Page 3

Three

Peregrine

It was only an hour to the priory, but it felt much longer to Peregrine. And that had less to do with his thwarted revenge than it did with the comely captive he had tied to his saddle.

Alexander Dartham’s hair spilled everywhere in shimmering waves as he moved, and the moving continually revealed his breeches’ superlative tailoring as the fabric clung to his thighs and buttocks when he walked. And whenever he would lag behind the horse and whine that he was tired of walking—which was often—Peregrine would turn around and see a lush pout designed to drive any red-blooded person wild.

By the time they’d gone through a scatter of lonely hills to the narrow seam where the priory sat hidden, Peregrine was at his wit’s end. His palms itched to slide over the Dartham heir’s sleek thighs; his fingers twitched to tangle themselves in all that soft hair. The scent he’d noticed in the coach was all around him now, spicy and sweet at the same time.

Peregrine’s entire body was in riot just from being near Alexander Dartham for the length of a ride. How would he bear it when he had Alexander locked away in his hideout for days on end?

But it couldn’t be that he was really attracted to a scion of the family he loathed, Peregrine reassured himself. It had simply been too long, that was all. During the war, there had been plenty of opportunities to satisfy himself, but being an outlaw in rural Devonshire was a different situation, and he hadn’t had the time or luxury to find new lovers. He’d been living more or less like a monk for the last four years—all the more ironic, given his current home.

“I don’t want to submit a complaint so early in my captivity,” Alexander said as they came to a stop in front of the hideout. “But this is a little déclassé for even my deteriorated taste.”

Peregrine looked at the crumbling monastery and imagined how it must look to the brother of a duke. The overgrown entrance was partially blocked by broken beams and piles of roof slates, and wild blackthorn crawled up the walls and bushed out into impenetrable, unkempt thickets. The few windows there were had long been robbed of their glass, and birdshit was everywhere, piled especially high in the doorway. It was as far away from a ducal manor as someone could get.

“I’m planning to kill you, and you’re worried about your accommodations?” Peregrine asked, dismounting the horse. Now at the same level, Peregrine could see that Alexander’s neckcloth had come loose at some point, exposing the long, lovely column of Alexander’s throat. It was the kind of throat a man could spend hours licking, nuzzling.

Biting.

Peregrine had to remind his starved body that Alexander was the brother of his mortal enemy, and also the heir of the family he was determined to ruin. And also his captive.

Alexander tossed a curtain of dark hair over his shoulder and gave Peregrine a little moue of displeasure. “I expected death. I expected torture. But I’m too beautiful and innocent for the indignity of sleeping in a building where the threshold is literally a mound of turds. Your vengeance against my family must know no bounds.”

With the pout and the rumpled clothes, Alexander looked anything but innocent. He looked downright sinful. But Peregrine didn’t bother to say so.

“How do you know I want revenge?” he asked instead, leading the horse—and Alexander, too, by the other end of the rope that bound him—to the low-slung stables at the side of the priory.

“I deduced it,” Alexander said, sounding a little smug. Then he added, “Also, Reginald is an unholy pile of shit, so I’m not surprised someone wants to kill him. If I’m being honest, I thought this would’ve happened sooner.”

Peregrine tied Alexander’s rope to a post and then began tending to his horse, removing the bridle and replacing it with a halter to tether his mount in place. “You’re not upset I plan to kill your brother?”

Alexander tilted his head, his full mouth bunched to the side. “No. I mean, I oppose the use of murder, in general, and I have no wish to be the duke, ever, ever, so I’d rather he not be dead. But as I’ve mentioned previously, he’s about as wonderful as the French pox, and half as merciful.”

Peregrine was used to people loathing the Duke of Jarrell around these parts, but they were all farmers, shepherds... thieves . For a lord like Alexander to admit his brother’s despicable nature to someone lowborn like Peregrine was more than a breach of familial loyalty, it was a betrayal of class as well, and that was enough to make Peregrine’s curiosity—and suspicion—flare.

“And,” Alexander added, “you don’t seem the type to do anything for any reason that’s less than entirely serious, which makes me think that whatever the motive is for your revenge, I’ll have some empathy for it.”

Peregrine searched the finely sculpted face in front of him. The honesty he saw in those dark eyes unsettled him. Peregrine didn’t want Alexander to be honest. Or empathetic.

It would...complicate things.

