“Mock me if you will.” Alex led her through a stone archway into another corridor. “Yet my son’s life has been spared. That, to me, is divine intervention. There is a purpose to you being here. For you as well, remember? Have you thought about what it is you are missing from your life that you must find before you leave?”
She had and he was standing a foot in front of her.
No way. Alicia was out of her mind to think she’d come here to find a man. No matter how much her body hummed to life around him, there was no way Alex was what she was missing in her life. He couldn’t be, logistically or emotionally, because if he were, that’d mean she’d have to give up everything she’d worked for, everything she wanted, her life, her daughter, her sense of self—and that she would hold onto more tightly than anything.
No, Alex wasn’t what was missing from her life. He couldn’t be.
“I’m working on it, Alex. You just keep working on the window.”
He tilted her chin up. “Kate, remember this. My family’s motto is that the measure of a man is but the strength of his words. When I say I’ll do something, it will be done.”
That was what she was worried about—he’d said he’d marry her.
***
This was getting better and better.
Through the tiny opening in the wall, he watched them leave the corridor.
Divine intervention—he’d never been called that before. He liked the sound of it.
Once they left, he blew out the remaining candle through the eye slit and slid away from the opening.
He had more divine providence to engineer.
***
“Come along, William.” Kate tugged on the pudgy hand in hers, and headed toward a gnarled apple tree in the orchard. The sun was heading west as it filtered through gold, red, and brown leaves tinged with the tangy scent of crushed apples. She’d found him in his room soaking the new rushes and decided medieval day care could use a few improvements. And she could use the practice. She’d brought him outside, along with the requisite contingent of guards, made leaf piles for him to jump into, taught him tic-tac-toe, then they’d worked on skimming stones on the pond until she wore him out.
So now she leaned against the tree and settled him in her lap. “Here you go, William. Ready for your story?”
William plopped himself into position, one cheek resting against her chest, his right thumb pumping furiously as he sucked on it. “Yes, pease.”
She couldn’t resist kissing the top of his head. He smelled of sticky apples, mud, and that sweet little kid smell. Someone ought to bottle that fragrance. “Okay, then. Let’s see.” A dozen fairy tales ran through her head and she tried to pick one that wouldn’t scare him. Those Grimm brothers must have had one nasty childhood to concoct some of their stories.
“There once was a girl who was traveling through the forest and grew very tired. So she went in search of a cottage…” By the time she was on the third “Who’s been sleeping in my bed?” William was asleep. She rested her head back, feeling his soft body rise and fall against her.
This is what it could have been like. If Jay The Ass hadn’t been an ass. If he’d honored their vows and the promises he’d made.
But he hadn’t.
The measure of a man is but the strength of his words. If only Jay had prescribed to that train of thought.
That’s what she was missing from her life. Not a man—any man—but a man who stood behind his word. Whose promise meant something. One she could count on, plan with, dream with. It certainly hadn’t been Jay, and it couldn’t be Alex, no matter what Alicia’s plan was. Not unless she could bring him back with her.
Kate snorted and looked around. Yeah, time travel had worked so well for her she should definitely try to pull someone else through the tear in the time-space continuum.
William wiggled in his sleep. Make that two someones.
Kate sighed and rested her head against the tree trunk again, staring up through the branches to the little patches of sunlight dancing on the last of the green leaves. A crow swooped beneath the thin canopy, its blue-black feathers reminding her of Alex’s hair, how it’d felt between her fingers.
How he’d felt between her thighs.
It was her turn to wiggle. It’d been great, but it shouldn’t have happened because it couldn’t lead anywhere.
“Anywhere but a bed.”
The image shocked her into turning her head.
Alex’s image was even better because he was real.
“What… what did you say?” Her throat dried up and she licked her lips.
His gaze flew to her mouth with an intensity she could almost taste.
Wanted to taste.
“I said, Kate, that my son will sleep anywhere but a bed.” He dropped to his haunches beside her, his crimson cloak billowing out from broad shoulders, while buff-colored thigh-hugging pants left nothing to her imagination.
And she had a very active imagination.
Especially when he brushed a stray curl from his son’s cheek, his fingers so close to her breast.
“My lucky child.” His fingers drifted over the piping on her neckline.
She should stop this.
But of course she didn’t. She couldn’t.
He looked into her eyes, searching. Then he brushed her skin and her temperature ratcheted a few thousand degrees. Alchemy, chemistry, plain ol’ lust… whatever it was, it was potent.
Dangerous.
Desirable.
And Kate couldn’t hold back a groan.
It was all the permission Alex needed to dip his finger just under the neckline. Just an inch or so, but the sensation smoldered from his touch to the tips of her breasts and she wanted to lean into the him. To tug her dress down and beg him to touch her.
It was a good thing William was here.
But then Alex lifted the little buffer from her lap, leaving her with two aches. “Come, Kate. Let’s go home.”
Home. That word eased both of her aches.
