by Lynn Kurland
The blood flowed freely down Marie’s face. “I’ll kill you for this,” she vowed, spitting blood onto the floor.
“You could try,” Ali said, taking a deep breath. “But I doubt you would succeed.”
Marie smiled, and the sight of that was enough to make Ali think that facing Colin might be a blessing. Mayhap he would do her in before Marie could escape and do the deed herself. She suspected Marie’s revenge would be much more painful.
“Don’t fear, my girl,” Denis said. “She won’t touch you.”
Ali looked at her father, then suddenly found herself in his arms. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around him tightly. There was too much to say and no time for it. She allowed herself to enjoy a moment or two of complete comfort before she pulled away.
“Well met, Father,” she said, managing a bit of a smile.
He brushed his hand over her hair. “Ah, Aliénore,” he said, shaking his head. “I have much to say to you, daughter.”
“I long to hear it.”
“Let me finish this tale,” he said, “then we’ll talk.”
She nodded, then stepped away from him.
Unfortunately, that meant that she now had to look at Colin, which she did with a great lack of enthusiasm. His expression, damn him, was inscrutable.
“I suppose,” she said heavily, “that you and I have business to finish as well.”
“I daresay,” he said.
Was that dryness in his tone? Humor? Or the musings of a man who contemplated just how long and thoroughly he must needs humiliate his errant betrothed before he put her in either a convent or a grave?
Though she had to admit the convent was sounding less attractive by the heartbeat. She very much suspected that a life of prayer, while it certainly might be suitable for others, was not for her.
Not enough intrigue.
Ali walked away before she could contemplate that further. She heard heavy footsteps behind her, so she knew her doom followed, but she tried not to let that trouble her. Her last few minutes of freedom should certainly be spent where she might breathe fresh air.
Mayhap Colin would put her in a dungeon of his own making where he could torment her at his pleasure. Scraps of food now and then, perhaps. Foul water. Vermin dropped on her head. Poorly sung melodies chanted at her from dusk till dawn. Truly, the possibilities were unpleasant, and vast, so perhaps it didn’t serve her to think overmuch on them.
She came to herself to realize she was on the battlements, on the wall overlooking the ocean. She hadn’t enjoyed the view much when she’d lived there, though she had often escaped to the roof to escape Marie.
Colin, however, had not followed her out to share the view. She could see him, though, a darker bit of shadow in the dark shadows of the doorway leading down into the stairwell that led down to the passageway. That gave her pause. She vaguely remembered his having said something about not liking heights.
Imagine. Colin of Berkhamshire having a weakness.
She sighed. “You may shout at me now, if you wish.”
“For what?” came the response from safely inside the doorway. That response was accompanied by a mighty snort. “For masquerading as a knight? For leading me on a merry chase across England and France? For bringing me up to this accursed place where I will no doubt fall to my death within moments?”
She considered. He didn’t sound overly annoyed. She’d certainly heard him bellow before, and there were no bellows coming from the shadows. Complaints, aye, but no shouts of fury.
“I don’t think you’ll fall,” she offered.
Another hearty snort proceeded forth from the gloom.
Well, what to do now? She supposed the courageous thing to do would have been to bravely face whatever tortures he had in mind for her. But having so narrowly escaped death at Marie’s hands, it seemed a shame to suffer that fate at Colin’s. Especially when he apparently had no intentions of following her out onto the parapet.
How long could a body remain out there?
Food could be brought, true. Relieving herself would be a problem, but she’d faced like obstacles before and triumphed.
Well, if Colin expected her to simply walk off the roof and into his vile clutches where he could do her in, he would be surprised at how difficult that would be.
“I think,” she announced, “that I could be quite happy here on the roof for some time.”
“Daft wench,” he grumbled. “You can’t stay up here forever.”
“I could.”
“You’ll catch your death. Now, show some of those fine, manly traits I’ve admired in you for some time and get your bloody self down to where most rational men pass their time.”
“I’m not a man,” she said archly.
“I knew that almost from the start.”
She turned toward the doorway. “You did not.”
“All right,” he conceded, “I knew what you were on the ship to France. I only realized who you were at supper last night.”
She leaned her hip against the wall and folded her arms over her chest—only realizing then that her tunic was still slit down the front. She clutched the edges together and wished she weren’t at such a disadvantage. It would have been easier to face her fate with dignity if she’d been fully dressed.
“Well,” she said, nonplussed. “What are you going to do about it now?”
“Find my bed and sleep.”
Her mouth fell open of its own accord. “That’s it? That’s all?”
“What else do you suggest?”
“I thought,” she said huffily, drawing herself up, “that you’d be giving some serious thought as to how you might best put me in my grave!”
There was no answer. But after a moment or two, there was a hand, thrust out of the darkness toward her.
No comment. No invitation. Just a hand.
Ali honestly couldn’t tell if she would be placing herself in a hand that would subsequently strangle her or merely help her down the stairs. Damn him, she’d been fretting over his reaction for years and now all he could do was hold out his bloody hand? As if there were nothing amiss with it!
