Authors: The Mistress of Rosecliffe

Rexanne Becnel (10 page)

BOOK: Rexanne Becnel

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Osborn fought his captors the whole way; Rhys heard him. But when the others left, Rhys remained behind in the empty barracks and let the truth of what he’d accomplished wash over him.

He’d done it.

Against all odds he had taken Rosecliffe Castle, imprisoned its English guard, and replaced it with Welsh loyalists. And he’d done it all while the rest of the castle populace remained blissfully asleep. If he believed in God, he would believe he’d been blessed this night. First a tumble with a delectable little wench, then a good fight and a clean victory.

But God had played no part in his triumph.

Rhys raked a hand through his hair. He had paid for tonight’s success with his sword, with his blood, and with twenty years of misery. But as he stared about the barracks, so like the one he’d lived in at Barnard Castle, he could not dredge up the joy he’d expected, the fierce satisfaction. His whole life he’d plotted for this moment. Why wasn’t he elated?

Again he raked a hand through his hair, then ran it over his beard. He was still Reevius the minstrel. That was the problem. He needed to be Rhys ap Owain again—and he needed to lord his victory over a FitzHugh.

He squared his shoulders and grinned into the shadowy room. A bath, a shave, and an audience with the only FitzHugh currently in residence. Yes, he was eager to see Isolde FitzHugh again, for he had much to lord over the troublesome English wench.

Isolde had heard very little, a dull thump from far away, a hushed voice on the nearby wall walk. She strained to hear better. Was it an English voice or a Welsh one? She’d not been able to tell. So she had lain there in the dark, cursing Rhys ap Owain, beseeching God’s help, and bemoaning her own stupidity.

How could she have been so blind? How could she not have seen the resemblance? The same black eyes. The same arrogant manner. She should have recognized him. She should have guessed.

She should have listened to Osborn.

He had not wanted to let the minstrel band inside the castle at all. But she’d been so sure of herself, so heady with her own power. Just look where it had brought her.

In the darkened chamber she silently raged and fought her bindings. But it was a futile battle, as futile as her vain attempt to put the worst of her many errors out of her mind. She’d given her innocence to a man she hated, one she’d loathed since she was but a child. Like the green girl she was, she’d been completely taken in by him, besotted by his fine physique, his deep voice, and his intense gaze. And to think she’d been fool enough to believe he possessed the heart of a poet.

Once more she fought her bindings, chafing her already scraped wrists and ankles. Tears stung her eyes and slipped down her cheeks. Had she truly been so stupid as to think love was a part of her feelings for him? She groaned in shame. Bad enough that he’d evoked those incredible feelings from her body, traitorous creature that it was. But for a few moments she’d actually thought she loved the odious wretch!

Outside a voice sounded and she went still. Laughter. Had
Rosecliffe’s guards foiled Rhys’s plans? Had they captured him and cast him into the deepest hole in the donjon? She prayed it was so. She prayed desperately that it was so.

But then a voice came more clearly through the window, a jovial Welsh voice. “Ho, Dafydd. What a night, eh?”

“Aye. A good night to be Cymry. A bad night to be a FitzHugh,” the man added with a coarse laugh.

Isolde’s hopes died a swift, brutal death. He’d won!

She’d hardly had time to digest that awful fact when footsteps echoed in the stairwell, heavy footsteps rising nearer and nearer.

She twisted her head to see the door and shuddered when it opened, for the figure silhouetted there was tall and broad shouldered. It was him. She knew it though he did not speak.

He closed the door and moved deeper into the room. Steel struck against flint, and each time she jumped. Once. Twice. The third time a tiny spark caught the bit of charred cloth in the bowl beside the bed, and with that he lit a fresh candle.

But as light filled the chamber, as he lit two more candles and stood them in the candlestand, it was a different man who turned to face her. He’d abandoned his rough tunic for a warrior’s leather hauberk, and his worn brogans for tall boots. A sword hung at his side, heavy and ominous, and a thin dagger dangled at his hip.

This was a man of war, not a minstrel. How had she not seen that before? Those thickly muscled arms came from wielding a sword, not a gittern. The wide shoulders and thick chest were built through years of battle and exercise, not through strumming and singing.

