Panicked, Elma felt the sweat trickle down her back as she struggled through the bushes looking for the stream. It had been months since she had been in this wood, and years since she had last seen the cave.
But it was her only hope, so she continued, biting back curses and trying to stay upright. It was tempting to drop the pouches, so that she could run with more ease, but in those pouches was her future, and she would not leave them.
Until she knew it was that, or be caught. With desperate, trembling hands she laid the pouches in the roots of a large oak, then covered them with dirt and leaves as quickly as she could.
It would have to do, she thought frantically, straightening. Glancing about, she neither saw nor heard any pursuers and for an instant dared to hope they had abandoned the chase. Snatching up her skirts, she began to run through the underbrush, shoving branches aside with her shoulders and ignoring the wet slaps on her face and arms.
She was wrong. George and the others had not given up. They had encircled her, as she discovered when she reached a small clearing to find dismounted soldiers in front of her and to the sides. She turned on her heel, only to see Sir George riding toward her, his expression grave.
Richard Jolliet was behind him.
Her chest heaved as she bent over and drew in heavy, rasping breaths, staring at the ground and desperately trying to think.
“Good morning, Elma,” Sir George said, and she, raised her eyes to see her lord sitting calmly on his stallion, eyeing her as blandly as if they were meeting in the chapel for mass.
Her only chance was to act a runaway servant, and nothing more. “Forgive me, Sir George,” she panted. “I know I shouldn’t have done—”
“She’s a thief!”
Elma glared at Richard Jolliet. She clenched her fists and would have screamed with rage if she thought it would help. “I am not!” she cried, facing Sir George again, even as she realized Richard had just made a mistake. “Of what am I accused of stealing?”
Richard opened his mouth to speak—then Elma saw the flicker of doubt in his eyes. “She robbed me of coin, my lord, you of linen—and who knows what else?”
“Don’t you?” Sir George asked evenly as he dismounted. “It is a pity we cannot ask Herbert what else has gone astray, isn’t it, Elma?”
“My lord, I...I ran away, it is true, because... because Sir Richard was abusing me!”
“Abusing you? What do you mean?”
“He...he attacked me. Several times.”
“She is a base, deceitful liar, my lord!” Richard cried.
“She is certainly something,” George remarked. He glanced back at one of his soldiers, who came forward carrying two pouches. “A thief, for one thing, I suspect. Let us see what she has made off with.”
Elma could scarcely breathe as Baldwin opened the pouch. He lifted it, and clothes fell to the ground. “There is nothing else here, my lord,” he said, hefting the pouch, a puzzled look on his face.
“Why is that empty pouch so heavy?” Sir George asked meditatively. “And what might you know about Herbert?”
“I know nothing about Herbert, my lord,” Elma declared. “I daresay his brother does, though.”
“Really? Is that so, Richard?” Sir George regarded his estate steward a moment, then in one swift motion, he drew his sword and jabbed at the supposedly empty pouch, pulling the weapon through the leather to make a jagged tear.
A rain of gold and silver coins began to fall upon the ground.
“You see, my lord!” Richard declared. “She has stolen from me!”
“I see, indeed,” Sir George replied, and Elma knew she was as good as condemned.
“That isn’t his money!” she cried desperately. “Sir Richard has been stealing from you for years. How else could he have so much money for anyone to steal?”
“An interesting point,” George noted as he faced his estate steward, his tone still reasonably calm, although inwardly he was seething with anger at both his steward and himself. He should have listened to Aileas, who had not been lulled into a false sense of security regarding his household. Even if she had been wrong, he should have paid her more heed. “There would appear to be rather a large sum here.”
“Well...well, my lord,” Richard stammered, more nonplussed than George had ever seen. “Some of it is your money. I was keeping it—”
“For what?” George demanded. “A sudden, unexpected raise in our taxes? More napkins?”
Richard stared at his lord, his mouth gaping.
“Tell me, Richard, where is your brother?” George asked, his drawn sword in his hand as he strolled closer to the man. “Has he already escaped with his share of the money you have stolen from me and my father?”
