Exile’s Bane (23 page)

“Elena,” he croaked, suddenly sane and deadly serious. His gold-flecked gaze bored through me. His hands cradled my face, black hair hanging off his thumbs. “We depart for York in the morning.”

I took a deep, steadying breath. “Has the prince heard from the King?”

“Yes, and he has new orders that make him uneasy.” Unbridled excitement rolled over his flushed features. “Yet they are the King’s orders, and he is impatient to get this advance underway. It will be a massive undertaking. We could conceivably face not only Fairfax’s Northern Army and the Eastern Association Army under Manchester, but the Scots under Leven, as well. Together, they are strong enough to inflict a rout upon us, but Prince Rupert will prevent it. You’ll see,” he boasted. He wiped a fist across his full mouth, the bravado gone and replaced by a hopeless look that lingered on a face gone suddenly gaunt.

His last words told me it was his choice to override the relevance of these developments to my dreams, but I did not pursue it, having more personal concerns on my mind at the moment.

“Does the King have my deed?”

He shook his head, significance finally weighting down his exuberance. “The prince says he does not believe the King had received his last letter before he sent off his current orders. I did ask him.”

“Thank you,” I said. I leaned on his arm in sincere appreciation and gazed up into his impetuous face. “How will I survive without you?”

“I have not forgotten your situation. By the way, did you know that the earl has named Steward Gorgon as Warden of Tor House during his absence?”

“What?”

“I will not leave you here unprotected with a predatory Gorgon roaming the halls.” He pulled me into his arms, his steady heart booming in my ear. “You would be helpless against him.”

Numb, all I could do was nod in agreement.

“I have found a place, an older manor out beyond Bolton, owned by an old Royalist merchant and his wife.”

“What are you talking about?” I pushed away from his embrace and shook my head to clear it.

“You, Peg, and Annie can stay there while I’m gone. When I return, we can decide what to do. If the coming battle does not turn the tide in the King’s favor, we will have to find a safer residence for the three of you. If we win, I will take you away to a new life.” He came near and rubbed a gentle fingertip under my lower lip. “I know you do not want to leave Tor House, but I hope to change your mind. In the meantime, this isolated ancestral home out on the moor is a perfect spot to hide. It is nothing like Tor House, but the Ramseys would be honored to have the three of you. You will have to stay hidden to avoid Gorgon’s searchers, for I am certain he will scour the area for you. You are the key to everything he wants.”

“But this is my home.” I shoved him away. “I don’t want to leave.” This had been what he had meant all along—to steal me away from everything I cared about. He expected me to give up Tor House, my father’s legacy, my heritage. My stomach lurched.

He stepped close to me, regaining the space I had demanded. Skeptical, his thick russet eyebrows drew together. He squinted at me as though he did not know me.

“For your safety, I could take the three of you with me, with the army.”

“In the baggage train?” I cried.

“Sh-h-h.”

“You would drag me around like a whore?”

“Your choices, Elena . . .” he began quietly. But his stern words stopped. He straightened and threw back his wide shoulders. His mouth tightened, his eyes darkening ominously. “Your choices are to succumb to Gorgon, follow me, yes, in the baggage train, or stay in the comfortable, safe environment I have negotiated for you.”

I opened my mouth to scream my refusal to do any such thing, then promptly snapped it shut so hard my teeth clacked. He was right.

“Your stay at the Ramsey’s is arranged,” he went on, drowning out my concerns. “They have been well compensated. All we have to do is get the three of you out of Tor House undetected. Wallace and I will work out the details. It has to be tonight, so make ready.”

“But—”

“Sh-h-h.”

Heavy footsteps came toward us from the far end of the east hallway. We stepped into the light, disheveled as we were, and bid one another good day, as though we had happened to meet at the turning of the corridors. Duncan strode on toward the oncoming individual, and I moved away up the south corridor toward my quarters, my mind in a whirlwind of denial.

Chapter Seventeen

Peg stood in the sunlight before the tall windows of the south corridor that overlooked the stable and the back courtyard. Her auburn hair fell like liquid satin down her back. She turned to me as I approached, the hard glory of her dark eyes piercing my essential sense of well-being.

“There is something I must tell you.” Her hands moved about in nervousness. “I will always be thy friend.”

“I would hope so,” I said, still combative and reeling within from Duncan’s intent to remove me from this place.

“My heart belongs now to the prince, to do with as he pleases,” she announced with a nod. “I wish to follow him, ye know, in the baggage train. Annie says it is not so bad.”

“And your life here with me?” I stared at her in disbelief. This woman’s tart support had carried me through many an event and countless disasters.

In heavy silence, she took my hand and led me down the hall to our quarters. We walked in and Annie turned toward us from her seat at my dressing table, her mouth red with carefully applied rouge. She froze in place, immediately alert to the tension that had entered the room.

“Not seeing thee each day, living through thy concerns and thy caring are the hardest part of what I must now do,” Peg said. She leaned against the closed door, my limp hand still in hers. She caressed my fingers with her own.

