Impostress

by Lisa Jackson

  “Should I not call the sheriff, or the captain of the guard?” he asked, though he sheathed his sword.

  “Nay! Why wake them? I will handle this, Peter. I told you to go back to your post. I will speak to the baron myself in the morn. If there is any trouble, I’ll take responsibility. Joseph here is my witness. You will not be blamed.” Motioning with one hand, she said, “Joseph, take the prisoner to the dungeon.”

  “Who is he?” Using his hand to protect his eyes from the sleet, the curious guard held his torch aloft to get a better view.

  “A common horse thief, is that not right, Joseph?” Hildy asked, her mind spinning with quick excuses. Silently she hoped the stableboy wouldn’t blurt out the truth. Not yet. “Did this man not steal Baron Llwyd’s mare?”

  “Aye. This very horse,” Joseph assured the guard, who scratched his beard and looked from Joseph to Hildy and back again while Brock shook his head vigorously and made mewling noises behind his gag.

  “Worry not, Peter. We will deal with this thug. And the rest of you, too. Disperse!” she ordered, and the men talking among themselves drifted away. No doubt there would be speculation. Many of them had known Brock, but the broken man on the horse with his bloodied face could have been anyone. The mud on his clothes and face, the curtain of sleet, and the darkness helped disguise him.

  Finally the wary guard rubbed his beard but slowly nodded. “Just see that he’s locked up proper. I don’t want no trouble on me watch.”

  “There will be none,” Hildy said despite the muffled protests of the prisoner and the wild gestures of his bound hands. Reluctantly Peter walked into the gatehouse, his boots scraping the stairs as he ascended the tower. Soon, with a creak of old gears, the portcullis began to lower.

  Once they were alone, Hildy and Joseph led the horses and prisoner to the stable. “What’s the matter with you?” she demanded of the stableboy. “Have you suddenly gone mad? Why did you bring him into the castle?”

  “What was I to do with him?” Joseph was angry. Furious: And limping slightly.

  “Why bring him back at all?”

  “He has to pay,” Joseph ground out, pain reflecting in his night-darkened eyes. “Because of this bloody cur”—he hooked his thumb at the prisoner—“Lady Elyn is dead. Drowned in that river. I’d love to slit his gut myself and watch his innards spill on the ground! Drawn and quartered would be too good for the likes of him.”

  “Nay! Vengeance is all well and good, Joseph, but we have others to consider. What of Lady Kiera?”

  Joseph glowered into the night as they walked past a roost, and several chickens, wakened from their slumber, let out disgruntled clucks. “Mayhap ’tis time for the truth to come out,” Joseph muttered as they reached the stable yard.

  Much as she wanted to, Hildy couldn’t disagree. “Aye, but we need time ... Kiera needs to be told what happened so that she can deal with Kelan of Penbrooke.”

  “Christ Jesus, what a mess.”

  Hildy nodded, though her thoughts were already whirling ahead. “Does anyone other than our soldiers know that Elyn is dead? Did he tell anyone?”

  Casting a hateful glance up at Brock, ignoring the cold sting of sleet, Joseph muttered, “Lady Wynnifrydd is aware that the lady lost her life. I overheard the bastard telling her. There could be others who have heard the news as well, but I know not who.”

  This was worse than Hildy first thought.

  Not only was Elyn dead, but Kiera’s identity was about to be exposed.

  “We’ll need to send a messenger to Penbrooke, to warn Kiera. Someone we can trust,” she thought aloud as Brock struggled with the rope binding his wrists. “Stop it,” she warned, “or I will throw you in the dungeon and tell the baron how you were responsible for his daughter’s shame as well as her death.”

  He quit moving.

  “I’ll ride to Penbrooke,” Joseph offered.

  “But you’ve only arrived. And you’re wounded. You walk with a limp.”

  “ ’Tis only a scratch.”

  “Mayhap I should tend to it.”

  “As long as it’s done so I can leave again.” Joseph was adamant. “The less people who know of this, the better. I’d like to kill Brock this very night and I can’t.”

