Kathryn Le Veque (4 page)

She
grunted with frustration, still fighting him. “Let... me…!”

“Shhh,”
he said again. “Stop struggling, Alisanne, and tell me why you weep.”

Her
sweet body relaxed, but not entirely.
 
She was usually in control of her composure, unusual for a woman, but Roane’s
powerful arms around her completely unnerved her. She’d never been held by
anyone but her
father,
and his frail old arms simply
could not compare to Roane’s magnificent embrace. She thought foolishly, at
that moment, that she wouldn’t have been entirely unhappy to stay in his arms
forever.

“I… I….”
she stammered and sniffed.

He
realized he was squeezing her gently, knowing he should very well let her up
but being unwilling, or unable, to do so. “Slow down and take a deep breath.
That’s a good girl. Now, tell me why you weep.”

She was
quiet, gaining control of her sobs. When all was still and she simply sat, on
his massive thigh, her sweet voice was faint in the dank abbey air.

“Uncle
John Adam told me that you have the gift of miracles,” she whispered. “I came
seeking a miracle.”

His curse.
 
Roane sighed imperceptibly, leaning forward so
that his forehead was resting on her back.
 
He had suspected that was the reason she was here from the very
beginning. “I don’t perform miracles, Alisanne.”

Her
tears threatened again, but she held them back. “You healed my uncle.”

“I
didn’t mean to. I didn’t know what I had done.”

She took
a deep breath, unaware that she was leaning back into him and he was holding
her closer. “I have the same affliction as my uncle,” she said miserably. “My
eyes hurt constantly and my vision dims. One time, I had blisters on my eyes
and Dodge sent his physic to take care of me. It was his physic who discovered
that I shall very shortly be blind, and he told Dodge. That is how Dodge chased
away any suitor I ever had. No one wants an invalid wife, no matter how prized
her dowry.”

Roane
held her tightly, more tightly than he realized, as his eyes stared off into
the darkness. “So he marries you, takes your lands, and then casts you off.”

“My
father is afraid he will kill me.”

Roane
took a deep, long breath.
 
Although he
had only been acquainted with this woman for three days, already he knew he
could not let that happen. Before he could say anything, Alisanne shifted in
his embrace and he found himself face to face with her. They were inches from
one another, the thrill of their closeness casting palpable sparks. But the
seriousness of the situation overwhelmed any blossoming excitement.

“I
cannot pay you for this miracle,” her lips were quivering as she spoke. “But my
father has told me to tell you that if you restore my sight, our payment to you
will be my hand in marriage, which includes Kinlet Castle and the Craven barony.”

He’d
never had a more attractive offer. But it was too overwhelming at the moment
and he was unsure how to react. He gazed into her magnificent eyes, seeing the
irritation that lent credence to her tale.
 

“On my
oath as a knight, I would like nothing better,” he said softly. “But there is
something your uncle did not tell you about my… gift.”

“What is
that?”

“That I
swore never to use it.”

She
blinked, as if uncomprehending. “But…”

“Never, Alisanne.”

She
could feel her panic rising once again. “But… why would he send me here if he
did not think you would help me?”

Roane
shrugged faintly. “Mayhap he thought I had changed my mind over the years. I
don’t really know. But I have not changed my mind; if anything, I am more
resolute than ever.”

She
didn’t know what to say. With a strangled cry, she pitched herself off his lap
and threw herself at his feet. “Please,” she gasped. “Please, you must help me.
If you don’t, surely… it is the end of my family!”

“I will
not let that happen,” he said, pulling her up so that they were mere inches
from each other, gazing headily into each other’s eyes. “Nothing will happen to
you, Alisanne, I swear it.”

She was
sobbing again. “I care not for me,” she wept. “But my father… he is old and
feeble, and if I can no longer take care of him when my sight leaves me, then
he will be at the mercy of Dodge.”

As Roane
gazed at her, he realized that the woman had no self-pity that she was losing
her sight, but rather her concern was the fact that losing it meant hardship
and even death to her father and family line. Her sense of self-sacrifice
impressed him tremendously.

“Don’t
worry about him,” he lifted her to her feet, brushing off her already-dirty
dress where her knees had skimmed the floor. “I promise you that you will not
have to worry about him any longer.”

She
wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
“How?”

He
smiled at her, the very first time since they had met.
 
If his mere presence caused her to shake
inexplicably, then his smile was enough to make her feel faint.

“You
will let me worry about that,” he said. “Right now, I fear I have been
inhospitable to John Adam’s niece.”

