by Robyn Carr
“Knows what, madam?” Jocelyn questioned.
“Stephen is the one responsible for betraying the Wescotts so many years ago. It is likewise Stephen terrorizing the roads and the villages, as it was he who had Lord and Lady Trendell killed by his own guard. I am certain he will go against my uncle at Dearborn.” Adrienne, flushing from a frantic ride, suddenly burst into tears. “Even when he feared for his own life, Uncle Julian did not accuse Stephen. I had no idea the danger—”
Jocelyn went to Adrienne and put her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “Calm yourself now, and come inside.” She looked toward the riders that were with the young girl. “We make ready to defend ourselves against any attack from Master Kerr. Will you aid our men and help us fight?” They looked between each other in some confusion. “Women in this house arm themselves with kitchen knives and broomsticks. Will you?” Finally she saw one man nod and the others rather reluctantly agreed.
Adrienne, trembling, dug inside her coat to pull out the document her uncle wrote. “I have this evidence of my cousin’s crimes. It is a long story written in Uncle Julian’s own hand. I was to give it to someone who would help remove Stephen if Julian could not. He should have called for aid before confronting Stephen, knowing all this of his son. Lady, I fear I am already too late.”
Jocelyn took the pages, although she could not have read them even slowly and without pressure. “I will see this placed in a vault. Avery, I think it is time to seek out Sir Troy. Take these men to help you and let us quickly secure the manor. I think we have good cause to fear more treachery.
“Shall I send someone after Lord Wescott, mum?”
“No, Trent knows his way better than anyone. He will not be fooled, and if the danger is here, he will quickly return. For us, we must not have a weakened house. If Stephen Kerr meant to divide and weaken us, he will be disappointed.”
The servant nodded and moved quickly, three more men in his wake. Jocelyn led Adrienne to a chair and tried to quiet her. “Sir Troy?” Adrienne asked. “He is here?”
“He’s never far away, sweet,” Jocelyn said. “I am going to hide these papers safely, and when I return, you must tell me everything your uncle wrote.”
While Jocelyn listened, Adrienne related the contents of the papers as quickly and quietly as she could. They occupied two chairs in the wide foyer rather than in a room removed from the main artery of the house. Jocelyn looked away sometimes to see the staff scurrying about, and if her apparent distraction caused Adrienne to pause, she touched the girl’s hand and urged her to continue. All around them people were moving swiftly and silently through the house. There was the sound of doors opening and closing, and both uniformed men-at-arms with hefty weapons and women wielding broomsticks threw the bolts all over the manor. The scurrying continued well beyond Adrienne’s tale, but still Jocelyn sat, keeping her ears sharp and her eyes riveted.
“Lady Wescott?” Adrienne ventured. “You are not afraid?”
“No, dear,” she smiled. “Master Kerr may indeed have more men, but they are not better than these.”
Her attention was drawn by the sharp click of boots in the foyer, and she looked up to see Troy coming toward her. He was garbed in simple leather jerkin over a linen shirt, with a sword and short blade at his belt. Jocelyn rose and walked toward him instantly. Adrienne likewise rose, but dared not approach him.
“I am afraid they’ve sent Trent out falsely and plan to attack him on the toad,” Jocelyn said.
“No, lady, they will not,” Troy assured her. “He would never allow himself to be that kind of fool. Trust me that Trent knows how to travel wisely.”
“Then they must come here,” she said.
“I think that is the best possibility. It would be his cowardly style to attack while Trent is away and then lie waiting for his return. How many men did he take?”
“I don’t know the number, but he said a like number would remain and we would not be ill fixed here.”
“And I have brought some. They are mostly outside, while the Braeswood men are in each hall and doorway of this house. No one will enter here easily.”
“Lady Adrienne brought a document written by Lord Kerr attesting to Stephen’s evil deeds. I have hidden it safely away.”
Troy looked at Adrienne for the first time. She stood clutching her hands together nervously. “How have you come?” he asked her.
“I rode. Three men from my uncle’s house rode with me.”
“You could have been killed, riding with so few at night.”
