Once Upon a Knight (28 page)

“Na’ having the sense to fill in the tunnel afore today. Putting Sir Sheldon at the entrance as guard.”

Vincent sucked in air. Sybil moved backward at the quantity of it. “If you harmed him…” he began.

“He’s barely touched. He’ll have a large ache in his head in the morn, but he’ll live. ’Tis your fault if he does na’. Just as everything is.”

Vincent let the air out, seeming to shrivel at the same time.

“Luck still eludes you, doesn’t it?”

“Perhaps,” Vincent replied in a mumble.

“My men watched you all day and into the eve as you carted and packed stones to fill in the entrance. It was a wasted effort.”

That’s what he’d been doing all day?
Sybil wondered.

“But you ken that now, doona’ you?” the leader finished.

Sybil felt Vincent’s back muscles clench, but he didn’t give any further sign that the man affected him, either through a gesture, movement, or in his voice when he spoke again. “Most of what I do is luckless, MacHugh.”

“This is what I’d heard. Although I nae longer wondered if the great laird Erick Danzel had sired a fool and a coward when he formed you from his seed. I already knew the truth about that…dinna’ I?”

Sybil gasped. Vincent relaxed slightly. If she hadn’t been affixed to his frame, she wouldn’t have seen or noted it, however. “What of it?” Vincent replied finally.

“You have na’ changed the room much, I see.”

The chieftain was twirling about as he looked up at the rafters, down at the floor, encompassing the room, and then he met her gaze in the mirror. He smiled. Sybil didn’t move. It was totally unpleasant.

“First things first,” Vincent replied.

“Exactly.”

“What do you want this time?”

“Revenge. Just as I want every time.”

Vincent sighed loudly. “There is nae joy in vengeance, Hugo. None.”

“Who’s looking for joy? I want justice. I always have.”

“What will it take this time? Another fire?” Vincent asked with a carefully modulated tone that didn’t give much away. His entire frame was twitching as he said it, although nothing must have been showing, for the man referred to as Hugo didn’t react.

“Actually…we came for the wife.”

Vincent huffed out a heavy breath, almost of amusement. “Why dinna’ you just send word? Mary Elizabeth would rush to your side.”

“I doona’ mean
my
wife,” the man continued.

Sybil was turning to stone. She already knew what the man was going to say. She knew Hugo MacHugh was responsible for the severity of Vincent’s whipping, the punishment that had been the death of Edward Carrick. And now he was taking Vincent’s wife. She didn’t have to ask.

“You doona’?” Vincent asked easily. He sounded relaxed. He felt calmer, too. There wasn’t one bit of tremor happening to the frame she was clinging to.

“The Donal thought he was teaching me a lesson when he ‘rescued’ Mary Elizabeth from me. I dinna’ want her any more. She’s barren. Seven years as my wife and na’ one child—na’ even a girl child! The wench is cursed. Perhaps I’ll have better luck with yours.”

“My what?” Vincent asked without one sign of realization.

“Wife. I’m claiming her.” Hugo MacHugh met her look squarely in the glass, and then he smiled, showing stubbed, gapped teeth.

That’s when her knees started trembling in earnest, moving the weak feeling clear to her ankles. Vincent was easing the grip on her as well, and she guessed why. He was going for his skean. She couldn’t allow him to do this! It would mean his death. That seemed to be just what this Hugo fellow wanted. It wouldn’t change anything, either. Sybil was going to leave with the MacHugh. There were too many to fight.

“You ken what you do? And who she is?”

The Hugo smiled wider. “Aye. She’s the sister of the Donal laird’s wife. ’Tis what makes this so sweet. The man thought me cowed when he won at Clammond and got your property back. I was na’ beaten. I was taught a lesson.”

“Someone managed to teach you something?” Vincent asked it in a cocky fashion.

Sybil watched as the slur filtered through the ranks of men Vincent was facing and knew he didn’t realize his peril. No man in such jeopardy traded insults at such a time! She started moving away from him. He relaxed his grip in order to make it easier for her.

“I learned to bide my time. Maneuver a win. It was Myles Donal who taught it to me. That just sweetens every bit of this. Hand her over.”

“He’ll come for her.”

