“How many shall accompany us?” Erik asked, his blond brows drawn together ominously.
“No us, Erik—only Lucy and Murrin and I.”
“Lord Griffin, perhaps that is unwise,” Erik suggested, with obviously forced patience. As one of Julian’s closest friends, it was oft difficult for him to retain professional deference before the other soldiers. “Who’s to say that the viperous traitor won’t cut you down once you cross her threshold? And then what will become of Lady Lucy?”
“I don’t think we have to worry about that,” Julian said, helping Murrin down from the carriage, the swaddled bundle that was his daughter held lovingly and securely in her arms.
“Blimy, milord,” Murrin gasped, staring up wide-eyed at the castle. From within the embroidered coverlet, Lucy began to fuss, and Murrin bounced on the balls of her feet out of habit. “Shh, kitten. Shh.”
Julian turned to his men. “Send the first runner with a message stating that I’ve begun negotiations. If you do not have word from me within one hour, send a second, fire the gate, and storm the castle.”
“Julian—” Erik began.
But Julian turned away from his friend and general, staring once more at the lofty battlements. The figure was gone. But now, all along the crenellations of Fallstowe, balls of light burst into existence as, one by one, torches were lit. In less than a minute, Fallstowe wore a fiery crown, and the hundreds of shadow figures that were her soldiers stood looking down on the king’s men.
It was a dangerous situation, yes. And in that briefest moment, Julian considered ordering Murrin to stay behind in the carriage with Lucy. But once inside, Julian had no intention of leaving Fallstowe until he’d brought the lady to heel, and he would not be separated from his daughter in the interim.
From what Julian had learned about the Foxe women, the heeling could take some time. Perhaps decades.
“Come along, Murrin,” Julian said mildly, and began walking around the fore of the company toward Fallstowe’s drawbridge.
“Directly behind you, milord,” the nursemaid chirped.
The three stood on the road near the edge of the moat when the giant slab of wood began to lower with shuddering creaks. Once it had touched earth, Julian saw the flurry of activity within the bailey as the portcullis was raised. Scores of soldiers were falling into rank in two lines to either side of the barbican, forming an aisle of blade and armor through the bailey, up the steps of the keep, and through the open double doors. Red light from the torches bubbled together with shadows.
“Fancy,” Murrin whispered.
“Quite dramatic,” Julian agreed and then stepped onto the drawbridge.
They walked the predetermined path silently and swiftly, but still did not gain the steps of the keep for several moments. During his march, Julian was silently counting the well-armed soldiers keeping watch over them, and mentally calculating the total with the number of men he had seen atop the castle itself.
Julian came to the conclusion that Fallstowe had been more than ready for his arrival, and that troubled him. If it came down to a battle, it would not be a short one, and he’d seen enough bloodshed already in the Holy Land to last him three lifetimes.
Only one more battle, though, he told himself as he stepped into the heart of the Foxe family’s lair. The doors shut firmly behind him, and Julian steeled himself not to turn around, even as he heard the thick beams set in place.
A thin, gray wraith stood at the top of a set of stone stairs, his posture stiff and formal, his hands clasped behind his back as if in anticipation of Julian’s arrival. Julian noticed the old man’s brief and discreet glance at Murrin and Lucy.
“Might I have the privilege of announcing His Lordship’s arrival to Madam?” the old man queried.
Julian felt a faint smile come to his mouth again. “You must be Graves. Your reputation precedes you, even in lands abroad,” Julian offered with a tilt of his head. “Lord Julian Griffin for His Sovereign Majesty, King Edward, to see Lady Sybilla upon her most recent invitation. Also, my daughter, Lady Lucy Griffin.”
Graves bowed, and Julian could detect neither approval nor scorn in the man’s expressionless face. Fallstowe’s steward was nearly a legend for his poor treatment of his betters.
“Won’t you follow me, my lord?” Graves turned on his heel and made his way down the dark stairwell.
