Brides of Ireland: A Medieval Historical Romance Bundle
Page 105
Genevieve wanted out.
The first week of her captivity, she’d broken one leg from a small table next to her bed, bracing the table up against the wall so no one would notice that it only had three legs. Every morning and every evening, she was brought a fine meal and a spoon and dull knife to use. They were always left alone for her meal, her and Vivienne, and since the day she’d broken off the leg, she’d been using the dull knife at mealtime to carve away a sharp point on the table leg. She needed that sharp weapon as part of her escape plan and as of this morning, it was sharp enough.
Now, all she had to do was wait for her victim to come to her.
“Genni?”
It was Vivienne, sitting over by the window with the sea breeze lifting tendrils of her dark hair about. Tiny, frail Vivienne. Genevieve was standing by the entry door, sharpened table leg in hand.
“Aye?”
Vivienne sighed heavily as she petted one of her puppies, its head on her lap. “Are you really going to attack one of those men?”
Genevieve could hear the fear in her sister’s voice. “I am not going to attack them,” she said calmly. “I am going to subdue one of them and force him to help us escape.”
Vivienne shook her head. She didn’t think it was such a sound idea. “Escape where?” she asked. “Where can we run that they will not catch us?”
“Would you rather remain here for the rest of your life?”
Vivienne frowned and turned to her puppies for comfort, all of which were laying around her on what was essentially a long, slender couch near the window. It was a fancy piece of furniture, stolen by the pirates on one of their many raids of ships that did business in the Holy Land and beyond. This particular couch, called a mahila sophe, was from the strange and mysterious land of India, far beyond the Holy Land. The fabric was beautiful and intricate, with strange animals embroidered upon it.
“I would rather you not get yourself killed,” Vivienne said quietly. “We are two women against an entire castle full of pirates. Do you really think to fight them all, Genni?”
Genevieve was resolute; it was the Irish in her. “I will not go quietly,” she hissed. “We have been here almost an entire month, Vivi. I have marked the days on the wall next to my bed. Almost thirty days! I will not stay here another blessed day longer!”
“And go where?” Vivienne demanded. “Back to Father? Back to Ireland? Where would you go that Father would not find you and force you to return to England?”
Genevieve’s cheeks pinkened with anger, perhaps with embarrassment. She averted her gaze, unable to look her sister in the eye. “I will find a boat back to Ireland,” she said. “It is there I will remain.”
Vivienne shook her head. “How?” she asked. She wasn’t unsympathetic to her sister’s plight. But, in her opinion, Genevieve was being very stubborn and foolish. “There is no place you can go where Father will not find you. He will come and he will force you to return to Plymouth to marry Francis.”
A flash of distaste crossed Genevieve’s features. “Francis,” she muttered. Then, she spoke the name mockingly. “Francis de Noble, Lord Ermington. A very old man that our father owes a debt to and is using my marriage to pay for it. Does he truly think I will stand for this – this disgrace? I will not let him marry me to a man more than twice my age!”
Vivienne shrugged. “That was where we were heading a month ago,” she reminded her sister quietly. “You were going to go through with it then.”
Genevieve stiffened. “I was forced onto that ship and well you know it,” she said. “Father sent his men to hold a sword at my back to force me onto the ship. I am glad the pirates overtook it!”
Vivienne started to open her mouth but there were voices on the other side of the door, louder than before. There were men just on the other side now and the bolt rattled. Genevieve hissed at her sister, putting her finger to her lips in a silencing gesture, as she pressed herself back against the wall. Once the door opened, she wanted the element of surprise. So she pressed herself back as far as she could go, trying to make herself invisible to anyone who might come through the door with their focus on the room beyond.
She needed that split second of advantage.
It wasn’t long in coming. The heavy oak panel lurched open, creaking back on its iron hinges, and a big body walked into the chamber. There was no hesitation; the man simply walked in, telling the guard at the door to lock the door behind him. As he strolled in and the door was shut and bolted, Genevieve came up behind him, raising her chiseled table leg like a club. With all her might, she brained the man right on the back of the skull.
He fell like a stone.
Vivienne, still over by the window with her dogs, shrieked in terror and bolted up from her couch.
“You killed him!” she gasped. “Genni, they will kill us!”
Genevieve was quite calm as she gazed down at the man lying on his face, but there was a hint of excitement in her features. Excitement and possibly fear. She poked at him with the blunt end she’d hit him with.
“He is a big one,” she said. Then, her eyes narrowed as if recognizing the man simply from the back of his head. Reaching down, she grabbed his left arm and pulled him over onto his back. “It’s him!”
Vivienne was standing beside her sister now, looking down at the unconscious man fearfully. “Who?”
Genevieve was growing increasingly angry. “Him!” she insisted again. “The pirate who took me from Father’s vessel. The big brute who pushed me around!”
Vivienne didn’t recognize him but, then again, she’d been so frightened when they’d been captured that she didn’t remember any of those men, only the fear they’d instilled within her. But Genevieve had a much better memory than she did, especially for things like this. She never forgot someone who wronged her, and this man had evidently wronged her. Vivienne’s terror only increased when she realized the size of the man, and she huddled against her sister.
