Heart of a Knight (17 page)

With a furious cry, she slapped him. "You're a beast!"

"Aye," he said darkly, and tried again to move past her.

Still she would not cease, but came at him, grabbing at his arm. "Wait! If you do not do it willingly, I will force you."

He looked down. "None here have power over my life."

Feral anger burned in the wide eyes, twisting her face to a parody of its angelic proportions, and she stepped back. Thomas moved toward the door.

She screamed. It was an unholy sound in the quiet, a sound of terror and pain. He whirled, thinking of pitchforks and nails.

But Isobel stood where she'd been, and her only injury was self-inflicted: she had ripped her bodice from shoulder to shoulder, leaving her breasts bare.

A red angry scratch marked her from collar bone to nipple, already welling blood. As he stared, horrified, she banged against the stable wall, her elbows and shoulder and even her face, and screamed again, the sound bloodier and even more unholy than the first. It would carry to London.

"Stop!" he cried, and reached for her, to halt her fury before she injured herself the more. He caught her by the arms, and she lashed at him, kicking wildly, and slapped, and thrashed, screaming and screaming. Her nails slashed over his face.

Too late, he saw how neatly he'd been trapped. Her screams pierced the revelry, and in seconds a swarm of armed men surrounded him and the sobbing Isobel, who pitifully caught at the shreds of her bodice as Thomas, horrified, let her go. He saw her as if from a great distance, trying with deliberate lack of success to cover her naked breasts. The vicious scratch over his cheek burned.

He said nothing in the ensuing noise, only stared silently at her as guards shackled his wrists and swirled around Isobel, staring with avid eyes till a man thought to offer her a cloak. From below her hair, she gave Thomas a look of purest triumph.

As they led him away none too gently, Thomas vowed the one thing he would not do was ever marry the conniving she-devil. He would hang first.

Lyssa slept deeply, her dreams a patchwork of blue eyes and rats coming from a river to infect a whole village with plague, and of a strange, high scream she could not place. It blended with images of bodies and—

A voice wove itself into the disturbing dreams. "My lady! Lady Elizabeth." A rough hand shook her shoulder. "Lyssa, wake up!"

She finally pried open her eyes. "What? What is it?"

Mary stood by the bed, her face smudged, her red hair a tangle on her shoulders. Genuine terror showed in her dark eyes. "My lady, they've taken Thomas."

"What? Taken him?" Blearily, she remembered he was to have left today. "Who took him? Where?"

"My lady,
wake up
! He is in the dungeon, shackled like a criminal. That beast of a girl said he raped her, or tried." Tears welled in Mary's eyes. "I know he did not, Lyssa. I offered my own self to him only moments before." She pulled the covers from Lyssa's body. "But they won't listen to a village girl. You must come."

The words made Lyssa cold, and she sat upright. Mary held out a shift, and Lyssa let it be draped over her head. "When did this happen?"

"Last night." She held out a long-sleeved robe. "Hurry. Her betrothed wants to kill him."

"What girl?" Lyssa struggled with her hair, tugging out one lock from her sleeve.

"Isobel."

Lyssa stilled. "Isobel."

"He would not, my lady, I swear it. He has no need—the women—"

"S." Lyssa gripped the woman's arms. "No, he would not. Come. Let's see what we can make of this mess. Where is my daughter?"

"Wailing in the yard."

They hurried through the silent castle and Lyssa felt dread building as she rushed through the empty hall with its cold hearths. Pale dawn was only now breaking the eastern sky, lighting the uppermost edges of the pines and oaks, and the air was cool as she bolted out the door.

At the sight that greeted her, she halted on the step. The remains of the feast, tawdry now in the light of the morning, were scattered over a wide area—abandoned cups and stained tables and groggy peasants wakening to the tumult. Stephen de Kivelsworthy and his men were gathered in the center of the yard, circling the shackled Thomas.

