This folly might succeed. He drew the hood of his own cloak over his head and marched from the dungeon with the swagger of a guard. He dragged Jacqueline to the surface with him, then dropped the trapdoor closed and latched it securely.
Not that Edmund would know the difference.
“It seems you told no lie,” he murmured to her as he assessed the defenses between them and the gate. “There is indeed a corpse in the dungeon.”
“What shall we do?”
Angus assessed the distances, knowing that he had to see Jacqueline freed first. “I think Edmund might release the prisoner. He could not be immune to such considerable charm as your own.”
“They will not permit it!”
“Hold your hands behind your back as though they are bound. None will be able to see the truth of it with me so close behind you.”
Jacqueline gasped even as she did so. “Do you mean to walk boldly through the gates?”
Angus smiled at her, not nigh as confident as he would appear. “’Tis worth a try.”
There were two more treasures left in this keep which were rightly his own and Angus did not intend to leave without them. Jacqueline did not need to know that detail as yet. First, he would ensure her safety.
He whistled, a distinctively high-pitched sound, and smiled when a destrier neighed in reply. The beast began to kick and Angus could see him, fighting the reins knotted to the wall of the stall. Stable boys ran toward the stallion, but the beast would have naught of them. Lucifer bucked and kicked and proved his strength, for the bolt to which his reins were knotted suddenly gave free.
The steed reared, scattering the stable hands, then raced directly for his master. Angus scooped up Jacqueline as Lucifer came near and dumped her onto the destrier’s back. Though Lucifer was unsaddled, Angus trusted that Jacqueline’s skills would ensure that she was not thrown.
“Hurry!” She reached her hand down to aid him to the saddle.
Angus sobered, gripping his lady’s hand. “You will not turn back, regardless of what transpires. Pledge it to me.”
Jacqueline’s lips set mutinously, but Angus had not expected anything else. He pressed Edmund’s dagger into Jacqueline’s grip. “Ensure the sight of it is a surprise,” he whispered, hoping that the guards would be so startled that she had a blade that she would have that chance to flee.
Then he slapped the destrier’s rump and bellowed at the beast. Lucifer needed no further encouragement to gallop for the gates. Jacqueline’s inevitable protest was drowned by the sound of the destrier’s pounding hooves. The pair passed the hall. Angus hoped desperately that the guards at the gate would fall back from the charging steed.
“Edmund!” another man cried from behind him. “What is this that you do?”
Angus ignored the call, trying to look as though he strolled casually towards the hall. He had one more treasure to retrieve. The other guard shouted from behind, the sense that something was amiss growing quickly inside the keep.
The two men at the gate drew their blades and barred the passage with them. Lucifer did not halt. The steed raced through the opening at full gallop, the men fell back, either startled or unwilling to strike the racing horse. The guard behind Angus shouted an alarm and sentries appeared on the walls with sudden speed.
Angus cursed to see that they had crossbows. He prayed for Jacqueline’s safety, then ducked into the hall. As he had hoped, his father’s blade, entrusted to his own hand so long ago, was laid gleaming upon the board.
But before it stood Father Aloysius. That man smiled, clearly having anticipated Angus’ arrival, and parted his robes to reveal a jeweled scabbard. He withdrew a fine blade with deliberate leisure, then lifted it. Its blade shone wickedly.
“I was so hoping you would truly be your father’s son.”
“Why? So that you might surrender Airdfinnan as my rightful due?”
Father Aloysius shook his head at the folly of the thought. “So that you would be fool enough to risk your life for sentimentality. ’Twas your father’s fatal flaw.”
“My father may have had flaws, but noble intent was his greatest asset,” Angus declared, lifting Edmund’s blade before himself.
He might not leave this hall alive, but he would see his father and brother avenged if ’twas the last deed he did.
* * *
Jacqueline could not abandon Angus.
