Page 49 of Trapped By Vengeance

“You can keep it.” Before she can ask what I mean, I hike up my skirt high enough to unsheathe my dagger.

Konrad glances back, sees my leg, and quickly looks forward again. Until he realizes I’m handling a dagger near his daughter and has no choice but to look back.

I hand that dagger to Eloise hilt first. “I can get another one, but this one fits your sheath.”

Eloise grins up at me as thunder rolls ahead. “Thank you, Lady Valda.”

“It’s just a trinket.” I muss her hair before looking back up at the castle we are closing in on. “Actually, we need to pull to the side. Nature beckons me.”

“But your home.” Konrad waves tiredly again. “It’s right there!”

I slide off the horse while it’s still in motion. “A lady doesn’t wait for such things!”

With that rather unladylike announcement, I dart into the dark woods.

Konrad’s groan is loud enough to be heard over the thunder.

I press myself against a tree and listen more closely.

“I think she’s just scared of storms,” Eloise says. “She keeps running off every time one rolls in.”

The First Heaven opens, and the lightning-charged air gives way as water pours down.

“Son of every werwölfe!” Konrad growls. “Eloise, don’t repeat that. Also, go back to the village and rent a room. I’ll wait for Valda. If the little Lady has to go in the woods, she has travel by foot, too.”

“But,Abi—”

There’s a clang as the leather pouch with Konrad’s coin is exchanged. “I’m not in the mood, Eloise. Take yourself and Sir Pigeon to shelter. Just make sure I have a hot meal and a dry bed waiting for me once this is taken care of once and for all.”

“But I want to say farewell—”

“Then yell it.”

“Farewell, Lady Valda!” Elosie yells before her voice is carried away in the wind.

I smile at the sweetness of her voice as rain plasters my hair to my face. Will any of that survive when she loses the final member of her family?

My smile washes away with the rain.

“Lady Valda, are you done already? I really don’t want to chase you in the rain again.”

Composing myself like a Baroness ought, I come out from behind my tree and stomp over. “We came this far. We might as well finish this.”

“Exactly,” Konrad says with no idea what he’s agreeing to. He offers me his elbow as my escort.

I take it, and then we trudge up the path together as it turns to mud around us.

He doesn’t know that each slippery step takes him closer to his doom.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Konrad

By the time we’ve reached the drawbridge, I’m soaked to the bone, my boots are immersed in mud, and my coat is on Valda’s shoulders even thoughsheis the one who lengthened our trip in this misery. She probably did it as revenge for my knocking her into the ocean this morning.

My skin flushes again at the memory, and I stare at the drawbridge as I steady myself. I already have enough to do trying to pass off as Valda’s rescuer and not her kidnapper. Heavens forbid Baron Schwerin getting any hint of my having had an inappropriate dalliance with his daughter.

Would it be still more inappropriate if I requested the honor of courting his daughter when I have only the reward money that he gives me to stand upon?

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