Love and Deception: a Clean Medieval Historical Romance (4 page)

R
osamund woke
up to a throbbing head
that threatened to crack her skull open. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and the pinpoint spots of light that seeped through the small holes of the musty sack so ungraciously draped over her head. She groaned as she was jostled unseeingly on a hard surface filled with all sorts of odds and ends.

She wisely kept her mouth shut when she felt the carriage come to a halt. The sound of heavy footfalls crunching on the ground underfoot gave her the impression that they were in a grassy area. She closed her eyes and opened her other senses to the sounds and motions all around her. One of the knights in Westin Keep had taught her the trick when her father started receiving offers for her hand in marriage. It was not uncommon for other lords to steal away ladies from neighboring lands and force marriage upon them.

“Rise and shine, princess!” a rough voice bellowed. She heard some drapes being pushed away roughly before she was unceremoniously hauled like a sack of potatoes.

“Today is going to be a great day for me!” the voice continued. “You see, me and his lordship’s boys have discovered something very intriguing about dear Count Braxton.”

Rosamund felt sick as she was bent over a smelly shoulder, her shrouded head bouncing against a back that smelled like the eighteenth level of hell. The sack draped over her head seemed quite inadequate to counter the stench that permeated her nostrils and she fought the urge to spill over the contents of her dinner.

“You see, princess,” that awful voice went on, “we have never before seen that prick of a Count show an ounce of affection for a female. Oh, we thought Lady Catherine would have been up to the job but sadly, she was found wanting.”

Her heart pounded in her chest as she quietly listened to that horrible man narrate the brilliance of his plans. It would seem to Rosamund that most of this nefarious plot revolved on drawing Count Braxton out by dangling her as bait.

Only Rosamund was not as certain it would play out as well as he’d hoped.

The Count had treated her cordially, that was true enough. However, it seemed unlikely for her betrothed to leave the safety of his castle to go gallivanting around the countryside to rescue her. Her brief conversations with the young lord hardly matched the besotted young man her abductor portrayed him to be.

She squirmed as she was dumped onto a rickety old chair that had nails poking into her skin, desperately trying to find some semblance of sanity in this whole situation. Sadly, she found none and panic began to creep in her heart when she realized that she might very well die from this.

The sack was jerked back roughly from the head and she stared back mutinously as she blinked back the last vestiges of the darkness from her eyes. The room she was in was small, sparsely furnished, and covered in a thick layer of dust. She wrinkled her nose when she realized that the smallest movements could send a cloud of the matter floating in the air.

“Well, what d’you think of my castle, princess?” Harry jeered. “Ain’t like Braxton Hall, but the man makes the castle.”

She shrank back from the lewd look he gave her and wondered how her cousin could have been so entranced by such a man. Where Catherine was delicate and fragile, he was crude and uncouth and all other things evil besides. She sent a silent prayer for the repose of her cousin before she focused her mind on the creature before her.

Harry, it would seem, had gone mad in the course of the few hours since she had secretly met with him to discuss her cousin. His dark hair stuck out every which way. His neatly trimmed beard was tangled and matted in some places. Dust, dirt, and the occasional foliage clung to his clothes. His dark eyes leveled themselves on her and the realization that this man was quite comfortable with murder made her go cold with dread.

“Your father would never have approved of me,” he murmured, sitting close to her on his haunches so he could be at eye level with her. “That high and mighty brother of his, too. It would have been so much easier for all of us if he just allowed me to marry Catherine before I broke her pretty neck and moved on to you.”

She shivered when he traced a dirty finger down her pale cheek. “So beautiful, you are. Rosamund. They named you well.” His eyes hardened when he felt her shrink back from his touch. “But just as cold as each and every one of your kind. Well, you will just have to witness me having to kill your betrothed before I drag you to the altar.”

He stomped out of the room and she almost sagged in relief when he slammed the door behind him so hard she thought the force would unhinge the door itself.

Forced marriages were not uncommon, although they were not done quite as often. Some nobles frowned upon the barbarity of it all but betrothal contracts themselves rarely involved the opinion of the bride as it is.

