“I know it.”
“Is that what ye want, then? They’ll kill us all.”
“Not if I’m married tae Lady Alyx.”
Robby stared at him. Douglas was determined to do whatever it took to have Lady Alyx and no amount of reason could change his mind. There was a desperation there that Robby hadn’t seen before, like a dog with a bone. Or a man who desperately missed his dead wife and didn’t want to be lonely anymore.
At first, Robby thought Douglas’ obsession with Lady Alyx was simply because she was pretty, but now he was coming to think it was something more. Mairi’s death had affected him greatly, perhaps more than any of them realized.
Enough to risk a major border war over.
“I’ll go with ye,” Robby finally said. “I’ll bring a few of the lads with us. More of us can cover the grounds and watch for yer lady if she decides tae walk in the woods near The Lyceum. But what if she doesna come, Doogie? What then?”
Douglas’ face darkened. “Then Makendon Castle had better be prepared for my anger,” he said. “I’ll breach the castle and take the lass.”
Robby could see there was no reasoning with him. “Makendon has big walls,” he said. “It will take many men.”
“We can get men from Clan Gordon.”
“And Makendon can get men from The Lyceum, Castle Questing, Northwood Castle, and more. Are ye sure this is what ye want tae do?”
“I’m sure.”
Robby didn’t ask again. When Douglas Kerr set out to do something, there was no changing his mind.
The peace negotiations were about to get interesting.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Lyceum
It was very late when Antonia and the ladies retired to their suite of rooms.
The iron door that was usually bolted was open, which wasn’t strange considering no one was there to watch over it, but it was also nearly half-open, as if someone had forgotten to shut it. Antonia entered the first chamber, looking around. It was a sitting room, with chairs and a hearth that was snapping with a banked fire.
The servants must have come in to light the fire, she thought.
Her suspicion faded as the ladies came in behind her, bolting the door. Now, they were locked in for the night and Antonia began to remove her outer things as she walked into the second chamber, which had a variety of open trunks and capcases, and an old wardrobe that had moths in it. She and her women hadn’t used the wardrobe for just that reason, so she began tossing her things onto a table that held a variety of implements necessary for a properly dressed woman.
“Where is Lilia?” Antonia said over her shoulder to one of the ladies. “Is she in bed? Bring her to me.”
One of the women obediently went into the last chamber where Lilia was sleeping and Antonia could hear voices. She slept in the chamber with Lilia while the other two ladies slept out here, in this chamber with two tiny beds that had been crammed in amongst the trunks. Antonia was unpinning her wimple when Lilia appeared, blinking sleepily.
Antonia looked the woman over; bruised, her hair askew, she looked like a street urchin.
“Good Christ,” she hissed. “What a sight you are.”
Lilia smoothed at her dark hair self-consciously. “I was sleeping,” she said. “What did you want?”
Antonia pulled off the top layer of her wimple and lay the scarf on the table. “Did Sir Torston come up to see you tonight?”
Lilia shook her head. “Nay,” she said. “Why do you ask?”
Antonia sighed heavily. “Because he was not in the hall,” she said. “He was there when we first entered, but then he fled.”
“He did not come here.”
Antonia tossed the big iron hair pins to the table in anger. “Damnation,” she muttered. “I was hoping he had.”
“I’ve not seen him.”
Antonia tossed the last pin onto the table, so hard that it bounced off and onto the floor. “This entire evening was a disaster,” she said. “No one cares that you are here. Sir Torston has made it plain that he wants nothing to do with you. Lady Alyx wasn’t even at the feast. Mayhap Sir Torston was with her!”
Lilia appeared worried. “What if she tells him about our conversation with her today?” she said. “He will know we have lied to him and…”
Antonia whirled on her, grabbing the nearest thing at hand, which happened to be a pewter cup meant for wine. It was on the table along with a few others. She threw the cup at Lilia, hitting the woman in the arm. As Lilia gasped and rubbed the spot, Antonia fumed.
