Medieval Rogues (48 page)

She shouldn’t dwell upon him in such a fashion. He had no interest in her apart from her help in locating the treasure. He already possessed the gold cup; he’d secured it under his tunic before leaving her chamber yesterday. Once they found the riches and rescued Angeline, he would ride off in search of other adventures.

That is, if such a man honored his agreements.

A shiver wove through Faye as she crossed to the door. She’d trusted Brant’s word. She had no other option, when she couldn’t turn to anyone else. Yet, ’twas entirely possible Brant wouldn’t follow through with his part of their arrangement. Something she mustn’t forget.

Drawing a steadying breath, Faye opened her door, shut it behind her, and headed down to the great hall. Most of the castle folk were still asleep, stretched out on pallets on the floor. By the light of a few lit torches, she skirted slumbering servants and dogs and quietly made her way to the entrance to the forebuilding.

The faint scrape of a chair alerted her she wasn’t the only one awake.

“Faye?”

Torr!

Her footsteps faltered. She glanced across the dark hall, to see him swing his booted legs off the table on the raised dais—the lord’s table. With his thumb, he wiped his lips. He stood, pushing a leather flask into his belt.

A pang of sympathy lanced through her, for she knew the flask contained a draft made for him by a local herbalist. It eased his chronic pain caused by a fall from a horse during a tournament years ago.

Torr stepped off the dais and started toward her. Sweat dampened her palms. What if he didn’t believe her when she said she was going to visit Greya? Faye didn’t have time to linger. Nor could she simply wave, then dash down the stairwell to the bailey. As lord of Caldstowe, he could prevent her from leaving the keep.

Telling herself to remain calm, Faye smiled at him. Drawing near, he smiled back. Despite the dim lighting, she noticed shadows under his eyes. She guessed he hadn’t slept much that night, if at all.

“You are awake early, Faye.”

“I could not sleep.” She managed a wry chuckle. “I thought I would enjoy some fresh morning air. I did not mean to disturb you.”

“I was already awake.” Compassion softened Torr’s gaze. “How is your wound? Does it pain you?”

“Only a little. ’Tis healing well.” Glancing toward the forebuilding, she said, “Well, if you do not mind, I—”

“I, too, cannot sleep.” He sighed, as if a peaceful night’s rest was an impossible dream.

“You miss Angeline,” Faye murmured, guilt squeezing her conscience. How thoughtless that she considered only herself, when he must be very worried about his little girl.

He hesitated, then nodded. “Aye, Angeline.”

Faye swallowed hard. She could only imagine his torment. He must long to know if his daughter was safe, or cold, or hungry, or terrified. He must fear not seeing her alive again. Tears stung Faye’s eyes, for after losing her babe, she understood such grief.

“Torr,” she whispered, touching his arm. For all his generosity over the past months, as well as the vow she’d made to Elayne, she would do whatever was necessary to bring Angeline safely home.

Torr’s gaze held hers. Such intense emotion churned in his eyes. How could he not be distraught, with Elayne’s illness and recent death, followed by Angeline’s disappearance?

“Your daughter will be back with us soon,” Faye said.

His lips tightened. He clearly tried to suppress difficult emotions. With a shaking hand, he reached for his flask, took a long sip and returned it to his belt. When he glanced at her again, she saw his façade of the calm, composed lord of Caldstowe Keep. “So far, my men have discovered naught. I hope you are right, Faye, about her being found.”

“I am.” She smiled.

Torr’s mouth curved into a faint grin. “Come. I will walk with you.”

“’Tis a very kind offer, but this morn, I prefer to walk alo—”

He had already clasped her hand. When his fingers twined through hers, she fought a shudder. His touch brought no comfort, only a sense of entrapment, as he ushered her into the stairwell.

She needed to be on her way! Before the sun lit the distant trees, she must be on the road to the meeting site.

If she didn’t meet Brant as arranged, he had no obligation to help her. He would simply vanish with the gold. Gone, like the morning mist.

Torr pushed open the door at the bottom of the forebuilding, admitting a waft of wintry air that stirred her gown’s hem. The faintest hints of pink and gold swept the horizon. Dawn would soon wake the rest of the keep.