The corridor emptied into a hall so large, Julian reckoned it was as grand as any in the king’s own home. The ceiling was high, dark, domed, supported by carved buttresses which wore skirts of balconies and catwalk pleats. Huge black-iron circles hung on thick chains, bearing hundreds of dormant candles. Stacks of planked tables and benches were piled to either side of the polished stone floor, murky gray with shadows.
The only lights were a series of standing candelabras around the perimeter of the hall, and one lit iron chandelier suspended directly above the lord’s dais, where a table and a single high-backed chair rested, their occupant present and awaiting him patiently. She seemed very small from so far away, and it was quite ironic, considering the immense trouble she had caused the king.
Julian felt his heartbeat speed up in a way that no thoughts of impending battle could inspire. In only moments, he would at last be face-to-face with Sybilla Foxe, the woman whose family he knew more intimately than his own. The woman whom many thought to be only a myth.
Ahead of him, Graves called out in a surprisingly robust yet still completely refined voice, “Madam, may I present Lord Julian Griffin and Lady Lucy Griffin?”
As Julian at last began to draw closer to the dais, his heartbeat did not further increase—in fact, it slowed until Julian wondered if time itself would stop. He had heard tales of Sybilla Foxe’s unearthly beauty, her witchlike powers over the opposite sex, her frigid demeanor, but it was only when Julian was close enough to make out her features clearly, breathe the air around her, that he thought he might at last understand.
She lounged in one corner of her chair—which resembled more of a throne to Julian—her legs stretched out to one side beneath the table and her ankles crossed. One elbow rested on the arm of the chair, her forefinger along her temple. A pitcher and a solitary chalice sat on the table before her.
She wore a scarlet velvet gown which shimmered in the candlelight, the arms and bodice fitting, her chest partially bared by the deep U cut of the fabric. Her skin was alabaster, so white and smooth that it didn’t seem to be made of flesh. Her hair, in contrast, was as dark as the underside of a grave, as were her eyelashes, which framed eyes of the most blazing aquamarine. Her lips, full and motionless, rivaled the brightest summer apple—so red, Julian almost expected them to begin dripping at any moment.
She was a sculpture, a study in color and nature—snow, coal, jewels, blood. Julian Griffin’s heart stuttered to a start once more with his next breath, as if it had been startled back to life.
He shook himself inwardly. She was just a woman.
Julian reached the dais and stopped, bowing low. “Lady Foxe, it is a pleasure.”
“Lord Griffin,” Sybilla Foxe said, almost pensively, her posture not twitching. “Did you bring an infant to a siege?”
Chapter 3
Her dagger was neatly at her side, attached to her waist on a fine, gold chatelaine. In a blink, Sybilla knew that she could retrieve the dagger and fling it at the man standing before her table, who was foolish enough to enter her home with the intention of stealing it away from her. She would send the blade into his eye, and Julian Griffin would drop to the stones like a pheasant from the sky. Then she would have his body thrown from the top of Fallstowe into the midst of the king’s soldiers as a symbolic beginning to what would surely be the most terrible siege in the history of England.
But he had brought an infant. To a siege.
Julian Griffin acknowledged her question with a self-deprecating tilt of his tawny head. “My daughter, Lucy. She goes everywhere with me. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I do mi
nd, actually,” Sybilla said. “Fallstowe is no place for children. Especially on a night such as this.”
“Then I can do no more than apologize for my presumptuousness,” Julian offered mildly.
Sybilla thought he seemed very at ease, and that increased her resentment of him. “What is it you want, Lord Griffin?”
“I believe you know.”
Sybilla sighed grimly as she settled fully against the back of her chair, interlacing her fingers over her waist. “Fallstowe, obviously. I won’t let you have it so easily, though. It’s mine. My family’s and mine, and I am more than prepared to fight for it.”
“Lady Foxe, you must realize that you’ve brought this condemnation down on your own head,” Julian began in a reasoning tone. “Edward has sent no fewer than six summonses—”
“There were eight, actually,” Sybilla corrected him.
“Eight summonses to Parliament, as well as countless invitations to his private court. The goings-on at Fallstowe since Morys Foxe’s death must be investigated.”
