“I’m sorry,” Joan offered quickly. “You don’t have to tell me, of course. I simply thought that since we shared the same destination ... oh, never mind. It doesn’t matter at this point,” she ended rather bitterly. After a moment, she asked in a more sensible tone, “What sort of people take up with the abbey? Besides the sisters, of course. Am I to be an outcast should I not take the veil?”
“You shouldn’t worry about that,” Cecily said, happy that the young woman was no longer prying into her private life. “Although Hallowshire is indeed a home and workplace for the sisters, there are many laypeople in transient on any given day.”
“Like who?” Joan pressed.
“Oh, anyone you can imagine really. Widows, orphans, travelers, monks. Even criminals.”
Joan looked askance at her. “Criminals?”
Cecily nodded. “The abbey oft times grants religious asylum.”
“Criminals,” Joan repeated dully.
Cecily laughed. “Don’t worry yourself overmuch, Lady Joan. The majority of residents who could carry that label are mostly wanted for things related to politics and money. No bloodthirsty brigand will invade your cell in the night. Although the sisters are free to accept who they would, they aren’t foolish, and wouldn’t invite an obviously dangerous person to live among them.”
“Well, I suppose that’s a good thing,” Joan said, looking around at the countryside for a moment, and then suddenly back to Cecily. “Not even the king could come for someone there? Ever?”
“Not even the king,” Cecily affirmed. “Ever.”
“Perhaps Lady Sybilla should consider the religious life.”
Cecily chuckled despite herself. “I do doubt that the sisters’ rules would be to Sybilla’s liking.”
“She does prefer to run things herself,” Joan said, and the bitterness was back in her voice.
“She does. She’s quite good at it though, so I can’t fault her.”
“She wasn’t very good at it with me though, was she?” Joan asked. She turned to look into Cecily’s eyes. “Do you know the only reason she invited me to stay at Fallstowe was because she was convinced I killed August Bellecote? She thought to flatter me into confessing, I suppose.”
Cecily’s breath caught in her chest so that she could not answer Joan right away. She thought of Sybilla’s confession of a mistake; she thought of Oliver’s desperation to explain what had seemed to Cecily at the time to be a very clear-cut situation.
But had it been clear-cut at all?
“I prefer not to meddle in Sybilla’s affairs.” Cecily cocked her head thoughtfully and looked at Joan. “Did you kill him?”
Joan shook her head a moment before answering, but her eyes did not waver from Cecily’s face. “No. She wanted Oliver to propose marriage so that I would stay at Fallstowe for her to interrogate. I thought he was sincere, at last. I thought she was sincere in her kindness. You didn’t know? You didn’t even suspect?”
Cecily had to look away. “No, I didn’t know. I’m sorry, Joan. Sybilla is not often kind.”
“It should not surprise me that you weren’t included in their deception. Saint Cecily would never stoop to such depths, would you? Perfect, in every way.” Cecily wanted to snap at the woman, but held her tongue when Joan gave a deep sigh. “Look there, isn’t that the Foxe Ring ahead?”
Cecily had done her best to avoid casting her eyes in the direction of the old ruin, hoping that Joan too would ignore the place where this whole terrible mess began.
“Yes,” she tried to say lightly through gritted teeth.
“Would you mind very much if we rode through?” Joan asked, her words almost a bit breathless. Perhaps wistful.
It was the last place on earth Cecily wanted to see that morning, with the sun rising in a golden mist now, soft and crisp with the light of a nearby spring. The place she and Oliver had made love. Where they had conceived the child Cecily now carried. Where she had abandoned everything she had built for a moment in Oliver Bellecote’s arms, not caring that it would crumble to dust. It was taking the knife blade too close to her heart.
“Joan, I—”
“I’ll only stay a moment,” Joan begged. “Please? Lady Cecily, it was the last place I was certain I would be Oliver’s wife.”
And it was the first place where I imagined the same, Cecily thought to herself.
The guilt was enough to prompt Cecily to pull her horse in the direction of the standing stones without a word. She could not trust herself to speak. Every plodding step of her horse was like a blow, the questions in her head circling and swooping down to snatch at her composure like carrion birds.
