Once Upon a Kiss

by Tanya Anne Crosby

  Blaec smiled, though the smile did not reach his eyes with his heart so heavy. “Not if you continue in the manner in which you carried on last night,” he agreed. He lifted a brow, casting a meaningful glance toward Alyss.

  Alyss sprang forward as though waiting for her chance to speak. “He is evil, m’lord!”

  Both Blaec and Graeham turned to face her. She met Blaec’s eyes, her own beseeching.

  She wrung her hands. “’Tis for that very reason you should go after her, m’lord.” Her eyes pleaded with him. “I swear to you that the lady Dominique is innocent of her brother’s villainy. She will die at his hands.”

  Graeham motioned her forward, offering his hand. She came forward, yielding her own readily, and he told her gently, “No one has doubted the lady Dominique’s honor. Your devotion to her is commendable, Alyss, but I cannot agree with your judgment—not this time. I must believe that William’s threat is a trap for Blaec, and no more. I cannot see as he would harm his own sister.”

  “But you do not understand, m’lord.” Alyss shook her head vehemently. “You see, I’ve proof...”

  “What proof?” Blaec interjected, straightening within the chair.

  Alyss lapped anxiously at her Lips. “He swore he would kill me if ever I revealed this, but I must...” She glanced at Graeham, and then her gaze returned to Blaec, and she inhaled deeply, as though quelling her fear.

  “Alyss,” Blaec prompted, “I have already assured you my protection... If you know something that would aid us, you must speak it at once.”

  She nodded jerkily. “Aye, m’lord, and I shall.” She inhaled once more, deeply, closing her eyes, as she revealed, “Your sire did not murder Henry Beauchamp.”

  Blaec’s brows collided. “What say you?”

  She shook her hand free of Graeham’s and her face paled visibly. “Tis God’s truth, I tell you,” she whispered. “I do not lie.”

  Blaec’s head reeled with the disclosure. He cast a glance at Graeham, and found that Graeham’s face mirrored his own stunned bewilderment. His narrowed eyes returned to Alyss. She stood before him, looking as though she would swoon, yet she did not withdraw her claim.

  “Even were it so, Alyss,” he allowed, “how could you have knowledge of such a thing? You scarcely seem old enough—”

  “I am two and twenty, m’lord—older than I appear—and I know because I witnessed the murder with my own eyes.”

  “How can that be so?” Graeham broke in incredulously. “How can you have? Henry Beauchamp and my father battled near nine years past...”

  “We were there, lass,” Blaec advised her. “We ourselves saw what transpired that day between our sire and Beauchamp’s—and nay, it was not murder, for the bastard rose up against my father mere moments after they had called a truce between them. He meant to spear my father through the back. The truth is that my father merely defended himself—and that, only after I warned him with my own lips of Beauchamp’s trickery.”

  Alyss’ eyes began to shimmer. “Aye, m’lord... but there is more to that tale.”

  Blaec’s brow lifted. “Then, by all means, tell it,” he commanded her, casting another glance at Graeham. He found his brother’s expression as incredulous as his own.

  Alyss nodded, glancing down at her feet. “Aye, well... Henry returned to Amdel, wounded... though in little danger of perishing from his injuries. I know...” She again met his gaze. “I know because it was I who was summoned to tend him. My lord Henry was well aware of the fact that I had learned the healing arts from my mother.”

  She paused an instant, swallowing, and then continued. “I was thirteen in that year, m’lord, and newly come to Amdel. Lord Beauchamp had requested I come, saying that his son, William, had taken a liking to me upon a recent visit to Kester, and that he wished I should come and be a companion to his daughter... and also that... when the time arrived, I should wed with William. And as it was my father’s wish that I go... I did... but none of it ever came to fruition.”

  “The bastard!” Graeham spat.

  Blaec said nothing, merely listened with a sick feeling in his belly.

  “I was so pleased when Lady Dominique received the news to be wed,” Alyss continued, “and I followed gladly. I could not wait to be away from William... or to see the lady Dominique safely away. ’Tis my belief that he covets her for himself.”

  Blaec swallowed his bile. “You cannot mean...”

