Cast Love Aside (9 page)

“You will never see your brother again,”
Erland informed her.

“What do you mean?” She was pale as sea foam,
but she kept her voice steady, and Magnus's respect for her
increased to a remarkable degree.

“So long as I am bound hand and foot and kept
far from France, no one will care for Gilbert. Delicate as the boy
is, he will not live long.” A cruel smile curled Erland's thin
lips.

“You didn’t know I was watching,” Lilianne
declared, “but I saw him leave Manoir Sainte Inge with you and
Norbard.”

“Did you?” Erland's smile was chilling.
“Still, you don’t know where he is now, do you? Or even if he’s
still alive.”

“The lad had better live,” Magnus stated
firmly, “or it will be all the worse for you, Count Erland.”

“Go ahead and kill me,” Erland said, managing
to shrug in spite of his bonds. “Once I am dead, Lilianne will
never find her precious brother's bones, and you English will lose
by my demise whatever it was that you planned to demand as my
ransom.”

“
Where is Gilbert?”
Lilianne
cried.

“In a safe place,” Erland said, “where you
will never find him. Or, if you do, it will be too late for that
puny child.”

“If it's Manoir Sainte Inge you want,”
Lilianne said, sounding desperate, “you may have it. I'm sure
Gilbert will give it to you in return for his freedom, and I know
our father would agree, if he were still alive.”

“But Paul de Sainte Inge is not alive, is
he?” said Erland, sneering again, “and once Gilbert dies, my
brother Paul's former property passes to me, as the sole male heir
of our father's line. You, dear niece, have nothing with which to
bargain.”

“I do have bargaining power,” Magnus said.
“We will discuss this later, Count Erland. For now, I leave you to
consider your plight. I suggest you also moderate your attitude
toward Lady Lilianne.”

“Why?” Erland asked. “Lilianne matters not at
all in my plans. She is a nonentity.”

Magnus thought that Erland could not be more
wrong. Lilianne's determination to locate and rescue her brother
made her a force that her uncle should have considered very
carefully, indeed. But he'd not tell Erland so. Better by far to
let Erland underestimate his niece. Erland's distain for the girl
might trip him up and, thus, make him vulnerable to the kind of
persuasion that Royce was planning to use on him. Erland wasn't
just a hostage for Desmond's safety and eventual release. As one of
King Louis's secret agents, Erland was also a source of valuable
information. Magnus did not doubt that Royce would find a way to
extract most of that information from Erland before he was
permitted to return to France.

“I am going up on deck,” Lilianne announced
to no one in particular. “If I stay here one moment more, I'll
strangle him. I think you will all agree that killing Uncle Erland
would be most unwise of me, at least for the present.” Not deigning
to look at Erland again, she stalked out of the cabin.

“I'll go with you.” Alice followed Lilianne
through the door.

“Remain here, William, inside the cabin,”
Magnus ordered when the young man would have rushed after Alice.
“Braedon, into the corridor with you, and keep watch on the door. I
will see to the women.”

“I need to piss,” Erland said in a loud
voice. “If you don't untie me at once, you will have a foul mess to
clean up.”

“I'll find a bucket,” Braedon offered, and
left the cabin.

“Untie me,” Erland demanded again. “Do it
quickly, you slow-witted fools.”

“Sir William and Sir Braedon will assist
you,” Magnus told him. “You will remain bound until we reach
England.”

“I will not tolerate being handled, or
watched, by inferiors while I perform a personal function.” Erland
sounded deeply affronted by the notion.

“Very well, then. The choice is yours,”
Magnus said with false pleasantness. “Allow these two
gentlemen
to help you, or soil yourself. Now, I must ask you
to excuse me while I see to the ladies.”

On his way to the ladder Magnus met Braedon
returning with a leather bucket in hand.

“I’m glad not all French nobles are like
Erland,” Braedon said. “How can he be a successful secret agent if
he treats his underlings with such contempt? Or is it just because
we are Englishmen?”

“Two good questions,” Magnus responded.
“Speaking for myself, I'll be glad to turn him over to Royce.”

A bellow of outrage issued from the cabin
where Erland was being held.

