Temptress (34 page)

To Graydynn.

Teeth clenched, hand tight upon his weapon, he moved into the upper hallway, different from what he remembered, yet the same. Rushlights burned in new sconces and the hallway seemed wider, its whitewashed walls clean and new.

His heart thudded.
So this is where it had happened. This is where they died.
His blood pulsed hard through his veins and different emotions tore at him. He’d loved her. And hated her. Trusted her. And been betrayed.

He remembered a woman. “Alena.”

Pausing at a spot where he knew the doorway to his private chamber had been, he touched the wall. A sense of déjà vu overcame him and he saw her inside the room, whispering to him in words he didn’t understand. She curled a finger toward him, inviting him inside, and though he knew he was making a mistake crossing the threshold, he couldn’t resist, had never been able to resist her.

His chest tightened until he could scarcely breathe. He’d never been able to breathe when he thought of her and how she’d died and now, because he’d survived, he felt a wedge of guilt cut deep into his heart. He’d loved her. But maybe he hadn’t loved her as much as he could have.

Alena!
He momentarily closed his eyes and saw her: gold hair that fell to her waist, impish eyes, perfect breasts, and a nipped-in waist. “Come to me,” she’d whispered, and though he’d known he shouldn’t trust her again, he’d walked willingly into the room. . . .

“So it’s true!” A voice cut through his vision and he whirled, weapon drawn. Too late, he realized he wasn’t alone. Someone else was creeping in the hallway.

There, but a few paces from him, was his cousin.

Graydynn of Wybren smiled, his white teeth slashing beneath his beard. “So it’s true,” he said with a shake of his head. “Carrick is, indeed, alive.”

“I hate to bother you, m’lady. I know you’ve got much on your mind,” Sarah, the sheriff’s wife, said anxiously. “But ’tis unlike my husband to not return.” She stood in front of Morwenna in the great hall, wringing her hands nervously.

“He’s the sheriff, Sarah,” Morwenna said. “Surely he’s been gone for longer than this before.” Morwenna motioned to the chair beside her and the big woman dropped down. She sat on the very edge of the seat as if she wanted to bolt at any second.

“Aye, but he’s always told me . . . how long he thought he’d be gone. ‘Sarah, I’ll be gone three days, and if ’tis longer, I’ll send a messenger to let you know so you don’t worry,’ he’d say. Or ‘I’ll be back by nightfall; mind that you keep the porridge warm.’ But in all our years of marriage, never did he say, ‘I’ll be gone but a few hours’ and then be away far into the night. Aye, I’ve waited up for him a time or two, when something prevented him from returning as planned, but always only a few hours.”

“This time is different,” Morwenna said.

“Aye.” She nodded sharply several times. “He told me he was off to talk to a farmer with Sir Alexander, and this was before dawn, mind ye.” She bit at her lower lip, realized what she was doing, and stopped suddenly. “He said he’d miss the first meal, to be sure, but be back by midday.”

“And now it’s nightfall.”

“Aye, I’m sure he would have sent word if he could . . . knowing how I worry and all.” She clasped her hands in front of her. “I fear something’s happened to him, m’lady,” she said in a voice that was little more than a squeak. “And with all that’s gone on around here . . . with what’s happened to poor, poor Isa and, oh, Sir Vernon.” She clapped a hand over her bosom, swallowed hard, and looked away. “ ’Tis a worry, m’lady. ’Tis a worry and then some.”

Morwenna wanted to dismiss the woman’s fears, to console her, to advise her that everything was as it should be, but it would have been a lie. “We must wait through the night, Sarah,” she said, “but I’ve already decided that with the new day, I’ll send out a search party.”

“Must you wait?” Wide eyes blinked. “By then it could be too late.”

Inwardly Morwenna agreed. She, too, was concerned that something dreadful had happened. “I fear there is nothing we will find in the storm, at least not before morning’s light.” She offered a smile and patted the woman’s hand. “Have faith,” she suggested when her own was in tatters. “Mayhap he’ll return soon. I know that he and Sir Alexander are both intelligent, strong men, unlikely to be duped, and each is handy with a sword.”

“Aye, but sometimes a sword is not enough,” Sarah said as she stood. She took her leave. For a long moment Morwenna sat in silent agreement. She drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair and tried to console herself with the thought that she had not sat idle. Mort, rousing from his spot on the other side of the fire, came to her side, and she scratched his ears.

Earlier this day she’d asked Sir Lylle to dispatch messengers into the town to locate the physician and the priest. So far, the two men hadn’t returned. Nor had the messengers. “How odd,” she said, and felt a niggle of fear, a sense that treason was afoot. Why else was it that everyone who had left Calon today had then disappeared, as if they’d fallen off the face of the earth?

Her eyes narrowed on the fire.

In all the years she’d hoped and worked toward running her own barony, she’d never considered how difficult it might be. She’d been tested, aye, when she first arrived at Calon and, as a woman, had expected it would take time for her subjects to accept her. She’d hoped that by ruling with a level head, firm hand, and warm heart, the people would come to trust and respect her. But it hadn’t happened as she’d planned, and she’d often felt the tension in the air between those who did accept her as the lady of the keep and those who would never trust an unmarried woman to make their decisions for them.

Until Carrick had been brought through the castle gates, she’d worked diligently toward the single end of being the best ruler she could be, but the sight of her old lover, beaten and nearly dead, had proved her undoing. Everything she’d worked toward, all her hopes had not only been challenged but dashed, and it was she who by sleeping with him had sealed her own fate: She would never be trusted in her own keep.

