Catryn had so many questions, but she hesitated to ask her son any of them. The answers could well be things a five-year-old child should not hear, let alone repeat. It made no sense. If Morris knew about Alwyn’s true father, however, it would explain why he was so adamant that everything should belong to him.
A tapping at the small window drew her out of her thoughts and she looked over to see Giles’s dirty face peering in at her. He grinned and waved. Alwyn looked and waved back. Then Giles moved out of sight, yet she was sure he had not gone far.
“You were right, Mama. Giles is fine.” Alwyn calmly returned to eating his apple.
Leaning back against the bars, Catryn wished she could share her son’s calm. Her mind was crowded with questions and her heart ached. If what Alwyn said was true then she was not quite as pure as she had thought. She did not wish to even consider what Orion might think of her if he knew she had cuckolded her husband. It might not matter that the cuckolding was arranged by Henry and she was too drugged to know what was happening.
She had an urge to weep but did not really know why. Catryn supposed it was the knowledge that, from the very beginning, all Henry had wanted of her was a son. If what Aeddon the ghost said was true, Henry had been willing to use his own wife like a brood mare, even hiring a stallion to get her with child. It was both horrifying and humiliating.
It was not easy, but she forced all thought of that crime from her mind. She had a more immediate problem. Somehow she had to get herself and Alwyn away from Morris. Although she had no doubt at all that Orion was coming after them, it could only help if she and her son had already slipped away from their captor. That was what she had to fix all her thoughts on. Even if there was a chance to get some badly needed answers, she had to be ready to grab any chance for escape. Catryn chose two more apples, handed one to Alwyn, and proceeded to imagine every possible way a chance for escape could arise and what she would have to do to take full advantage of it.
The candles were sputtering, threatening to plunge her and Alwyn into the dark when Tom walked in. He glared at the candles, muttered something about what an idiot Harry was, and then unlocked the door to the cage. Catryn lunged at him, but he was ready for her. He grabbed her by the arm and swung her around so hard she slammed back into the bars of the cage. Then he grabbed Alwyn before she could recover her sense.
Cursing softly to herself as she checked for any sign of blood on her face, she followed him out of the cellar. There was no choice since he held Alwyn and had a pistol in his hand. Wincing when she touched a spot that was already bruising on her cheek, she now knew why he had come after them on his own. He had a true skill in handling prisoners.
Once inside the room where Morris waited for her, Tom shoved Alwyn toward her. She held Alwyn close and watched Tom and another man shut the doors and take up a place on either side, pistols at the ready. Catryn then looked at Morris sitting in his pretentious chair. He studied her face and then glared at Tom.
“You have marred her,” he snapped.
“She tried to escape,” replied Tom. “I persuaded her to stay.”
Morris narrowed his eyes but said nothing. Catryn realized that he was uncertain about Tom, perhaps even a little afraid. Unfortunately, she could not think of any way to use that.
“So, have you had time to reconsider your stubborn refusal to do as you are asked?” Morris sipped at a glass of deep red wine and watched her closely as he waited for her to say something.
“You have no right to keep us here,” she said. “You have no right to order me to marry you. You had better let us go or you shall be very sorry, very soon.”
“Sorry? I was sorry the day Henry married you. He never should have married anyone. He and I had a bargain and he broke it.”
“What bargain could you have had that would stop him from trying to find a wife and breed an heir? No man would willingly give that up.”
Morris sneered as he leaned forward in his chair. “I knew his secret.”
Catryn made soft sound, rife with scorn. “I suspect you have a few secrets of your own. Just how bad could that secret be that Henry would give up his chance to have an heir?”
“The fact that he could never breed an heir.”
“And how could you be so very certain of that? Did he rut with anything in skirts yet produce no bastards?” The tension grew in her as she tried to push him to spit out the truth, but she resisted the urge to ask him any direct questions yet, for fear he would simply toss her back into the cellars until he could think of an answer. She knew Morris well enough to know that to uncover the truth one had to push him into a temper.
“He did indeed rut with anything in skirts, right up until he picked the wrong man’s wife.” Morris smiled in a way that gave Catryn chills. “No more rutting for dear Henry after that,” he said in a singsong voice very like a child’s.
She frowned as that implied an injury that had left Henry unmanned, yet she was certain she had glimpsed the appropriate shaping of his breeches from time to time, a shaping that strongly hinted that everything that should be there was. “Henry was not castrated.”
“Ever see him naked?”
She blushed. “That is none of your business.”
“Ha! Did not think so.”
“Our wedding night—”
“Was performed in the dark with a mostly clothed man. That was me. In the dark, after a little laudanum in your drink, and you did not know the difference. Think old Henry was a bit offended by that. Sad to say, that time was a failure as you did not conceive that night. Henry would not let me try again. He decided he did not want me to sire his child, or perhaps he just did not like to share you with me. He never liked sharing his things with me.”