“Thank you,” Joan said breathlessly, as she spurred her horse past Cecily to enter and then ride through the ring.
When she topped the rise, Cecily saw Joan Barleg dismounting at the entrance of the old keep.
Why was she getting down from her horse? And why on earth would she be going into the old keep? It was barely daylight now, and the inside of the ruin would be damp and dark and dangerous for the young, reckless woman, who obviously was experiencing a fit of melancholy.
“Joan,” Cecily called out. “Joan, don’t go in there! It’s unsafe!”
The woman merely gave Cecily a wave before disappearing into the jagged, arched doorway, suddenly resembling a yawning mouth full of rotten and broken teeth.
Cecily shivered and looked around her, her feelings of unease growing. They were just stones. It was only an abandoned keep. If anything, she should feel more of the sadness she had experienced when approaching the ring, not the unreasonable fear that seemed to tiptoe toward her through the dewy grass, little whispers of breeze skimming the stones and breathing their song....
One, two, me and you ...
Cecily frowned at the memory of the childhood rhyme. She didn’t want to think of her mother sitting beneath the old, long-dead tree just beyond the ring. She didn’t want to think of her sisters, so carefree, dancing and singing, flowers in their arms.
Tre, four, forever more ...
It was like suddenly recalling a sweet memory of someone who had just died, realizing fully for the first time that nothing will ever be the same as it was. Painful and sharp, it burst her stoic resolve like a blister until the pain of it ran fast and hot, and tears stung Cecily’s eyes.
“Joan!” she called out, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Joan, it’s time to go!”
Five, six, the stones do pick ...
Where was that foolish girl? Nausea swept over Cecily, so violently that she was afraid to try to swallow.
“Joan!” Cecily said in a strangled shout.
The woman’s short scream echoed darkly from within the stones of the ruin, and Cecily’s breath caught in her chest as she envisioned the gaping stone pit that was the foundation of the old donjon.
“Joan, are you all right?”
The splintered branches of the gnarled old tree under which her mother had sat so many years ago clicked together in the cold wind like a dancing skeleton. Cecily stared at the empty doorway to the ruin. There was no sound from within. Had Joan Barleg fallen into the pit?
Cecily kicked her foot free from the stirrup and slid down from her horse awkwardly. Then she was running through the tall stones, like grim witnesses to an execution, toward the keep.
Seven, eight, ’tis my fate ...
“I’m coming, Joan!”
She passed through the doorway into the gloomy interior, but instead of slowing to a halt as she’d intended, she was propelled forward by the hands that grasped her forearm, swinging her in a powerful arc toward the pit.
Nine, ten, now I ken.
“No!” Cecily shouted as she felt the wind pull at her hair, and then she screamed from the bottom of her lungs as she felt the blackness beneath her gain hold of her slippers and drag her through the damp air.
Cecily’s eyelids fluttered and she gasped against the cold, wet slime that pressed against her face. She realized
she must have blacked out the instant before her body had hit the floor of the dungeon. She turned her face away from the quilted filth encasing her, testing her neck gently, and spat and gasped for air.
And then she cried out in pain and grasped at her right bicep, slick with blood.
Although it would be impossible to tell by merely gazing into the pit from above, the floor of the stone-lined abyss was matressed by a thickness of leaves and mud and organic debris, perhaps three feet deep. Cecily couldn’t know how far down she had fallen from her position on the ground, but she guessed it to be at least eight feet. Possibly ten. Falling from such a height had sunk her to the packed floor with quite an impact, dragging the softness of her upper arm against the shattered end of an old beam, but the muck had saved her life, certainly.
“Wasn’t that fun?”
She heard a rustling overhead and peered through the gloom. As Joan Barleg lowered herself to sit at the edge of the pit, her legs dangling over the rim and her hands braced to either side of her knees, the horror of Cecily’s reality smashed into her.
