by Tamara Leigh
For a moment, he appeared to consider her warning, then grabbed her arms and yanked her around.
The floor skidded out from under her as he propelled her backward. The mattress broke her fall.
“Now, witch,” he said, leaning over her, “cast your spell.”
Kennedy slammed the heel of her palm into his descending mouth, snapping his head back and causing him to yelp.
“Witch!” He drew back a fist.
She threw up an arm, but the blow was stopped by sounds in the bailey.
Leonel froze. “Jaspar,” he said.
She had arrived?
He narrowed his gaze on Kennedy. “Methinks this shall have to wait.”
She did a stupid thing then—lowered her arm and was rewarded with a fist to her eye. Amid the pain, she was vaguely aware of Leonel’s brisk movements about the chamber, then his hands on her again.
She fought him, but he quickly gagged her, bound her hands and feet with rope from his pack, and tossed her over his shoulder.
Kennedy continued to struggle. Night was coming and she was about to be disconnected from it, which would leave John and Harold wide open. She caught a glimpse of Leonel’s meat dagger, but there was no way to get to it with her hands at her back.
“You may have escaped Wynland’s prison,” he said as he lugged her to the indoor outhouse she had come to know as the garderobe, “but you will not escape mine.”
He threw open the garderobe and dumped her.
On her descent to the floor, Kennedy’s arm hit the rough edge of the stone slab seat, tearing the sleeve of her gown and abrading the flesh beneath. But the sting was nothing compared to her landing. The thrust of her weight on her arms at her back set fire to her joints and shoulders. If not for the gag, her cry would surely have brought someone running.
“We are not done.” Leonel looked down on her where she lay crammed in the small space.
Kennedy glared at him, grunted against the gag.
He grunted back, laughed, and slammed the door.
She stared into the semi-darkness that would have been pitch if not for the slotted window that let in a ray of light. Tears of frustration and pain rising, she commanded herself to concentrate. If she didn’t get out of here, all she had done would be for nothing. There had to be a way, even if it meant going through Fulke and his disbelief. She surveyed the dim garderobe and stopped on the door. Could she get herself turned around in this impossibly narrow space? Kick at the door and cause enough ruckus to—
The door opened and, for a breathless moment, she thought it was Fulke who stood there.
“It occurs to me, witch, that you will not go easy,” Leonel said. “Can’t have you rousing a chamber maid, can I?” He booted her alongside the head.
The pain, worse than the blow to the eye, and frighteningly comparable to the worst of the tumor, swept Kennedy toward darkness. Please, no!
Angered that he had not been allowed a moment alone with Jaspar since her arrival less than an hour past, Leonel stared at her where she stood before the table at which Wynland was seated. For each question Wynland put to her, she looked imploringly to Leonel, which made him long to measure her neck with his hands.
Wynland repeated the question he had asked a few minutes earlier, and over which Jaspar had fumbled as if she knew little of the English language. Sensing the swing of her eyes, Leonel set his gaze to the hearth where Lady Aveline, Lady Marion, and Lady Lark were seated. No sooner did he than the latter turned her face toward him. As with each time they drew near one another, he was fearful recognition might hit upon her, be it due to a mannerism or facial feature she might have glimpsed when she struck him with the stone. He leaned forward, put his elbows on the table, and clasped his hands before his face. It was as near a disguise as he could manage.
“Very well,” Wynland ground out. “Then tell me this: what know you of a device bearing a two-headed wyvern?”
Leonel’s throat constricted. Though he had thought he was prepared if it was proven that Nedy Plain had told Wynland of the medallion, he was wrong. His gaze clashed with Jaspar’s, but this time, rather than pleading, disbelief shone from her eyes.
As much as he longed to shake his head to silence her desperate tongue, he knew he was watched. Thus, he gripped his clasped hands to the bones and shifted his gaze to the table.
“I. . .” Jaspar floundered. “Does not. . .? Aye, methinks Baron Fulkirk bears a wyvern. Is it. . .is it two-headed, Leonel?”