  At least he was beginning to understand the need for secrecy. “ ’Tis true. You will have to ride day and night to reach Penbrooke so that Kiera can tell Lord Kelan the truth before the news reaches him. At the same time, I will confide in her father.” Hildy shuddered to think what Lord Llwyd would do when he realized one daughter was dead, another living a lie, and the third, along with the one woman he thought he could trust, keeping secrets from him. And Kiera ... when she confided in Kelan, what would happen to her? Pray that the Lord in heaven was with them all. Hastily she made the sign of the cross over her chest.

  But the wind howling through the bailey cut straight to her soul.

  “I need but a few hours’ rest and a meal. I can leave in the morn.” Joseph cast a glance up at his prisoner. “If I stay here, there’s no telling what I would do to him.” His lip curled in disgust and his big hands balled into fists.

  “Leave him to me. I will take care of him.”

  “Throw him in the dungeon and let him rot or kill him outright. I care not. He’s a murderer and any death, no matter how long he suffers, is too good for him,” Joseph said, his eyes glowing with the need for revenge.

  “Sir Brock is the son of a lord,” Hildy reminded him.

  Joseph spat on the ground. “He’s a bloody cur.”

  “But someone will come looking for him.”

  “Aye, and soon, I’d wager,” Joseph admitted as he tied the mare to a post. “He was to have been married later the day that I ... persuaded him to come with me.”

  “Will they think he left on his own, or that he was taken prisoner?”

  “I know not,” Joseph said, then thought for a moment. “There was no evidence of a struggle except for a little of my own blood. And only one horse would be missing, the mare that Brock stole from the lady.”

  Brock growled behind his gag.

  “Shh!” Joseph hissed. “Or I’ll kill you now, I swear it.”

  “Come along. Leave the horses here and we’ll take him to my hut,” Hildy instructed.

  “Gladly.” Joseph yanked Brock from his saddle and prodded him forward along the starlit path. Shards of ice glittered in the few puddles, and the frozen earth crunched beneath their boots.

  So Lord Nevyll as well as the Baron of Fenn would soon arrive and demand answers, for certainly one of them or Wynnifrydd would eventually surmise that Brock might have gone looking for Elyn. “In the morning, before dawn, once I’ve cleaned your wound you can leave. I’ll let you have a few hours’ head start; then I’ll speak with him,” she said as they reached her hut. The sleet was letting up, but the wind was bone-rattling cold and the clouds overhead were dark with night, ominous and close. In the next few hours, Hildy knew, she wouldn’t sleep a wink. And in the morn, after Joseph was well on his way to Penbrooke, she would strip the gag from the bastard of Oak Crest and hear what he had to say.

  Did it matter?

  Nay.

  For no matter what Brock of Oak Crest said, what lies or truths passed his thin lips, only one thing was certain. There had been too many half-truths and lies. Soon, the devil would demand his due.

  The night wrapped around them, its darkness broken only by the dying fire. Kiera curled up against Kelan, resting her head on his shoulder, sensing that he, too, was awake. And restless. Despite the hours of fervent, nearly desperate lovemaking they’d shared. “Can you not sleep? Is something wrong?” she asked, running her fingers through the whorls of hair upon his chest.

  “Shh. ‘Tis nothing.”

  “I wish I could help,” she whispered, assuming that his thoughts were upon his loss, his memories of Lady Lenore. “I, too, lost a mother,” Kiera said softly. “ ‘Tis difficult.”

  He didn’t answer, but she saw him
staring at the ceiling. His brow was creased, his jaw tight.

  “Is there ... is there something else?” she asked.

  “Do not worry about it.”

  “But if I can make things easier ...”

  “ ’Tis not about my mother,” he said, and she felt a sliver of dread slide down her spine. In a heartbeat she knew the time had come for the truth.

  “Then?” she prodded, every muscle in her body rigid, her brain clamoring for her to keep up her ruse, her heart knowing she could not.

  He paused, then said softly, “You never answered me about the vials I found in your room.”

  The temperature of Kiera’s blood dropped. She gathered herself. “You did not ask again,” she said, knowing that she was doomed. She had to tell him the truth. Her promise to his mother could not be kept any longer. While it had only been a short time since she had made her promise to Lenore, she could not continue lying, even if it had been a dying woman’s wish.

