by Tamara Leigh
A shadow fell over her.
Forcing her lids up, she peered between her hands and saw Edward stood in the center of the room with the lantern held high above his head.
“From the devil you came, to the devil you shall return!” he shouted.
With darkness pressing in on all sides, promising the comfort of lost consciousness, she tried to make sense of his words—knew she must. And yet the temptation to sink beneath the black, swirling surface was so great she conceded it could do no harm to indulge herself a few minutes.
While you burn! a voice shrieked. Look again, Graeye. Look!
She blinked at her father, and it was then her eyes revealed what her mind refused to accept. He intended to burn her alive. “Nay!” she cried and struggled onto her knees.
Laughter swelled around the room, then the straw pallet burst into flames.
Graeye screamed and surged back onto her heels, pressing herself against the wall to avoid the hungry flames that did not seem to mind the damp, musty fuel it had been given.
“Burn!” Edward yelled from the doorway. A moment later, he turned his back on her.
Once more, darkness grabbed at Graeye. However, the breath of smoky air she pulled into her lungs made her cough so hard that she broke free of it. Opening her eyes wide, she stared at the fire to the front and sides of her and was surprised to find the flames were not yet high.
If I can make it to my feet…
As she inched her way up the wall, a long, low shape lunged through the doorway. It was followed by the figure of a man so tall he had to duck beneath the door frame to enter. Others came behind, but Graeye held her stinging gaze upon the impossible vision of Baron Balmaine until his image colored over into lovely blues, greens, and reds that shimmered like moonlight upon a veil of water.
Voices called to her. A dog bayed. Then, blessedly, the clamor melded into the thunder of water falling from a great height and she tumbled down…down…
She was not frightened when it wrapped around her, for it was warm and held her securely as it carried her through the winding currents. But then it turned cold, and the sudden change slapped her back to consciousness.
Graeye lifted her head to peer at the dark night and the people streaming around her, but her efforts were thwarted by a hand that pressed her face to a wonderfully solid chest.
She had just accepted it was not such a bad place to be when she realized she was being passed into another’s arms.
She saw Balmaine’s angry face a moment before it was replaced by Sir Lancelyn’s.
“Take her to the donjon,” the baron said. Then he was gone.
Struggling to make sense of what had happened, she lifted a hand and touched her face. Her breath escaped in a hiss as her fingers found the swelling alongside one eye and the gash on the opposite cheek.
She remembered. Dropping her hand, she turned her head and was horrified by the sight before her. The upper floor of the watchtower was ablaze, smoke billowing forth like a great, avenging storm.
Had Balmaine gone back into that? she wondered as she searched for him among the many who ran and shouted for water.
A moment later, the tower was swept from sight when Sir Lancelyn turned away. She had just resigned herself to darkness when she was shaken by a vision of the man she had struck senseless. Had he been discovered and pulled to safety?
“Nay!” She thrust a hand against the knight’s chest. “The guard!”
He halted. “Guard?”
“Aye, he lies…within.” She struggled to tell him more, but her tongue was too thick and slow.
Still cradling her, he swung back to face the fire. Then, with an angry exclamation, he set her on her feet.
She grasped his arm to steady herself.
“Give me your word you will stay here!” he commanded.
She nodded. “I vow.”
Though he had to know the baron’s wrath would fall upon him should she disappear, he loosed her hand from his arm and sprinted to the watchtower.
Graeye stared after him until he was swallowed by the smoke billowing out the door, then she dropped to her hands and knees. A moment later, something nudged her.
She pushed herself back to kneeling, lifted her head, and found her faithful companion before her.
“Groan,” she whispered.
He licked her face, turned, and lowered to his haunches beside her.
Graeye draped an arm over his huge body and lightly explored her face as she watched the growing number of people who struggled to put out the fire. Nearly every place she touched was tender and swollen, especially around the eye whose vision was narrowing. Most confusing was the discovery that her cheeks were wet, but when she caught the sound of soft sobs and realized they were her own, she did not need to taste the salt upon her fingers to know she shed tears.
Shortly, two figures emerged from the burning building and took shape as they moved toward her. Not until they were nearly upon her did she see that one of them was Sir Lancelyn, and he had the unfortunate guard over his shoulder. The other was Baron Balmaine.
Swaying on her knees, she stared up at that blackened face, noting the flecks of ash in his hair and beard. Eyes like ice, he peered down at her from his great height.
It was the guard’s moan that allowed Graeye to break eye contact. Where the man had been lowered to the ground beside her, he struggled to lift his head.
She reached to him, but the movement unbalanced her, and she tumbled forward. This time, she did not fight the dark but welcomed its comforting arms and thought it might be a good place to stay for a very long time.
CHAPTER NINE
When Graeye next looked out at the world, the light of dawn had turned the oiled linen golden, and there was evidence of an orange-streaked sky in the muted colors that filtered through the covering and glanced off the walls.
