Page 2 of Heart of the Hunter (Band of Bastards #3)

A nora Smith recognized the voice of the most irritating and perplexing man she had the misfortune to know. She supposed she should be relieved it was Hunter and not one of the baron’s guards, but it still pricked her ire.

Slowly, she turned her face toward him and waited for him to remove his hand. “What the hell are you doing here?” she hissed at him as soon as her mouth was uncovered.

“I would ask you the same but now is not the time. Stand here. Do not move,” he ordered and pointed to the floor next to him.

Her mouth dropped open involuntarily. How dare he try to give her orders?

She shouldn’t be surprised that he rudely commanded her as though she were nothing more than an errant child.

For reasons unknown to her, Hunter’s disdain for her had grown during the two years of their acquaintance, and he glared at her now in a way she assumed was meant to intimidate her.

That might work on other people, but she was too angry to back down from him.

“I don’t know what you are here for, but whatever it is, get it done and be on your way and leave me to my business. ”

He narrowed his eyes and leveled a fierce glare at her. “Regardless of what my business was, now it has become getting you out of here before you are discovered and thrown in the dungeon. Or worse.”

“You need not concern yourself with me. I found my way in, and I will find my way out.” She’d been terrified every step of the way, but she’d also been exhilarated.

She’d managed to get past the guards at the gate, hide until darkness fell, and then steal through the castle undetected.

It had been easier than she even dared hope.

Getting out would be more of a challenge, but she had a plan for that.

“Do you know what will happen to you if you are caught?” Was that fear she saw in Hunter’s eyes?

“I am aware of the risks.” She wasn’t a fool.

But she also had an advantage that Hunter wasn’t aware of, one that she would use if the situation became desperate.

Granted, the advantage required her to lie, and the consequences could alter the course of her life in the most undesirable way, but she wouldn’t think about that unless she was forced.

She tucked a loose lock of hair back into her cap and met Hunter’s critical gaze.

“God above, woman!” Hunter stepped uncomfortably close and glared own at her, their noses nearly touching as she watched his pupils dilate to pinpoints.

“Do really think a cap and a pair of breeches will fool anyone into thinking you are a man? You will be the death of us both. It is only a matter of time before the guard lying on the privy floor above stairs comes around.”

“What guard? I didn’t see anyone.” She’d been careful and waited until the great hall and tower were abandoned and quiet before she tiptoed up the stairs to the baron’s chamber. “You are making that up to scare me.”

“I know you didn’t see him,” he drawled. “But he saw you. And he followed you up the stairs.”

He turned away from her and reached into one of the chests she had opened with her keys.

After a moment of picking up and scanning various missives, he tucked one into his boot.

She hadn’t opened the chests for his convenience.

She’d opened them looking for any of the pendants or jewels stolen from her father’s shop so many years ago.

Or the brooch stolen merely a fortnight past, lifted from a locked chest inside the locked shop while she, her father, and the blacksmith—who was like family to them and lived in a room of the manor above the shop—had attended the Lammas Day Festival in the churchyard.

The stolen pendants had been used to pay a debt at a bawdy house in Shrewsbury.

She knew this because the proprietress of the establishment, Madam Ruby, had brought it to her father’s shop to exchange for coin, as she’d done many times over the years when clients paid her in jewels, trinkets, or scraps of precious metals.

With her father above stairs, Anora conducted the transaction—which was not unusual—and feigned idle curiosity about the piece.

Madam Ruby couldn’t be sure who had used the pendants to pay her, but she thought it may have been Baron Payne of Castle Whyte.

The revelation surprised her momentarily, but she wasn’t completely shocked by the idea of Baron Payne’s involvement in questionable activities—at a brothel or with stolen goods.

She’d known the Baron Payne of Castle Whyte for as long as she could remember.

His father had been a trusted friend of her father since boyhood.

She remembered the old man as a kind and good, though stern, but his son was nothing like him.

Edmund Payne had been a ghastly pest when they were children, but he’d become downright cruel since assuming his father’s title when the old baron died two years prior.