“I know not, Cousin.”
Wynland’s brother, Richard, stepped from the alcove across the hall. “I know the baron’s device. ‘Tis a wyvern with but one head.”
Wynland’s gaze pared Jaspar. “’Tis a two-headed one I seek on a medallion seen last by one of Lady Lark’s escort who was killed in the attack.”
Jaspar stepped nearer the table. “I am sorry, Fulke. I fear I know naught that might aid you. If the lady was held at Cirque, as you say, neither I, nor my cousin know anything of the attack upon her. Is that not true, Leonel?”
“As I have already told Lord Wynland.”
The suddenness with which his liege rose from his chair struck fear in Leonel and caused Jaspar to jump back so that she nearly toppled from the dais.
“Someone is lying,” Wynland said. “Ere this night is done—” The entrance of one of his knights halted his speech. “What is it, Sir Malcolm?”
The knight ascended the dais. “My lord, she is gone again.”
From Wynland’s expression, he did not require a name for the one gone missing.
Ah, sweet reprieve. Leonel drank in deliverance. Though it might be of short duration, hopefully it would be enough to see him gone from this place. Unfortunate for poor Jaspar, he might have to leave her behind.
“Is there none competent to hold her?” Fulke shouted as he struggled to contain the emotion that slammed through him, the pain of which demanded a more violent expression.
“’Tis as before, my lord,” the knight implored. “She could not have escaped, yet did. Mayhap ‘tis true what is said, that she is a—”
“Enough!” Fulke didn’t wish it spoken, though he knew he ought not to care. He strode from behind the table. “We are not done, Lady Jaspar, Sir Leonel. When I return, I shall have my answers. Every one of them.”
Minutes later, Fulke strode into the tower room and halted before Crosley who sat on his pallet with his back against the wall, hand splayed over his bandaged thigh.
“Surely you are not surprised?” the man said.
He shouldn’t be, nor should her absence pain him so. “Where is she?”
“Is it revenge that makes you care? Or is it possible you are. . .not in love, for that is unheard of for a man like you.” He made a show of pondering. “In lust?”
“Where, Crosley?”
“Not in this world, Wynland. No matter how far or long you search, you will only find Kennedy Plain if she decides to return.”
Fulke didn’t want to believe it, longed to accept Crosley’s taunts as merely that, but what the miscreant spoke made truth of what Nedy had tried to convince him. How else to explain all that she was? Fulke pivoted.
“Wynland.”
He turned in the doorway.
Crosley sat forward and grimaced at the pain caused by the movement. “I believe she will be back. And soon.”
The flickering light that Fulke had tried to extinguish these past days sprang anew, tentatively lighting the dark within him and without. “Why would she want to return to. . .” He looked around the room. “. . .this?”
“Because there is still a chance she can change the outcome—that she can save my boys.”
Determining he would not dwell on Crosley’s possessive attitude toward John and Harold, Fulke reentered the room.
“Too,” the man mused, “it seems she loves you.”
Fulke remembered the sweet words she had spoken, words he had not spoken in return though he had felt them. “Tell me all of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“She believes in you, is adamant you didn’t do it.”
“What?” The boys again? Their fiery deaths?
“Sit down, Wynland. It is a long tale.”
Fulke resisted but, in the end, lowered to the pallet.
“You already know what is going to happen,” Crosley began, “for you have lived it before. You just do not remember it.”
It was almost enough to set Fulke back on his feet, but he knew that if he did not hear it, he would risk losing Nedy forever. “Speak.”
And Crosley did.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Leonel!”
He halted before his chamber. As the past half hour of waiting had proven Wynland was wholly occupied with Nedy Plain’s disappearance, there was time. He turned. “Cousin.”
Color in her cheeks, eyes dripping reproach, Jaspar traversed the corridor at such speed he could almost believe she did it on four legs. Chest rising and falling rapidly, she stopped before him. “What have you done?” she demanded as if of a child.