Unfortunately for her intent, Lucifer had the bit in his teeth and would stop for naught. She tried to halt him, or at least slow his gallop, but the steed did not heed her orders. He raced madly through the gates, the sight of him undoubtedly striking such fear into the guard’s hearts that they did not even try to lower the portcullis.
But then, ’twould not have descended in time, for Lucifer ran like the wind. No sooner were they through the gates, then a cry echoed from within.
“Forget the woman!” a man cried far behind her. “Our lord is besieged.”
The gate guards spun to face the courtyard and Jacqueline leapt impulsively from Lucifer’s back. She landed badly, but flattened herself against the keep’s walls, her grip tight on the dagger hilt as she considered what to do.
Lucifer thundered on across the causeway, his reins flying. Evidently he was too troubled by the bridge to be concerned with the loss of his rider. That suited her well enough.
Jacqueline closed her eyes at the sound of steel meeting steel and wagered a guess as to Angus’ location. She could not blame him for seeking vengeance. But she had seen the liability of his blinded side, and he was already at sore disadvantage within these walls by dint of numbers alone.
She knew all too well that Father Aloysius would like naught better than to see Angus dead and forgotten. Jacqueline could not stand aside and let that happen.
She peeked and found that the guards had fled to aid their master. Jacqueline ducked through the gates and hugged the shadows, grateful that all were occupied elsewhere. By the time she reached the courtyard, ’twas empty.
Jacqueline slipped into the hall unobserved, her dread rising when she saw Angus and Father Aloysius battling back and forth across the floor. A dozen men stood around the perimeter, their gazes fixed upon the battle. Angus fought well, she noted, and evidently was more skilled than the priest, but still—she counted quickly—he had to conquer thirteen men to leave this hall alive.
And he was not at his best, having been deprived of both sleep and food of late. Jacqueline considered the room from her vantage point in the shadows, seeking some aid she might give. She had to eliminate some of these men. One stood just to the right of the door and she sidled up behind him.
“Good morning,” she whispered.
He turned in astonishment and she drove Edmund’s dagger into his unprotected throat. He gurgled more loudly than she had anticipated and made a dreadful amount of noise in dying. Indeed, he struggled with her while Jacqueline had expected he would just fall dead at her feet. She twisted the knife, appalled by her own need to do so, but he would kill her himself if given the chance.
He fell finally, but not before the man next to him turned in alarm at the sound. Jacqueline knew with sudden certainty that she had erred. Oh, she knew naught of warfare, that was the truth of it.
She dove for a sconce upon the wall, seized the torch and touched it to the enormous tapestry that lined the wall. The wool immediately burned, the man charged her, and Jacqueline shoved the torch into his face.
He fell with much greater speed than the first, but Jacqueline grimaced. Angus spoke aright—burning flesh made a sickening smell and one she would not soon forget.
She had eliminated only two men and already a cry of alarm echoed through the hall. Jacqueline swung her torch and jabbed with her dagger, doing her best to light another tapestry afire. A man grabbed her from behind and she hit him with the burning torch.
Three. The count was what mattered. Three men bent upon killing Angus were dead or near enough to it to pose no further threat.
She tho
ught she heard Angus swear when she faced the fourth man, but she focused upon her prey. He was heavily armed, save for his face.
She would aim for his eyes.
That gaze suddenly flicked over her shoulder in a most telling fashion. Jacqueline pivoted and drove her dagger into the eye of a man who had crept up behind her. He screamed and fell away, her blade still planted.
She spun anew and swung the blazing torch wildly. She succeeded in setting the armored man’s tabard aflame but not before he had cut her cheek. He screeched and danced backward, but Jacqueline lent chase, jabbing the torch into his face until he dropped his own blade.
’Twas frightening that she learned this gruesome labor so quickly as she did.
Jacqueline claimed the man’s blade but dropped the torch as it burned low. She turned her back against the wall, and silently reminded herself that she had felled five. She was shaking with what she had wrought and her heart pounded in fear, but now ’twas her own survival she would ensure, as well as that of the man she loved. She raised one hand to her stinging cheek and had barely a chance to realize the cut was deep before Angus himself raged toward her.
