contents into the bowl of glowing coals. She knew the
fire would go out, but she did not anticipate the volume
of smoke and steam that hissed upward, directly into
her face. The hot fumes sent Judy staggering back to
the window again.
Fighting for air, she hung out the window, gasping.
By the time her breathing came without huge effort,
she realized the night had gone still. The festivities,
whatever they might have been, appeared to have ended.
Perhaps the damp weather had forced a premature
conclusion to the burning of bones, the wanton sex, the
ceremonies designed to frighten goblins and ensure good
luck. Or perhaps twelve o’clock had come and gone. She
didn’t know if the witching hour of midnight had any
significance in pagan rituals, but she suspected it might.
Dates turned over from one to the next at that moment.
For all she knew, the first of May, Beltane, could now be
yesterday.
Frantically, she dove toward her bed and the tote on
top of it. She scrabbled with her fingers, searching the
contents by feel until she found her daily planner with
its little digital clock. When she saw the numerals
blinking up at her from the notebook’s cover, her heart
sank. Midnight had indeed come and gone, at least as
people measured time in her world. As they also counted
days, the date, revealed in a tiny square in the upper
corner of the clock, read 12:12:98.
“God, no.”
As though she’d been struck a painful blow to the
side of her head, Judy held her cheek in her hand.
Cringing, she slid to the floor ’til she sat with the bed
bracing her back. With one hand, she dashed away tears
before wiping her runny nose. And finally, she absorbed
the full impact of what that date meant to her, to her
family, to her friends.
By December 12, 1998, Carla Whittaker had
certainly given up searching for her or even waiting on
her return. She had flown back to New York, probably
saddened by Judy’s disappearance but resigned to getting
on with her writing, her work, her wedding.
Her parents had to know that she was missing, had
surely been living with that knowledge for weeks. Had
they traveled to England, spoken to Lord Laycock, Mrs.
Haversham, and even Ian MacCoombs in their efforts
to discover what had happened, where she had gone? Of
course they had. They had walked where she had
walked, seen what she had seen.
She wept, cradling her head in her arms now as
she leaned against her bent knees. Pitiful, heart-
wrenching scenarios played out in her mind, as the
Ghost of Christmas Future tortured her with images of
her own parents’ holiday, the one they would attempt to
celebrate while believing their only daughter dead.
The Edwin Grant Agency. She brought her head up
as she thought about her work place. Had they already
replaced her? Did somebody new handle Carla and all
her other writers? Did her coworkers and clients miss
her, or had no one skipped a beat, settling right in with
the agent who now occupied her office?
Misery washed over her like a cold, ocean wave. It
knocked her flat, nearly suffocating her, and left her
chilled and shivering. Despairing over her losses,
succumbing to her defeat, she dropped her head into
her arms again and wept until her tears ran dry.
***
Judy hiccuped as she looked out her window. Did
she detect the faintest hint of light beginning to overlay
the evening clouds? No. It couldn’t be. She saw not the
slightest suggestion of dawn. She had time, yet. Time.
She placed one foot on the end of the wire she’d
ripped from her spiral notebook. With both hands, she
rubbed out the remaining kinks, pulling hard, drawing
it as straight as she could while she worked it from one
end to the other. Examining the funky-looking wire, she
knew it would never be any straighter than it already
was. But it still might work—it had to. She could spare
no more time for refinements.
Sometime during the night, she realized she hadn’t
been confined with a padlock. The mechanism that held
her imprisoned was no more than a latch, simple and
primitive. She only had to lift the latch to obtain her
freedom, easy as that.
And complicated as that. The door had been
fashioned of heavy boards, as thick as young tree trunks.
It fit the framing stones securely—only an inch of space
kept the wood from dragging on the floor when it opened
and closed. The remaining three sides, including the
top, fit snug as a puzzle piece. On the latch side, the
space in the seam would allow nothing wider to pass
than a sheet of paper or a piece of straw. And neither of
those items would prove sturdy enough to flip the iron
latch on the outside of the door.
But a wire would. Judy had scoured the contents of
her tote, considering and discarding pens, pencils, and
a rat-tailed comb before landing on the idea of the wire.
All she’d had to do was rip off the paper and straighten
the curly-cued metal.
The task hadn’t proven quite as easy as she’d
anticipated, but she had done it. Now she knelt on the
floor and put her eye to the space between the wood
door and the stone wall. Then she slipped the wire
through that space directly below the latch.
One single thrust upward, that’s all it took. Yet the
rush of wild happiness she felt was tinged with
annoyance and anger. She should have thought of this
much sooner. If she had, she might be home by now.
