“Be patient, Norman.”
Alexander was in no mood to be patient. He strode toward the bow, shoving out of the way any Norseman who interfered with his progress. They muttered and grumbled, but he paid no heed to them.
Maybe Denis had been unable to protect Lady Allis. Maybe she had enraged Osburn or Heinrich so much that they had killed her. Maybe she had escaped. Maybe she had indeed sprouted wings like an angel and flown away. He could believe almost anything where that lady was concerned, and despite his stake in returning her for ransom, he would rather she had escaped than be hurt or raped or killed.
His gaze swept the shore and the ruined castle beyond. The Norse encampment looked as he had left it, save that there was no smoke from any fire. The heads of sentries moved above the battlements without haste or alarm. All was as he might have expected, except for Denis’s excitement.
The instant the vessel drew up beside the wharf, Alexander jumped over the side. “What’s amiss?” he demanded as Denis hurried toward him.
“I thought you would never get back!” Denis cried as he grabbed hold of Alexander’s arm to drag him toward the shore.
Alexander shook him off. He didn’t need any physical coercion to make haste; Denis’s manner was quite enough. “Is she dead?” he asked as he strode toward the beach.
If she was, whoever had done it was as good as in his grave, including Osburn, despite his powerful father.
“Not yet,” Denis replied, panting as he trotted beside Alexander across the slippery pebbles.
Thank God. The relief took the ferocity from the worst of his rage, until the other import of Denis’s response hit him. “What do you mean, not yet?”
“Osburn has imprisoned her in the northeast tower, in a dungeon there. A dank, cold place, Kiera says.”
“I will kill him,” Alexander muttered. What Osburn had done sounded like a slow death.
Denis grabbed his arm. “Stop a moment, Alexander!”
Alexander whirled on him. “Why?”
“Because you do not know what happened, and until you do, it would not be wise to go off in such a temper.”
Alexander put his fists on his hips. “What happened?”
“She killed Heinrich.”
Dumbfounded, Alexander’s hands fell limply to his side as he stared at Denis. “What?”
“She hit him on the head with a stone when he was—”
Alexander’s ire returned tenfold. “Trying to rape her?” He pivoted on his heel to continue on his way. “By God, it’s good she did!”
Denis ran in front of him and put his hands on Alexander’s chest to make him stop again. He stared hard into his friend’s furious face. “He was fighting me, Alexander. He had done no harm to her.”
Alexander stared.
“Oui, I know—a woman defending me. It is nearly enough to make a man ashamed, and I could have taken him eventually if she had not interfered. But she did.”
God save him, she had done more than interfere. To think any woman would take it upon herself to attack a Brabancon. “What exactly happened, Denis?” Alexander asked, a little calmer now.
“He accosted her, so I challenged him. We were fighting and he wounded me.”
“Wounded?”
Denis nodded and pointed to his arm. “Not too bad, and Kiera did a good job of bandaging it.”
He didn’t want to hear about Kiera. “Go on.”
“Then Lady Allis came up behind Heinrich and hit him with a rock. Whether she meant to kill him or not, she did. Osburn had her thrown in that dungeon, without food and only enough water to keep her alive. That was three days ago. She has been there ever since, untouched but surely suffering.”
As furious as this news made him, there were more reactions than Osburn’s to be considered. “And Heinrich’s men?”
That query brought the ghost of a smile to Denis’s face. “It seems there is not much love or loyalty among the Brabancons. They only cared about who would take his place as their leader.”
Rain began to fall, huge drops that splattered on the pebbles at their feet. Without another word, Alexander started again for the fortress.
“What of Sir Connor?” Denis asked breathlessly as he hurried along behind him. “Will he pay?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do when he saw who had brought him the ransom demand?”
“Very little.”
“It does not sound as satisfying as you had hoped,” Denis murmured as they came near the postern gate where two Brabancons stood on guard.
Alexander didn’t answer.
The two guards at the postern gate moved out to meet him. Both were as rough-looking as any other Brabancon. One of them had only one eye, with a terrible scar where the other ought to have been. The other, younger and leaner, looked as if he hadn’t washed since childhood.
Alexander halted in front of them. “Let us pass.”
“So you’re back, eh?” the one-eyed man said with the accent of a Scot. His gaze flicked to Denis.
“Let … us … pass,” Alexander repeated very slowly and deliberately.
The younger one came to stand beside his companion. He watched Alexander warily, but the one-eyed man stood his ground. “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t.”
Quick as a fox, Alexander knocked the younger one to the ground. In the next moment, he had the other up against the wall, his forearm across his neck.
Alexander glanced over his shoulder and was pleased to see Denis holding the younger one down with a knee on his chest, his dagger at the man’s throat.
Alexander returned his attention to the man in front of him. “You should have let us pass,” he growled, pressing his arm against the man’s wide neck.
When he let him go, the man scowled and rubbed his throat.
Denis straightened. “You men will have to learn that it is best not to enrage my friend,” he said with a satisfied grin as he sheathed his dagger. “He has a very savage temper.”
Then he realized Alexander had gone ahead without him.
