“You’d better be, because we have to go. I don’t intend to stop every few feet for you,” he warned her. “I haven’t the patience, and we don’t have time for it. You’d better not be sick on me, either.” He shoved her upright, swung behind her in the saddle and gathered the reins in one hand. “From what I’ve heard of you I thought you’d be stronger than that.”
She’d thought so, too. She used to be. Would carrying a child turn her weak, she wondered?
Assuming she lived long enough to find out.
His words had sounded as though they came from far away. Gillian swayed until he caught her and pressed her back against his brawny chest, then surrendered to the wave of blackness washing over her.
Rannulf came to his senses in the gatehouse, his brother and Sir Henry kneeling by his side. “Never would have believed a little tap like that would put you out cold,” Connor observed. “Perhaps you’re not as tough as I thought.”
Narrowing his eyes, Rannulf glared and sat up, leaning against the blessedly cool stone wall until his head stopped whirling. “’Twould scarce have made a mark on your head, you brawny fool—no doubt you’ve developed that as well as the rest of you.”
“Are you all right lad?” Sir Henry asked.
“He must be, if he can bait me,” Connor said. He grinned—an expression Rannulf hadn’t seen on his brother’s face since they were young boys—and clapped Rannulf on the shoulder. “I’ve changed a bit.”
Rannulf grunted as the echo of Connor’s meager blow reverberated through his head. “That you have.” He reached back and gingerly touched the lump at the back of his neck. It hurt like the devil, but it wasn’t the first bump on the head he’d received, and he doubted ’twould be the last. “Is the battle over?”
Connor nodded. “Aye. They cleared out fast shortly after you fell.” He motioned for Rannulf to lean forward, and slapped a cold, wet cloth on the bruise. “It’s a wonder they didn’t break your neck. You should have worn your helm.”
“I doubt it would have made much difference.” Rannulf looked past his twin and saw Nicholas heading for them, his expression grim. He stood, somehow managing not to sway. “How did we fare?”
Nicholas halted in front of him. “They’ve got Gillian,” he said, his grim tone matching his expression. “Other than that, we’ve come through surprisingly well.”
“By Christ, I’ll—” Rannulf’s knees felt ready to collapse. He wavered on his feet; Nicholas took him by the arm and eased him back to lean against the wall. “Sit, you fool, so you can focus your energies on planning how we’ll get her back.”
Keeping his back pressed against the rough stones, he slipped down to sit. “Do we know who took her?”
“Aye, milord,” Sir Henry said. “Though we never saw the coward behind all this—not that I’m surprised.” He shook his head. “He’s too fainthearted to put himself at risk, the bastard.”
“Who is it?” Rannulf demanded.
“Steffan ap Rhys.” Sir Henry spit out the words as though they left a foul taste in his mouth. “Many’s the time I warned her about him, told her not to tease him—” He looked away, his face old suddenly.
“Why are you still here, then? Shouldn’t you be out chasing him down?”
“Calm yourself,” Nicholas said sharply. “If we’d a chance in hell of catching up to them, the rest of us would have left even before you came to your senses. But we didn’t realize she was gone until after the attackers had retreated. We couldn’t find her. Once the villagers calmed down, a young woman said she’d seen a Welshman dragging Gillian through the bailey and into the keep. Seems she tried to get to her to stop him, but in the press of things, all she got for her pains was trampled in the crush. She’s not like to survive,” he added, his voice grim. “But she managed to tell Ella what happened when they were treating her injuries.”
Rannulf said a silent prayer of thanks for the woman’s loyalty—and that she might recover.
“My apologies, Nicholas,” Rannulf said. “I should have realized you’d not leave Gillian in Steffan’s hands any longer than necessary without a reason.”
Desperation filled him. He cudgeled his already battered brain for information, to recall what he knew, what he’d seen in the thick of the fighting. “How did they take her? She should have been safe inside the keep.” He closed his eyes, remembered hearing her voice screaming his name. “Was she in the bailey?”
