Never Kiss A Stranger (31 page)

He looked to the ornate ceiling above his head, as if by concentrating he could discern Alys’s location amidst the warren of rooms stacked atop him. Was she even being held in the king’s home, though? Or an inn nearby? He did not know where or how to begin to search. Should he tear the stones apart and still fail to locate her, should he raise alarm to the king’s guards—mayhap even the lion-maned Julian Griffin—Judith Angwedd would surely hear of it. She would hear of it, and then Alys’s life would be forfeit.

He had but one recourse.

He would disavow his claim before the king. Gillwick had just slipped out of his fingers, for good this time. He would truly never have anything to offer Alys. Nothing but her life, which was in his hands now. And Piers was determined to move very slowly, act very carefully in the next several hours. There would be death in London, but Piers would breathe his last before he allowed that death to be Alys’s.

He forced his feet to move him from the hall and climb the steps mechanically, the worn soles of his boots slapping marble. He jostled people he passed but he could not care. He did not see them.

After straining her neck to push the basket containing Layla from the side of her face—with a silent apology to the monkey who screeched indignantly—Alys began concentrating on her breathing. Deeply in, slow and easy out through her nose. Her tongue felt as though it was being forced down her throat, blocking her airway. She could not swallow properly. She knew that if she let herself succumb to panic, she would faint at the very least.

In, out.

She turned her head to the side, to give some sort of escape for the saliva in her mouth. Her jaws ached. In her futile struggle with the gag, she had managed to swallow more air than she had breathed, and so a sharp pain now stabbed at her midsection, so intense that she could feel it in the muscles of her back.

Breathe. In. Out.

She closed her eyes against the seemingly cavernous dark. And when she felt the hot tears streak down her cheeks, she realized that all was not yet lost. She was breathing. She was crying. She was still alive. And that
was just enough to calm her to where she could begin to think.

She had initially thought that Judith Angwedd and Bevan had both quit the chamber. But after perhaps a half hour, she could hear disgusting, muffled grunts from beyond the thick wardrobe doors. Bevan. After only a few minutes, the noises stopped on a hoarse exhalation of choking breath. The pain in Alys’s stomach sharpened and swelled. Thank God, Judith Angwedd had said she was taking the key to the wardrobe with her when she’d left.

It wasn’t long afterward when Alys heard the redheaded woman enter the chamber once more. She strained to hear the conversation, but only caught fading and swelling pieces.

“—she sleep—”

Mumbling, and then, “—‘s’here … quested audience. Shh!”

Alys heard the key scraping in the lock again, and she forced her face to relax into some parody of sleep. She felt a release of pressure in the close air around her face, a slight puff of breeze, and then the lock was clicking once more.

“Asleep or dead,” she heard Judith Angwedd say in a fading voice. “Saw him … keep watch … John Hart.”

Bevan’s voice reached her ears, shockingly clear and close. He must have stood at the seam of the doors.

“I say we simply go on and kill her.”

There was a sharp, muffled reply from Judith Angwedd.

Bevan grunted. Then said, “If you’re so fearful of being caught, why not just let the peasant bastard have Gillwick? Hart Manor is twice its size, and I will have it regardless of Edward’s decree.”

Judith Angwedd must have taken offence to her son’s
reasoning, for Alys could feel the sharp reverberations of the woman’s approaching footfalls through the wood of the wardrobe.

“Why settle for ten of something when you could have twenty? Why take some, when all is within your grasp?” she demanded in a raspy whisper, and Alys could sense her mad passion for which she spoke. “I came to Warin Mallory as a girl, in good faith.”

Bevan snorted.

“Shut your foolish mouth! John Hart was married, and he used me, just as I used him. I was determined to make a prosperous life at Gillwick, give Warin the children he desired, increase the worth of his farm.
He
cuckolded
me
with a
commoner!
It was simply my misfortune that I got with child by the wrong man.”

“Why, thank you, Mother.”

“But now,” Judith Angwedd continued, in a somewhat placating tone, “John Hart is widowed, with no heirs to leave his fortune to. You have two feasts spread before you now, Bevan—we both do! Once Gillwick and Hart Manor are joined together under us, we will have a veritable empire! Think of the power that will wield!”