His inherited title and elevated position had made him even more arrogant and callous.

He’d become a man who used his power to intimidate because he did not understand the difference between fear and respect.

She would not put it above him to consider stealing from others as his right, as a means of taking what he felt he was duly owed.

but so far, she’d found nothing damning.

Despite that, she wasn’t convinced that it proved he was innocent.

Rather, she felt it was merely because she had not yet looked in the right place.

There had been nothing of value in his bedchamber, and the chests she found in his solar had yielded nothing more than a small trove of gold coins in one, and a collection of parchments in the other.

Hunter closed the lid and replaced the lock on the larger chest of parchments, then moved to the smaller chest, lifted a handful of the coins to let them run through his fingers as they sparkled in the candlelight. He turned to Anora and arched one brow, “Not what you were looking for?”

“That is not your concern,” she said as she lifted her chin. “But apparently you found something useful.”

He shrugged in answer as he turned to the table in the middle of the room and shuffled through the scrolls and bits of parchment strewn across it.

“Are you almost finished?” She fisted her hands and set them on her hips as her irritation grew.

“Almost. And then I’m escorting you out of here before you get yourself killed.”

“I’ve not found what I am looking for as of yet, so I’d appreciate it if you would be on your way and leave me to my work.” Hunter was a complication for which she did not have the time nor the tolerance. What was he doing here anyway?

He turned to her, his eyes wide as though what she said astonished him. “Your work ?”

Her confidence waned slightly under his scrutiny, but she answered in a steady voice. “Yes, Hunter. And I do not require your presence. In fact, I would prefer to continue it alone.”

“Is that so?” he drawled in a patronizing tone that grated on her nerves.

“Did I not speak clearly?” Her anger had replenished her confidence. She was not about to allow this man to treat her like a child when she neither asked for nor wanted his assistance.

He moved to stand in front of her again and pushed close as though he meant to force her to back away from him, but she refused.

Which meant that when he spoke, she felt the warmth of his breath on her cheeks.

“Then perhaps I should go above stairs and wake the guard I knocked unconscious for you, since you think you do not need me.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t kill him. It’s not like you to be so merciful.” She softened her face into an angelic expression as she spoke, which was in complete contrast to the intentionally snide tone of her words. “That is if the brazen tales about you are true.”

His eye twitched almost imperceptibly, and she wondered if she’d actually offended him.

“As of now, we are only guilty of trespassing. I’d prefer we not add murder to the list of offenses.” He tilted his head slightly to the side and gave her a bored look. “But I can go finish the job, if you’d like.”

“No!” She did not want anyone killed because of her.

Hunter nodded once, then grabbed a handful of the coins from the small chest and put it in the pouch at his waist before he closed the lid and replaced the lock.

“What are you doing?” Anora’s eyes went wide with disapproval as she looked from the pouch at his waist to the wooden chest of riches and back to the pouch again.

“Not your concern,” he said in a low grumble, echoing her earlier dismissal of his question.

“Now you’ve added theft to the list of offenses,” Anora said. She couldn’t condone stealing, even from Edmund—unless it was to steal back something that didn’t belong to him to begin with.

“That’s rich, coming from you, lady-thief. You were just elbow-deep in that same chest.” He hooked a hand around her wrist to pull her away from the chests. “Let’s go before more guards come looking for the one in the privy.”

“Not until I find what I came for,” she protested as she planted her feet in resistance.

“Not so loud,” he bit out between clenched teeth as he pressed a finger to her lips as though she were a misbehaving child, “lest you wish to attract more guards. In which case, I’ll have to decide who to kill first, them or you.”

She narrowed her eyes at him in what she hoped was a withering glare as she reluctantly pinched her lips shut. Though she did not believe Hunter would truly hurt her, he had a reputation as a dangerous man with skills that made him lethal and very useful to his lord.

“Later, you will tell me why you are here.” The stern set of his lips indicated he was not in the mood for discussion. “But for now you are going to do exactly as I say, unless you prefer to spend the night chained to a dungeon wall.”