“Aye. Some of them came into the keep through a certain passageway.” Nicholas’s grim expression turned cold. “Seems my servant, Richard, knew of the route to the pool from his whore. I gather she must have seen you—and Gillian—come through it at some point. He’ll not betray us again, I vow—nor will she,” he added. “It seems they outlived their usefulness.”
By the rood, had his carelessness led to Gillian’s abduction? To the carnage, the dead and wounded he could see out in the bailey?
Telling himself his own injury was no more than he deserved, Rannulf rose to his feet and walked out into the bright sun. “Do we know where he took her?” he asked, squinting when the light threatened to cleave his head in two.
“Back to his lair in Wales, I would guess,” Nicholas said. “Likely he doesn’t believe we’d follow him there.” He gazed into the distance for a moment. “He’d be right about that, too, for we can hardly lead an army through the area.”
“Why not? I just did,” Rannulf pointed out. “We cannot leave her with him!” Frustration made him want to snarl and snap, but that would help nothing, might even harm their chances of freeing Gillian.
“Come with me,” Nicholas suggested, and led the way to the room that sat on top of the gatehouse tower. “There’s naught but chaos everywhere else,” he said, motioning for them to sit on the benches lining one wall. “You led a troop of men, true, but there weren’t many, and they weren’t traveling as a war party.” He leaned against the wall and sighed. “The situation between the king and Llywelyn is unsettled as it is. I cannot drag an army into Wales and attack one of Llywelyn’s kinsmen. Not even to save Gillian,” he added when Rannulf opened his mouth to protest.
“Can’t you go to Llywelyn, ask if he’ll order the man to release her?” Connor asked. “It hardly seems right that he could remove a noblewoman from her own castle without some punishment for it.”
Restless, Rannulf stood and gingerly paced the confines of the small chamber. “It would take too long,” he said. He stopped by the window and gazed down into the bailey, the destruction he saw angering him anew. “Besides, lan—Gillian’s Welsh cousin who sent some men to help us,” he told Connor. “Ian said that Llywelyn wouldn’t help Gillian before we arrived, didn’t even reply to her request. I don’t know that we could trust him to favor Gillian over Steffan.”
“Then we need some way to get into Steffan’s holding and rescue her ourselves,” Connor said.
Rannulf turned to his brother. “We?”
“Of course. You don’t think I’m going to go back to my placid existence at FitzClifford when there’s adventure to be had here, do you?” Connor asked. “Besides, I’m assuming this Gillian is your Gillian, the woman you told Mother and me you intended to marry years ago.”
“Aye.” Rannulf stole a wary glance at his overlord, whose expression of mild interest looked at odds with the curiosity in his eyes.
“I cannot, in all conscience, permit my future sister by marriage to languish in captivity,” Connor assured him.
“He’s right. We cannot leave her in Steffan’s hands for long,” Nicholas said. He pushed away from the wall and crossed to stand before Rannulf. “There are many reasons we need to get Gillian away from Steffan, reasons I’m sure you realize, but there’s another you don’t know about.” He stared out the window for a moment before fixing Rannulf with a stern look. “A most important reason. Gillian is carrying your child.”
Gillian came to her senses soon after they rode into the heavily wooded hills beyond the northern boundaries of I’Eau Clair. She recognized
the area, having passed through it the one time she’d traveled to Wales to visit Catrin. Steffan’s manor lay close to Ian’s keep at Gwal Draig, she thought, though she knew nothing about it.
She prayed ’twas a manor house, and not a walled keep or some other fortification. Otherwise, she couldn’t imagine how she’d manage to escape from it.
Or how Nicholas could rescue her.
She still held out hope that Rannulf had survived that brutal blow to the head, but she couldn’t imagine he’d be in any condition to fight.
Her stomach gave an ominous shudder. “Stop, now,” she blurted out. “Please.”
Her captor took one look at her face and leapt from the saddle, pulling her down after him just in time for her to be wretchedly ill in the bushes.