Chapter Thirteen
Alex woke hard and aching the next morning, unable to rid himself of the feel of Kate’s soft skin when he’d touched her so briefly in the orchard.
And when he’d all but taken her against that wall.
A wall. He, the earl of Shelton, rutting like a common stable hand.
It had a lot to recommend it.
He strode into the great hall, determined to get his mind off Kate. He had other things to think about. The king had sent a message about his marriage; it was to happen in two weeks’ time. Which meant he had to find the window before then.
“My lord.” Thomas entered the hall, looking as if he’d been up half the night. “There is still no sign of the window. We’ve gone so far as Tiltwick to the south and Dunnesly to the north with no luck.”
Alex cursed beneath his breath. His men were good men. Loyal. Had served him faithfully and successfully since he’d inherited the earldom. It made no sense that they hadn’t had even one clue.
But then, none of this situation with Kate made any sense. Not the least of which was this infernal attraction that he couldn’t shake.
“Increase the reward tenfold, Thomas. Let us hope greed does what we cannot. And send a scouting party into the eastern wood. I’ve had a report of a poacher who’s been hunting with a red-tailed hawk. I wish to speak with him.”
“Yes, my lord.” Thomas bowed then left to carry out his orders.
Alex tore off another piece of bread, refusing the quail Beatrice placed before him. How in the hell was the thief able to walk about his keep without being caught. How had the man known about the ring’s location? What had he hoped to accomplish by planting the deed with Claista’s necklace?
He tore the piece of bread into smaller pieces and let them drop on the table. God’s teeth, he didn’t want this responsibility. He’d only ever wanted to live his life with his family. Frederick should be the earl.
‘Twas a fantasy Alex indulged in only in his dreams. That
he could leave Shelton and return home to Jeanne and his children—only, last night, Jeanne’s face had become Kate’s and there’d been a little girl in the dream.
He stood. Dreaming helped nothing and no one.
But when Maude, William’s nurse, ran shrieking into the hall, Alex would gladly have chosen to sit there dreaming because what she was shouting was a nightmare.
“Master William is missing!”
He was at her side without no memory of having run across the hall. “What happened?”
Maude, bent over and gasping, looked up, her eyes wide in her pale face. “Master William… I went to his chamber… He’s gone.”
The blood left Alex’s body. “Find him!”
Servants scattered, the room in immediate chaos. Stephen set about questioning the guards and Kate ran into the hall, her face stricken.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen, Alex. Maybe he’s just wandering around somewhere.”
Her merchant’s prediction echoed in his head like a death knell and he prayed to God it wouldn’t be William’s. “He isn’t, Kate. We all know that. Ring or no, my son is missing. What good has your presence here done?” He ran to William’s chambers, leaving her in the desolate emptiness his hall had suddenly become.
William’s small pallet sat on a raised platform along the far wall, blankets puddled on the floor beneath it. Dust swirled in the thin rays of sunlight filtering in from the high window, the thickly planked shutters latched tightly from the inside. Whoever had taken William hadn’t left that way. The room, once full of a little boy’s laughter, was now as silent as a tomb and the image almost knocked Alex over.
Rage, forge-hot, coursed through him and he stormed into the room, tossing the pallet, kicking the rushes, shoving the wardrobe, looking for something—anything—to give him a clue, but… Nothing. There was nothing.
Like Kate’s window, William was gone.
Alex sagged against the wall, trying to catch his breath, trying to remain strong so he could save his son.
“Alex, they’ve found something!” Kate followed him into the room. “Out beyond the gatehouse. The men are heading there now.”
Thank God! Alex squeezed her shoulder as he ran past. He shouldn’t have been so harsh. None of this was her fault. He’d apologize later. For now, he had to find William.
Down the steps he ran to the bailey, grabbing Herald’s reins from Duncan and swinging onto the horse’s back. Herald was well-trained and knew what was expected of him. They thundered through the gate toward the men circled around what they’d found.
They parted as he approached. Stephen stood at the center, peeling back layers of blankets from a mound in the grass.
A still, unmoving, mound.
Dread crept through him as Alex slid from Herald’s back, and he forced himself forward, his heart thudding with every footfall.
Stephen looked up. “My lord—”
Alex waved him off. William was his son; he’d see to this.
Sucking in a breath he hadn’t realized he needed, Alex lifted the next layer of cloth.
And then another.
And another.
And another.
He tore through them then, cursing the vile, evil son of the devil who’d taken his son—he’d see him in Hell.
And then, he felt it.
A leg.
***
Kate paced at the entrance to the great hall, watching through the gatehouse for Alex to return, and feeling utterly helpless. Her coming here was supposed to have prevented this from happening, but what if it only changed how William would die?
“Duncan,” she called to the squire who was barely out of childhood himself, “please bring me a horse. I have to go with them.”
Duncan nodded and her words seemed to stir the others to life. Maude stood from where she’d been huddled on the steps. Joan pulled a bucket from the well and handed it to the man beside her. Others rounded up the geese and children that had scattered when the horses had pounded through the bailey.
