With such a ship and such a crew, these men could take her far away from Bellevoire, where Connor could not easily find her, provided he had even realized she was missing. The sun was but halfway down its course. He might not have noticed yet, or he might have assumed she was visiting someone in the village.
Her captor crossed his arms. “So it was claimed. Since my father was dead, there could be no trial—and a very convenient death it was for you and your lover.”
Lover? What lover? She had never had a lover.
“Oh, I know all about what you’ve done, my lady. It is hardly a secret.” All hint of mockery left DeFrouchette’s face, as well as his voice. “You and your husband stole my birthright and Bellevoire, and now your husband must pay.”
Husband? God in heaven, he thought she was Allis!
He had kidnapped the wrong person!
What should she do? Tell him of his error? But what would he do then? Hold her for ransom still? They could expect to be paid for Allis of Bellevoire, but her younger sister? Connor and Allis would pay, of that she was certain, but these brigands might not be so sure, and might prefer the sure profit of selling her into slavery. She could imagine the horrendous fate that would await her then.
There was only one thing to do. She must let them continue to believe she was Allis of Bellevoire, and pray to God she was either rescued or was able to escape before they found out the truth. “How much am I considered to be worth?”
“A few thousand marks in recompense will be sufficient.”
“A few thousand?” Connor didn’t have that much in coin.
DeFrouchette’s lips curved into a mocking smile. “Do you not think you are worth that much, my lady? Lord Oswald certainly thinks so, and now that I’ve met you, I cannot disagree.”
Oswald! She might have known that blackguard was behind this, waiting patiently for his chance to have his vengeance on those who had destroyed his ambitious, traitorous plans.
He must have hired this ship and this crew. He had promised money to this scoundrel and his friend and the Norsemen to kidnap her. That was always his way—to find someone with a grudge to do his evil deeds for him.
Even worse, Oswald would know who she was. “Where is your master? Waiting on the ship? I don’t see him.”
“He is not my master.”
He didn’t say Oswald was aboard the ship, and she began to hope he was not there. That would buy her more time before they found out the truth.
“Alexander! What are you doing?” the Gascon called. “This is no time to be flirting with a woman!”
DeFrouchette shot a condemning glance at his friend. “I’m not—” Then sudden understanding, quickly followed by ire, flashed across DeFrouchette’s angular face. “Enough of your delaying tactics, my lady,” he growled.
Not nearly enough. And maybe Lord Oswald was on that ship.
She grabbed her skirt and took off toward the ridge as fast as she could run. Exhausted, she pushed her legs to their limit as she scrambled up the slope.
DeFrouchette caught up to her and grabbed her arm. As he yanked her to a stop, she thought he was going to wrench her arm from her shoulder. “That was a stupid thing to do,” he snarled.
“Let me go!” she cried, pummeling him with all that remained of her strength. “Beast! Varlet! Bastard!”
He hauled her close, embracing her so that she couldn’t hit him any more, his fiercely enraged face inches from hers. “You had better get this through that pretty head of yours, my lady. I have you and I will keep you until the ransom is paid. You can make this easy or difficult for yourself. It does not make any difference to me—but you will never escape from me.”
With that, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, knocking the wind out of her.
Gasping, she had no more energy to try to free herself as he clasped her legs tight and strode toward the ship. He skittered down the bank and waded through the water. She thought he was going to toss her over the side into the vessel like a sack full of rocks until she felt two large hands take hold of her.
Somebody—and it was most certainly not the slender Gascon—lifted her up and set her on the curved bottom of the ship. She grabbed the side to steady herself on the uneven deck, then looked up to see who had pulled her inside.
She found herself staring at a hulking, bearded Norseman whose blond hair hung in a tangled mass to his wide shoulders. He wore a silver band around his neck and a gold torc on his upper arm, and his tunic and breeches were of very fine wool sumptuously dyed in purple and red. His saffron yellow cloak, held by a large and ornate brooch of bronze, was thrown back over his shoulder. He was well armed, too, sporting an embossed swordbelt with a finely worked leather scabbard and a battle-ax stuck through it. As if this were not bad enough, his smoke gray eyes shone with greed and lust as he ran his gaze over her. It made her feel soiled, like an unwanted bold caress.