“Thank you,” she said weakly once she was able to stand. “I’m sorry—I cannot help it.”
Steffan trotted back along the trail toward them, his face dark with anger. “Why did you stop?” he snarled.
“’Twas my fault,” she said. “I’m...my stomach is not well,” she told him. Should she tell him why?
Another glance at his expression convinced her that the less Steffan knew, the better. She saw such malice in him, worse than in his youth, that she feared his reaction if he knew she carried a child.
Considering the plans he’d made for her, plans that included their marriage, she’d not put it past him to try to rid her of the babe somehow.
Or to punish her for its existence.
“Are you better now?” Steffan asked, his gaze narrowed as he stared at her face.
“Yes. I’ll be fine, milord,” she assured him. “Please go on. I’ll not delay us any longer.”
She scarce dared to breathe until he rode back to the head of the column. “I’m ready, sir,” she told her captor.
He hefted her into the saddle. “I’m no ‘sir,”’ he said, laughing. “Huw is my name, milady, and I make you free of it.”
Huw proved a silent companion, a blessing when it took all her resources to maintain control over her stomach. They left the main trail and followed a path so rugged they had to dismount several times to lead the horses.
By some miracle she survived that jolting, exhausting trek without disgracing herself with further sickness, but she could not fight sleep. They pushed on through the night beneath the light of a nearly full moon; she slept through most of the night pressed against the coarse surface of Huw’s mail hauberk.
Two days of this made her so limp she couldn’t stand when they finally rode through the gate of Bryn Du. While ’twas not a keep, the large manor house and outbuildings sat in the midst of a fortified wall surrounded by a ditch filled with stakes.
Her desire for independence wouldn’t matter here. It didn’t appear she’d be able to get herself out of Steffan’s grasp without outside help.
She’d considered trying to convince Huw to help her, but after two days in his company, she could see that Steffan held him deeply within his grasp. Huw hated Steffan—how could he not?—but he obeyed his every command, no matter how monstrous.
By the time Steffan ushered her into a chamber on the far side of the house from the gate, the effort of pretending to have recovered from her “illness” had taken its toll. Tired past exhaustion, her spirits low, her belly rumbling to be fed, she permitted her cousin to tether her to an iron ring on the bed frame with nary a complaint and settled back against the pillows with a sigh.
At least her hands weren’t tied together any longer.
Steffan sat in the chair beside the bed and took one of her hands in his. A frown crossed his lips as he laid her hand on the coverlet with insulting haste. “I see we should have cared for you better on the journey,” he said. He rose, went to open the door and shouted for his maid. “I’ll visit you again once you’ve had a chance to bathe.”
She nearly laughed. Afraid of a bit of dirt, was he? In that case, she’d not wash unless forced into it.
And perhaps the time had come when she could allow her malaise full rein, as well—not that she enjoyed the sickness, but ’twould be easier for her if she need not pretend to be well.
Anything to keep that expression of distaste on Steffan’s face, to keep him away from her a little while longer.
Until help arrived.
Rannulf, Connor and Nicholas made the journey to Gwal Draig, Ian’s keep, in record time. Though Rannulf’s first instinct was to run Steffan to ground and then do his best to put the bastard underground, he knew he’d never get the opportunity. He couldn’t lure Steffan out when he had nothing Steffan wanted.
While Steffan had everything Rannulf held dear within his grasp.
Despite the fact that all they had were a number of half-formed plans for releasing Gillian from captivity, those plans involved Ian. Rannulf could have screamed in frustration when they learned that the Dragon wasn’t at Gwal Draig.
Nor did Catrin know where to find him.
“Llywelyn sent for him,” she told them as soon as they were shown into her solar. “Why do you need him? Is it important?”
“Your kinsman, Steffan, took Gillian,” Rannulf said, his voice devoid of emotion. Refusing to permit himself to express his fear for her was the only way he could survive this hell.
He could not lose Gillian again.