Leonel longed to retaliate, but he reminded himself of all she had suffered since Wynland’s summons. First, the merciless pace that had borne her to Brynwood and the uncertainty that must have taunted her throughout. Then, no sooner arrived than she was ushered to the hall to face endless questions that stank of accusation. She had stood throughout, taken in the revelations of Lady Lark and her impostor, Nedy Plain, without a moment to breathe her way past the shock. Thus, her reaction to learning who was responsible for the attack on Lady Lark could be forgiven—for the moment. He pushed the door inward. “Let us speak inside.”
She punched her hands to her hips. “We shall speak here.”
Fool woman! Though it was not the hour servants were usually about the chambers, due care must be taken with something of such import that it bound his life. Leonel snatched her arm and thrust her into the chamber.
She spun around. “What do you?”
He seated the door and glanced at the garderobe where Nedy Plain surely listened—providing she had regained consciousness. It mattered not. Conscious or otherwise, her tongue would carry no tale of this conversation. Of course, what was he to do with her body? He supposed he could leave it. Or send it down the garderobe shaft. He smiled. If the medallion she sought, the medallion she would find. In death.
Leonel strode past Jaspar, stretched on the bed, and clasped his hands behind his head.
“For what did you do it, Leonel?”
He considered his clipped nails. “For you.”
“Me?” Disbelief, but hardly disgust.
He glowered at her. “You could not wed Wynland were he wed to another.”
“Of course I could not. But murder?”
“’Twas the only way.” The reason he had hired Moriel and his rogue knights—to assure none lived. As Leonel had done a hundred times since the attack, he cursed the vanity that had prompted him to bear witness to what his coin had bought. Had he not, the king’s man who had engaged him over swords would not have seen the medallion and told of it. But even that might have been overcome if not for Moriel’s lusting after Nedy Plain.
Jaspar stomped a foot. “Fulke will learn ‘tis your former liege, Baron Brom, who bears the two-headed wyvern, and to whom the medallion was given.”
Not that she was revolted by what he had done. She was merely concerned that, were it discovered who had done the deed, she might be accused of having aided him.
She took a step toward him. “What fool are you, Leonel?”
He sprang to sitting. “I am not a fool!”
“You have accomplished naught but the killing of the king’s men. The king’s men!”
“Lady Lark was also to have died,” he muttered. And would have had her maid not escaped, casting doubt on the identity of the woman Moriel had delivered to him.
“But she did not die,” Jaspar snarled, “and now she sits in the hall staring accusation at me!”
He needed none to cast light on the mistakes of that day. “Unfortunate,” he growled.
Jaspar stalked to the door, stalked back. “For naught.” She jabbed a finger at him. “And now I am dragged to Brynwood to stand accused of your crimes!”
The fire in Leonel’s belly rolled to a boil. “Not even a crumb of gratitude, cousin?” He stood from the bed. “I sacrificed all to give you your desire.”
Laughter bubbled from her. “’Twas for you that you did it. For Cirque.”
She remembered the promise she had made him. But then, their blood was near one with the other. “Aye, ‘twas not without appeal that you would see me set over Castle Cirque once you and Wynland wed.”
He couldn’t move fast enough to avoid her palm to his cheek. It landed hard.
“Ill-begotten fool!” she cried.
Rage plowed through him. Never had she called him such, fully aware of the circumstances of his birth though she was.
Too simple to know she ought to flee, she said, “Think you I need any to rid me of the king’s leman? I could have—”
Granting himself his wish, Leonel measured her neck with a hand that shut her mouth. Feeling her throat muscles strain, watching shock transform her lovely face, he backed her across the chamber and pushed her against the wall alongside the door.
Desperate for air, she pried at his hand.
He retrieved the key from the hook beside the door, fit it in the lock, and turned it. “You who knows all of the prattle at court know not that Lady Lark is Edward’s illegitimate daughter?”
