Margaret Moore - [Maiden & Her Knight 03] (20 page)

Osburn was either too drunk or too stupid to realize his blunder. “She couldn’t be allowed to get away with killing him, any more than Connor should be allowed to get away with stealing your birthright.”

“My birthright has nothing to do with this. She is a woman and of noble birth. You should have locked her in her chamber, if you felt imprisonment necessary.”

Osburn’s eyes flared with a dim spark of protest. “You’d have me treat this woman like a delicate, innocent maiden? Good God, man, I’ve never met a woman
less
delicate
or
innocent! How many times has she tried to escape?” His brow furrowed as if he were trying to count, but he gave up in the next instant. “Anyway, she’s no more delicate than Ingar, and as for innocent, you seem to be forgetting she was as responsible for your father’s fate as Sir Connor. Isn’t that also why she was taken?” The gleam in Osburn’s eye grew malicious. “Or is it that she holds just as much of an attraction for you as she did for your father?”

Alexander ran his fingers through his hair. It was so easy to forget her culpability in his father’s destruction. Seeing her in that state, he had also forgotten how she had used her own attractiveness to try to win him to her side with that incredibly passionate kiss.

“She is nothing to me but something to be ransomed,” he lied, determined not to give Osburn pleasure or power by revealing his confused feelings. “If she fell ill, or died, she would be worth nothing. Sir Connor has said he will pay.”

The feral gleam grew in Osburn’s bloodshot eyes. “Perhaps Sir Connor need never know
what’s
happened to his beloved wife. Wouldn’t that torment be an even more fitting recompense for what you have lost?”

Alexander silently cursed the day he had met Lord Oswald, and his even more despicable son. “I made a bargain with the man, and I will keep it.”

Osburn shrugged his shoulders. “As you wish—as long as you don’t get any ideas about stealing her away.” His gaze flicked over Alexander. “Don’t think I don’t see which way the wind is blowing, DeFrouchette. You may be a handsome enough fellow, bastard though you are and in a rough, uncouth sort of way, but she’ll never—”

“Do you intend to keep her locked in her chamber?”

Osburn blinked, taken aback by the abrupt interruption. “I suppose she’s learned her lesson, and besides, now you’re here to watch over her, as I’m sure you will do with great attention.” He smirked as he held up his wineskin. “Let’s salute the lady and our plan, as well as my dear father, who’s informed me that he plans to be here soon.”

That must have been the message Denis had spoken of. It struck Alexander that he should not be surprised that Lord Oswald was coming after the danger was over and the risk nearly nil.

Otherwise, Alexander had no wish to see the man who had kept so much secret about this plan. If he must, he must, however; then he would take his money and head for Europe, away from England and the lady’s husband. And away from the lady, too.

Osburn took a long pull at the wineskin and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “He wants to see Lady Allis one last time, he says. Can’t say I blame him. She
is
a beauty, even if she looks a little like a shorn sheep. Still, he won’t be happy to hear about Heinrich.”

Alexander had had enough of this man and this conversation. He turned on his heel.

“I give you leave to go, DeFrouchette,” Osburn said as if Alexander were leaving by his command.

Barely resisting the urge to pummel the man until he screamed for mercy, Alexander strode out of the hall.

Lying in bed wearing a clean shift, warm and relatively safe now that DeFrouchette had returned, Isabelle watched Kiera gather up what had once been her best woolen gown. “I’m sorry that it’s ruined.”

Looking down at the filthy bundle in her hand, Kiera softly replied, “It’ll wash.”

Isabelle doubted washing could repair what three days in that hellhole had done to it, but she had no other compensation to offer except her apologies.

Kiera’s cuffs had fallen back to reveal bruises on her right forearm, as if someone had held the girl in a hard grip.

“Did Osburn do that?” she demanded, aghast.

Kiera quickly shoved down her cuff. “It was an accident.”

Isabelle was quite certain it was not. The way the bruising encircled the entire forearm was proof of that.