Frosty gravel crunched beneath her shoes as she walked a few paces with him, then slowed her stride. “Thank you, Torr, but I wish to go my own way now.”

Torr faced her. “I see,” he said, sounding indignant. His breath formed a white cloud, akin to smoke exhaled by an angry dragon. “Why do you not want my company, Faye?”

Because I am meeting another man this morn, in order to save Angeline
, her conscience whispered.

“I assure you, I intend no insult,” she said quickly, squeezing his hand still linked through hers. “I did not realize daybreak was so close upon us. You see, I promised to visit Greya this morn. I hoped to be there by dawn.”

“Visiting her again?”

Faye nodded, anxious to defray the suspicion in his gaze. “I did not reach her cottage when I tried to see her the other day. The storm prevented me.”

“Are you well enough to ride to the village? With your wound—”

“I would not undertake the journey if I did not feel able. ’Twould be very foolish.”

Torr’s eyebrows rose, a gesture that reminded her of Brant. Yet, while Brant’s stare had sent excitement coursing through her, Torr’s filled her with apprehension.

“Greya is the best healer in this county. I also hoped she would examine my wound, to make sure ’tis mending properly. She may have special salves to quicken the healing.”

Torr’s head dipped in a half-nod. He didn’t look convinced.

The morning chill crept into the folds of her mantle. Gently extricating her fingers from his, she hugged her arms across her chest.

His gaze slid down to where her breasts lay concealed beneath her mantle. He looked across the bailey to the stables, where a scrawny cat had emerged from the doorway. Torr’s displeasure seemed to hum in the air around them.

“Tomorrow, will you join me for a walk?” she said, softening her tone with a plea. “I would like that very much.”

His head swiveled. A smile touched his lips. “I would enjoy that, too.”

“Tomorrow, then.”

She started to turn toward the stables, but he caught her arm. “Wait. I will summon a few of my men-at-arms to accompany you.”

Oh, God!
“Nay! I mean, ’tis very considerate of you, but unnecessary.”

He frowned. “I am worried about you, Faye. The last few days you have been acting . . . peculiar.” He looked about to say more, but at that moment, one of the stable hands, rubbing sleep from his eyes, emerged from the stables. He bowed. “Good morn, milord. Lady Rivellaux.”

“Good morn,” Faye said. Panic pressed between her ribs. Unless she immediately began her journey, she would miss her meeting with Brant. “I promise you, I am fine. I would not ride today otherwise.”

He studied her, each tense moment marked by her urgent heartbeat.

At last, he shook his head and smiled. “Forgive me. After all that has happened lately, I fear I am a little . . . overprotective.” Gesturing to the stable hand, he said, “Ready Lady’s Rivellaux’s mare.”

***

Picking his teeth with a dried length of grass, Brant leaned against an oak and studied the straight, narrow dirt road, as he had at least twenty times since he’d ridden to the designated meeting place. During the night, heavy frost had settled on the vegetation growing alongside the naked forest. As dawn’s light fingered through the trees, the verge glittered as if strewn with stars.

A few paces away, Val dug furiously at a rabbit hole, then shoved his nose into the opening. His little body shook in a zealous sneeze.

Brant chuckled before working the piece of grass between his bottom teeth. His gaze shifted to the stand of trees in the distance. Beyond lay the lake where he had first met Faye. Last night, he’d ridden past it. Cloaked in twilight, the lake had been as smooth as polished pewter. As though, beneath its still surface, something waited, poised to surface at a precise moment with splashing, gleaming splendor like a sword raised by a mystical maiden’s hand.

Now, just like yester eve, he couldn’t stop thinking of Faye’s anguish at the lakeshore when he’d demanded the ransom, and also when he had spilled the rocks onto her chamber floor. Why did those stones, twigs, and a toy sheep—belongings of another lady’s child—mean so much to Faye? What gnawed at her conscience with the fanged ferocity of his own guilt?

’Twas more than worry for Angeline. Faye had scrambled after the rock as if it were more precious than gold.