Vincent removed his arm, and Sybil pulled at the garment she wore, trying to get it to relax from where it seemed to be clinging. She had to make it more concealing before she was paraded before them.

“What an odd statement,” MacHugh responded. “Does that mean that you will na’?”

Sybil stepped from behind him then and watched as they all seemed to devour her in place. That created shivers through her entire body, which just made it all worse. She crossed her arms in front of her bosom and looked at the man who was taking her and said a silent prayer that he was capable of defining his rights and then making certain of them. He’d already spoken for her, which meant she wouldn’t be raped by his horde.

She looked up at Vincent. Nothing about him was showing emotion. Nothing. Then he tipped his head and looked down at her.

“Go ahead then. Take her,” he said to the group of men, although he directed the words at her.

“I intend to.”

“It was na’ a love match. You ken?”

“Nae marriage of property and family ever is,” Hugo replied.

The words weren’t clear through the buzzing noise in her ears, but she heard them. All of them.

“I dinna’ even wish to wed with her.”

Hugo was frowning. Sybil wondered if that was Vincent’s ploy. To make her less desirable? It wasn’t going to work, if he was. The target wasn’t him. It was Kendran’s husband.

“So?”

“I was paid,” Vincent said. “And well. The Donal laird wished his wife to get her wish of vengeance against this woman. I was his chosen tool.”

Sybil’s jaw slackened and her eyes filled with stupid tears, distorting him as well as everything and everyone else in the room. It wasn’t enough. She knew it as the thudding pressure of her heart moved upward, filling her throat and then her entire upper body with complete ache.

He’d been paid…to be an unsuitable love?

“Oh,” the MacHugh replied.

Sybil could think of a lot more words to fill the gap of space in than just that one, but any she thought of carried weeping and pain. Silence was better.

“Then you’ll na’ put up a fight at this abduction?”

“Do I look to be putting up a fight?” Vincent asked easily, and then he was stepping back from her.

The space of the room should have been hot, wet, and heavy with the heat, weight, and breathing of so many bodies. It wasn’t. It was cold and empty. And supremely lonely.

“Get her a cloak,” the MacHugh ordered, and someone tossed a dark, nondescript piece of fabric at her. Sybil’s fingers were clumsy and stiff as she tried more than four times to tie it, before Vincent stepped close and did it for her. At the touch of his fingers, she jerked. He didn’t look to have any trouble. He smoothly and efficiently tied a bow beneath her chin and then flicked the tip of her nose like it was nothing.
Nothing!

That’s when her heart started thudding again, filling her entire form with more heartache than anyone could absorb. And that’s when she knew. Kendran had got her Christmas wish. She’d avenged herself on her sister. And worse. Sybil had known of it. She’d been warned. She’d actually
seen
him coming! Vincent Erick Danzel was the dwarf-man of her vision.

“Sybil…run!” Vincent whispered it with such soft words that if it hadn’t been for his breath on her, she wouldn’t have heard it. “And doona’ look back. You ken?”

She met his eyes then, had a scant moment of time to see what he’d been keeping hidden, and then she was shoved aside with one arm as he brought down a torch with his other. And he was yelling. In the size of that room, his voice created as much havoc as the sparks showering about their legs did.

The floor was hard, but that made it easier to move. Sybil crawled to the firepit to yank the pot from its hook, ignoring the shadows dancing about the floor and walls. There was the sound of a gurgling throat. A clang of metal. An angry cry. More sounds of struggle. Another cry, this one of pain.

Sybil was on her feet and swinging the pot, rotating with it as she took in the sight of her husband surrounded by warriors who were beating on him, and yet he was still swinging. That’s when she did the only thing she could. She launched the pot at Vincent’s head. With perfect accuracy. She didn’t even hear the sickening clang as it hit.

Vincent dropped. First to his knees, and then full-out on the floor, while lukewarm stew splashed out, coating everything and everyone, and damping the last sizzling coals that came from the torch.

“Get her! But doona’ harm her! I’ve claimed her, lads!”

It was the MacHugh. Sybil lifted her chin and sneered across and up at him, astounded that he was taller than she was since he hadn’t looked it earlier.

“What of Danzel?” someone asked.

“I think she’s killed him!” another answered.

“I’d rather ken more of his wife. And the why of her act,” their laird answered without taking his eyes from her. “Well, lass?”