He could feel Alexander’s gaze on him as he turned to hang up the saddle and then began grooming the horse, checking his mount’s legs and shoes as he worked.

“I would, you know,” his captive said after a minute. Softly. “Have empathy.”

Peregrine didn’t look up from his work.

“And if you wanted to tell me, I would listen. I would believe you.”

A strange thing happened then. Peregrine’s lips parted, almost as if they were ready to speak, almost as if he were ready to talk about what Reginald had done to his family after years of holding the bitter knowledge inside himself—but that couldn’t be right, could it? Peregrine had been careful to never speak of his losses, even to Lyd, because if the memories cut so deeply merely in his thoughts , what would they do to him as words spoken aloud?

So why was he tempted to talk to this spoiled aristocrat? Why was the brother of his enemy eliciting this urge in him when his friends and fellow thieves never had?

“I don’t need your belief,” Peregrine said.

“Everyone needs belief.”

“Not the dead,” he replied, and put away the brush and pick. Then he took the horse by the halter to walk him up and down the stable aisle. He could still feel his captive’s eyes burning against him as he walked.

“Are you referring to yourself?” Alexander asked. “Or to someone you lost?”

It was too close to the truth—too perceptive. Again, Peregrine felt the strange urge to speak, to explain. And along with it came a feeling that wasn’t quite fear and wasn’t quite resentment, but a serrated alloy of both, sharpened by the genuine honesty he heard in his prisoner’s voice.

Peregrine reminded himself that Alexander was his captive right now and would likely say anything to get Peregrine to trust him, to get Peregrine to let him go.

And that, Peregrine would not do.

He didn’t answer Alexander’s question. And then Alexander didn’t say anything else, even after Peregrine put the horse in its stall with fresh hay and water, and then unhooked his captive’s rope and led him into the priory itself.

“I’m gracious enough to concede I was wrong about the ignoble lodgings.”

Peregrine ignored Alexander as he led him out of the small cloister and into what used to be the priory’s church. When he’d first found the priory, untouched since the Dissolution, it had been in a terrifying state. Peregrine—with the help of a few local shepherds, whom he’d paid handsomely for their future silence on the matter—had restored the back half of the building to soundness while leaving the front half alone. Which meant if someone did stumble down the narrow cart-track to the abandoned monastery, it would look even worse than unsafe—it would look worthless.

The result was a warm, dry, and bird-free space that was disguised by its ruinous frontage, an ideal hideout for Peregrine and his friends. And though they’d never bothered to take a captive before, there was plenty of room to keep one. Peregrine had the perfect place in mind: the old sacristy at the back of the church. Lyd had slept there until she started sharing one of the monk’s cells with Ned, so there was already a bed and a few other amenities inside.

More importantly, there was only one high, narrow window and only one door. So long as the door was guarded, escape would be impossible.

Peregrine took Alexander there now, walking through the choir and past the uncovered altar to the sacristy. Alexander’s head swiveled as they went, peering through the shadows at the piles of stolen things they hadn’t had a chance to sell—bolts of cloth, bundles of leather, a basket overflowing with jewelry—and the furniture, tapestries, carpets, and candlesticks which transformed the forgotten church into a medieval hall worthy of a king.

“I’m impressed, Peregrine,” the younger man said as they reached the sacristy door, and Peregrine opened it to reveal a snug, furnished room. “This is a better thieves’ den than I could have imagined. Complete with piles of loot and everything. Are the stories true then? That you even have escape tunnels beneath?—”

“It’s not going to work,” Peregrine interrupted, reaching for the lamp to light it.

Alexander gave him an innocent look. “What?”

“Manipulating me, charming me, befriending me—even trying to learn more about the priory. I know you plan to escape. And you should know that it won’t work.”

His captive gave him a dazzling grin. “Well, you can’t blame a man for trying.”

Peregrine’s pulse gave an unwanted kick at the sight of Alexander’s smile, and he had to look away before he did something ludicrous. Like smile back at him.

He lit the lamp and then walked over to the small fireplace.

“Get on the bed,” Peregrine said gruffly.

“Oh, Peregrine, I thought you’d never ask.”

Alexander’s coy purr sent Peregrine’s pulse jumping again, and he had to tell himself that he was a villainous highwayman who wasn’t affected by the charms of a rake, no matter how lissome. No matter how pretty his throat or how long his eyelashes. Peregrine also told himself that this rake’s brother had both directly and indirectly killed Peregrine’s entire family.

