Temptress (23 page)

Too easily she remembered what it had been like to be with him. She’d spent her days fantasizing about the weight of his body upon her, the feel of his flesh against hers, the erotic touch of his lips to hers. Each night had been spent in hours of lovemaking, of skin touching skin, of straining muscles working together, of hot, gasping breaths and mind-splintering, furious joinings of bodies and souls.

Her heart contracted and she felt that same dark void that had been with her since the morning she’d lost the babe, as if part of her life had ended.

Dipping a cloth in water, she squeezed it over her face, letting the drips run down her cheeks.

She wondered if she would ever feel as she had three years earlier or if those emotions were forever lost to her, killed by Carrick’s betrayal. For a fleeting moment she considered Lord Ryden and knew that she would never feel the same breathless, dizzying, soul-rending glory with him that she had had with Carrick. And she also knew that not only did she not love him, she could not marry him.

’Twould be a sham of a marriage. A disastrous mistake that she would forever regret. ’Twas too late to write to him as he was on his way to Calon, so she would wait until he arrived and tell him face-to-face, no matter what her brother thought. She knew she would be able to convince Kelan that the marriage could not happen.

Leaning back in the tub, she glanced up at the ceiling and that shadowy part of the wall that loomed above the crossbeams. Was it her imagination or did she see something . . . a reflection of light in the mortar between the stones? ’Twas impossible.

And yet . . .

She covered her breasts with a wet cloth and gazed upward, but whatever she’d seen was no longer visible. Probably just her imagination again.

Nothing was amiss.

Not right now.

Not for the moment.

There was no evil within the castle walls.

Listening to the crackle of the fire, hearing the muted sounds of voices echoing from the chambers below, she closed her eyes and ignored the feeling that hidden eyes were watching her every move.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

T
he sheriff didn’t like the turn of his thoughts. Seated in his wooden chair, he stared into the fire and felt the same restlessness he always did when he was close to finding a culprit but hadn’t yet been able to figure out who the criminal was.

His boots were warming by the grate and he stretched his legs so that his stocking feet felt the heat of the glowing embers. The scents of Sarah’s mutton pie still lingered, and both his belly and the cup at his side were full.

He and Sarah lived within the castle walls in a substantial structure of stone with three full rooms and a private entrance, only a short walk to the great hall. He used the first room to conduct business; citizens of the town would find him there and could lodge their complaints. Lately it seemed that everyone had one. Neighbors squabbling, the insistence by Tom Farmer that one of the carpenter’s sons had stolen his goat, several merchants and farmers complaining about a band of thieves near Raven’s Crossing, a charge that one man’s boar had run amok, breaking through a fence and destroying two bags of seed for spring planting, and on and on.

Payne’s head throbbed, for on top of all the normal complaints were the business with Carrick of Wybren, or whoever the man was, and Sir Vernon’s vicious murder.

He rubbed his chin as he stared into the hungry flames and all the while he considered what had happened to Sir Vernon. The guard’s slaying had been for a reason. Vernon’s unusual wound, the slash in the shape of a W upon his throat, was a hint to the killer’s mind. And mayhap something the bastard wanted everyone to see and know, a macabre taunt.

Certainly the wound had been intentional.

A clue to the killer’s identity?

Or an attempt to turn Payne’s head from the true culprit, more a diversion than an actual indication of who the killer was?

Why would someone kill Sir Vernon?

Plowing his nose into his mazer, Payne considered the big man’s demise and took a long swallow of ale.

Somehow, Payne was certain, Vernon’s death was linked to Carrick of Wybren. But there was no way Carrick could have crept from his sickbed, passed the guard, climbed up the guard towers, slit Vernon’s throat, and then returned undetected. No, Sir James, the guard at Carrick’s door, hadn’t moved all night.

Unfortunately there had been no witnesses. None. No one interviewed since the slaying, including all the sentries stationed around the keep, had seen or heard anything unusual during the storm. Nor had they spotted any person unknown to them.