But she hadn’t the leisure for self-recrimination.
Hearing the latch flip, she eagerly leapt to her feet and
levered the inside door latch. When she pulled, the door
finally swung open.
Freedom!
Giddy with relief, delight and anticipation, she
whirled around, grabbed her tote, and ran into the
hallway—only to stop, catch her breath, and press
herself against the wall.
She couldn’t be brash. It was late, very late, a perfect
time to escape because the servants wouldn’t be moving
about yet. And their masters, the lords of Laycock, must
be in their beds as well. In this era when people went to
sleep as soon as the sun set, even those nobles with
candles to burn could not still be awake, debauching
women and drinking wine. Yet she couldn’t be brash.
She tiptoed carefully down the stairs, holding her
breath and inhaling only sporadically. As she picked her
way through the snoring, snorting bodies and left the
keep through a rear exit, she could not contain a smile.
Though she hadn’t succeeded yet, she just knew she
was going to make it. Very soon, she would be home.
***
A hound using Andrew’s foot as a pillow made a
sound barely loud enough for him to he
ar. Yet he did
hear it, and he woke. Opening his eyes to mere slits,
he peered through the gloom to try to see what had
snagged the spaniel’s attention. He felt no concern.
Laycock was well-protected, and even the dog sensed
no danger. But still, it proved unusual for anyone to be
moving about at this hour of the night.
It was Judith! By all the saints, she had gotten out
of her room. Now, as he watched, the damsel stepped
over servants and guards who lay sprawled haphazardly
across the great hall’s floor. Where in damnation was
she going?
He didn’t ask. He didn’t call out to her or even sit up
straighter in the chair where he’d drifted to sleep after
a long night in Robin’s company. But after she had
slipped from the hall, he rose silently, nimbly
circumventing the prone bodies in his path as he
followed her outside.
Stepping into the bailey felt like stepping into a tomb.
The blackness seemed palpable, and the air was damp
and chill. He was glad he had failed to remove his mantle
upon returning to the keep earlier. Now, he hugged the
woolen cape close about his arms as he watched Judith
dart straight toward the bailey wall. She melted into
the shadows, a black figure fading into a black abyss.
Yet, as she made her way toward the front gate, he
glimpsed her periodically when a faint halo of light cast
by a flickering torch illuminated her fair tresses.
She slipped beneath the iron teeth of the raised
portcullis, clinging to one of the stone towers that
flanked each side. As he followed several paces behind,
he noticed that she continued to hug the outside of the
wall just as she had the inside. This surprised him.
He’d half presumed she would dash down the hills toward
the village. He never expected her to purposely hide
from the guards pacing the crenelated parapet above.
Gaining speed as she made her way around the
stronghold’s perimeter, Judith broke into a run when
she neared the postern side. He quickened his stride
to keep pace with her, no longer concerned that he
remain unnoticed. She proved herself oblivious to him
as she abandoned caution for recklessness.
Who is she meeting? he wondered, caught between
curiosity and suspicion, concern and dismay. Had Judith
planned to rendezvous with Philip? Had their scheme
been thwarted by Robin locking her in her room?
Andrew knew relief that she had been restrained
and almost felt grateful to his brothers, who had insisted
upon her confinement. They, after all, would leave soon
to rejoin their father, and Judith would again be free to
roam at will. But because of Elfred’s fears and Robin’s
discretion, she would still remain with him at Laycock.
She could not run off with Philip. Even if his friend
continued to wait for her, Andrew would never allow him
to take her.
Abruptly, Judith left the cover of the high wall and
dashed off, surprising him. To him, it seemed as though
she had spied her lover’s welcoming arms and rushed
to embrace him. But there was no lover, not even Philip,
and no ready arms to catch her. Judith fell to her knees
on a little patch of sparse grass a short distance away.
Andrew stopped, remaining undetected standing near
the wall, and watched her in puzzled confusion. She
huddled alone, clutching her satchel in her lap and
rocking back and forth.
The wench broke his heart. Judith Lamb had never
looked more pathetic nor more vulnerable than she did
at this moment. He yearned to go to her, to take her
hand and lead her back inside the keep where he could
hold her safe. But she startled him with a wild, demented
cry, and he froze where he stood.
Judith threw back her head and wailed plaintively,
pleading unintelligibly with the starless heavens. Even
as she shouted into the night sky, she clawed at the
ground with one hand, grabbing clumps of grass and
fistfuls of damp soil. To Andrew, she seemed to be
desperately clinging to the earth as someone who lost
his footing on a wall might clasp the ledge.