It took the most supreme acting of her life to ignore Vincent’s unconscious body. It took more of it to shrug, and then to smile with a deviousness she hadn’t known she possessed. “You have just rescued me, Laird MacHugh. The man was an arrogant brute. You have my thanks in that regard.”

“You’ll come without a struggle?”

She nodded, and kept the weeping inside.

Hugo MacHugh had a lovely castle, the complete opposite of what Sybil had been expecting. It was smaller than Eschoncan Keep and much smaller than Vincent’s, yet that gave it charm. It was nestled in a vale that was only one drum from Castle Danze. That one hill was a vast one, however, with steep shale sides amidst long slopes of grassy meadow. It was also unsheltered for the most part, with only a smattering of forest, making her shiver often during the day-and-a-half ride it took to reach it.

Her shivering could also be the result of fighting the disgusting weakness that was a hidden torrent of tears. And fight it she did, with every fiber of her being. She’d left Vincent Erick Danzel lying on his floor. Hurt. Dying. And nobody would ever know the truth.

Sybil hadn’t known how heartache felt. How it sapped a body’s strength and will and made it hard to pull in each breath. There was nothing the MacHugh could do that would be worse.

They offered her a flat piece of hard, unleavened bread when dawn broke. Sybil accepted it with a show of one hand. She munched on it slowly and deliberately and with painstaking attention to each crumb. She didn’t know how she was going to be able to swallow around the knot of emotion in her throat, but when Hugo offered her a swig of spirits from his sporran, she found it an easy matter after all. Without the whiskey. She just had to suck on all the moisture she could, lift her head to the cloud-filled sky, and swallow. Even if it scraped as it went down her throat. Especially as it did so.

She needed the assurance of pain. She knew it. Otherwise, there was nothing of sensory value to make her continue living. Breathing. And aching. Every beat of her heart sent pain through her. Over and over. Without end.

They’d arrived at his house near dawn of the second day. Sybil watched as the pink and light yellow of sunrise touched on warm, tan-colored stone that was surrounded by morning mist, giving it a fairylike quality.

MacHugh wasn’t speaking to her. Although her horse had been tied to his and she was directly behind him, he’d gifted her with silence. Through the entire ride, the only time he’d given her any thought was when they’d stopped for nature. He’d bound her wrist in order to accompany her. It hadn’t been needed.

She wasn’t going to flee him. There was nowhere to go. She was now on even stature with the cast-off wife, Mary Elizabeth, except Sybil had the hope that the Donal clan might actually ransom her. She hadn’t for a moment believed MacHugh meant to ravish her. She wasn’t a ripe, womanly sort. There was no reason why any man aside from Vincent would want her.

So far she’d been right. MacHugh’s conduct since abducting her showed that. He ignored her. All his taunts had been to get a reaction…and he’d gotten it.

She’d watched Hugo look over his shoulder more than once. The others in his group of clansmen appeared to do the same. She knew they were looking for pursuit. She also knew it was useless to check. Her entire form felt alone, bereft, and empty. Which would never be the case if Vincent had survived. She instinctively knew it. There was nobody to tell the tale. Nobody who cared.

Only her.

The knot of tears moved every time she thought of it, so she did her best to set it aside. She’d accepted their handout of dried berries and another flat cake as the sun set, ignored her belly’s grumbling of hunger as they all seemed to do. She’d managed to swallow that bit of sup as well. And she’d kept her seat atop the horse the entire ride to reach his castle, until it felt like her legs weren’t even her own. And she’d leaned forward, bracing herself against the horse’s neck in order to sleep, just as they’d done.

They’d sent a clansman on ahead. One that was light in stature and had a fast horse. She knew why. To make certain they were expected.

Sybil sat atop her horse and waited while her presence was noted and commented on by all the MacHugh clan milling about the castle grounds as if they had chores in the area and not to catch a glimpse of the Danzel laird’s wife.

She ignored them.

It took time to absorb the beauty of MacHugh’s inner courtyard. They’d filled the area all along the base of his walls with flowers and vines, and over the centuries a mesh of greenery had risen to encompass the lower floor. From there the vines seemed engrossed with overtaking more than one balcony on the second floor as well. Since it was still late summer, the entire area seemed alive with leaves and flowers and insects, speckling the dawn light as it tried to reach the castle walls. It wasn’t what she expected the man capable of whipping a lad to death to own. Not at all.

