Marcus jerked awake. The sun shone through the leaves of the trees, speckling the forest floor in shadow and light. What were these nightmares he kept having? He blinked and immediately looked for Sage. The spot she had occupied last night was empty. The leaves pressed down in her form where she had rested. He searched the area for her, anxiety clenching his stomach. But before his mind could muster any accusations, he spotted her. She was pacing with the book in her hands, mumbling to herself.
Marcus grinned and took a moment to watch her. She was slender. Her brown hair had been worked into a braid again at her back and fell to her bottom—a curvy, delicious bottom visible beneath her leather armor. Black breeches covered her long, slender legs to her black boots. His gaze moved up over her perfectly shaped breasts to her face.
She whirled, stalking across the clearing. A frown etched into the spot between her brows. She was persistent. It was one of the features he liked about her.
His horse whinnied, and she glanced up, locking gazes with him.
Caught, he quickly glanced away and stood.
She approached him. “Is there time to teach me to read before we ride?”
She was anxious to learn. It was a good thing—something to bind her to him. “After we eat, we’ll ride. When we rest, I’ll continue teaching you.”
“You can’t start now?”
He grinned. “Not now. We shouldn’t remain here.” He walked to the horse and bent to one of the bags on the ground. He pulled out a flask and took a deep drink of ale. He sloshed the liquid in his mouth and spat it out on the ground. He held the flask out to her.
She waved it away, her interest returning to the book.
Tenacious.Her determination with the book gave him another chance to look at her. Her lips were full and pursed in thought. Her brow was furrowed in concentration. She was very beautiful. He shook his head. It didn’t matter how beautiful she was. She had to decipher that book. And soon. Time was running out.
She glanced up at him, catching his stare. “Where are we going?”
“We are going to follow the Ruisseau du Carla.”
After half a day riding, Marcus dismounted and led the horse along a stream. He had traveled this route before to avoid the public roads and any encounters. This path was the perfect route to evade Sterling and the Templar knights.
Sage sat before him on the horse, peering into the open book. She had been distracted on their ride. He had remained quiet to let her think. It gave him time to plan and to ponder, which could be a dangerous thing.
His mind wandered back to Rose. The last time he had seen her was in Emma’s arms. Before that was when she was a baby. A little, crying baby that he had held in his arms as he rode through the night to Emma’s cottage. The child had not stopped wailing the entire way; her high-pitched screeches had echoed through the darkness. He knew he could not keep her because he had no idea how to comfort her, let alone raise a baby. But Emma did. She would make a perfect mother. And she had just lost her baby during childbirth. A more fitting situation, there could not have been.
When he arrived, Emma opened the door for him. Her husband, Ross, stood just behind her with that eternal disapproving glare. Without any questions, Emma took the baby, cocooning it in love. Rose had stopped screaming instantly.
And for a moment, for one brief moment, Marcus had longed to raise the child himself and be a father.
That had been three years ago. And he had done everything in his power to support the child. He gave most of the coin he made to Emma, even though Ross had forbidden him from returning. Ross could not forgive him for abandoning the babe. But nothing Ross said to him could compare with the guilt Marcus felt.
He forced his thoughts from the child and his sister. All his love, everything he cared about, was in that cottage far away from him. As it should be.
This mission offered him the chance to make significant coin for the child and Emma.
He thought about the mission, the book. That damned infernal book. What was in it? It didn’t matter, except that he was curious. Guillume had offered him a lot of coin to retrieve it. He was hoping that if he decoded the book, Guillume would give him even more coin. And he could give every schilling to Emma.
Still, why was the book worth so much? What was in it?
“Do you have a child?” Sage suddenly asked, breaking the silence.
“Why do you ask?” he wondered, avoiding the question.
“Because of the doll.”
He considered her question in silence, deliberating whether he should tell her or not. “Yes,” he finally admitted. “But I am not raising her.”
Sage twisted in the saddle to look at him. “Why?”
“I can’t raise a child with the life I lead,” he admitted. “I’m a mercenary. I work for coin. There are days I don’t know where my next meal is coming from. I would never subject a child to that.”
Sage was silent, considering his answer. Strands of her hair had come free of the braid she wore and bounced gently with the movement of the horse. “My father did exactly that. He came to get us when my mother died. We used to hunt and fish when he didn’t have coin to buy our next meal.”
