by Tamara Leigh
His mouth tightened, but when he spoke his voice was pitched low. “Did you read the book?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“Yes.” She knew where he was headed, but how to cut him off?
“When did you read it?”
“Before I completed the first cycle of sleep deprivation.”
Mac scooted nearer, the effort making him groan.
“You’ll start it bleeding again.” Kennedy looked to his fingers splayed over his injury. It was then she noticed something was missing. Though there was only moonlight and scattered torches, the tattoo that had wound the back of his hand for as long as she had known him was gone. “What happened to your tattoo?”
“Gone the same as your tumor, the same as any scar you may have had.”
Reminded of her discovery before the mirror in Lady Jaspar’s chamber, Kennedy fingered the smooth skin at the outside corner of her eye. Though the scar had been small, she’d had it since childhood. But not in the fourteenth century.
“It’s like starting over. Being reborn. It’s the reason we’re here, Ken. Have you read the book since your first journey?”
“No. I let my mother borrow it, though she said. . .”
“What?”
She rolled her eyes. “This is ridiculous.”
“It isn’t. The book’s the key. It’s all there.”
“Mac—”
“It changed, didn’t it? From the time I showed you the passages at the lab to when you read it through?”
“I. . .just remembered it differently, but I’m not exactly right in the head, you know.”
His gaze slid to her forehead, concern momentarily replacing fervor. “It’s really bad?”
Grateful that the intense headaches and her failing motor control were, for the moment, reduced to memories, she forced a smile. “I may not be awakening again.”
“Good. Though it’s over for me, you still have a chance to make a new life here.”
She longed to point out that, as it stood with Fulke, her chance at a new life was highly improbable, but the debate would only lead back down the path of believing something that existed only in her mind. Of course, at this point, what could it hurt?
“Tell me what you read.”
Kennedy told him all she remembered, from Sir Arthur and the boys’ flight from Brynwood Spire, to the two weeks spent searching him out.
“Everything’s changed,” Mac said.
“Only because I’ve lost my marbles.”
He gripped her arm. “Take off your doctor’s hat, and let yourself believe.”
“Come on, Mac. I’m not that naïve graduate student you tortured with pranks and gags. This is a dream, though I admit it’s the most amazing one I’ve ever had.”
“Wrong.”
She was tired of arguing. “Do you want to hear the rest of it?”
“Continue.”
Mac was silent throughout the telling of the confrontation at Farfallow—until she told of his death at Fulke’s hands.
“It was as he should have done,” he rumbled. “Instead, he left me like this.”
Because, dream or not, Kennedy had begged. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I.” He chuckled, a sound so void it was frightening. “Ironic, isn’t it? I came here to be whole again and Wynland sends me straight back to hell.”
Kennedy didn’t know what possessed her to say what she did next. “You’re not going to lose your leg. I’ll talk to Fulke—get you a doctor.”
His eyebrows shot up. “If you held any sway over him, you would be with him. I don’t know what happened between you two, but you’re now as much his enemy as I am.”
Maybe more.
“Besides, one of the drawbacks of the fourteenth century is that there’s no quality healthcare. Leeching is the cure-all.”
Bloodsucking worms. . .
“What about your mother, Ken? What did she read?”
“She said the author referenced a woman who posed as Lady Lark for a short time.”
“You? You’re the impostor?”
Then he had heard about her charade. “Yours truly. Well, in this dream, that is.” Mustn’t forget that. “It’s all a misunderstanding.”
“How’s that?”
She told him of awakening at the massacre, of Fulke chasing her down and assuming she was Lady Lark. “Who was I to argue? As I had fallen asleep thinking about her, it followed I had dreamed myself into her.” She put her head to the side. “Who told you there was an impostor?”
“Lady Lark.”
“How did she know?”
Mac shook his head. “Later. What else did your mother read?”
“That the impostor suddenly disappeared—”
“That would be when you awakened. Just like I disappeared when I came out of the coma.”
It made sense. “I suppose—” Kennedy caught her breath, but before she could separate fact from fiction, Mac pulled her back in.
“How did the story end?”
“My mother looked ahead and read that Wynland was hanged for the deaths of his nephews.”
“Truly?”
“Yes.”
He dragged a hand down his face. “Then my boys will yet die.”
He said it with such anguish it was as if he spoke of his own sons. But that was it, wasn’t it? Though Kennedy couldn’t remember the ages of Mac’s sons when his wife ran off with them shortly after his return from the Gulf, they had been young. In this, the fourteenth century, Mac had set out to reclaim what he had lost. The trouble was, John and Harold didn’t belong to him.
“I have to stop Wynland!” He tried to rise. “Somehow—”
“He’s not the one, Mac.” She gripped his arm and glanced at the knights. They would fall on Mac in an instant. “Fulke won’t harm them—didn’t harm them. I promise you.”
“You’re a fool, Ken. That greedy knave killed his brother and now—”
“No.” She rose to her knees. “Cardell killed the earl. I was there when it was revealed.”
For a moment she feared Mac would spurn her, but confusion came to roost. “I was certain ‘twas Wynland.”