She caught a glimpse of a retreating Father Aloysius, and noted that Angus swung a gleaming blade, before he cut down the man between them and confronted her. He was furiously angry and his chest heaved with his labors—indeed, he fairly seethed—though he spoke with uncommon temperance.
“I bade you flee. Indeed, I asked you to pledge it to me.”
“But I did not.” Jacqueline lifted her chin undaunted. “Who would guard your blinded side, Angus, if not me?”
His gaze softened, and he whispered her name as though he knew not what to do with her. He frowned as he eyed the gash upon her cheek and his touch was gentle as he eased the blood away with his thumb.
“Where else?” he demanded tersely.
“’Tis all.”
He shook his head in amazement. “Perhaps you truly are marked by the favor of God.”
“Angus!” she cried as a man rose abruptly behind him. Angus spun, the hilt of his blade in both hands as he swung it at his attacker. The man fell and Jacqueline averted her gaze. “Odin’s Scythe rings true,” he whispered, gripping the hilt of his father’s blade anew.
Angus seized her hand without another word and made his way toward the door. Few men approached him, those who still stood either easing warily back against the walls or tending the fire before it spread further. Jacqueline guarded Angus from behind, a small dagger he had poached for her en route held high.
In but a moment, they were in the courtyard, fleeing for the gates. Too late, Jacqueline saw that the portcullis had been lowered and four men stood awaiting them there, blades drawn. The armed men smiled in anticipation of a fight.
“They tricked us!” she cried, realizing why they had been allowed to leave the hall. She looked back and saw the black smoke rising from the wooden roof of that building. Men were running with buckets of water and already the flames smoldered.
“We are not dead yet,” Angus replied. He hastened her toward the far wall, and lifted a ladder into place with a grunt while she guarded him with her dagger. Angus leaned it against the wall. Guards watched them but made no effort to intervene.
If Angus was troubled by this, he gave no sign of it. “Climb,” he bade her. “And for once in all your days, be biddable.”
Jacqueline assumed he had a plan. It must be a good one, for there were a number of sentries on the wall itself. They hastened closer as she watched. Several of the guards attacked from below once she and Angus had started to climb, and the ladder swayed as they tried to tip it.
Angus descended anew and fought them both back, scrambling back to Jacqueline and hastening her onward. She raced up the ladder as quickly as she could go, knowing he was fast behind her, but froze at the top.
A man’s booted foot was planted on the top rung of the ladder. She swallowed and looked up. A large man and formidable opponent, he smiled coldly at her and brandished his blade. He pushed the ladder out from the wall with his foot and his smile widened.
Jacqueline glanced back to find that one man from below had pursued them up the ladder. Angus fought, but retreated rung by rung, until he was standing on the rung below her. Jacqueline cringed and hung on, fearing the outcome as blades clashed at startling proximity behind her.
“Duck,” he muttered, the word so low as to be barely audible. “Now.”
Jacqueline hunched low immediately and Angus swung hard, slashing at the knees of the man on the wall above. The man shouted in surprise, danced backward and lost his footing. He fell screaming, his cry ending with a splash.
Angus had already turned though, slashing at his other opponent still on the ladder below. That man faltered and he retreated lower. Angus stamped on his hands on the rung below and the man flinched, then began to cry out in pain. Angus ground the boot heel into the man’s fingers and the man let go with a howl.
Jacqueline hastened from ladder to wall, Angus directly behind her, neither looking back. Angus paused at the summit, waited for their persistent attacker to crest the wall, then kicked the ladder away. It fell backward in a graceful arc and Jacqueline did not watch the man’s fate.
She had no chance. Sentries flooded toward them from the left and the right. Angus looked one way, then the other, apparently unable to decide his course.
“What shall we do?” she whispered, fearing his indecisiveness.
