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A smile touched his face. “I knew it.”
She swallowed. “How? How did you know to come back to Saleté de Mer at all?”
His brushed his mouth over her jawline. She closed her eyes. “Because of you,” he said softly.
“What matters me?”
“You matter, Magdalena. Of course, Tadhg could have simply arranged you an escort back to Saleté de Mer after he sailed—likely that was his original plan. Any other man would simply have abandoned you in whatever town was most convenient, once you served your purposes, but Tadhg…well, that is his downfall, is it not? He is weak, you know.”
“Tadhg? Weak?”
He slid his finger down the line of her arm and a cold shudder moved through her. “I know he seems quite the warrior, and then there is all his godforsaken charm. He is like a shiny penny, pretty to look at, but inside,” Sherwood tapped his chest, “softness abounds. He hasn’t the will, you see, the will for greatness.”
She looked up into his cold, determined eyes. “And you do?”
He sheathed his blade. “Let me show you my will.” He lifted his hands and cupped her face.
She waited until she felt a gust of moist breath on her lips, until his hands were holding her face very firmly, then she whispered, “Let me show you my will, sir,” and reached up with both hands, grabbed the baron’s smallest finger on both sides, and yanked back and down, hard, just as Tadhg had suggested.
One of them snapped.
Sherwood gave a howl of pain and wrenched his hands away. He stumbled in pain a few steps before his shoulder hit the wall and he fell to his knees, cradling his broken finger.
Magdalena flung herself across the bed, scrambling toward the door, which had been flung wide open. The mayor stood in the opening, his hand on its knob, staring slack-jawed at Maggie, crawling across the bed, and Sherwood, on his knees behind her.
“Dear God in Heaven—” he cried.
“Help me, you fool,” Maggie cried back.
With a roar of rage, Sherwood launched himself to his feet and grabbed a fistful of Magdalena’s tunic and dragged her backward across the bed. She went kicking and clawing, but his strength was greater than hers, and he pulled her to the edge of the bed in front of him.
“Now I do not think I shall pay you at all,” he said, and struck her backhanded, then unsheathed his sword.
She shoved back on her elbows. He loomed above her. Then they both froze as a loud thump came from downstairs.
It was followed by an even louder crash.
They stared at each other for a long, silent second, frozen. Then Sherwood leapt over her body and shoved the mayor aside as he hurtled out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
His boots suddenly stopped clattering
In the sudden dark silence, a voice spoke. “Where is Magdalena?”
Tadhg.
She gave a cry and flew to the door, pushing aside the mayor just as the baron had done, and whirled out of the room, then stopped short, holding onto the doorframe, her body pressed to it, panting, staring at the sight of Sherwood, frozen mid-stride, three steps down the stairwell, his hands up, sword out, his chin tipped high.
The steel-cold tip of a disembodied sword was pointed directly at the bulge in his throat.
Sherwood backed slowly up the stairs.
The almost ghostly silver sheen of the sword seemed to hover in midair as it followed after, then Tadhg’s figure materialized out of the darkness, cloaked and booted, holding the blade aloft, coming up the stairs. He knocked the sword out of Sherwood’s hand with a twist of his wrist, then pinned him to the wall at the top of the stairs.
For a few beats, the two nemeses stared at each other.
“So.” Sherwood swallowed, brushing the tip of Tadhg’s sword. “I found you.”
“Lucky you.” Tadhg’s gaze stayed on the baron as he said to Magdalena, “Are you hurt?”