By the time Denis caught up to him, Alexander was already halfway to the northeast tower. Another guard was at the entrance. A ring with two heavy iron keys hung from his belt.
Expecting trouble, Alexander drew his sword.
The guard’s expression betrayed only mild curiosity.
“Open it,” Alexander ordered, his grip tightening on the hilt of his weapon as his blood sang with the urge to strike this man—any man—who was responsible for Lady Allis’s imprisonment in that dungeon.
“On whose orders?”
“Mine.”
The man looked from Alexander’s face to his hand on the hilt of his sword and quickly opened the door. He took a torch out of a rusting sconce. He kindled it, then led the way down into the dank, fetid darkness. Water dripped down the walls as they made their way down the slick stairs.
Osburn had put Lady Allis in this hellhole? Alexander’s anger surged and burned hotter than any rage he had ever felt in his life. If Osburn had suddenly appeared before him on the stairs, he would have squeezed the life out of him with his bare hands.
They reached the lowest level, where they all had to slouch or risk hitting their heads on the ceiling, even Denis. There was one door, of surprisingly stout oak.
After the guard unlocked it, Alexander snatched the torch and kicked the door open. He entered—and found a dirty, disheveled lady with a stool raised in her trembling hand, ready to bring it down on his head.
Leaning back against the wall as if her legs had lost the strength to support her, her eyes widened, and she slowly lowered the stool.
She was pale, her full lips cracked from thirst, and he hoped the gleaming of her eyes was only from her usual spirit, and not the sign of disease.
Dismay overwhelmed his rage. Before he did another thing, he must remove her from this place and see that she was tended to. He reached out to take the stool from her. “Denis!”
His hand over his mouth and
nose in a futile attempt to block the stench, his friend stuck his head in the chamber. “Oui?”
“Take this torch.” Alexander shoved it at him, almost setting the Frenchman alight in the process.
Her eyes closed. Rushing forward, he caught her in his arms and lifted her up before she fell to the ground.
She had fainted. For the first time during all this, she had swooned.
Paying no attention to anyone else, he carried her out the door and up the steps. She was light in his arms, and as he went out into the courtyard, he studied her dirty face. She looked as if she slumbered peacefully, safe and secure in his embrace.
Oh, God, what he would not give to have it so! For a week. A day. An hour.
But she must hate him because of what he had done. And she was married to another, the destroyer of his future.
The old anger and injured pride did not rise up as he thought of Sir Connor. Now he felt only shame and remorse. If injustice had been done, he had chosen the wrong means to reparation, and this valiant woman had suffered for that mistake.
As he held her in his arms, it was not the title or the castle or even a father’s love that he envied Sir Connor.
It was his wife.
He kicked open the door to the hall and saw Osburn sprawled in his chair before the hearth. Then ire returned, bright and hot and strong as he strode into the building. The serving wenches and Brabancons stared and whispered, yet none made any move to intervene or stop him.
Osburn lurched to his feet, paying no heed to the wineskin that fell off his lap, or the wine spilling out and staining the rushes red as blood. “You’re … you’ve … what did Connor say?”
“He’ll pay.”
Osburn tried to focus on Alexander’s burden.
“What are you doing? I gave orders that she was to stay—”
“To hell with your orders, Osburn.”
Kiera came around the screen and gasped.
“Bring food and wine and hot water to her chamber,” Alexander commanded, ignoring Osburn.
Kiera glanced at her drunken lover, then hurried to the kitchen to obey. Osburn fell back in his chair and, with a hint of wisdom, said no more as Alexander continued to the tower.
He took the steps two at a time, and when he reached her chamber door, he shoved it open with his shoulder.
He was surprised that this room was furnished in a manner suitable for a noble lady, as it was supposed to be. In this, at least, Lord Oswald had kept his word.
Alexander was at the bed in three strides, and he gently laid her upon it. He spotted a basin on the table. Relieved to find clean water in it, he looked for a cloth, but saw none. He went to the chest and threw it open.
Nothing suitable to bathe her face.
He removed his cloak, then took out his dagger and used it to rip off a part of it. He threw the rest of the damp garment over the chest, then fetched the basin. Sitting beside her on the bed, he put one leg around the basin, so that it rested in the crook of his knee.
With swift, deft movements that came from much practice, he wet the cloth, wrung it out and began to wipe her face.
He began with her dry, cracked lips. Her lovely lips, that he had kissed. That Sir Connor had kissed often and while making love to her because as her husband, he had that right.
She had given him her kiss, the night before he’d left to take the ransom demand, yet only because of the same desperate, determined urge that drove her to try to escape over and over again.
What urge had driven her to attack Heinrich? Fear for Denis’s safety?
He felt a terrible twinge of jealousy. Denis was merry and charming, and women always liked him. He was not merry, he had no charm, and while women found him attractive, he could not think of a one who would fight for him.
Not even his mother. She had not gone to his father and demanded that he provide for them. She had not railed against the man who had deserted them. Instead, she had waited for him to return and dreamt her hopeless dreams.
Forcing away the memories of his mother, he once again dipped the cloth in the water and cleaned Lady Allis’s forehead, brushing her disheveled hair from her brow. He wiped her eyelids and shapely brows that helped illustrate all the emotions that flashed across her face.