Then he raised the candles higher and she saw his face and gasped. Gone was the long wild hair and woolly beard. In their stead appeared a face she would have known. He was ten years older—and ten years harder—but he was the same Rhys ap Owain who’d kidnapped her so long ago. He was her enemy no matter how comely his features and how manly his form. That his teeth were straight and his lips well formed only drove home to her the depths of her terrible mistake. He could have the face of an angel, yet still he was the devil’s spawn.

Isolde’s chest hurt, her heart pounded so violently. She
should have been more wary. She should not have been so smug. She should have done as her father wanted and agreed to a marriage with Mortimer Halyard. Because of her vanity and stupidity, she’d been ruined. But far, far worse, she had opened wide the door to her family’s ruin.

As if he guessed her thoughts, he grinned down at her, the awful, beautiful grin of a predator who toys with his victim, knowing full well she has no escape. He crossed to the bed, then set the brace of candles on a table near her head.

“’Tis a great day at Rosecliffe, Isolde. The Welsh have regained what was stolen from them.”

She closed her eyes against the wolfish triumph in his face, then jerked them open again when he sat beside her on the bed. “I am victorious,” he continued in a huskier tone. “And you know what is said of the victor. To him go all the spoils.”

TEN

SHE WAS TERRIFIED OF HIM. HER GRAY EYES WERE HUGE IN the golden light, and half-dried tears sparkled in her thick eyelashes. As Rhys sat beside her, she stiffened and tried to roll away.

Yes, she was terrified, and he took a certain pleasure in that. But not as much as he’d expected to. When he pulled out his dagger, her eyes turned nearly black. As he raised it near to her cheek, all color fled her face.

“Rest easy, love,” he murmured, pushing a damp tendril of bronze-colored hair from her cheek. “I’ve come to release your bindings, nothing more.”

He slid the knife along the curve of her jaw, catching the tip on the cloth that gagged her. With a tiny jerk he cut it and she sucked in a great, gasping breath. But even before she’d fully caught her breath she demanded, “What have you done to my people? Have you hurt any of them? Have you killed anyone?”

“They are my people now, not yours,” he answered curtly. “Better that you concern yourself with your own well-being.”

Her eyes narrowed in angry disdain. “You think because you take control of Rosecliffe that the people in it will become your people?”

“They will, or they can leave this place. ’Tis a very simple solution.” Annoyed by her temper, he rolled her over. He cut her wrists free and her ankles, and released the locked chain around her waist. And all the time he cursed his own perversity. Though he should not care how she felt, he did not like
it when she looked at him with fear. He liked it even less when she viewed him with contempt.

Sheathing his dagger, he yanked her to her feet. “Best you mind your manners with me, woman. I am lord of Rosecliffe now and you merely another castle wench whom I may command as I see fit.” When she tried to pull out of his grip he tightened his hold. “Osborn wishes to see you. He doubts my word when I say you have not been harmed.”

She swallowed. He saw the smooth undulations of her throat. “Is he all right? Is anyone hurt?”

Rhys shrugged. “A few knocked heads. Very little blood spilled. They will all recover well enough.” Then he laughed. “Not a particularly good showing by your noble English fighting men.”

“There is nothing like the betrayal of a friend to take a person by surprise,” she retorted.

He deflected her disdain with a disdain of his own. “Yes. I know all about betrayals.”

“Your specialty, I should guess.”

This time his eyes narrowed in warning. “’Tis in your best interest to guard that sharp tongue of yours, Isolde.”

She blanched at the threat he implied. But her chin went up a notch. “Oh? Will you punish me when I but speak the truth?”

She was brave. He would give her that. That sort of unthinking bravery could be dangerous, though. But she knew nothing of the world and the dangers it held. It was time she learned. “I may do any number of things to you. Or with you,” he added. He pulled her up against him and, with one arm around her waist, trapped her at his side. “Or maybe that is what you want.”

“No!” Panic filled her eyes as she strained away from him.

But that only fueled Rhys’s temper. If she thought she could deny the desire she’d felt for him only hours ago, she was more than mistaken. He would not allow it.

“Is it the beard?” he taunted her. “Your minstrel lover had a beard. Shall I grow it back?”

“I don’t care about that. I despise you no matter how you look. Let me go!”