“Shut your mouth, you foolish wench,” she said. “I told you that I will handle Sir Torston. If he comes to accuse us of lying, we will simply deny it.”
Lilia backed away from the table in case another cup came flying at her. “But how?”
Antonia jabbed a finger at her. “Lady Alyx had no witnesses to her presence here,” she said. “We will all deny she was even here, which will work to our advantage by planting a seed of doubt in Sir Torston’s mind. He will see that his Lady Alyx is so petty that she’s willing to lie to him to try and separate him from his betrothed. Truly, it may all work in our favor but I wish we did not have to go to such great lengths. If that girl wasn’t here, the situation would be much easier for us.”
Lilia was still rubbing her arm as she bent over and picked up the cup. “But we did lie,” she said, looking to the two women who were carefully packing clothing back into the trunks. “We lied and you had Rosalie and Gwen beat me. I have marks all over my body now and a loose tooth. If Sir Torston comes to see me, he will see that I have been injured.”
Antonia paused, the rest of the wimple half off of her head. Her dark eyes were full of rage.
“He will see what I want him to see,” she growled. “Look at you. You’re no better than the dogs in the street. I found you scrubbing floors at St. Anthony’s and plucked you out of oblivion to serve a higher purpose. Did you forget that? Without me, you’d still be scrubbing those floors and taking money from men to service their needs. You were a whore before I found you, girl. You can easily be a whore again and not the wife of a great knight. I did that for you.”
Lilia did what she usually did. She hung her head.
“I have not forgotten what you have done for me,” she said meekly. “But I fear what will happen if Lady Alyx tells Sir Torston of our… conversation.”
Antonia’s gaze lingered on her a moment before returning to the removal of her wimple. “I told you what would happen if she does,” she said. “You worry overly. As for Lady Alyx and Sir Torston being together tonight… it is possible I am wrong. Lady Alyx appeared suitably upset when she left here earlier today, so mayhap she is thinking about what we told her. The evidence was clear. You were beaten and in possession of the de Royans’ signet ring. Hopefully that will cast enough doubt in her mind that she’ll return home where she belongs. I just need that girl to go.”
“But what if Sir Torston asks Morley about our conversation with Lady Alyx today?” Lilia said timidly. “Will Morley lie to him?”
Antonia’s dark eyes flashed. “If Morley wants his cut of the de Royans wealth, he will,” she said. “Once you and Sir Torston are married, we will have access to the money. Morley needs the money as much as we do, so it will behoove him to keep his mouth shut. As it will behoove you.”
Lilia knew that. She was a pawn in Antonia’s game, the major bait in the trap set for Torston de Royans. She worried greatly about what would happen to her if the marriage didn’t go through.
Returning to a life of servitude was the least of her worries.
“Of course, my lady,” she said, averting her gaze. “But the boy… Torston’s boy. He will live with us when the marriage is completed?”
Antonia shrugged. “Of course he will,” she said dismissively. “He is Sir Torston’s son. I want nothing to do with him after the marriage is completed. He will have served his purpose.”
Lilia had never liked the fact that Antonia was using a small boy as a last
resort if Torston didn’t do as he was told. She never had. But fear kept her silent.
“May I return to bed now?” she asked.
Antonia waved her off. “Go,” she said. “Tomorrow is a new day and I intend to find Sir Torston and discuss the plans for this marriage. I want a date set. Then, once he is married to you, everything we have planned for since the death of my daughter will come to fruition. You may not be my darling Lilia, but you are going to accomplish exactly what she would have had she lived. It is a vital role. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Aye, my lady.”
“Through you, the House of de Weese shall live again.”
Lilia simply lowered her gaze and returned to her chamber. Her life may not have been easier before Lady Bridget de Weese talked her into this scheme with the promises of wealth, but she certainly wasn’t as fearful as she was now. Every day was terror with that woman. Years of assuming the role of a dead girl, years of preparing for this moment.
Now that she was here, she wasn’t so sure she wanted it.