The people who had been sighted out in the storm had generally had good reason: Father Daniel had been returning from visiting the millwright’s ill daughter, as had the physician, Nygyll; Alfrydd had been double-checking the locks on the stores of spices. Isa, the old sorceress who claimed to have “seen” the death, had been alone in her chambers. The tanner had been awake, but he’d seen nothing out of the ordinary. The apothecary, Samuel, had upon his return from the town spied Dwynn hauling firewood into the kitchen, though it had been the dark of night. The kennel master and stable master claimed they were sleeping near their charges. Alexander, captain of the guard, had also returned and been asleep, as had all of his men who hadn’t been actively guarding the keep.

Everyone had been talked to officially, and afterward there had been the buzz of gossip swirling through the keep, words whispered in the corridors, towers, and pathways. Speculation in the fields and huts. Guesses and jokes over games of dice or cups of ale.

Payne had listened to all the rumors. He’d hoped that someone might inadvertently slip and give out new information, but he’d been disappointed. ’Twas as if the killer had appeared, killed Vernon, leaving the savage, bloody W on the big guard’s throat, and then disappeared again. He imagined that the criminal was strong, clever, and trustworthy, for Vernon had been a big man, a trained soldier who would not give up his life easily.

’Twas a mystery. Payne drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. Mayhap he’d been going at this all wrong. Mayhap it wasn’t Vernon’s death on which he should concentrate. The killer wanted him to consider Wybren. Why else had Carrick’s ring been stolen and Vernon’s throat slashed so significantly? Certainly the two crimes could be linked and were most probably connected to Carrick’s brutal attack.

Was the killer trying to force Payne into examining the murders of the family of Dafydd of Wybren more closely? Seven people had been killed that night.
Seven!
And now the man thought to have set that fire was here, not even under lock and key.

Why had this stranger not been killed? Why left for dead only to survive? A mistake made by whomever had assaulted him? In the beaten man’s state it would have been easy enough to slip a blade between his ribs and nick his heart. He would have easily bled to death. But no . . . either the attacker had been frightened off, or he had intended for Carrick to survive, to live.

Why?

Just so he would suffer? Mayhap the killer planned to return and finish the job.

Why had a ring been stolen? And again the robbery victim not killed? Was the attacker’s purpose
not
to take his life? To have him sent to Wybren and face judgment? Why then not just bind him, throw him over the back of a mule, and haul his near-dead body to the gates of Wybren?

Payne frowned, took a swallow from his mazer, and decided that the stranger’s attack had something to do with Calon, with Lady Morwenna. Most of the trouble within the keep, including this latest spate of horrors, had occurred since she’d been handed the barony by her brother less than a year ago.

Why then kill Vernon?

“Bah,” he muttered into the bottom of his cup. Mayhap his theory was all wrong. Mayhap he should concentrate on those who would benefit from Carrick of Wybren’s death. Was it possible that Sir Vernon had stumbled onto something that the killer wanted to remain hidden? Overheard a conversation that might implicate someone?

He shoved the fingers of one hand through his hair, making it stand on end.

“Come to me, husband,” his wife, Sarah, called from the bedroom. A big woman with pillowy breasts, silver blond hair, and cheeks like apples, she was the one person he trusted in the world. A truer heart no one would ever find. “You’ll not solve the puzzle of Sir Vernon’s death drinking ale and staring at the embers.”

“Many a crime has been solved right here,” he countered, and she laughed that deep, throaty laugh that he’d loved for nearly twenty years.

“And many have been solved here, in the bed.”

He smiled and took another swallow of ale, feeling its tangy warmth slide down his throat. He never tired of her. Never. She’d been with child when they’d wed and he was certain, all those years ago, that she was not a woman he would want to spend the rest of his life with. But he’d been wrong.

She had known.

As she knew so many things.

She patted the bed. “A good night’s sleep will help you,” she said, and he turned, looking over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow to stare through the open doorway. He saw her half lying on her side of the mattress, the covers hiding little of her enticing breasts, her come-hither smile always tempting.

“So you’re thinking I need sleep.” He drained his cup, slammed it onto the floor, and then stood and stretched. Mayhap she was right.

“Sleep? Aye, well . . . eventually.”

