The Crimson Lady (5 page)

He had to make her stay for Elizabeth…

“Lady, you must listen to me,” he tried to say, though the words refused to push past the scorching needles that raked his throat. Ignoring the torture of it, he made himself swallow again.

“Don’t try to speak,” she cautioned.

“Nay,” he said hoarsely, grasping her hand in a death grip as he struggled to lift the lead weight of his head off the floor. “You must listen, lady—the one who has Elizabeth…it is Kendrick de Lacy…Lord Draven.”

“
Draven?
” Fiona said, frowning more deeply than before. “The fever has muddled your mind; Draven is the man who bought
me
those many years ago. He has nothing to do with your foster sister.” He saw the lines of disbelief etched into her face as she looked away from him toward the stairway. “I’ll have you brought above stairs. You will feel better after you rest.”

Braedan shook his head, desperate to make her understand before his senses slid completely from his grasp. “He will bring her to shame,” he muttered, digging his fingers into Fiona’s sleeve so tightly he could feel the delicate fabric shredding beneath his nails. He pulled her closer—close enough to hear his impassioned whis
per even as the darkness rose up, trying to drag him down into the oblivion he craved.

“You can’t leave…promise you won’t leave…I need your help to stop him, now more than ever—”

“What are you talking about?” she murmured, her stricken look belying the composure of her question.

“I need to tell you, lady…you must listen—I know he has Elizabeth, because Draven is my…”

Braedan’s voice trailed off, his mouth refusing to form the words anymore, as Fiona suddenly started to shatter and dissolve before him, fading into the whirling, black storm that finally began to close over his head. But just before it pulled him under, he managed to add in a mumbling whisper, “…he is my uncle.”

F
iona wanted to curl into a corner and sleep for a week, so deep was her weariness. She tossed the water-soaked cloth back into the bowl before sinking down next to the hearth again. Sighing, she leaned back onto the warm stones, wavering a little in her battle with exhaustion, though she knew that by resting at all she risked unleashing the demons that had begun returning to haunt her. They’d become stronger these past few days, slithering out whenever she wasn’t completely vigilant against them. She pinched the bridge of her nose, lifting her head to watch Braedan and trying to keep his condition and not her own fatigue at the center of her thoughts.

He slept quietly now, though his peaceful state had been hard-won; it had taken most of the past three days to bring him to this point, and then only thanks to her near-constant attention with the cooling rags and doses
of herbed wine she’d managed to make him swallow. He’d been senseless through most of it, either deathly still or thrashing with fever, his body’s heat searing through the garments she’d eventually stripped from him in order to cool him.

It was that action that had finally produced success—and some unexpected information as well. She’d discovered that he’d been beaten and confined recently, the raw, festering rope marks on his wrists and mottled bruises over the rest of his tautly muscled body giving evidence of a less than pleasant captivity. But it was the other partially healed injuries she’d found—the painstakingly carved gashes on his torso and arms—that had sent a chill of foreboding through her. She’d treated the cuts with her herb poultices, but the very sight of them had sent her demons into a wild frenzy again. It had taken all of her will not to flee the chamber, the inn, and Alton altogether, leaving Braedan to whatever Fate intended for him.

But in the end, she’d stayed, knowing she was powerless to reverse this path she’d been set upon, determined to see it through, now, no matter what. For those cuts had convinced her as nothing had before that this brooding mercenary knight had spoken the truth to her about his purposes and his foster sister’s plight. The gashes had clearly been made with a sharp instrument of some sort, their placement chosen with an eye for producing the utmost discomfort in the victim.

Just the kind of wounds Draven would relish inflicting.

The hollow feeling that had settled in Fiona’s stomach swelled, and she held her breath against it. She’d done everything in her power to keep Kendrick de Lacy, Lord
Draven, from invading her thoughts again, but the disturbing torrent of memories kept streaming back. She had tried to escape him. Tried to tell herself that when she ran far away, changed her appearance, and resumed her old name, she would finally be free of his honeyed touches, his seductive charms—his brutal obsession with her and the fear it sent spilling through her veins.

But he was still there, like the gilded snake of Scripture, tempting, beckoning, and all the more deadly for his wicked beauty.

Braedan’s breath caught as he slept, his body stiffening and his head thrashing on the bolster for a moment, bringing Fiona to her feet again so that she might check on him. She pulled her stool closer to his pallet, leaning over and brushing her fingers over his brow. He was still cool.

