Page 23 of Heart of the Hunter (Band of Bastards #3)

“How dare he!” Frode nearly bellowed.

“The snake!” Sumayl exclaimed slamming his fist down on the table.

“If I could prove he had the first brooch I made, or if he had any more of the items stolen so many years ago, I could use that against him somehow.”

“Anora,” her father said on a heavy sigh full of warning as he shook his head side to side. “You could have gotten yourself killed. How did you even get into the castle?”

Hunter was grateful for the distraction of chopping as she recounted entering through the front gate under the guise of having a delivery for the kitchen.

She explained how she waited until dark and then used the keys she had taken from the chest in Baldwin’s room to enter the baron’s bedchamber.

When she didn’t find what she was looking for there, she searched his private solar.

“He had a cask of jewels in his bedchamber, but the brooch wasn’t there, and I did not recognize any of the others.

The chests in his solar only contained coins. That’s where I encountered Hunter.”

“How did you know Anora was in the castle?” Frode asked. “Or were you there on business of your own?”

Hunter dumped the last of the chopped vegetables into the pot over the fire, then sat down across from Frode.

The man may be advancing in age and his eyes failing, but he was still as shrewd as the day he met him two years prior.

“I was gathering information for Hawk and stumbled on Anora when I saw her creeping up the stairwell to the baron’s chamber. ”

Frode visibly paled and Sumayl groaned, no doubt from the same surge of fear that stabbed at him when he thought about what could have happened to her if he had not been there.

“I followed him from the castle,” Anora said, her voice deceptively light.

Hunter leveled a warning glare at her as she took a swig of her ale. Her father and Sumayl deserved to know that they were nearly caught in case soldiers started nosing around in Oswestry looking for them.

Anora set her tankard on the table but continued to clutch it with both hands.

“We encountered some guards during our escape. I had to distract two of them until Hunter could…attend to the situation.” Before Frode or Sumayl could say anything, she added hastily. “But we evaded them. And the others—”

“Others?”

“Aye,” Hunter wasn’t sure how much more Frode could take before the shock killed him. “I don’t think they got a good look at us, but they are likely looking for a woman dressed in breeches and her traveling companion.”

“Lord, help us,” Frode muttered.

“Hunter led us to a hut in the forest and we hid there until the rain subsided. We’ve not encountered anyone since making our escape from the castle. Not even after we left the hut and made our way here.”

Frode heaved a heavy sigh. “That is not the explanation I expected.” He let out a mirthless laugh. “I’d rather deal with a clandestine tryst than this fiasco.”

“I am sorry, Papa. I did not mean to make things worse.”

Frode reached across the table and took his daughter’s hands in his own. “I am sorry that you have been shouldering this burden alone.”

“I know it sounds absurd, but I wanted to prove Edmund wrong. If he had stolen the brooch from me, then I wanted to steal it back, and let him see that I am not as incapable as he thinks me to be.”

“He is not the man his father was,” Frode said with a sad shake of his head. “Eustace would be ashamed of what has become of his son for the disrespectful way he has tried to shame you and our family.”

Hunter felt the heat of shame as it crept up his neck and into his cheeks.

He’d wanted to seduce Anora himself, and had nearly given into his desires, which made him no better than the baron.

He’d spent hours at this same table, listening to tales of when Frode served King Henry as a code decipherer, of his determination to become a goldsmith despite coming from a long line of blacksmiths, and of the way he loved his wife and children.

Frode was a man of integrity and Hunter admired him for it.

To have the privilege of being a trusted friend and then seduce his daughter would be an affront that would not be forgiven.

To clear his head of thoughts of Anora, Hunter asked. “Do you think he had anything to do with what happened to your wife?” If he did, it was one more reason for Hunter to kill him.

“Baldwin suspected him from the beginning,” Anora said. “He never liked him, even when they were boys. He said Edmund was often jealous and cruel.”

“I didn’t want to believe him,” Frode admitted. “I thought it was the natural rivalry between boys.”

“From what I have discovered of him in the last months,” Hunter said, “Edmund Payne is a man who lacks in scruples and is needlessly cruel to people who are weaker than him.” The baron had journeyed to the holding of Gilbert de Clare—a man known for causing strife among his fellow Marcher lords—with increasing frequency in recent months and sampled nearly every bawdy house along the way.

The stories told by the harlots about him of degradation and a penchant for inflicting pain were all the same, and reason enough to want to see the baron dead.

He hardly remembered his mother, but he imagined it was a man much like Edmund Payne who had deemed her life worthless because she was a whore in one of the cheapest bawdy houses in London.

“What can you tell us about why you are investigating Edmund?” Frode asked.

“Someone has been killing livestock and ransacking tenant holdings on land under the protection of Hawkspur. Hawk suspects Baron Payne is behind the attacks.” He trusted Frode and Sumayl to be discreet, and for the sake of convincing them of the dangers of being associated with the baron, he added, “From what I’ve uncovered thus far, Payne is getting himself in deep with dangerous men with questionable loyalty to the king.

He is not a man you want your family associated with. ”

Frode cursed quietly, then said, “I should be the man to protect my daughter and avenge my wife, but I am no longer a young man.” He lifted his unfocused gaze in Hunter’s direction.

“I understand that your loyalty to Lord Hawk means that you are required to put his mission above all others, but I would ask that if you find any evidence that proves—or disproves—Edmund’s involvement in the thefts or the death of my beloved Sapphira, that you share that information with me. ”

“Of course,” Hunter readily agreed. He’d already decided he would do everything in his power to ensure the baron was never again a threat to Anora or Frode.

“Until then, Sumayl and I will do all that we can to shield Anora from him.”

“I will not hide,” Anora insisted. She put her hand over Hunter’s forearm as if to keep him from leaving, and he felt like he’d just been singed. “Nor will I be left behind to idly await my fate. Let me help you bring him down.”

“No.” It was instinct and self-preservation that brought the abrupt answer to his lips before he’d even thought about it. Every time they touched, another measure of his self-control slipped through his fingers.

Her grip on his arm tightened. “Don’t you understand? If I let you do this while I stay here, hidden behind barred doors, and wait until you tell me the situation has been remedied, then I will have surrendered to the notion that my life is not my own.”

“Anora,” he growled, though he couldn’t be certain if it was in warning or out of desperation. Or both.

“No, Hunter. I will not let you deny me this, because if you do, what happens to me? If the proof of Edmund’s duplicity is not found before he returns at the end of the month, what recourse will I have?

It is only a fortnight until Michaelmas, which means I have only a fortnight to determine the course of my future.

I will not sit idly by and let others manipulate the outcome of my life.

If I do, that will be my lot for the rest of my days. And that is no life.”

He wanted to argue with her, to tell her it was foolish to try to stand up to a man like Payne, or any man for that matter, but he couldn’t find the words.

He knew what it was to feel helpless, the utter frustration of having no options, the humility of being forced to bend the will of others, and he would not wish that upon her.

The desperation on her face melted away and was replaced with a look of sheer satisfaction. He shook his head in defeat because she knew him well enough to see that she had won, that he would not deny her the need at the core of every man—and woman—to live free of the bonds imposed by others.

God help him, but he was about to make the worst decision of his life.