Kingdom Come (57 page)

Rory still couldn’t believe she’d gotten herself into such a predicament. She promised God that if she made it out of this safely, she would never again disobey Kieran or do anything foolish. Her situation was stupidity in the worst way because it could have been avoided. Now Kieran and his family were at the mercy of the prince, and it was all her fault.

Leaving the window, she huddled up in the corner of the room and fell into a fitful sleep.  With no bed in the room, she had slept on the floor since her arrival and was somewhat becoming used to it.  When she awoke on the morning of her fourteenth day of captivity, she awoke to a stiff body and an aching right let; lifting up her skirt, she could see faint red streaks running up her leg from the wound that didn’t want to seem to heal.She knew immediately that it was some kind of blood poisoning.

“Oh… no,” she breathed, fingering the puffy wound and examining the red streaks. “God, please no. Please don’t let this be as bad as I think it is.”

Her leg was hot to the touch and she had never felt so much panic in her life. If untreated, a systemic infection could kill quickly. Looking over to the remains of her meal from the previous night, there was a small amount of wine left in the cup. Rory picked at the sloppy scab on her ankle and peeled it off, exposing puffy pink tissue beneath.  Taking the wine, she poured it directly into the open wound. She didn’t know what else to do.

It stung like crazy but she bit her lip, refusing to cry out.  Eventually the sting faded and she sat on the floor with her leg extended, letting the air get to the wound.  She tried to think of everything she could about natural medicine and what could be done to ease the infection. But all she could think of at the moment was wine and the alcohol in it that killed germs, but what she had was different from common germs. She had an infection. 

Focused on her leg, she was startled when the door to the chamber suddenly opened and an older woman appeared.  Rory didn’t say a word; she hadn’t seen the woman before and she glared balefully as the woman suddenly entered the room and began snapping orders to servants out in the hall.  There was a great deal of activity that Rory couldn’t see and the next person who entered the room was the knight who looked so much like Bud. 

He had been her jailer since the moment of her capture.  She didn’t even know his name; he’d never said more than two words to her. But he was always around, bringing her meals and lingering near the door. He didn’t seem particularly hostile but she knew he was there to make sure she didn’t escape.  He stood back out of the way as several servants rushed in and suddenly, the little chamber was awash with activity. Rory huddled back against the wall, uncertain, angry, ill and fearful of what was going on.

A big tub was brought in and there were piles of material and other items being brought into the room. Several servants began filling up the tub with hot water; Rory could see the steam rising.  As she watched from her perch against the wall, a tub was filled, bedding was put on the floor, and someone even brought in a bucket of smoldering coals meant to give off heat.  The mature woman snapped orders, shoved people around, and finally got the entire room organized with a great deal of help.  Then she chased the servants out, politely asked the knight to leave, and turned her focus to Rory once the door was shut.

Rory was still glaring up at her.  The woman didn’t say a word, patiently extending her hand; the implication was obvious.  Ill, exhausted and dirty, the lure of the hot tub was too much to resist and Rory stood up on unsteady legs, ripping off her dirty clothing and throwing herself into a tub that, she realized as she sank into it, was full of floating rose petals.  It was warm and wonderful and sweet.  Settling down in the tub was the most profound physical experience of her life; greater than an orgasm, or at least it felt like it at the moment.  The hot, delicious water covered her and she doused herself completely, losing herself in the joy of a simple luxury.

The mature woman produced a cake of whitish soap with rose petals flaked into it.  She began to lather up a stiff horsehair brush with the soap but Rory, still without saying a word, reached out and took both the soap and the brush from her.  She didn’t want anyone bathing her, least of all one of the prince’s servants.  With the soap in one hand and the brush in the other, she scrubbed her entire body furiously, including her hair.  As primitive as it was, it was better than the spa treatment at a five star resort.  Once Rory rinsed all of the rose soap from her hair, she felt like a new woman.

Not needed, the mature servant stood near the door in complete silence, watching Rory bathe herself. It was a little voyeuristic but Rory couldn’t have cared less. She was simply glad to be clean. Even her leg felt better, having been soaked and scrubbed. The red streaks were still there but they hadn’t gotten any worse.  As she ran her fingers over the red streaks on her leg, the mature woman suddenly vacated the room and shut the door softly behind her.

Rory was glad to be left alone, examining her wound and hoping she could control whatever bacteria was growing with regular dousing of wine or maybe packing it with salt.  There wasn’t anything else she could do or use, and she didn’t want to tell anyone for fear that the prince, who had so far left her alone, would be reminded of her presence.  Maybe he had forgotten about her, although she knew that wasn’t the case.  Still, she was grateful he hadn’t shown his face.

The door to the chamber opened again but Rory didn’t look up; she was still examining her ankle and assumed it was the mature serving woman. But a whiff of stench hit her nostrils a split second before a voice reached her ears.

“Lady Hage,” the voice was male and horrific.” I find you most compromised. I should have knocked first, I suppose. How rude of me.”

Startled, Rory swung around and water sloshed out of the tub; standing only a foot or so away from her was John.  His droopy-eyed gaze was lascivious and terrible.  Rory’s heart began to pound, terrified by the look in his eye.  Everything she had feared suddenly came crashing down around her and it was difficult to maintain her composure.

“What are you doing here?” she blurted, furious and fearful.

John smiled seductively. He began to toy with the tassels on the sash binding his tunic. “I came to see how you were faring,” his eyes were riveted to her naked body beneath the waterline. ”I fear I’ve not been a very attentive host; illness has kept me away from you. My sincerest apologies.”