Adjusting the blanket around him, she quickly inspected the bandaged wounds on his arms and chest, satisfied to see that they looked clean; he’d have scars, but nothing worse than the other marks his powerful body already bore from unknown battles of the past. She wasn’t so certain that Braedan would appreciate her knowing what she’d learned about him in the course of tending him, but there’d been no help for it. Tipping a fresh cup of the cooled, herbed wine to his mouth, Fiona forced a few sips past his lips, watching his throat move as he swallowed. After a little while his breathing calmed once more.

It was likely naught but a bad dream that had disturbed him, then
.

Returning to her position at the hearth, Fiona resumed watching him, unmoving; the gray, predawn light in the chamber cloaked him in peaceful silence, his
dreams banished for the moment. But she couldn’t help wondering what images those nightmares had held, connected as they undoubtedly were to Draven.

Reaching up, she brushed her hand over her own scar, the one carved above her breast in the jagged shape of a heart, closing her eyes against the remembered pain and humiliation of that night. It had been an evil act, dark and sadistic. Draven’s patience with the women he selected and personally trained was legendary in the
stewes
, but that night his restraint had finally snapped, shifting to vicious retaliation. He had tied her down, then—he who had always prided himself on never needing to use force to bring any woman he wished under his complete control.

Aye, Draven was a man who’d savored his slow, deliberate seductions. Aided by his near-perfect face and form, he had always relished the game, turning the full power of his wicked charm on his chosen female prey until she lay panting and limp in his arms. Yet young as she’d been, Fiona had resisted for what she’d later learned was far longer than any other woman he’d known, unwittingly whetting his appetite for her. She had become his obsession, her introduction into carnal pleasures his only vocation.

And she’d succumbed, eventually. Given in to all that he commanded of her—even participation in the outrageous pretense that had ensured no other man but he would actually bed her. He had informed her of his decision to keep her for himself when her training was nearly complete, though she’d known that it was his perverse fascination with her and not some nobler instinct that goaded him into the proclamation. But when the time came that she should have been sent to one of his lodg
ings in the
stewes
, he had stayed true to his word and kept her back, installing her instead in chambers of his main residence at Chepston Hall. Then he’d applied his considerable intellect to coming up with a solution that would reconcile his uncharacteristic desire for her with his need to secure the profit he would lose by refusing to sell her to other men.

His plan had been shocking, yet brilliant as well…and she had hated him for it. Hated him for the degradation he inflicted by his own use of her, heaped with the vulgarity of the lie that was the Crimson Lady—hated him with a coldness that went bone deep, even as she continued to betray herself by pretending to respond to his undeniable skill and silken touches. But she’d never relinquished her heart. Nay, nor her soul either. And it was that withholding that had finally thwarted his obsessive desires and brought her, after several years in his keeping, to the night of unforgivable humiliation and pain at his hands.

Dragging in an uneven breath, Fiona forced her eyes open again and pushed away the bitter memories. None knew the secret of her past except for herself, Draven, and Will. Undoubtedly no one would accept the truth of her limited experience, discounting it, rather, as a fantastical tale, even were she foolish enough to try to defend herself with it. It was far easier for those who saw the Crimson Lady to believe her a fallen woman of the worst sort—and she’d never argued the point, for in spirit she knew they were right. She was well and fully ruined in every way that truly mattered, forever dead to gentle emotions or the ability to feel love. It was Draven’s legacy to her, branded into her soul as surely as the perverse heart had been carved onto her chest.

Blinking, Fiona lifted her gaze to Braedan, sleeping peacefully on the pallet—a seeming paragon of virtue, willing to risk his life for the sake of a foster sister’s honor. But what kind of man was he, really? Compared to Draven, he appeared tantamount to a saint, but she wasn’t sure she truly believed the purity of his motivation in coercing her. Based on her knowledge of men and their workings, it was near impossible to accept that he would be willing to imperil himself in such a way for the simple sake of another’s honor or safety. There might well be other forces that drove him in his quest, forces she hadn’t been able to discern yet.

Still, that he sprang from a family known for justice and honor couldn’t be denied; she’d almost fallen over in shock when, sick as he was, he’d drawn his sword in defense of her in the common room belowstairs. Never could she remember any man having put himself in harm’s way for her sake. As a street waif she’d been beneath most men’s notice, and then later, after her transformation into the Crimson Lady, she’d been worth even less in society’s estimation.

Aye, Braedan de Cantor had surprised her with his action on her behalf. But she couldn’t forget that he was also the same man who had burst into her life brandishing threats and bearing a damning connection to the one person she despised most in the world.