The mere thought of her—and their child—in the hands of that madman struck deeper than any other loss in his life. Regaining Gillian’s trust, and now the promise of parenthood, gave him a new perspective on many things in his life. His guilt for his father’s death was gone. He’d made amends for his unwitting sin, served his country through his work for Pembroke, and vowed to care for his family—both Connor and his mother, as well as Gillian and their children—for the rest of his days.
’Twas time to move on with his life, but to do that, he needed Gillian by his side.
Catrin leapt from her chair by the fire. “What?” She paced the floor, stopping in front of Rannulf. “The why is easy enough to see, for Steffan has always desired what he could not have. But how did he get her?”
Nicholas explained about the attack, and their hope that Ian would help them find a way to remove Gillian from Steffan’s clutches.
They sat in silence, sipping mead while Catrin resumed pacing. Rannulf felt ready to jump up and run from the room. Simply to run, to do something.
“Is there any way we can find Ian?” he asked Catrin.
She shook her head, then held up her hand to stop him when he started to speak again.
Finally she halted, reached out and took his hand and held it tightly. “I believe I know how I can get you into Bryn Du,” she told them. “You must be patient, for it could take several days to bring my plan to an end, but I think—nay, I know—we can make it work.”
She poured herself a drink and sat down again. “Listen carefully, for this is what we’ll do....”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rannulf gazed at himself in the mirror Lady Catrin held before him, wondering yet again if he had the skill to carry off his part in this ruse. He believed the scheme could work. He’d had plenty of opportunity to think it over, and they’d discussed the plan endlessly in the two days since Lady Catrin had suggested it. A bit of polishing, and what had sounded completely impossible took on the sheen of a workable strategy.
Despite Ian’s continued absence, he was glad they’d come to Gwal Draig. All of his own ideas involved bloodshed and battle, and presented an unacceptable risk to Gillian and the babe.
Lady Catrin’s plan might allow them to avoid any of that.
She’d sent several maidservants to Bryn Du with the offer of helping Lord Steffan with some housekeeping chore. As Catrin expected, they’d returned full of gossip about the sickly woman their master had shut away in his manor. Rumor had it that she was to be his bride as soon as she recovered from her malady.
Not if he had anything to do with it, Rannulf vowed, sneering at his brown-stained face in the mirror before handing it
to Lady Catrin. “What do you think?” he asked, turning so that Nicholas and Connor could view his disguise.
“Mother would scarce recognize you,” Connor said. “If she hadn’t already decided to remain at St. Anna’s, without a doubt the sight of you thus would send her there.”
Rannulf scowled at his twin. He’d rather not be reminded that their mother had decided to take the veil and live out her life within the peaceful and safe confines of the convent. He had hoped she might consider coming to live with him and his family, although he could understand her decision.
And he was glad that she’d finally found a peaceful existence.
Nicholas stared from one brother to the other and shook his head wonderingly. “You’ve performed a miracle, milady,” he told Lady Catrin. “No one will realize that FitzClifford isn’t a Saracen in that guise.” He merely smiled when she sent a scowl his way, making Rannulf wonder where Talbot found the patience to endure her continual slights.
“But will I be able to convince Lord Steffan?” Rannulf asked. “I know nothing of how to heal the sick, nor—”
“You won’t need to actually treat anyone,” Lady Catrin said dryly. “You can pretend, can’t you?”
“Aye.” He’d dare do no less under her watchful eyes, even if Gillian’s and the babe’s safety didn’t depend upon it.
“’Tis time to leave.” She led the way to the stables and permitted Nicholas to lift her into the saddle.
Rannulf felt as though he were watching everything from a distance. He’d never been this nervous before a battle—but never had the stakes been so high, either.
They rode through the forested land that separated Gwal Draig from Bryn Du, halting beyond sight of Steffan’s manor. “You’ll be ready for them as soon as they leave?” she asked Nicholas yet again.
He dismounted and handed the reins to Connor. “Aye, milady—you’ve laid out our duties clear as glass.” He sauntered toward her. “Can’t you trust, just this once, that I might do something right?”
The Hidden Heart Page 23