Alys was aghast. Lord John Hart’s possessions were more than Gillwick’s, for certain, but it was not of such import as to be considered the basis of an empire. The woman was obviously delusional, and truly mad with greed.

“I fucking hate cows,” Bevan grumbled.

“That’s simply too bad. Now, go and do as I’ve asked. If Piers leaves the chamber, follow him. If he comes within beckoning distance of John Hart or this floor—”

“I know—kill him,” Bevan said wearily.

Alys’s throat threatened to close once more. Piers was here. Not only in London, but in a chamber not far from
her, right at this very moment. He was here, and possibly in greater danger than Alys herself.

“What of her?” Bevan pressed, sounding unenthusiastic about his mother’s plans. “She may try to free herself once we are both gone.”

“And then she’d do what? Beat through the doors with her skull? The bonds would need be cut to be removed, which I don’t plan on doing regardless of the outcome at court. I shall dine with John Hart this night. And shortly after the morrow’s audience, we shall be rid of bastard Piers and his pagan princess bride. Sybilla Foxe shall have her right comeuppance as well, and that thought does please me greatly.”

Alys waited until she was absolutely certain that both mother and son had departed before trying to sit upright. Her spine creaked, and as she pushed with both feet and slid up the side of the wardrobe it felt as if all the bones in her shoulder and back were laid bare to the wood.

Layla’s basket tumbled from her shoulder to her midsection and arrived upside down on her thighs. The exertion had caused Alys to break into a sweat, and she sat for several moments, slowing her breathing once more. Bevan had bound her hopelessly. There was no chance of her working her hands free—she couldn’t so much as feel them at this point. And without her hands, there was even less chance of her freeing her legs, which were bound to her knees so tightly that they could barely bend. But her feet tingled now that her legs were stretched out along the floor of the wardrobe, and that little thing heartened her.

On her lap, Layla shifted within the basket and Alys felt it move. Layla cooed sadly, and Alys wanted to comfort her pet, but the best she could manage was a strangled caw, which nearly choked her. The basket on her legs began to rock, and from within, Layla screeched in agitation. There
was a terrible flurry of sound, crackling and splitting of the basket, and Alys hoped desperately that the monkey wouldn’t hurt herself. In a moment, the basket tumbled down toward her feet, and then four little appendages pummeled back up Alys’s body.

Layla was free. Alys could feel the little animal’s huffs of breath on her cheek as Layla inspected the gag in her mouth. The monkey forced dainty fingers between the rope and Alys’s skin and yanked, tugged, jerked back and forth wildly. Alys squeezed her eyes shut at the dizzying shaking but made no sound that Layla might mistake for disapproval. Layla climbed over Alys’s head, worried at the knot at the base of her skull, relieved her of several pieces of hair, bringing sharp tears to Alys’s eyes.

Then the monkey was back at her shoulder, and this time, Alys felt Layla’s mouth, and the scrape of little teeth against her skin. She kept her eyes shut and held very, very still, barely daring to breathe as the
chick-chick
sounds and humid breaths brought out a blanket of gooseflesh over her body. She felt the gag give infinitesimally, and had to steel herself against pushing at it with her tongue. It gave again, jerking once sideways in her mouth. In the next instant, Alys realized the rope was now slack between her teeth. She shook her head with a cry, spitting to eject the gag from her mouth.

“Good girl, Layla,” Alys praised. “Good girl!”

The monkey was now perched on her knees, as if waiting for Alys to take over the task of freeing them both. Alys sat for a moment in thought. But only for one moment. She began to scoot and turn her bottom, until she was wedged perpendicular to the floor of the wardrobe, her feet against the deep lip below the doors. Then she pushed with all her strength, sliding her back up the rear wall. For the first time in her life, Alys blessed her
lack of height. When she finally stood, swaying in the black on legs effectively turned into one tapered post, her head only whispered against the shelf above.

She turned sideways, leaned into the wall, and then threw her left shoulder into the doors. Her back and chest muscles screamed, but the doors did not so much as bulge. She leaned against the wall again, pushed into it, gathered herself, and threw herself again. The doors stood firm, but an unexpected vertigo overtook Alys as the blackness inside the wardrobe seemed to lean toward the floor.