He’d assured her that it was an association by marriage and not by blood, and she believed it, now more than ever, for while both men were tall and well built, there were undeniable differences between them. By her figuring, Draven was nearly ten years older, his coloring and bearing darkly exotic, the beauty of his face rivaled only by the perfection of his elegant form. Braedan,
however, possessed a warrior’s body, powerfully muscular, and he was of fairer complexion, square-jawed and resolute, with wavy hair of rich walnut hue and startling blue eyes that seemed to pierce her defenses. Neither man made her feel the least bit comfortable, but she had to admit that even with the panicked anger Braedan had inspired in her from the start, she’d somehow sensed that she would be safe in his company.

With Draven, that had never been a consideration.

Breathing deep and exhaling on a sigh, Fiona forced herself to unclench the twisted ball of her fingers, clasped in a death grip atop her upraised knees. She flexed her hands, wincing at the tingling stiffness, while her thoughts spun round the unavoidable truth. Sooner or later she would once again need to face the man who had stolen her innocence and corrupted her beyond redemption. If she complied with Braedan’s coercion, it was a foregone conclusion. She’d avoided it as long as she could—had
intended
to avoid it for the rest of her days, preferring padded, matronly obscurity to the chance of attracting Draven’s notice again—but now it seemed inescapable.

The situation was going to become even more complicated, she knew, once they rejoined Will and his men in the forest. She was going to have to convince Braedan to keep quiet about their true purposes; if Will learned of their plan, he would be furious, entirely opposed to the risk she’d be undertaking by returning to the
stewes
. The fact that she’d be helping to rescue an innocent woman from the same evil web that had ensnared her eleven years ago wouldn’t matter. He wouldn’t understand, either, the muted call for vengeance that she was just beginning to recognize in herself—the reckless need to
thwart Draven and make him pay in some way for what he’d done, now that the chance had fallen so clearly into her lap.

But her decision had been made. In those first, dark hours after Braedan was brought, feverish and incoherent, to her chamber, she’d resolved to stop fighting it—to cease looking for a means of escape. She was going to help him, whether or not he was the honest man he claimed to be. Draven’s involvement had changed everything.

Fiona tilted her head back, her eyes fluttering shut at last under the force of her exhaustion. But just before she drifted off into dreams writhing with painful shadows, Braedan’s image filled her mind, his gaze full of sincerity, his voice echoing with that husky, persistent entreaty that had somehow captured her attention from the first, even when she didn’t know the truth of his plight or his suffering at Draven’s hands.

Aye, it was a fine predicament Braedan de Cantor had mired them in, she mused, frowning as she slid deeper into restless slumber.

A mess that would require all of her skill if she was to free them of it with bodies and souls intact.

Braedan struggled to open the lead weight of his eyelids, wincing at the ache that gripped his head in the blinding light. With a groan he flung his forearm over his face, only to stiffen when he felt a thick bandage brushing his cheek. He frowned, blinking and lifting his arm again as he tried to focus on the white padding wrapped round his wrist; another pad was bound with linen strips up near his shoulder.
Blood of saints, what was this…?

Biting back another groan, he pushed himself to a
half-sitting position and squinted down at his torso, looking at the numerous dressings covering the cuts his uncle had ordered dealt to him during his days of captivity and torture at Chepston Hall. But how had they been tended to without his knowing? He scowled. What had happened to his shirt and his—

Suddenly, memory slid back into place and he sat up straighter, ignoring the thousand jabbing pains that lanced through his body with the movement. The Crimson Lady. Ah, yes. He’d found her…brought her back to Alton with him…they’d been in the common room of the inn, where she’d revealed herself and asked for information about her thieving partners. And then…

“You’re awake, I see.”

Bringing his hand to his eyes, Braedan rubbed, trying to clear the blurriness enough to see Fiona where she stood in the doorway. She swept into the chamber without another word, carrying a tray on which balanced a pitcher, a dark-crusted loaf of bread, and a bowl of something warm enough to send curls of steam twisting above it.

“How long have I been here?” he said, wincing at the gravelly, unused quality of his voice.

“Nearly four days.”

She stopped near the bed and set the tray on the little table next to it before turning back to him and bending to examine the wounds on his chest and arms in a matter-of-fact way. Of a sudden Braedan was acutely aware that he was sitting half-clothed in the presence of a woman he hardly knew; he shifted in embarrassment, and then as abruptly stiffened.
Christ’s Blood.
It wasn’t just his tunic and shirt that had been removed.
All
of his garments were gone. Every bit of clothing.

Fiona didn’t seem to notice his discomfiture, continuing to inspect his bandages and feeling his brow until he squirmed again, pulling away from her touch to tuck the bedcovers more firmly around his hips. She straightened and backed up a step at his show of modesty, surprise and perhaps a bit of annoyance showing in her expression. But then she just shook her head and made a clicking noise, moving instead to the task of readying the food she’d brought in for him.