The Pleasures of Sin (8 page)

She swallowed, feeling ill as he headed toward the door. She didn’t want to ask about these other duties. Being introduced in chains was still better than staying here in her chamber and being swived.

She moved her fettered feet to keep from tripping. He did not give her time for shoes, likely did not even notice she wore none. Cursed barbarian.

Dread welled inside her as they entered the hallway. The scents of rosemary, fresh hay, and tallow wafted in the air. Ne’er had she enjoyed social affairs as Gwyneth did and it had been a year since she had roamed the keep.

How could she possibly face all the castlefolk disgraced as she was? She could scarcely walk in her bonds. Her heart skipped and she knew her face was flushed. Their curious, pitying gazes would overwhelm her.

She tarried, dragging her feet on the planks to hold off as long as possible. She was well aware that ’twas common practice for knights to display their captives bound and subdued, but somehow it seemed an obscene practice.

“Come, my lady.”

She ground her teeth. “Yes, my lord,” she gritted out, vowing to not let him know the depth of her humiliation.

Somehow, someway, she would get free from him.

A short while later, Brenna suppressed the shivers that threatened to engulf her as she climbed down the tower’s narrow stairwell with her wrist encircled by her captor’s fingers. The chains clanked so that each step drove a stake into her pride.

She pulled her wimple further around her face, looking for tools she might use to pick the locks. Could the decorative metal on the sconces be broken and used?

They reached the bottom and started down the hall. Montgomery did not look at her, but marched her as one would a military prisoner. His boots gleamed; nary a speck of dirt dismayed their surface. Light from the arrow slits flickered across the black linen of his tunic winking the fabric from dark gray to black in a precise pattern as he paced past them. With scorn she noted that the linen had been ironed to crispness—likely he had a staff of servants whose sole duty was to care for the meticulous and demanding way he kept his garments. She imagined an army of sweating women, stooped from hours of using smoothing stones.

Seething, she vowed that when she escaped, she would steal one of his tunics and pound it into pig shite for the sheer pleasure of the act.

He walked slowly so that she could keep up, but part of her wished he would drag her and show the world what a horrid brute he was. They turned a corner and the sounds of revelry could be heard from the great hall.

Ysanne the baker’s daughter and Genna the alewife stood in an alcove speaking in hushed tones behind their hands. Brenna slowed even further, wanting to catch their eye and somehow indicate for one of them to tell her sisters to find her.

“She always was a bad girl, apainting those pictures when she should have been helping her father,” she heard Genna whisper.

Anger shot up Brenna’s spine. How dare they look down on her when it was her sacrifice that kept Montgomery from burning the castle to the ground!

“I do
not
deserve this,” she hissed at the two women as she walked by. “Go get Adele and bring her to me.”

Ysanne sneered at her and lifted her chin.

Brenna smarted. Obviously no help would come from that quarter.

The manacles bit into her wrists as Montgomery yanked her forward. “No gossiping with the servants.”

She set her jaw and stared hard at
l’occhio del diavolo
tucked into Montgomery’s belt as if gazing at it could make it fly from his hip and land in her hand. The blade moved in time with his precisely ordered steps, gliding against his hips back and forth with each swing of his legs. Even knowing that brute force was not the way to fight her husband, her palm itched for the dagger.

As they passed more and more armed guards, the futility of such an action bit into her soul. Huge men wearing swords and gleaming armor lounged in doorways and leaned against the walls. They snapped to attention as Montgomery passed. Her husband must be a rich and powerful nobleman to afford such a personal guard to accompany him to a wedding.

The noose tightened around her throat, threatening to strangle her. Of a truth, she belonged to The Enforcer. To whip. To punish. To swive. To lead around in chains.

She was a prostitute of peace.

A man’s plaything.

A prize of war.

What an evil, awful role.

And so very far removed from the life of independence and strength she envisioned for herself when she imaged herself as a high-nun in a convent.

“Harlot,” a soldier sneered as she passed, but Montgomery gave him a stern look, and the man cleared his throat and looked down.

A welling of despair threatened to eclipse her anger.

What if she could ne’er get loose? She forced her mind away from that desperate thought. She
would
find a way to pick the locks or steal the key. She had to.

She would be observant and ready when opportunity came. She had already arranged passage to Italy if she could make her way to the docks before the ship left. Even if she were slain on the road before she made it to her brother’s home surely it would be better than being Montgomery’s toy for pleasure.