“Why?” Sybilla challenged him. “My mother held Fallstowe legally under Edward’s own father. Is that not enough for our king?”
“I think we might agree that Henry’s methods of rule were . . . less than thorough,” Julian offered.
Sybilla shrugged one shoulder. “My father was loyal to Henry III throughout the most tumultuous period of his rule. He stood with him against the barons. He was killed fighting alongside Edward himself. Regardless of Henry’s head, or lack thereof, for administration, that sort of loyalty needs to be rewarded.”
“Agreed,” Julian said. “And mayhap it would have only taken you explaining your case to the king personally when he summoned you, for you to have avoided this lengthy rebellion.”
Sybilla chuckled. “At the risk of sounding rebellious, you, sir, are full of shit. Edward made clear that he was prepared to charge my mother with treason, and now that charge has been transferred to me by default.”
“If your mother was who I suspect she was, then Fallstowe does not belong to you,” Julian Griffin rebutted quickly, calmly. His words caused Sybilla’s heart to creak in her chest. “The charges against Amicia Foxe will stand posthumously, and the demesne will be seized by the Crown. It’s as if a purse thief stole a bag, but before dying, gave the coin away to a little beggar child. Although perhaps the beggar child is innocent, the coin still does not belong to her.”
Sybilla felt her cheeks heat as she stared at the man. “I’m not stupid, Lord Griffin, nor am I amused by your infantile metaphors. If it was your intent and mission to take Fallstowe by force, why not attack upon your arrival? Why must I be forced into banal conversation with a man who thinks more of his intellect than is likely deserved?”
Julian’s eyebrows flicked upward, and a little knowing grin quirked his full lips. “Come too close, have I? You have raised the king’s ire, and he has requested that you be brought to him to stand trial for your repeated insub-ordinations. But Edward wants the truth, Lady Sybilla. He wants the truth and he has sent me to ascertain it.”
“You are to ascertain the truth?” Sybilla said around a perplexed grin. “And just how, might I ask, are you to do such a thing?”
“I am to interview you, before our return to London.”
“Interview me?” Now Sybilla leaned forward in her chair, unable to contain her outrage. “You expect me to converse amicably with you while your men wait beyond my gates, ready to strike my people down?”
Perhaps it was Sybilla’s raised voice that caused it, but the swaddled babe chose that moment to send up an echoing and mournful wail. Sybilla’s eyes went to the woman who held her, hoping that her scorn was clear.
“Beggin’ your pardon, Lord Julian,” the nurse said in a lowered voice. “Lady Lucy likely wants a change and a feed.”
The man with the lion’s mane looked to Sybilla. “Is there someplace Murrin might retire to?”
Sybilla was not prepared to show the man an ounce of courtesy. “There are a multitude of benches at her disposal in this very hall, Lord Griffin. I would not have one loyal to you loose in my household.” Julian Griffin’s tawny brows lowered, and so Sybilla thought to push him a bit more. A battle she could handle, but she did not want to talk to the man. Not now, and especially not at length, and most definitely not about her family.
“As a matter of fact—Graves?” she said over her shoulder.
“Yes, Madam?”
“Would you be so kind as to accompany Lord Griffin’s servant? I’d not have her marking the corners with her scent.”
Sybilla heard the sarcasm thick in Graves’s answer. “How could I refuse such an honor?” When she looked once more to Julian Griffin, she was pleased to see that his face was dark with indignation.
“You needn’t consent to the interview,” Julian said with obvious forced patience.
“I needn’t consent to anything,” Sybilla parried, leaning back in her chair.
“As I said, Edward wants the truth. But he is willing to settle for Fallstowe, and your corpse, as an answer to his summons. So the choice is truly up to you, my lady. You may answer for yourself and take your sentence, or you can die, many of Fallstowe’s good and loyal people with you.”
“I could kill you where you stand, you pretentious, court-softened dandy,” Sybilla whispered. “I just might, yet.”
“I would have your lovely neck snapped before you could so much as lay finger to that pretty little dagger at your waist,” Julian returned in an equally low murmur.