“I don’t understand it, my lady,” said Maude through her tears. “He was sleeping so peacefully when I looked in on him.”
“When was that? What time?”
“Early morn. The moon was low on the horizon, but dawn hadn’t yet begun.”
A few hours. It was something. Not a lot, but something.
Kate was grasping at straws, but she couldn’t just sit here and do nothing. She met Duncan in the bailey, glanced at what constituted a side saddle on the horse’s back, and accepted a leg up.
But just as her backside landed on the animal, it bolted—sending Kate crashing to the ground.
***
Alex lifted the cloth, dreading what he’d find.
Thank God, it wasn’t a child, but a lamb. With a bloody slash across its neck.
The bastard was toying with him.
“What does it mean?” John asked.
“Who did this?” asked Rowan.
Alex ground his teeth. He didn’t have any answers. And he didn’t have his son. “Take the animal back to the keep.”
He got to his feet slowly. Was it Lawrence? Was he still angered about the judgment against him? The sheep would imply so, but surely the man wasn’t so stupid to be so obvious?
He would question him—
“Look out!”
“Lord Shelton!”
“Go after it!”
Shouts rang out from the keep and Alex looked up to see the mare he’d recently purchased, foam lathering her mouth, her eyes wide, mane streaming, ears flattened to her head, and her saddle slipping to the side, barreling toward them.
Would this day never end?
He called Herald and swung into the saddle just as the men dispersed, each heading for their own mounts, and the mare screamed past him, terror in every frenzied stride. That saddle was dangerously low on her belly. If it got caught up in her hooves—
Alex swung Herald’s head around and they took off after her.
Even in her fright, she was no match for Herald. Alex closed the gap between them, maneuvering the crazed animal toward a hill. If he could get her to it, she’d slow up on the incline.
Spurring Herald on, Alex turned the frightened mare. Rocks flew as the hooves pounded the earth, sending clumps of soil flying behind them, but his plan worked when they reached the hill.
He edged Herald closer until he could grab the mare’s reins. At the crest, he circled Herald around her, shortening the reins to bring her under control. Snorting and panting, the horses circled to a halt, their massive sides heaving with exertion.
Alex dismounted and approached the shuddering mare, crooning and stroking her neck as he reached for the girth. The saddle slid free and Alex saw why she’d bolted.
A spike protruded from her back, blood oozing around it.
Alex pulled it free, then climbed back onto Herald.
This was no accident.
Chapter Fourteen
Alex returned to the keep with fear in his heart, murder in his veins, and not a single clue who to blame for any of it.
Duncan could shed no light on the events, those in the bailey offered little in the way of observations, and though Tristan arrived from his holding and Nick had finally pulled himself out of whatever cask he’d been floating in, nothing helped Alex find William or the bastard who’d taken him.
As dusk shed its pensive light across the keep, his friends gathered at the large oak table in the great hall. Cook had prepared a simple meal of broth and bread, but no one had an appetite.
Nick dropped his head in his hands. “I don’t understand it. It’s as if they vanished like ghosts.” He rubbed his red eyes.
“I still don’t understand why this happened,” Kate said, pacing. “Since you didn’t get hurt in the joust, I assumed William wouldn’t be kidnapped.”
“Did the merchant say he’d be unharmed once the ring was returned?” Alex picked up a loaf of bread, imagining it to be the head of this… this�
�� monster.
Kate tapped her lip. “No. Remember, he was telling me what happened when the ring was gone. All he said about William was he’d be found… murdered.”
“Found murdered?” Alex crushed the bread in his fist. “Did he say where?”
Kate spun around. “He did! He said in the castle walls.”
“In the walls?” It couldn’t be—
Alex dropped the mutilated bread and was at William’s chamber before the bench he’d shoved backwards finished clattering on the floor.
Kate, Tris, and Nick arrived just as his fingers closed on the key above the lintel.
Whether that was a good thing or not remained to be seen. “It’s still here.”
“What is?” Kate asked.
“A key to the sallyport.”
“What’s a sallyport?”
Hopefully the answer to his prayers. “It’s a secret passageway within the walls. Only Shelton heirs and their stewards know where the keys to the entrances are.” He hadn’t even known until Frederick had been forced to tell him.
“Which means that if the key’s still here, the bastard hasn’t used it.” Nick pounded his fist against the wall.
“And other than the four of us, only Benton knows about it?” asked Tristan.
Alex wrapped his fist around the iron key. Its coldness matched the band around his heart. “Yes.”
“You trust him, Alex?” Tris asked.
“His family has been in service to my family for generations—”
“All the more reason to instill jealousy,” said Nick.
Alex didn’t punch Nick, though he wanted to. “How much ale did you drown yourself in last night, Nick? Not every person covets what he doesn’t have.”
“No, some get it handed to them on a silver platter. Along with the ear of the king.”
“With great sacrifices for their duty. Don’t forget that.”
“Such sacrifice. Isobel isn’t worthy of you—”
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