“Fie and fiddlesticks!” she grumbled under her breath, and the dog beside her whined. “You’re all right,” she said to him, though she felt ice in her blood at the thought of treason within the keep. Was that it? Was someone plotting to take over Calon?

She glanced around the room. A few servants were stacking the tables against the walls after the evening meal as a cat slunk through the shadows. The castle dogs barely lifted their heads at this intruder. Even Mort didn’t seem to notice the black feline. Was she like the dogs, filled with a false sense of safety?

Who at Calon could she trust?

That question was a ghost stepping through her mind.

The people you trusted are gone.
Her jaw slid to one side and she wondered if she’d somehow become the center of a plot. Had she not felt that she was being spied upon? Had she not overheard snippets of conversation questioning her abilities, primarily because she hadn’t been born a man? Had she not sensed the tension, noticed the tight, disapproving smiles, the mistrust in several sets of eyes? Some of her enemies were obvious: the alchemist, the tanner, and two or three of the huntsmen had done their best to avoid her. Whenever they did have to deal with her, they were curt and rushed. And the potter was a crafty man. She did not believe she could ever trust him because he seemed to speak from two sides of the same mouth. The miller’s wife was a cold woman who always fancied other women had their eyes on her toothless, leering husband. And then there was the priest and physician—she’d never known where she stood with either of them. Now both were missing, despite the messengers. Aye, something was amiss.

And it had started with finding Carrick outside the keep. He was the key. Since bringing him inside there had been two murders and now people were missing. According to Sir Lylle everyone in the keep had been questioned and questioned again.

Not everyone,
she thought. For some reason Sir Lylle had balked at speaking with Brother Thomas, which was a mistake. Not his first.

Again she reasoned she could rely only upon herself. As she’d promised Sarah, she would ride at dawn and try to locate Sir Alexander and the sheriff. But she would not sit around until then. Tonight she would approach the south tower and speak to the old monk herself. According to Fyrnne, Brother Thomas had lived in Calon as long as anyone, and there was a chance that from his position high above the bailey, he had witnessed something out of the ordinary the night before.

She only hoped he hadn’t taken a vow of silence!

 

“Just get on the damned horse!” The voice was loud. Imperious. Used to giving commands.

Alexander wanted to fight. To take his sword and run the thug through, but it was too late for that. Blindfolded, he climbed upon the steed—his horse, he thought, for the saddle felt familiar and the animal’s gait was the same steady walk he was used to. That at least was something—to be upon his own steed.

But not enough, he feared, his hands bound, his jaw aching with a blinding pain.

He and the sheriff, thinking they were going to the aid of a farmer who’d been the victim of a vicious attack, had instead been played for fools. They’d come to the farmer’s house at dawn and pounded loudly on the door.

When no one had answered, they’d broken down the door and found the farmer in the center of the room, chickens, pigs, and goats running free around him on the packed dirt floor. The fire was no longer burning, but they’d seen that the man was beaten to a pulp, his hands and ankles bound and tied together, a rope strung through his blood-crusted mouth.

The farmer had yelled as they entered, his eyes widening in horror. Too late Alexander had realized he and Payne had walked into a trap. They’d been attacked from behind. Been hit hard enough upon their heads to send both he and Payne to their knees. Chickens had squawked and scattered; a goat bleated and ran over his legs in terror. A blackness had pulled at his brain, though he’d managed somehow not to lose consciousness.

He’d tried to stand and whirl, to lash out with his sword, but the men—and there had been many of them—had quickly knocked him down again, his face hitting the hard, packed earth. Before he could react, they’d covered his head with a rough sack and stripped him of his weapon. Roaring, he’d managed to fling himself to his feet and swing around, kicking hard and wounding one of his would-be captors. He’d heard the man howl in pain before someone hissed, “Bloody stinking bastard!”

A bootheel had cracked hard against his jaw.

Blinding pain had burst though his head. His teeth had rattled and his legs had finally given out. He’d gone down like a mortally wounded stag, falling to his knees again. Before he could breathe his hands were jerked roughly together and his wrists bound with leather straps that slashed deep into his flesh. A gag had been forced over the bag and pulled tight about his head.

“There ya go, mate, trussed up like a damned Christmas goose!” the same foul-breathed man had said before cackling at his own pathetic joke.

Such mortification.

Now, hands tied behind his back, his mouth aching as he sat astride the horse, he strained his ears. The men were talking, but he could not identify any of the voices. He wasn’t even certain that Payne had been brought along with this party of thugs, but Alexander thought he must still be in the ragtag party. He fervently hoped they were together, that somehow they could overcome their attackers.

And how will you do that,
captain of the damned guard
?

His big shoulders slumped. By the saints, he’d failed.

Not only himself and the keep, but Lady Morwenna, the woman who depended upon him, the woman he loved.

Aye, he was a sorry specimen for captain of the guard of Calon Keep. The days of wishing that he were of a noble station, that he could dare ask the lady to be his wife, had been as easily stripped from him as his own sword. In truth, that particular dream seemed a lifetime ago, as if it had happened to another man.

Despite the pain, Alexander tried to concentrate, to keep his wits about him. Where were these cutthroats taking him and why? He knew not in which direction they were riding, but he smelled the scent of wet bark and leaves over the smell of rain. Straining to hear, he listened hard and a few of the words whispered between the men came to his ears. Some were unintelligible, but others were clear. “Calon” and “Carrick” and “vengeance” all were mentioned.