Defiant (6 page)

“Tell that ogre you call husband to release my dower lands so that I can have full control of them myself! There is no need for me to be wed to any man!” And indeed every reason she should not.

Gwyneth stood so quickly that the chess table tipped, then righted itself. Pawns, knights, and rooks scattered into the rushes, but the two queens remained.

“That
ogre
is my husband and our new overlord,” answered Brenna, taking hold of the black queen and turning it over and over in her fingers.

“He could be the devil’s pet pig for all I care,” Gwyneth hurled, punctuating her words by pointing and glaring down at her sister. Her mother’s sapphire ring—a token of authority—encircled her index finger, but the bauble mattered little ever since Brenna had married James Vaughn of Montgomery a season ago.

Since that time, her freedom had been taken from her bit by bit. Her father had been sent to exile, and her sister Brenna had been established as lady of the keep. Now, worst of all, Montgomery was insisting that she marry—that her lands, the lands she wanted to use as a school for rescued women, be used as a prize.

Brenna’s back was against the hearth and the fire cast a shadow that made the scar on her cheek dark and prominent. “You will obey his orders,” she said sharply, taking hold of the black queen. She tapped the piece against the blue silk of her sleeve.

“I will marry no man! The lands were given to me by Mother for me alone to control.”

There was an awkward silence. Brenna and she had only recently discovered that the two of them had different mothers. Another issue their father had inflicted upon them.

“'Tis unnatural for a woman not to marry,” Brenna said. “The banns have been posted.”

Gwyneth looked intensely at her sister, sudden understanding piercing her as sharp as any double-edged dagger. “This is
your
doing, not your husband’s at all!”

Brenna at least had the grace to blush. The scar on her cheek darkened.

Pain lanced her chest at how quickly her sister had used her place as the overlord’s wife to do such.

“Of all the spiteful things!” This development took things too far. “You envious little bitch! ”

“Nay, sister, ‘tis not jealousy, but concern. A woman with your beauty who is the heir to prized lands is like to be stolen or to cause a war—”

Gwyneth cut her off with a wave of her hand.

“'Tis bad enough that the kitchens and laundry have deteriorated into disorganization under your guidance. Now you order me about like a bloody queen,” Gwyneth hissed. “You need not pretend concern for my welfare. I know you care nothing for our family. What of our father—have you forgotten him altogether in your new marriage?”

“Father is well cared for. We received a missive last week. “ Brenna stood and reached toward her, palms held out in a sisterly gesture. “Prithee, Gwyneth. We have done well for you with this match. ‘Tis for your own good.”

“For
your
good, you mean. You wish to be rid of me so that you can further allow your husband to rape our lands. Does he yet beat you as he did afore?”

Brenna might seem blissful now, but Gwyneth could never forgive her brother-in-law for how he had acted before he and her sister had married.

“Gwyneth—”

“Ah, there you are, wife,” boomed a masculine voice near the entrance of the great hall.

Whirling, Gwyneth saw Montgomery pacing toward them. The bloody ogre. What Brenna saw in him was beyond her fathoming. He carried himself like an emperor. He was too tall. His shoulders were too wide. His voice was too commanding. He wore all black and could easily be mistaken for the devil.

Her gaze flicked disdainfully over Montgomery’s form and she noted that her sister had painted—painted! What sort of woman painted instead of embroidering trim on a garment?—little green vines around the hem and collar of his tunic.

Revolting.

Brenna had never been able to stitch very well but was skilled with a paintbrush. That she had meticulously used her skill to make pretty little decorations for her atrocious husband’s garment sent a shooting pain behind one of Gwyneth’s eyes. Montgomery had caused the people much heartache. How dare she betray them all thus!

Enraged at her sister’s disgusting devotion to her husband and her willingness to sell her own kin off in marriage, Gwyneth snatched Brenna’s outstretched hand and spit in the palm.

“Eek!” Brenna squealed.

“Ha! “ The small satisfaction, wasn’t much but ‘twas better than doing naught.

With a grin, Gwyneth tossed Brenna’s hand aside, pushed past Montgomery, and scampered for the exit. She yanked open the heavy oak door and ran out into the bailey. Somehow she would find a way to get out of their plans for marriage.

