me.”
Remembering that she’d assured Garreth she wouldn’t reveal what he’d told her about that, Lizette didn’t let on she already knew how.
Finn gave her a wry little self-deprecating smile. “He shot me in the foot. Well, my boot. He thought he was doing the right thing, so I don’t fault the lad. I blame myself for Ryder’s capture. I should have taken better care, but I did not. Fortunately, Garreth did more harm to my boot than he did to me.”
She could see and hear his remorse and guilt for not saving Ryder. But whose fault had it really been? His, for being with a woman, or his brother’s, for starting the fight?
She, who’d dawdled and left her cortege open to attack, knew—and it was not the older brother’s. “Garreth probably thought you’d have been imprisoned, too, and then where would you be? Now at least you can try to rescue your brother—although that won’t be easy if Wimarc’s men are like the ones who attacked my cortege. How do you plan to do it?”
“If I had a plan, I’d be acting on it already.”
“You impersonate a nobleman very well. Could you not use that to your advantage?”
“Aye, if getting into Wimarc’s castle was all I needed to do. Unfortunately, it’s finding Ryder and getting out again without being caught that’s the trouble.”
Garreth burst out of the trees as if he’d been flushed like the pheasant he carried by its feet. “Somebody’s coming!” he panted. “Just round the bend. Men and horses, and I heard a woman, too.”
Finn stiffened as if he’d seen Medusa. “Into the trees,” he ordered.
Garreth obeyed at once, while Keldra jumped to her feet, panic in her face. She was about to follow Garreth, until Lizette ordered her to wait.
“I don’t want us to get separated,” Lizette lied when she saw Finn’s brows contract in consternation.
Paying him no more heed, she hurried to her maid.
“What are you up to, my lady?” he demanded.
Since