Wild and Wicked (33 page)

Rudyard jerked. With a horrifying cry he tumbled forward. He landed headfirst in a puddle, an arrow protruding from his back. From the corner of his eye, Devlynn caught a glimpse of a woman in white. Apryll was running through the bailey, her white dress flowing around her, a long bow clutched in her hands. “Yale!” she was screaming. “Yale!”

Then he saw his son. Atop an empty cart, a sword in one hand, crouching as if he were going to slay the man at the other end of the cart, the soldier determinedly advancing upon him. Devlynn’s heart stopped when he recognized Spencer.

Devlynn ran, leaping over men writhing upon the ground, clutching wounds and moaning while blood seeped into the muddy ground and pooled around them. Thunder cracked. The wind raged and the fighting went on. Screaming, yelling, clanging, neighing, a horrid cacophony of sound while the stench of blood filled his nostrils.

Spencer advanced, wielding a mace in one burly arm, holding his sword in the other.

“Don’t let this happen,” Devlynn growled under his breath, either at himself or God, for it did not matter.

The boy backed up, slicing in the air with his smaller weapon, staring directly into the maw of death. Spencer’s eyes glittered, his expression hard with battle. Devlynn leaped, climbing over the wheel of the wagon just as the soldier brandished his razor-sharp sword.

“Stop!” Devlynn commanded, pushing Yale over the side of the wagon, his sword crashing against Spencer’s blade. But the big soldier swung his mace and as Devlynn stepped back, then lunged forward, his blade piercing Spencer’s broad chest, a woman screamed and the mace crashed downward, splintering the sides of the wagon.

Yale! Where the bloody hell was Yale? And Apryll? God be with her.
Twisting hard on his sword, he watched as Spencer dropped to his knees. Devlynn yanked out his blade and blood spurted, spraying the wagon. With a rattling breath and a bubble of dark liquid the big man fell forward while a woman squealed as if in agony.

He caught a glimpse of Miranda, her hair flying, her legs racing over the bloodied grass to the wagon. “Spencer, no! Oh, love, please, no, no, no!” She climbed over the wheel and fell upon the dying man. “Don’t leave me,” she cried, tears streaming from her face. “Don’t leave me and Bronwyn. We need you.” She was pushing his hair out of his eyes and cradling his head, but ’twas too late—the light in his eyes had dimmed.

Devlynn left her to mourn her hero, the traitor who had nearly killed his son, then he spied Yale and Apryll, standing together, the boy managing a cross-bow and Apryll with her long bow drawn back, a deadly arrow aimed straight at the heart of a stocky man with a red beard, a man he didn’t recognize.

“Call them off, Roger. All of them,” she ordered. “And tell me where my brother is.”

“I suggest you do as the lady says,” Devlynn said and then, seeing that the fight had left most of the men, that those of Black Thorn, those who had lived and worked within the keep’s walls, those whose fealty was true, seemed to have the upper hand, yelled, “All fighting is to stop. Now! Sentry!” he bellowed. “Ring the alarm bell!”

Roger dropped his weapon. “’Tis over,” he admitted.

“And you shall be hanged for your treachery,” Apryll charged. “Where is Payton?”

“Dead, m’lady,” another man said. “Run through by Rudyard.”

“Wh—what? Nay . . .” Apryll’s face was suddenly whiter than the gown had once been. “Nay, he is alive . . . he must be.” All of the fight seemed to leave her and she swayed for a second. Devlynn stepped forward, determined to catch her, but somehow she found the strength to stand. Tears ran down her face. “Those who have killed my brother and those who have carried out his vengeance against Black Thorn will come before me,” she ordered. “Each and every man.”

Devlynn turned to the men who still stood in the bailey, their weapons now on the ground or slack in their hands. “Enough!” He spied a group of traitors held at sword point by a few soldiers and several peasants and freemen, the butcher holding a meat cleaver high, the smith wielding a pipe, a sawyer gripping a broad axe. “Take them to the dungeons and have the physicians see to the wounds. We’ll need bandages and . . .”

He felt a hand upon his shoulder. “You’ll need a bandage,” Apryll said, drawing her fingers back and showing him his own blood.

“’Tis not all,” he whispered and pulled her close. “I think, lady, I need you.”