Unable to believe that she would desert me in this indecent manner, I jerked away my hand. She moved to the table, picked up her tortoise-shell brush, and absently ran the brush through her shiny, slick hair.

“You have given your body to him.”

“I love him, Elena, with all my heart.” She looked up at me and her cheekbones flared with color, though she spoke with unwavering passion. “I gave myself freely. He is all that matters to me.” She put the brush back on the table, disappointed somehow, as though it had failed to comfort her. “I want to be with him, while I can. He is a prince of the royal blood, doomed to a state marriage someday, like thy situation with Gorgon. We have spoken of this, and I have accepted it. He has responsibilities to the King, to his command, yet we wish to be together. He has promised to take care of me, always.”

“You will be his mistress? Does it not bother you to leave all you know?”

“Bother me?” The neatly arched eyebrows rose. “No, I look to the future. I always have, Elena. It is one of the great differences between you and me. Though ye dream the future, ye dote on the present.” She distanced herself from me in a move around the table. “I
am
his mistress. I belong to him, heart, body, and soul.”

“This will destroy your life.”

She shook her head. “He is my life.”

“So you plan to depart with him tomorrow? He is leaving in the morning, you know.”

“Yea, I know.” She gestured at Annie, who remained on the stool, watching us intently. “Since Annie wishes to stay close to Duncan, her only relative, I was hoping we could go together. Would ye come with us? We could share a wagon.” She surveyed me doubtfully.

“I will not.”

“Ye are stubborn as an ox.” She studied me in dismay, her mouth prim and determined. “Ye love Duncan. When ye came to me in the hall just now, his love beamed all around thee, like a shining cloud because ye had been with him. I know. Why can ye not accept this, instead of ruining what ye have with Gorgon’s black-hearted presence?”

“I could ask you the same,” I said with a difficult swallow, “about the prince’s future state bride.”

“Ah, yes, thee could ask this.” Her eyebrows rose again, but this time her face assumed a look of reluctant righteousness. “But the prince and I are prepared for that duty, whenever it arises. Duncan, however, has not accepted Tor House as your bridegroom, nor should he have to.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do not look at me with thy big jeweled eyes like that. I have thought about this. It comes down to belongings or love, Elena. My choice is made. I wish ye luck with yours.”

I gasped. My hand fluttered uselessly on my chest.

Annie’s mouth formed into a round, red bud of astonishment.

A hasty knock rattled our door. I stiffened, went toward it, and opened it a crack. Duncan pushed his way in.

“We have to go now,” he said, heavy insistence deepening his voice. Despite the heat, he was dressed for war in wide-topped riding boots, back and breast plates over his buff coat, and plumed hat in hand. His bridle gauntlet reached from the tips of his fingers to his left elbow, and his other hand rested on his sword hilt, which hung in its baldric at his side. “The prince has the earl and the steward in a strategy session in the library. The Manx guards at the postern gate have just gone to dinner. Wallace’s house guards have taken over for them. This is our chance. Use plain servant’s cloaks, all of you.”

“I will stay,” Peg said. She stepped backward a few steps and shook her head.

“The prince specifically placed your safety in my hands, Mistress Carey. You must come with us. You, Annie and Lady Elena.”

Peg’s face lit up. “In that case, I will join thee.” She walked into her bedroom, calling out behind her, “We have Rosemunde’s good cloak and her old one.”

“I have my own.” Annie crossed the room in her old hip-swaying manner and clasped Duncan’s gauntlet arm. “I want to go with you.”

“The baggage train is not acceptable this time, Annie. It is too dangerous.”

My recurring dream came to mind and, despite the heat of the day, I shivered.

Annie’s face drooped in disappointment. Duncan enfolded her in his arms and comforted her. He patted her shoulder, hat hanging from his hand at her back. He uttered a low-voiced vow, of which I caught only a part. “. . . for our kin’s honor.”

The blond head nodded within his embrace.

I felt none of my former anxiety at Annie’s proximity to Duncan. I knew her too well now. She was as he had described her, a cousin with whom he shared a close relationship, their clan apparently the cement that bound them.

“Where are we going?” Peg demanded when she returned from her bedroom.

I gestured at Duncan, unsure at the moment of my feelings for him.

Peg handed me the better cloak of the two she carried. We put them on quickly and pulled the hoods over our heads.

“Lady Elena can tell you as we go,” Duncan said in a clipped tone of voice.

I glared at him.

“Come, hurry.” He waved us out the door with his hat as though we were a company of cavaliers under his command rather than women forced to flee without so much as a change of clothes.

We met Captain Wallace, who had saddled our horses and led them out into the stable yard. Heat still radiated out of the parched earth, the stable itself a shadowed, steaming pit of hot manure and moldy hay. We mounted quickly, slipped out the postern gate, and made for the eastern tree line at the top of the depression Tor House inhabited.

I had not expected Wallace to join us, but he was at our rear, where he watched carefully for any sign of pursuit. I dropped back beside him.

“Are you certain you want to do this, Captain? It will be the end of your position at the house.”