“It is?” she asked with some uncertainty. “Are you sure?”
Genevieve frowned. “Of course I am sure,” she said. “He is the biggest and ugliest pirate of all. A beast, in fact, and he is probably as stupid as a post.”
Vivienne wasn’t so sure. It seemed to her that the pirates had been rather clever since the day they’d been captured. “What do you intend to do with him?” she asked. “He is very big, Genni. He will easily be able to overpower you.”
Genevieve was fairly certain that was the truth, but her stubborn pride wouldn’t allow her to acknowledge it. She stiffened.
“Let him try,” she said, handing the sharpened table leg to Vivienne. “Hold this. I must make sure he does not have any weapons on him.”
Vivienne took the table leg as if it had the plague. She held it gingerly as her sister knelt down next to the supine man. Genevieve began to search him, starting at his shoulders and chest and moving to the belt around his waist. She wasn’t gentle at all, patting firmly at him and trying to move him around. But the moment she went to see if he had anything sheathed on his hip, the man abruptly came alive and his big arms suddenly went around her.
In an instant, Genevieve was trapped.
Vivienne screamed and dropped the sharpened table leg, running to the opposite side of the chamber where her dogs were and gasping hysterically. Genevieve, however, had no such recourse. She was wrapped up in arms that were like a steel vise and her sense of self-protection kicked in immediately. She began to kick and twist, fighting to break free of the grip.
“Release me!” she grunted. “Release me or you will be very sorry!”
The female captive was putting up a good fight, but Lucifer had a solid grip on her. The little minx! His ears were still ringing from the blow she’d dealt him and that, more than anything else, frustrated him. He didn’t like being caught off guard, by a woman, no less.
He was going to teach this one a lesson.
“Ugly, am I?” he hissed, moving his head aside as she tried to jab fingers
into his eyes. “Stupid, am I? I was not so stupid that I did not trap you, woman. If you thought to knock me senseless, then you are the stupid one.”
Genevieve was infuriated. “Vivi!” she cried. “The leg! Get the table leg!”
Vivienne was cowering against the wall by the couch, unable to move a muscle. She was positively terrified. When Genevieve realized that her sister wasn’t going to help her, it was an effort to keep down her panic. She knew Vivienne to be a bit of a coward, a rather meek and mild girl who was frightened of her own shadow. But she thought, surely, the woman would come around if she saw her sister in danger.
“Vivi, please!” she begged.
Vivienne was nearly swooning with fright. She didn’t want to get into the middle of a fight, but she could see that her sister was in a losing battle. She didn’t want to disappoint Genevieve; not again. She knew she’d disappointed her in so many ways throughout their lives. As she stood there and debated her next move, Lucifer suddenly flipped over and maneuvered Genevieve beneath him, pressing her onto the floor with his sheer body weight. With Genevieve pinned, he eyed Vivienne.
“I would advise you not to listen to your sister,” he said evenly. “If you do, I will throw you in the dungeons of Perran and you can live there with the bilge rats for the rest of your life.”
The threat was enough to discourage Vivienne from moving towards the sharpened table leg. With the younger sister cowering over near her dogs, Lucifer turned his attention to the woman he had pinned beneath him.
She’d been right about one thing; he had been stupid. Stupid to enter the room before all of the occupants were accounted for, giving her a prime opportunity to come up behind him and try to bash his brains in. He’d deserved it. But he’d only been stunned momentarily and had waited for her to put herself in a position where he could easily capture her. In truth, it hadn’t been hard in the least. But she was a fighter, this one, and courageous. Foolish, but courageous.
There was something oddly admirable in that.
“As for you, woman,” he said to her. “I may be ugly and I may be stupid, but it was this ugly, stupid man who got the best of you. I would suggest you not try anything like this again because the next man might not treat you so kindly. The next one might hurt or even kill you should you move against him. Do you understand me?”
Genevieve was crushed beneath him, finding it difficult to breathe. “I… I will never stop,” she hissed. “I do not belong here. You have no right to keep us captive!”
Lucifer could see that she was bordering on panic because a rational woman wouldn’t have responded in such a fashion. She was threatening him and not being the least bit submissive. Perhaps, she really was a fool and simply didn’t know when she was beaten. Reaching out, he grabbed her by her hair as he removed his body weight from her. She gasped in pain as he yanked her head up, forcing her to look at him.
“You are chattel,” he said, fixing her in the eye. “As much as gold or horses or property, you are chattel and, as such, have no rights whatsoever. I captured you; therefore, you belong to me. The sooner you understand your place, the better for us all. If you cannot understand your place, then I will cease treating you and your sister as guests and I will put you both down in the dungeons where you will rot, forgotten and alone. I will not give you another thought. Is that what you want for your sister?”
He was being clever, using Vivienne as an example of what would happen should she not behave. He watched her expression turn from angrily defiant to a shadow of uncertainty. She was trying very hard to maintain her rebellious stance. But with thoughts of her sister decaying in a windowless cell, that rebellion was fading. In fact, Lucifer saw the opportunity to control her in the threats against her sister. Always a man to find the means to an end, he used that to his advantage.