She stood a bit taller. “I’m a good horsewoman, sir, and there seemed only one way to hurry the warning to Lord Wescott and help my uncle.”
“Still, it was foolhardy—”
“Chastise her on the morrow, Sir Troy,” Jocelyn said sternly. “We have other matters afoot.”
A man came swiftly down the stairs. “There’s a light down the west road. It could be riders bearing a torch.”
Avery was running into the foyer from the back of the house with the same message. The old man was visibly shaken and skidded to a stop when he encountered the gathering. “God’s mercy, if it isn’t like that night, Trent sent out and the lady here with the servants and no defense to be—”
“Stop!” Jocelyn commanded him sternly. She had already sensed this similarity with no help from Avery. In her own breast she felt hysteria threaten to rise; but she squelched it quickly. Fear was by far the greatest weapon Stephen Kerr had. “Avery, this is nothing like that ill-fated night. There is no real common thread. We know much of Kerr and his forces and they are weaker in their total numbers than half our men caught sleeping. Braeswood is stout and well moored, each door thicker than the ones that stood against Roundheads, whose numbers were too great and skids too fine to battle properly. This is a night like any other when we hold the house against Stephen Kerr. And like every other night, we will not fall. Now spread courage among our people and leave your fears here in this hall. If we are afraid, we aid the very monster that wishes our deaths.”
Avery seemed to grow stronger with every word and finally gave a sharp nod and moved to the door to check the bolt again. Jocelyn looked at Troy, finding him smiling as he regarded her.
“Jocelyn, take Adrienne with you to your room. You will find me close outside that door. Go quickly. And alert those women taking refuge near your rooms to stand ready.”
Trent took William and a dozen good men with him toward Dearborn. He reasoned that if a plot to meet him on the road was being developed, he would at least have it be a wide road. He therefore took the quickest and most easily traveled route. It was such a blatant and unexpected move that many of his men tried to persuade him to do otherwise. “Do you think Kerr and any of his men would meet us in a fair fight? If they lie in the brush, they will only find themselves disadvantaged, while we are horsed and ready. And if they are busy defiling Dearborn, we must make haste.”
They flew down the road at great speed and had ridden their horses hard for almost half of an hour. Trent did not do as he promised but stayed at the front of his troop and led them. And then he suddenly stopped, raising his hand to halt the others. He paused in the quiet of the dark road and looked at a strange glow in the distance.
“What is it?” someone murmured from behind.
“It is Dearborn fallen,” another quietly replied.
Trent felt a prickling sensation move up his back and cause his hair to rise at the nape of his neck. It came flashing back to him in ruthless, haunting memories. He was put upon the road to find soldiers for aid to Braeswood and returned to find his home pillaged and burning, his mother dead by an enemy sword. He remembered that he had felt right leaving. He listened carefully to his mother’s warnings and rode as if the devil chased him.
“Braeswood.”
It burst from his lips in a whisper that could have been a curse or a prayer.
“Braeswood lays low,” one of his companions whispered to another.
In a flurry o
f hooves, the band was turned and breaking their horses to make Braeswood. The ride was fierce and too long, and Trent was plagued by old memories that made his blood boil. It was as if he was reliving that night long ago in his mind as he thought of how weakened his home was in his absence. Although Stephen’s plan was yet unknown, his regular assaults on innocents and his fear of fighting in an equal battle were understood. Trent was convinced that he would find Stephen at Braeswood. With every hoofbeat he became more determined. Behind him William and the others kept pace.
When his land and the house were again in his sight, he was unsure of his timing. He couldn’t tell if Stephen Kerr and his men had only just arrived or if the separate groups had been at odds for a length of time. When he drew nearer he raised his sword and an earsplitting cry announced his return.
The chaos was tremendous, blade meeting blade and men on foot fighting with swords, knives, and fists. There were suited men-at-arms and also simpler soldiers wielding dangerous pitchforks and hammers. The Wescott manor doors stood stoutly closed against this battle, and the grounds around the house were filled with shouts, cries, and rising dust. Trent rode toward a man in the Kerr livery and spun him about with an angry oath, ready to run him through. “Milord,” Bruce shouted.