“Illness?” Rory was backing away, moving against the opposite side of the tub as he came towards her. “Don’t come near me if you’ve been sick. I don’t want to catch anything.  And a good host wouldn’t be coming into the room of a bathing guest.”

John laughed softly, pulling on the edge of the sash.  It came untied and he let it fall to the ground. Rory nearly vomited when she realized what he was doing. He began to pull the edges of his tunic apart.

“I thought we could become better acquainted,” he purred.

Rory didn’t care if she was naked or not; there was a huge piece of drying linen to her right and she suddenly bolted out of the tub, yelling as she grabbed the linen.

“I don’t want to become better acquainted with you,” she clearly informed him. “Get out of here!”

John lifted his eyebrows, still pulling the tunic off and still advancing towards the tub.  He wasn’t deterred in the least.

“It is an honor to become acquainted with a prince,” he told her. “I will be king someday. You will have the comfort of knowing a king found pleasure with you.”

Rory was outraged, moving away from him as he came around the side of the tub. She was wrapped up tightly in the linen, trying to stay one step ahead of him.

“You’re not going to touch me,” she hissed. “My husband is going to kill you when I tell him what you tried to do.”

That seemed to ease John’s amorous intentions; his soft expression hardened and he stopped his advance. “He cannot lay a hand on me,” he growled. “I am Richard’s brother and by virtue of my birth, untouchable to man. If I see something that I want, I take it; daughter, wife or mother. It matters not to me. If I want you, I shall have you and your husband cannot do anything about it.”

Rory’s mouth was dry with fear. “Touch me and I’ll kill you, you bastard,” she snarled. “Get out of here before you get hurt.”

John’s anger was overtaking his lust. “You threaten me?”

“Absolutely!” she shouted. “If you thought I’d be an easy conquest, think again. You’ll get the fight of your life.”

The prince stared at her.  Rory watched his dark eyes shift with the concept of unwilling quarry.  His jaw began to tick.

“Get in that tub,” he rumbled. “If you do not, I shall make you wish you were never born.”

“Never,” she seethed.

“Do it!”

His high-pitched yell startled her but Rory kept her head about her, moving away from him as he began his advance again.  He was beginning to tremble, his jaw working furiously as he advanced on her.

“Get out,” she growled in return. “Get out or I swear you’ll be sorry.”

Threats from a woman was too much for John to take. With a howl, he threw himself at her. Rory was fast but there was no where for her to run; the chamber was too small. In little time, he had her by the arms and was shoving her over to the tub. Terrified, Rory struggled to fight him off and keep the towel on her at the same time. But the towel fell away and John made a grab for her full breasts.  With a yelp, Rory batted him away but he had a good grip on her. The two of them struggled viciously until Rory backed up against the tub and tripped on it. Falling backwards, she smacked her head on the wall.

Stars burst before her eyes and, for a moment, she was stunned senseless. It was enough of a break for John to yank off his tunic and pull his hose down, releasing his enormous and lopsided member.  Saliva dripping from his lips, he fell to his knees and roughly pulled Rory’s legs apart. He was preparing to ram himself into her tight body when Rory suddenly came around, saw what he was doing, and brought a knee up that caught him right in his aroused groin. John screamed and collapsed on the floor.

Rory was in full-blown panic mode. She scrambled out from under him, trying to shake the cobwebs out of her brain, when John reached up with one hand and grabbed her bad ankle. The pain was excruciating and she screamed, falling to the floor as he grabbed at her with his other hand, digging his nails into her tender flesh and bruising everything he touched.

“After I take my pleasure with you,” John breathed as his saliva dribbled on to her skin, “I shall have you killed for your insolence. Do you hear me, you worthless, foolish whore? I will kill you!”

Rory was in a haze of panic. She knew he meant every word and she further knew that, at this moment, it was her survival against his. Rory wasn’t one to give up or surrender; she had every intention of living a long and healthy life.  She had been brought back to this era with a purpose. So much had happened since she and Kieran had appeared on that rocky beach in Nahariya; a love that had defied all odds to flourish and thrive.  She could see Kieran’s face, hear his gentle laugh and feel his loving touch. No, she wasn’t ready to give up yet, certainly not to a spoiled prince who would make a terrible king.  She didn’t even care about the consequences of her actions at the moment; all she was concerned with was surviving and seeing her husband and son again. It was all she ever wanted. She had to live.

John was coming close. Rory’s flailing hand came into contact with the stool she had been sitting on, the only piece of furniture in the entire room until just a few minutes ago.  She felt the leg in her hand, hard and solid.  She knew what she had to do. It was her survival against his.

Gripping the leg, she swung it at the prince’s head with all her might. Even when he fell off her, she swung it again and again, frantically beating the man’s head in and watching his brains bleed out on the floor. When the panic faded and the blood spattered, and she realized he was never going to get up again, it suddenly occurred to her what she had done. The bloody stool fell to the floor.

Realization turned to horror. She had just accomplished everything she had feared, everything she had instructed Kieran not to do. She’d spent the past fourteen months terrified that somehow, some way, Kieran was going to do something inadvertently to change the future. Her future; the world she knew and came from. But in a sickening twist of fate, she was the one who ultimately accomplished, in one swift and panicked action, that which she had feared more deeply than death itself. She had just irrevocably changed the course if history with a stool. She had just killed the next King of England.