“My lady?”

A slight woman stood at the side of the horse, apparently tiring of waiting for Sybil to notice her. Sybil turned her head and peered down at the woman. And waited.

“My name is Iris. I’ve been assigned to serve you. I’ll be needing you to dismount now.”

Sybil smiled slightly. The knot in her throat twinged. She let the smile fall and blinked rapidly at the sudden moisture.

“Verra well.” Even saying that amount of words pained her throat. This was not good. It wasn’t enough that her heart sent ache through her, her throat had to punish her, too?

The woman stood to the side and waited while Sybil made her stiff, sore limbs function. Her legs even managed to work long enough to follow the woman through the front door and into a sunlit foyer that had even more beauty attached to it. That was when she had to grip to the back of a settee in order to remain standing while needles of agony speared her limbs. She knew it was from staying in one position for too long; she just wished it overrode the heartache.

“Will you need assist to your rooms?” Iris asked. “Perhaps a litter?”

Sybil straightened. She wasn’t going to need an assist anywhere. Ever again. Needing another human was what had gotten her to this wretched condition. She’d yet to decide how to live through it. Or even if it was possible. She shook her head.

“Follow me, then.”

The woman used a rapid motion as she went across the great hall and through a door. Sybil forced one foot in front of the other in order to follow. She’d teased her older sisters about their heart burnings. She’d giggled in the face of their suffering over being in love with men they weren’t destined for. She hadn’t realized then how bad it was. Now she did. It was worse than bad. It was poignant and real, and she already knew it was going to be everlasting.

And for some reason being in this beautiful castle made it all so much worse.

Tears flooded her eyes before she reached the doorway to the hall. Sybil held to the railing, going to her knees not only with the extent of physical ache her sobbing was engendering but also from the full agony of her failure to staunch any of it. Then Iris was at her side, clicking her tongue and murmuring of the trouble with overly emotional women.

And then Sybil had to suffer the ignominy of that as well.

Life at the MacHugh castle turned into a routine so quickly, Sybil hadn’t time to ponder it as the first day passed and then the next, and then more of them while all she was given to do was wander the hall and stay out of contact with anyone she might happen upon. She was allowed full access to the second floor of her tower and treated more as a guest than a prisoner. As long as she didn’t leave the area. Hugo MacHugh had guards posted at the first alcove of his stair every time she checked, so she quit checking. Without anything to do except look forward to the food tray delivered to her room, Sybil spent most of the time abed. Sleeping. And dreaming. And praying. And sending back her trays untouched.

She had no control. Always before, Sybil was the unseen hand behind events. Now she had nothing. Food was tasteless, mead and ales the same, and even the rain outside her chamber had no discernible smell. Such things must be the penalty to pay for manipulating. Sybil wasn’t living. She was existing, and she was getting thinner and more fragile-looking each day. She probably looked more like a shadow than ever. That’s exactly what she felt like, too.

Being a prisoner of the MacHugh wasn’t as she expected. It was worse.

The nights were absolute torture. The only part of her body that wasn’t reducing was her breasts. Those appendages had urges and passions and stifled desires that forced themselves onto her entire being until she’d awaken during the night with her covers twisted about her and images just fading, leaving her panting with an amalgamation of unrequited lust, passion, and desire. And longing for something she could never have again. It was a vicious, everlasting longing. Eternal. Soul-destroying.

And then everything changed.

The ninth day dawned with the spill of frost-ripe air coming through her open window to color everything in the room with a sparkle and a chill. Sybil breathed deeply of the air, pulling in a large portion of it in order to feed the tightness that she was putting into place in her chest.

It was a sin to kill oneself. It wasn’t so sinful to give oneself the ague and perish because of that. Anything was better than living through one heartache-filled day after another. She sucked in another chestful of moisture-laden air. That brought on the beginnings of a coughing spasm just as she’d hoped. She was still coughing when Iris opened the door, shutting it with a bang and then stomping her way across the chamber in order to pull the heavy glass panel closed and bar them. Then she pulled the heavy woolen drapes into place, shutting out the cold but also the beauty.

