Wild and Wicked (25 page)

“Then I’ll have to amend my opinion of you, brother. I thought you were only lazy, but now, it seems, you are cowardly as well.” Proudly swinging her hair over one shoulder, she marched out of the room in a cloud of self-righteous disgust.

Collin decided if he were smart he would have a guard watch her, for Miranda, it seems, was more dangerous than he’d previously thought.

They were the most sought-after of his pleasures.

And the bane of his existence.

 

Father Benjamin heard the sound of a woman’s moans and he sensed a great sadness in the universe. “Father be with us,” he prayed, deftly making the sign of the cross over his chest. Astride the mule, the boy walking beside him, he was certain that a woman was nearby and in pain. The smell of the forest in winter filled his nostrils; dank, wet earth, rotting leaves, fresh rainwater, all carried on a brisk cold wind that bit at his cheeks and congealed his blood. Ach, he was too old for this. Riding the mule caused his legs to ache and walking hurt his feet.

He heard the chatter of a squirrel and the flutter of wings, and beneath it all the woman’s moans. They were getting closer.

“You’re certain this is the way?” he asked the boy.

“Aye. I listened to Payton and Father Hadrian and Sir Brennan when they didn’t think anyone was about, the night before Lady Apryll set off for Black Thorn. Sir Payton insisted that they would split up on the way back to confuse Black Thorn’s troops, then, once they’d lost those following them, they were to meet at an old inn on the road that forked to Pentref, east of the new bridge. This be the road.”

“It’s old—overgrown?”

“Aye.”

“Have there been horses here recently? Is the grass trampled, the earth turned?”

“Aye, Father, many horses from the looks of it.” Benjamin squared his shoulders. Shook off the damp cold. “Then we’ll carry on.” The mule plodded forward and within a few minutes the boy stopped dead in his tracks, the beast pausing as well.

“What’s that?” he asked, trepidation in his young voice, for the woman’s sobs were more distinct, her moans whispering eerily through the forest like a bad omen.

“Let’s find out.”

“But—”

“It sounds as if someone needs our help. Now, come along, Henry, you must be my eyes.”

Benjamin heard the boy gulp and tug on the mule’s lead and within minutes, he said, “By the saints, Father, ’tis Geneva!” And then his footsteps were hurrying away. “She’s hurt, oh, God.”

Benjamin slid off the mule and, using his walking stick, hurried as fast as he dared through the long, wet grass toward the sound of her sobs. “I’m here, child,” he said, wondering what had happened to her. She’d left the keep but two days before to search out herbs, but she’d not returned to Serennog and he’d been worried.

“Are you all right, Geneva?” Henry asked, then to Benjamin, “She’s just lyin’ here on the grass, cryin’ and lookin’ like she don’t see me. She’s shiverin’ cold and her face is bruised and . . . and there’s blood.”

“Where?” Benjamin asked as the tip of his walking stick encountered something on the ground.

“Careful, or you’ll step on her.”

Praying softly, Benjamin kneeled, his stiff knees meeting the frigid earth. He reached forward and touched Geneva’s shoulder. “Geneva, ’tis I, Father Benjamin, what happened, child?”

She moaned incoherently.

“Tell me what’s wrong with her,” Benjamin said to Henry.

“Her face, ’tis black-and-blue and there be scratches on her arms and . . . blood, lots of blood.”

“Where?” Benjamin asked again, but started to understand.

A pause.

“Henry?” Father Benjamin asked sternly.

“On her skirts. I think . . . I think it might be from her privates, Father.”

God be with her.
“And the inn, it’s nearby? Could we take her inside to shelter?”

“Yes—”

“Nay!” she screamed. “Nay, nay, nay! Oh, Payton . . . oh . . . the baby, the baby . . . precious baby. No! Please. Stop!” She was crying and shivering and as Father Benjamin tried to hold her she thrashed. “Bastards! Horrid monsters! A curse on you, on all of you!”

“Shhh. I’m here, Geneva, and the Lord is with you. Shh, be still . . .” But he understood her cries as he listened to the undertones of her words, felt her quivering in fear and rage. That she allowed him to touch her was a miracle, for though his eyes were blind, he saw that this woman had been raped and, during the heinous act, had lost a child.

