Hazel's Promise (The Fey Quartet Book 2) (2 page)

“I’m not turning back,” the girl said, folding her arms. “I’ve waited
ten
years—and I am
not
turning back!” Some color was returning to her face. Tam realized, belatedly, that she was remarkably beautiful. And older than he’d thought. Close to his own age, if he guessed right. A woman, not a girl.

He eyed her. “How far are you going?”

“Mottlethorpe. It’s only twenty miles from here.”

Tam thought of his father’s letter, hidden in his packsaddle.
I don’t anticipate trouble, but Faerie wishes have a way of going awry, and I confess I’d like you home as soon as possible, son. I know I have three good shoulders to lean on, but I would be glad of your shoulder, too, should anything go wrong
.

His father wanted him home. But his father would also expect him to protect this woman.

Tam looked at her folded arms and stubborn jaw and determined, dirt-smudged face, and weighed his father’s request for his swift return against the danger she faced on these roads. Twenty miles to Mottlethorpe, twenty miles back. It would add less than two days to his journey.

“Very well,” Tam said. “Marigold and I will escort you.”

The woman blinked, looking startled. “I don’t need an escort.” And then she looked at the two men lying on the road and had the grace to blush. “I don’t
want
an escort,” she said, in a smaller voice.

“Tough,” Tam said cheerfully. “This isn’t the vale; it isn’t safe for a woman alone.”
Especially one as beautiful as you
.

She hesitated, and then asked, “Where were you headed?”

“Mottlethorpe.”

She rolled her eyes. “Where were you headed . . .
truly
?”

“Truly?” Tam shrugged. “The vale.”

The woman shook her head. “Thank you, but no. I can’t let you go so far out of you
r—
”

“And
I
can’t let you go on alone,” Tam told her bluntly. “You won’t turn back. I doubt you’d let me drag you back. Therefore, I go to Mottlethorpe with you.”

She bit her lip, and looked down at the two outlaws sprawled on the road. Emotions flitted across her face: determination, despair.

“And besides,” Tam said lightly. “Marigold insists, and she’s a stubborn creature.” He scratched the donkey’s head.

The woman gave a small, reluctant laugh, and then sighed. “Thank you. I would be doubly in your debt.” She rubbed her face, found a smear of dirt, rubbed it again. For a moment, she looked tired and vulnerable. Her lips quivered.
She’s going to cry
. But then she blinked fiercely and took a deep breath and lifted her chin.

Tam should have been relieved; instead, he was disappointed. He imagined holding her in his arms while she cried, imagined stroking that glossy hair, wiping tears from her cheeks, offering a kiss or two in comfort. Her lips would be warm, soft, salty.

“What shall we do with them?”

Tam blinked, and followed the direction of her gaze. The outlaw he’d struck in the head was clearly dead. The second man was unconscious. “The dead one in the ditch,” Tam said. “The other one . . . off to the side of the road.” He handed Marigold’s rope to the woman, took the dead man’s ankles, and hauled him to the ditch. A leather purse was tied to the man’s belt. Tam ignored it. Let someone else steal the coins.

He dragged the second outlaw off the road. The man didn’t stir.

“Will he live?” the woman asked.

Tam looked at the pallor of the man’s face, heard his rattling breath. “Mayhap.”
But most likely not
.

He glanced at her. By all the gods, she was lovely—lustrous brown eyes, elegant cheekbones, delicious mouth—but it was the sharp intelligence in her gaze that he liked the most. The stubbornness of her jaw.

No ordinary woman, this. Strong-minded. Stout-hearted. Determined.

If I hadn’t come along, they’d be raping you by now
. For a brief second, bile rose in his throat. Tam turned away, swallowed hard, and crossed to her sack, lying abandoned in the dirt.

It was half empty. Clothes, he guessed. Maybe a blanket. Maybe some food. Tam strapped it on Marigold’s back.

“It seems unfair to make your poor donkey carry my belongings.”

“Marigold doesn’t mind, do you, girl?” Tam patted the donkey’s rump, and turned to pick up his stave. “What’s your name?”

“Hazel. Of Dapple Bend.”

I think I could fall in love with you, Hazel
. Tam placed one hand over his heart and bowed with a flourish. “Tam. Of Dapple Meadow.” He almost wanted to tell her his full name—Wistan Dappleward—and watch her manner change when she realized who his father was.

No. If she is to fall in love, let it be with me, not my name.

