by Lisa Jackson
“Aye, Kiera. I was carrying Brock’s babe; that’s why I could not return, why I couldn’t marry Penbrooke. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with ...” She choked and sobbed, then, as if mentally slapping herself, took in a deep breath. “But when he told me of Wynnifrydd and her babe, I rode off angrily. I just ... I just had to get away from him. From the thought of another woman ... from everything. The horse shied. I ended up in the river. I nearly drowned, only I was saved and survived. The child did not.”
Kiera’s heart wrenched painfully. What if it were her? What if she’d lost her child before it was born? Would anything be worse? More tragic? “I’m so sorry ... Elyn ... dear God.” She turned to embrace her sister, but Elyn held up a hand, stopping her again. Clearing her throat, Elyn looked away, and her sadness seemed even greater than before.
Whispering, she said, “So I have returned. To relieve you and tell my husband the truth.” She leaned heavily against the wall as if she could no longer stand. “Except that you are now in love with my husband, and mayhap with a child of your own.” Her hand shook as she brushed her hair from her eyes. “ ’Tis a dismal mess I’ve made.”
“One we shall straighten out,” Kiera insisted as she placed a firm grip upon her sister’s arm. “Come. You’re weary. Let’s go inside. You can rest and I’ll have Cook bring up some soup and wine and we shall talk.”
“What good will talking do?” Elyn wondered aloud. Then she glanced past Kiera’s shoulder and in the weak moonglow seemed to pale even further.
“I know not, but somehow we must find a way to tell Kelan the truth. I tried but he did not believe me,” Kiera was saying as she heard the hoofbeats behind her and knew in that one heartbeat that someone had overheard them. She froze for a second, then gathered in her breath and turned slowly.
“The truth,” Kelan said from atop his destrier as he looked down his nose from one sister to the next. His expression was harsh. Dark. Uncompromising. His eyes reflected the icy moonlight; his lips were blade thin. “And what, I wonder, is that?”
Kiera died a thousand deaths in the span of that one heart-stopping second.
Kelan dismounted and another horse came into view, a dappled animal ridden by the constable. If possible, Kiera’s heart felt heavier. Slowly, each step seeming to take forever, Kelan approached. His jaw was set, and the cords in his neck stood erect. Fury radiated from him in hot, hostile waves.
“Explain yourself,” he growled.
She reached a hand to touch Kelan’s chest, but he caught her wrist and glowered down at her with icy gray eyes. “What is it, wife?” he demanded, his fingers clamping over the bones in her forearm like a vise. “What have you got to say for yourself? Who is this woman who looks so much like you?” He hitched his chin toward Elyn cowering in the shadows ; then his eyebrows rose as he focused hard upon her. “Is she your sister?”
“Aye,” Kiera said, sick inside.
“Kiera?” he asked, his voice taunting.
Kiera’s head snapped up and she glanced at Elyn. Then she shook her head.
“Well, ’tis not your younger sister, Penelope. I met her at the wedding.” His eyes narrowed and Kiera sensed the wheels turning in his mind, his thoughts a tangle of doubts, suspicions, and lies. “Or is it the other way around?” he bit out, his face set in white-hot fury.
From atop his stallion the constable cleared his throat. “M’lord?”
“See to the horses,” Kelan ordered, then, to Kiera, sneered, “Come, wife! Into the great hall. You, too!” He motioned toward Elyn. “We have much to discuss.”
“She’s ill,” Kiera protested.
“We’ll tend to her, but I’ll not have this conversation in the middle of the bailey where any servant or freeman might hear!” Jerking on her arm, he led her along the path to the keep while Elyn, trying to hold on to the rags of her dignity, hoisted her chin and slowly followed after.
So it had come to this: the great reckoning. Kiera’s insides were knotted as she, looking over her shoulder at her sister, was half dragged into the great hall. Some of the guards looked their way but said nothing, while Kiera’s heart was knocking wildly in her rib cage. How could she explain herself? How could Elyn? And what did Kelan already know? ’Twas as if he was already taunting her, scorching her with his gaze. The fingers surrounding her arm were punishing, his grip a manacle.