“Listen to me and listen well,” he hissed. “If you make another move to escape or rebel, your sister will take your punishment. If you want to listen to her scream as I whip the flesh from her back, then continue your foolishness. For every transgression you make, she will pay the price. Is this in any way unclear?”
The defiance slipped away from the woman’s face. She gazed back at him with big, dark eyes, perhaps realizing that her stubborn rebellion was about to end. But she was proud, this one, and it took a few moments before she was able to respond to him.
“You… beastly, cruel…!”
“Is this in any way unclear?”
He barked the words at her, and she was forced to swallow her pride, which was considerable. After a moment, she nodded, but it was as if she were fighting the gesture with every fiber of her being.
“It is clear,” she muttered.
There was hatred in every word she spoke.
But that didn’t matter to Lucifer. In fact, he believed her. She may have been a bold, foolish woman, but he didn’t sense she was a liar. There was something in those eyes that stirred him. Beautiful eyes. But he quickly shook off that thought as he released her and quickly stood up, moving to pick up the table leg she’d whacked him with. As he picked it up from the floor, he made sure to move away from the woman, back towards the door. And he faced her the entire time, now knowing what she was capable of. She was not someone he wanted to turn his back on.
“Good,” he said. “Now, I originally came to inform you that your fate had not yet been decided, but I have since changed my mind. I was going to ransom you back to your father, but it is my suspicion that he will not pay a pence for you, given your intolerable disposition. I have a feeling your attack against me is not the first time you have shown that ugly, bold streak you have. Mayhap, your father will be quite happy to be rid of you.”
The woman was looking at him with a most loathsome expression. Her dark hair was severely mussed and her face was pinched with anger, but to her credit, she said nothing. She simply looked away and Lucifer took it as a sign of surrender. He grunted, perhaps with approval.
“So you can be quiet when it is crucial that you should be,” he said. “That is good. That means you can be taught. I will ensure the next man who owns you understands that.”
Her head snapped to him. “Owns?” she repeated, outraged. “What do you mean by that?”
Lucifer cocked a dark eyebrow. “Exactly what I told you,” he said. “I will auction you and your sister off to the highest bidder. Mayhap, there are men foolish enough to pay for your beauty, but they will be in for quite a surprise when the realize your manner is not nearly as beautiful as your appearance.”
The woman looked at him as if she could hardly believe what she was hearing. “You intend to sell me?”
Lucifer eyed her. He thought he might have seen some vulnerability in her shocked question. Still keeping his eye on her, he moved to a table near the door that held wine in a fine crystal decanter. It was heavy. He was surprised she hadn’t used it to smash him over the head, as it would have made quite a weapon. He poured himself a measure of wine as he spoke.
“What else am I to do with you?” he asked. “You are a commodity. You have value.”
She watched him as he lifted his wine to drink. “You speak as if I am nothing more than a piece of jewelry or a bit of porcelain,” she said. “As if I do not have a mind or a heart or a soul.”
He looked at her. “Clearly, you have a mind,” he said. “But you are also a woman. You mean no more to men than those dogs over there do. As I said, you are chattel.”
It was a blow to the woman. He could see the physical impact of his statement in her features. Instead of becoming angry again, as he expected, she appeared wounded. As if he’d somehow hurt her.
“My name is Genevieve Alexandra Efford,” she said, struggling with her emotions. “I have seen nineteen summers. I was born in Plymouth to Henry Efford and his wife, Matilda. I was educated at Minster Church of St. Andrew by the sisters, and I can read as well as write. I speak three languages, I paint, and I can sing. Therefore, I am not comparable to a dog in any fashion.”
“Very well, Genevieve Alexandra Efford,” he said. “Since you have introduced yourself, I will do the same. My name is Lucifer and as you have been told, it is I who control your fate and the fate of your sister. Vivi, you called her?”
Genevieve was still tense with outrage. “Vivienne,” she clarified. “Vivienne Isobel Efford.”
Lucifer looked to the small woman sitting over with the snoring dogs, dogs who had virtually slept through the entire ruckus in the chamber. “Vivienne,” he repeated, watching the girl shrink from him. He returned his focus to Genevieve. “When we took you from your ship last month, you told us that it was your father’s vessel.”
“It was.”
“Your father’s sails are recognizable. They are seen frequently in these waters.”
Genevieve’s jaw ticked. “And you have taken more of your share of valuables from those ships,” she said. “I have heard my father’s men speak of the pirates of Cornwall.”
Lucifer lifted his eyebrows. “Not just any pirates, but Poseidon’s Legion,” he said. “We are the only pirates worth our salt in Cornwall, so do not confuse us with lesser fools.”
Genevieve eyed him. “It seems to me that is not something to boast over.”
“Why not?”
“Because… because you are thieves and cutthroats.”
Lucifer snorted. “And never forget it, Mistress Genevieve. You will live longer.”
Genevieve didn’t have anything to say to that. After a moment, she simply lowered her gaze. “So you intend to sell my sister and me,” she muttered. “I think I would rather live in the dungeons for the rest of my life.”