She
watched him quit the abbey with Samson on his heels. When he returned, it was
with Alisanne’s small satchel in his hand. He sat it next to his own pallet.

“You may
sleep here,” he said. Bending down, he scooped up an old wooden bucket. “And I
would imagine fresh water is in order, for one reason or another.”

Alisanne
quickly took the pail from his hand. “I’ll get it,” she said. “’Tis the least I
can do if I am stealing your bed.”

He
smiled again, deep dimples in both cheeks. She returned his smile, rather
bashfully, and strolled from the abbey feeling more terrible than she ever had.
She turned around once to see that he had followed her into the bailey. As she
walked down the narrow path, she told herself that all that mattered was her
father’s safety and she had to do what was necessary. He trusted her now, which
had been her goal. But terrible things were going to happen now, things for
which she was consummately guilty.

There
was a small brook that ran at the base of the hill, shielded by some heavy
oaks. Dodge was waiting for her when she reached the bottom.

“Well?”
he demanded.

Alisanne
looked up at him, her eyes heavy with burden and sorrow. “He is alone.”

“And
trusting?”

“He
followed me out into the ward. He should still be there.”

Dodge
gazed up at the slope, seeing the tops of the ruined abbey from where he stood.
“Excellent, Alisanne,” he said. He motioned with his arm and suddenly the trees
came alive around him; men in armor with weapons.
 
He grinned down at her. “Your father thanks
you.”

Alisanne
could not look at the men, wishing with all her heart that there had been
another way to go about this. “Just… please don’t hurt him,” she murmured.

“Who?
De Garr or your father?”

She
looked up at him, shielding her eyes from the weak sun.
“Both
of them.
Please.”

Dodge
didn’t reply except for a smirking expression. Alisanne grabbed his leg
imploringly.
 
“Please,” she repeated.
“Don’t hurt him.”

There
was something in her tone he didn’t like. She spoke far too fondly of de Garr,
and it inflamed him. Spurring his horse forward, he and his men charged up the
hill.

CHAPTER THREE

It was raining again, a heavy
deluge that soaked man and beast.
 
South
of Church Stretton by several miles, night was falling and Dodge and his men
made camp in a saturated meadow that had small rivers of mud running through
it. Alisanne disembarked from the old wagon, standing aside in the rain as the
men made her a haphazard shelter against the elements. It was better than
nothing and she huddled beneath it, cold and hungry, as Dodge dealt with his
trophy in the back of the rig.

It had taken nine men to subdue Roane,
but they had managed to do so by overwhelming him. Still, all but one of the
men had come away with some sort of broken limb, or teeth, or a split
skull.
 
Roane had been like a bull,
charging and bashing everyone in sight as he tried to make it back into the
abbey to claim his sword. But he never got close, and after nearly a half hour
of fighting, Dodge’s men had brought him down from the hill slung across the
back of a charger like a prize deer. At first, Roane had thought Dodge had
captured Alisanne, too, as part of his campaign against her, but he realized
soon enough that his instincts had been right. She had been a charming decoy,
and he had fallen for it like an idiot.

Huddled in the tent, Alisanne
watched Dodge and his men gleefully harass Roane. They seemed particularly fond
of thumping him on the head. When they grew tired of the sport, they made for
Dodge’s lean-to where they drank and ate well into the night. A few of them
eyed Alisanne leeringly, but she kept her attention well away from them,
ignoring the food one of them had brought her. She prayed they would soon fall
asleep which, thanks to the alcohol, they did fairly quickly. As their snoring
mingled with the thunder, she made her way silently to the wagon where Roane
lay.

She could barely see him in the
darkness. He lay on his side, trussed up like a pig to roast, and Alisanne’s
heart sank at the sight of him.
 
She felt
so horrible, knowing she had betrayed him when she had worked so hard to gain
his trust, but she also knew that she had had no choice. Not that it would
matter to him, but she hoped he would at least allow her to explain. She
couldn’t stomach the thought of him thinking she was a deceitful scamp.

The thunder rolled and lightning
flashed across the weeping sky. Afraid that Dodge might see her standing beside
the
wagon,
she climbed up into it and lay down beside Roane.
The darkness made it difficult to see him and when she thought she was lying
against his back, she realized too late that she was pressed very firmly
against his front. Roane’s wide-open eyes startled her.

“Sir Roane,” she gasped. “I… I….”

