Dark Immortal (8 page)

When
he’d finished, he dragged the naked man over to the others and tied him up, as
well, then settled in a chair before the room’s small brazier to warm himself
and think.

He
would need an army to reclaim what was rightfully his and he must take what was
rightfully his before he claimed Bronwyn as his wife, else he would not have
the wherewithal to hold her against the king.

Fortunately,
he had an advantage no one else had. 

He
had built Raventhorne.  He knew all of its secrets.

Chapter Nine

Bronwyn
had had a good deal of time to regret her emotional outburst.  Indeed, she
could not fathom what had come over her.  She had managed to remain stoic in
the face of William’s cruelties, even the beatings.

And
yet Nightshade’s gentleness had undone her!

She
could only think that he had believed nothing that she had said for weeks had
past and she had seen nothing of him. 

It
was impossible to keep her fears at bay.  She had imagined so many reasons for
his absence that she was nigh sick with worrying herself.  The worst fear was
that she had, somehow, done or said something that had altered the curse upon
him in some terrible way, but she could not dismiss that as pure imagination.

He
no longer guarded the front gate of the keep.  Trapped inside by the blizzard
that had held Raventhorne in its grip for weeks, she had not discovered that
until the servants began to whisper that Raventhorne’s guardian had vanished. 
Fear had gripped everyone within the castle from lowliest servant to the
highest.  The absence of the guardian of the keep filled them all with a deep
foreboding that they were perched on the eve of disaster.  Everywhere she went
there were whispers of all sort of disasters that would befall Raventhorne and
the people within in the event the keep lost its guardian.

Bronwyn
did not know whether the tales she heard were a part of the original curse or
if everyone was making them up out of fear.

There
were whispers that he had attacked soldiers of the keep and then cursed them
and flown away.

She
did not know what to think, but she found she could not quake over some
unnamed, possible disaster.  To her mind nothing could be much worse than the
marriage the king would force upon her when she loved Nightshade.  Nothing
could be worse than the fact that he had left her thinking terrible things, she
was certain, and she might never get the chance to make him understand that she
cared for him.

* * * *

At
any other time, the troupe of men that appeared at Raventhorne’s gates would
have caused some consternation, but it would not have put the entire keep into
a panic.  Weeks of speculation about the ‘curse’ had severely undermined
morale, however, particularly since the winter had been more violent than
anyone recalled and stores had already begun to run low since the heavy and
frequent snowfall made it impossible for men to go out and hunt to replenish the
meat supply.

The
banner displayed only added to the uneasiness, for it depicted a great black
bird perched upon a thorny vine.

It
was not the husband the king had promised.  Bronwyn was certain of that even
before Sir Fitzhugh had ordered the gates closed and routed the men from the
great hall to man the walls of the keep. 

The
king had promised her six months.  Moreover, few traveled at such an ungodly
time of the year unless they had very good reason to do so, and the snow only
meant less likelihood that the troupe of men would have stirred to brave the
elements.

The
banner piqued her curiosity, however, and Bronwyn found she couldn’t resist the
urge to bundle up and see for herself what the men outside the gates were
about--whether they represented a threat or were only travelers seeking shelter
from the weather.

Fortunately,
Fitzhugh was too intent himself on discovering the intentions of the men beyond
the gates to pay her any mind as she made her way up onto the battlements and
peered down at the strangers. 

It
was a rather large troupe of men, Bronwyn discovered, feeling uneasiness begin
to tingle along her nerve endings even before she spied the banner.  Her heart
seemed to stand still in her chest when a sudden gust of wind lifted it,
unfurling it.  She knew that banner.  She did not know how, but she was
suddenly certain she did.

Raventhorne.

The
leader nudged his horse forward as Fitzhugh called out a demand to know their
business.

The
man lifted his head, scanning the walls above him and, despite the helmet that
obscured his face, Bronwyn had the uncanny sense that his gaze had settled upon
her.

“I
am Marcus Raventhorne … And I have come to claim what is mine.”

Stunned
silence greeted the bold announcement for several moments before Sir Fitzhugh
broke it with a bark of a laugh that held no humor at all.  “I hold these lands
in the name of the king, for the Lady of Raventhorne,” he growled finally. 
“You expect to besiege this keep with no more than a handful of men?”

“Nay. 
I expect to
take
this keep and its lady,” the knight retorted, lifting
his arm into the air and bringing it down again in a sharp chopping motion. 
“Now!”

Still
completely stunned by the man’s audacity, expecting an attack from the men
beyond the walls, it took many moments for the defenders to assimilate the fact
that the sudden burst of action all along the walls was an attack and by that
time the battle was all but lost. 

Too
frozen with fear and shock to flee, Bronwyn merely stared in complete
incomprehension as the castle’s defenders seemed to turn upon each other all
along the wall.  By the time she grasped that the castle had somehow been
infiltrated by the stranger’s army and whirled to flee, the portcullis was
rising and the drawbridge falling to admit their attackers.

Whirling
the moment her mind finally assimilated the threat, Bronwyn darted between the
knots of battling men and rushed down the stairs.  Even as she reached the
courtyard, however, men mounted upon war horses had begun to spill through the
gates.  Uttering a gasp of fright, she gathered her skirts higher and ran
faster, too panicked to realize she had no hope of outrunning mounted men. 