But the hand was empty. No knife, no sword, no bottle of poison.
A safe hand, if you didn’t think about whom it was attached to.
A hand a girl might easily put her hand into, under different circumstances.
She considered for several minutes what she might do, but in the end, when the hand began to beckon to her in a most impatient fashion, she crossed the parapet and put her hand in Colin’s. So she would die. Everyone did.
But then his warm, callused fingers closed very gently around hers and pulled her through the doorway.
If she’d expected either a kiss or a knife across her throat, she received neither. Colin released her hand as quickly as he would have if she’d had the plague, then started down the stairs in front of her, giving her nothing more than a short nod of his head in the direction of down.
She followed him past Marie’s solar, where horrible screeching was going on, down the stairs and to the little chamber she’d shared with him for two nights.
“You truly intend to go to bed,” she said, stunned.
“What else?” he asked as he opened the door, stripped off his sword and without hesitation made himself comfortable on his pallet. Ali stood at the doorway, gaping at him.
“But—”
“Come in and close the door.”
“I cannot sleep here with you!”
“Why not?” he asked. “You did last night.”
“That was different.”
He sat up and dragged his hands through his hair. “Aliénore,” he said, sounding enormously weary, “you are as safe with me tonight as you have been for the past innumerable days. I will defend you against all enemies and protect you with my very life willingly. That is all. You can sleep in perfect peace.”
“Will you kill me in the morning?”
He lay down with a groan. “If sa
ying you aye means you’ll bolt the door and go to sleep, then aye it is.”
She considered for several moments. Locked inside with him, or wandering the halls with Marie potentially able to escape her bindings and Sir Etienne possibly roaming about with more stealing on his mind and her in mind to do it?
She came inside and bolted the door, then leaned back against it. “You won’t slay me without a goodly bit of trouble, you know.”
“I should hope not,” he muttered, “as I gave you all your bloody training.”
“Jason had a hand in it too.”
He snorted and rolled over, pulling the blanket over his head.
She sat down on her blankets. “I don’t want to die.”
“Tomorrow, Aliénore,” came the muffled reply. “We’ll discuss it all tomorrow. You cannot fight any sort of battle on the amount of sleep we’ve had this night. We’ll both feel much more sensible in the morning.”
She lay down and stared up into the dark. “Did you kill Sir Etienne?”
“Unfortunately not.”
“Did you hurt him?”
He sighed and removed the blanket from his face.
“Badly. Not as badly as I would have liked, but he’ll still be many days recovering. I had much to see you avenged for.”
That was something, at least. She sighed and closed her eyes. Perhaps in the morning, things would be clearer.
At least the sunlight might show her the arc of Colin’s blade as it sliced across her belly.
She supposed that it would be a very long time before she managed to sleep. After all, it wasn’t every day that a woman found herself revealed to her very fierce and ruthless betrothed in a such a manner.
And it wasn’t every day that a girl vanquished her stepmother so thoroughly.
Of course, that didn’t begin to answer all the other questions she had. Apparently Colin didn’t want to kill her right away, so did that mean he could be persuaded never to do it at all? He had vowed to protect her with his very life so she might sleep in safety.
And he also snored loudly enough to wake the dead, but she supposed that was something she could accustom herself to in time.
Assuming he left her alive long enough to do it.
Well, her flight was finished. She waved a fond farewell to the convent, to the possibilities of being an alewife or the mate of a pig-herder. She was discovered, revealed, shown to be who and what she was in the most glorious and unmistakable of ways.
And what was that business of his having known?
Well. He might have his questions, but she had a few of her own. She found her sword at the foot of her pallet, dragged it up next to her, and put her hand on its hilt.
And she slept like the dead.
Chapter 32
Colin paced up and down the passageway in front of his chamber, feeling no less nervous than he had since he’d come to Solonge. But it had nothing to do with Marie, who was apparently safely ensconced in the dungeon with Sir Etienne, nor with Lord Denis, who had come along already that morning and asked him what his intentions were, nor with the tidings that all five of Aliénore’s brothers were below waiting to see her.
He supposed that the brother she’d filched her gear from would be first in line, wanting his gear back.
He wondered why it was that her brothers had chosen now to make an appearance. He hadn’t seen any of them before, not even at meals, nor in the lists. Perhaps they had been too terrified of him to show themselves. Odd, that they should choose now to reveal themselves. Perhaps they considered Aliénore’s rejecting him as sport enough for their morning repast.
He pursed his lips. His unease had nothing to do with any of that, though those things certainly gave him pause. His true nervousness lay with the fact that his bride was still asleep and it was at least a few moments past dawn.
Did she intend to sleep the day away? Or was she so disgusted by the thought of finally being forced to wed with him that she didn’t dare leave the chamber?
Had he not given her ample opportunity the night before to express such disgust as he stood trembling inside that doorway? Trembling from the height of it off the ground, of course, not from any fear that she might reject him outright. Hadn’t he tried to put her mind at ease and give her the benefit of sleep before she made any decisions concerning him? In truth, what more could a wench have asked of him?
