Her One Desire (32 page)

The gatekeeper approached, plainly dressed in a rustcolored doublet, tan trews, a black velvet cap, and pointed shoes. “’Where are your orders?”

“My orders were given verbally.” Broc looked down his nose with noble arrogance.

“Your chief warder sent me in his stead to make the appropriate preparations for the arrival of our sovereign king and his uncle.”

The gatekeeper’s brows made a straight line of distress. He leaned to the right to inspect the Maxwell warriors through the iron grid of the portcullis. “I cannot grant ye entrance, lest ye have written orders.”

“Do ye think I would want to enter this vile place had I not been instructed to do so?

Raise the gate and let us pass, else answer to Lord Hollister and his evil temper.” Broc could only hope Hollister made more enemies than allies. The gatekeeper’s knuckles whitened around the pike he held, and his head pushed back on his shoulders, giving him two chins. “Whilst I may not care for the chief warder’s character, I have strict orders not to let anyone pass.”

“Very well then. Gather the yeomen and secure the Tower yourself. Have all the prisoners moved to the northwest corner of the inner ward and clean out the refuse in the dungeon. Advise the laundress and your scullions to prepare for an increased number of attendants by this eve. We will wait here.” Broc crossed his arms over his chest. “This eve?”

“This eve.” Broc raised a finger. “One more thing. Have Lady Ives’s chamber prepared and inform the Lord High Executioner that his daughter has been rescued from that filthy Scot and will be arriving come the morrow.” “S’truth?” The gatekeeper s eyes lit up.

“Lizzy is coming home?”

Apparently not everyone thought ill of the executioner’s daughter, only those who didn’t know her. “Oh, aye. She is.

I spoke to her yester eve at Northampton. One of my men got himself sotted on malmsey wine and Lady Ives offered him a tincture for his head pounding. She’s a gentle maiden with the oddest color eyes, am I wrong?”

“Gold. Lizzy’s eyes are gold.” The gatekeeper waved at a porter and the clank of metal prefaced the raising of the portcullis, granting Broc and his brethren entry. “Lady Ives saved my foot, she did. Well, most of it. Lost the little toe, but ye should have seen it before she tended me. The flesh nigh fell from the bone. S’truth.”

Broc should have mentioned Lizbeth’s name earlier. He and his men dismounted and turned their reins over to the awaiting attendants. Broc fell into step beside the gatekeeper and feigned great interest in the man’s many ailments as they crossed the grounds. At the entrance to the White Tower, Broc turned to the gatekeeper. “Thank ye for your escort, sir. Mayhap ye might aid me by seeing to the duty of preparing Lady Ives’s chamber.”

“Aye, sir. If ye’ve need of anything else, send any guard to the gate. The name’s Godfrey. I do not believe I offered it.” His grin pushed his cheeks into rippling wrinkles.

“Thank ye, Godfrey. Ye have been most helpful.” Broc watched the gatekeeper leave, then gave his attention to the Maxwell warriors. “Search every corner of the towers I assigned ye. When ye find the boys, take them into the tunnel as we planned and Smitt will take them to safety. Failure is not an option. We search until we find them, aye?”

Each of his brethren donned a stone-faced nod of agreement before they scattered. Broc followed his nose to the base of the Wardrobe Tower. ‘Twas easy to understand why the entrance was empty. The pungent odor had the distinct smell of a privy. He struck a flint and lit a rushlight, hoping the smoke would tamp the smell now burning his throat. He didn’t want to think about Eli and Martin living in such foul conditions. The spiral stairwell offered many detours: various chambers storing ammunitions, garments, and jewels. For hours, he checked the antechambers of each, but found little evidence anyone had even been in this section, much less lived here. On the third level, he entered a chamber stacked wall to wall with coffers. A late afternoon sun poured through a small open window and silhouetted two carved wooden birds sitting on the sill. Where had he seen those birds before? He picked one up, and then the other, trying to recall if he’d seen them at Market Cross in Leicestershire. Then it struck him. The mantel at Edlynn’s cottage was riddled with them—round, fat birds. Lizzy had mentioned in passing that her Father had carved wooden birds. Broc studied the room with the utmost intensity now.