“Please, please, please,” she shouted. “Home, home,
home! Take me home! Take me home!”
The sound of her muted cry, muffled by the heavy,
damp air, gave him the sensation of spiders crawling
down his spine. If Elfred saw her now, a virtual
madwoman invoking the forces of Nature, he would
insist Judith was a witch and Andrew could not gainsay
him. She appeared to be a witch, a sorceress, or a
magician, though not a very capable one. For whatever
forces she implored, they answered her only with an
onslaught of hard, pounding rain. Though Andrew
ducked his head and visored his eyes when the
downpour descended, he saw that she continued to leave
her head thrown back, exposing her face to the needling
raindrops.
“Jesu,” he muttered, finally running to her and
gathering her into his arms. “Judith!”
“No, no. Let me go! Let me go!”
She fought wildly against his embrace, but he
refused to release her. “You are not going anywhere,
Judith, except into the keep. Why, in the name of all
things holy, are you out in this storm shouting at the
sky?”
“I—I—I—” She ceased flailing and blinked at him,
as though only now recognizing him. Then she shook
her head, offering no explanation for her escape from a
locked chamber or her baffling rampage at the night.
He didn’t care. Judith was neither a witch nor a
wraith but merely a woman. His woman, by default if
not declaration, for everyone else seemed to reject her.
Even Philip, whom she trusted, perhaps adored.
“You’re shivering,” he observed as he scooped her
up and held her close, carrying her back toward the fore
of the bailey and the huge iron gate. “You foolish,
obstinate wench. You’ve probably caught your death out
here in the rain.”
“Good,” Judith muttered. “Good.”
Thirteen
“What in damnation do you mean, there was a fire
in her chamber and you did naught to release her? You
endangered her life and the lives of all those who live
in the keep!”
Standing in Elfred’s bedchamber shouting at his
brother, Andrew clenched and unclenched his fingers.
He wanted nothing so much as to beat Elfred senseless.
But that would only serve to rouse Robin’s ire, and
besides, he wanted to hear an explanation, outrageous
and unacceptable as it might be.
Elfred threw back his covers and climbed out of bed.
Reaching for his robe, he insisted, “How dare you burst
in upon me before dawn has even broke? I endangered
no one’s life. The keep cannot burn, and neither can
witches, if they be not tied to a stake!”
“You bastard! Jud
ith Lamb is no witch!” Glad Elfred
had donned his bed robe, Andrew grabbed him by the
fabric covering his chest.
“She is something unholy,” he insisted.
“Why do you believe that? The fire-starter’s a clever
tool, is all. And we know her sire is an inventor. ‘Tis he
who created the damnable thing. ’Tis hardly magic.”
“So you say. As you say her sire is that alchemist,
Peter Lamb. But you’ve no proof, Andrew. You’ve no proof
at all.”
“That gives you the right to let her die—to...to kill
her?” He pushed Elfred away with a hard thrust, so that
his brother stumbled into a table at his back.
“What is going on here?” Robin demanded, appearing
unexpectedly in the open doorway.
Andrew turned around to face him. “When we were
gone from the keep last eve,” he explained, “Elfred kept
Judith locked in her room despite a fire that could have
killed her.”
Robin frowned at Elfred. “Is this true?”
“Nay!” Again, he repeated his contention that Judith
could not die because of her sorcery. “Besides, ’twas she
who set the blaze as a ruse to get out of the chamber so
that she could work her magic on Beltane Eve,” he added.
Calmly, Robin glanced at Andrew with both his
eyebrows raised. “She is not dead, after all. Mayhap Elfred
is correct.”
“He is not correct. Jesu, but if Judith possessed
unearthly powers, would she need a ruse to get free of
her chamber?” He sneered at Elfred. Then, facing Robin,
he insisted, “The girl was merely fortunate. Bridget told
me what went on here last eve while we were making
merry. Judith screamed and begged for release as smoke
billowed from beneath her door, filling the hallway. Yet
Elfred prevented Bridget from unlocking the door.”
“I would see the chamber myself,” Robin declared,
turning to go. But Andrew grabbed his sleeve.
“Nay. Do not disturb her. The damsel’s tired.”
“But not dead,” Elfred added.
“Keep quiet, I warn you!” Andrew whirled and glared
at him threateningly.
Sighing, Robin said, “No serious harm has been
done, then, eh? Let it go, Andrew. Elfred will be leaving
here with me this very day, as we must visit other
demesnes to ensure the barons’ efforts against King
John are organized. Then we shall rejoin Father near
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