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chaperone and disciplinarian? He should have headed straight back to the convent the minute he learned the old sister wasn’t among them.
    He glanced longingly north and west, in the direction of the ship that was waiting for them. It was still a hard day’s ride to the coast … a day’s sailing across the Channel and a day up the Thames. Three more days—four if the winds and tides didn’t favor them—before he would be rid of the lot of—
    He spotted Graham dismounting and heading for him with clenched fists, and he drew a long-suffering breath.
    “A bit harsh on them, weren’t you?” Graham spoke in compressed tones, looking off into the trees so that his annoyance wouldn’t carry to the men.
    “They survived the battle at Crecy. They’ll survive this.”
    “I meant the maids. They’re not prisoners, you know.”
    Hugh leveled a hard look on him.
    “I have a charge from the king to get these females back to London safely.” He jerked his head toward the men scanning the edge of the woods for stray glimpses of his charges. “Can you imagine what would happen if our little ‘sisters’ decided to try out their new womanly wiles on this wolf pack? We’d have to run the poor bastards through to keep them from ravishing the chits.”
    He drew Graham’s gaze with his to where a couple of soldiers had edged their mounts near Mattias’s wagon to talk with him. He could just imagine what the old veteran was telling them about the little nuns with the big eyes and soft lips and musical voices—
    A scream tore through both the air and Hugh’s preoccupation in the same instant, and all he could think was that
it couldn’t be.
His men were all there in front of him, all accounted for—
    A second scream, from a different voice, jolted him to action. Ripping his sword from its scabbard, he shouted at Graham to “Come with me!” and plunged through the underbrush, into the trees. Graham hesitated only long enough to signal several soldiers at the front of the column to follow, and the men had their weapons drawn before their feet even touched the ground.
    As Hugh charged through the trees, slashing at low-hanging branches and ducking snags and broken limbs, he prayed that he was overreacting. Let it be just a rat or snake or wild pig … something that had startled them. But a sudden chorus of screeching terror caused every muscle in his body to tighten to battle readiness. No wintered pig ever caused such caterwauling.
    When he finally burst into the small clearing, there it was—his worst nightmare come to life. His charges had stumbled onto what appeared to be a band of brigands lurking in the forest. Two of the maids were already captive in the thieves’ arms, kicking and thrashing furiously as they were being dragged toward the trees, and the rest were fighting desperately to keep from being taken.
    “Release them!” he bellowed as he charged across the clearing. At the sound of his voice, the maidens’ cries intensified, and two of the men broke away from them to meet him with blades drawn.
    The clang of metal on metal unleashed battle-honed responses, and instantly he was fully engaged and bearing down on his ragged opponents. He hacked and slashed and thrust, his blue-edged steel glancing off their blades, his practiced military footwork matched by surprisingly adroit movements. His senses sharpened to anticipate every arc and angle of their blade work. Their counters and slashes had an unexpected crispness and precision that required him to focus entirely on the fight. He was scarcely aware of Graham and some of their men arriving to join the battle. The brigands fought savagely at first, but then, finding themselves outnumbered, abandoned their prizes and withdrew with a cry that any soldier who had fought Frenchmen in recent months knew full well: “Fall back!”
    The cry distracted his remaining opponent just enough for him to find an opening in the wretch’s shoulder. The bandit fell with a