Free The Good Sinner's Naughty Nun by Georgia Fox

a year ago at least. Another mission for her master.
    "She fucked me once and left me poisoned with herbs that kept me tied to the privy for three days and almost killed me. Oh yes, I remember this whore."
    There was a short pause. "I suspected as much," Thierry muttered, low.
    "The Bishop must want these relics for his own profit. I will take his whore off your hands, Bonnenfant, and dispense justice. How glad I am to get my hands on her again. This is most fortuitous."
    The response was immediate, Thierry's voice tight with bitterness. "Why should I hand her over to you? It was me she sought to cheat."
    "I have authority and precedence over you, Bonnenfant. I am the Baron Montagu and I came to pray before the holy remains of Saint Apollonia. Sister Marie informs me you hold the key. I should like to see it now."
    Vivienne eyed the newcomer with suspicion, her instincts on the alert. She was not going anywhere with him, whoever he claimed to be.
    Apparently Thierry was also not convinced. "You come in the middle of the night to see these old bones, Baron?"
    After a short pause, while they all looked at one another like cats preparing to fight over a mouse, the Baron explained that he'd only just heard of Saint Apollonia's remains passing through Hythe and being removed to Normandy first thing tomorrow. He came at once to pay his respects to the holy relics.
    Again he asked for the key, his gloved palm outstretched. The Baron Montagu clearly expected immediate compliance from this younger man over whom he claimed "precedence". Thierry Bonnenfant, audacious upstart, stood his ground.
    "It can wait until morning."
    Vivienne felt a warm flutter of admiration, beating like moth's wings around her heart. Not many men she knew would stand up to a man like Montagu, who, so it was said, shackled his servants to heavy weights and then hunted them through his forest, instead of animals, just for sport.
    The Baron's neck strained from the collar of his fine cloak, taut veins prominent as he choked on his fury. "You will let me see the relics now, Bonnenfant. Hand over the key. And Ravillard's whore," he added. "I'll take her too."
    Thierry pretended to feel in his breeches and then padded barefoot to find his tunic, searching that in the same manner. He told Dominic to go and fetch the casket from the nun's tent and the soldier, still slightly pink with embarrassment, trotted out of the tent.
    "The key," Thierry muttered. " The key . Now where did I put it?" He looked upward, as if trying to remember.
    "You do have the key?" The Baron exclaimed impatiently. "Surely it is not lost."
    "Oh, 'tis not lost. I just can't remember where I put the damn thing." Thierry laughed stupidly and shrugged. Vivienne was poised to sneak away when he caught sight of her and shouted. "Where do you think you're going, wench?" His eyes gleamed with a fierce light. "You took it did you? While my back was turned?"
    He knew, of course, that she didn't have the key, but now they all looked at her. Thierry pointed a quivering finger. "She has it. The thieving whore!"
    Vivienne took off through the tent flap, pushing an astonished, indignant Sister Marie into the Baron's reaching clutches. She sped across the camp, holding the cut shreds of her gown together with one hand, hair flying out behind her. She'd almost reached the pitch-black shelter of woods, when a pair of hands grabbed her—one around the waist, the other around her mouth—and hauled her back behind another tent of hides.
    "Inside. Make haste, wench!"
    It was Dominic, lifting her up as if she weighed no more than a squirming piglet and lowering her into an empty barrel.
    "And make not a sound if you want to keep that tongue," he added, closing the lid and shutting her in the dark.
    She crouched uncomfortably in the tight space, struggling to get her breath back. Fortunately she had some air through the slats of the barrel and she pressed her eye to that thin strip of light, watching men run by with