Chapter 11 #2
“What do you want, Angelet?” he murmured, ready to perform any feat she requested. “Tell me what to do.”
She left out a breath, and he felt it across his skin. He wanted to feel her breath on so much more of his skin, unhampered by clothing. He wanted to know exactly how she’d feel under his hands…
Angelet took a ragged breath. Her eyes were wide in the moonlight, and she looked as if she might be a moon goddess herself.
Then she gasped out, “Let me go.”
Damn. He released her instantly and stepped away, his eyes still locked on her. “There you are, free.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. This isn’t something I can do. It’s not right…”
He stifled the disappointment—and the lust—raging through him. “What did I tell you, Angelet? Whatever you want from me, all you have to do is ask. Even if what you want is nothing.”
She turned her face away. “It’s not about what I want, Rafe.” Angelet straightened her skirts nervously. “I should not have… This was a mistake. We should go back.”
“As you wish.” He pointed to the trail. “Can you see it in the dark? You can go ahead. I’ll be right after you.” That way he could keep an eye out for danger over her head while ensuring that no one could grab her from behind.
She nodded, then repeated, “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. She was sorry? He was the one who was chasing her for the basest of reasons. “Never apologize to me, Angelet. Never.”
They returned on the same trail, or what he thought was the same trail. He couldn’t get lost anyway. All they had to do was keep following the downward slope toward the smell of a campfire below.
Rafe watched Angelet walk along ahead of him, noting the unsteadiness of her steps.
She would be thinking about him all night, which was fair, since his thoughts were increasingly dominated by her.
God, he wanted her. Every time he looked at her or got close to her, his need increased.
Something about her tantalized him, and he couldn’t name what it was.
All he knew was that if he didn’t get to touch her again, and soon, he’d lose his mind.
She was obviously interested in his offer, yet she still put an end to their encounter.
Not surprising, he told himself. Angelet wasn’t the sort of woman to give herself to a virtual stranger out in the woods in the middle of nowhere.
She had too much dignity for something like that.
And then there was that lock of hair she carried with her, a sign that she still clung to some memory too strong to put aside for a short diversion like Rafe.
At the very edge of the camp, he told her to walk ahead and go directly to her tent. “Don’t tarry, don’t speak to anyone, and if anyone asks where you were, tell them not to worry, and you didn’t have a fit.”
He waited a few moments, then moved around in an arc so he would appear to be approaching the camp from the east rather than the north.
A few men saw him come into the circle of firelight.
“Where were you?” Simon asked, looking up from the food he’d been eating.
“Scouting around,” Rafe lied easily. “Just making sure no one else was about.”
“Did you see anything?”
Rafe shook his head.
Laurence, who just happened to be sitting on a log next to Bethany, now chimed in. “I never like the forest. I feel like I’m being watched.”
“Watched?” Rafe asked, remembering his sense of being watched along the road, the feeling that kept recurring even though he never saw any hard proof to confirm it. “Have you seen someone?”
“No,” Laurence said. “It’s just a feeling in my gut.”
“Collywobbles,” Tad said knowingly. “The fairy folk do it to keep Christians away from their homes.”
A few of the others made noises of agreement. Rafe chuckled and sat down to eat, while the others lay back, joked, and generally relaxed. Bethany excused herself to attend to Angelet, and Rafe took a long breath, realizing how tense he was, for all sorts of reasons.
The incident with Dobson disturbed him far more than he let on.
Rafe felt personally responsible for failing to see what the man had planned, though in all honesty, he couldn’t have known.
Dobson cleverly waited, using the first few days to let the group settle into a routine, a routine he then exploited.
Rafe hadn’t thought Dobson was that smart, actually.
He shifted, willing himself to forget about the vicious fight that resulted in Dobson’s death. He needed to relax.
Perhaps a need to relax was driving some of the men’s jollity that night.
Simon set up a makeshift target range, and in the flickering light of the fire, he and the other men took turns flinging knives into the soft trunks of the pine trees. Bets were placed, naturally, and the men shouted and joked and laughed as wagers were won or lost.
Rafe took note as Simon won more bets. The young man had a talent—his aim was steady and he struck the center of his target nearly every time.
“I think Simon ought to stand ten paces back from the others,” Rafe called out from his comfortable spot by the fire. “Let’s make this fair.”
Simon grinned. “I could do that. Or someone could fetch me more wine!” He nodded toward the empty wineskin on the ground.
“I’ll find another,” Rafe said. “Least I can do.”
He walked to the supply wagon, where a few spare wineskins were stored along with some food.
There he found Bethany, who was rooting among the boxes.