Suddenly he grabbed Richard by the collar of his tunic and dragged him from his horse. “How much money?” he demanded through clenched teeth. “How much have you stolen over the years?”
“My...my lord!”
“I trusted you,” George said, his tone full of bitter reproach. “My father trusted you.”
“He killed Herbert, too!” Elma announced. “I saw him do it.”
George continued to hold Richard as he glanced at Elma over his shoulder. “Herbert is dead? You saw it?” His gaze shifted to Richard. “Richard, Richard, Richard, you are an evil creature.”
“As God is my witness, my lord—”
“I think I will let the account books be a witness. I will have them examined. Carefully.”
“My lord, please!” Richard pleaded. “I am innocent.”
“Of course I shall have to summon in the linen merchant to question. And the miller will have to be reexamined to see if he has remembered anything more about the men who attacked him. Then I will find those men—”
“George!” It was Aileas, calling from within the woods. “I have found Herbert. I have found his body.”
George shoved the estate steward so hard he fell to the muddy ground. “You killed your own brother?”
“No, I didn’t!” Richard screamed. “She did!” He pointed at Elma. “She did it! Please, my lord, you must believe me! I am innocent.”
But George could see the confirmation of the accusations in the man’s eyes.
Once more, George looked at Elma. “Did you kill Herbert?”
Before she could answer, Richard suddenly jumped to his feet and knocked George’s sword from his hand. In the next instant, he had grabbed George’s arm, yanking it behind his back, and he put a dagger to his lord’s throat. “Nobody make any sudden movements,” he warned, “or I’ll slit this fool’s throat like a chicken’s!”
Aileas, leading her horse toward the soldiers, halted the moment the scuffle broke out. Quickly she grabbed her bow and quiver, then crouched down and crept slowly toward the circle of men.
To see Richard inching backward, his dagger at George’s throat. Aileas drew her breath in sharply, for there was a trickle of blood on her husband’s neck.
“Don’t you move!” Richard warned the men in the clearing as he took another step toward his own horse. “Stay back!”
Aileas drew an arrow from her quiver and willed her hands to be steady as she lay the arrow’s notch in the bowstring. “Keep still, George,” she whispered, hoping his incredible sangfroid would not desert him at this crucial moment.
She rose slowly, lifted her bow and drew it back steadily, taking careful aim.
Then she let the arrow fly.
Richard cried out as an arrow pierced his shoulder. His dagger fell to the ground from his now useless hand. At nearly the same time, George whirled around and punched him, sending him staggering backward. The other men quickly grabbed the steward and pulled him to his feet, oblivious to his curses.
“Take that miscreant back to Ravensloft,” George ordered, and some of his men dragged Richard Jolliet away.
From her place in the woods, Aileas sighed with relief, until a sudden movement caught her eye. Elma, seeing that the men were all watching George and Richard
, had started to run away. Again, Aileas selected an arrow and drew her bow, then let fly. she aimed low, wanting only to wound Elma to stop her flight.
Elma screamed and fell before any of the men had realized she had fled. Baldwin and Derek went to her, while Aileas hurried toward the others, pushing her way through them. She threw herself into George’s arms. “I thought he was going to kill you,” she murmured, holding him tightly.
“I thought he was, too,” George confessed. “I must say, this is far too exciting a way to begin my day.”
“I heartily agree,” Aileas said, drawing in a long, quavering breath.
“My lord!” It was Derek, standing near Elma.
“I shot her,” Aileas said as she accompanied her husband toward the fallen servant, “to prevent her running away.”
“I’ll say you did,” Derek remarked. “She’s dead.”
Aileas gasped and stared at the young woman’s body lying facedown on the ground, her arms outflung and Aileas’s arrow protruding from her blood-soaked back.
“I...I didn’t mean to kill her,” she whispered, stunned and horrified by what she had done. For all her practice in the arts of war, she had never actually caused a death, and it was ugly beyond imagining. She looked away, burying her face in her hands. “I didn’t want...”
She felt George’s warm, strong arms go around her. “I know,” he said softly as he pulled her into the comfort of his embrace. “Believe me, Aileas, I know.”