Sybil only thought about stopping her, since she couldn’t catch breath through the coughing in order to speak on it. Then it was over and she lay back against the pillows, feeling drained.

Which was just as she wanted it.

“The laird is na’ pleased. At all. He wishes to see you the moment you’ve been made presentable.”

Sybil shrugged, moving her shoulders against the bedding.

“You doona’ even care as to why?”

“The Danzel clan has na’ come for me?” Sybil’s voice broke. She caught her lip between her teeth and waited for Iris to note it.

“That is na’ the worse of it.”

“What is, then?”

“I’ll na’ say. He can tell you of it himself.”

The maid’s words were cryptic, as was the intent behind them. Sybil looked to the roof of her canopy bed, painted with white doves atop the wood. She’d studied it long enough she should have it memorized. There was nothing for it. She had to dress and find out what the laird of the MacHugh clan had in mind for her now.

“Did you launder my dress?” she asked, choking just slightly through the question and then gathering the strength to move from the bed. Weakness was just as she’d planned. Sybil would have smiled, but Iris wasn’t one for subtlety. That woman would be reporting it as something else. So Sybil kept the smile inside with the pain, where no one would ever see or know of it.

Which was the best way, actually. She’d always known it. She wondered for the thousandth time why she’d been so stupid as to allow herself to be swayed by this love emotion. She only wished Vincent had been right and there was no such thing. Then she wouldn’t be suffering while the entire world turned aside.

“I’ve brought you a freshly made one,” Iris replied.

“I doona’ wish a new one. I want my own. My Danzel one.” Sybil went into a hacking spasm midway through the declaration, and it continued unabated for some moments despite trying to staunch it. That ruined the aplomb she was trying to say it with, if not the entire thing. She didn’t need Iris’s laughter to convince her of it. But that didn’t stop the woman.

“Too bad you’re too weak to even put up a good fight. I could dress you in MacHugh tartan and you’d be unable to stay me.”

Sybil grabbed for the post to pull herself out of bed and ignored how the nightgown they’d given her gaped open in the front. She shouldn’t have. She realized it as Iris’s eyes widened.

“Oh my.” The maid said it in awed tones. “Bless the Lord! You’re with child, are na’ you?”

“’Tis too soon to tell!” Sybil was at the edge of the bed, waiting for the buzz in her ears to halt. That’s why the words were huffed with a whisper of sound.

“Too soon? Nae. ’Tis timely. This may save your neck.”

“I doona’ wish my neck saved.” Sybil was on her feet, holding to a bedpost while she swayed in place and watched little black dots dance through her vision until they quieted and then faded altogether.

“Oh aye. You do. All mothers do. Nae matter what the father may have done. The bairn is na’ to blame.”

Sybil’s eyes filled with tears, and she blinked as rapidly as possible, trying to send them into oblivion but instead ended up sending a trail of them down both cheeks. All of which she hung her head in order to hide. Loss of control had never been Sybil’s bane. She’d teased and tormented Kendran enough about it. Sybil should be strong enough to fight it. Now she knew the truth. Heartbreak was permanent, and it was vile. It was impossible to stave off or live through.

“Hurry!” Iris hissed the word. “The laird has news for you. He does na’ like to be kept waiting.”

Sybil shuddered through another sob, and then reached down to peel off her nightgown. She used the material to dry the residue of her tears away. She didn’t know why she argued over a new underdress and bliaut. What did it matter anyway if she was gowned head to toe in MacHugh red and gold? There was no one to see it that cared.

Iris helped her into a chemise of bleached white linen, and then the maid was helping Sybil don an underdress of ecru-shaded flax woven so tightly and with such fine threads that it was akin to being covered with a waterfall. It draped beautifully and was exactly to her proportions. The hemline just reached the floor, letting her slippers peep out.

The bliaut and sleeves were fashioned in graduating shades of charcoal wool of such finely spun threads it could have competed with the flax for fluid drape and shifting color. Sybil stood passively as Iris put the dress over her head and then had her lift each arm in order to pull the lacing through each sleeve before tying it beneath each arm. There was braided black lacing to crisscross about her waist and upper body, finishing at the bodice, where the dress cinched her into immobility as well as put on display the increased size of her bosom.