fist gripped Corwin’s innards.
“You were supposed to be guarding her!” Thurkill shouted.
“I allowed her privacy to take relief and she slipped away.”
Cursing himself roundly for not anticipating this attempt at escape, knowing which way he would go if in Judith’s situation, Corwin bolted out of the cave, hoping to get there ahead of her.
Chapter Five
S he couldn’t find the path.
With hands on her hips, Judith slowly turned in a full circle, looking carefully for any sign of her escape route. Four horses had ridden through this area not long ago, trampled down the grass and pushed aside brush. The path had to be here somewhere, and she must find it quickly before Oswuld noticed she’d fled.
Her plan was a simple one. Find the road and head north toward whatever town lay ahead. Send someone to take word of the rebellion to Scotland. Enlist a trustworthy person to act as her guide to London. Surely her kidnappers expected her to flee south, back toward the safety of the abbey. But she could trick her kidnappers, if only. she could find the path.
Judith wiped away the moisture gathering in her eyesfrom weariness. She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t afraid. She didn’t have time for either.
She spun at the sound of rustling in the brush behind her. A small animal, gray-brown and furry, scurried into the heavier brush beyond. A squirrel, perhaps. Or a rabbit. Not a man.
She blew out a long breath and struggled to regain herconcentration. Nothing looked familiar, until she spotted a tree with two wind-snapped lower branches. Had she seen it before, during the ride to the cave? Aye, there, just beyond the tree the grass lay flat.
She hiked up her robe to run down the path to freedom.
“Judith!”
Corwin.
She stared at the path. Run! A useless effort. Corwin was too close. He would catch her in a trice. She unclenched her hands, letting the fabric fall. At the edge of her vision, she saw the glint of a sunbeam flash off his chain mail.
Close. So very close to freedom.
Once again, ‘twas Corwin who thwarted her. He would take her back to her captors, and they would watch her so closely now she might never get away.
Corwin closed the distance between them, until he was so near she could reach out and touch him if she chose.
“I beg of you, Corwin. Let me go,” she said. To her own ears she sounded desperate. Perhaps she was. She looked up into the azure eyes she’d once so admired, still considered beautiful. The eyes of a traitor. “Join the rebels if you wish, but I want no part of their scheme. Let them find another woman for their queen, one who believes in their cause. I have no heart for it.”
He smiled, almost tenderly. “‘Tis not your heart they desire, Judith, but your name and womb. However, if someone asked me to choose a more perfect woman to make their queen, I could not come up with another’s name.”
His flattery fell far short of whatever mark he hoped to hit.
“Then you betray me again, force me to stay with the rebels.”
“I cannot let you go, Judith.” He sighed. “I will try to explain—”
Judith crossed her arms. “I heard your traitorous reasoning last eve, and have no wish to hear it again.”
Corwin took a long, intense look around them. “I am no rebel, never will be.”
Astonished and hopeful, Judith stammered. “But-but last eve you said. are you saying you have changed your mind?”
“My mind is set on joining the rebels, but not for the reasons I gave Thurkill. We have not much time before we are found, Judith. Come, this way. ‘Twillgive us a measure of privacy a moment or two longer.”
He grabbed hold of her hand and tugged her toward the path. His hand was warm, large and encompassing. The strength of it didn’t surprise her, but the tingling sensation that snaked up her arm at his touch set her mind to spinning and her knees to shaking. An unwelcome and unwise reaction to a man she needed to guard against.
“I go nowhere with you,” she
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