A cuttie stool sat in the corner; wood shavings lay scattered in chunks over the floor. An archway peeked out from behind three coffers. He set his torch in a wall sconce and moved the barricade to find a small door. A moment of dread mixed with anticipation raised the hair on his neck. He heard his breath catch over the crackling sound of the rushlight as he released the iron bar and pulled the door wide. The ripe scent of death nearly gagged him. He retrieved the torch and held it inside. Two small decaying bodies, both wearing pale gowns, embraced each other atop a straw-filled pallet on the floor. Broc held his forearm over his mouth and tried to look at anything but them. How was he going to tell Lizbeth that Hollister lied? He played on her love for her nephews to obtain her obedience. Broc bent to one knee and crossed the boys he’d intended to raise as his sons with the sign of his religion, then spoke the words he hoped would set them free. The torch flickered on the wall behind them. Three names roughly written into the stone drew his attention: Eli, Martin, Lizzy. Tiny white lines etched an oval around each name. Upon closer inspection, he realized the primitive pattern covered the interior of all four walls. Then he saw the numbers.

Lizbeth’s numbers.

The bastard locked her in here. In the dark. “Damn him!” Broc cursed Hollister aloud, wishing the man was in front of him so he could rip out his eyes and blind him the way he’d blinded Lizbeth.

“Who are you?”

Startled by the voice, Broc drew his sword and whirled around. “I am Sir Julian Ascott. I am securing the Tower on Lord Hollister’s orders.” He spewed the information only moments before he recognized Lizbeth’s father. The Lord High Executioner didn’t have the grim appearance Broc had seen in the dungeon. Standing before him was a simple auld man with dark hair speckled gray at the temples and a sagging pale face. Gone was his black cloak, black gloves, black whip, replaced with tan trews, a pale tunic, and a flask of drink.

“I know you.” Lord Ives tilted his head and studied Broc with dull brown eyes. “You are no English. You’re the Scot who took my daughter.”

“I dinnae take her. She rescued me from the Tower.”

“And you have returned. For what purpose?”

“To save her nephews.”

Lord Ives’s gaze dipped to the floor where his grandsons lay on their deathbed. “You are too late. Months, in fact.” He sat heavily atop the cuttie stool and stared at the white sky through the small window. “I did not even know they were my grandsons until my son returned from war.” “Did ye kill Eli and Martin to save them from your curse?” Broc asked in an accusatory tone, but part of him wanted to know the man Lizbeth believed was worth saving. The executioner’s eyes glazed over in obvious thought, and Broc suspected the man spent a lot of his hours atop this particular cuttie stool. “I did not protect them.”

That answer was not one Broc wanted to hear. Lilian and Mattie died because he didn’t protect them, as did Aiden. Did that mean Broc held the weapon that killed them? “Put your sword down and tell me how my Lizzy is faring.” He took a long draw off the flask. The executioner’s demeanor was surreal, his mind obviously not his own. Dumbfounded, Broc stepped from the antechamber, closing the door behind him. He sheathed his sword and then set his torch in the wall sconce. While he didn’t trust the executioner, he certainly presented no threat. Regardless of the man’s size, Broc could easily kill him with his bare hands should the need arise.

“Did she make it to sanctuary?” Lord Ives asked when Broc failed to respond quickly enough.

“In a manner of speaking.”

Lord Ives looked up at him and turned his head slightly to the side. “What’s that you say?

Speak up.”

“I said, ‘in a manner of speaking,’” Broc repeated his words a little louder. Lizbeth never mentioned the man was hard of hearing.

Lord Ives’s eyes slid shut. “Then she is well?” “She cries in her sleep. She counts in the dark, and she prays for her kin. She is by far the most selfless person I have ever known, and I find it difficult to believe a man such as ye spawned her.”

The executioner tipped his flask for another drink, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

“Have you ever been to war? Ever pierce a man’s flesh with your blade?” “I’ve killed on the battlefield for honor.” Broc’s volume increased a notch. He wanted to be sure the man heard him. “Then we are not so different, you and I. We are both murderers in our own right. You kill to protect your country. I kill to punish those who commit crimes against mine.” Broc scoffed at the comparison. “And what crime did your son commit against your country?”

Lord Ives closed his eyes, no doubt hiding his sins.

“Kamden committed no crime.”

“Yet ye wielded your ax against him?”

The executioner shook his head and propped his elbows on his knees. “I did not execute my son.”

