to him. At least, it was speech of a kind. David’s voice had rumbled up in her mind, closer than a whisper, the words clear and sharp and tinged with resentment.
Sam made one more raking look around, obviously stymied at this unexpected hitch in his plans, while his meaty hands opened and closed, showing the same dark brown stain clinging to his palms and caught beneath his fingernails.
“I know what you did,” Callista said, anger trembling her voice. “Did you manage to haggle the price up to sixty pounds?”
“I never—”
Nancy stepped between them. “Tell her she’s wrong, Sam. Tell her it’s a mistake.”
He stared over his sister’s shoulder, bullish and unwavering. “I saved you, Cally. The man was a criminal . . . a fugitive from the law. They’re taking him back to London to answer for his crimes. Hanging’s too good for the likes of him. Drawing and quartering might be better.”
“Is that what they told you? That he was a murderer?”
“Saw it for myself. The savage killed the three who tried to take him. Lucky for me and Sally, I had a pistol to keep him from adding us to his total.”
“Sally? What was she . . . I don’t believe it. You’re lying.”
But the blood didn’t lie. Nor did the drawn and frightened look on Sam’s face. He’d taken David for a London dandy, strong, perhaps, and trained in fighting but easily cowed and swift to surrender if he met with any real resistance. David’s quick cunning and vicious brutality had shocked Sam and perhaps even made him realize what he’d unleashed in his unthinking jealousy.
“You always were a trusting soul, Cally. But this time you placed your trust in a murderous scoundrel.”
“I’ll not go back to Branston. I’d rather die.”
Sam smiled in triumph. “That’s where you wrong me. I never said nothing about you to the blokes what came after St. Leger. When they asked, I said you must have separated on the road between here and the city. That I’d never seen you.”
“Branston won’t believe you. He’ll know I would have stayed with David.”
“I’m not as stupid as I look. Sally backed me up. Told them how she and St. Leger were pillow mates. How he boasted of taking your maidenhead and then abandoning you. The men were angry but convinced. Sally’s a good actress when there’s money to be made.”
“I have to get away before they realize you duped them.”
Sam planted himself in front of the door. “You’ll stay here where it’s safe. And if you’re right and these chaps suspect they’ve been lied to and come nosing about, I’ll send them packing with a few broken ribs for their trouble.”
“Please, Sam! You must—”
“Enough! I’ll take care of you, Cally. And when that St. Leger chap is gone, it’ll be like it was before you left. I’ll make you happy.” He motioned to Nancy. “Come on, Nan. Cally needs her rest.” Nancy offered a quick backward glance just before the door closed behind them.
The scrape of the key turned Callista’s stomach. She was caught like a mouse in a cage. She perched on the narrow bunk as she sought to calm her mind enough to think logically. She needed to escape and she needed to find David. She tried the door, rattling the latch, slamming a shoulder into the jamb, but the wood held, the lock remained unmovable. She sank back down on the bunk. Closed her eyes as she conjured and discarded impossible plans.
Like the brush of a feather or the bite of cold when a snowflake touches one’s skin, a glimmer of thought moved across her mind. Instinctively, she reached out as if to catch the sensation and hold on to it. But it receded, and she was left feeling emptier and lonelier than ever.
She opened her eyes, her gaze settling on a long woolen greatcoat hanging from a peg—David’s. He’d left it behind. Perhaps . . . if she was very lucky . . .
She rose to search his pockets, hoping for a tool she might use to jimmy the door. Her fingers touched and then curled around a crumpled piece of paper. She scanned the few words scrawled there with a sick feeling in her gut. He’d hired horses. He was probably already in the village. She needed to leave now if she had any hope of catching him before he departed. But how?
Her hands shook and fear curled up her spine into her head as she sought to hold complete panic at bay.
The turn of a key had her on her feet, poised to flee. She’d get one chance. She would be ready. She snatched up her satchel, prepared to swing it full force at whoever appeared in the doorway.
“Cally, it’s me!” Nancy shouted, putting up an arm to ward off the blow.
Callista slumped back, the bag a deadweight against her trembling arms. “What do you want?”
“Sam’s gone in to the fair. I think he’s still hoping to find St. Leger. If you want to leave, now’s your chance.”
Callista offered her a wary frown. “Why?”
“Because I saw the way St. Leger looked when he thought you were in trouble.” Her hand smoothed down over her stomach, eyes dark with hidden emotion. “And because I saw the way you looked tonight when you thought St. Leger had come to harm. Sam doesn’t stand a chance against a bond like that.”
Callista squeezed Nancy’s hand with a tremulous smile. “Thank you.”
Nancy shrugged her off with a snort of irritation. “Just go before I come to my senses. He is still my brother, you know.”
Callista nodded and, wrapping herself in David’s muffling greatcoat and cradling her bag as she might a child, hurried out into the wild chaos of the night, dodging fairgoers as she slipped past the crowded sheep pens.
“Excuse me,” she stammered as a figure loomed up out of the dark, hands gripping her roughly.
“Where you headed, little bit?” the man sneered.
She wrenched away, hurrying for the safety of the wooded track that would take her to town. Looked back over her shoulder to find him still watching her.
13
Night slid like a ghost over the land. One moment, the air hung gray and heavy, trees naught but purple and black silhouettes, birds quiet in the bushes, and a few lazy swallows circling homeward. The next moment, stars glimmered pale and high among streamers of cloud, and the moon rose up through their branches red as the blood he’d spilled.
The wood stretched all around him. He lifted his muzzle to the wind, feeling the scents burst like pictures in his head. The tang of pine and oak and elm, the soft, grandmotherly smell of moss and fern, and overall the bitter slightly sweet scent of the decaying deadfall stirred with each lift of a paw as he moved deeper into the trees. Ahead, a whiff of hot blood as a squirrel or rabbit darted across his path, and a passing breeze from the fairgrounds carried the fuggy warm aromas of manure and sheep and man.
He welcomed his shift to aspect like a freeing breath. He needed the easing stretch of taut muscles as he ran under the growing moon, the welcome of the spring night to wrap around him like a balm. The simplicity of instinct where every moment exploded into being with the immediacy of battle and then fell away, quickly forgotten.
A crow swooped down from a great sycamore, wings spread on the wind, beak sharp as a dagger. He snapped at it, but it fluttered away and dove once more before settling on a dead branch nearby, watching him with cocked head and ruffled feathers. It was half again larger than any normal crow, with a sharp intelligence in its jet gaze and talons tipped in silver. David recognized the creature from Mac’s description.
Worry uncoiled from a deep part of his soul.
“This is fortunate. We were sent to find you, child of the wolf. And here you are, come to us.”