“You’re a wench, Sarah.” In his stocking feet he walked into the bedroom only to stand over her when he reached the edge of their bed. The room was near dark, but he saw her. She’d aged so much in the years since their wedding. Her skin was no longer tight, lines fanning from the corners of her eyes and etching around her mouth. Her hair no longer shone with the luster of youth, yet she was still beautiful to him.

Never had he strayed. Never had he been tempted. “A wench, I say.”

“Only for you, my love.” She chuckled then, that deep, throaty sound that touched his heart and made him smile. “Every other man in this keep thinks I’ve got ice in my veins. Only you know better.”

“Fools. All of them.” He pulled off his tunic and unlaced his breeches as she watched.

“Let me,” she offered, and the covers slipped away as she reached forward, her fingertips lithely loosening the leather laces.

A tiny smile played at her lips as she met his gaze. She reached into his breeches with warm, knowing fingers. “I think we might not get much sleep tonight, Sheriff,” she teased, moving her fingers up his chest to tangle in the gray hairs that sprouted there.

Weary as he was, he didn’t care.

 

He had to leave.

Now that Morwenna knew he was awake, that she suspected he’d heard her desperate confession and angry rantings, now that she was determined to contact Lord Graydynn, Carrick had to find a way to escape.

He was about to search the passageways again when he heard the laundresses arrive. He recognized their voices as they flirted and teased Sir James in the hallway before stepping into Carrick’s chamber.

“So no one knows who killed Sir Vernon,” one woman was saying as she changed the bedclothes on which he slept.

Killed
Sir Vernon? The sentry who had been at his doorway? The deep-voiced man who had argued with Morwenna and had subsequently been relieved of his duty? Vernon was the man who had been slain?

He’d heard some of the guards talking but hadn’t been able to make out their conversation, and though he’d sensed a change in the atmosphere, he hadn’t understood what had happened.

He waited impatiently, silently hoping the gossiping hens would give him more information.

“Nor does the sheriff have any idea who took the ring,” the other woman with a high-pitched, wheedling voice agreed.

Deft hands moved him with practiced ease. He risked lifting an eyelid and saw a woman wearing a scarf wound tightly over her large head. Her face was fleshy, her lips curved in upon themselves, her movements brusque and practiced. The other woman was a birdlike thing with frizzy brown hair, fair skin, and dark eyes. She tossed the dirty bedclothes into a basket and snapped the fresh linens out of their folds.

“If ye ask me, there’s been nothing but trouble in this keep since this one”—the larger woman tapped the side of the bed—“was dragged in here. I’m beginnin’ to believe what Isa says, that he’s cursed.”

“I just don’t know why the lady keeps him here, him being a murderer and all,” she continued.

“So ye believe that he truly is Carrick of Wybren.”

“Who else? Look at him. Now that he’s healing, it’s more obvious than ever. The lady, she knows it, too. She is finally sending word to Lord Graydynn.” She clucked her tongue. “Such a waste. A handsome man, son of a baron. What would make him do such a thing?”

“Money or a woman,” the birdlike maid said. “Unless he’s just plain mad, there is no other reason. And I’ve never heard it said that Carrick of Wybren was out of his mind. Treacherous, aye. A blackheart who had an eye for the ladies. Mayhap even mercenary, but mad? Never.”

“And yet seven people were killed—eight, if ye throw in Sir Vernon. This man here—Carrick of bloody Wybren—is a murderin’ bastard, and the sooner the lady sends him to Lord Graydynn, the better. Maybe then we can all rest easy again; maybe then this curse will be lifted.”

Quickly, as if spurred by their own words, they finished their job and left him alone in the clean bed.

Until this moment he had accepted the fact that he was Carrick. The name was familiar, and mention of Wybren brought back memories. Surely he’d been there. Lived there. Was he the vile bastard? In his mind’s eye he saw a huge keep with round towers and turrets, a wide inner bailey, sweeping fields, and a moat that ran from the river and surrounded most of the castle. His head pounded as he remembered pages shouting near the quintain, an old farrier bending horseshoes, the huntsmen returning with stag and boar and pheasant through a portcullis that yawned wide . . . or had it all been a dream?