Lord Braxton was very likely to send out his men in search of her the moment he realized she was missing. She prayed he was not foolish enough to go gallivanting around in an effort to save her, although that was unlikely. His place was within the castle with his subjects, where Harry will have a hard time getting to him.

Sir Stephen, on the other hand, would most probably be in the party on the search for her. The young knight had been designated as her protector by her betrothed and she prayed that he was not punished for her folly in meeting secretly with her cousin’s lover.

He had been so kind and charming to her lately, it had taken all of her effort to resist thinking of him in a manner that should be reserved solely for Count Braxton. He had been rather persuasive, too, but despite the warring emotions in her heart, she had wrenched herself from that maelstrom Catherine had succumbed to.

But first, she would have to survive this abduction and pray that her betrothed remained unscathed as well.

T
hey spotted
the shack that the scouts had
followed the suspicious caravan to. He was thankful he had devised that message relay system with his men so that Harry had been spotted before he had made it completely out of his borders. Without it, Rosamund might have been forever lost to him.

He noted grimly that it had not been quite easy to reach this point. Harry had apparently friends in high places, who delayed the rescue mission purposefully. His gratitude went out to Bram, who had trained his knights well enough to trample any opposition to the ground. Nothing was going to stand between him and his betrothed. He vowed he would put an end to the madness in Harry before sundown.

He held up his hand and the men behind him quietly came to a halt, taking in the environment around them, quickly assessing any possible routes that the abductor could escape. His scouts had confirmed that the area had been either deserted or cleared of any mercenaries or enemy knights that might pose a problem to the rescue of Lady Rosamund.

“This is between me and Harry,” he reminded Bram. “It is time this matter between us was put to rest.”

The older knight nodded slightly.

A large, burly man stepped out of the shack and surveyed the foliage suspiciously before disappearing back into the rickety structure. When next he emerged, his blood boiled in rage when he held Rosamund by the throat with a blade aimed at her soft neck.

“I know you’re there, Braxton!” the madman howled. “Show yourself and maybe I won’t let you see your ladylove die.”

Rosamund, despite her silence, was pale with fear, her blue eyes wide. Stephen noted with no small amount of rage that several bruises marked her fair arms. She had not been treated as kindly as she should have been, although he was quite grateful to the Lord that she had not yet succumbed to the fate of her cousin.

He stepped out of his hiding place and narrowed his eyes at Harry. “Let her go. She has no part in this.”

Harry laughed and Rosamund felt the sound send shivers down her spine. “Lord Braxton, how nice of you to come. Have you come to take her away from me, too?” he growled. “I think it is only fair I take this from you so that we’re both even.”

She looked at Stephen questioningly. “You are Lord Braxton? Then who was the other —”

“My brother and his mind games,” Harry laughed crudely. “How quaint that I should take her from you and she doesn’t even know who the real Lord Braxton is!”

“I took nothing from you, Harry. You brought this down upon yourself.”

“The hell I did!” he growled. “You had everything! The lands, the title…Just because your mother was a high class bitch and I was born on the wrong side of the bed!”

Her eyes grew wide. “You are brothers?”

“You did not know you were in the presence of nobility?” he mocked her.

“It will be over before you know it, milady,” Stephen promised, his voice tender for a moment.

“How sweet,” Harry sneered. “Well, if you want her so badly, she’s all yours. Catch!”

Rosamund gave out a short yelp when she was roughly shoved to the ground, barely aware that her captor had swung his sword in her direction at the same moment. Her panicked eyes met with Stephen’s before the clash of steel on steel rang out.

Stephen grinned briefly but she could see the strain of it on his face. “I will be quick, milady. And then we can talk.”

He was up before she could blink and the two men started trading blows. She watched in fascinated horror as Sir Stephen, or rather, Count Braxton, parried back and forth. She desperately wanted him to win and for a moment it seemed that he would but Harry came back with a roar and he was driven back.