Sybilla felt her eyebrows raise, her heart pound, but she could not decide if it was in fear or anticipation.
“Care to try me?” she challenged him.
“I can think of nothing else that would bring me more pleasure at this moment.” Julian inclined his head slightly, as if in deference. “Upon your first move, lady.”
Sybilla’s heart still pounded like thunder in her chest, and she remained absolutely still. Her eyes bored into Julian Griffin’s, and his into hers. She felt oddly alive just then, and wondered what Julian Griffin’s hands would feel like around her neck.
“Don’t do this, Sybilla,” he cautioned her, but his square jaw remained set. “Don’t force my hand. The last thing I want is to kill you. Give me a chance. Give yourself a chance.”
“You’re being watched right now, you know,” Sybilla said, and glanced up at the darkened balconies. “You have no chance.”
Julian nodded once. “I saw the archers. But I promise I will reach you first. Even should they kill me after, Fallstowe will quickly fall without its head. Its heart. Many innocent lives lost. You can’t want that.”
“You are not faster than an arrow,” Sybilla challenged him, surprised at her reaction to Julian’s reference to her as Fallstowe’s heart. Surely it was the other way around.
“Perhaps not,” he acquiesced.
Sybilla let her lips curl in a smirk. But in the next instant, her breath caught in her throat as the figure of Julian Griffin became little more than a blur of fine tunic. In less time than it took Sybilla to blink, he had sprung over her table, wrenched Sybilla from her chair, and spun her around before him, even as the chunk-chunk-chunk of arrows peppered her table like hail. Sybilla heard the frightened cry of the nursemaid in the shadows.
In her ear he whispered, “But then again, perhaps I am.”
Sybilla gasped shallowly through her open mouth. She closed her lips and swallowed deliberately. “Well played, Lord Griffin,” she said. She inched her hand down toward her waist as she continued to speak. “Perhaps the pair of us are more equally matched than we suspect.”
He whispered into her ear again, just as her fingers touched the cold, empty sheath where her dagger had been only a moment ago.
“Or perhaps not so equally matched,” he suggested, and her skin broke out in gooseflesh at his hot breath along her neck. She heard a clatter, and her glance caught the flash of candlelight on blade as Julian Griffin tossed her dagger onto the
tabletop.
For an instant, Sybilla thought she felt the brush of his lips behind her ear and it made her eyelashes flutter closed.
“What shall we do now?” she queried lightly, all the while trying to ignore the tightening sensation in her midsection. “We seem to be at an impasse.”
“I will release you, if you give me your word that you will entertain the interview I requested to its end. Then I will take you—and the evidence—to Edward. If I determine it worthy, I will do all I can to help you.”
“If I refuse?”
“Fallstowe will be no more. As it is, should my general not hear from my own lips in less than an hour, he has been ordered to initiate the siege.”
“You cannot think me to converse civilly with you in my home while hundreds of bloodthirsty soldiers wait beyond my door.”
“Then I shall send them away.”
Sybilla laughed despite herself. “You shall send them away?”
“This very night,” Julian agreed, his tone solemn, quiet, his lips still near her ear. “Not even within sight of Fallstowe.”
Sybilla hesitated.
“I swear it to you,” Julian whispered. “Trust me, Sybilla. I have your life in my hands already. Trust me to preserve it.”
She felt an odd catch in her throat at his words, and had to swallow quickly before giving voice to her doubt. “I trust no one but myself.”
“Because you’ve never had me.”
Sybilla’s lips curved even as her eyes ached with unshed tears. She would not weep before him. “You think quite a lot of yourself, don’t you?”
“I believe the arrows on yon table speak for me.” His arm tightened around her waist almost imperceptibly. “Trust me. What have you to lose?”
She noticed that her left hand was lying atop Julian Griffin’s forearm. Through the thick, quilted silk, she could feel his strength. Her fingers curled around his arm of their own accord, as if she would cling to him.
“Send them away,” she said, her eyes staring into the black shadows down the length of her hall, swelling with tears until the little lights from the candles were tiny shimmering suns.
Never Love a Lord Page 2