He was as tempted to kiss her forehead as he was her lips.
He wiped her cheeks. Her skin was wonderful, pliant and soft. She had the most lovely complexion, and her skin looked as soft as rose petals. Unable to resist, he put the cloth in the basin and let his finger glide down the curve of her cheek with a long, slow stroke.
Her flesh was as soft as rose petals. He brushed his finger across her lips and nearly groaned aloud with the desire to kiss her.
He grabbed the cloth and briskly wrung it out, then began to wash her hands. Because she was a lady, they should be as soft as the skin of her face, the nails smooth and perfect. But her nails were short and broken and filthy, and the skin of her palms rough, as if she had scratched at the door, or tried to dig her way out.
Would she never surrender?
Overcome with admiration, he let the cloth fall into the basin, then raised her right hand and gently pressed his lips upon her palm. Guiding it gently, he let her hand rest a moment against his stubbled cheek.
Marveling at the way even that simple contact made him feel, he pressed another kiss to her cool palm. Closing his eyes, he trailed his mouth up her fingers to their tips, imagining that it was she dragging her hands over his lips, willingly allowing him this intimacy. He kissed the pad of each of her fingers, one by one.
He looked at her slender hand in his—where it did not belong, and never could.
Cursing himself for a besotted fool, he lowered her hand to rest upon her gently rising and falling chest. He must not forget who she was, and what they were—or were not—to one another. Had he not seen all too clearly the folly of a hopeless passion? Had his mother not shown him how that could dominate and destroy a life?
He picked up the cloth once more, twisted it deftly and prepared to wash her neck.
When he turned to his task, he found a pair of soft blue eyes open, and watching him intently.
Chapter 11
“When did you return?” she asked, her voice a dry rasp, but a spark of vitality in her bright eyes. Even after all she had been through, it would clearly take more than three days in a dungeon to dim her spirit.
“Today,” Alexander replied quietly. “Don’t talk. Food and water will be here shortly.”
She tried to sit up, shoving her heels against the featherbed for purchase and leaning back on her elbows. “The ransom—?”
“Your husband has agreed to pay. Now you should rest.”
Relief flooding her face, she smiled and sank back. “My … husband.”
Alexander beat back the stab of envy and despair at her tone. He did not need to hear her love for Sir Connor in her voice, especially when he had grave doubts the man deserved it.
“How long was I in that place?”
“Too long. Three days.” Lifting the basin that had been in the crook of his knee, he rose and set it on the table. Facing her, he said, “I shall make certain Osburn does not do such a thing again.”
She didn’t reply, yet her wordless scrutiny was so unnerving that he would rather she berated him.
Then her expression softened in a way that went straight to the lonely core of his heart. “You brought me out of that terrible place. You washed my face, and my hands.”
God’s wounds, how long had she been awake? Perhaps only at the end, for surely she would have made her awareness known had she been awake when he’d kissed her fingertips. “They were filthy.”
“You could have waited for Kiera.”
“I sent her for food and wine.”
Another silence stretched between them. He had no more to say; neither, apparently, did she, yet he did not move from his place as the tension grew. He could feel sweat on his back, and he wiped his hand across his fore
head, in case beads of perspiration had formed there, too.
Then he wished he hadn’t as he wondered if he had betrayed too much with his gesture. Things were as they were and could not be changed. Remorse and regret would avail him nothing.
It might make her like you better, his heart prompted.
He didn’t need her affection. Or her desire. He needed the money from the ransom.
And what will you do with it when you have it? his heart demanded. Spend it on drink trying to forget her and what you have done until you are as disgusting a drunkard as Osburn? Buy yourself women to warm your bed and try to imagine they are this one?
Somebody rapped on the door, startling him. He threw it open to find Denis and Kiera on the threshold, each bearing trays. The odor of fresh bread emanated from beneath the linen cloth on Kiera’s. Denis had the wine, and he had brought two goblets.
Kiera looked pale and ill, as if she had been the one imprisoned. Denis was simply, avidly curious.
Alexander held the door wider and motioned for them to enter. Kiera hurried toward the bed. Denis walked slower, and he slid Alexander a speculative glance that he did not appreciate. He was having enough difficulty with his turbulent emotions; he didn’t need Denis wondering about them, too.
“Oh, my lady, I’m sorry!” Kiera murmured, her knuckles white as she gripped the tray.
As Alexander watched the lady sit up, he thought she was more interested in the bread than the condolences, and he couldn’t blame her. He went around the bed to put one of the pillows behind her back. He tried not to notice her swift, grateful look.
Meanwhile, Denis poured wine into a goblet and offered it to her.
“Slowly, and not too much,” Alexander cautioned.
“But I’m thirsty,” she protested as she reached for it.
“You’ll just throw it all back up if you take too much at first. Trust me, I know. Not too much bread, either. A little now, and a little more after a while. Slowly and steadily, to build up your strength.”
She nodded, and he was relieved to think that for once, she was going to do as he suggested.
Margaret Moore - [Maiden & Her Knight 03] Page 13