“Go into the inn. See if there is anyone inside,” Benjamin ordered Henry.

The boy took off running, his footsteps and breathing fading as the priest turned all of his attention to the woman trembling in his arms. “Now, Geneva, we must take you back to the castle. To Serennog. You need help.”

She was shivering, her skin icy, her hair matted from the dirt and rain, her teeth chattering either from the cold or her ordeal.

What monster lived within men to force a woman?

In all his years Benjamin had recognized his own lust, he’d experienced a mind-numbing want of a woman, he’d felt desire run hot through his veins, but never had he given in, never had he let temptation overrule his vows. He’d spent hours on his knees on the hard stone floor of the chapel, praying to God for forgiveness for his wanton, carnal thoughts, and the Lord had helped him, given him strength, showed him the path. Too many men gave in to the sins of their bodies—too few spent hours in prayer.

And this poor woman, good-hearted Geneva, had paid the price, as had the poor little innocent growing within her. He prayed for the baby’s soul, for though it was conceived beyond the sacrament of marriage, it was a person nonetheless, a child of God, a pure little being who should not be punished for the sins of his parents.

Ah, ’twas a dark world at times. “Rest easy,” he said, stroking Geneva’s cheek. “We will find a way to get you home.”

“AAAAAHHHHHHH!” The boy let out a cry that shook through the forest. Geneva screamed. Father Benjamin flinched. He was struggling to his feet when Henry’s quick footsteps returned.

Breathing wildly, he was stammering and making no sense whatsoever.

“What?” Father Benjamin snapped, for though Henry was a good boy, a true heart, he was a bit of a coward and tended to be overly dramatic.

“’Tis Sir Payton,” the boy said.

“Get him.”

“Nay, I cannot. He’s dead. Stabbed to death.”

Benjamin’s old shoulders sagged. Sadness and despair overcame him. “You’re certain?” he asked, now understanding Geneva’s rantings.

“Aye. Oh, aye.”

Geneva let out a pained wail. “Murderer,” she cried. “Murderer. Black Thorn. May the gods curse your soul . . . oh, oh . . . Payton . . .”

“Shh, child, ’tis time we pray, for Payton’s soul,” Father Benjamin said, crossing himself, and ignoring the fact that Geneva had defied the teachings of the church, had trusted in the dark arts. Mayhap this was God’s way of punishing her, for He was a vengeful God as well as a loving Father.

“Pray with me.” Benjamin closed his sightless eyes. “In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Ghost . . .”

 

The castle loomed before her, a behemoth of gray stone turrets and wide walls perched high on the hill, a forbidding fortress of bleak, formidable rock. From the highest towers the black and gold standards of Black Thorn snapped in the winter wind. Apryll’s heart sank as she eyed the banners so proudly displayed. Her fingers felt like ice as they gripped the pommel of her weary mount’s saddle. The straps holding her wrists were tight, the winter air raw against her cheeks, the knife tucked into her boot cold against her leg.

Trepidation stirred in her soul.

Less than a week before she’d been in this very spot.

She’d remembered shivering as she’d dressed in the forest, working at the fastenings of her mother’s white gown, her fingers numb with cold. She’d managed to finger-comb her hair and lace it with ribbons, then, forcing a poise she hadn’t felt, slip past the drunken guard at the main gate. Carefully holding her skirts above the puddles and mud, she’d picked her way to the great hall, knowing that she was to distract the lord while Payton and the others crept through the keep, stealing from the treasury, taking the horses, getting back some of what Morgan of Black Thorn had stolen from Serennog two decades earlier.

When she’d spied the lord, sitting high on his dais, glum and spiritless despite the music and revelry, she’d been caught by his handsome despair, the secrets in his gray eyes, and when he’d approached her and asked her to dance, she’d been wary, but intrigued. During the dance, as he’d held her in his arms, she’d lost herself in some silly romantic vision—an illusion she’d helped create.

Even now as she rode behind him she stared at the width of his shoulders and the proud bearing with which he rode. She noticed the way his dark hair fell over his collar and her silly heart skipped a beat. She was being brought back to Black Thorn a prisoner and still she dreamed of loving him.

Payton was right. She was foolish. A woman unfit to reign. A female who sometimes let her heart rule her head.

