tent, putting down the basin, gathering clean cloths from the table.
Gregor looked up and smiled at Marianna. “She is not badly hurt.”
“I’m very badly hurt,” the ravin corrected sourly. “I’m in great pain, and I’m having to put up with the most supreme indignities.”
“She is always bad-tempered when she is ill.” Gregor’s big hand gently brushed back a lock of hair from her forehead. “With a tongue as foul as a swamp bog.”
“How disgusting. And untrue.” She glowered at Marianna. “Why are you staring at me? Does it please you to see me weak and helpless?”
She did appear a trifle drawn, but her innate forcefulness and fire still burned brightly. “I will tell you when you display either of those qualities,” Marianna said. “At the moment I recognize only bad temper.” She glanced at Gregor. “And a tongue as foul as a swamp-”
“Enough. I’m surrounded by enemies.” She glared at Alex as the little boy dropped to his knees beside her. “No! Go away.”
He paid no attention as he dipped a cloth into the hot water.
“Jordan, why did I bother to save your life if I am only to be tormented by this fiend?”
“Bad judgment?” Jordan suggested.
Alex untied the bandage on the ravin’s shoulder to reveal a puckered, swollen wound.
“You will not touch me,” she said forcefully.
Alex carefully dabbed at the edge of the wound.
Ana went pale, her teeth biting into her lower lip.
“Gently,” Gregor said quickly.
“He does not know the meaning of the word,” Ana said. “Every four hours he descends on me and puts me through this torture.”
Alex’s jaw set. “Jordan says it has to be kept clean.”
“I’ve had enough of it.” She glared at him. “Get out of my tent!”
He continued to dab at the wound.
“Gregor, pick him up and carry him out of here.”
Marianna took a protective step forward.
“No.” Jordan placed his hand on her arm, stopping her.
“He appears to be doing no damage,” Gregor said. “Someone must do it, and I do not believe you would strike a child.”
“He is not a child. He’s a demon.” She gasped as the hot water touched the torn flesh. “And he will not
Alex paused a moment in his ministrations and then turned to Jordan. “I think you all should leave. She’s trying not to weep and will be ashamed if you see her weakness.”
Marianna stared at him in astonishment.
“You’re the one who is going to leave,” Ana said.
Alex turned back to her, glaring fiercely into her eyes. “I stay. They go. It has to be clean.”
The ravin’s eyes widened in shock.
“Ana?” Gregor asked.
“Oh, very well,” she said grudgingly. “You might as well leave. He obviously will show me no mercy.” She glanced at Gregor. “You stay. I must have someone to protect me.”
“I am not sure I am in a mood to protect you. Before Alex told me you had been shot, I was ready to do you violence myself. I did not like you going behind my back and putting a price on Costain’s head.”
“They killed him?” she asked eagerly. “Who?”
“Niko.”
She smiled with satisfaction. “Good.”
“Not good. You will not interfere again in my concerns.”
“It was my concern also. You are my subject, and therefore it was my duty to protect you.”
“Ana.”
“Oh very well. What does it matter? He is dead now anyway.” Her glance shifted warily to Alex. “You should take heed, boy. If you hurt me, I may put a price on your head too.”
“No, you won’t,” Alex said as he dipped the cloth back into the hot water.
Jordan nudged Marianna toward the tent entrance. She cast a disbelieving glance over her shoulder at the little boy and the ravin. How odd they looked together, and yet there was an almost visible bond between them.
“I’m not sure we should have left them,” she said as soon as they were outside the tent.
“She won’t hurt him. This battle has been going on since we arrived here yesterday. Alex insisted on being the one to care for her. He even stayed awake all last night so that he could wash the wound.”
“He did?” The image that came to her was ludicrous: a little cub protecting an injured lioness. “You shouldn’t have let him. He needs his rest.”
“I couldn’t have stopped him,” he said dryly. “Besides, it kept him busy. I didn’t want him worrying about you. I was doing quite enough of that for both of us.”
The words were sweet and meant too much. She tried not to dwell on them. “I suppose it will be all right for him to stay with her for now. I’ll go get him later.”
“He might not come.” When he saw her stricken expression, he added harshly, “For God’s sake, don’t look like that. It won’t be because he loves you any less. You haven’t lost him.”
“He might blame me for what happened to him.”
“How could he? It wasn’t your fault.”
“Perhaps it was. You said that I wanted to come to Dalwynd.”
“It wasn’t true. Don’t you know that a man who is seducing a woman will say anything to get his way?”
Not Jordan. Jordan would not lie.
He stopped, and his hands closed on her shoulders. “Listen to me. He doesn’t blame you. If there’s fault, it lies at my door.”
She shook her head. “He’s changed.”
“Life changed him, not you.” He shook her gently. “And for the better. Can’t you see it? It’s not every child who could face down the ravin. Before he was a good lad, but now-” He stopped.
“Now what?”
“He reminds me of you the first time I met you.”
“When I was dirty and hungry and fierce as an animal.”
“None of that mattered.” His hands opened and closed on her shoulders in a curiously yearning manner. “Even in the darkness you served the sunlight.”
She wanted to break away, but she couldn’t move. He had looked at her like this in the tower room when the sunlight had made her dizzy with joy and she had first thought she had seen behind the mask he wore.
“I was cast out also,” Gregor said from behind them. They turned to see him striding toward them. “It seems Alex thought I was a distraction. Ana will have to protect herself.”
Marianna welcomed the interruption that shattered the spell. She glanced away and said quickly, “I need to go to my tent and wash away this dust before I go back to Alex.”
“And rest a little,” Jordan said. “There’s no hurry. You’ve been riding all day.”
“I don’t need to rest. Tell Alex I’ll be with him shortly.”
Not that he needed her, she thought wistfully as she walked away. Jordan said she had not lost him, but what she was feeling at the moment was very much like loss. It was foolish to feel sorry for herself. Alex was safe and Jordan was safe. An hour ago she would have asked nothing more from life. It seemed that as soon as danger faded into the background, greed took hold, and she wanted everything she could not have.
Well, she could have Alex. Jordan might be out of reach, but Alex loved and needed her. He just had to be reminded of the ties between them.
As soon as she arrived at her tent, she took off the jacket of her riding habit and splashed cool water on her face and throat. She had always loved the sensation of water on her body. One of the panels that she had brought with her in the wagon was of a waterfall cascading over moss-covered rocks. She had tried to remember this sensual feeling as she had crafted the pale blue of the water.