What was she doing in the refectory? She shifted her gaze to a flickering lamp. If discovered, Mistress Hermana would think it highly improper that she had made her bed in a room reserved for the taking of meals. And it would give the woman yet another excuse to assign Graeye additional chores and forbid her the gardens. Another excuse to lay a strap across her young charge’s back.
Graeye considered sneaking back to her cell. However, though she might make it, her absence from morning prayers would surely be noticed.
Thinking it might go easier for her if she was presentable when she came face-to-face with that woman, she started to turn onto her side to raise herself up. But that small movement caused pain to rush through her head.
She dropped back, pulled her hands from beneath the covers, and touched her face. There was a gash over her cheekbone and a tender swelling above her left eye, which she only now realized was closed. And this was not the refectory. It was the chamber that had been her father’s, that same room in which she had tended the baron’s wound.
She lowered her hands and expelled a breath past a throat so raw and swollen she thought it must be nearly closed.
“’Tis more than you bargained for, eh?” a humorless voice said.
She swept her gaze up and to the left. Standing alongside the bed, a hand resting on a front poster, the baron looked down at her.
It was not merely his unexpected presence that shook her, though that would have been enough, but his state of undress seen clearly through the one eye she leveled upon him.
As if unaffected by the chill morning air, he wore an open undertunic that allowed a glimpse of his chest and the edge of the bandage she had secured over his shoulder. Covering his lower body were loose chausses, the untied laces trailing as if he had recently donned them and in haste. For her benefit?
She briefly met his gaze, then turned her face away. Though she knew she must look horrible, it was not her vainglory that suffered when she peered into those probing eyes, but the vulnerable depths of her soul that this man seemed intent upon delving. She must protect herself from further hurt, and the sooner she erected the barrie
rs that would stave off that event, the better her chances of coming out the other side of this deepening nightmare.
As she stared to the right, she reflected on the words the baron had spoken. It was true. It was all more than she had bargained for. In the space of a few weeks, a wondrous future had been placed in her hands, then cruelly snatched away. Desperate to reclaim some portion of it, she had given her body to this man only to be exposed and condemned. And now her father had tried to set her afire so he might return her to the devil.
Embittered by the next thought, Graeye almost laughed. Not even her worst day at the abbey had been so cruel.
Feeling the mattress sag as the baron lowered himself beside her, she turned her head farther to the side and fixed her gaze on the door.
Open, she silently implored. Pray, someone—anyone—deliver me from this one’s hate. I cannot bear it.
When a hand cupped her chin, she did not resist its urging but moved her head back around to look at Gilbert Balmaine where he sat on the edge of the bed.
Once more meeting those unforgettable blue eyes, she was staggered by what seemed compassion in their depths. But even as she told her heart to find cover lest it be torn asunder, his eyes turned caustic again.
“You have discovered your father is a cruel man, hmm?” Balmaine narrowed his gaze on her swollen eye, then flicked back to the other to await confirmation.
Knowing she would gain little by defending herself, she determined that no matter what he faulted her with, she would maintain her silence.
He brushed his fingers over her jaw. “If not for that mangy dog of yours waking the donjon with his bellowing, you would have burned as your father intended.”
She tried to pull her chin out of his grasp, but he held it firmly. Clenching her teeth, she lowered her gaze and stared across the foot of the bed.
Balmaine leaned into her sight. “Why did he do this to you?”
She had every intention of denying him an answer, and yet her hand lifted as if not her own and she touched his chest. “You,” she breathed.
He was silent so long, one nameless emotion after another shifting across his face, that Graeye could only stare—until anger gathered upon his brow. She dropped her hand to her side and wondered at the wisdom of her disclosure. Yet another mistake?
He leaned nearer and set his other palm on the mattress beside her shoulder. “I tell you now, Lady Graeye”—his voice was dangerously soft—“your father’s offense will not go unpunished. I will not rest until I have seen him join his son in hell.”
She was stunned by his vehemence, but more so by his choice of words. Was it possible his anger stemmed from the harm done her?
Absurd, she chastised herself. It is the damage to the castle that angers him, and most certainly the lives lost in putting out the fire.
Tears stinging her eyes, sobs gathering below her throat, all of her aching beneath the burden of blame, she struggled to hold back the vulnerable expression of grief that must save until this man was gone from her.
“Naught to say?” he asked.
Slowly, she shook her head.
His gaze hardened further. “You are not even slightly curious as to the destruction wrought by your actions?”
She closed her one functioning eye so she would not be made to look upon his accusing visage. Nay, she did not want to know what her poor judgment had caused—could not bear to be told she was responsible for the deaths of others. Later she would face the truth, but God protect her from having to hear the details from this man.
“Graeye,” he called to her, his voice oddly soft and insistent.
Had she heard right? The use of her given name without title brought her eye open again.
His face was nearer, his warm breath upon her lips causing her senses to spiral such that she momentarily forgot her body’s aches and pains.