Her anxiety had bothered him so much that, upon returning to The Spitting Hen Tavern, he’d searched out the blemished-faced strumpet. Her sad eyes had lit with excitement when he’d pressed coins into her hands. “What do ye fancy, milord? Fer this much silver, ye shall ’ave it several times over.”

With a pained sigh, he’d drawn her into a quiet corner. “Deane, I do not pay for your charms. I wish you to go to Caldstowe Keep and become a servant there. ’Twill be a better life for you.”

She’d blinked down at the coin, then up at him. Her eyes had glistened. “Why are ye so kind? I am a stranger to ye.”

His hands had closed over hers. “All I ask in return is that you listen for word on Lord Lorvais’s daughter, Angeline, who is missing. If you hear any news, you must tell me. Will you, Deane?”

Tears had streamed down her rouged cheeks. “I will. Oh, thank ye, milord. Thank ye.”

A bird flitted through the tree branches overhead, snapping Brant’s focus back to the wintry road. In the rising light, the frost glittered as brightly as Faye’s eyes.

Her bewitching gaze hinted at a rare magic he’d experienced only once before. After meeting Elayne at a Midsummer feast, he’d been consumed by the need to see more of her, to kiss her perfect cheek, to touch the tantalizing body she’d so brazenly presented to all the men around her.

Bitterness left a foul taste in his mouth. Even now, Faye captured his thoughts with the same persistence—even though she hadn’t come to meet him as promised.

“Damnation,” Brant muttered. He pushed away from the tree, his cloak swirling about his calves as he strode to the road. His destrier, tethered to an oak further off the road, raised its head from the frozen grass and shook its mane, jangling its bridle, eager to be on the move.

Planting his gloved hands on his hips, Brant walked inside the ruts caused by a wagon racing down the road when muddy. Dirt crunched beneath his boots.

Could she have mistaken the meeting place? Were his directions not clear? Had she decided during the night that she didn’t need his help to rescue Angeline, after all?

Resolving to wait for her a few more moments, he kicked a stone with the toe of his boot. It landed on an ice-covered puddle. The surface smashed into a hundred white pieces, its symmetry destroyed—just like his plan to meet Faye and begin the hunt for the treasure.

Without her, he had no idea where to begin to look. Of all undesirable predicaments, he needed her, for the insight she could provide.

A keen ache slashed through Brant. If only he’d been more determined to find the journal that Royce had taken with him on crusade. If only Brant had searched harder while knights and fellow warriors had dismantled the desert camp and prepared to move on. Royce had carefully written all of the rumors, legends, and snippets of information on the treasure’s possible locations in the pages of that leather-bound tome.

Yet, at the time, overwhelmed by the horror of what he’d done, Brant hadn’t even been able to step into the tent he’d shared with Royce. Death had confronted him when he’d raised the tent’s flap. Vomit scalding his mouth, blood streaming from his slashed cheek, he had lurched away. His fellow crusaders, believing Royce slaughtered by the crippled Saracen prisoner who had tried to escape that night—and who, Brant later learned, was hung, drawn and quartered for the murder—offered sympathetic claps on the back. Shaking with grief, he’d retched into the sand.

Torr had packed all of Brant and Royce’s belongings, stowed them on Brant’s horse, and burned the tent. When Brant had asked about the journal, Torr had said he hadn’t found it among Royce’s effects. Brant remembered his brother had sometimes tucked the journal into the garments he was wearing. In their eagerness to be rid of the corpse before it rotted and attracted rats, his fellow crusaders had likely burned the journal along with the body.

Still, Torr had helped Brant search the area where the tent had stood, as well as around the campfire where Royce had lingered, his face lit by flickering flames while he’d flipped through the journal. They’d found no trace of the tome. Like his brother, its ashes had been scattered in the scorching desert sands.

Now, Brant’s only hope of fulfilling Royce’s dream lay with a woman.

One who had deserted him.

A scratching noise came from the verge to Brant’s left, then Val sneezed again. Setting his hands on his hips, Brant tipped his head back to look through the branches at the blue sky.