Temptress (19 page)

And it had been a grave mistake.

She’d known it nearly as soon as the words of “I will” had passed her lips.

Panic nearly strangled her. Surely Ryden wouldn’t take matters into his own hands, not here in Calon, where she was ruler. Or would he?

So lost in her thoughts was she that she’d nearly forgotten that Sir Alexander was still standing only inches away from her, his dark eyes filled with unspoken questions. Questions she had to answer.

“Lord Ryden will be visiting,” she announced, forcing a lilt she didn’t feel into her voice and tamping down her rising sense of dread. “In three days’ time.”

A muscle worked beneath the thick beard of Alexander’s jaw.

“I’ll tell Alfrydd, so that he can prepare.”

“Thank you,” she said, though her heart was even heavier than before. What would she say to the man? She didn’t love him, never had and never would, but now, because of her rash decision, they had an agreement and love had never been a part of it. Often, marriage was not about love.

And if he wanted to inflict his own swift justice on Carrick, she would forbid it. Here, her word was law.

She notched her chin up a bit. Forced a smile. “It will be good to see Lord Ryden again.”

Alexander silently accused her of the lie.

“Was there something else?” she asked and felt her cheeks warm under his steady gaze.

The captain of the guard cleared his throat. Finally he looked away. “Yes, m’lady. You said that you would decide today if you were going to send a messenger to Lord Graydynn,” he reminded her. “To tell him about the capture . . . er, the discovery of Carrick.”

Morwenna nodded. Despite the horrid events of the early morning hours, she’d not forgotten about Graydynn, a man she’d met more than once, a cold, hard-edged ruler whose expression was always of irritation or boredom. “Aye. I’ve given it much thought,” she admitted, clasping her hands behind her back as they reached the great hall, where trestle tables were being arranged for the morning meal. “I’ll see the scribe this afternoon and compose a letter, though I’m not certain yet when or if I’ll send it.”

“But, m’lady, what good will it do here, at Calon? You could send the letter by messenger. Sir Geoffrey would be a good choice to carry it. He was a page at Wybren and knows Lord Graydynn. Or perhaps Father Daniel, as he is Lord Graydynn’s brother.”

Morwenna was vexed. “If the baron does not know that Carrick was found outside my castle gates, I’m not ready to reveal that Carrick is here.”

“Why?” he asked, and the damning question seemed to ricochet around the corridor, bouncing off the whitewashed walls and repeating itself over and over in Morwenna’s brain.
Why? Why? Why?

She had no answer. “ ’Tis my decision,” she said tightly. “I’ll do what
I
think best.”

“Against the advice of those sworn to protect you?”

“Yes, Sir Alexander, if I deem it necessary. I’ll consider all you’ve said, but in the end, ’twill be my determination and mine alone.”

“M’lady—”

“That is all, Sir Alexander.” She lifted her chin a bit and glared up at him. He hesitated slightly, gave a stiff nod, and turned on his heel.

As he left, she let out her breath and saw that the letter in her hand had been crumpled until it was no longer legible. Which was just as well.

Until she learned the truth, she wasn’t ready to turn the patient over to Graydynn of Wybren. Not yet. Not until she was certain the wounded, silent man was Carrick.

She only hoped she had enough time before the word of his attack crossed the entire realm.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

T
he patient lay still. He was weak, his stomach crying out for food, his lips dry and cracked from lack of water. Though he remembered having broth forced down his throat and water poured over his lips, he felt parched.

He’d woken this morning and opened his eyes to find that he could see much more clearly. He could move without as much mind-searing pain. He could move his hand to touch his face, and he’d felt the swelling, but the agony that had been a part of his body had diminished.

Earlier, he’d nearly let on that he was conscious when he’d heard the guards talking, catching muted bits of conversation that he’d pieced together. The guards talked of a murder that had taken place in the keep and that the Lady Morwenna was sending a messenger to Lord Graydynn of Wybren to announce that she was holding Graydynn’s cousin Carrick as hostage or prisoner.