Peregrine hated the Darthams. He hated them so much that he would happily kill all of them, even Alexander.

Right?

His mind instinctively pushed away from the idea of killing Alexander, and he decided he wasn’t going to think about it right now. It wouldn’t be a problem until after the ransom anyway, and so he’d think about it then. He would instead focus on the present moment, which involved somehow keeping Alexander here without his escaping.

Peregrine lit the fire, then walked over to where his captive sat perched on the edge of the bed and deftly untied his wrists. There was dirt on Alexander’s knees, and his hair was in windblown tangles. Peregrine sighed and stepped back.

“There’s a privy through that door. It opens over a rather perilous drop, so I don’t recommend using it as a means of escape. I’ll bring you water and fresh clothes.”

Alexander blinked up at him. “That’s very thoughtful. Are you this considerate of all your captives?”

“I’ve never had one before,” Peregrine said. “I’ll return briefly. Please don’t make life difficult for yourself by trying to run.”

“Never.” Alexander swore with such earnestness that Peregrine knew he was lying. But Peregrine also remembered too vividly how it felt to go without changing clothes or washing his body when he was on a long and bitter campaign, and he wouldn’t subject Alexander to that. Maybe he’d abducted him, maybe he’d kill him, but at the very least, his prisoner could be clean and comfortable.

For the time being.

Peregrine waited until Alexander went into the privy, and then he went out into the church and past the open cloister to the small, stark cell he kept for himself. He’d furnished the hideout to a high degree of comfort, but nowadays, he gave away most of the spoils to families who’d lost their livelihoods while living on Dartham lands.

After finding a clean shirt and breeches, he filled a large ewer with water from their cistern and brought it back to the sacristy. Perhaps not surprisingly, the room was empty of pouting, long-haired rakes.

With a sigh, Peregrine deposited everything on a table and then strode out of the church to the covered walkway that led to the old scriptorium and ultimately to the front of the building. The priory wasn’t massive, but it had been prosperous enough to warrant several small additions over its years, which meant a labyrinthine layout. An escaping captive would have a difficult time assessing the quickest way to the front door.

Sure enough, there was a flash of red wool through the arches of the cloister, just on the other side of the garth. Peregrine hopped over the low ledge, moved through the overgrown grass in a few long bounds, and jumped into the covered walkway on the other side in time to snag Alexander by the coat.

Alexander twisted and fought, but the game was up; Peregrine had him up and over his shoulder in a moment’s work. Peregrine immediately had to ignore how warm Alexander was. How firm.

How that lovely backside was currently calling for Peregrine’s palm...or his teeth.

Alexander stopped struggling the minute Peregrine hoisted him up, and slumped. “I thought the front door was closer,” he admitted.

“It’s not,” Peregrine said, turning and carrying him back to the church.

“Apparently,” said Alexander in a forlorn tone.

“What happened to being the best captive?”

Alexander shifted a little on Peregrine’s shoulder. “I think we could debate the meaning of the word best , don’t you? After all, from my vantage, the best captive would be the captive who doesn’t miss an opportunity to run.”

Peregrine’s voice was wry when he spoke. “And from my vantage?”

Alexander paused. “Well, obviously the best captive for you would be someone lively and interesting. Entertaining. To relieve you of boredom, of course.”

“Of course.”

Peregrine walked through the doorway and then dropped Alexander on the bed, where the young man lay with his limbs spread like a starfish, blinking up at the ceiling.

“Is this what my captivity is going to be?” Alexander asked. “You hauling me around like a sack of grain?”

Peregrine didn’t answer and instead gestured to the clothes and ewer. “I will be standing outside the door. I recommend you wash and change as I do. You’ll be more comfortable.”

Alexander hoisted himself up on an elbow, eyebrow curved in provocative suggestion. “More comfortable for what? Because I have some ideas.”

Alexander was too playful like this, too bright . Just looking at him on the bed, with his eyes glittering and his mouth quirked, made Peregrine’s blood feel like it was made of fire. It made Peregrine feel, period.

That was a problem, since Peregrine preferred only one feeling, and that was hatred of the Darthams. That hatred had been his only purpose, his single cold solace these last four years, and it was going to stay that way, no matter how playful or pretty this Dartham heir was.

With a shake of his head, Peregrine left the room, leaving the heavy shape of his own silence behind him.