“And I think you be confused because of the battle and your wound.”

“What you think counts not,” he said with a half smile as he wrapped one arm around Yale’s shoulders. “I’m the lord here. You are my prisoner.”

“Have I not earned my freedom?” she asked and he shook his head.

“Far from it, lady. For all your deeds, you’ve earned a life of servitude.”

“What?” She threw down her weapons. “Of all the bloody, bullheaded, impossible—oh!” His lips crashed down upon hers and he kissed her as if his life would soon end. He felt her swoon against him, tasted the salty tracks of the tears she’d shed for her Judas of a brother, and realized that he would die before he would let her go.

Lifting his head, he said, “Marry me, Apryll of Serennog.”

“But . . . I . . .”

“Let this be the end of the curse, let us join together for peace, and prosperity. Black Thorn and Serennog.”

She bit her lip. Hesitated.

He stared deep into her eyes. “I love you.” His voice was only a whisper but it echoed through the chambers of Apryll’s heart. Lightning sizzled through the dark night sky. “Marry me, Apryll. Take my heart and my life. Be the mother of my children. Stay with me forever.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. Could she trust him? This emotion she felt welling up from the deepest part of her?

“What say you, woman?” he demanded and she felt a smile pull at the corners of her lips.

“Yes,” she cried, flinging her arms around him. “Oh, yes, yes, yes!”

“Then let the banns be posted,” Devlynn ordered. “Apryll of Serennog will become my wife!”

Lady Black Thorn heard the baby crying in the next chamber. Ah, she was a fussy one, her daughter. While the baron had the audacity to snore, Apryll pushed herself out of the bed and padded barefoot through the rushes to the antechamber where the infant was working up to lung-bursting screams.

“So when will you discover ’tis time to sleep at night?” Apryll whispered, pulling the tiny, dark-haired infant from her small crib.

The baby stopped crying and busily nuzzled at Apryll’s swollen breasts. “In a minute, in a minute.” She carried her daughter into the lord’s chamber and settled into the bed again while the fire quietly burned and downstairs the castle was waking. A rooster crowed and somewhere down the hallway a woman was singing off-key. Tonight the castle would be open to celebrate the revels. Oh, so much had happened since last year’s. One of Devlynn’s most trusted knights was ruling Serennog and Sir Brennan and Father Benjamin were advising him.

Father Hadrian had slipped into the night upon hearing that Apryll was to marry Devlynn of Black Thorn, and Geneva, poor woman, was still grieving Payton’s death, though, Father Benjamin had reported, she seemed to be healing after nearly bleeding to death from the loss of her infant and the rape.

Dear God, how had such horrid things happened? Apryll wondered. How she’d misjudged her brother and the man who had become her husband. Serennog had prospered in the last year and though Apryll had visited twice, she now believed this was to be her home. Her destiny.

Mayhap Geneva’s prediction had been right, though the sorceress had confided that she’d conjured up the whole idea, not so much to betray Apryll, but to satisfy Payton.

She glanced down at her babe, now suckling hungrily at her breast. Sweet little Rowelda of Black Thorn, a thing of mystery to her older half brother.

Devlynn stirred beside her, rolling over and opening one eye. “Again?” he asked and stretched.

“She is insatiable,” Apryll said, lifting a brow. “Like her father.”

“Aye, and her father is jealous.” Devlynn scooted closer, kissed his daughter’s head, then kissed Apryll’s plump breast where a pearly drop of milk had collected.

“Uh-uh-uh,” Apryll admonished, then smiled secretly. “Later.”

Devlynn laughed and, despite his wife’s warnings, kissed first the nipple and then her lips. “Tell me not what to do,” he warned. “Or I shall have to punish you.”

“And how would you do that, my lord?”

“Slowly,” he said. “Very slowly. Until you beg for mercy.”

She laughed as if the idea were preposterous. “Me? Beg? I think not. Now, I think that mayhap I would be the one who punishes you.”

“Never.”

“Hmmm. I have ways, you know.” She shifted the baby to her other breast. “We shall see, husband.”

“That we shall, wife,” he promised with a wicked gleam in his eye. His fingers delved under the covers to trace the length of her thigh. “That we shall.”