  “Aye, m’lord, I do. You should have seen the way he gazed at her when he thought no one could see him. And more than once... he called her name whilst we...” She shook her head, shuddering, closing her eyes, unable to speak the obscenity.

  She did not have to.

  Blaec understood what she meant without her saying it. His gut wrenched, and he clenched his jaw. Dear God, she was there with him now. He shuddered, and thought, irrationally, that he wished God had given him wings to fly, for he wanted madly to be there with her now, as well. Never had he felt more helpless in his life. “God damn the bastard!” he said, feeling sickened.

  “Why did you not send word to your father, Alyss?” Graeham asked, bemused.

  She lifted her chin proudly, straightening her spine, her dark eyes shimmering. “My father died that year, m’lord. There was never an opportunity. Though I know he would have come for me... and my mother...” She lowered her head. “Well, I wished not to distress her any more than my father’s death already had. And then she, too, passed the following winter.”

  “Was there no one else?” Graeham persisted.

  She shook her head sadly. “Only my brother, but he is loyal to Beauchamp.”

  Blaec inhaled sharply. “And the murder you spoke of...”

  Alyss swallowed visibly. “I was there in the bedchamber, m’lord, tending William’s father, when William came in... I could spy it in his eyes...”

  “What in his eyes?” Blaec asked.

  Alyss nodded jerkily. “His intent. Whilst his father slept, I watched him walk to his bedside, bestow upon his cheek the kiss of peace... and then proceed to asphyxiate him with a pillow... quite calmly and coldly... and then he lifted out his sword from his scabbard, and with it reopened the very wound his father had received by your sire’s hands. Before my eyes he did murder his own father—that I swear to you, as God is my witness.”

  Blaec surged upward from the chair, to his feet, cursing profusely. ‘That whoreson allowed everyone to believe our father had dealt the killing blow.”

  Alyss flinched, moving warily away from him in his anger. “So you see, m’lord... that... that is how I know he would and will kill Dominique. It matters not what he feels for her. If he says he will do so, then he will do so.”

  Dread raced down Blaec’s spine, prickling his arms, his legs.

  What if it was already too late? His stomach twisted.

  “If you care anything for her at all, m’lord... you will go after her and bring her back safely.”

  Graeham’s face revealed his shock. “If what you say is true...”

  “Bastard!” Blaec exploded once more. “I am going after her,” he said, resolved at last.

  “Aye,” Graeham agreed. “We must.”

  “Nay!” Blaec denied him at once. “You stay, I will go. We cannot both place ourselves at risk in this, and you are wounded, besides.”

  Graeham nodded, relenting, though reluctantly. “Perhaps you are right... though I would bid you send word and assemble our banner men to accompany you to Amdel. You’ve no way of knowing how many Beauchamp has already amassed. As you know, I took with me nineteen to London, and thought myself well defended, yet he had at least that many, and perhaps more.”

  ‘There is no time,” Blaec said, refusing. “I shall take as many as Drakewich can spare, and no more.”

  “Blaec,” Graeham cautioned, “that can be no more than the nine I returned with me from London... perhaps ten, if Langford has not returned to his wife...”

  “He is gone,” Blaec said. “No matter.
.. nine will have to serve.”

  A fateful silence filled the room.

  “Go, then... if you must,” Graeham relented. “I—” His voice broke. “I shall wish you Godspeed and a safe return, my brother.”

  “My brother,” Blaec returned, coming forward, to Graeham’s bedside, extending his arm. “God granted us the same womb,” he said, “and I am grateful for it, for I am proud to share your blood.”

  “I only wished our father could have seen the truth... that we indeed share the same blood.” They locked arms, and the two embraced in that fashion for an awkward moment. And then, unable to keep himself from it, Blaec knelt and embraced Graeham as they had done when they were children, a full-bodied clasp that bespoke their fierce allegiance.

  “Do me a favor,” Graeham said gruffly, throwing his own words back at him, “try not to die.”

  Blaec ceded a chuckle. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he swore.

