Danger's Kiss (39 page)

Knowing she’d be unable to resist the temptation, he was certain she’d gone to the old Canterbury gaol to see if the key fit the lock.

How Hubert Kabayn had come by the key he didn’t know, but the sunken gaol had been deserted for some time.  The area had been fenced off as a hazard, and only a fool would trespass into the crumbling ruin.  A fool or a headstrong wench.

It was nearly sunset when he reached Canterbury, but the constable had apparently been waiting for him in the town square.  The man seemed unusually uneasy as he called Nicholas over.  Nicholas noted that one of his eyes was swollen.

“What happened to
—
“

“’Tis nothing.”  Then he handed Nicholas a scroll.  “This is for a hanging.  On the morrow.”

“The morrow?”  Nicholas frowned.  “’Tis the Sabbath.”

“’Tis a special situation, a matter for expediency,” he said tersely.  “The crime was committed this morn.  The trial was this afternoon.”  He avoided Nicholas’s eyes as he added, “The execution is to take place in the morn before services.”

“But
—
“

“You might want to pay the prisoner a visit.  Straight away.”

Before Nicholas could reply, the constable turned on his heel and walked briskly off into the falling twilight.

Nicholas watched him go.  An execution on the Sabbath?   And with such late notice?  It was unheard-of.  Aye, sometimes he was called upon to administer unusually swift justice to a lad caught beating a hound or a wife found in another man’s bed.  But a hanging...

“Satan’s ballocks,” he muttered.

All the way back from Chilham, he’d looked forward to seeing Desirée
—
that was, if the impetuous lass hadn’t entombed herself in the ruins of the old gaol.  He meant to give her a sound scolding for pilfering the key from his satchel.  Then he’d punish her.  He figured the wench deserved a hundred lashes.  He’d smiled, thinking of how he intended to deliver those lashes.

But now his plans were thrown awry.  What had the constable meant, suggesting he visit the prisoner?  Certainly he knew it was Nicholas’s custom to stay with the condemned the night before an execution.  It was a courtesy he always extended to the poor wretches.  Never had he led a man to the gallows without granting him some comfort, some peace of mind, and usually a great deal of strong ale.  He couldn’t forfeit that courtesy now, no matter how strong the temptation was to go home to Desirée.

He sighed, dropping his heavy satchel of tools.  Then he unrolled the parchment in the dwindling light.  Who was the hapless outlaw the constable was in such a rush to see executed?

When he saw the name upon the page, it struck him as so unlikely, so impossible, that he knew he’d read it wrong.  He chuckled, rubbed at his eyes, held the parchment up to the last rays of sunlight, and looked again.

Desirée Kabayn.

His mind couldn’t turn itself around what he saw, but his heart began a slow, hard thud as ominous as rising thunder.

Nay, he thought.

It was a mistake.

Or a jest.

Aye, that was it.  The constable and Desirée had played a jest on him.

But the more he studied the document, the faster his heart raced, and the more he realized it wasn’t a jest at all, but a properly signed writ, a writ demanding the execution of Desirée Kabayn for the murder of Lord George Torteval.

Suddenly he couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.  His heart knifed against his ribs, and a deep shuddering began in his bones.  Stunned, he never noticed the parchment falling from his nerveless fingers.

D
esirée chewed on a fingernail as she paced the familiar cold gaol cell where Hubert Kabayn had lived out his last days.  Just like her old partner, she’d been condemned to hang for a murder committed by Lady Philomena.

In a sense, Desirée supposed she
had
committed murder.  After all, if she’d freed George while she had the chance, he wouldn’t be dead now.  She’d underestimated Philomena’s capacity for evil, for surely it was the Lady of Torteval who had killed her own husband.

The kind constable had seemed reluctant to arrest Desirée, but that hadn’t stopped him from doing it, even after she’d blacked his eye and crippled his knee enough to make him hobble as he accompanied his men-at-arms to the gaol.

The trial was a travesty of justice.  With the grief-stricken Lady Philomena as her accuser, the gaoler as a witness to her visit, and her abductors from Torteval claiming she’d previously accosted them in the streets of Canterbury, Desirée was convicted and sentenced within an hour.

But unlike Hubert, she didn’t intend to go peacefully.  He had taught her there were always escapes.  Using guile or deception or, as a last resort, bribery, one could squirm one’s way out of any trouble.

The sun was sinking now, as she could see by the dimming of the narrow window at the top of her cell.  Soon Nicholas would return from Chilham.  But that knowledge gave her uncertain comfort.

How many times had he told her it wasn’t for him to render judgment, only to carry out sentences?  How often had he reminded her that his role was solely to execute the justice handed down by others?

And who was to say he wouldn’t believe she’d committed the murder?  After all, the evidence was overwhelming.  He knew by now she’d taken the key to the old gaol.  He’d known she wanted revenge for Hubert’s unjust execution.  And he believed she was capable of cold-blooded killing.  By the saints, she’d tried to slay Nicholas himself that first day.

Nay, she couldn’t rely upon Nicholas’s mercy, no matter how she cared for him.  She had to find some way to escape, bartering with the gaoler or deceiving the guards.  But how could she work her wiles on them if they never visited her cell?

Just as the last sliver of light faded, leaving her in utter darkness, she heard a rattling at the door.  She whirled around with a hopeful smile, ready to use her charms at a moment’s notice.

The flare of a torch blinded her for an instant as the intruder entered, closing the door behind him.  Then she recognized the black cloak.