And so it had come to this. She was prisoner and half in love with her captor. Silently she cursed her fate and remembered Geneva’s prediction.
’Tis about destiny, m’lady. Your destiny.

’Twas a joke.

A vile trick.

For once, it seemed, the sorceress was wrong. Completely and utterly mistaken.

Bells pealed throughout the bailey. A sentry yelled, “Lord Devlynn has arrived! He brings his son!” People dropped what they were doing.

As Devlynn rode through the gates of Black Thorn, shouts rang out. The carpenters repairing the stables put down their hammers, the smith abandoned his forge, the armorer ignored the weapons he’d been cleaning and the boys netting eels in the pond looked away from their catches. Women carrying laundry and girls with egg baskets and water buckets stopped their tasks as the Lord of Black Thorn returned to his keep.

“Welcome home, m’lord,” one man said as he yanked off his hat and bowed slightly. “We’ve missed ye. I see ye’ve got yer son.” A smile of crooked teeth peeked out from behind his red beard. “’Tis good that ye’re home.”

“Aye, welcome,” a big-bosomed girl with braids and doelike eyes said, curtsying. Her lips curved into a suggestive smile and she batted her eyelashes slowly. Suggestively. Apryll felt a ridiculous spurt of jealousy.

“Yale!” Bronwyn screamed in delight as she flew out of one of the huts and dashed across the bent grass and mud. Her face was alive, her brown curls flopping and streaming behind her. “There are new puppies in the kennels and yesterday Mother let me ride with her into the meadow and Uncle Collin said that he would take me on a hunt when you returned. Come!” she cried breathlessly, so excited she actually clapped her hands and jumped up and down.

With a quick look to his father, Yale slid off his mount and chased after his cousin through the throng that had gathered. Laughing and chattering, they ran together along a muddy path that twisted past the well and a broken wagon.

Apryll’s heart twisted as Devlynn reined in. How she envied Devlynn his family. Brother, sister, Aunt Vi, a niece and child, while all she had was Payton, one half brother, who was as close by blood to Devlynn and his siblings as he was to her.

But for the sets of adoring eyes looking at their lord there were others as well, malevolent, shifty gazes, hard-set jaws, flared nostrils that were impossible not to notice. For the most part the angry glares were sent her way, but she was certain she saw more than one tight-lipped, hostile gaze taking in the baron’s return. Who were the men and women who hated him? Were they the traitors who had aided Payton in his raid? Or was she imagining things, she wondered as dogs barked from the kennels and sheep bleated in the fields. Mayhap it was her own despair, her own sense of guilt, her own anxiety about being away from her castle and the people who depended upon her.

Laundry flapped in large, open sheds, smoke curled upward from chimneys, carts and wagons brought wares and the windmill’s sweeps turned in the cold, chill breeze.

“Look at her—sitting upon her horse. As if she was the damned Queen of England!” The shrewish whisper was loud enough for Apryll to hear. She steeled herself. She was regarded by everyone within the keep as an enemy of these people, a threat to Black Thorn, the woman responsible for death and destruction. She refused to meet their eyes but sat proudly, chin high, shoulders level, spine stiff, ignoring the whispers that swept through the crowd, conjectures about her.

“Who is she?” a fat laundress carrying a basket of filthy clothes asked her smaller companion, a birdlike woman with a beak for a nose and small, pinched features, certainly the source of the harsh whisper.

“She called herself Lady Apryll of Serennog.” Yes, the same ugly tone.

“That one? Nay. I saw the lady of Serennog on the night of the revels. A true beauty she was and dressed so fine, all in pure white silk—Lady Violet likened her to an angel.”

“An angel straight from hell!” The tiny woman made a swift sign of the cross over her chest as if to ward off any evil spirits lurking nearby.

The laundress’s small eyes lifted and she stared straight at Apryll upon her muddy mount. “But . . . but this one . . . the same woman? Bah!” She shook her head side to side and her short little nose wrinkled as if she smelled something putrid. “She’s so filthy and thin and she’s wearing a peasant man’s clothes.”

“A disguise, you idiot,” bird-woman explained with a sniff. “And she’s not to be trusted. Look there”—bony fingers pointed at Apryll’s hands—“she’s a prisoner.”

The fat woman stared at the reins running from the bridle of Apryll’s mount to Devlynn’s gloved hand.