He took Marigold’s rope from her. “To Mottlethorpe, then.”

“WHAT’S SO IMPORTANT
about Mottlethorpe?” Tam asked, once they’d put a mile between themselves and the outlaws.

Hazel glanced at him. Her lips pursed, as if she were deciding what to tell him.

“The truth, please.”

Hazel gave a rueful laugh. “Am I so transparent?” And then she sighed. “Very well, the truth.”

Tam waited, while they walked another dozen yards. The twenty miles to Mottlethorpe seemed suddenly a gift. Twenty miles to get to know this woman.

“I’m betrothed,” Hazel said finally. “To a man who left the vale ten years ago to earn his fortune and never returned. I gave him a pebble from the Dapple, so he could find his way back, but he must have lost it. And yesterday I learned that he was in Mottlethorpe, so I’ve come to find him.”

Tam tried to look as if her words weren’t a kick in the stomach. “Betrothed?”
Curse it. I was halfway to falling in love
. And then he glanced sideways at her, and frowned. “You must have been young.”

“Thirteen.”

Very
young.

“So who is this . . .”—
seducer of innocents
—“man?”

She glanced at him assessingly. “You might have known him. He’s from Dapple Meadow. Drewet’s his name.”

Drewet . . . Tam cast back through his memory—and almost stumbled. “Not Drewet Ilbertson!”

Hazel’s face lit with eagerness. “You knew Drewet?”

“Tall. Black hair. Good-looking.”

“You
did
know him!”

“I did,” Tam said grimly. “He’s . . .”
A son of a bitch
. “He’s a lot older than you.” At least fifteen years older, if he remembered correctly.

“I know,” Hazel said seriously. “That’s what made it so special. And then he never came bac
k—
” She swallowed, and lifted her chin. “But I know why, now. He must have lost his pebble and he couldn’t get back into the vale. And so
I’ve
come to find
him
.”

“You’re certain he’s at Mottlethorpe?”

Hazel nodded.

Dear gods, she was beautiful. It was easy to imagine her at thirteen, fresh and lovely and innocent. And trusting. Trusting
Drewet,
of all people. Lecherous, shallow-hearted, cheating Drewet. Drewet, who went where his cock led him, casually seducing, casually discarding. Hazel would have been a sweet and tantalizing morsel for him.

He wondered if Drewet had seduced her virginity from her. Knowing Drewet, he had.

Rage curdled in Tam’s chest.
If Drewet truly is at Mottlethorpe, I might have to castrate him
.

“So, tell me about Drewet,” he said, tugging on Marigold’s rope. “How did you meet him?”

“He came up from Dapple Meadow to help with the harvest. And we fell in love, and pledged ourselves to each other.” A frown furrowed her brow. “And then he left the vale to seek his fortune and never came back. I knew something had happened! I
knew
it. He’d
pledged
himsel
f—
” She took a breath, gathered herself. “And yesterday I learned where he was. So I set out to find him and bring him back.”

Braving thieves and rapists and murderers.
Drewet does not deserve you
.

“Ten years is a long time,” Tam said mildly.

Hazel grimaced. “I know.”

Suddenly, Tam made the connection. Hazel. Dapple Bend. He almost missed his step. “You’re one of Widow Miller’s daughters!”

Hazel halted. “What of it?”

Tam halted, too. He thought of his father’s letter, tucked away in his packsaddle.
Widow Miller has won Faerie wishes for herself and her daughters. She has taken her wish already, with discretion, and her daughters are due their wishes on their birthdays. The eldest, of course, will choose to be rid of her lameness; the younger two have promised to choose discreetly. I have sworn them all to secrecy, on pain of expulsion from the vale. I don’t anticipate trouble, but Faerie wishes have a way of going awry, and I confess I’d like you home as soon as possible, son.

“What of it?” Hazel said again.

“Uh . . . nothing.” Questions crowded on Tam’s tongue.
Have you chosen your Faerie wish? Is that how you know where Drewet is?
But there was no point asking them; Hazel had sworn an oath of secrecy, and she was clearly a woman who held to her word.

Hazel put her hands on her hips. “My mother’s a cripple, is that what you’ve heard? Or have you heard that my sister’s lame? It’s true—and it doesn’t make them less than anyone else!”

“Of course I don’t think that!” Tam said, stung.

“Then what?” Hazel asked, narrow-eyed.

Tam hesitated. He
had
heard of Hazel Miller, and not just from his father’s letter.

