by The Prisoner
“The village is just beyond there, if you recall.”
Brian did. But he wasn’t sure he could deal with a whole assortment of villagers gawking and pawing. Not yet.
“Not the village.”
Telford nodded and smiled. “Then shall we return to the courtyard? You might want to speak with some of the warriors there.”
Brian followed after his brother feeling a perfect fool. He couldn’t even get on a horse or go into the village. He’d become a coward. Filled with self-loathing, he stared at the ground while he walked.
For this reason, he didn’t see her until she was directly in front of him. The first he saw of her were the toes of her dark blue slippers poking out from beneath her gown.
Brian looked up surprised and met her startling green eyes. Eyes the color of the forests surrounding Fitzroy Castle. And they were framed by long, black lashes.
“Good day to you, my lord,” she greeted him with a smile rivaling the sun above. Her ebony hair, long and luxuriously glossy, fell down her back in ringlets. No headdress adorned her head.
Brian stepped back, distancing himself. Her smile dimmed a little.
“Constance, ‘tis good to see you,” Telford welcomed her.
Brian remembered her from his imprisonment. Loutrant abducted her and forced her to feed him his meals. He’d taught her how to escape from her guards.
“Good day to you also, Telford,” Constance replied. Then she returned her gaze to Brian. “I am very glad to see you up and around, my lord.”
“If you will excuse me.” Brian stepped around his brother and away from Constance. “I’m returning to the castle now.”
“But…Brian,” Constance spoke, but he didn’t know what else she intended to say for he was no longer within earshot.
“Brian, wait,” his brother shouted after him. His running footsteps echoed in Brian’s ears. The panic returned. He had to get away, get inside. His body shook.
Brian broke into a run, heading straight for the double doors of the castle. He knew Telford pursued him, but he did not turn back. He couldn’t breathe.
****
Constance stared at the retreating back of Brian Fitzroy and pretended it didn’t matter.
So he wants naught to do with you. No doubt you remind him of the torment you both endured.
The wind whipped a lock of her hair into her eyes. It stung, too, for surely that explained the tears that burned there.
Telford followed Brian into the castle but Constance remained where she stood. She turned from it and hugged herself. It was hard to shake the feeling she no longer belonged at Fitzroy.
Growing up as the daughter of Hugh Fitzroy’s dearest friend and commander of the army, James Portnoy, Constance’s whole life had been spent there. The Fitzroys were her family. Especially after her father’s death.
But that was before a minstrel calling himself only Fin had come into her life. With the face of an angel, Fin sang her beautiful songs of love.
For the first time in her young life, Constance had fallen in love. She didn’t know she’d given her love to a crazed murderer.
****
“Brian?”
Brian glanced up from his cup of spiced wine. He set it on the small table beside him.
“Come in, Stephen,” he called to his youngest brother.
The door to his chamber opened slowly, pushed cautiously by Stephen. No doubt his brother feared the dragon’s lair.
“It’s dark in here,” Stephen complained.
“I like it. Light the sconce if you prefer.”
Brian waited while Stephen reached over to the nearby wall and lit the sconce. The room instantly became illuminated. He managed not to wince.
Stephen stood awkwardly by the door, his hands twined together behind his back.
Brian smirked. “What’s the matter, Stephen? Is it your turn to watch the crazed brother?”
“Nay, nay, of course not.” Stephen ran his hand nervously through his light brown hair. “I’ve just come to see you.”
“Sit.” Brian gestured to a small wooden bench on the other side of the table.
Stephen smiled and took the seat. He eyed the wine next to Brian.
“Want some?”
Stephen nodded.
Brian found another cup and filled it with the spiced liquid.
“I pray you pardon me, Brian, but you do not look well.”
He did not feel well but he had no intention of revealing such to Stephen. Since earlier in the day when he’d gone out with Telford and ran into Constance, Brian had been drinking. It dulled his senses but also his thoughts and feelings. Something he needed.
“I am fine.” Brian downed the rest of his wine.
He turned his attention away from the wine bottle and instead studied the brother he barely remembered. Stephen had been very young when Brian’s imprisonment began. Barely older than Brian’s own son, Trevor. His boy had been seven and Stephen just ten. Their mother died when Stephen was just a newborn babe.
Before his rescue, Brian hardly paid attention to his young brother. And now the same boy was a young man.
“What are you here for, Stephen?” Brian decided to get straight to the point.
“We’ve never really talked before.”
Brian nodded. “Aye. You were still a snotty nosed brat when I was killed.”
“Only you weren’t.” Stephen glanced mournfully at his brother. “You know Father and Nick would never have rested if they’d known.”
At the mention of his father, Brian needed another drink. He gazed at the bottle. When Loutrant imprisoned him his father, Hugh, had been alive. He poured more wine into his cup.
“I know.”
“There was a body.”
Brian took a large gulp of his drink. “I know. Loutrant told me.”
“Bastard,” Stephen cursed.
“It’s over, Stephen.”
Stephen raised an incredulous brow. “Over? How can you say it is over? It’s not for you, Brian. Anybody can see.”