But Lady Antonia, formerly Lady Bridget, couldn’t know that. If she did, Lilia had no doubt that she would kill her. It would ruin her chances to inherit the de Royans wealth, but Lilia would be just as dead in the end.
She didn’t want to die.
Climbing back into bed, Lilia pulled the coverlet over her head and wept.
When sleep finally came for Alyx in her small, borrowed chamber, it was fitful. She tossed and turned, her imagination running wild. The small periods of sleep she managed to capture only made her more exhausted. Her dreams, her thoughts, were centered around Torston until she couldn’t stand it any longer.
Restless, she gave up trying to sleep.
It was late. She didn’t even know how late, but she knew that the feast in the hall was winding down because she couldn’t hear the music any longer. The drums had stopped. As she sat there in the chamber, with the warm hearth and comfortable bed, it began to feel like a prison to her. She was beginning to feel caged.
She had to get out.
Pulling her traveling dress back on, the one she had worn when she’d ridden her mad dash from Makendon to The Lyceum, she was so distracted that she didn’t even put her shoes back on. The wilds, the trees, were calling to her and she was compelled to answer. She didn’t even care that she would be leaving The Lyceum for the unpredictable woods at night. All she knew was that the trees were where she did her best thinking, where decisions came easily to her.
And this decision was going to be the most important one of her life.
Leaving the keep was a simple thing. She’d become very good at it over the years. She knew the intricacies of the keep and how to stay hidden. The hall below wasn’t completely empty yet, with just a few stragglers draining the last of their wine and no one paid attention to a small woman as she stayed to the shadows and slipped from the hall before the big doors were closed for the night.
Out in the moonlit garden, Alyx passed by the pond with its naked statue on her way to the postern gate. At night, it was bolted from the inside but usually not guarded as it was during the day when it was open and people were coming in and out, so she simply unbolted the gate and slipped through.
The moat that went around The Lyceum’s walls was almost nonexistent in some places because of the unseasonably dry weather they’d had, so she was able to walk through a part of the moat that amounted to no more than a puddle of water. She wasn’t afraid of the rumors of snapping eels, either. She seemed to hear once that Torston had made up that particular bit of gossip to scare visitors.
Torston…
Her heart twisted as thoughts of the man hit her again, more heavily than before. Once across the moat and to the other side, she made a break for the trees beyond before the sentries on the wall caught sight of her. With the fortress lit up like a bonfire against the night sky, she was able to make it into the safety of the woods before she was sighted.
A wraith in the darkness and no more.
Now, she could think.
Torston… what am I to do?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Dyl had a terrible time opening the wardrobe door. When it finally jerked free, he took a deep breath to clear his lungs of the dust and body-odor smell that had been seeping into him for the better part of the night.
Harringham had planted him in the sturdy old wardrobe the night before with firm instructions to listen to every word Lilia and her ladies spoke. Since last eve, Dyl had experienced an earful.
But the damnable door wouldn’t open. When the ladies left at dawn on their morning constitutional, Dyl spent quite some time struggling to dislodge the panel. Then, the ladies came back, trapping him so that he could not find Great Caesar and tell him of the lies and schemes.
Dyl could barely remember what he had heard when the ladies spoke of more lies, things that confused him greatly, and Dyl was desperate to keep the stories straight. But there was so much going on, so terribly much, that it was all becoming one great jumble in his simple mind.
But one thing was certain – evil was afoot.
Lady Lilia’s dark-haired woman was very bad. She gave the commands and the others simply followed. And Lady Lilia – she wasn’t the real Lady Lilia, Dyl could deduce. The dark-haired woman had called her a whore and other bad names.
Sometime before the nooning meal, the ladies took another walk about the grounds. Dyl suspected it would only be a matter of time before they returned, so he worked hard and finally freed the jammed door. Once it was open, he spilled onto his knees, scrambled up, and made haste from the room.