He was gagged, the cloth
saturated with saliva. Quickly, she removed it, if only to make him more
comfortable and also to prove that she wasn’t entirely the enemy. “I am so
sorry for what has happened,” she whispered. “But… you must understand that I
had no choice. Dodge forced me to….”

“Cease your insincere apologies.
I have nothing to say to you.”

“Please… if you will only.…”

“Listen? I’ve done that. Now see
what my compassion has gotten me.”

He tried to turn away from her,
ignoring her. Alisanne lay beside him, the rain soaking her, wondering how she
could make amends to him. She had never felt more awful for something she had
done.
 
Mayhap her actions had saved some,
but they could very well mean the death of another. He had done quite well
evading the Hospitallers until
she
, and her horrible
deceit, had lured him out of hiding.

“I am so sorry,” she repeated,
her throat tight with emotion. “He forced me to, Sir Roane. I had no choice.”

She sat up and Roane felt her
scoot to the edge of the wagon bed. There was something in her voice that, as
it had before, broke down his resistance. As angry as he was at the moment, she
was fortunate he didn’t break his bonds and wring her pretty neck. But instead
he felt himself softening.

“Who in the hell is he?” Roane’s
voice was hoarse.

Alisanne turned to him. He was
staring at her openly. “A bounty hunter,” she whispered.

Roane didn’t say anything for a
moment. Odd that he felt a strange peace now that he knew who the man was; he’d
dealt with bounty hunters before and had always managed to elude them. They
were a stupid, greedy lot. But this time, the hunter had been clever and had
used the right bait to trap him. He gazed at Alisanne, so pale and remorseful,
and resisted the urge to comfort her.

“I think you had better tell me
everything,” he said quietly.

She slowly moved back to him,
lying down carefully beside him. When she spoke, it was slow and halting.
 
“Dodge came to my uncle because he had been
told by the Hospitallers that my uncle had once been your friend,” she
murmured. “He and his men came to our home and tortured my uncle, but he would
not tell them anything. Finally, he broke and confessed all. Dodge knew that if
he simply charged to Church Stretton that you would fight him, so he told me
that if I didn’t help him capture you, he would kill my uncle and father.”

“So there really is a father?” Roane
asked. “And your uncle really is John Adam?”

She nodded, daring to look at
him. He cocked an eyebrow. “And that story about your sight leaving
you,
was that true?”

She nodded again. “It is. Which
is why Dodge thought it would be a perfect way to earn your trust.”

“You did not travel alone as you
said you did.”

“No.”

Roane sighed, licking his lips as
the rain ran down them. “Where are they holding your father and John Adam?”

“At my
father’s seat, Kinlet Castle, to the north and east of Kiddminster.”

“There really is a barony, too?”

“My father is Baron Craven, a
title that Dodge will claim when he marries me.”

“So your father has indeed
pledged you to him?”

She smiled ironically. “Just as I
wasn’t given a choice, neither was he. Dodge saw a prime situation and bullied
my father until he agreed.”

“And do his lands truly surround
your own?”

“No. It was a story Dodge had
concocted to make everything sound more believable.” She paused a moment,
feeling as if she was confessing her most grievous sins to him. “His appearance
in the abbey ward was merely to confirm that you were there, and to make a show
of it. He thought you might feel more chivalrous toward me if you thought
someone was out to do me harm.”

Well, the man had that
right.
 
Roane didn’t think he could feel
any more of a fool than he already did. “Is his name really Dodge de Vere?”

“That is what he has told me.”

It was a convoluted, ugly mess. Alisanne
could sense his turmoil and it matched her own. “Sir Roane, everything that I
have told you is true with the exceptions I have already mentioned. I did not
do this for any reason other than I was told if I didn’t help Dodge capture
you, he would kill both my father and Uncle John. I harbor no ill-will against
you. In fact, you will never know how sorry I truly am for all I’ve done to
you.”

Roane was silent. He wasn’t
surprised by the story and he didn’t blame her in the least. But the fact
remained that he was now in a good deal of trouble. “So the sect has hired
Dodge de Vere to bring me to ecclesiastical justice,” he snorted softly. “They
hired many before. Seems no one had Dodge’s initiative to find John Adam, my
oldest friend, and use him accordingly. No doubt the sect told Dodge exactly
where to find John Adam.”

Alisanne nodded guiltily. “They
would have found him at his monastery, but he was visiting us at the time and
the priests told Dodge where he was. He followed him.”

A
displeasing series of events that led Dodge directly to Alisanne’s doorstep.
Roane could see that she was as
much a victim in all of this as he was.