Alys gasped and flung her weight toward the back once more. If she toppled the large piece of furniture on its face, she would never get out.

“Oh God, help me,” she breathed. “Come on!” She flung sweaty tendrils of hair from her forehead and cheeks with a frustrated toss of her head. She tried to think of something—anything—else she could do.

Then she heard the distinct
chud
of the chamber door beyond the wardrobe. The sound of feet approaching.

It could be Bevan. It could be Judith Angwedd. It could be a common thief, come to rob the apartment, or it could be no one save a simple chamber maid. Alys couldn’t risk calling out. If it was one of her captors returned, they might punish her, hurt her—

Kill her.

As it was, if Judith Angwedd opened the wardrobe to check on her prisoner, she would likely be much displeased to see the gag missing and Alys standing upright.

Layla chose that very moment to begin jumping up and down at Alys’s feet, screeching, and it sounded to Alys like the monkey was pounding on every surface of wood her hands or feet touched.

“Layla, no!”
Alys whispered.
“Shh! No!”

The monkey quieted, but so did the footsteps beyond.

To Alys’s utter and complete dread, the lock in the doors began to scrape. She pressed her bound arms against the back wall of the wardrobe, prepared to launch herself in attack. She would be bested, helpless as she was, but before she died, that redheaded bitch would know forever more that a Foxe never surrendered.

Both doors swung wide, and Alys opened her mouth to give a battle cry.

Her “Aagh!” quickly turned into a shout of
“Ira?”

The old man, stingy as a leather strap and twice as tough, stared back at her mildly. Layla launched herself at Piers’s grandfather, and Alys had to give the old man credit when he caught the monkey deftly and hefted her to his shoulder.

“You’re welcome,” he said gruffly, nodding once at Alys.

“Alys,” another voice called, and even as Alys was turning her head to take in the person standing slightly behind and to the side of the old man, she couldn’t believe it. Her eyes traveled up the worn leather boots, rough woven leggings, long tunic that was frayed and stained. The leather coif hid the hair that was beneath it, but the face, the sparkling eyes …

“Sybilla,” Alys choked on a sob, and then her sister was there, catching her, holding her.

“Her hands, Ira,” Sybilla said over Alys’s shoulder, and Alys heard the ripping of the linen binding her.

“Sybilla, how did you find me? What is Ira doing here? If Edward learns that you are in London—not to mention his very home—he’ll have you arrested!”

“I would not let another come for you in my place,” Sybilla said calmly. “As for the rest, I will answer you when we are safely away. We must hurry.”

Alys’s elbows fell free from each other and she gave a soft cry, bringing her arms around before her gingerly and
rubbing at them. She looked down at Ira, who was releasing the bonds from her legs as Layla clung to his head like a skullcap.

“Have you seen the lad?” Ira asked, his eyes flicking up at her.

“Piers is here, but I don’t know where,” Alys said. Her eyes went to Sybilla’s. “Judith Angwedd and Bevan were using me to force Piers to relinquish his hold on Gillwick Manor. They’re planning to kill him!”

Sybilla shook her head matter of factly. “No. Ira will find him and tell him that you’re safe. There is no need to retract his claim. Once in the king’s court, he will be free to tell of their dastardly plans. Thank you, Ira. You’re free now, Alys. Let’s go.” Sybilla took Alys’s elbow and began pulling her toward the door. “Night has fallen, and if we can escape the castle undetected, we’ll be through the city gates in moments.”

Alys began to resist, but then quickly acquiesced. “Alright, I’ll go with you to the gates, but then I’m returning.”

Sybilla halted, spun to face her, the laces from her assumed coif whipping across her cheeks. “You’re
not
returning.”

“Yes, I am,” Alys insisted. “I will not leave Piers here to defend against such wolves with no other witness save a woodland rebel. Forgive me, Ira,” Alys tossed to the old man with a sympathetic look.

“You will be thrown in jail, after which guards will be set to my trail back to Fallstowe, finding me in the open. Do you wish to see Fallstowe ripped from us?”

“No!” Alys said, and pulled her elbow from Sybilla’s grip in order to seize both of her sister’s hands. “Once you are through the gates, I will hide myself—somewhere—
until the morn. You’ll be too far out of Edward’s reach by then.”