“He’s been wronged.” And, if possible, she would prove that neither did he have anything to do with the deaths of his nephews. “Now tell me, how did Lady Lark know I was posing as her?”
“She saw you when her captor brought her from her prison to identify you.”
“But I never saw—”
“Of course not, as was intended.”
A chill crept Kennedy’s spine. In Fulke’s search for his nephews, they had paused briefly at several castles and numerous villages, so it could be any of them. But it was at Castle Cirque they had lingered, there she had sensed someone watching her while Sir Malcolm tailed her through the outer bailey. “Where was she imprisoned?”
As if shot with sudden pain, Mac grunted and dug the heel of his hand into his thigh. “At a castle. Which one, she doesn’t know. By some miracle, she knocked her captor unconscious and escaped. She ran and never looked back.”
“What did her captor look like?”
“He—or she—never showed his face, and Lady Lark was too fearful he might regain consciousness to look beneath his hood after felling him.”
It was the “or she” that captured Kennedy. Lady Jaspar? The woman had been taken aback when Fulke introduced Kennedy as Lady Lark.
“What is it, Ken?”
“Have you heard of Lady Jaspar?”
“Her name is familiar. I may have heard it mentioned at court.”
“She might be the one—at least, the one who arranged the attack on Lady Lark.”
A light shone through his pain. “Tell me all of it. From the moment you first arrived.”
“If you lie back.”
The ultimatum didn’t sit well with him, but he settled his head in her lap.
She leaned over him. “It begins with a wyvern.”
“Then Sir Arthur is not dead?”
/> Fulke met Lady Lark’s gold-flecked gaze. “Only injured.”
“For that, I thank you,” she said, stiffly.
Another who liked the miscreant. Fulke glanced at John and Harold where they slept on the pallet that Squire James had stuffed with leaves. “How is it you know Crosley, my lady?”
She began to pace the tent. “I met him at court when he came to petition my. . .the king for wardship of your nephews. Though Edward refused to grant it, I convinced him to send Sir Arthur to Brynwood to champion the boys.” She halted, causing her mantle to swirl about her ankles.
Fulke drove down his resentment. So the king’s leman was responsible for the curse of Crosley. Why had she done it? Had she taken Crosley as a lover and rewarded him thus?
She stepped forward and squinted up at him. “You believe as all believe, Lord Wynland, except those who know the truth. And they are truly few.”
“Of what do you speak?”
She put her head to the side, inviting shadow to darken her fine features. “The truth of who I am.”
“’Tis said you are the king’s leman.”
“And you believe it.”
“I know not what to believe, Lady Lark.” That last came hard, as if the name belonged not to her but the one who now called herself Nedy. “I have heard that you were sent to be my wife. Am I to believe that?”
Her eyes widened, but suspicion turned her expression around. She could not have spoken her distrust louder had she shouted it.
“Is it true, Lady Lark?”
“How do you know we are to wed?”
It was true, and a less desirable truth than when he believed Nedy Plain was this woman. “’Twas told to me by Lady Jaspar of Castle Cirque. It seems all rumors lead to her.”
“Perhaps,” she murmured. “As Edward decreed we are to be married, he would have you know I am not his leman.”
“You could not steal past Alice Perrers?”
She scowled, the display marring the soft curve of her mouth and thickening her slender neck. “Alice, malice! She was difficult, but that I live is testament that naught comes between Edward and his purpose.” She turned away, took two steps, and swung around. “From the moment his gaze picked me from the other courtiers, he knew me, but for a time allowed me to believe my revenge was at hand.”
What revenge had she hoped to work? And for what reason?
“To my surprise, Edward was kind. He took me for long walks, sat near, but not near enough to touch me—except my hand on occasion.” She laughed. “Have you guessed, Lord Wynland?”
Why had Edward not bedded her? She was lovely, and he a man who could have whatever he wished, a man to whom vows were to be kept only as it pleased him, as evidenced when he had taken Alice Perrers to mistress prior to the queen’s death. Was it possible he cared enough for Lady Lark to surmount his lechery? “Do tell, my lady.”
“Twenty years ago, my mother worked in the palace kitchens. Her name was Alayna. She was young, beautiful, and betrothed. Then she met Edward.”
Fulke needed to hear no more. He knew what had passed between the king and the ingenuous kitchen maid, but he would give the lady her tale.
“He seduced her, and for nearly a year they met at every opportunity. But though the king professed his love, when she revealed she was with child he sent her from the palace with only a purse of coin.” Lark swallowed as if to wash down the bitterness. “’Twas not long ere Alayna’s mother discovered her daughter was pregnant. As time would reveal to all what manner of woman Alayna was, she was quickly wed to her betrothed and she and her husband were sent from London. Six months later, a child was born in a hovel in the cold north of England.” Though the pain of her past glistened in Lark’s eyes, she held her chin level. “I was that child.”
Edward’s misbegotten daughter. Had she not told him, he might not have guessed, but now he could see it in her face.
“As my mother died in birthing me, I never knew her. But I knew my stepfather—a fool of a man. Had not my mother confessed ere she died, he might have believed me to be of his loins though I came too soon.” She closed her eyes. “Ten and seven years I suffered his hatred of the woman who betrayed him. Ten and seven years I scraped after him, endured his drunken beatings, and dreamed of revenge. But not upon him—upon the one who discarded my mother.”