“Christ,” he hissed. “Will those
bastards stop at nothing to condemn me? Now you and your family have been hurt
by all of this, and God only knows who or what else.”

Alisanne could feel his
anger.
 
Not knowing what else to do, she
put a small hand on his wet, bare arm. “’Twill be all right, Sir Roane.
 
If I can think of a way to free you without
risking my father and uncle, I surely will.
But… at the time,
in Church Stretton…
I simply did not know what else to do.”

He turned to look at her, their
faces very close on the bed of the flooded wagon. Though it was chilly, there
was
a warmth
between them that erased the discomfort
from the elements. He was stupid to have believed her, but God help him, he
did. She was so sincere, so genuine, that he couldn’t help himself.

“You needn’t worry about me,” he
said huskily; she was far too close and he was feeling quivery inside. “I can
take care of myself. I’ve been evading these idiots for three years and I can
get out of this. But the problem is not risking your father and uncle’s life in
the meantime.”

She could sense by his words that
he was not angry with her and the relief she felt was overwhelming.
 
Impulsively, she kissed him on the cheek and
fled the wagon. Had Roane’s hand not been tied, he would have done far more
than kiss her.

***

The morning dawned foggy and wet.
Dodge and his men were up at sunrise, folding their makeshift camp and
tormenting their prisoner. Last night, Alisanne had been terrified to show any
measure of compassion to Roane while the men were beating on him, but after a
restless night where visions of his strong face danced through her head, she
had awoken to realize she felt extremely protective of him. This was all her
fault, after all, and she could not stand by while those ruffians who held her
father pounded on a defenseless man.
 
She
had to help him.

She also woke feeling rather
poor. Her sore throat had developed into a cough and her clothes were wet and
musty. She stank, and she was miserable, but it didn’t dampen her sense of
determination. Snatching a hunk of bread that one of Dodge’s men had offered
her, she stomped across the wet grass to the wagon. Two men were standing in
the bed of the wagon, telling Roane all of the terrible things they were going
to do to him as she walked up. They kicked him once, twice, before she
screeched and put a halt to it.

“Get away from him,” she
said,
her voice gravelly from her developing illness. When
they stared at her as if she had two heads, she exploded. “Get away I say. Get
away before I beat you myself!”

One leapt off. The other one
stayed. Alisanne glared at him as she climbed up on the bed of the wagon, like
two dogs challenging each other for the kill. Alisanne’s bright green eyes were
blood shot and unnaturally bright as she waved her hand at Dodge’s man. “Go,”
she hissed. “Go!”

He snarled at her and slid off
the wagon. Alisanne watched him and his partner slink away, like two scolded
wolves. She knew they were going straight to Dodge and she hurried to remove Roane’s
gag, which they had apparently replaced.

“Here,” she held the bread to his
mouth. “You must be famished.”

His handsome face was bruised
from the beating he had taken. But the eyes that gazed up at her were bright
and alert. “Have you eaten this morning?” he asked.

Her brows furrowed. “No,” she
said, “but that is of no matter. You haven’t either, and you must have your
strength.”

He smiled at her, his dimples
deep. “I am strong enough. You, however, are becoming ill. I heard you coughing
all night.”

She looked surprised. “You did?”
she said. Then, she blushed, flattered that he would be thinking of her. “I am
well enough. Please, eat this and hurry. Dodge will be here any moment.”

He rolled onto his back, gazing
up at her warmly.
 
“I cannot protect you
from these idiots, nor can I dry your wet clothing or shield you from these
elements. But I can refuse your breakfast so you can maintain your strength.
Will you not allow me that privilege?”

Alisanne blushed madly. Having
very little experience with men, she wasn’t as practiced as she should have
been in controlling her reaction. “After all I’ve caused, you would still show
me kindness?”

“It is my pleasure.”

“But why?”

He lifted his eyebrows
carelessly. “Would you rather I curse the ground you walk on?”

She grinned and looked down at
the bread in her hand. She held it up timidly, like an offering. “I would feel
better if you ate it.”

He laughed softly, his teeth
straight and white against his smooth lips. “Very well,” he said. “I shall
divide it with you, if that makes you happy.”

She tore it in half and put a
piece in his mouth. “Here, let me help you sit up,” she said, grabbing hold of
his leather vest and pulling him up. He was heavy and it took a good deal of
effort; she had no way of knowing that he had done all the work. “There. Is
that better?”