“By Thor’s hammer,” the Norseman cried, using the language of the sea traders that was a mixture of Norse, Norman and the language of the Celts. “Nobody told me this woman you wanted was so fine a creature, or I would have been easier to hire. Still, I’ll wager she will bite and scratch and fight you with every kiss and caress.”
As Isabelle’s stomach turned with new revulsion, the Norseman looked past her to DeFrouchette, who had climbed over the side behind her. “I will give you a good price for her.”
She would rather die than be that man’s property!
She inched backward, away from him, and collided with DeFrouchette, who briefly put his hands on her shoulders to steady her.
At least DeFrouchette had said she wasn’t to be harmed. But what exactly did he mean by that? Did that mean he wouldn’t do anything else?
“She will be worth more to her husband,” DeFrouchette replied.
The Norseman laughed—a low rumble, like an amused bear. “Well, you may be right.”
She couldn’t move forward, for the Norseman was there, and she couldn’t move back, for DeFrouchette was there. Struggling against the terror building within her, she sidled sideways, toward the center of the ship, which was filled with oars, stores of food and skins holding wine or ale or water, various other bundles whose contents she couldn’t guess, a furrowed sail and the yardarm lying beside what must be the ship’s mast. At least five other Norsemen were in the vessel, staring at her as if she were on display at a marketplace.
God help her, maybe she was.
If there was one good thing, it was that Oswald was obviously not aboard that ship. Besides the huge blond man and the five other Norsemen watching her, there was only one other man sleeping in the stern of the vessel. He was far too thin to be Oswald.
“She is not for sale, Ingar,” DeFrouchette repeated. “She is for trading, and until she is traded, she is to be treated as an honored guest.”
She knew better than to believe a man of that ilk, but his words relieved her nonetheless. Between that and the realization that Oswald was not there to reveal who she was, her fear lessened a little.
Ingar shrugged, as if to say, “That is your loss, then.”
DeFrouchette’s stern gaze flashed over the other Norsemen watching. “Any man who forgets that will rue it.”
Any man? Did that include him?
He glanced at her sharply. “Sit down and make yourself comfortable for the voyage, my lady,” he commanded.
“Where?”
“Anywhere.” His lips curved up. “There will be no escape, for there is nowhere to run.”
“If I had known before that I was your honored guest, I might not have been so keen to flee,” she lied, feeling a very small measure of triumph at the look that crossed his face.
Although she would have tried to escape anyway—and she still meant to even if she was as trapped as if she were imprisoned in a dungeon—she wanted to confuse him and make him wonder if he had erred.
She could not slip over the side now, though, so she reluctantly joined the Gascon, who was
seated with his legs crossed as easily as another man sat in a tavern. Later, when it was dark and the ship was moving too quickly to be brought to a sudden halt, she would slip over the side and swim to shore.
DeFrouchette addressed the blond Norseman. “Where is the rest of your crew?”
Ingar pointed to the woods a short distance away. Isabelle followed his gesture, to see more fierce-looking Norsemen coming toward the ship, carrying dead sheep slung on poles between them. “Men must eat,” he said.
Surely this raid would tell Connor where she had been taken … unless he would think this marauding had nothing to do with her abduction at all and was simply a random act of thievery.
DeFrouchette raised a brow. “All that for twenty men?”
“For later, too. Oswald does not pay enough. We take great risks coming so far inland.”
“And you have taken a greater risk with this unnecessary raid. Why not just make a signal fire?” DeFrouchette demanded sarcastically.
“We will be long gone before anybody realizes these sheep are missing.”
“We had better be.”
“Well, well, well, what have we here?” someone called out from the stern of the vessel in the lazy drawl of a Norman nobleman.