“Gwyneth!” she heard both of them call in unison behind her but she did not turn around.

“A curse on both of you! “ she tossed over her shoulder. “I will marry no man!”

“Come back, sister!” Brenna’s voice carried across the yard.

“Should I go after her?” she heard Montgomery say.

“Nay, ‘tis me she is angry with. I—”

Behind her Gwyneth heard shuffling and some discussion, but she could no longer discern individual words. Her hair floated like a flowing cloud as her cape’s hood slid downward and she fled, panting, away from the keep at Windrose, running to speak with Irma, her only true friend in the world.

“Reconcile yourself, wench,” Montgomery blasted just as she reached the cove of trees and the secret path that led into the town. “The wedding is at dawn.”

The harsh fist of determination closed around Jared St. John like a cold iron clamp as he surveyed the Windrose lands and sensed that he was closer than ever to finding his brother’s murderer. Bitter revenge at the injustice of losing his freedom for three years flowed inside him.

Rafe’s drinking horn had been found and he had heard gossip that a man wearing his green boots with silver buckles had been seen down by the docks.

It had been two long months of hiding from the authorities, but somehow he had escaped their claws. Oft at night, he’d awoke to the sound of hounds howling and thought that soon he would be arrested again, but so far he had managed to remain free.

Jared gripped his staff—a new one that he had carved from a small sapling. It was nearly as tall as he was and sturdy in his hand. On the top of it, he had whittled a dragon into the wood. Its reptilian tail wrapped around the base. It was still somewhat crude, and Jared wanted to add other carvings to the stick, but he was pleased with how his creation had turned out. He had even found a small red rock for the dragon’s eye. In three years he had not lost his skill with a knife.

Aeliana perched atop his shoulder. From his position on a hill above Windrose, he watched shadows grow long in the town surrounding the castle. Another day gone. Time seemed to be passing all too quickly. He gripped his walking stick, his every desire that he could clear his name. Get his honor back.

But he would not become a monk. God was dead to him—had died and left an empty coldness in his soul. Unlike Joseph of the Bible, Jared had not resisted the siren’s call of a woman who belonged to another. His irresponsibility had caused her death—and that of an innocent child as well. He had wanted to pay penitence and had ended with his brother dead and him in prison instead. Proof that God had abandoned him.

The lowering sun bathed rooftops with orange fire. Frogs chirped. Birds roosted on the eaves of the church, their twittering a continuous hum as they settled for the night. Workmen walked the cobbled streets, the tools of their trades rolled into packs as they headed back to their huts and houses, the day’s work completed. A queue formed outside the bakery—women purchasing meat pies and bread for the evening meal.

Somewhere, hidden amid the town and castle folk, he would find the truth, the answers he needed.

Restless, longing to rush forward to solve the mystery, he turned his staff over and over in his hands. The smooth wood slid against his palms and the engraved dragon at the top twisted this way and that.

Rafe’s body had been found by a fisherman. His tunic had been loaded full of rocks and his boots stripped off. If only he could find the boots, then he would have a clear trail to the murderer, could clear his own name, and make him pay for the long nights spent in prison.

Aeliana fluttered her wings in agitation. Her feathers brushed his cheek and her soft, musky scent tickled his nostrils.

“Easy, my friend,” he murmured, narrowing his eyes at the turrets of the castle and forcing his fingers to still. “We’ll bring the killer to justice soon. Then you can stop wandering around the countryside sleeping in caves with me. You’ll like that, won’t you, girl?”

The hawk twitched her head as if in answer; her yellow eyes gazed at the sky. She ruffled. She wanted to fly more. But they had just returned from the hunt and it was time to settle for the night in the cave that had been their shelter the past while.

Knots ran from his lower back to beneath his shoulder blades, his body’s protest against being disguised, pretending to have a limp and being smaller, weaker than he was. The restrained investigations he’d done these past months went against his preferred methods of straightforward conversation. He wore a hood most of the time and had grown a goatee and mustache to disguise his features—set himself apart from the smooth-shaven monk and the scruffy-bearded prisoner he had been—so that he would not be recognized.