A
mailed arm snagged her around the waist, snatching her off her feet and
crushing the air from her lungs as she was jerked against an armor plated
chest.  Fear not common sense inspired her to fight for her freedom, but she
quickly discovered that she had neither the strength nor the leverage to offer
much in the way of resistance.

“Be
still, little rose,” he growled as he locked his arm tightly around her.  “I
mean you no harm.”

His
words penetrated her fear and Bronwyn glanced up at him sharply, trying to see
the face of the man who held her.  Her heart skipped several beats as her gaze
met his for there was something hauntingly familiar about those eyes.

“Who
are you?” she demanded in a hoarse whisper.

Something
flickered in his eyes.  “Am I so different now that you do not know me?”

Bronwyn
felt the color drain from her face, but she could not accept that what she
believed was truth.  It couldn’t be.  It must be no more than her imagination,
spawned by the hope that had never died, but the desire that had never been far
from her thoughts.  She ceased to struggle though, as much from hope as from
the realization that fighting was useless.

The
battle, she saw when she turned to look around them, was all but finished. 
He’d planned well, whoever he was, though she still could not understand how he
had breached the walls of the keep without being detected. 

The
castle’s defenders, seeing their cause lost, began to throw down their weapons
and cry for quarter. 

When
the man who called himself Raventhorne had ordered his men to round up the
weapons and secure the enemy soldiers, he lowered her carefully to the ground
and dismounted.  It occurred to her to run the moment he released her.  The
urge was strong, but she knew even if she managed to escape she had nowhere to
run to.  She might barricade herself in her chambers, but that was not likely
to hinder the conqueror and might well anger him enough to beat her for her
impudence.

Instead,
she stood docilely as he dismounted, shivering with both fear and the cold.  He
grasped her arm when he had handed the reins of his horse off to a squire and
led her inside.  Releasing her once they had reached the great fire at one end
of the great hall, he removed his gauntlets and finally his helmet.

Bronwyn
stared at him with a mixture of emotions, her mind chaotic.  “You are … you
are.”

“Marcus
Raventhorne,” he finished for her, amusement gleaming in his eyes.

Bronwyn
blinked, feeling a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach.  “I thought …
you look....”

He
caught her face, forcing her to look up at him.  “You do not know me?”

His
expression was harsh with some emotion she had difficulty interpreting and
Bronwyn felt again an upsurge of hopefulness.  “Do I?” she asked a little
breathlessly.

His
gaze flickered over her face and he swallowed thickly.  “You told me you loved
me,” he said in a low, husky voice as he stepped closer. 

Tears
sprang into Bronwyn’s eyes.  “Nightshade?” she whispered, torn by the fear that
she was wrong.  “But … I don’t understand.”

His
lips twisted wryly.  “I will be vastly disappointed, lady, if you tell me this
face is less to your liking than the beast I once was,” he murmured, dipping
his head to cover her mouth with his own. 

Bronwyn
flinched, but the moment she felt the heat of his mouth, the moment his taste
and scent enveloped her, all doubts fled.  She swayed against him, kissing him
back with all the longing and passion she had felt for him from the first
moment he had touched her.

She
was disappointed when he ended the kiss until he pulled her snuggly against his
length, holding her tightly.  “I hope this means that I was not precipitate in
bringing a priest with me,” he murmured against her hair.

Bronwyn
pulled away enough to look up at him.  “We’re to be married?” she asked a
little dazedly.

He
smiled wryly.  “By your leave, little rose--or without if needs be.  I’ll be
damned if I will let another have you.”

She
smiled up at him.  “You will not find me unwilling, my lord.”

It
was late into the night as Bronwyn lay curled contentedly next to her new
husband before the questions that had gathered in her mind finally made it to
her lips.

“Tell
me,” she murmured as she traced circles along his broad chest and followed the
path with her lips, “everything.”

 “I
would far rather make love to my wife than talk.”

Bronwyn
was instantly torn, because that sounded a good deal more appealing to her,
also, now that he’d brought it up, but she was still curious.  “Tell me first.”

Uttering
a long suffering sigh, he tucked her more tightly against his body.  “How I
came to be a man?  Or how I managed to sack Raventhorne so easily when it is
reputedly a nearly impregnable keep?”

“Both.”

He
rolled, pushing her onto her back.  “I am Marcus Raventhorne--
the
Raventhorne
who built this keep, the man cursed to guard it for eternity--unless I found a
woman who could love me as I was. 
You
broke the curse.  What I had
never considered since the possibility seemed remote, to say the least, that
any woman would love me as I was, was that it would still be nigh impossible
for me to win the lady I loved. 

“Gaelzeroth
had miscalculated, however.  I not only knew where he kept his wealth hidden. 
I knew about the secret passages beneath the castle, because I had them built. 
And thus, without any intention of helping me whatsoever, he gave me the means
to hire mercenaries to take back what he had stolen from me.”

Bronwyn
sighed pleasurably as he nuzzled her neck and then traced a path to one pert
nipple to tease it.  “The king…?” she questioned hesitantly.

“Will
be pleased enough when I pay him a handsome fine and swear fealty to him,” he
said dismissively.