“What?” she demanded again.

“I’ve heard of you,” Tam admitted. “Hard-hearted Hazel, who spurns all suitors to her hand.”

Hazel sniffed and turned her head away. She began walking again. Towards Mottlethorpe. Towards Drewet. “Not all suitors.”

Evidently not
. Tam gritted his teeth. He pulled on Marigold’s rope, and strode after her. “How is it your family allows you to travel so far alone?”

“I didn’t tell them. They don’t know about Drewet. No one knows about Drewet.”

“You kept your betrothal a secret?”

Hazel flushed faintly. “Drewet said it was best that way. He said people would try to convince me he was too old for me.”

Tam managed not to snort.
That wasn’t the only reason. He didn’t want to be chased off before he’d got what he wanted
. “But didn’t your family suspect? Didn’t your mother ever ask why you wouldn’t take a husband?” Vale girls usually wed any time after sixteen, and Hazel was long past that age.

“Mother encouraged us to wait. She says, the older we are, the better decisions we’ll make.”

Widow Miller was correct. Gods, if she knew her thirteen-year-old daughter had been seduced by Drewet Ilbertson . . . Tam winced inwardly.

“She says it’s better to never marry, than to marry the wrong man.”

Belatedly, Tam remembered that Widow Miller had been beaten half to death by her drunken husband. Her advice to her daughters had been hard-won.

“But I’ve found Drewet now, so I don’t have to wait any longer.” Hazel’s step became buoyant. A smile lit her face.

Tam eyed her narrowly. Had Hazel had her birthday? Did she
know
Drewet was in Mottlethorpe, or only
think
he was?

He walked fifty yards trying to think of a subtle way of finding out. “So, you’re twenty-three? You don’t look it.”

Hazel shrugged. “I am.”

“You look younger.”

“I’m not.”

Tam gave up trying to be subtle. “When was your birthday?”

Hazel glanced at him. “Yesterday. Why?”

“Uh,” Tam said, and thought:
She used her Faerie wish to find Drewet
. “Uh . . . just making conversation.” And then, because Hazel didn’t look as if she quite believed him, he hastily said, “So you didn’t tell your family you were leaving the vale? They’ll be worried.”

“They won’t be worried. They think I’m visiting my cousin in Dapple Orchard.” Hazel’s gaze dropped. She looked shamefaced. “It wasn’t well done of me to sneak off, but if I’d told them where I was going, they’d have made me wait until Ren or one of the other men could come with me, and I couldn’t wait even a day longer! I’ve been waiting
ten years
!” Those last words burst from her, full of pent-up frustration.

Tam studied her face. How hard had those years been? She must have come close to despair many times. And yet she’d stood firm to her pledge, had looked at no other man.

She wasn’t hard-hearted Hazel, he realized, but faithful Hazel. Ten years, faithful.

“Not long now,” Tam told her.
And when we find Drewet, I’m going to wring his neck for him
.

THEY HALTED AN
hour before dusk. Hazel wanted to push on—Mottlethorpe was only seven miles away—but Tam was adamant. “It’s too dangerous to travel at night. We need to find somewhere safe to sleep while it’s still light.”

Since she was already deeply in his debt, Hazel forbore to argue.

They turned off the road into the forest, following the course of a small, burbling creek. “How about here,” Hazel said, after they’d gone a dozen yards in. “It’s flat.”

Tam shook his head.

He rejected the next site Hazel pointed out, too. After that, she kept her mouth closed. “Here,” he said finally. “This’ll do.”

Hazel looked around. The road was well out of sight, well out of earshot. No one would hear their voices, see their fire, smell the smoke.

Tam unloaded his donkey and rubbed the beast down. Hazel watched him obliquely. He was as tall as Drewet, but leaner. Not thin, though. Not handsome, either, but he had merry blue eyes, with more than a glint of mischief in them, and a mobile, smiling mouth. He looked like a man who liked to laugh.

He also looked extremely scruffy. His tawny hair needed a good comb, his beard was scraggly, and his clothes were threadbare, filthy, and—truth be told—smelled strongly of sweat.
But he saved me. And he’s escorting me to Mottlethorpe
. Scruffy and smelly, then, but also honorable. Hazel was uncomfortably aware that the debt she owed him was greater than she could ever repay.

She was also aware that Tam wasn’t the only one of them who was the worse for wear after today’s exertions. “I’m, um, going to wash,” Hazel said, gesturing at the creek.