  Chapter 31

  Within the hour, Blaec rode out from Drakewich with a contingent of nine—Nial at his flank, bearing his banner high against the noonday sun, its golden threads glittering fiercely.

  Yet no fiercer than Blaec’s mood.

  Though the distance from Drakewich was a mere three and a half hour’s journey, it seemed to continue without end. His thoughts driving him like demon hounds, he pushed his men harder, faster, without mercy.

  There would be no mercy for Dominique if he did not arrive in time.

  He tried not to think about her—reflected instead on the ways he would torture Beauchamp. Never had he taken so much pleasure in the prospect of one man’s death, but he fully intended to make Beauchamp pay for all his treachery.

  Before the sun set this day, he swore, one of them would writhe in the flames of hell.

  “Lady Dominique... please... unlatch the door...”

  Hearing Rufford’s voice instead of William’s, Dominique went to the door, speaking through the crack. “Why?” she asked warily. “What is it you wish of me, Rufford?”

  She’d locked herself within last eve, and had sworn to die of hunger rather than come out and face her brother again. And at the moment, she felt as though it were a possibility, for her belly had been grumbling for the last hour. Still, she refused.

  “Lady Dominique...” He sounded as dispirited as Dominique felt, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t care. If he would serve her brother in his heinous dictums, she cared not a whit what punishment would come to him.

  “I’ll not open the door,” she said with certainty. “If you would come within... ’twill be by force, for I’ll not go willingly.”

  “But you cannot stay in there forever, m’lady... You must needs eat sometime.”

  Dominique snorted. “Why?” she asked with no small amount of hysteria. “He plans to kill me anyway, Rufford. What does it matter whether I eat, or nay?”

  Silence met her proclamation. And then, “I do not believe he would truly do so, m’lady... He is but angry, I think.”

  Once again Dominique snorted. “Aye? Well, I didst not believe him capable of what he has done to me, and yet he has. How can you know what William intends? Nay—I’ll not come out. I would as lief—”

  There was a sudden commotion on the other side of the door, and Dominique backed away from it, fully expecting to see it fly from its frame. When it did not, she returned to it, placing her ear to it. “Rufford?” she called out.

  She could hear him speaking in low, frantic tones behind it—to whom, she could not tell, but he did not respond at once... and then he did. ‘‘M’lady,” he said firmly now, rapping sharply upon the door. “I must insist you unlock the door. My lord William... he would have you brought to the castle walls.”

  “Why?” she demanded to know.

  “Blaec d’Lucy...”

  Dominique’s heart tumbled violently at hearing his name. God—Blaec. He was here. Her hands trembling, she unlatched the door at once.

  “Not good enough, Beauchamp!” Blaec called upward. His destrier pranced restlessly beneath him, snorting impatiently. He’d ridden in mere moments before, and had summoned William at once, issuing him a challenge he knew the bastard could not refuse. He waited now, negotiating the terms, whilst they brought Dominique before him. “I want her here below!” he exacted, pointing to the ground before him. “I want her here where I might see for myself that she is unharmed—not there upon your God-accursed walls, Beauchamp!”

  A weighty silence drifted down from the walls.

  “Come now, Beauchamp,” Blaec taunted, removing his helm to peer up at William’s silhouette standing arms akimbo upon the parapet above. Arrogant bastard! “You cannot be afraid to face me?” he mocked him. “Or can it be that the mighty Beauchamp has only the heart for deceit?”

  “Afraid of you?” William snorted. “Hardly, d’Lucy! I merely wonder why I should give you any advantage at all. Look around you. I can do what I wish with a single command from my lips, lest you forget.”

  “Aye, but then you must take Drakewich by force. A formidable task at best,” he reminded him. “Murdering me outright will not get you within those gates, and ’twill gain you Stephen’s wrath, besides.”

  “Stephen is a milksop!” William shouted down to him, laughing uproariously at the prospect of earning the king’s ire.

  Blaec could not argue when he thought much the same of their vacillating king. Though he was no coward, by far, neither was Stephen a daunting force, and justice was never imminent. It was said openly, in truth, that Christ and his saints slept whilst Stephen sat England’s throne. “Nevertheless,” he persisted, “accept my challenge and you gain yourself witnesses. What have you to lose? Unless you are afraid of me, Beauchamp?”