He stood a head taller than any of the others, who surrounded him like dogs trying to trap a boar. But unlike a crazed boar, Thomas only stood grimly, his hands bound in front of him, his expression hard and proud. The night's wear showed in the tangle of his hair on his shoulders, and the grime from the bowels of the castle on his tunic. An untended cut marred his cheekbone.

Lyssa was frozen, aching for the injury that had been put on him. Her heart cried his name, and as if he'd heard, he raised his eyes and met her anguished gaze.

Never had she felt the power of a man as she did in that moment, staring at Thomas across the crowded yard with gray light filling the air. He stared hard at her, asking nothing, pridefully enduring.

Aching, she tore her gaze away to seek Isobel, and saw the girl standing nearby Stephen. Even at this distance, her face was plainly battered. To Mary, Lyssa said, "How came she to be so bruised, if 'twas not a rape?"

"I do not know if she was raped, only that it was not Thomas who did it."

Torn, Lyssa narrowed her eyes. She could not believe Thomas would violate a child under any conditions—nor any woman, come to that. He was no fool, and as Mary said, he had no need of rape, nor did he own the brooding, hateful anger she'd oft seen in men who used their lusts for evil.

Isobel, seeing Lyssa, began to weep softly.

A dozen images crossed Lyssa's mind—Isobel's rudeness to Stephen, in spite of his youth and beauty; her reappearance in the red gown she was forbidden to wear, and Lyssa's certainty that Isobel had some plan up her sleeve.

And she thought of Thomas, huge and strong, cupping her face with tenderness, thought of his control when he asked her to let him go.

She looked at him again. Pride on his brow. On his calm visage. In his posture. He still gazed at Lyssa, with an expression she could not quite read.

"'Tis a matter of some delicacy," Lyssa said at last to Mary. "Find Nurse and bid her come to me, and then run to the kitchens for bread, cheese, and ale and take them to my chamber."

"Aye, milady."

Stephen, drawn by Thomas's calm gaze, turned and spied Lyssa, unbrushed and unwashed and clad only in a simple wrap, descending the stairs in her bare feet. "My lady!" he called. "I ask your leave to kill this man."

Lyssa let go a sigh, carefully, so the youth's pride, too, would remain unbreached. Lifting her skirts, she crossed the thick, dewed grass. Soldiers parted to let her through, and she wove through a forest of swords and mailed bodies to stand before Stephen and Thomas and Isobel. She looked at Stephen first, as he would require, then at Isobel, who quickly lowered her eyes.

At last she looked at Thomas. "You stand accused of attempting to ravish my stepdaughter, Thomas of Roxburgh. Did you do it?"

"Nay."

"My lady!" Stephen protested. "You cannot mean to simply—"

She raised a hand. "Release him."

"I will not."

"You will," Lyssa returned calmly. "Then you will come to my chamber and sit with me and I will talk with you as long as you need."

"We came on them, my lady—she was clearly being ravished."

Lyssa turned to Thomas. "I think it did not happen that way. Am I correct, sir?" She held his gaze steadily, earnestly hoping he was as intelligent as she believed, and would know the details had no place in this public gathering.

"You are, my lady."

Stephen drew his sword angrily. "I'll not stand by and watch this travesty!"

"Put it away." Lyssa stepped forward and put a hand on his sword arm, firmly. "I am mistress of this house in the absence of my king, and you'll do as I say."

His jaw hard, the youth sheathed his sword.

Tall Mary pushed through the crowd, a red-faced Nurse behind her. "Mary," Lyssa said without taking her eyes from the young knight, "take my lord to my chamber and see him fed and made comfortable until I am finished here."

Mary gave a bobbing curtsey that near startled a chuckle from Lyssa. She gestured toward Stephen firmly, and with a sullen expression, he followed.

Lyssa waved to the crowd. "The rest of you, go to your tasks. Leave us." The soldiers stood by uncertainly, eyeing Thomas as if he were indeed that wild boar, dangerous and unpredictable. She glared at them. "Go!"