“Then Hollister did?” ‘Twas a reasonable assumption given the man’s hatred for Lizbeth’s brother. “Nay. A porter dressed in my garb took my ax on Hollister’s order, whilst I was chained in the dungeon. Hollister would have done the deed himself had he the stomach, but you see, our chief warder has no gut for execution. Tis the blood. I’ve seen him vomit in the torture chamber during a simple amputation. Make no mistake, he takes great pleasure in his position. He is empowered by ordering the executions and even delivering the sentence.”

Devil be damned!
Broc didn’t want to pity Lizbeth’s father. He wanted to hate him. He wanted to hide this secret from Lizbeth so she, too, would hate him, but Broc’s honor prevented him from such deception. “Why would ye let your daughter believe you killed Kamden?”

‘”Tis best she hates me. She is too much like her mother.

A dreamer. Always wanting for things she cannot have.”

“Things like a husband, a family?”

“Lizzy can never marry.” Lord Ives’s brows stitched together. He gave Broc a pointed look as if to call
him
wowf, which was completely ironic.

‘”Tis too late, Lord Ives. I’ve already married her.” “Nay.” He stood. Erratic movements seized his face. His eyelids blinked fiercely. The muscle in his jaw twitched. “She cannot bear sons. They will be cursed.” Broc became anxious watching him. Twas obvious where Lizbeth acquired her skittish behavior. “Your profession is not a curse, but it does die with you.”

The executioner threw down his flask and reached for his

hip. Thick blue veins whelped out of his neck as the puffy skin beneath his right eye pulsed. His hand curled around nothingness. He poised himself to attack. His eyes narrowed as he wielded his imaginary sword with intent. Did the man actually believe he held a weapon?

Broc drew his sword, not certain if he intended to kill the executioner or protect himself from the man’s hallucination. A bell clanged and pealed the same time a clamoring of feet made its way up the stairwell. Before Lord Ives could strike, a dozen of the Tower’s guards stood outside the entranceway armed with intent etched in their faces. Godfrey stepped to the forefront of the masses and into the chamber, his pike pointed at Broc. “This man is a fraud.” He addressed the executioner and shot Broc a look of disappointment. He shared one conversation with the gatekeeper, yet suffered a bit of guilt for lying to him? “What makes ye doubt my word?”

“You claimed to be securing the Tower on behalf of the chief warder,” Godfrey explained, “but Lord Hollister arrived only moments ago to secure the Tower himself.”

Chapter 21

“He is the last of those who accompanied the Scot, m’lord.”

The yeoman pushed Gregor to his knees on the Tower green. Unable to fight the binds at her wrists or the two guards pinning her in place, Lizzy bit her bottom lip and watched the guards secure the Maxwell warriors in iron shackles and align them shoulder to shoulder beneath the looming shadow of the elm trees. Gregor stood beside one of Aunt Jean’s sons, followed by three of Aunt Radella’s sons. The last three in line were Broc’s cousins and had offered her tips on the training field. Through the haze of her tears, she stared at the piece of grass laced in each of their boots. Her desperation to free her nephews would cost them their lives. “Have them stripped and prepared for execution,”

Lord Hollister ordered the porter.

“Nay. Please. You have me. You do not need them,” she begged in a soft voice and pinched her eyes tight. The doors of the White Tower slammed open with a boom. Her head jerked up.

Godfrey led a group of yeomen from the entrance. Broc stood tall above them all in the center, a giant among men. Her heart beat a painful staccato in her chest. A fury as black as midnight darkened his eyes with every stride. He was her husband, her champion, her everything, and he walked within the walls of her most hated adversary. From the corner of her eye, she saw Lord Hollister’s satisfaction, thin lips turned up at the corner, a slight arch to his thick brow, arms folded over one another in an abundance of dark velvet sleeves. He already celebrated his victory. He would win. He always did. Her mind weakened. The bold woman inside her withdrew behind a veil of fear. “Let them go. I beg of you. Have you no mercy?”

“When did I ever give you a reason to think me merciful?” Lord Hollister slapped her with the back of his hand, setting her off balance.

Pain throbbed in her cheek and shot up the back of her skull. A roar shook the ground as Broc broke free of his guards and drove his legs hard toward them. Ravens took flight from the branches above in a flutter of flapping wings and screeching caws. He bent forward, arms secured behind him, and thrust his shoulder into Lord Hollister’s chest. Both of them flew to the ground. Straddling Lord Hollister’s legs. Broc rose up on his knees, and then slammed his forehead into his enemy’s face. She struggled to get to him, but the guards lifted her off the ground.