He tried to remember Graydynn. . . . Surely he should have some feelings about the lord—his cousin? But he could conjure up no image of the man and was left with only a disquieting fear that if Graydynn found out about him, it would be his death sentence. What little he could remember of the Baron of Wybren was that he had been a surly, jealous man . . . or had that been Graydynn’s father . . . what was his name? He concentrated but ended up with only a headache for his trouble.

The images in his head were hard to catch, just fleeting thoughts that ran away the second he tried to capture them.

He remembered Wybren Castle. Or some parts of it. Could still smell the fire . . . witnessed the flames climbing up the walls. Or were those thoughts just imaginings, dreams he’d concocted from all the conversation he’d heard while lying here unable to move?

He’d been forced to listen to gossip about a great fire at Wybren, a fire started by Carrick, the man everyone assumed him to be. Carrick the traitor. Carrick the murderer of seven innocent souls. Carrick the hideous. Was it possible? Had he really so callously killed his family?

If so—why?

His feelings for what he remembered of his family were hard to sort, his memories broken and jumbled. . . . He did think he had brothers and sisters . . . aye, and he hadn’t been fond of all of them. But their faces were a blur to him—murky images that evoked sensations of restlessness, pain and, aye, jealousy and hatred.

Was it true?

Was he the monster everyone believed?

He set his jaw and forced the damning questions from his brain. He didn’t have the time now to concentrate. Soon the guard would check on him. He had to act quickly.

As he had throughout the day when alone, he forced one leg to move. Again. It swung off the bed without too much pain.

He tried the other and felt the sluggish muscles protest as he shifted so that both feet landed on the floor.

Now the real test.

Slowly, thinking he might fall into a heap, he pushed himself to a standing position. To his surprise his legs were able to bear his weight. For the first time.

Taking a deep breath, he took one step.

Pain burned up his leg.

His knee held. He took a deep breath.

Another step.

He nearly fell, then caught himself. Sweat covered his body. Every little movement was an effort. But his knees didn’t buckle.

Again he tried to walk. He felt some pain, but with each step it lessened a bit, his stiffened muscles loosening. To his surprise most of the agony he’d experienced when he’d first awakened in this chamber days before seemed to have eased.

He had no real plan, just an understanding that if he didn’t escape, he would surely be sent to Wybren to face Graydynn’s justice, whatever that might be. He couldn’t remember his cousin but instinctively distrusted the man, who would doubtlessly hang him and then draw and quarter him for treason and seven deaths.

He had to bear at least some resemblance to Carrick, as everyone’s reaction to him was the same: he was the killer. Even if he remembered his true identity and protested his innocence, it would be to no avail. Even if there was doubt as to his identity, because of the damned ring being found with him, he would be considered at the very least a thief.

There was more, as well.

The person who had benefitted from the fire had been Graydynn. So did it not stand to reason that Graydynn or one of his soldiers may have been behind the tragedy at Wybren? Mayhap the stableboy who had witnessed “Carrick” ride away had been paid to make the claim.

Only he could uncover the truth, and there was no time to waste. Every so often a guard, or a servant, or even the lady herself would visit his room, and if he was discovered awake, he would have no chance of escape, no opportunity to redeem himself, no way to uncover the truth.

If he were not to ferret out what really happened at Wybren, then who?

He would start tonight. Slowly, ears straining to hear anything from the hallway on the other side of the large oaken door, he walked the perimeter of the large chamber, and as he did, his gaze swept the walls and floor. He studied the corners and where the individual stones butted against each other. Somewhere, he knew, there was another entrance to this room, a hidden doorway. Unless he’d dreamed of the man standing over him, of the quiet sound of stone scraping against stone as a secret portal opened. He’d not been able to move his head or cast his gaze about when his nocturnal visitor had arrived, but he’d been awake enough to know that whoever had hovered over him that night had made his way through a secret entrance in the corner opposing the doorway to the hall.

