Chapter 8
“If there’s only one horse,” Jessica pointed out, “I needn’t be the one riding it.”
“What kind of boors would we look like,” Ezra argued, holding the reins of the chestnut mare, “with you on foot and one of us on horseback?”
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “I wasn’t aware that highwaymen were concerned about public opinion.”
“Madam,” he said, affronted, “highwaymen are entirely concerned about public opinion. Who will write ballads about us if they think we’re churls?”
“Then none of us shall ride,” she said.
She began to walk, but stopped when Ezra didn’t follow.
He pointed in the opposite direction. “That way, jewel.”
Tipping up her chin, she marched in the course he had indicated.
A moment later, he caught up with her, leading the placid horse.
Rhys and Tej kept pace as they walked through the forest. There was no path here, barely even game trails, but the men moved between the trees and bracken, heading somewhere mysterious to her, but well known to them.
They were quiet as they walked, the only sounds from birds or a few creatures shifting through the undergrowth. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, yet she felt it all the same.
“I’m more familiar with Mile End Road or Whitechapel than I am with the woods,” she confessed. “It’s all rather…intimidating.”
“You? Intimidated by anything?” A corner of Ezra’s mouth curved up, revealing his dimple. “Three rough highwaymen you single-handedly captured. Didn’t even sneeze when you had us on the dangerous end of your pistol.”
“You let me capture you,” she felt obligated to note. “And you aren’t ordinary highwaymen. You’re werewolves.”
“At the time,” Ezra said, “you didn’t know that. It was just you, a barking iron, and a trio of infamous highwaymen. The Essex forest should be a stroll in Hyde Park for you.”
“Perhaps intimidated is the wrong word. More like…I am respectful of the forest.”
“Respect is appropriate when you’re facing something that holds to its own ancient laws. In time, given the proper deference, the woods can become your home.”
She glanced up at the leafy canopy. “I have my doubts, but I’ll have to rely on your judgment.”
“It could be,” he said. “Your home.”
Her eyebrows climbed. “London is all I know.”
“One can learn new things. New places.”
His words were light, almost insouciant. And yet there was something else beneath them. A question, a possibility.
But that was absurd. How could he possibly be asking her what she thought, when they’d known each other for four and twenty hours?
True, they’d had the most energetic carnal knowledge of each other—twice, once with him as a human, and another with him as a wolf—but that wasn’t the basis for anything lasting.
She could barely make sense of the next quarter of an hour, let alone anything beyond that.
“What new place are you taking me now?” she asked.
Perhaps she imagined his exhalation.
“In time,” he said, “all will be revealed. Quentin likes to keep business private.”
“And yet, you’re bringing me, a stranger, to him.”
Ezra’s smile flashed. “I could never consider you a stranger when I’ve dined upon your cunt several times.”
“By God, Ezra,” Tej growled, “are you trying to make her blush herself to death?”
She fought the urge to cover her hot cheeks with her hands. For all that she’d seen and done in life, it was rather miraculous that she could blush anymore. Yet Ezra had a gift for it, one she didn’t particularly appreciate.
At the least, his mood was far lighter than it had been back at their camp. Tej was right. Ezra was a changeable man, and each of his shifts played upon her like sunlight and clouds on water.
“Will you not tell me something of yourself?” she asked Ezra softly.
“I cannot fathom why you’d want to know anything about me,” he answered, though there was no edge in his voice.
“I’ve never met anyone like you,” she replied. “Like any of you. Tej and Rhys have given me their tales, but you have not. How does a man who can transform into a wolf find himself the leader of a gang of highwaymen?”
“Idle curiosity?”
She eyed him. “Nothing about what has transpired between us is idle.”
He didn’t speak for a moment. Perhaps he’d ignore her questions, or say something clever and dispassionate.
“I was fortunate,” he said. “I had a pack. They took me in when no one would, and they…” He cleared his throat.
“There were five of us, five wolves without homes who found a home with each other, a family. We roamed around, taking on odd jobs, stealing food when no one would hire us and we had no money. They were lean years. Lean, but good. We kept each other safe as we could in this world, and there was friendship, too.”
His expression darkened. “We didn’t know about the Guardians, but they knew about us. They tracked us, hunted us. Cornered us in a ravine and…”
“You needn’t speak of it.” She squeezed his hand.
He shook his head. “When they attacked, we all fought. But we weren’t in our wolf forms, and there were too many Guardians.
Page was there, leading them. They…they murdered every one of my pack.