Once they were inside the great hall, Kelan pointed with his free hand to a wooden chair on the hearth. “You, whoever you are, sit,” he ordered Elyn. She hesitated, seemed about to argue, then seeing the flare of determination in his gray gaze, dropped like lead onto the seat near the fire. “Now, who are you?”
Elyn looked miserable as she searched for words. “I’m ...”
“She’s your wife,” Kiera said quickly. The truth had to come from her lips.
“My wife?”
Kiera nodded and saw the twist to his lips, the flare of anger in his eyes. He’d known. From the moment he’d found the sisters in the bailey, or even before. What she told him was not the surprise she’d expected. “Elyn of Lawenydd.”
“So you were telling the truth the other night when I thought that you were joking?” Kelan said with a quiet, burning rage. “Why did you not correct my assumption ... Kiera—isn’t this your given name?”
Oh, God. Help me. He glared at her so intensely she wanted to shrink through the floor, but she couldn’t. “Yes, Kelan,” she whispered, her heart in her throat. “I am Kiera, Elyn’s sister.”
“But you have been here, with me, these past ...” His voice drifted off and Kiera knew he was thinking of her erratic behavior during the wedding ceremony and directly after, of her refusal to join the guests and pleas of illness, of the hidden vials, of his drugged state, of her aversion to being with people who might recognize her, of her desire not to come to Penbrooke. Every muscle in his face tightened and the skin over his cheeks stretched taut. His lips barely moved as he whispered, “You’ve deceived me all along; you lied to me, to my family ... when I thought you were telling the truth, you were lying. When you were telling the truth, I thought you were jesting. How can I ever trust such a woman?” Kelan asked, his heart hardening against the woman he had thought was his wife. “How can I trust any woman? It turns out the woman I thought was my wife is an impostress, and the woman who is my wife is a liar and a horse thief. You both plotted and planned to ruin me, my family, and my name.”
Kiera felt her face drain of color. “Nay.” But her denial sounded weak, so she forced herself to toss her head and meet the anger snapping in his eyes. “Never.”
“You dare to deny that you willingly plotted to make me a fool?” His glance sliced from Kiera to Elyn and back again.
“Forgive me,” Kiera whispered. “ ’Twas not my ... er, our intent.”
His was a quiet rage, one that transformed his features from disbelief to a florid, ruddy fury. “Why else?”
Kiera swallowed hard, forced herself to stand her ground. She finally had the chance to explain the totality of the foolish plot that Kelan had not allowed her to mention before he had left. “ ‘Twas only supposed to be for a night,” she said in a rush. “I would say the vows, hide in the chamber, and see that you didn’t leave ... The vials, they were to trick you, aye, into sleeping as if you were dead and, when you awoke, to see that the sheets were stained so that ... so that ...” She gulped and her courage faltered.
“So that I would mistakenly think we had made love,” he said through lips that barely moved.
“Yes ... I know it sounds foolish, daft even, and—and ‘twas wrong, but we thought there would be no harm done and after that first night, Elyn would return and ... and then we would switch back.”
“Switch back,” he repeated, spitting out the words. His lips were bloodless. His face tightened with a seething, growing wrath, and a tic above his eye pulsed against the restraint that was evident in the cords of his neck. “I don’t believe you,” he charged, his voice low. Deadly.
&
nbsp; “Why would I lie?”
“That is the question, is it not?” Kelan sneered while still he held her wrist with his deadly, crushing fingers.
“Kiera speaks the truth,” Elyn said boldly as she stared at the fire. “I didn’t want to marry you or anyone my father chose. I thought I should be able to pick the man I was to marry. Father, of course, disagreed. He thought of me as a prize he could barter and trade at his will.” Her nostrils flared as if she’d just smelled cattle dung in the castle.
The fingers around Kiera’s wrist clenched so tight she thought her bones would snap. “So if you truly are Elyn of Lawenydd, and you’re the shy Kiera, why did you agree?”
Kiera said, “I owed her my life. I told you of Obsidian, the horse you call Ares. The night I took him out I came upon an outlaw who attacked me. Elyn followed me and wounded the man before ... before he hurt me. I felt I owed her my life and so ...” Her heart wrenched and she could barely breathe as she admitted the rest. “And so I swore I would do anything she asked in return.”
