Slipping from the kitchen, she moved quickly down the short corridor and pushed open the door to the Green Lady's room. Her eyes flared with dismay. There the Hawk slept, a white linen sheet wrapped around his legs, his torso bare to the dawn's caress. His dark head tossed against the white pillows, and he slept alone—grasping in his arms the dress she'd worn that day she'd taken the dart.
They called him the king's whore, she reminded herself. Perhaps there was actually a royal appointment to such a post. Or perhaps he was simply so nondiscriminating that he'd earned the title all by himself. Regardless, she would never again be one of many.
Adrienne spied her boots on the wooden chest at the foot of the bed. Eyes carefully averted from her sleeping husband, she slipped them from the burnished pine lid and skittered back toward the door on kitten paws, closing it gently behind her.
And now the difficult part. Guards were posted all over the castle. She would have to flee through the gardens, down the eternal bridge to the gatehouse, and through the east tower. She'd run from worse things, through worse climes before. She would manage somehow. She always did when it came to running.
* * * * *
Hawk slitted one eye open and watched her leave. He muttered darkly and shifted his body, folding his muscular arms behind his head. He stared at the door a long moment.
She was leaving him?
Never. Not so long as he lived and breathed, and he had a hell of a lot more fight in him than she must think.
He moved to his feet and grabbed his kilt, knotting it loosely at his waist.
So that's the way it was going to be, he mused bitterly. The first sign of something less than savory in his past, and she would run. He hadn't pegged her as the skittish type. He'd thought there was a lass of fiery mettle beneath her silken exterior, but one breath of his sordid past and she was ready to leave him. After the pleasure she'd so obviously experienced in his arms, still—to walk away.
Well, where the hell did she think he'd learned how to give pleasure?
Oh, nay. The next time his wife lay in his arms, and there would be a next time, he would take one of the gypsy potions to make him detached. Then he would truly show her the benefits she reaped from the past she eschewed so violently.
He was offering her his love, freely and openly. He, who had never offered anything more than physical pleasure for a short time to any lass, was offering this woman his life.
And still she would not accept him.
And she didn't even know the first bloody thing about what it meant to be the king's whore. Olivia had been about to tell her, there in the gardens. Olivia, who had ruthlessly exploited the Hawk's servitude to the king by petitioning James to command the Hawk to grant her those carnal favors he'd previously denied her. Olivia, who had given James a whole new way to humiliate the Hawk. The memory of it shamed and enraged him. He banished such thoughts and the blinding anger they generated with a firm flexing of his formidable will.
Adrienne was his immediate problem. Hawk snorted. Was she running off to discover the world in her smithy's arms?
Aye. He was sure she was.
At that moment Grimm pushed the door open and ducked his head in, a silent question in his eyes.
"Is she headed north?" Hawk's face was bitter.
"Nay," Grimm puzzled. " 'Tis what I expected too, but she goes east."
"To the gatehouse? Alone?"
"Aye. Carrying only a wee pack."
"He must be meeting her there," Hawk mused. "The guard is following?"
"Aye, at a distance. Until you give your command."
Hawk turned his back and studied the dying embers. His command. Should he let her go? Could he? And if she joined with Adam how would he keep himself from killing the smithy with his bare hands? No. Better to stop her before he had to know with absolute certainty her betrayal. "What have you learned of Adam?" Hawk kicked at the hearth.
"Nothing, Hawk. 'Tis as if he blew in on a fae breeze and put down roots. It's the oddest thing. No one knows from whence he came. I think Esmerelda is our best bet for information, as she warms his bed. But I haven't been able to track her down just yet." Grimm rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "Seems Esmerelda's people have moved their camp away from the north rowans to the far east pastures."
Hawk spun on his heel, his dark eyes searching Grimm's intently. "The Rom never move camp. They always stay in the north pastures through the summer."
"Not this summer." Grimm shrugged. "Verily odd. Said even the Samhain would be celebrated at a new site this harvest."
"Strange." Hawk pondered this new oddity. But he spared only a moment to consider the Gypsy tribe that camped Dalkeith—there were more important issues to attend to. His wife was leaving him. "Stop her at the gatehouse, Grimm. I'll be there shortly."