“I do believe the count is eager for this,”
Braedon said, swinging the bucket. “I mustn't keep him waiting.
Don't worry, Magnus; William and I will never loosen his bonds, no
matter what he promises or threatens.”

Magnus arrived on deck with his emotions
seething. In addition to his impatience to see his brother released
from French captivity so he could be free from any further
obligation to either his brother or Royce, Magnus longed to help
Lilianne. She was going to do whatever she could to find her
brother, and she was likely to put her life in danger in the
attempt. The thought of any harm coming to Lilianne smote Magnus
like a sword thrust to his heart. The knowledge that he had no
right to feel the way he did was even more painful than his fears
for the safety of so brave and resolute a girl.

He stepped through the hatchway to find the
sky lightening toward a clear, windy morning. Against the
golden-pink glow of dawn, Lilianne and Alice stood together at the
rail. Lilianne turned as Magnus approached.

“I apologize for threatening your prisoner,”
she said. “I wish I knew of a way to convince Uncle Erland to tell
me where he has sent Gilbert.”

“So do I.” Firmly repressing a cold shiver,
Magnus leaned against the rail. Seeking distraction from both his
forebodings and his passionate desire to touch Lilianne, he allowed
his gaze to rest upon the smudgy line across the horizon that
showed where England was. Just two or three hours more, he told
himself, and they'd be ashore at Hythe, where Royce's men awaited
them. Royce had deemed the smaller port safer and more secure than
Dover, which was the obvious landing site for a ship departing
France from the vicinity of Calais. Dover was a favorite haunt for
French spies. There were probably spies in Hythe, too, as there
were in any English port, but with luck they’d have Erland out of
the town and on his way to closely guarded imprisonment before any
of his compatriots noticed him.

“How can a man be so cruel to his own flesh
and blood?” Lilianne burst into angry speech. “Gilbert is his
brother's son.”

“So are you Count Erland's flesh and blood,”
Alice said. “Men can be cold and unfeeling where property is
concerned. To a greedy man, family ties mean little. When the time
suits him, Erland will cast you aside in whatever way is most
advantageous to him.”

“You sound,” said Magnus, “as if you speak
from experience.” He looked more closely at Alice, noting her thin
figure and her pale face, only faintly tinged with color by the
rising sun. Nothing about Alice caught his manly interest, yet
honesty and intelligent human warmth shone from her eyes. He
thought she would prove a good and true friend, and he was glad
Lilianne had her for a companion.

“My father,” Alice told him, “was a minor
noble, pledged in fealty to King Henry for the land he held in
Normandy.”

“You surprise me.” Magnus said. “I assumed
you were French.”

“My mother was,” Alice said. “When she died,
Father decided to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, so he turned
his estates over to my brother, Richard. He left me, and my dowry,
in Richard's care. Knowing I longed for children and a kind man at
my side, he charged Richard with finding a good husband for me when
I was old enough.”

“I can guess the rest,” Magnus said. “Once
your father was gone, Richard decided to add your dowry to his own
holdings.”

“He sent me to the convent with nothing save
the clothes I wore. I wept for days before I reconciled myself to
being there. But I steadfastly refused to profess my vows, knowing
I would be speaking lies and not truth. Secretly, I hoped to find a
way to leave the convent. When Count Erland applied to Mother
Abbess for a girl of noble birth to be a companion to his niece, I
volunteered at once. I suspect Mother Abbess of being as eager to
see me go as I was to be gone.”

“I didn’t know any of this,” Lilianne
exclaimed, regarding her companion with surprised interest. “Why
haven’t you ever mentioned your family?”

“It’s best not to speak of what is lost and
can never be recovered,” Alice said. She added, finishing her
story, “So you see, Sir Magnus, I do know how wicked men can be
where property is concerned. From what I've observed of Count
Erland during my short stay at Manoir Sainte Inge, I believe he
covets Gilbert's estate.”

“He won't get it,” Lilianne declared,
smacking her closed fist on the railing for emphasis. “Never, so
long as I live!”

Alice's troubled gaze met Magnus's, and he
guessed she was thinking along the same lines he was. If Erland
wanted to continue using Manoir Sainte Inge as a base for his
spying activities against the English, then young Gilbert was
probably already dead.