They neared the great hall. The rattling of the chains grated on her nerves as she shuffled along behind her husband. She shivered at the precision of his steps, at the determined set of his shoulders. He was a man of order and form; all of her life from her messy paintings to the hanging embroidery trim on her kirtle seemed rash and chaotic.

Mint and rosemary had been strewn into the rushes and the sweet, spicy scent floated around them as his boots crushed the leaves. By comparison, her bare feet seemed vulnerable.

He squeezed her wrist in a grip that was commanding but not hurtful. Her hand felt fragile in his larger one. Puny.

Her weapons were her wits and her courage. They would have to be enough.

She willed her face not to blush as they passed Jennet the laundress on the steps to the Great Hall. Jennet had been her friend before and she wondered if she would join Genna and Ysanne in their scorn.

“Milady?” Jennet offered, propping her basket on one of her hips.

Brenna unfocused her eyes, willing herself not to see her, to not see any of them.

“I’ll get yer sister, milady.” Jennet lifted the hem of her skirt as if to run. “She’s the cause of this, she is.”

Gratitude welled in Brenna’s heart that all of them had not turned against her. “Gramercy, Jennet,” she whispered, the words coming out rough.

The sound of clattering tankards and laughing men grew louder, gusting around the walls from the depths of the Great Hall. The scent of roasting meat and baking bread wafted into the air.

They passed more and more castlefolk lingering in the passageways and alcoves. Brenna caught little snippets of conversation as they passed.

“Serves ’er right,” said one as he gawked at her bonds. “She ought not astabbed him like that, she shouldn’t of.”

“Disobeyed her father, disobeyed her husband.”

“’Tis a shame the way women act these days.”

“Now if you get right down to it, women’ll be the downfall of England, they will.”

Taking a deep breath, she determined to not allow any of them to know of her turmoil. But her upper lip beaded with perspiration as they passed more and more curious onlookers and the full humiliation of being trussed up and paraded in chains sank in.

One woman caught sight of the bonds and gasped; the goblet she held clattered to the floor, splattering ale across three people who yelped and jumped back.

Brenna winced, wishing she could stare all of them down or could somehow cover that she was bound like a cur, following in her master’s wake. Even the very bones of her cheeks seemed they would melt from the fierce hot blush on her skin.

Straightening her shoulders, she stared at unlit sconces on the wall and allowed her vision to unfocus so all the weight of their gazes would not seem so sharp and frightening.

Somehow she would find her way to freedom and independence. She would head to Italy, lose herself in her artwork and forget Montgomery ever existed.

If that were possible.

But she doubted she would ever forget this humiliation. Or the kiss he’d given her. Or the way his lips had felt on her earlobe.

The heady thought terrified her.

If only her aim into his heart had been true. If only she had not hesitated. She cursed herself for that hesitation—for being a woman. If only she were a man mayhap she would not have had such moments of weakness.

Mayhap she could steal an eating knife and try again.

They stepped over the threshold of the great hall. For a moment, Brenna halted, stunned at the changes in the room. She had not seen the chamber in a year.

Servants bustled to and fro; soldiers lounged on benches at the trestle tables. Adele sat by the window, petting Duncan; Panthos lay at her feet. Gwyneth was conspicuous by her absence and Brenna wondered about that. With luck, she would be able to speak to Adele afore the feast’s end.

Her favorite tapestry depicting a foxhunt was missing. It had been in her family for three generations, and the wall looked lonely without it.

Bread trenchers lined the large table on the dais instead of silver ones. Beside the hearth, the comfortable padded seats where she had spent many pleasant evenings playing chess were also gone. In their place: hard, straight-backed chairs.

She closed her mouth. Montgomery knew naught of her imprisonment this past year; he did not need to know of her family’s personal strife. ’Twas best she not appear like a gaping fish pulled from the lake.

Still, she glanced around uneasily.

Had Montgomery’s men already started to rob her family’s wealth? It did not seem possible for them to have changed so much in such a short time.

“Come, my lady,” Montgomery said, his voice a low command. He shifted his tunic and
l’occhio del diavolo
glinted in the sunbeams streaming in through the windows. It bore both testimony of her failure and a silent warning. Her palm itched again, and she wished she could take the knife.

By force of will, she turned her gaze away from it and stepped into the hall. Naught would be gained by foolish gestures. She would wait and she would observe.

