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the forest, her hands were clasped together over the frontpiece of her saddle, the knuckles white and straining with repressed anger.
    She had been stunned speechless by the outlaw’s preposterous claim. Lucien Wardieu indeed! But before she could recover her faculties and demand explanations, his curt commands had set the scrofulous band of followers into motion. Within moments, she and Biddy were culled from the others and led into the forest. Everything of value had been stripped from the wagons and transferred onto the backs of the pack horses, as had the bulk of the guards’ weapons and armour. The outlaw had given the wounded Sir Roger de Chesnai a small, canvas-wrapped packet and a message to be delivered to Bloodmoor Keep—obviously a demand for ransom and proof that the hostage was in safekeeping.
    The effrontery of the man was not to be believed! Periodically Servanne’s gaze would stray from the path ahead to launch unseen poisoned darts into the broad back of the wolf’s head who dared to call himself Lucien Wardieu. She had already given him a host of truer appelations—madman, poseur, traitor, charlatan, impostor, bedlamite, crack-brain …
    Each seething glance resulted in a new term to describe an audacity that was beyond belief. Who, in all of England, did not know the great golden countenance of the real Baron de Gournay? What man or woman in possession of all their senses could believe for one instant that this coarse, ill-bred, unkempt, murderous creature of the forest belonged at the same table with kings and queens? The mere notion of such a ruffian even being permitted into the servants’ gallery was preposterous. The stables, perhaps. The pigsty or the muck pit where the refuse from the castle latrines was collected … maybe. But as liege lord of the castle itself? As baron lord of Bloodmoor Keep?
    The snort of disdain she was unable to repress caused the dark chestnut head to turn slightly. A wry smile suggested he had felt every barb and intercepted every thought that had passed through her head over the last two hours, and the sight of it fueled her anger a notch higher.
    “The scenery displeases you, my lady? You see stretched before you nature at its very peak. She offers here a tranquility and solitude found nowhere else; a wild purity shared only by other virgins who have not yet experienced the taint of man’s interference.”
    “She bears your taint, wolf’s head,” Servanne remarked dryly. “And that must surely spoil her for all others.”
    “Ahh. Spoken with the true sentiment of wedded bliss. Might I assume your previous marriage left something to be desired?”
    Servanne’s eyes flashed blue fire. “You may presume nothing whatsoever. My marriages—past or future—are no concern of yours. How dare you even speak to me of them, or of anything else for that matter. There is nothing your twisted tongue could say to me that could be of the least interest, and I insist you do not insult me with it again.”
    The outlaw’s broad shoulders shrugged beneath the black wolf’s pelts. “A greater hardship on you, I fear, for I have yet to encounter a woman who could maintain as good a silence as a man. Especially not when her brain is overtaxed with righteous fervour.”
    Servanne opened her mouth with a ready retort, saw the mockingly expectant brow arch in her direction, and pressed her lips tautly together again. She averted her gaze and stared straight ahead, but the resentment that bubbled within her could not be as easily diverted.
    “I have seen Lord Lucien with mine own eyes,” she declared stridently. “How dare you presume to mock him.”
    “Do I mock him, my lady? I thought you would be flattered I envied his choice of brides.”
    “Flattered!” Her voice was brittle with anger. “You could flatter us both by dropping dead this instant and saving the baron the trouble of rooting you out later! As for envying his choice of brides, I would sooner win the praise