Carefully he lifted a rushlight from a wall sconce and held it aloft. Was he wrong? His nightmares from the pain so vivid that he believed them? Gaze inching over each stone, he scrutinized the wall and floor, touched the smooth stones and rough mortar, and found nothing.

’Twas just a dream, he decided, but the rushes on the floor caught his attention. They had been strewn randomly, straw and dried flowers scattered over the stones, but in one spot, close to the far corner of the room, they’d been pushed into a small pile, as if swept together.

Heart thudding, he knelt closer, ignoring the jab of pain that ran up his leg. He ran his fingers over the flat stones of the floor and noticed the tiniest scratch upon the surface of one large stone.
Here
, he thought,
here is where the bastard entered
. Narrowing his eyes, he focused hard on the wall above the scratch. Nothing seemed amiss.

“Damn,” he muttered but refused to give up.

Surely, if there was an entrance, it would have to be cut squarely, so that the door would move easily. And it would have to be raised ever so slightly from the floor.

In pain, he lay upon the floor directly in front of where he suspected the door to be. He closed his eyes and concentrated, and yes, he felt the slightest hint of a draft that moved beneath the area where the door should be. So where was it? How did it move?

“M’lady!” The sentry’s voice from the other side of the door.

Damn
.

“I’d like to see the patient.”

“Again?” the sentry demanded.

He jumped to his feet. His knees protested and he bit down hard to keep from crying out.

There was a heart-stopping moment of silence.

He crept back to the bed.

“Now, Sir James,” Morwenna said. “And I’ll hear no argument about it.”

Then came the sound of a lock opening, and he dived into the bed, his body screaming with the effort. He managed to slip beneath the covers and close his eyes just as he sensed the door swing open.

“I’d like to be alone with him,” Morwenna ordered.

His heart was knocking so loudly, so quickly. Surely she would be able to hear it.

“Sir Alexander won’t like it.”

He forced a calm over his muscles, breathed deep through his nose.

“I’ll handle Sir Alexander, and I see no reason to have this conversation again.”

He slowly let out his breath.

There was a tense moment in which the patient could feel the guard’s indecision before he said reluctantly, “As you wish, m’lady.”

She waited a few minutes, as if giving herself time to compose herself or to make certain they were alone, and then he heard the sound of quick footsteps as she approached his bed. His every nerve ending was taut, aware of her movements as she slowly walked around his resting spot. At first she didn’t speak and it was all he could do to feign unconsciousness.

“Well, Sir Carrick,” she finally said, as if she expected him to hear her. “ ’Tis done.” A few seconds passed and he still pretended to sleep, not daring to move a muscle. She plunged onward. “As I promised, I’ve composed a letter to Lord Graydynn, though it’s still in my keeping. If I decide to send the letter and Baron Graydynn isn’t away but is actually residing at Wybren, he could know within a day’s time that you are here at Calon.” She waited as if she expected him to say something.

He concentrated on his breathing.

Sensed her stepping closer.

Her voice lowered to the barest of whispers as she inched her mouth so close to his ear that he felt the warmth of her breath slipping across his skin. “Listen, Carrick, and I pray to God that you can hear me: I know not what you did at Wybren, and even though you are a scoundrel—nay, much worse, a piece of pig dung—I find it impossible to believe that you killed your family, that you’re a murdering traitor. That is even lower than I would expect of you.”

Again the hesitation, and it was all he could do to keep his eyes shut, his body relaxed as if in slumber.

“But what happens to you next is not my decision. No matter what I believe. It is my duty to my ally to report that we’ve found you. So if you can hear me, let me know. Move your eyelids or your fingers or . . . Oh, fie and fiddlesticks!” She blew out an exasperated breath. “I don’t even know what I’m doing here. ’Tis a mistake.” She straightened, and he no longer felt the heat pulsing off her skin but imagined her pushing her hair away from her face in frustration. “So . . . Oh, by the gods, this is mistake. . . .”