A soft tap on her shoulder and she looked at Sir Bram, one of Braxton’s most loyal knights. “Milady, his lordship has instructed me with your safety while he is currently occupied.” He glanced up to the two men hacking at each other and a sadness came over his gray eyes. “I trained them both,” he whispered softly. “But Harry never was one for learning. Your betrothed, on the other hand, he would not stop learning. He will overcome this, milady.”

“I am afraid I know next to nothing about all of this,” she admitted.

He nodded. “Lord Braxton will explain everything in due time. For now, let us get you to safety.”

A loud cry disrupted the strange rhythm of clashing swords as Harry lunged at Stephen with madness in his eyes, a bloodthirsty smile on his lips. Stephen swiftly sidestepped and a well-placed boot on his brother’s back had him sprawling on the forest floor with a blade on his neck.

“Surrender, brother,” he said quietly. “Let me help you.”

“Never!” Harry growled.

Rosamund started to cry out when she saw the flash of a blade from Harry’s boot. The words died on her lips and Bram shielded her from the gory scene. Stephen looked at first in shock before turning away with sadness in his eyes.

The blade fell from Harry’s numbed fingers and Stephen crouched down to his brother, whose throat was still gurgling with blood.

“I would have so wanted a brother,” he murmured sadly before closing his eyes permanently. “Rest in peace, Harry, and may you find your Catherine in the next life.”

He looked up to where Rosamund watched the scene in fascinated horror, her eyes wide as saucers.

“Milady, let us be off.”

S
he sat hesitantly
on the seat
across him and watched as he peered at her from the parchment he was writing on. It had been a week since she had been abducted and learned of his true identity as the Count Braxton and previously, Baron Ingram, whom her cousin was betrothed to before her demise.

Lady Catherine had not committed suicide, as she had previously thought. Now that the matter of her cousin was fully explained to her, she could finally lay all her issues to rest in her mind and fully mourn Catherine.

She twisted a piece of the fabric of her dress when he finally set his quill down and looked at her intently. She would perhaps never quite get used to the effect those eyes had on her. It veritably set a couple of butterflies fluttering in her stomach.

“Milady,” he began.

“Yes, milord?”

He cleared his throat and began again. “It has not escaped my notice that the betrothal contract was drawn up without soliciting your opinion on the matter.”

She cocked her head to the side. “My father was a very wise man and I trusted him to make this decision with only my best interests in mind.”

“As it stands,” he continued. “This will not be quite enough for me.”

“What do you mean, milord?”

He stood up from his desk and went around it until he was standing before her. She watched in dazed awe as he bent down on a knee and looked intently at her. “I apologize for my subterfuge when you first came to Braxton Hall, milady. I admit that it was sneaky on my part to pretend to be another while I secretly got to know you. It was not fair to you and I apologize wholeheartedly for any confusion I caused.”

His gaze turned tender as he continued, “But as I came to know your kindness and grace, your loyalty to Braxton the name even before Braxton the man, I came to the conclusion that simply marrying you because of a betrothal contract drawn up before we have even met would never do. I love you, Lady Rosamund Westin, and I am humbly asking you for your hand in marriage. It would be the greatest honor to be accepted by you despite my ways.”

“Yes, you have been quite the despicable one,” she murmured with a soft smile. “But you must know how vastly relieved I am to know that Sir Stephen and Braxton are one and the same. It was quite the conflict wondering if I were to end up as my cousin, bound to marry a man when she secretly loved another.”

He sobered up at the memory of Lady Catherine Fitzhugh before the meaning of her words sunk in. He gazed in tenderness as the smile slowly spread across her face until he basked under its radiance, the happiest man alive. He vowed that he would do everything in his power to coax out that smile every day of his life.

“Yes, milord,” she finally said. “I will marry you and I will claim no other husband in this world or the next. You have my heart fully.”

In the years to come, he would remember that precise moment as the happiest one in his life. Despite his unorthodox ways, which had nearly backfired on him, he had gained the love of a woman who was not only exceptionally beautiful but wonderfully loyal as well.

“Without reservations?” he teased her, his grin stretching from ear to ear.

She laughed back, the sound clear as a bell and just as joyous as he felt. “Yes, milord. I will marry you and without reservations, this time.”