“Nicholas!”

Abandoning wisdom and judgment and restraint, she hurtled toward him but was brought up short as he blocked her way with the flaming brand.  His upraised hand commanded her to stop.  Then he held up one finger, bidding her to wait.

Breathless, caught between relief and dread, Desirée froze, and they both listened as the gaoler’s footsteps retreated along the passageway.

He reached up then and pulled back his hood, and Desirée thought she’d never seen a more welcome face.  Aye, he looked grim and troubled, and his brow was furrowed in concern, but with Nicholas by her side, suddenly it seemed she could take on the world.

He didn’t come to her at once.  Instead, he planted the torch in a brace on the wall and ran weary fingers through his hair, sighing, “Oh, Desirée, what have you done?”

She chose to ignore his accusatory tone.  Rushing toward him, she collided with his chest and wrapped grateful arms about his neck.

For a long moment, he was unresponsive, and her heart pounded anxiously at the possibility that he no longer cared for her.  Indeed, he might despise her.

Then, when she was about to give up, to fall into despair, his arms came around her, clasping her to him with such force she could scarcely breathe.

Unbidden, a tear squeezed out from between her lashes, and she swiftly wiped it away.  “I didn’t kill anyone.”

He gave her no answer.  Neither did he let her go.

“I
didn’t
,” she repeated.

He stroked her hair, but he still didn’t reply.  And suddenly anger began to rise in her.  With a vexed growl, she shoved him away.  “You don’t believe me!”

She could tell by the furrow in his brow that he
wanted
to believe her.

“Damn you!” she cried.  “You
should
believe me.  That’s what love is all about.  Trust.”

He narrowed his eyes, and his jaw tensed with uncertainty.  “’Tis what deception is all about, as well.”

She couldn’t argue with him.  He was right.  Indeed, she’d given him no reason to trust her at all.  Ever.

From the very beginning, she’d kept secrets from him.

She’d never told him about her encounters with Odger or Godfry or the two Johns.  She’d not mentioned her confrontation with Lady Philomena.  She’d feigned ignorance about the whereabouts of his cat.  Sweet Mary, while she was still aglow from his lovemaking, she’d lied about his gaming box, and then stolen the key from his satchel to sneak off to the old gaol.

It was no wonder he didn’t trust her.

She lowered her head and clasped her hands humbly before her.  “What will it take?”

“For me to trust you?”

She nodded.

“Look me in the eye, Desirée.  Tell me everything.”

She did.  With a hard swallow and a great deal of reluctance, she confessed to all the mischief she’d made over the last fortnight.

She told him about the small things
—
knocking the bacon off the shelf, rummaging through his things, feigning illness to avoid church.

Then she revealed the more significant secrets
—
that she’d had several altercations with the men from Torteval, that they’d stolen the gaming box and kidnapped her, that Snowflake had been held hostage by Lady Philomena.

She explained how she’d discovered Lord George in the old gaol and how he’d revealed his wife’s intentions
—
to keep him prisoner until she could poison their father in order to collect George’s inheritance, and to eliminate anyone who stood in her way, including the lawyer for whom Hubert had hanged.  By the time she told him how she’d threatened Philomena with exposing the truth, how it must have been Philomena who, out of desperation, had killed her own husband and pinned the blame on Desirée, Nicholas’s jaw was twitching with suppressed rage.

Still she had to ask.  “Now do you believe me?”

Nicholas knew from the moment Desirée looked directly at him that she was telling the truth.  She might be an expert at deception, but when she met his gaze openly, he saw deep into her beautiful green eyes, down to her very soul.  From her very first word, all doubt vanished.

“Aye.”

Desirée might be an imp and a meddlesome wench and an only slightly reformed outlaw.  But she was no murderer.  And if Nicholas had only been at her trial to defend her character, she wouldn’t be hanging on the morrow.

The trouble was, she’d already been tried and convicted.  Her death warrant was signed.

“Then you’ll help me?” she asked.

God’s wounds, the hope in her eyes was too much to bear.  He reached for her, clasping her sweet face between his palms, wishing he could lie as easily as she did.  “I’m not sure I can,” he choked out.

The light in her gaze diminished.  “What do you mean?”

He swallowed hard.  How could he make her understand?

She tore his hands away and stepped back, incredulous.  “What do you mean, Nicholas?  You...you helped that lad in Sturry.  You saved him from the gallows.”

He grimaced.  “Aye.  I’ve bent the law.  But I’ve not broken it.”  He rubbed the back of his neck in frustration.  “You’ve had a trial, Desirée, and you’ve been sentenced.  There’s already a death warrant with your name on it.  You’ve been ordered to the gallows on the morrow.”

She staggered at the weight of his words, answering with a whisper of disbelief.  “On the morrow?  You...you’re going to hang me?”

“Nay!” he said forcefully as the image of her frail body, twisting at the end of a rope, assailed his thoughts.  “Never!”

Yet even as he spoke the vehement denial, he knew it was an empty promise.  The situation was hopeless.  Short of killing the guards, breaking Desirée out of the gaol, and fleeing with her in the night to be branded forever as a fugitive, he could see no way out of their dilemma.

And he had to admit when he looked at the breathtaking woman before him with the dewy eyes and trembling lips, the woman who had been unafraid of the shire-reeve of Kent, the woman who had given him her virginity of her own free will, he was sorely tempted to do just that.

“Then what do you mean to do?” she asked.