She waited until there was only Isobel, Thomas, and Nurse left. "Nurse, I have in me too much anger to speak to my daughter." Isobel did not look at her. "Take her and lock her in her chamber with only bread and water until she is moved to tell me the truth."

Mutinously, Isobel lifted her head. Against her will, Lyssa felt sympathy, for she looked as if she'd been soundly beaten. "Child, what drove you to such a desperate act?" she asked.

Isobel only stared.

Lyssa shook her head. "Take her. Nurse. And if she escapes, I will hold you responsible."

"Aye, milady."

When they, too, were gone, Lyssa turned to Thomas, still standing straight, and still with his hands bound before him. Lyssa looked up at him, see-ing the angry scratches below his eye and the weariness around his mouth. He said nothing. Lyssa moved through the grass to stand before him for a moment, then reached for the ropes binding his wrists. He lifted them up and Lyssa struggled with the knots.

He said, "There is a dagger on my belt."

She took it out and cut the ropes carefully, for his flesh was chaffed and raw. She gave him the dagger and stepped away. "I will send food to your chamber, if you wish, and a servant to bathe the stink of that dungeon from you."

Always there had been an ease between them, but it was gone now. Formally, he said, "My thanks." He tucked his knife back into his belt. "But I will take my leave, as I should have done when you returned."

Lyssa took a breath. "Twould be better, sir, if you stayed."

He lifted a sardonic brow. "Pray, lady, what benefit will I gain?"

"Twill save your reputation." It seemed odd to her that he would not see that. "If you leave now, there will always be those who say you fled the scene of your crime and the lady let you free because you charmed her."

He gave a short, humorless laugh, gingerly touching the nasty scratch on his face. "I will stay, then. For your sake." His eyes blazed. "But for her sake, keep Isobel from me."

"That I will do, if you tell me now what transpired between you."

"She wished me to make a bid to be her husband." He rubbed his wrist.

A dark, jealous tide rose in her. "I am surprised. Lord Thomas," Lyssa said sharply, "that you could not twist her to your ends as you've done all the rest of us."

"Have you been twisted, my lady?"

She took in the hard lines of his mouth, that mouth that had been so great a pleasure. "Aye," she said quietly. "And I am wise to the wiles of men. She is only a girl, and should not be so skilled as you. Could you not flatter her with some pretty words and send her away?"

He stared at her coldly. "Mayhap the moment was poorly managed, my lady, but the child is a selfish viper who will go to any ends to get what she wants." The blurring accent grew, until Lyssa thought he sounded as rough as a serf. "She wished for me to bed her so she would not be forced to marry her knight, and then take me to be husband. I denied her." His mouth tightened. "I did not think…"

"Very well." Lyssa sighed. "I know not how all this will end, but now I must go salvage what I may."

He nodded.

Wearily, Lyssa turned, suddenly realizing what a tangle this was. And in truth, she had not the slightest clue as to what to do with her willful stepdaughter. Looking up at the long line of arched embrasures that ran along the third floor of the castle, all empty staring eyes, she hesitated. Was Isobel mad?

"Lyssa," Thomas said behind her, his voice gentle.

She closed her eyes at the sound of his voice on her name, feeling the sound whisper over her neck and down her spine as distinctly as if he'd stroked her. Gathering her defenses, she turned.

But it was like the first time she'd seen him. So tall, he was, and strong, and so vividly dark and beautiful it made her ache. She thought of his eyes closed as he kissed her, the black lashes fanning over hard-cut cheeks, and thought of the feel of his thick beautiful hair flowing over her fingers. She swallowed, waiting.

He stepped closer, and with none of the gallant about him, took her hand and bent his big dark head over it, and kissed it. There was a fierce, almost pained expression on his brow as he did so, and his voice was raw. "I am grateful." He raised his jeweled eyes, so blue and sober in the dark face. "You saved my life."

Lyssa nodded. "As you saved the lives of my peasants. Good day, Thomas."

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