Trent was stopped short. “Get out of here, man, before you’re done in by one of our own.”
He had only a moment to notice that his order was ignored. As Trent moved on to the next villain, so did Bruce attack a man wearing the same coat. Trent muttered a quick hope that no one from Braeswood would kill him.
With Wescott’s return, the force from Dearborn was outnumbered severely. Stephen Kerr’s twenty men were poorly prepared for twenty sound and battle-wise men-at-arms trained and selected by Wescott. They began to fall quickly, for the onslaught was too much. Many dropped weapons and threw up their hands. At an appropriate moment when things seemed coming under control, Trent ventured in the direction of Bruce again. “Stay near me, lad, if you value your life.” The horsed rider did so thankfully, and within just a few moments almost all of the Kerr guard was killed, captured, or fleeing for their lives.
There was one horsed rider far enough away from the manor to be dimly seen but not recognizable. Bruce tugged at Trent’s sleeve. “That’s him, milord. Master Kerr.”
Trent took a quick look at the doors to his house to see they were stoutly shut against any remaining force, and then urged his horse in the direction of Stephen Kerr. Kerr immediately turned his own mount and fled, his distance a distinct advantage.
Trent spurred his animal mercilessly, the steed already exhausted from hard riding but still trying to faithfully serve. His hand touched the whip at his belt. He panted in a desperate longing to catch Kerr before he could melt into the night, and at the first sign he was gaining, he began to smile. They rode for what seemed like years to Trent, so precious was the thought of overcoming him.
It was his third passing on this road for the night; once toward Dearborn, once back, and now in a final pursuit of his enemy. He was slowly gaining a length with each quarter-mile and he heard himself laugh loudly in the dark night as he reckoned he would catch him.
Kerr slowed slightly ahead and then Trent could make out another rider, one coming toward them both. Whoever ventured toward Braeswood reared his horse to a stop and Kerr’s animal bucked and dropped its rider. By the time Wescott was upon them, the two men sprawled in the dust on the road, one horse running crazed down the road and one standing idly by the roadside.
Trent cracked his fierce whip once in the dust. Matthew rose quickly, leaving Stephen squirming, and stood. “Wescott,” he gasped, out of breath. “Thank God.”
Trent paid no mind to his grateful accomplice but bore his icy stare down on Stephen Kerr. He turned once to note the approach of Bruce, who wisely did not remain at Braeswood to plead innocence when he wore the suspicious uniform.
Kerr lay weeping in the dust of the road. “Mercy, Wescott,” he pleaded. “We were under attack at Dearborn and rode to you for help when your people—”
“Liar!” Wescott boomed. “These are my people. They know your plot. You would sneak into my house and lay low my family while I rode to an abandoned and destroyed manor to give you aid.”
Kerr looked up at the faces of riders he had trusted and broke into pitiful sobs anew. “Destroyed?” he sniveled.
“I fired the house, milord.” Matt shrugged. “I could not otherwise warn you. Twenty men hid about the manor ready to slay you when you came onto the property.”
“Destroyed? You burned it? My father—my—”
“He killed Lord Kerr,” Matt interjected. “Smashed his skull with a crystal ornament and left him there.”
Stephen began to laugh, at first a choking, dribbling sound that rose perpetually higher. “You killed my father, Wescott,” he screamed. “You with your plan to take Dearborn from me. You killed him and had the house fired. You—”
Unable to restrain himself even when faced with the pitiful, broken man, he reached down and grasped Kerr by the throat, brought him upright, and, while holding him with one hand, laid a smashing blow to his face. “You stinking coward,” he shouted.
Kerr fell instantly. He couldn’t stand under even one strike. He lay limp on the road, his nose and mouth bleeding generously. Trent looked at his hand and knew a bruise was quickly staining his knuckles. “No one will blame you if you kill him,” Bruce said.
“Did anyone get in the house?” Trent asked, ignoring the suggestion.