Brian glared at his brother. “Just let it go.”
“Nay, I won’t. You sit in here in the dark all day long. You won’t even come down for the meal. You run from Constance. God, Brian, you’re afraid of your own shadow.”
“Stephen,” Brian warned.
His brother ignored him. “I know you have dreams. You wake up screaming. Why don’t you tell me about them?”
“Why don’t you go to Hell?”
Stephen shook his head. “I don’t know you. You’re not like any Fitzroy I know. You’re not like the brother I admired so much when I was a boy.”
“No, I am not.” Brian’s jaw tightened.
“God, you were so impressive then. You exuded strength and confidence. Tell me what happened to you for all those years. I want to listen,” Stephen said.
It almost sounded easy. Somehow talking to his youngest brother would be different than Telford or Lucien, and he wouldn’t even think of talking to Nick about it. From what he had learned since his rescue, Nick had become more perfect than he was thirteen years ago. Stephen was less threatening.
Aye, if he were to talk to any of his brothers about the past, about the future, it would be Stephen. But he did not intend to talk to any of them about his ordeal. Not ever.
He was already so weakened in the eyes of his family, those around him. Why let them know the true depths of his failure?
“Go away, Stephen,” he whispered.
He heard his brother’s disappointed sigh. The table shook when Stephen used it to brace himself while he stood.
“Then you are truly lost to us,” Stephen said from beside the door. “We thought we were rescuing you, but we didn’t. You’re not here now anymore than these last thirteen years.”
Brian waited until the door closed behind his brother and Stephen’s footsteps receded down the hall. He picked up his brother’s largely untouched cup of wine and downed the contents of it as well as his own.
&
nbsp; Chapter Three
Constance looked up hopefully from her embroidery when Stephen approached her. She sat by the hearth, as close as she could. She was always cold these days. Ever since being held by Loutrant. She pushed aside the thought.
Stephen shook his head, his gaze defeated.
Constance stabbed her finger but barely noticed the sting. She set the tapestry aside.
“He will not come down?”
Stephen straddled the bench she sat upon. “Nay. I did not ask. He is as stubborn as before.”
“You must keep trying. All of you.”
Stephen snorted. “Telford has tried many times. Everyone has. He barely tolerates me.”
She knew they had all tried, but she would not despair. Brian was worth the effort. Even if he was not for her.
“What of Trevor? Can you not convince him to go to his father?”
Stephen sighed and rested his head in his hands. “He is his father’s son, Constance. He refuses to have anything to do with Brian since they have returned. Trevor is as stubborn as his father.”
“‘Tis so unfair,” she lamented. “Once I had not seen a family so close as the Fitzroys and now, I have not seen a family so far apart.”
“That is what Loutrant does. He destroys.” Stephen winced and took her hands in his. “I am sorry. I did not intend to mention that vile name. Pray forgive me.”
Constance squeezed his hands. “No one knows what he is capable of more than I, except mayhap my dear Brian. You do not need to watch your words around me. In fact, please do not.”
“Very well,” Stephen agreed. “I wish Nick were here. He would know what to do with Brian and Trevor.”
Constance smiled. “Aye, he would. But you know he and Marion are trying to make Loutrant’s former castle into their home.”
“And they have the babe on the way.”
“Exactly so. I am afraid this time we must try to help ourselves, Stephen, without Nick.”
Stephen’s warm cinnamon colored eyes narrowed suddenly, as though something had just occurred. “Con, why don’t you speak to him?”
“M-Me?” Constance backed away from him on the bench. “Oh, I couldn’t.”
“Why not? No one else has been able to get through. And you were in the prison with him.”
Constance stared at her pricked finger. “But he ran from me this very morning.”
“If you go to his room he can’t very well run,” Stephen pointed out.
“Are you suggesting I go to a man’s chamber alone?”
“Not a man…Brian’s.” Stephen shook his head and touched her raven hair. “Brian isn’t going to do anything. And we’re your family. We’re not likely to think ill of you for it.”
Constance bit her lip. “I don’t want to upset him or make him angry.”
“I’m not saying it will be easy to reach him. I don’t know if you will get through any better than the rest of us, but don’t you think it is worth a try? You reached him in the dungeon, didn’t you?”
“That was different, Stephen. Surely you must realize.”
Stephen studied her silently for a few moments. Constance bravely held his gaze.
“You aren’t afraid of Brian, are you?”
Constance denied it. “Not the way you think.”
“Please?”
Constance knew she could refuse the Fitzroys nothing. Especially Brian.
“I will go,” she agreed at last. She stood and placed a chaste kiss on Stephen’s forehead. Ignoring the fluttering of her stomach, she quit the Great Hall and went up the stairs to Brian’s room.
Not a sound came from within and no light either. For a moment, she decided not to knock. He probably slept, Constance convinced herself. She did not want to disturb him.
“Is someone there?”
Constance jumped, for Brian’s voice came from directly on the other side of the door. He was close.