  “I told myself not to think of it, that it was over, and yet ... it bothers me that you put something in my wine, a potion to make me weak and tired. For a reason I don’t understand, you wanted to keep me prisoner in your chamber.”

  “Did we not already speak of this?” She tried to roll away, to break free of his embrace, but he held her fast against him, his long, sinewy body pressed against hers.

  Levering upon one elbow, he gazed down upon her, waiting. “You never explained why.”

  Kiera closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath. ’Twas finally the time; there was no escaping the truth. “I did not want to marry you,” she admitted, her heart thundering, her stomach knotting in dread.

  “Because you loved someone else? Because of Brock of Oak Crest.” His voice was low. Barely a whisper. As though if he made the distasteful charge softly, it would not be true.

  “I loved no one else,” she said from her heart. “I have never felt the way I feel with you, Kelan, and I did not expect to care for you. I thought it impossible.” She fought tears as she stared up at him.

  “As did I.”

  Her heart nearly cracked. This was so hard. Did she dare touch him? Would it be the last time? When he found out the truth, he would never speak to her again, would recoil from her touch, would no doubt banish her from his sight forever. Agony echoed through her soul. “I love you, Kelan. Only you.”

  He smiled. Touched her hair. “And I love you, Elyn. With all of my heart.”

  Her insides shriveled at the sound of her sister’s name. Oh, Lord, help me, she thought as the fire hissed and glowed a dying red. “I—I’ve done much that I’m ashamed of,” Kiera admitted.

  “It matters not. ’Tis done. But the vial of blood? Why would you need blood unless you were not a virgin?”

  “But I was.”

  “I know.” His breath stirred against her neck, and she gazed into his eyes knowing that never again would she be able to look at him thus. Never again would she feel the strength of his muscles against hers. Never again would he trust her.

  “I can’t explain it,” she said, unable to force the truth over her lips just yet. “ ’Twas a foolish idea.”

  “You thought if I was drugged, I would think we’d made love before I had slept and then I would leave you alone?”

  “If not forever, for a while,” she said, grasping at this frail explanation.

  “But you knew it would happen?”

  “Aye, eventually.”

  “And still you were willing to trick me? To give me a potion and lie to me?”

  “Yes, Kelan,” she said dully, her heart aching painfully. And knowing what I do now, how I feel about you, I would do it again. Just so that I could lie here in your arms, so I could feel your breath on my face, so I could know what it was like to make love to you.

  “You vex me, wife.”

  “ ’Tis not my intent.”

  “No?”

  She heard the disbelief in his voice, felt his hand run up the inside of her leg. Her pulse jumped wildly.

  “I think you lie, Elyn. I think ’tis surely your purpose to puzzle me.”

  “Nay, I ...”

  “You what?”

  Oh, God. It was now or never. She closed her eyes, took in a deep breath, and, ignoring the fingers brushing the sensitive skin on her leg, said in a rush, “I am not who you think I am, Kelan. I’m not Elyn. I think ... I fear that Elyn is dead.”

  “What?”

  “I’m her sister. Kiera.”

  He laughed and amusement rang throughout the room. “Not Elyn? You must have been talking to my sister.”

  “Your sister?”

  Morwenna. Of course. She knows I am not Elyn.

  “So now you are playing tricks on me,” he said, his arms surrounding her, his lips tickling her bare shoulder.

  “Nay ... yes ... ’twas Elyn’s idea that we change places.” Now that she’d made the admission, she was desperate for him to believe her, to understand how much she loved him, how hopelessly she’d hated her lies.

  “Was it, now?” He rolled her onto her back and stared deep into her eyes. “And now I am with my wife’s sister, with her blessing.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, her heart beating wildly over her shallow breath.

  “And you are here, willing to take her place? To do whatever I want?”

  “Nay, yes ... I mean ...”

  His smile was deliciously wicked as it slashed white in the night. “Many men would envy me this.”

  “I think not—”

  But it was as if he could not hear her denials. “Well, then, sister-in-law, it is my desire that you make love to me until dawn.”