“No, they were held without and the manor was secure through the fight.”
“What of Dearborn?” he asked Matt.
“Nearly gone when I could steal a horse and find you to give warning. I hoped if the place took light, the flames would tell you. In the confusion of the fire I was able to find the stable finally untended.”
“Were many killed?” Trent asked.
Matt shrugged and looked down. “I rang the bed and gave warning in the house, but...” He looked up. “I don’t know, milord. Fewer than would have died if you were caught on Dearborn grounds and your lady held Braeswood alone.”
“What do we do with him?” Bruce asked.
Trent looked down at Stephen, thinking that the sight of him there did aught but stain the earth. “Bring him to Braeswood, and if he wakes up and tries to make away, kill him. I will see to my wife and son. In the morning he will be taken away in chains.”
“You could finish him now,” Matt urged.
“He does not deserve a quick death,” Trent growled. “I will see him get what he has given, and each day will be more fearful than the one before.”
With that said, he turned and rode back to Braeswood.
He tried to give his tired horse consideration but found it difficult to make a leisurely ride to his home. He found Jocelyn waiting just within, and when he came through the doors, she left Troy’s side and ran into his arms. She frantically clutched at him and checked him for injuries with her quick fingers, while alternately touching his cheeks and mouth with teary kisses. When he was convinced she was not injured herself, he looked to Troy.
“How many of Kerr’s men escaped?”
“Only a few. I was not outside with the fighting but guarding the bedchamber door.”
Trent smiled. “How like you to pose outside a woman’s bedroom.” Adrienne came up behind Troy and hung back a little, not very confident in approaching either man. “Ah, now I see, Troy.” He clicked his tongue tauntingly. “You had all of your favorites in one room. It must have been the realization of a dream.”
“You took your time getting here,” the man threw back. “Another few moments and I would have had to ask the women to take up swords to defend your house.”
He looked down at his wife, who had calmed considerably since feeling the strength of his arms about her. “Rest assured, Troy, no stronger battle companion could possibly be found.”
Adrienne edged her way in front of Troy. She looked silently
and despairingly at Trent. Still wearing her saddle-weary garments and her hair wildly free of its moorings, she looked anxious and frightened. Reluctantly, she posed the question. “My uncle?”
“Dead, Adrienne. Stephen killed his father.”
Her eyes widened suddenly, but it was the only indication she gave of shock. “Dearborn?” she whispered forlornly.
“It was fired. I don’t know the damage or injury.”
Her gaze dropped and she slowly turned, walking out of the entrance hall and toward the back of the house. Her steps were slow and agonized, her head bent.
“Trent,” Jocelyn murmured, a look of pained sympathy in her eyes. “She just lost everything. I have to go to her.”
“No, love,” he said. “You have to come with me. We can find someone else to comfort her now.” He raised his eyes and looked at Troy.
TWENTY
From the bedchamber window before the light of dawn, Trent saw a woman enter the stable and return moments later with her saddled horse. She mounted without assistance and rode off the grounds unchaperoned. He knew it must be Adrienne and quickly found his clothing to investigate the stables.
Stephen Kerr had been tied there through the night and Trent scowled blackly as he walked past the sleeping guard. He reasoned his men had been through much and could not decry the need for sleep, but to leave the heathen unattended made him angry. The door to the back room was still bolted from the outside and his entrance did not wake the man sitting watch.
The sight within did not surprise him much, but still his breath left him with an almost exhausted whoosh of air. Stephen’s broken body lay slumped, his ropes untied, and blood had spilled onto the dirt floor. His eyes were wide and terrified, his face broken and dark from Trent’s own fist, and the knife that was used to slay him still protruded from his chest. Trent entered the room as noiselessly as he could, for now that the damage was done, he saw no need to rouse the men.
He knelt and grasped the dead man by the hair to turn his face. The look of honor was set there for all eternity. Disgust rose in Trent’s throat in a sickening gurgle. It was not the sight of death; of that he had seen too much. It was the revolting picture before him. The slain devil would never rest in peace after all he’d done.