Two months later, Aileas found George glumly sitting alone in his solar, staring at parchments that covered his table, some open, others still rolled. Yet more parchments lay on a smaller table behind him.
He raised his eyes and managed a small, selfmocking smile. “It seems, my dearest,” he said wryly, “that I have been the dupe of all dupes. Richard and Herbert Jolliet have been stealing from my father for years, and me, too. We may never know exactly how much.”
Aileas came behind the table and laid her hands on his shoulders. “Never mind,” she said quietly. “We have plenty.”
Richard had been convicted of theft and murder and sentenced to hang. That judgment had been carried out a fortnight ago. In deference to their past friendship, George had commanded that the body be cut down immediately. The steward’s body was denied Christian burial and had been buried somewhere in the forest, beside the body of his brother. They were together in death as they had been in life, but Aileas doubted either slept easy. Elma lay in a paupers’ grave outside the village walls.
“This must be Sir Thomas’s frugal daughter talking,” he said, twisting to grin at her.
“Are you sorry I am not a spendthrift?” she charged gravely.
“We are far from ruined, I’m happy to say.” He looked back at the table. “But it is truly embarrassing to realize one has been as blind as a bat for years. I suppose I should be happy that they were too smart to be overly greedy.”
Aileas lightly kissed the top of his head and came around beside him, gently caressing his arm. “You were too trusting, that’s all,” she said comfortingly. “The minstrels all say that love is blind. Trust is, as well.
“Indeed, you saw so many faults in me, I was beginning to fear you would never love me. Either I have been improving, or else you have truly fallen in love with me and become blind to my shortcomings.”
George reached out and pulled her onto his lap. “To be perfectly honest, Aileas, I think it is both. You are improving—in the nonessentials. In the essentials, you were always perfect—and I am so completely in love with you, you could easily hoodwink me.” He frowned again. “Perhaps that is not a wise thing for a husband to admit.”
Aileas laughed softly. “I fear I have become blind to your faults, too.”
“Perhaps I don’t have any,” he suggested.
“Margot thought you did.”
“I wish she hadn’t left under such circumstances,” he confessed. “I have invited her again but—” he pointed to a small piece of parchment “—she declines. It seems she is to be married, to a man of the king’s choosing.”
“The king’s choosing?”
“Margot is quite wealthy, with a large estate. She is also the daughter of a very powerful lord. The king—and his courtiers—take a vast deal of interest in such widows.”
“I hope she’ll be happy.”
“She deserves to be.”
“I wouldn’t want my husband chosen for me,” Aileas said firmly. “And...” She blushed and hesitated.
“And?”
“And I was hoping Rufus...”
“Rufus and Margot?”
Aileas shrugged her shoulders and began to play with a lock of George’s fair hair. “He thought she was very beautiful, and he is a good man. He comes from a noble family, too, although not a rich one. I know he’s rather rough in his ways, perhaps, but—” her tone grew less serious “—I’m sure she could improve him.”
“Maybe I should send a message to the king with a helpful suggestion concerning my widowed cousin.”
Aileas’s eyes widened. “The king would listen to you on such business?”
George’s eyes twinkled merrily. “Does it surprise you to learn that your husband is an influential man? The king thinks me a most amusing fellow.”
Aileas laughed gaily. “Again, I’ve underestimated you! But I must agree that you are amusing. And charming and wonderful and very, very desirable.” She kissed him lightly.
“Aileas,” George murmured, pressing an answering kiss on her delectable lips, “I am supposed to be attending to my accounts.”
“I fear, my lord, that I have grown terribly dissolute living in your household,” she replied without a hint of contrition, “because I must insist that you forget your accounts for a little while.”
“Only if you promise you will learn to read so that you can take this onerous task from me.”
“Gladly,” she said, twisting a lock of his fair hair in her fingers, “for I have found being a student is not intolerable.”
George’s arms, tightened about her. “Then, my love,” he whispered huskily, “let us be dissolute together...”
ISBN : 978-1-4592-6100-6
A WARRIOR’S BRIDE
Copyright © 1998 by Margaret Wilkins
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