Montgomery tugged her forward and she stepped into the pandemonium.

All the castle’s inhabitants had been invited to the wedding feast and the hall was loud and riotous. The cacophony caused the clanking of her chains to be lost.

Across the chamber, she saw Egmont the blacksmith sucking ale from a tankard. Her heart sped. The two of them had always been friendly in the past; mayhap she could secure his help with the manacles. She craned her neck, hoping he would look in her direction, but he did not even look up. She bit down a wave of disappointment.

“Wife!” she heard one of Montgomery’s animals yell from across the hall.

Brenna cringed. If she did not escape, such would be her lot now: for a man to forever be ordering her about.

“Have I not told you to leave your hair unveiled?” the warrior continued in a bellow.

Glancing up, Brenna saw a huge scarred brute pluck a silken veil from a small beautiful pregnant woman’s head. An abundance of red hair, darker than her own, spilled down her back and hips reaching nearly to the rushes.

“My lord!” the lady admonished, reaching for the shiny green fabric. Her wide emerald eyes flashed him a look of irritation. “I just had that made. ’Twas expensive! And we are guests!”

The monstrous brute gave Brenna and Montgomery a quick glance. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the veil into the hearth. Orange and green flame brightened around the material, burning the delicate fabric in a flash.

“Aaagh!” the lady exclaimed.

Irritation curled through Brenna at the frustrating lot of a married woman. At the mercy of some oafish man’s whims. ’Twas exactly why she planned a life of independence at a nunnery! She glanced down at the masculine hand that held her wrist and pressed her manacle into her skin. Loathing waved through her.

Fighting the urge to pull away, she looked back at the new beast.

The unveiled lady raised herself onto her toes to glare into the giant’s eyes. She grasped a handful of his blue tunic in each of her small hands. Her smooth alabaster complexion contrasted with his tanned scarred skin. Her delicate limbs with his brawny ones.

“You are the most vexing husband a woman could have. Arrogant, impossible, beef-witted blackheart!”

Brenna squirmed, wanting to close her eyes to what would surely happen next and yet was unable to turn away. She awaited the warrior to cock his arm back and club her for her impudence.

Instead, a slow smile lifted his lips into a lopsided grin that crinkled the white crescent scar on his cheek. His eyes lit with blue flame. He slapped his wife on the bottom, but the stroke was without heat. His hand lingered, folding over her buttock in a gentle, overly familiar caress as he pressed her into himself. Even with all his brutishness, ’twas obvious he was being cautious with her pregnant belly.

“I like your hair,” he said simply.

The woman gave an exasperated long-suffering sigh, then yanked him close and kissed him.

“Barbarian,” she said when the kiss was broken, but she tilted her chin down and glanced up at him in a way that made Brenna wonder if the lady had worn the veil apurpose.

He ran his hands over her long locks, digging out a wayward hairpin and tossing it into the rushes.

Brenna blinked, running a finger across the locks on her manacles. Could she unlatch them with a hairpin?

Beside her, Montgomery cleared his throat.

The couple turned.

Keeping her gaze on the spot where the hairpin had landed, Brenna tried to memorize the exact position.

“Come, wife. You will meet my brother Godric and his lovely wife Meiriona, the lord and lady of Whitestone.” He jostled her forward and the location of the hairpin was lost, eaten up by the multitude of rushes.

Devil take it.

Irritated with the loss of the ill-formed plan, Brenna scowled at the new intruders.

So this was the legendary lord and lady of Whitestone. She had heard of the great love and passion between them, but ’twas unseemly for them to act thus in the great hall.

Brenna looked from her new husband to his fearsome sibling. Of a truth, it must have been this man who her sister had seen at the tournament. He and Montgomery had a similar look, but scars laced this man’s face and his hair was shaggy instead of set in close-cropped precision. In contrast to her husband’s unadorned black tunic, he wore a blue paltock with delicate embroidery that looked to have been stitched with painstaking care.

Clothing of a man well-loved by a woman.

Montgomery caught Brenna’s hand and drew her forward. “I will introduce you.”

The giant tucked his wife’s hand into his own as they approached. The lady had the grace to look slightly abashed. She pushed a strand of wayward hair behind her ear then held her hands out to Brenna.

Awkwardly, Brenna took them. The woman’s long auburn hair swayed gently against her calves. Her green gown was of high quality with an empire waist, and she wore sparkling emeralds around her neck.