“Aha, but you did not despise Reevius. Mayhap I should
play you a love song on my gittern. Then will you soften for me, Isolde? Then will you open your arms for my pleasure? And your legs?” he added, being deliberately coarse.

She flinched at his words, and he could feel her body trembling in his rigid embrace. But it was not from passion, and he was suddenly repulsed by his own behavior. He abruptly released her and she collapsed back against the bed. She found her legs quick enough, though, and scrambled to the far side of the room. Then she stood, breathing hard, watching him with a wary eye and glancing uncertainly at the door.

He was breathing hard, too, and as he stared at her, he was conscious of a fledgling arousal. She would not easily be mastered, he realized. She’d succumbed to the minstrel Reevius with surprising haste, and surprising passion. But for Rhys ap Owain, the rogue Welsh knight, she would be a challenge.

He liked nothing better than a challenge, however. Rosecliffe had fallen too easily. That must be the cause of this vague dissatisfaction he felt. But the daughter of FitzHugh … Mastering her would be a much greater challenge.

He thrust one hand through his hair. “Enough of this. I am lord of Rosecliffe now, and you but one of its citizens. You will obey me or suffer the consequences. Do you understand what I say?”

Her eyes narrowed with fury. “Oh, yes. I understand very well. I wonder, though, whether you understand the consequences of what you have done.”

He snorted with laughter. “I understand that this chamber is now mine.”

“My father will make you pay,” she threatened. “He will not rest until he has bested you. He will go to his grave before he allows—”

“Then he will go to his grave.” He advanced on her. “It will be my greatest pleasure to put both him and his jackal of a brother in a common, unmarked grave.”

He meant every word he said, and yet, could he have taken them back, at that moment he would have. For she stared at him with such horror, with such hatred and contempt, that he felt an uncomfortable flush creep into his face. Damn the bitch for twisting his emotions around now, when he finally had what he’d worked so long to achieve.

“I always knew you were despicable,” she said, so faintly he had to cock his head to hear. “And I always knew I hated you for it. I just never suspected how completely without redeeming qualities you were—and how completely I could despise another human being.”

He stiffened, and before he could think better of it, caught her arm in a harsh grip. “Hate me, Isolde FitzHugh. Hate me all you want. It changes nothing. For we both know I can make you want me. I did it once,” he hissed in her ear. “I can do it again.”

When she looked up at him, a stricken expression on her face, he thrust her toward the door. “Unless you wish me to prove my words now, I advise you to get moving. Time to visit your countrymen in their stout Welsh prison.” Then, guiding her with little shoves, he forced her to leave the lord’s chamber and travel down the stairs, through the hall where English citizens would soon serve Welsh loyalists, and toward the narrower stairs to the donjon.

Once upon a time he had been a prisoner in that dank place. Now he was master of the keep. His transformation would be easy. In truth he’d already made the change, for he felt like a lord this morning, not a hunted rebel.

For the cosseted daughter of Rosecliffe, however, the transformation to villein, or even serf, would be much harder to accept. But she would accept it. He would make certain of it.

Isolde kept her teeth tightly clenched and her lips pressed together. It was either that or risk sobbing out loud, and thereby revealing the terror and panic that filled her soul. Everything had been turned upside down. Everything. In one short night her entire world had shredded apart.

But so had everyone else’s. She was not the only victim of this treachery.

She passed Magda in the hall and met the girl’s tear-swollen gaze. Had they hurt her? Then she remembered Magda’s sweetheart, George. Was it for him she wept? Had he been felled in the attack? Or did the girl even know his fate at all?

It suddenly occurred to Isolde that she was the only FitzHugh in residence still at Rosecliffe. She was the only
FitzHugh and she had a responsibility to her people.

She took a shaky breath. What would her father do? Then she thought better of that. She must not try to think like her father, for she was no warrior. Rather, she must think more like her mother. How would Josselyn FitzHugh, née Carreg Du, handle such a disaster? She would weigh the situation and she would find some way to send for help.

Isolde squared her shoulders and vowed to do just that. She looked around, studying the hall, noting every change. Odo was not in his usual place. The old minstrel Tillo sat in Odo’s corner, his head bowed as if in prayer. He did not look up at Isolde’s passing. Three heavily armed men she did not know lounged near the doors. They stared boldly at her; she glared contemptuously at them, then looked away.