But ’twas all a ploy. When the men increased their pace to capture him, he caught Jacqueline around the waist in a sudden move and leapt off the wall.
The men collided with each other behind him.
Jacqueline screamed in shock and clung to Angus, only glimpsing his smile before he kissed her to silence.
Then the waters of the river closed over them and her heart nigh stopped at the cold. They sank low, her skirts billowing, Angus’ grip secure.
He kicked and brought them to the surface, only to duck beneath the churning waters anew when the guard who had fallen from above lunged for them. They came up sputtering and Angus stabbed at their opponent.
Angus seized her and dove beneath the waters as arrows rained down around them. Jacqueline kicked with all her might and Angus forced them out into the swirling current.
Jacqueline was no swimmer but Angus was competent enough for both of them. She gripped his shoulders and glanced back at the keep, to see two men raise crossbows.
“Arrows!” she cried, then grabbed a fistful of Angus’ hair and shoved his head beneath the surface. He sputtered but did not fight her.
Fortunately Angus seemed capable of swimming like a fish. He shoved his sword into his belt, and guided her to hang on to his waist from behind. He swam with graceful strokes, so long underwater that she feared she might faint. They broke the surface finally.
“Deep breath,” he counseled, taking one himself before he dove deep again. The next time they came up for air, Airdfinnan was far behind them, and its arrows out of range.
Jacqueline laughed with delight and flung her arms around Angus’ neck. “You did it! You truly did escape.”
He allowed himself a smile. “I would not have managed it without such a stalwart companion,” he insisted, a gleam in his eye. “I may have assessed you wrongly, Jacqueline of Ceinn-beithe, for you did find obedience in a most timely fashion.”
“I knew you had a plan and that I had best not thwart it again. Indeed, ’twas only due to me that you had need of one.”
He smiled at her, holding her fast as the current carried them along. He could float, drifting on his back as though he was no more than a feather resting upon the water’s surface. His dark hair was slicked back, making him look as sleek as an otter. “I had naught but the hope of success, which I had been given to understand might prove sufficient.”
And from the look he bestowed upon her, Jacqueline was certain his feelings echoed her own. She did not press him for a sweet confession, knowing that Angus w
ould only admit to such a thing when he and he alone deemed the timing to be right. But she was content indeed to be with him, and certain that her future with him would soon be assured.
The stream grew shallow and slow once past the dams below Airdfinnan and Angus soon helped her to shore. Her kirtle was heavy with water, so he finally bracketed her waist with his hands and carried her bodily to drier ground. The sun was high and burned with uncommon heat for so early in the year, a good portent for their health.
“We are near the pathway,” Angus said when they had wrung the water from their clothes to the best of their abilities.
Jacqueline glanced around herself, but was unable to identify this patch of forest as different from another. “Where we rode to that vantage point?”
“Aye.” Angus offered her his hand and strode to the edge of the forest, plunging into its shadows with the confidence of one who knew his surroundings well. Jacqueline did her best to keep up with his pace, assuming that he meant to look down upon Airdfinnan again.
But he did not. When they reached the summit, he dug in the undergrowth, exclaiming with delight as he withdrew his boots and his armor. In a twinkling, he was dressed as a knight again, and slid his blade into its own scabbard with satisfaction. He had no tunic, of course, and his helmet was lost with his steed, but he was obviously pleased to have retrieved his belongings.
“And now we return to wrest Airdfinnan from Father Aloysius?”
Angus granted her a resolute glance. “And now we deliver you to Inveresbeinn.”
“But this is not the end of the tale!”
“’Tis all you will know of it, at least from your own experience.” He began to march back to the pathway, evidently confident that she would follow.
Jacqueline did. “That is not fair! I have a right to know what comes of this.”
“You have no rights here and you know it.”
“But I am curious!”
“Then I shall write you a missive when all is said and done, and if you are a very good novitiate, the abbess will read it to you.”
The Bride Quest II Boxed Set Page 63