“And that favor was to stand in for her during the wedding ceremony, to bed me while she was ... where?” Kelan’s gaze moved to Elyn in her tattered, dirty blue mantle and stringy hair. Despite her bedraggled appearance, she lifted her chin, tossed her hair over her shoulder, and glared back at him, all the while remaining stonily silent.
Kiera didn’t say a word, couldn’t betray her sister. And so the room grew cold. Unspoken accusations and alibis hid within the dark comers. Only the quiet hiss of the fire broke the silence.
Kelan turned his harsh gaze back to Kiera. “Tell me.”
“I wasn’t supposed to bed you. You ... you were supposed not to awaken ‘till morn,” Kiera quickly said, skirting the issue of Elyn’s relationship to Brock. It worked; Kelan became even more furious.
“From the potion you slipped into my wine,” he snarled, his temper snapping and all restraint lost. “You lied to me. Both of you and probably others as well. You pretended to be my wife, acted the part while making me a fool for you.”
Kiera’s arm ached; her heart tore. Kelan must’ve guessed her pain. In disgust he dropped her wrist and strode to the fire to glare down at Elyn. “Speak, Elyn of Lawenydd.”
“All right. Kiera speaks the truth!” Elyn finally admitted, blinking against tears and rubbing her arms with her hands as if she was cold to her bones. “All of it, ‘tis true.” She managed to climb to her feet, and though her legs wobbled, she met Kelan’s—her husband’s—incensed gaze with her own. “This plan was all my idea. I forced Kiera to be a part of my plan because of the debt she owed me.”
Kiera touched the chain around her neck, and the jeweled cross felt as heavy as an anvil.
“She was forced?” he mocked, shaking his head.
“She owed me a debt. By standing in for me at the altar and pretending to be me, she paid it. She did everything because of honor, no matter what you may think. And the bald truth of the matter, Kelan of Penbrooke, is that I am your legal wife, if only in name, but I am here to take my place... Kiera took the vows for me, in my stead, with my blessing.”
The words echoed through the room, reverberating painfully in Kiera’s heart.
“You are not my wife, nor will you ever be,” Kelan spat in disgust. He glanced over his shoulder to Kiera. For a heartbeat she caught a glimpse of pain, of raw agony, but it disappeared quickly.
Kiera wanted to die.
“You will both be locked into separate rooms until I find out what the devil is going on,” he said.
An alarm bell sounded, clanging loudly, pealing through the keep. Outside the door, men shouted wildly and footsteps thundered.
“What the devil?” Kelan muttered, reaching for his sword as Tadd and Morwenna raced from the upper hallways only to stop stock-still at the great hall.
“Elyn!” Morwenna said, her gaze landing on Kiera’s sister.
“What’s the trouble?” Tadd demanded.
“It seems as if I married the wrong sister,” Kelan said as the door burst open and a guard, dragging a screaming, wild-haired woman behind him, entered. She was kicking and fighting, looking half mad.
“Unhand me!” she snarled, drawing herself up to her full height, her eyes scanning each face in the room only to halt at Elyn’s. “I knew it,” she muttered, pulling free of the burly sentry.
Kelan’s gaze landed upon her. “Who are you?”
“Wynnifrydd of Fenn,” Elyn answered boldly, some of her old fire returning.
“Where is he? Where’s Brock? I followed him here.” Wynnifrydd advanced upon Elyn as if she intended to rip her eyes from their sockets.
“Are you mad, woman?” Tadd demanded.
Wynnifrydd’s gaze darted quickly from the corridors to the great hall, searching every corner, every shadow. “He’s here,” she insisted, “but you’ve hidden the coward. That disgusting stableboy dragged him to Lawenydd, but he escaped and he came here to see for himself if she”—Wynnifrydd’s gaze landed on Elyn—“was dead or alive. You’ve hidden him,” she charged, advancing upon Elyn again. “Where is he, you filthy bitch—where in God’s creation have you hidden him?”
“Stop!” Kiera ordered. “Brock isn’t here.”
“Then where?” Wynnifrydd demanded as Elyn pushed herself upright. Though weak and shorter than Wynnifrydd, Elyn held her stare.
“I thought he was to marry you. That you were carrying his child,” Elyn stated.
Something flickered in the taller woman’s gaze, a lie that couldn’t quite be hidden.