Stronger now after the bread and wine that Alexander DeFrouchette had gotten for her, she sat up and regarded the young woman not with pity but with compassion. “Perhaps it was,” she conceded, “or perhaps it was not. Perhaps it only happens when Osburn is nearly insensible with drink.”

“It was an accident,” Kiera repeated, heading for the door.

“Was he so angry for what I had done that he took out his ire on you?”

Clutching the gown to her breasts, her lower lip trembling, Kiera faced her again. “He was very angry about Heinrich.”

“If that anger caused you to be hurt, that would be the only reason I would be sorry for killing him.”

Tears filled Kiera’s eyes and spilled over onto her cheeks. “I-I wish you’d never come here,” she stammered as she wiped them away with the gown. “W-we were happy before you come.”

Isabelle got out of the bed. The stone floor was cold on her feet, and her legs were still weak, but she wanted to get closer to Kiera so that she could speak softly, in case there was a guard outside the door. “I would escape, if I could. All I need is someone to help me to get out of this castle.”

The gown fell to the floor unheeded as Kiera held out her hands as if warding her off. “Oh, no!” she said, her voice trembling. “I won’t!”

Isabelle reached out and took the girl’s hands in hers, pleading with her. “Kiera, you could come with me. We could both get away from this place, and these men.”

Kiera pulled her hands free. “I don’t want to go. I-I love Osburn. You don’t understand. He saved me.”

“Kiera, he is a drunkard, and a mean one. He delights in my anguish, and I suspect he enjoyed your pain.”

The truth flashed across the girl’s face as she backed away, staring at Isabelle as if she were Satan sent to tempt her from the true path. “You don’t know what it was like for me before Osburn took me away. You’re a noble lady born into riches and rank.”

Isabelle tried again. “Kiera, I know a servant’s life can be difficult—”

Kiera’s back hit the door, and the collision seemed to awaken something in her—an energy of resolve that Isabelle had not suspected she possessed. “I have heard about you, my lady, from Osburn,” she said, her hands splayed against the door as if she were trying to hold it shut, or keep something out. “You don’t know
nothing
about the miserable life I led.
You
never had a lustful master who thought you were there for his pleasure. Aye, or his sons, like we were there for them to learn on. Osburn took me away from that, and I’d die for him for doing it!”

“Or let him kill you?” Isabelle asked gently. She knew that some households were hell for the women who served there, yet she could not believe that Kiera was much better off with Osburn. He might have been good to her at first, but clearly those days were coming to an end.

Kiera’s gaze faltered, and seeing her chance, Isabelle rushed on. “My life has not been without trouble. I daresay Osburn did not tell you of the anguish Rennick DeFrouchette put my family through. And do you think being taken from my home and held for ransom is pleasant? Or being imprisoned in a stinking dungeon? I have suffered, too, Kiera. Not as you have, but in other ways.”

“At least you weren’t raped as I was—more than once!”

Even as pity filled her, Isabelle continued to regard Kiera steadily. “I have not been raped
yet
, but that is the fate I face at your lover’s hands, or those other men below, if I don’t escape from here.”

Kiera shook her head. “No, Osburn won’t touch you. He has me to love him.”

“You, of all women, should know that if he takes me against my will, there will be nothing of love about it. It will be to conquer and subdue me. He would do it to hurt me, and Connor. You must see that. Please, help me!”

Kiera slowly shook her head. “You’re not to be harmed. And you’ve got DeFrouchette and Denis to protect you. You’ll be safe enough, and soon the ransom will be paid, and you’ll be gone. I had no one until Osburn and I won’t leave him or betray him, neither!”

“Then one day, in a drunken rage, he will kill you.”

With a cry that was both gasp and denial, Kiera opened the door and went out, slamming it behind her.