  “You don’t believe me,” she said, realizing that he thought she was somehow trying to enhance their lovemaking by pretending to be another woman.

  “I believe anything you say to me,” he whispered, kissing her in the hollow of her shoulder as her heart beat crazily and the fire in the grate softly hissed. “Anything.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Elyn’s head ached, and her body felt as if someone had taken a mallet to every one of her muscles. Drawing in the shallowest of breaths burned her lungs. Slowly she opened a bleary eye and saw a pale woman leaning over her. Her skin was so white as to be nearly translucent, her hair a silvery blond, her eyes a watery blue. An angel, surely.

  I’ve died and gone to heaven, Elyn thought wildly as the room, a small chamber with a tiny fire, came into focus.

  “Ahh. You awaken. ’Tis time.” The angel offered a kind, ethereal smile.

  “Who are you?” Elyn asked, her head clearing. This wasn’t heaven. She hadn’t died. No, the aches in her body made her realize that she was very much alive and lying upon a narrow pallet in this chamber decorated with beads and smelling of herbs from the candles that were placed around the room.

  “My name is Geneva. And you are?”

  “Elyn of Lawenydd,” she blurted before remembering that she had given her identity to Kiera, that she now had no name, that she was lost. But the woman was not surprised at her admission. ’Twas almost as if she’d divined who Elyn was before she’d even asked the question. Lifting her head, Elyn asked, “Where am I?”

  “This is my room at Castle Serennog.”

  “Serennog?” Elyn repeated, her throat scratchy. She’d heard of the keep, of course, but had never visited. “How did I get here?”

  “I found you. Tossed up on the bank of the river. Near dead.”

  “The river,” Elyn repeated as piece by sharp-edged piece, her memory returned and she recalled riding away from Brock, hiding beneath the bridge only to fall into the icy depths and be swept under.

  “You were lucky,” Geneva said, though Elyn didn’t believe it for a minute. She’d been anything but lucky these last few weeks. There had been her impending marriage to Kelan of Penbrooke, then the realization that she was pregnant, and then ... oh ... the baby.

  As if she’d read Elyn’s mind, Geneva’s smile faded. “ ’Tis sorry I be,” she
said, “but the child ...” She shook her head, her ashen hair shimmering in the fire glow.

  “What of my child?” Elyn asked, though she understood, saw the sadness and pain in the thin woman’s gaze.

  “ ’Twas lost. I found you on the edge of the river nearly three days ago and I thought you were dead.”

  “You’re saying that the child is gone,” Elyn said, aching inside, but she wouldn’t believe it. Couldn’t. Surely the woman was mistaken. She had to be pregnant. Had to.

  “Aye. The babe did not survive.”

  “No!” She closed her eyes and her ears to such blasphemy. She was pregnant. The child was Brock’s and ... and she would marry Brock and they ... they would be a family and ... But Brock was marrying Wynnifrydd. He told her so himself, the lying, cheating bastard. Her heart wrenched so painfully she nearly cried out. She couldn’t have lost the baby. But why would this strange woman lie to her? “I—I don’t believe you.”

  “ ’Tis not easy.”

  “ ’Tis not true!” Elyn insisted, rising to a sitting position, but she felt it then, the ooze that had not stopped between her legs, the hollowness in her body and soul.

  “There will be others,” the woman assured her. As if she believed her words.

  Elyn didn’t.

  Now that Brock was lost to her, she couldn’t imagine having a child fathered by another man. Nay. She closed her eyes and willed the blackness that had swallowed her to come again, but she felt Geneva’s cool fingers upon her own hand.

  “ ’Tis not your time,” she said with a steadying calm that, had Elyn’s heart not been splitting into a million pieces, she might have found comforting. Instead she drew back her hand. She didn’t want to be touched. She was beyond consolation.

  “I, too, lost a babe,” the woman admitted sadly as the fire crackled. She seemed distant for a minute, swept up in memories that robbed her of her serenity. Her pale eyes grew cold as the winter sea, her expression hard and angry, and her hands curled into fists. “It happened not long ago. ’Twas a boy child and the father ... he is dead now. He lived here at Serennog.”

  “But he wasn’t your husband.”