“The state of affairs is changing dramatically, my lady. I cannot support Gorgon.” He shook his head, his lower lip extended in grim dismay.

My spirits rose, despite my concern about Wallace and Peg. Peg would not be running off with the prince any time soon, and Wallace had merely placed his loyalties where his heart had been all along. I would not fail him.

For all my fears of leaving my home, the cool, dark night with its thin crescent moon, the heavily starred vault above us, and the homely comfort of the leather creak of saddles and girths around me gave me a surprising sense of freedom. Yet a deep-seated anxiety remained. My gaze frequently returned to the black horizon, back toward the fading lights of Tor House, for I was not certain of this flight that had been forced upon me. It was as though I strived against fate and could not win. I could not overcome the feeling as Kalimir took me resolutely onward into the night.

We skirted ditches and hedges for sometime before moving out onto the desolate moor. Duncan came up beside me, our stallions snorting and blowing their displeasure at one another’s company. Wallace remained behind us.

“The prince told me that Gorgon and your uncle were planning your wedding for tomorrow morning. That was part of their agreement regarding Gorgon’s new position at the house.”

“Oh.” I raised my eyebrows and assumed a look of graceful interest, as though he spoke of a game of cards. “Is that why Wallace has deserted the house?”

“Partly, yes. He is devoted to you.”

“There can be no wedding,” I announced with assurance. “Marie Louise took the priest with her.”

“Why would she do that?” he asked. He leaned toward me in the saddle, his mouth curved into a suppressed smile.

“Father Theobald is her personal priest.”

“That turns out to be convenient for you.”

“She probably meant it as a barb against Gorgon, and perhaps against the earl,” I said, with a mischievous smile I could not contain.

“So be it.” He straightened in the saddle. “The King has ordered Prince Rupert to march on York and engage the three enemy armies laying siege to that town.”

“What you thought might come to pass has happened?”

“It seems so.” Still riding close beside me, he compressed his lips and shook his head. “The prince has hesitated as long as he dares, here and at Liverpool.”

“That does not sound like the prince. Is he not known for his quick actions?”

“He is. His impetuosity is his detractors’ chief complaint. His current hesitation is not fear of the enemy, but wanting to be certain before he commits himself, that he will not have to break off his advance to rescue the King, who remains in the field.”

“How can he be certain of such a thing, especially if it has happened before?”

“That is just the problem. He cannot be certain, and it angers him. But the King’s order has overruled the prince’s doubt. Rupert has called in all the troops from the north.”

“So he is committed.”

“Yes. And I must leave with him.”

“You will return to me at the Ramsey’s?” I straightened, stiff in the saddle, yet shuddering within. How could I go on, having seen the details of where and how he faced death? This man I adored, needed, and whose body I so passionately desired—how could I stand it? I ached to hold him and be held, yet if ever there was a time to be strong, it was now.

“The prince and I will return to you, Annie, and Peg at the Ramsey’s,” he said softly.

“I see you are aware of their relationship,” I said staunchly. Had he felt my terror? I averted my gaze in an attempt to control the tears that threatened.

“Yes. The prince confided in me earlier today. He cares deeply for Peg.”

“Let us hope he keeps his pledge to her.”

“He keeps his promises, Elena, as do I.” He studied me as Ajax shifted under him. “You seem so unhappy. There are black lines under your eyes.”

“You have wrenched me from everything I know, everything I care about.”
And I am terrified of losing you.

“Because I love you and cannot stand to see you thrown away,” he said. Despite the night, the desire in his dark, gold-flecked gaze glowed, a longing that matched my own.

“Your presence, your vital confidence, is all that makes this bearable.” I could not keep my lips from quivering. “I do not know what I will do when you leave me at this place.”

“Deliberate,” he said. His white smile flashed in the dim starlight. “As only you can, to insure that I live to return.”

“Speaking of that.” I nodded and took a deep breath. If I was going to do this, it had to be now. “I must tell you of my vision.” To interfere in what was to come could bring about all sorts of evils, the loss of my own life among them, for I had often heard the old women in nearby villages talk of the price a witch had to pay for tampering with the future. On the other hand, what would my life be worth without Duncan, Peg or the Royalist cause? This was my last chance to perhaps save them all.

Duncan forced his horse closer to mine, our mount’s snorting protestations notwithstanding.

“You must keep the Royalist musketeers out of hedges.”

“What?” He looked a little frantic, reining in his horse, only to move ahead again. “I have no control over general troop movements,” he called back to me.

“I understand.” Ajax sidled in beside Kalimir again. “But that is the start of it. I feel certain the future is upon us, for the dream is complete and repeats, night after night, in the same gruesome detail. Until a few nights ago, that is. I have not dreamed since then.”

He sat straighter in the saddle, his hands clenched on the reins. His intense gaze dropped from my eyes to my mouth.

“When the battle goes against you, you must stay close by the prince. I tell you this only because I know that is where you would want to be. For myself, for my love for you, I would keep you safe and draw you far away from the prince.”

“What have you seen?” he insisted. He leaned toward me.