“I’d hoped you would break your neck,” the blond woman said ruefully, rhythmically bouncing her heels against the stone foundation. Then a note of hope lilted her words. “Is it broken? Perhaps your back?”
“No,” Cecily choked out. “I’m fine. Just cut my arm a bit on a piece of wood.”
“Oh, come now—a woman of your delicate nature falling from, what do you think?” She peered over the edge curiously. “Ten feet? You’d had to have suffered some worse injury than a simple scrape.”
Cecily pushed herself up to sit on her hip. “Joan, why—”
“Perhaps you’ve lost your baby then,” she said deliberately.
Cecily stared at the woman, still bouncing her heels, and her blood ran cold.
“Yes, I know about it. I guessed the morning after you came back from the abbey with John Grey, when I saw you from the window, retching in the weeds,” Joan said bitterly. “Oliver was too dense to figure it out though, was he not? And everyone always thinks me the stupid one!”
“Is that why you ... why you tried to kill me? Because. . . because I’m pregnant?” Cecily did not want to reveal anything more than she must.
“No, not really,” Joan said dismissively. “Mainly it was because you had ruined everything for me, even before you and Oliver slept together.”
She knew. Cecily’s heart pounded fiercely in her chest.
“Joan, I—” Cecily broke off, her fear and confusion twisting her tongue and her reason. “What happened between Oliver and me—it was a mistake. A horrible, terrible mistake. He was so drunk and I was ... ”
“Feeling tarty?” Joan offered. “You know, I had no idea about the two of you actually for quite some time, although had I not been quite so trusting in your frigidity, I would have easily put the clues together.” She paused, cocked her head a bit. “Frigidity is a real word, you know. Isn’t that funny?”
Then Joan returned to her previous subject with a swiftness that was disturbing. “Oliver’s bloodied knees, your reluctance to have him at Fallstowe, to care for him. The morning I found you locked in his chamber—did I interrupt the two of you having sex?”
“No,” Cecily whispered, her face heating even while her body was beset by chills. “It was only once. Joan, I never intended to carry on with Oliver Bellecote—that’s why I left Fallstowe for Hallowshire. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Joan stared at Cecily for a moment, and then threw her head back and laughed. “You mean to tell me that you were giving up the man you loved so as not to hurt my feelings?”
“Not entirely, no,” Cecily said. “I didn’t trust him. Sybilla is not the only one with a questionable reputation.”
“Ah, yes. Well, that does make a bit more sense, I suppose. Although it hardly matters. As I said, you would have ruined things for me one way or another.”
“What are you talking about?” Cecily demanded.
Joan held up a finger and then scrambled to her feet, disappearing from the rim of the pit.
“Joan?” Cecily called out, and then she, too, struggled to stand. Her head swam and she held her arms away from her sides momentarily, fighting for equilibrium.
When her swaying had stilled, she gripped her right arm once more and then turned in a slow circle, surveying her captivity. Yes, the pit walls were at least ten feet tall. There was no mortar between the stones, no ridges that Cecily could see upon which her slippers might find purchase to climb out. She would try though, as soon as she had the opportunity.
Joan reappeared at the edge of the hole, a roll of parchments tied with a string in one fist. She worked at the knot while she talked.
“You were right not to trust him,” Joan said, unrolling the pages and flipping down the corners, scanning them. “He is quite the scoundrel. You would have never stood for his behavior, although it didn’t matter to me in the least.”
“How could you say it didn’t matter to you, and then you take your jealous rage out on me by trying to murder me?”
Joan looked down at Cecily over the pages for a moment, her eyebrows raised, and then back to the single sheet now in her hand. She cleared her throat.
“Let’s see ... la, la, la ... unfortunate ... yes, here we are. ‘I know you say that Oliver is neither responsible nor settled enough to take a bride such as my sister, and that his behaviors will surely scandalize her, but I can assure you that Cecily is made of sterner stuff than most realize. Since you will not allow him to marry Joan Barleg, and since the idea of a betrothal between the two children was discussed on more than one occasion years ago, I must insist that we would be remiss in not exploring the option. Oliver is your heir, and Cecily is mine, for all intents and purposes. If something should happen to me, Fallstowe would be protected by their union.’”