Isabelle looked over her shoulder to see the slim man rising in the stern, his hands against the sides of the vessel.
She was shocked to realize he was not a Norseman, but there was no mistaking his accent, or the fact that he was dressed in the height of Norman fashion. His hair was nearly as blond as hers, cut round his head and the ends curled under, as smooth and glossy as a woman’s—or a very vain man’s. The vanity became more obvious as she ran a young woman’s knowledgeable gaze over his clothing, which was a little rumpled. He wore a peacock blue brocade tunic with an embroidered white shirt beneath. His hose were likewise blue and clung to slender legs that lacked the muscle of a man used to riding or even walking far. His black boots shone and were gilded in a swirling pattern, like his swordbelt. A red jewel sparkled in the hilt of his sword. His dress, his manner and his voice all made her wonder what he was doing on this ship, for she could hardly imagine a man more different from a Norseman, or DeFrouchette, either.
The fellow seemed unsteady on his feet as he staggered toward them, as if he had just woken up and needed something to support him. Then she saw the wineskin in his hand and realized that he was drunk.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” he exclaimed, waving the wineskin as he came to a swaying halt on the rocking vessel. “Are you a pair of squabbling children?”
DeFrouchette and the Norseman exchanged glances, like two confederates caught in a lie.
Who on earth was this man, that two such warriors would stay silent as he jeered at them?
The man turned his attention to her. He paid no heed at all to the Gascon.
“Is this the beauteous Lady Allis I have heard so much about?” he asked with a sodden, insolent grin. He put his index finger to his lip and shook his head. “Surely this disheveled creature with the shrew’s tongue cannot be the fine, the splendid Lady Allis who has caused so much trouble? You are the woman men fight over?”
Whoever he was, he was aiding in her abduction and was therefore outside the law. “Yes, I am the Lady Allis,” she said, getting to her feet with all the dignity she could command. “Who are you? A minstrel seeking employment, perhaps, to judge by your garments. If so, sirrah, I do not think a band of Norsemen are likely to appreciate your merry tunes.”
The man stopped smiling and drew himself upright. “I am Osburn. You may recall my father, my lady. Lord Oswald.”
No wonder DeFrouchette and Ingar deferred to him.
She bowed slightly and gave Osburn a smile she reserved for peddlers who tried to cheat her. “Of course I recall him, especially the day his treachery was discovered. It was a very memorable time.”
Osburn waved the wineskin in a dismissive gesture. “A terrible misunderstanding,” he slurred. “Terrible and most unfortunate for my poor father, who has been stripped of his lands and titles. That is why you must spend some time with us.” Osburn leered at her. “You understand, my dear? We must repay you and your husband for what he has done to us, as well as enable him to repay us for what was taken away.”
“I find your logic as disgusting as your methods, and I pray God you will all be caught and hanged.”
DeFrouchette glared at Osburn, and she could almost feel his heated rage. “We should get underway, my lord, as soon as Ingar’s men are aboard.”
“Why, of course we should!” Osburn cried genially, as if he had already forgotten what she had said. “The sooner we are gone, the sooner I am back with my mistress, who is much finer company than a shipful of men.” He ran an impertinent gaze over Isabelle. “I am not yet so desperate that this bedraggled creature will tempt me.”
DeFrouchette stepped forward. “It was agreed that she would be treated as a guest.”
“I am very friendly to my guests.”
His expression fiercely stern, DeFrouchette took another step toward Osburn. Alexander didn’t speak, and he didn’t have to. Osburn flushed and backed away, and she could breathe again.
“Out of the way!” one of the returning Norsemen cried as he and his fellow tossed the first of the dead sheep, pole and all, over the side of the ship.
DeFrouchette moved quickly; Osburn was not so fast, and he nearly got clouted by the pole.
“God’s blood, be careful, oaf!” he muttered as he stumbled back toward where he had been sleeping in the stern.
