Defiant Read Online Free Page A

it went rushing out, disguising it as a soft laugh. The way her name had sounded on his tongue, it was not proper. “This is entirely not so. The things I do are very small and matter to no one. I am committed to nothing.”
    He looked at her. “What about the priest?”
    Well. She would prefer to speak with marble than be interrogated. She narrowed her eyes. “How ever did you come to hunt priests?”
    “I was given to it,” he said, his voice pitched so low it almost vibrated. She’d imagine marble to have a higher range. His was more like earth and rocks and the things that lay beneath.
    “Do you know you are a dreadful liar?” he inquired, sitting back, watching her.
    She wiped her hand across the table, as if sweeping up crumbs. “Indeed. How could one not know such a thing? I lie so that one knows it, but that seems a less dangerous thing to give away than the truth, no?”
    The smile that had been haunting his beautiful features faded. Stern again, like a wasp.
    “What do you know of the curé ?” she demanded. Did this one have the slightest notion what a great man Father Peter was, what riches would be taken from this world if anything, ever, happened to him?
    “I know his use of color,” Jamie replied, looking at the candle flame. “Green and red and a Hell-pit black. He introduced me to tigers, in the margins of a page. I was six. I could have stared at the creature for days. My mother said I told her I heard it roar.”
    She gave a small laugh, although it was more a small outbreath with sound. It was much warmer than the surrounding air. “The Everoot Psalter. So, you know of his work.”
    “Aye. His writings, his illuminations.”
    “Dangerous things, no?”
    “Aye.”
    “England’s king does not think so good of these things.”
    “John does not think so well of them,” he agreed.
    “But you do.”
    His eyes never left hers, answer enough. The door to the tavern swung open again, letting cold, wet air in.
    “’Tis passing sad, then,” she mused, “that he shall certainly be taken to your killing king to be disposed of.”
    He got to his feet then, unraveling, really, until she had to stare up at him. That was unnecessary. She got to her feet as well.
    His eyes narrowed. So did hers.
    “Sit down,” he said. “Have you a blade?”
    She tapped her thigh.
    “I thought as much. I shall go see how things stand. You will wait here. I will be back, but should anything happen, if I do not return before that idiot falls off his chair”—he gestured to a linen-capped merchant so sopped with ale, the prediction would take but a few moments to be realized—“make your way down Fishamble—mind the gutters—to the gates. Do not wait to see our quarry, they’ll have already passed through.”
    He shoved a handful of coins into her palm. “For the porters,” he explained grimly. “They do not open the gates after dark out of kindness.”
    “But this is far too much—”
    “If you do not spot our quarry on the road, doubtless they stopped, as I expect them to, at the Goat, a small inn on the eastern road.”
    “But—”
    “Mention my name to the innkeep; you will be seen to.”
    “But—”
    “Stop talking,” he ordered, and leaned over the table until his scarred, perfect mouth was far too close to hers. “And if you bark at me again, I will tie you up and make you howl in a way you’ve never dreamt of, Breton lass.”
    They were leaning that way, each half across the table, staring at each other, angry and aroused—at least Eva was; Jamie’s face revealed little—when the door of the tavern squeaked open, then slammed shut. She tore her gaze away; habit too well formed, from too many years of running and hiding.
    In this case, as in so many others, it saved her life.
    The men who’d kidnapped Father Peter had just walked into the tavern.
    In other circumstances, this would have been a stroke of good fortune. As it was, lit by torchlight, Eva was clearly visible, and that