How much easier it would be to charge in sword first; to slash, to slay. The only trail he had seemed to end at The Bald Cock, a brothel in the low-class area of town. Some of the women had seen a man wearing distinctive boots—green with silver buckles. Rafe’s boots.

Jared rolled his shoulders.

Aeliana flapped her wings and dug her talons painfully through the leather padding and into his flesh. Clearly she neared the end of her patience with his musings. She wanted to hunt, and if not to hunt, then eat.

With a grimace, he relaxed his shoulders and turned toward the cave.

He would feed Aeliana and leave her so she would rest, then head toward the brothel where he’d been gathering information. He’d have that fuzzy-haired whore named Irma bathe him and rub the worst of the tension from his shoulders. She had gentle hands and a loose gossipy tongue, and didn’t question his lack of desire for her sexually.

He had no interest in a whore or, indeed, any other woman. Love was an illusion and lust beguiled a man’s soul.

His Aeliana, loyal and sagacious, was the only female he could trust. Even his own mother had not wanted him.

The unfairness of being imprisoned ate at him. All passion had been swallowed up by the thirst for revenge. The scars surrounding his wrists and ankles—red and bumpy—and the white ones on his legs drove him to that end.

Jared made his way into the cave, fed Aeliana, and decided to skip his own supper. He sighed. Mayhap Irma would have some interesting gossip to share tonight—something to lead him one step closer to clearing his name and bringing the murderer to justice.

Gasping for breath, Gwyneth drew up her hood and pulled her cape—the homespun, tattered one she used when secrecy was required—around herself. With a shove, she entered the well-oiled back door of The Bald Cock, a tawdry brothel, to look for Irma—just as she always did when she needed consolation and advice.

Marriage was akin to death for a woman—first there was the wretched act of consummation, then being a broodmare, and if a woman survived that, she would live a meaningless life in complete subjugation to her husband.

She had much more important work to accomplish. Somehow she and Irma would come up with a plan to avoid tomorrow’s wedding.

The acrid stench of ale, sweat, and lust bit at her nostrils as she walked inside the whorehouse. Balls of mud dotted the floor, and an oily film caked the sconces and walls.

The sheer dirtiness repulsed her. It proved the base nature of men, of how they cared for naught more than shoving themselves inside a woman’s body until their vile lust was spent.

The back door opened to the kitchen area rather than the main chamber. Barrels of ale and dirty dishes were stacked along the cabinets. Harlots and a few kitchen boys ran back and forth through a swinging door. One girl, barely seven summers, stood on a stool and halfheartedly dunked tankards up and down in a pan of scummy water. Another child, not much older, dried them with a greasy cloth before one of the whores would rush in, yank it out of her hand, fill it with ale, and race back out through the swinging door.

The chaos set Gwyneth’s nerves on edge. No one cared that tankards were not properly washed, that the linens were filthy, or that flies crawled across the cabinets. Haphazard piles lined the walls and she longed to wrap her hands around a broom.

In the corner, five smaller children played with wooden blocks, building some sort of tower. Kiera, Irma’s daughter, was among them.

“Lady Gwyn!” she called, leaping to her feet. Her hair, the same mousy brown as her mother’s, sprang in loose curls all around her head. Her wrinkled dress had two splotches of dirt where her knees were.

“Shhh!” Gwyneth admonished, gathering the child into her arms for a quick hug. “Where is your mum?”

The child pointed a thumb toward the door leading to the main chamber of the brothel. “Working,” she said casually.

Gwyneth cringed at how indifferent the girl was toward her mother’s career. The very idea of union with a man wrenched her stomach.

‘Twas loathsome. Absolutely loathsome.

Likely the girl would be servicing men in a few years if Gwyneth could not come up with a plan to control her dower lands and take her away from this revolting place.

Through the door, she saw Lord Ashland and Master Baker standing by the wall. Even Lord Mallory was here.

Eventually, all men came and tasted the wares, or so Irma said.

“Did you bring me an apple, Lady Gwyn?”

“Not this time, child. I must speak with your mother,” Gwyneth said, setting the child back down.

Kiera stuck out her bottom lip. “But you promised me.”