  “Afraid of you?”

  “Bring her down,” Blaec insisted, “or I ride away now and you will lose your chance at earning Drakewich.”

  Again silence.

  “Think on it, William... If you best me in hand-to-hand combat, I will commit myself into your hands—myself in exchange for Dominique’s freedom. ’Tis a small price to pay.”

  Blaec could tell by his stance that he was wavering. “And you say Graeham is dead?” William relented at last.

  This time it was Blaec’s turn for silence, though he did not hesitate long. One lie, for the good of all.

  “Aye,” Blaec answered tersely, “my brother is dead,” he lied. If it would damn his soul to hell for eternity, then so be it. If William thought Blaec the last obstacle between himself and Drakewich, then it would serve him all the better. He doubted William would come down else wise, for he had nothing to gain, save to kill him—and that, he could do easily enough from where he stood. As he’d pointed out, he need only give the signal for his men to rain their arrows down upon him.

  Nay, this way, if Beauchamp thought Graeham dead, and he believed himself, in his vainglory, able to defeat Blaec, then he would have the added incentive of securing witnesses to their bargain in order to carry his case before Stephen. Though it would do little more than facilitate his taking of Drakewich, it would save him much grief in the end—or so he would think.

  Only Blaec didn’t intend to lose.

  If there would be trickery here this day, then it would be his own, and he felt no dishonor in using it, for he’d never claimed to be the saintly one; that was Graeham’s role. He only knew how to survive.

  “Come down, Beauchamp... and should you succeed in killing me, as well,” he challenged, “then Drakewich will be yours at long last. Isn’t that what you wish?”

  “It is my right to hold it,” William called down to him, his tone bitter. “My right! Do you hear me? ’Twas stolen from my father!”

  Blaec’s jaw clenched. “Aye,” he shouted back. “I hear you, Beauchamp! Come down now,” he challenged once more. “Come down, or you shall be evidenced as the coward you—”

  The words died on his tongue as the figure of a woman appeared above upon the parapet, her hair a burning mass of ringlets, glinting re
d against the waning sun. She was dragged before William, only to be jerked about to face Blaec below.

  Dominique.

  Blaec flinched in the saddle, for his gut wrenched at the sight of her. He could not see her face from whence he sat, but he saw her shoulders were drawn back proudly, and he wanted to do nothing more in that instant than wrap his fingers about Beauchamp’s neck and squeeze until he breathed his last.

  His own sister.

  The very thought sickened him.

  “You wished proof,” William called down to him. “Well, here she is, d’Lucy... Feast your eyes upon her now, because today you die—as does she, for her faithlessness, when I am through with you.”

  Fury surged through him. “Nay!” he bellowed. “I want her here before me,” he shouted, beginning to lose his patience. His knees clasped his mount with such ferocity that it protested, rearing, and nearly unseated him. “God damn you!” he said. “Bring her down, Beauchamp! Do it now! Or the deal is done,” he swore.

  William laughed from his perch above them. “Very well,” he relented at last, seemingly pleased with Blaec’s reaction to his words. “I think it would suit me well enough to have her see you die up close.” With that, he shoved her before him, urging her to walk the parapet. Blaec could see that she resisted, stumbling, but William lifted her up and propelled her swiftly along before him. They disappeared from view as they started below.

  Blaec waited for what seemed an eternity as the gates were unlocked, adrenaline surging through his veins. And then, at last, they flew wide, and he caught his breath at the sight of her. Beauchamp—the coward—appeared with half his garrison at his back, but he saw none of them, only her.

  His eyes drank in the sight of her. Like some dirty waif, she wore the same blue bliaut he’d last seen her in, though it was wrinkled now and unkempt. Her hair was wild, her ringlets uncombed. And her face—he watched Beauchamp’s approach with barely suppressed rage—it was swollen and bruised, her lips split and bloodied.

  Cursing profusely, Blaec dismounted with a vengeance, unable to bear the sight of her, so abused, even an instant longer. Christ, but he would kill the bastard!