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoyed
Wild and Wicked.
I had a great time writing the book and thought of it as the classic fairy tale, “Cinderella” meets O. Henry’s “The Ransom of Red Chief,” with a few twists and turns, of course. I loved the adventures of Apryll, Devlynn, and Yale.

My next book for Signet,
Impostress
, is a little different. This time the heroine, Kiera, has to repay an old debt to her sister, Elyn. The payment isn’t what she expected. Elyn demands that Kiera become Elyn for one day—the day Elyn is to marry Baron Kelan of Hazelwood, a mysterious dark lord to whom Elyn has been promised. Kiera balks, but Elyn vows it will only be for one night, a night in which the baron will be drugged. . . . He’ll never know the difference. Or will he?

Impostress
is a rich, lively medieval romance, one I hope you’ll like. It will be on bookshelves in early 2003.

In the meantime, please visit my Web site at
www.lisajackson.com
to let me know what you think of
Wild and Wicked
and to keep up with my latest releases. If you sign my guest book, who knows? You might just win a contest!

Keep reading!

 

Lisa Jackson
c/o Signet Books
New American Library
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014

Turn the page for an exciting excerpt from
Lisa Jackson’s next romantic suspense novel,

Available from Zebra Books
June2002

 

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” the woman whispered, terrified, repeating the lines he’d told her to speak. But she didn’t believe them. Not for a minute. She wasn’t penitent. Just scared. To think she was one of God’s creatures. She was quivering with fear and shivering in the cold, but that would soon change. Smoke was already beginning to waft through the vents in the tiny bathroom. Flames would soon follow. “Forgive me, forgive me,” she said, eyes wide. Naked, terrorized, knowing she was about to die, she was suddenly religious. On her knees, chained to the pedestal sink, she begged for mercy, not understanding the magnitude of her sins.

Pathetic creature.

He placed a gloved hand upon her head, as if to calm her, and from somewhere outside, through the cracked window, he heard a car’s wheels whine on the wintry streets of the Esplanade.

“Let me go . . . please . . .” she pleaded, trying to keep the tremor from her voice as he fiddled with the radio from which the sound of familiar music wafted through the speakers, fading to the sound of a woman’s calm voice.

“This is Dr. Sam, with one last thought on this day when one of our finest presidents’ life was taken so brutally. . . . Take care of yourself, New Orleans. Good night and God bless. No matter what your troubles are today, there’s always tomorrow. . . . Sweet dreams . . .”

He switched the station, heard static, chirps, then finally found it: pipe organ music. Turning the radio to its full volume, he positioned it on a tiny shelf in the shower. Soothing notes. A hymn. He was sweating beneath his mask and the whore inched forward, bunched her fingers in the hem of his alb. “I’ll . . . I’ll do anything, but please . . .”

“Be still, my child. The Lord’s justice is swift and merciful.”

“Justice?” she repeated, looking up as he reached beneath his robe and found the hilt of his sword. Blue eyes beseeched him. Tears ran down her cheeks. “No . . . what are you doing? Why? Why me? Oh, God . . .” she squeaked.

Slowly he withdrew the weapon from its hiding spot. “Oh, God, no!” She was frantic now, pulling at the chain. Screaming. Scrambling away. “Please no . . .” Frantic eyes, the look of a trapped animal. “Help me! Someone! Help me!”

“Shh . . . it’s too late.” His voice was measured, calm, but inside he was shaking, trembling, not with fear but anticipation. Adrenaline, his favorite drug, sang through his veins. From the corner of his eye he noticed flames beginning to lick through the screen of the vent. Good.

“No, please, don’t . . . oh, God . . .” She was pulling at her tether now, vainly trying to hide behind the pedestal, her wrists bleeding and raw from her bonds. “I’ll do anything,” she swore, sobbing, her eyes wild with fear,
“anything.”

His pulse throbbed, pounded in his brain as he reached down and grabbed a fistful of curly blond hair. She squealed like a wounded pig. For a second he felt a tingle against the back of his neck, like the breath of Satan, and he glanced at the mirror, searching the shimmering surface, looking beneath the reflection of his own image of a tight black mask, feeling as if someone were watching through the glass. Witnessing his act.
Impossible!

His fingers coiled more tightly in her hair.

The blade glinted, shifting gold, reflecting the flames.

“No!” she screamed again, coughing and choking.