As exhaustion and disappointment overcame her, Isabelle made her way back to the bed and climbed in. Kiera might never see Osburn as anything but her savior, no matter what he did to her. In trying to enlist Kiera’s aid, she might have made a terrible mistake—just as kissing DeFrouchette had been. Yet he had rescued her from that terrible place. She had been so glad to see him that she had almost told him as much before he’d left the chamber.

He had even washed her, as she had realized when she’d seen the basin cradled against his muscular leg. It had been his gentle ministrations that had awakened her.

For one blissful moment, she had believed she was home, safe at last, until she had felt his lips against her fingertips.

Nobody at home kissed her like that. No man at Bellevoire had ever roused such exquisite sensations with the touch of his lips. No other man had ever made her feel a need that awakened her from slumber and made her want to reach out and wrap her arms about him to draw him close to kiss. None of the men who sought her hand had created anything like the forbidden desire Alexander DeFrouchette inspired.

She shuddered, and not with a chill—with an excitement that she desperately tried to vanquish. He was, after all, still her enemy, even if the sight of his concerned face had stirred her far more than she wanted to admit to herself. He had looked down at her with an expression of such distress that it had seemed there was more to it than mere worry over an object to be traded.

And then his cheeks had reddened as if he were blushing.

Was that possible? Was it possible that he could be capable of any tender emotion? Or was it only from bending over the basin?

Whatever he felt, the relief of knowing he was back to protect her had been even more overwhelming than hearing that Connor and Allis had not betrayed her identity. Surely that wasn’t right.

She drew the covers up to her chin and stared at the worm-eaten rafters in the water-stained ceiling as she tried to focus on her family. How had they discovered the mistake? Or had they guessed, as she had? If DeFrouchette had met Connor first and spoken of his wife, that would tell Connor of the man’s error. Like her, Connor must have realized that her safety depended on maintaining the ruse, and somehow he had managed to communicate that to Allis, too.

Isabelle rolled on her side, worry for her sister and her condition gnawing at her. At least now, though, Allis would know she lived.

That was good, and so was Connor’s agreement to pay the ransom.

She turned onto her back. It was so much money, much more than he had.

Would Osburn and the Brabancons return her, even then? They might decide to keep the money and sell her, too. DeFrouchette might object—indeed, she could believe that his warped sense of chivalry would insist that she be returned to her husband—but the Brabancons could overpower him. So could Ingar and his crew, if the Norseman wanted to buy her.

At that thought, she shuddered again. There was only one person here she could truly rely on for her freedom. Herself.

Alexander marched across the courtyard and, with a guttural curse, kicked open the rickety door to the quarters he shared with Denis. It was a room at the bottom of a ruined tower lacking most of its roof. Some planks from an upper floor remained and Denis had found a piece of canvas somewhere to put across them.

Alexander snatched up the leather pouch that contained the few pieces of extra clothing he and Denis possessed. He dumped out their clothes, then shoved straw from the pile that was their bedding into it.

The door opened and Denis entered, halting in surprise when he saw Alexander crouched on the floor.

Alexander looked up, then continued his task. “What are you doing here?”

“Kiera is staying with her,” Denis said. “I came to find you and see how you are faring.”

“Me? I am well enough.”

Assuming a casual air, Denis leaned back against the wall. “What are you doing?”

Alexander glanced up at his friend, then returned to his task. “Making a pillow. I will not be sleeping here tonight, or any night until the lady is on her way back to her husband.”

“You will sleep in the stables? Me, too! They’ve got a new roof.” Bending down, Denis gathered up the extra tunic they each possessed, and the second pair of breeches. “Why did you not say so?”

“Because I am not going to be sleeping in the stables. I will make my bed in the tower where the lady’s chamber is.”

Denis’s jaw dropped. “
Mon Dieu
, I don’t think she likes you enough for that.”

Alexander barked a sardonic laugh. “Of course she doesn’t. She hates me. I will not be sleeping in her chamber.”

Still holding the clothes, Denis plopped down on his pile of straw. “What, you are going to sleep outside her door?”