She would not be beaten, she vowed, as Rhys caught her elbow and directed her to the stairs that led below. He might think he had beaten her, but he had not.

“Where is Odo?” she asked as they passed the cold storage rooms. “He is not a man of war, so why is he not in his office?”

“I no longer require his services.”

“Where is Newlin?”

He did not answer.

At the bottom level of the keep they halted before a heavy steel gate. Inside several men crowded the two small cells. Isolde rushed forward. At the same time Osborn rose and met her. He caught her hands and they stood together, separated by the fearsome bars her father had designed for criminals.

“How fare you, child?” Osborn spoke quietly, but his words nonetheless carried throughout the cramped, low-ceilinged chamber. “Has he hurt you, Isolde?”

His eyes were sober and intense. She knew what he meant and she swallowed hard. “Do not fear for me, for I am unharmed,” she stated as firmly as she could.

“And she will remain so,” Rhys interjected, “just as long as you and your men follow my orders.”

Osborn shot him a narrow-eyed glare. “You have no cause to lay a hand on her then, for we can do nothing from the donjon.”

Isolde rounded on her hated captor. “You cannot mean to keep them in here.”

Rhys crossed his arms. “I can and I will.”

“’Tis too small for so many.”

“Those wishing to leave have only to swear fealty to the new lord of Rosecliffe.”

“You? Hah! You’ll never be the true lord of Rosecliffe,” she hissed.

“There’s no one to stop me,” he gloated. Then he addressed Osborn over her head. “You have seen her. She is safe and will remain so.” He signaled the guard. “Take her to the hall. Seat her at the high table.” To Isolde he said, “I will join you shortly.”

“Wait. No!” She tried to evade the guard, but he was unyielding and he dragged her up the stairs.

In the wake of her departure, Osborn and Rhys stared at each other. The English prisoners shifted around the cells uneasily. Angrily.

“Son of a bitch—”

“Welsh bastard!”

Osborn held up a hand and their muttering ceased. His gaze never veered from Rhys’s. “How long will you keep her—and us?”

Rhys grinned. He was enjoying this. “That depends on her father.”

“Someone from the village is sure to send word to him at the coronation.”

“I am counting on it.”

Osborn’s eyes narrowed. “He is in London. He will have no trouble raising a mighty army against you.”

Rhys shook his head. “I fear you have been too long away from London, Osborn. In these unsteady times your noble English lords are not likely to spare their own men for someone else’s cause. They have their own troubles. They know Henry D’Anjou is not Stephen of Blois, and he will be a very different sort of king. They fear he will close his fist on his restless barons and so they must be at the ready. Your liege will return with little aid from his friends. Then he will have to face me.”

“What do you hope to gain from this?” Osborn demanded,
his fists taut upon the iron bars. “You cannot hope to win.”

“To the contrary, so long as I hold his daughter, I cannot help but win.”

That confident statement enraged several of the Englishmen, and Osborn had to raise his hand to still his furious men. He stared at Rhys as if he sought to ferret out the secrets in his head. “You cannot hold her forever.”

“Who’s to stop me? I am no different from your liege lord. He took lands claimed by others. And their women, too.”

Osborn lunged through the bars at him, but Rhys deflected his fist with a swift, defensive move.

“Touch her and I’ll kill you myself!” the old warrior vowed, his voice harsh with emotion.

“I will make you one promise only, old man. If I touch her—
when
I touch her—it will be because she wills it.”

“So you say,” Osborn snapped. “But I remember your father.” His lips curled in disgust. “And you are his son.”

Rhys’s humor fled. “I too remember my father, a man who died the noblest of deaths, fighting for his country.”

Osborn spat on the floor. “Your father was no hero, but rather a coward, a gutless bully who—” He broke off when Rhys whipped out his sword, and fell back, along with all the others in the cell.

“Shut up! Shut up or by God I’ll slice out your tongue!” Rhys threatened, enraged by the man’s gall.

The sudden silence was deafening. The Englishmen stared fearfully at Rhys and the vicious edge of his raised sword.

BOOK: Rexanne Becnel

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