What kind of woman had Edward sent him? “You sought to seduce your own father?”
“Not so far as consummation. I am not completely godless.” A slight smile tipped her lips. “In my mind, I played a thousand times the moment I would reveal myself. Then, in my seventeenth year I took my stepfather’s coin and fled. For two years, I toiled as a lady’s maid, learning all that might raise me above the common, and when I was ready, I borrowed my mistress’s finest gown and went to court.” She grimaced. “What I did not know was that I had the look of my mother.”
How Edward must have enjoyed his game—had likely used it to strike jealousy in Alice’s breast.
“So you see, Lord Wynland, I am a lady only because my father deems it.”
“Why does he deem it?”
“He sees in me the woman he loved.” Her voice softened. “My stepfather’s hatred caused me to judge Edward harshly. ‘Tis true he indulges overly much and is oft without conscience, but he is old and growing older. In him I have found someone for whom I care, and I have forgiven him.”
“Yet he does not acknowledge you as his daughter.”
She looked down. “For what? I am yet misbegotten. Too, Alice’s fear of being supplanted allows him to bend her more easily to his will.”
Of course. “Could she be responsible for the attack on your baggage train?”
“’Tis possible.”
But she also feared Fulke might be responsible. “Who knows you are Edward’s daughter?”
She stepped nearer, squinted again. “You, Edward, of course, and the dark one who imprisoned me.”
What she wished to know was if Fulke and the “dark one” were the same. “Why do you call him the dark one?”
“Never did I see his face—or perhaps her face. My captor’s voice was strained, as if disguised.”
Curious. “How did this dark one learn you were Edward’s daughter?”
“He found the missive from my father that I was to deliver to you.” Was it you? her eyes asked.
Fulke set his hands on her shoulders. “Search me well, my lady, for I do not lie. By my troth, the attack on you was not of my doing.”
“But ‘tis true you do not wish to wed me.”
“As I wish to wed none.” Except one for whom he ought never to have felt. “Still, I would not kill to be free of you, Lady Lark. Rather, I would convince Edward otherwise.”
“And if you could not?”
“I would take you to wife.”
She wanted to believe—he saw it in her eyes, but she could not let go of whatever Sir Arthur had told her. She put her shoulders back. “You need not worry on wedding me, for I vowed that if the lord delivered me from death, ever I would do his bidding. Thus, I shall enter a convent.”
He would not argue that. “Tell me of the attack, Lady Lark.”
She stepped from beneath his hands and crossed to the boys to look down at them. “’Twas bloody. They were everywhere, striking life from my escort.”
“Who?”
She shook her head.
“There were none dead but the king’s men, my lady.”
“Aye. They surprised us.”
“How?”
She spun around. “They were outfitted as knights and called that they were sent by you to escort us to Brynwood Spire.”
Moriel and his band of murderers. “I sent no one.”
“They were among us a half hour ere they attacked. ’Twas so sudden, then more came from the wood. My maid ran screaming into the trees. I followed but had not gone far when I was captured.”
“You would know your attackers if you saw them again?”
“I saw onl
y a few and not well. My vision is poor. I see fair at distances, but not when one is near.”
Then it was not only suspicion that caused her to peer so earnestly at him. “Where were you taken, my lady?”
“I know only that death was to have found me in the oubliette of a castle.”
“Which castle?”
“Upon my escape, I did not linger to discover its name, Lord Wynland. I ran as fast and as far as my infirmity would allow, sleeping by day and traveling by night until three days past when I came upon Farfallow.”
Then she had arrived in advance of Crosley. “How came you to be here with Sir Arthur?”
“Fate. Only that, though I have questioned it many times.” She stepped forward. “Angered though you are that he took your nephews, Sir Arthur is a good and honorable man. No harm did he intend John and Harold.”
And she could scarce see the nose between her eyes. “How is it you escaped your captor?”
“He brought me to a tower that overlooked the bailey that I might name the woman who claimed she was me—the same woman whom the king’s men tell me you hold.”
Then she had been imprisoned at one of the castles at which they had paused during their search. Cirque? Of course, it might not be one of those at which they had paused considering Nedy’s disappearances. “When were you taken to the tower?”
“A sennight past, perhaps more, perhaps less. I fear I was not all in my mind having been starved and thirsted for days.” She put her head to the side. “How is the woman called who took my name?”
“Nedy Plain. She and Sir Arthur are well acquainted.”
She recoiled as if struck. “She told you this?”
“’Tis as they both told me when they conversed this eve ere Crosley and I met at swords.” Nedy who had stayed Fulke when he would have made a quick end of Crosley. “If she was a party to the attack, so too would be Sir Arthur.”
“No, not him. Never could I believe he ordered it.”
Was she in love with him? “Then why does a woman he knows well don your clothes and pretend she is you, Lady Lark?”
She rubbed her temples. “I do not know, but neither did my captor know. For whatever reason this Nedy Plain did what she did, methinks she is not a party to those who killed my escort.”
For a traitorous moment, Fulke prayed she was right.