Lord, I hate myself for it, but how I long to feel his arms around me again…
As if he sensed her reaction to him, he drew back. “There were no deaths,” he said.
“Truly?” she croaked and winced at the pain upon which that one word surged from her throat.
Something came and went in his eyes, then he nodded, released his hold on her, and rose from the bed. “Though the watchtower is destroyed, the fire was contained and the walls beyond salvaged.” As he turned away, he drew a hand down his face. “Of course, it would have been of little consequence had it all gone up in flame.”
“I am sorry,” Graeye said, so low and strained she did not think he heard her, though she thought his back stiffened.
“There has been no sign of your father.” He turned to her. “I would know where he has gone.”
She shook her head.
He glowered. “For the love of God, you owe him no loyalty. Not only did he beat you, he tried to set you afire. Do you so easily forget that?”
As if she could…
It was not that she would not tell him, but that she was incapable of doing so. Still, she was loath to ponder what her answer would be if she did have the answer he sought. “Nay, I—” She swallowed on the pain searing her throat.
Balmaine’s expression turned thunderous. “Protect him you may, but he will suffer my blade. This I vow.”
“I do not know where he is,” she whispered. “Truly, do you think he would tell me when he meant to…” Her mind flitted ahead to the words she had nearly spoken. It was one thing for another to speak of what her father had tried to do to her, quite another to acknowledge it aloud.
“Is it because you love him that you sought his release?” Balmaine asked.
“Love?” It was true she had longed for Edward’s affection and would have given hers if he would have accepted it, but that sort of relationship he had refused her. “Nay, a man like my father has no need for love. I only wanted to help him.”
Was it relief that softened Balmaine’s eyes and relaxed his mouth? Not that it mattered. What mattered was what was to become of her. Did he still intend to return her to the abbey, or would he find another way to mete out punishment for her foolishness?
“You have said you will not rest until you have delivered my father to hell.” She winced at how graveled her voice sounded. “I, too, am a Charwyck. Will you strive for my death as well?”
He gave a visible start of surprise, then narrowed his lids. “Were I so depraved as to wish your death, Lady Graeye, I would not have rescued you from the fire. Aye, you are a Charwyck and more than worthy of that name, but it will satisfy me well enough to see you back inside the walls of your abbey.”
It should have been of comfort that he meant her no physical harm, but she could find little solace in his words. Not wishing him to see whatever ache might reflect upon her damaged face, she turned her head opposite.
Silence settled between them, then she heard Balmaine move away. The door opened and, after a brief pause, closed.
Groan was so quiet on his padded feet that Graeye was not immediately aware he had stolen inside. But when he trotted around the bed and propped his slavering chin on the coverlet to regard her with great, soulful eyes, there was no overlooking him.
She turned onto her side and laid a hand on his head. “Thank you, friend,” she whispered, then curled into the tightest ball she could stand and yielded to the emotions she had held in check throughout her encounter with Balmaine.
Standing in the passageway, Gilbert’s annoyance at having allowed the beast past him dissolved when he heard the sounds that slipped beneath the door.
He was alarmed by his reaction to the mournful sobs, for a woman’s tears were a weakness he could ill afford. But neither could he deny their strong pull upon a heart that ought to be hardened against such.
He knew he should not mull what had just passed between Graeye Charwyck and himself, but the encounter disturbed him. Had she spoken true of her father’s ignorance of their tryst—that the old man had not sent her to seduce him? Had revelation of her sin caused Charwyck to try to end
her life?
It was believable that the man’s hate for the Balmaines might be great enough that the loss of his daughter’s virtue to the enemy would cause him to mortally turn against her. But still, that she had acted alone…
He recalled the explanation she had offered in the chapel but set it aside. It was too difficult to believe she had given herself to a stranger merely to avoid taking vows. Of course, perhaps there was more to it. Perhaps she had desired him as he had desired her when she had shown herself in the pool. As he still desired her.
He looked down at where her finger had grazed his skin when she had answered his question about her father’s attempt to murder her. That singular contact had sparked his desire, and he had been furious that she could affect him so. Not even the beautiful Lady Atrice had elicited such a response.
Lust, he told himself. Animal lust that had nothing to do with the deeper emotions he had felt for that other woman who was now so far out of his reach he sometimes ached with longing. How different would his life had been if not for her death weeks before they were to wed?
The sobs from within the chamber quieted, or so he thought until he listened close. They were merely muffled, whether by a pillow or that great, hulking dog.
A woman’s tears…
Memories of his sister, Lizanne, swept through him. Though seven years separated the siblings, he had been at her side to offer solace as she had grown from a babe into a young woman. She had needed him like no one else had—until recently. Married now, it was her husband, Ranulf, to whom she turned.
And who did Graeye Charwyck have to turn to? A dog.
Guided by emotions that strained past the barbed walls of his soul, Gilbert reached to the door. However, a sharp reminder of her deception pulled him back.
She had played him for a fool, used him to gain her own ends without thought for any save herself. She was a Charwyck through and through.