She, at least, had slept well. He’d slept little, if at all. He’d finally given up and risen well before sunrise, noting by the very faint starlight that illuminated the chamber that she smiled as she slept. Dreaming likely.
He could only hope it wasn’t about Jason of Artane or his other quite marriageable brother, Kendrick.
He had retreated out into the passageway and tried to make himself presentable with a goodly brushing of his tunic with the edge of his knife, a straightening of his hair with his own quite useful fingers, and a goodly amount of wishing that he dared take time for a bit of whisker removal from his cheeks.
Unfortunately, that would have meant seeking out a bowl of water in the kitchen, and he couldn’t leave his post.
So he had contented himself with what he could do outside Aliénore’s door, then had taken to waiting.
And waiting.
Someone had brought him something with which to break his fast. He wasn’t sure what it had been and he could only hope it hadn’t been poisoned, though perhaps poison was a kinder wound to his heart than having Aliénore wake, look at him, and flee screaming into her father’s arms and beg for a release from her contract.
Colin had, unfortunately, seen that done before.
Hark, was that rustling inside? He put his ear to the door and heard a bit of movement. Or perhaps that was his own poor blood pounding in his ears. Nay, that was definitely movement and a soft curse.
Cursing. How did that bode for him?
The door began to open and he leaped back to lean against the opposite wall. He tried to assume a casual pose as well, though he suspected the sick expression on his visage ruined the effect.
Aliénore appeared in the doorway, looking as fresh and rested as if she’d just passed an entire month lazing abed.
Colin scowled at her, just on principle.
She’d apparently donned her other tunic, for this one had no rent in the front. But she still wore hose and her scuffed boots with the dagger in the right. Her sword, however, was not belted about her waist.
“Where is your sword?” he asked, frowning.
She shrugged in a somewhat helpless manner. “It seemed ... well, it seemed ... foolish.”
“Why?”
She sighed deeply. “Because there is no more need of ruse.”
He supposed she had it aright. Now that she knew that he knew who she was, what was the purpose in pretending to be other than she was?
He wondered, absently, what she would look like in a gown.
She ran her hand over her hair, looking uncomfortable. “What now?” she asked.
She wouldn’t meet his eyes. Could she truly not bear to look at him? Or was she trying to tell him that she simply could not bear the thought of wedding with him? Well, if there was something he wasn’t, it was a coward. He would just put forth his questions and see what her answers were, then see where that left him. He put his shoulders back and cleared his throat.
“Perhaps—”
“Ah, there you are! I wondered when you would awake!”
Colin looked to his right and glared at the lord of Solonge, who was hurrying down the passageway. He enveloped his daughter in a large hug, rocking her, peppering her with compliments and questions alike, and generally doing all the things Colin wished he were doing at the moment.
Damn the man.
“Come,” Denis said, keeping Aliénore under one arm and taking Colin in hand with the other, “let us descend and break our fast. Aliénore, your brothers are quite anxious to see you.”
Colin heard a faint snort and peered around Lord Denis to find that
Aliénore was wearing a look of profound skepticism. Well, that was something. Perhaps the greeting of her brothers would take less time than he feared, and then they could be about their business of being about their business.
Which he sincerely hoped included a wedding in the near future.
The morning was interminable. Colin found himself shoved to the side in the press of family, friends, and servants who miraculously appeared to shower Aliénore with attention. Colin thought she looked decidedly uncomfortable, but he didn’t feel like he could suggest that she flee her relations. After all, they had two years of questions for her. Never mind that he had the same number of questions covering the same period of time. And never mind that he was her betrothed. He supposed he could wait.
But after several hours and a goodly amount of food that was substantially better than what he’d had in the previous two days, he found the waiting becoming quite intolerable. He rose, but no one paid him any heed. With a sigh, he left the hall and made his way out to the lists. There were a few guardsmen milling about and he tried to engage each one in turn, but without success. Most of them seemed to be recovering from their exercise with him the day before. Discouraged, and unaccustomedly so, he finally retired to a little stone bench and sat with his head bowed, staring at the mud between his boots.
Perhaps he was doomed to live the life of a great warrior.
Unwed.
Unchallenged by those lesser men about him.
He sighed a sigh that felt as if it had come straight from the soles of his boots. Ah, by the saints, life could be a burden at times.
He looked down and found his boots quite suddenly to be cast into shadow. He didn’t bother to look up.
“If I bested you yesterday, I’ll best you again today,” he said wearily. “Perhaps you want to rethink your invitation.”
“Actually,” said a voice sounding nothing like any guardsman he’d ever heard, “I don’t have much to rethink.”
Colin looked up in surprise. Aliénore stood there with her hands clasped behind her back, her sword at her side. Indeed, she looked so much as she’d always looked before they began to work in the lists that he had to take a moment and convince himself that the past few settings and risings of the sun had actually happened, along with their accompanying revelations.