She stilled, eyes bulged.
Not that Leonel had known himself until he found the king’s missive to Wynland. It was then he had realized the enormity of his error, known fear as he had never known. But he’d had no choice but to finish what he had begun.
He pushed the key into the pouch on his belt. “As for Nedy Plain who pretended her, Wynland pants for the witch.”
He glanced at the garderobe. Not a sound from within, but soon—not that any would hear Nedy’s descent to the bottom of the shaft. “Now, Jaspar, do you flee Brynwood with me or remain and bear the blame? Hmm, I must think on it some.”
She wheezed a short breath, reached for him with hooked nails, and fell short by inches.
Why did he bother with her? It would be easier if she shared Nedy’s fate. Ah, but the blood they had in kind tugged at him. They were cousins, though that was not all.
She sagged against the wall.
Was it defeat that dulled her eyes or a lack of air? He sighed. “You will be silent?”
When she jerked her chin, he released her.
With a terrible sucking sound, Jaspar slid down the wall. She filled her lungs, coughed, sucked again.
Leonel spread his legs. “What do you think? You will leave with me or stay?”
Trembling, she touched her throat. She feared him, but did she fear him enough?
“Of course, you realize,” he said, “we cannot return to Cirque.”
“I. . .could tell Fulke what you have done.”
She didn’t fear him enough, but as much as he longed to make her quake, perhaps reasoning would convince her better. “You have lost Fulke—not that you ever had him. Thus, what gain in telling him?”
Her tears evidenced she knew it herself. “I would still have Cirque.”
“You dream, Jaspar. He will take it from you.”
“Not if I give him you.”
He clucked his tongue. “I am disappointed to learn you could be so witless. Even if you were able to give me to him, you think I would not say that all I did was upon your orders?” There was the last bit of fear she had denied him. The fear of knowing all was lost, that her fate—her very life—was not her own.
“How can you do this to me?” she choked.
“Quite easily. Not that I do not feel some remorse. For all the silly, v
ain woman you are, I do care something for you. But you still have only two choices: leave with me or die with Nedy Plain.”
She blinked. “’Twas you who freed her from the tower?”
“The witch freed herself, but I have her now.”
“Where?”
He nodded at the garderobe. “Methinks I shall break her neck and drop her down the shaft. A fitting end for an impostor.” He pursed his lips. “But fitting for you? That you must decide. Now.”
A sob fell from her. “I shall go with you.”
The sight of Jaspar in defeat made him smile. No more would she order him to do her bidding. “I thought ‘twas as you would choose, but I warn you: reveal me and you shall hang by my side.”
“I understand.”
He stepped back. “Now let us have done with Nedy.”
“I will not help you, Leonel.”
“Then you may watch and know your fate if you betray me.” He crossed to the garderobe, pulled open the door, and stumbled back.
From her hiding place, Kennedy stared at Leonel’s boots.
“She is gone!” he exploded. “Again!”
“What?” Jaspar squeaked, all but her head and shoulders visible from where Kennedy lay beneath the bed.
“The witch is gone—likely to Wynland.”
If only she had made it that far. Kennedy glanced at the frayed rope that trailed her right wrist. It had been a nearly insurmountable feat to cut through it, but in spite of a swollen eye and the pain that split her head upon regaining consciousness, she had made it to her knees and backed herself against the toilet’s rough, stone edge. Back and forth she had rocked for what seemed hours. Finally, fingers, hands, and wrists scraped and bleeding, the rope had given way. Freeing the gag and her ankles had been relatively easy, but the time required to do so had closed her window of opportunity.
As she had exited the garderobe, Jaspar’s voice alerted her to Leonel’s presence in the corridor. Scattering rushes, she had nosedived beneath the bed and nearly passed out from the effort required to slow her breathing. Then Leonel’s weight had sagged the mattress atop her, and her heart had nearly stopped. But it was almost over. If this played out as she prayed it would, Leonel would be beating a hasty retreat.