If she had been in a mood to find anything amusing, she would have found their scramble to get out of the way mildly funny. As it was, she hugged herself and fought back fear and rage and despair, more determined than ever to get away from this ship, its crew, that drunken sot and the man who was like Hades, lord of Hell, made flesh.
Chapter 4
In the great hall of Bellevoire, the flickering torchlight illuminated a group of anxious maidservants huddled near the kitchen corridor. The evening meal had been served, but the tables had not yet been taken down. The food left behind by the soldiers, who had set out to search for the missing sister of their mistress, was still to be cleared away.
“No sign of her at all, they say,” Efe noted, twisting her apron in her middle-aged hands. “Like she up and vanished.”
The younger, prettier Leoma tossed her head, leaned in closer and said, her voice likewise hushed, “Run off, I think. With a man. She’s been moping around so much these past few weeks, it has to be that.”
The elderly Gleda, who had served in Bellevoire during the time of DeFrouchette and had apparently been frowning ever since, sniffed skeptically. “What man? Have any of you ever seen her make eyes at a man? As for moping, I ain’t noticed it. She’s happy here.” She eyed Mildred, the girl of fifteen who served as Isabelle’s maid. “Ain’t she?”
Chewing her thin lower lip, Mildred glanced about uneasily as she nervously tucked a lock of black hair behind her ear. “Aye, she’s happy and she’s never said anything to me about a man.”
Leoma didn’t believe it for an instant. “Yes, she has! Who is he?”
“No, no, it’s not like that,” Mildred protested, holding up her hands. “It’s just that once, she told me it was a pity the baron was so evil, because he was not a bad-featured fellow.”
The women all drew back, hissing like snakes in a pit, except for Gleda.
“Well, he wasn’t,” she asserted. “Not a good master, but he was handsome, in a dark sort of way. It didn’t surprise me to hear she’d offered to marry him.”
Leoma shook her head. “Not him. She always liked Sir Connor a little too much, if you ask me. Maybe she run off because of him. Girls with broken hearts do strange things.”
“I don’t think it was anything like that,” Efe murmured, drawing their attention. “I think she was … taken.”
“Like by magic? Spirited away by the faeries?” Gleda demanded, her hands on her ample hip
s.
Efe shook her head. “According to Bartholomew, a Frenchman got one of the merchants drunk, so drunk he wasn’t minding his cart. Lady Isabelle was looking for ribbons, which this fellow sold, and the last time anybody saw her, she was standing near a strange young man at that cart. I think he took her.”
“How’d he get her out of the village? The cart’s still there.”
Efe shrugged.
“Maybe he’s her lover,” Leoma suggested.
Gleda frowned even more, and Mildred was clearly not convinced.
“Well, somebody wanted that merchant out of the way,” Efe offered, “and they did it. Maybe they lured her somewhere and…”
Efe colored as she fell silent. The other women looked ill, and Mildred started to cry.
Full of remorse, Efe patted the girl on the back. “There, there, now, don’t take on. They’ll find her. After all, there was no blood, neither.”
Her comforting words only made Mildred cry louder.
“If only somebody’d noticed she was missing sooner,” Gleda muttered.
“Don’t be saying that where Sir Connor will hear,” Efe cautioned as she continued to pat Mildred. “He feels terrible enough as it is. Searched high and low when he couldn’t find her, questioned everybody, called out the guard and even got Bartholomew on the run looking for her. He hasn’t had a bite to eat, either, between organizing the search and trying to comfort his poor wife. I thought she was going to faint dead away when he came to tell her.”
“D-did you see his face?” Mildred asked, sniffling and wiping her eyes with the edge of her sleeve. “He looked like he’d rather be dead than have to tell her something like that. But Lady Isabelle was right in the village and in the market, too, so it’s not his fault.”
“Hush!” Gleda commanded, nodding at the steps from the lord’s chamber. “Here comes my poor lady, white as a sheet. Stop your crying, Mildred, and we’d all better be about our business. There’s nothing more we can do anyway.”
Margaret Moore - [Maiden & Her Knight 03] Page 4