Cecily stood in the wet filth of the pit, staring up at Joan Barleg, her lips slack.
Sybilla. Sybilla had been pressing August for a betrothal between her and Oliver?
Joan looked down at her. “Hmm, interesting. You truly had no idea.”
Cecily shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter, really.” She gestured with the curled pages. “August adamantly refused the idea until he and your sister had come to other arrangements.”
“What other arrangements?”
Joan smiled slyly and then tossed the pages into the pit, where they turned and wheeled like seabirds before fluttering to the ground. Cecily hurried about, scooping up the parchments quickly before the damp mass under her feet could contaminate them.
“Is this what my sister was looking for?” Cecily demanded. “These letters that you stole from August?”
“Sybilla was looking for something of August’s, true. I was looking for the same thing. She never found it, and neither did I, although these letters did much to encourage my tenacity. And I don’t think of what I did as stealing, so much as receiving payment. I’m still not quite certain what led Sybilla to suspect me. Certainly no one else did—poor, simple, stupid Joan Barleg, who is so slow as to not even have proper command of language. August would have rather taken his own life than allow Sybilla to discover that he’d used me like a whore when she broke it off with him and banned him from her bed.”
“I’m certain he didn’t force you,” Cecily said bitterly. Her world had been turned upside down in the past hour.
Joan giggled girlishly and winked at Cecily. “Well, that’s true.”
Cecily’s mind worked. “Were you hoping that he would then choose you? That August would marry you?”
Joan shook her head. “Of course not. I simply wanted him indebted to me. Especially after I discovered what he and your sister had planned. I wanted Oliver. I wanted to be Oliver’s wife. I was owed that, by both of them. They both betrayed me. Sybilla betrayed me.”
“You were going to blackmail him,” Cecily guessed. “Instead, you simply killed him, didn’t you? You killed August.”
�
��No, I didn’t. I’ve already told you that, and it is the truth. August was thrown from his horse. Some birds flew up out of their nest and caused his horse to start. It was very clear to me that he had broken his neck or his back or some other rather important part of his body. He couldn’t really move.”
“You were with him,” Cecily realized.
“Yes. He didn’t know that I followed him. But I didn’t kill him.”
Cecily tried to swallow. “You just left him to die.”
Joan nodded. “As I will do with you.”
“Why, Joan?” Cecily asked. “Why?”
“He was going to your sister when the accident happened; he was to let her have her way, offering up Oliver. It was to be a surprise.” Joan smiled then in the gloom, her words increasing Cecily’s chill. “Oliver was supposed to ride with his brother that day—August was going to tell him of his and Sybilla’s plans to see the two of you wed. But tardy Oliver—he never met August that day to hear the joyous news. When I saw August thrown, I went to him right away. Once the extent of his injuries was clear, I realized then that the accident was the perfect opportunity for me. With August dead and completely out of my way, Oliver would turn to me in grief, honoring my faithfulness by making me his wife at last. I would never know the fear of poverty again, the shame of my poor family.”
“But he wasn’t going to marry you, any matter!” Cecily argued.
“You don’t know that!” Joan screamed, losing grasp of her calm. Her fists were clenched by her hips. “Now it will never happen and it is still your fault!” She took several deep breaths, seemed to gain control of herself. “So, if I can never have what I have worked so tirelessly for, he will never have you—the only person I have ever seen him worship outside his equally stupid and pigheaded brother.”
“Joan,” Cecily tried, “help me out of here, and let us both go on to Hallowshire together. I sent Oliver away; obviously things ... aren’t going to work out between us.”
Joan shook her head. “Bravo, Saint Cecily, but no. Sorry. I actually do know Oliver quite well, and if he should ever learn that you are carrying his child, he would kidnap you away from the abbey and have you wed to him before you could blink. He is very determined with getting his way. I cannot breathe on this earth knowing that the pair of you have each other, Bellemont, and Fallstowe.”
Never Seduce A Scoundrel Page 24