She touched the door. Spread her fingers out, almost as a caress.
“‘Tis only I.”
Only silence greeted her. She thought he would speak no more and would ignore her even if she did knock.
Then the door slowly creaked open.
Six months earlier, Loutrant Castle
“I have brought your meal,” Constance whispered to the wretched prisoner. She glanced back over her shoulder at the leering guard, Owen. He closed the door to the cell with a large thud.
The poor soul in the corner shifted on the stones. He made no other sound. Constance took a step forward. As bad as she had it, at least she was not being kept in such a horrible, dark place.
“Sir?”
He groaned. A ghastly, pain-filled sound.
Constance hurried forward, her trepidation forgotten. She thrust the trencher on the floor and knelt beside the man.
“You are hurt,” she whispered, noticing the freshly clotted blood on the corner of his mouth.
“‘Tis naught but a scratch,” the man croaked out.
“He did this to you, didn’t he?” Constance used the sleeve of her gown to gently wipe his mouth.
The prisoner merely nodded.
“For what reason?” Constance asked. She was afraid Loutrant had made good his earlier threat and had punished this poor wretch for her tears.
“Loutrant needs no reason, Constance.” He pushed her hand away. “You should not help me. It will only anger him.”
“I do not care. Where else did he hurt you?”
“It does not matter.”
“Of course it matters, sir.” Constance felt his forehead. Her fingers slid over a large lump. “He hit you here?”
“I think that’s from when my head hit the floor, actually.”
Constance gasped. “You poor man.”
He grabbed her hand again. “Don’t. I do not want sympathy or pity. It will only make it worse for me.”
“Worse? Why?”
“I have forgotten tenderness, Constance. It no longer exists for me.” He squeezed her hand and then released it. “I do not want it back.”
“Mayhap you do not,” Constance said, reaching for his hands and clasping them in hers. “But I have not forgotten it and I do want it.”
“How long have you been his prisoner?”
A hot tear spilled onto her cheek. “This is the fourth day.”
The man raised his hand briefly and for a moment Constance thought he meant to touch her cheek, but he dropped it again.
“When you have been here as long as I have you no longer know the days and nights nor the weeks and months. Even the years pass without your knowing.”
Constance held her breath, waiting for him to finish.
“And eventually emotions such as tenderness, love, happiness, laughter, they disappear. At first they are naught but a memory until even that is taken from you.”
He laughed sharply, almost cruelly. Constance flinched.
“It might be all right, except you never lose your anger or your fear. Or sorrow. They stay with you until they haunt you.”
The man leaned his head back until it touched the wall and closed his eyes.
Constance opened her mouth to say something, anything, she didn’t know what. But the door to the cell opened abruptly and Owen called for her to leave.
****
Autumn, Fitzroy Castle
Constance stared into the darkness of Brian’s room. She was not ready to enter his lair, but not ready to give up on him either.
She felt his presence. He was there somewhere, beyond the door.
Gathering her courage, Constance took the first step into the room. After all, she did not fear him, she reminded herself. He was not Loutrant.
Once fully inside, she realized the room was not completely dark. One of the windows had the fur pulled slightly back.
“My lord? Brian?” Constance called, uncertain of his whereabouts.
“Here,” he said after a moment.
She squinted, and saw him, just beyond the second window, only an outli
ne. A mere shadow.
“My lord,” Constance admonished, deciding to take the motherly approach. “You need some more light.”
“There is a wall sconce to your left.”
The rich, alluring voice offering so much comfort in Loutrant’s castle was gone. His voice seemed hollow now, lifeless.
Strange. He cared more for her when they were both prisoners.
Constance lit the sconce and turned back to face him. Brian now stood just a few feet from her. She resisted the urge to cry out.
His mahogany hair stood on end. Under his intensely almost black eyes were dark circles, and the eyes themselves had a hazy, not quite there, cast to them.
Dressed as he was before in a brown jerkin and breeches, his white undershirt was askance. He swayed slightly on his feet.
His masculine beauty made her heart ache, but that beauty lay dormant behind a mask of gloom and depravity.
“Brian, you have been drinking,” Constance accused.
“You’ve noticed.” He gestured to the empty wine bottle on the small table in the room. “Rather heavily, actually.”
Constance frowned. She opened her mouth to tell him what she thought of his drinking.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Brian said. “You don’t belong here.”
She closed her mouth, thoughts of railing at him for drink flying from her mind. He still did not want to talk to her. It was plain enough. She ought to scurry from the room before she got burned.
Once, Constance did what she ought to and nothing more. Before Loutrant.
“You don’t belong here either,” she said softly. “Sit down, my lord. I want to have a normal conversation with you.”
“We don’t know what normal is, you and I.” But despite his coolly spoken words, Brian took the chair by the small table. He peered anxiously at the empty bottle.
“I’ll not bring you more,” Constance told him. She sat on the small wood bench on the other side of the table.
“I’ll save us both the trouble,” Brian said after a moment of heavy silence. “You’ve been sent up here to try and talk to me. I have naught to say.”