“There was no child,” Elyn said, understanding Wynnifrydd’s lie, and whatever color was in her face drained. Pain, unlike any other, surfaced in her gaze. “You lied to him. So that he would marry you. There never was a babe.”
“I just need to find him.”
“You pathetic witch.” With all her strength, Elyn flung her body at Wynnifrydd, knocking over her chair as she pushed the other woman onto the floor. Together they fought, arms flailing, nails clawing, teeth bared as they screamed at each other.
“Wait! Stop!” Kiera cried, and threw herself upon the rolling women as she vainly tried to drag her sister off Wynnifrydd. But the fight was in full heat, the women struggling, hands at throats, fingers pulling hair. Tadd and Kelan each grabbed one of the women, but still they lunged at each other.
From the comer of her eye, Kiera saw the glint of a blade, a long, curved blade that Wynnifrydd had pulled from her cloak.
“Watch out!” Kiera cried as the wicked knife arced upward above Elyn’s chest. “Nay!” She flung her body over her sister’s.
Wynnifrydd’s blade slashed downward.
Kiera twisted, scrabbled blindly, trying to wrest the weapon.
Morwenna screamed in warning, but it was too late.
Pain burned through Kiera’s chest. Roaring, Kelan picked up Wynnifrydd and flung her across the room. “Nay! Oh, nay... not here ... not this one...”
Wynnifrydd landed hard, but even in her pained state, Kiera saw the tall woman struggle to her feet. She wasn’t finished. Tadd vaulted a broken chair and tried to restrain the madwoman, but Wynnifrydd, in full fury, slashed and chopped, her deadly blade slicing anything that came into its path.
“Stop!” Tadd held Wynnifrydd around the waist, picking her off the floor and hauling her kicking, screaming, and clawing toward the far wall. Her sharp knife hacked at him and he sucked in breath through his teeth as it found his arm. “Christ Jesus, stop it!” he growled, grabbing her wrist and banging her hand against the wall until her fingers opened and the long blade clattered to the floor.
“Call the physician!” Kelan barked, holding Kiera close as she felt blood oozing from her wound. The world was growing darker, but the strength of Kelan’s arms was comforting. Elyn was alive ... alive. Kiera glanced at her sister, feeling the lifeblood draining from her, knowing that a dark stain was spreading over her clothes. There was a horrid, plaintive cry from the hallway, and Joseph, half dressed, rounded the corn
er. He took one look at the bloody great hall and ran to Elyn’s side.
“Oh, lady,” he whispered. “Oh, lady, lady ...”
Kelan’s arms tightened around Kiera. “Elyn, please ... do not leave me. Do not.”
“I’m not Elyn,” she said, fighting the blackness threatening to close in on her. The room was dimmer, the fire far away, and as she stared into Kelan’s tortured eyes she felt incredible remorse. “I’m sorry,” she forced out, and blinked hard as she lifted a hand to touch his cheek. “I love you.”
He swallowed, and the words she’d hoped to hear, the admission that he cared for her, did not come. As she struggled with consciousness, she knew he would never forgive her. Never. How could he? What she’d done was unforgivable, a sin she would take with her to her grave.
Chapter Twenty-seven
“Are you going to punish her forever?” Morwenna demanded as she sighted on a stag, drew back her arrow, and let the deadly missile fly. It zinged over the deer’s shoulder. The animal sprang lithely over a fallen log and disappeared into the forest. “Damn!”
The hounds, baying woefully, took up the chase but it was too late. She slid a glance at her brother, who, astride his horse, was watching the fleeing stag escape.
“You can’t keep her locked away like a common thief. Tadd, Bryanna, Daylynn and I all agree. ’Tis madness and has to end.” It had been nearly two months since Kiera had been injured by the crazed Wynnifrydd of Fenn in what seemed like a bad nightmare.
“Why not?” He dropped to the ground next to her. “Bad luck, that,” he said, nodding toward the disappearing deer.
“There is no reason for Kiera to pay any longer. ’Tis cruel. You, brother, have made your point.”
“I’m having the marriage to Elyn annulled.”
“And what then?”
He shrugged. “I know not,” he said, and wished the ache in his heart would subside. He knew that he’d loved the woman who had pretended to be his wife, had trusted her when he felt it was obvious to everyone that she had been lying to him. Made him a laughingstock.