The corridor outside was cool and dim, the afternoon sunlight streaming through lancet windows. Dyl walked over a tiled mosaic in the middle of the upstairs floor, a scene depicting a Christian and a lion that had been expertly placed by a craftsman brought all the way from Florence. But he ignored the scene as his shoes scraped over the floor. At the moment, he was singularly focused on locating Lord Harringham and making his report.
Disheveled and harried, he descended the narrow stairs to the great hall of the keep. The strong smell of mutton filled his nostrils, reminding him of how hungry he was and he nearly forgot his quest to find Lord Harringham. Locating Torston would do just as well, considering the majority of the information concerned him. A rushed servant scurried past, bumping Dyl’s arm and distracting him from the smells of food, but he pushed onward and made his way to Great Caesar’s solar.
“Dyl!”
The young man came to an unsteady halt. Torston was coming toward him from the bailey, his eyes wide and his face unshaven. Before Dyl could gush his thanks at having located the mighty Centurion, Torston was grasping him on the arm with a trencher-size hand.
“Where have you been, Dyl?” he demanded softly. “We’ve been searching everywhere for you. And where in the hell is Alyx?”
Dyl shook his head. “I not know where she is. Where is Caesar?”
Torston seemed to pause, almost falter. Dyl saw him swallow hard but did not understand the emotion on his face. Strange, when he was usually so intuitive about such things.
“Come with me, Dyl,” he said quietly, pulling the young man along.
They entered Lionel’s solar, cold and nearly dark but for a few wisps of light streaming in through the lancet windows. It smelled funny, too, as Dyl noticed immediately. Torston moved to the oilcloths covering the windows, pulling them back to allow some fresh air into the room.
“Dyl,” Torston said, slowly turning to the young man. “Something has happened.”
“But I must find Caesar,” Dyl insisted.
“This is far more important. Caesar can wait.”
“But he…”
“Dyl, please,” Torston insisted with a touch of irritation. “Will you listen to me first? I must tell you something.”
“But I… can I tell you instead?”
“Later, Dyl. I need you to listen to me now.”
Dyl eyed him a moment. T
hen, he shrugged. “I listen to you first.”
Faintly, Torston sighed. In truth he was having a great deal of difficulty finding the time and patience for this task. He had been unable to locate Alyx since dawn and even now there were at least a hundred men searching every nook and crevice of The Lyceum for any sign of her. Distracted, worried and exhausted, Torston struggled to deliver the devastating news to Dyl in a compassionate manner.
“I am afraid I have some bad news,” he said as gently as he could manage. Dyl stared back at him blankly and Torston scratched his head before continuing, wondering if the young man would even understand what he was being told. “Dyl, your father passed away last night. It was swift and he did not suffer.”
Dyl simply stared at him, his thick features never changing expression. “Da… da…?”
Torston nodded slowly. “He’s dead. I am sorry, Dyl. Truly.”
Dyl continued to stare, uncomprehending. Then, as if the impact of the news suddenly dawned on his simple mind, his eyes widened and he seemed to lose his balance. Rocking against a sturdy chair, he gripped it awkwardly to steady himself. Torston watched, his impatience tempered by his sympathy, as Dyl struggled to understand what had happened.
“Da… dead?” he repeated, weakly.
Torston reached out, helping him to sit. “It was completely painless, Dyl, and so swift that I scarcely knew when he had gone. One moment we were speaking, and in the next he was dead.”
Dyl’s face began leaking fluid then; saliva, tears, mucus. Every orifice was emitting something. Torston patted his arm in a comforting gesture, unsure of what else to do. He wasn’t particularly good with words of comfort, but the more Dyl’s face wetted, staining the top of his tunic, the more he felt compelled to offer something more by way of condolence.
“He was a fine man, Dyl,” he said quietly. “I have long admired…”
“Dead!” Dyl’s voice cracked with grief. “Dead, dead, dead!”
Torston watched as Dyl beat at the sides of his head, resorting to tearing at his messy brown hair. He didn’t want the lad to hurt himself, yet he didn’t want to interfere with his expression of grief. A pain that had to find an outlet, somehow.
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