“What of your dowry, Lilianne?” Magnus asked,
seizing on the first subject that came to mind to divert her from
contemplation of her brother's possible fate. “Surely, your father
left a portion of his holdings for you?”

“He did, but it's gone,” she replied.
“According to Uncle Erland, he was forced to hand that property
over to my father's debtors. But
I
shall not go into a
convent, no matter what Uncle Erland decides. Nor will I marry. I
know there’s no chance of any man wanting me, not tall and ugly as
I am, and with no dowry. I intend to live with Gilbert, and you may
live with us, Alice, for as long as you want. You are the only
friend I've had since Father and Mother died.”

“How did your mother die?” Magnus asked.

“In childbirth, six years ago. The baby died
with her,” Lilianne answered softly. “It's a common event.”

“Not at all common to the children she left
behind,” Magnus said, seeing the way she was blinking as if to
banish tears she didn't want to shed in front of others. He set
sympathy aside, making himself press her further, wanting answers
from her that would prove, or lay to rest, a growing suspicion.
“And your father? What happened to him?”

“He was thrown from his horse while hunting
at Morvan, four years ago,” Lilianne said. “His neck was broken.
Gilbert and I saw him afterward, laid out in the chapel there. It
was dreadful. Gilbert couldn't stop crying.”

“You were at Morvan when it happened?” Very
firmly, for the sake of eliciting information that could prove
useful to Royce, Magnus closed his mind to the thought of Lilianne
trying to comfort her weeping brother and concentrated, instead, on
the awful possibilities suggested by Erland's character as he knew
it.

“We were all visiting Uncle Erland at
Morvan,” Lilianne said. “Shortly after Father was buried, Uncle
Erland escorted Gilbert and me back to Manoir Sainte Inge, saying
we should continue to live in the home we loved, and that he would
live with us, because King Louis had confirmed him as our guardian.
But Uncle Erland was never kind to us after Father died.”

Magnus stared at the water, unable to speak
for rage. Silently he cursed all men who took advantage of
dependent women. What choice did a girl without a dowry have,
except to enter a convent and be a servant there? Or, to continue
to live with the same male relative who had robbed her, and still
be reduced to the status of a servant? No wonder Lilianne was so
determined to live unwed with the brother she loved, who,
presumably, would treat her decently.

“I know what you're thinking,” Lilianne
said.

“Do you?” He risked a glance at her, hoping
she wouldn't see his anger at his fellow men in his face, or hear
it in his voice.

“You are thinking that Uncle Erland had
something to do with my father's death. I've thought of it, too,
because if anything dreadful happens to Gilbert,” she said, her
words crackling with emotion, “then Uncle Erland will own
everything my grandfather divided equally between his two sons
before he died.”

“I am thinking,” Magnus said, “that your
uncle ought to be whipped for trying to make you believe you are
too ugly for any man to want you.”

He heard her catch her breath in surprise,
but he couldn't look at her again. If he did, he'd put his arms
around her and swear to keep her safe for the rest of her life. It
would be a false oath for, as a landless knight, he lacked the
means to protect her, or to offer the rank amongst the nobly born
that she deserved. All he was able to do for Lilianne was make a
solemn promise to himself, to speak to Royce about her welfare.

“Stay here on deck,” he ordered the women.
“No one will bother you. I’m going to see how Count Erland is
faring.” With that speech, which sounded far more abrupt than he
intended, he turned from the rail and left them. He was careful to
keep his back to Lilianne and his eyes straight ahead until he
reached the hatch.

“This is the most exciting thing that has
ever happened to me,” Alice said. She and Lilianne were still
standing by the rail of the
Daisy
, where they had remained
after Magnus left them an hour or so earlier.

“You do seem to be recovered from your
mal
de mer,”
Lilianne remarked, smiling in spite of her continued
worry for Gilbert’s sake.

“Until the day when my brother sent me off to
the convent, I spent my entire life at home,” Alice said. “Being
released from there to join you at Manoir Sainte Inge was a
reprieve from perpetual imprisonment and I was grateful to Count
Erland, until I understood what kind of man he is. But this – this
is freedom!” She flung out her arms as if to embrace the Narrow Sea
as well as the rapidly approaching cliffs of southeastern
England.