I barely escaped, and sometimes…sometimes I wonder why, out of all of us, I was the one to survive.
They were good men, good wolves. Who was I, to elude their fate? ”
“You’re a good man, too. As deserving of life as any of your packmates.”
“There’s one who doesn’t deserve life,” he growled. “Mowbray. I saw him at the top of the ravine, watching his hired killers cut us down. He shot at me as I ran away.”
“That fucking monster.” Fury ran hotly through her veins. How could she have worked for the baronet?
“From that night,” Ezra continued, “I promised myself that if I ever had the chance to kill Page or Mowbray, I’d take it.”
“You didn’t last night.”
“Impossible to protect you and kill them.”
She stopped walking and stared at him. “I cost you the chance. I’m—”
“No apologies,” he insisted. “I made my choice, and I’ve no regrets.”
Pressing a hand to his chest, she said, “Thank you, for trusting me enough to tell me.”
“It’s not a tale I take pleasure in relating,” he admitted. “Yet I’m glad you know. And that there’s no pity in your eyes. It would be my undoing if you pitied me.”
So much pain and bravery shone in his eyes. “You and Tej and Rhys give each other security when there is none to be found, and I cannot pity that.”
He bent down and brushed his lips over hers. She didn’t have time to close her eyes and lean into him before he straightened, ending the kiss.
“Our destination lies ahead,” he said. “And we cannot be late.”
He walked on, and she matched his stride, until the tumbling of swift-moving water sounded ahead.
The forest parted to reveal a river, some thirty feet in width, moving busily through the woods.
Trees lined its banks, but Jessica’s attention fixed on the dilapidated water mill hunched beside the river.
The three-story wooden structure boasted most of its roof and walls, but the undershot water wheel lurched off its axel and partially lay in the river, which rushed over its timbers.
Other than these sounds, there was a deep stillness of a place undisturbed.
As they approached, a group of birds inside the mill wheeled into the air, bursting through a hole in the ceiling with a collective cry.
From inside the mill, a voice clipped, “State your business or enjoy the taste of silver-coated buckshot for your luncheon.”
A salt-and-pepper head poked out from the open doorway, the thick, wavy strands held back in a haphazard bun. Spectacles gleamed.
“And cost yourself good business?” Tej snorted. “You’d sooner sleep in a horse trough, Quentin.”
“A horse trough wouldn’t be the roughest place I’ve lain my head.” The shadows within shifted, and the person inside the mill beckoned. “Come in, then, so we can do this properly.”
Ezra tied off the horse, and then Jessica walked carefully beside him, Tej, and Rhys as they approached the mill. “You led me to believe that Quentin was a man.”
“We didn’t correct your assumption that she was,” Rhys pointed out.
“Little difference.”
They crossed the mill’s threshold. Though the floor still existed, great swaths of it had been overtaken by grass and leafy growth, and sparrows fluttered overhead where they flew from beam to beam.
Holes in the floor gave glimpses of rodent-eaten sacks that at one time held wheat to be ground.
On the second story was the millstone, motionless now in its casing, and the shaft that would have once transported the ground grain to the storage chest lurched to one side, sifting only dust into a pile on the floor.
Quentin wore a serviceable bodice of rugged cloth, and her skirts were short enough for her sturdy, worn boots to be visible.
Behind her spectacles, she eyed Jessica warily. “Unusual for you boys to bring a new piece to a transaction.”
“The piece can be addressed directly,” Jessica snapped. “And she possesses a name. Jessica.”
There was a hint of humor and admiration in Quentin’s green-blue gaze. “Are you part of the gang, Jessica?”
“I’m not part of anything.”
“Bit of a risk, though, innit?” Quentin glanced at Ezra. “Bonny as she is, can Jessica be trusted?”
“She warned me when I was at risk of being shot,” Ezra said. “I would have been bleeding into my fur on the Essex road without her stepping in. Saved my wolf hide.”
Jessica’s brows climbed. Whoever this Quentin woman was, Ezra and the others had enough faith in her to entrust her with the secret of their lycanthropy.
“Is that all you saved?” Quentin asked her with a sly smile. Her gaze flicked up and down Jessica in an arch assessment.
“I don’t see how that’s any of your fucking business,” came Jessica’s reply.
The woman’s smile broadened into a grin. “A firebrand, this Miss Jessica. And if you lot brought her here, then I’m going to take it as a testament to her character. Shall we get to it, boys?”