Catryn slowly shook her head as she fought the nausea that threatened to swamp her. “I saw, well, the front of his breeches . . .” She struggled to think of the right words and was almost relieved when Morris interrupted her.
“Padded. But, yes, most of him was still there. Let us just say that Henry lacked what was needed to seed a child of his own. Of course, that was also why Henry stopped even trying to pretend he was a real man with some use for a woman.”
She rubbed at her forehead where the dull throb of a headache was forming, one she doubted was caused solely by Tom slamming her into the cage bars. The way Morris kept answering her questions without really telling her anything was maddening enough to make her want to scream. If she was hearing him correctly, and correctly guessing what was not being said, then Henry had been gelded by an angry husband.
“What do you mean when you say he was pretending to be a real man?”
“He did not truly like or desire women. He tried and all it got him was mutilated.”
“If he did not like or desire women, then why was he rutting with them so freely that a man felt the need to maim him? And where did he go nearly every night after we married if not to rut with some other woman?”
“I just told you that he fought his urges at first. After he married you he gave that up completely and often visited his favorite catamite.”
“Henry preferred men?”
She could see that Morris was highly annoyed that she was not horrified, but then no one knew about her father’s uncle and his
dear friend
. Her father had been the only one in the family who had not shunned the man when the truth of his preferences had slipped out. Her great-uncle had also been the only one in the family to visit her and her father regularly and to offer to help them when they were so close to losing everything. It was a shame that Henry had lacked the good heart her late great-uncle had had.
“Not men exactly, not children either, but boys barely into manhood. That is why he was stabbed.”
“The men who stabbed him went to their deaths still claiming it was just their idea to rob Henry.”
“Which they had to do if they wished to save their families. You see, Henry seduced the only son of a very powerful man. Even I have not been able to get the name, just that tiny bit of information.”
“Well, none of this truly matters, does it?”
“It tells you, quite clearly, that your son is not the rightful heir.”
“My son was recognized by Henry as his true and lawful heir. He was born while Henry and I were married, so the law recognizes him as the heir. Even the timing of the birth was all correct and acceptable, being that it was a year after Henry and I married. Alwyn is legally a de Warrenne, God help him, and it is past time you accepted that.”
“That brat is no de Warrenne!” bellowed Morris as he leapt up from his chair.
Catryn pushed Alwyn behind her and braced for a possible attack, all the while praying that Orion would hurry up and find her.
Chapter Eighteen
With a swiftness Orion had to admire, Iago and Bened removed the two guards at the door. It was not a skill he would have thought the elegant Iago would have. The ones in the family who had gifts like Iago’s usually avoided anything that brought them into too much contact with death. Such stealth and skill were of the kind taught to men who would go into battle.
“I believe our cousin Iago has a few secrets,” murmured Gethin.
Orion looked at the man hiding with him in the alley across from Morris’s town house. “I was just thinking much the same. Surprised me. The veil between the living and the dead is very thin for Iago. Would not have thought a man with such a gift would indulge in anything requiring the skill to put a man down with such stealth. That is a warrior’s talent and few with Iago’s gifts would ever wish to be near a battle of any kind, small or large.”
“True, such skills do often go hand in hand with dealing out death.”
“Exactly. Even if Iago does no killing himself, he must work with ones who do. But I will not quibble, for those skills have proven very useful at the moment.”
When Bened appeared at the corner of the house and gave them the signal, Orion and Gethin hurried across the street. It worried him that he had not yet seen Giles, not at any point along the route from Radmoor to Morris’s. Although he had not been overly concerned about the boy once they reached London and had found no sign of a dead or injured Giles on the road, constantly reminding himself that Giles’s hard life had given him skills and a resilience other children did not have, that newly won calm began to fade. He should have seen some sign of the boy by now.
Pressing himself against the outer wall of the house, Orion watched the door. No one had rushed out when the two guards had abruptly disappeared, but he would give it a few more minutes just to be certain no alarm was sounded by those within the house. Entering a house none of them had been able to reconnoiter was dangerous enough. They could not even be all that certain that Morris was in there, except that the presence of two burly guards implied the man had come home. All that lack of certainty left them with only one real advantage, and that was the element of surprise. He wanted to be as certain as possible that they held on to that.
“Father, over here.”
The whispered words immediately soothed Orion in a way he had not known he needed to be soothed, and he realized he had actually not put aside his concern, simply buried it beneath a thin layer of reassurances. He turned, looking into the shadows at the far edge of the house. It took him a moment to see the boy and he shook his head, torn between hugging the boy for being safe and shaking him until his teeth rattled for doing something so dangerous. He also knew now that Giles had undoubtedly been a very skilled little thief. He signaled the others and then moved toward Giles, confident that the others would quickly join them.
“You are very fortunate that we did not find your shattered body in the road,” he said when he reached Giles. “Sneaking a ride on a carriage racing down country roads is not the same as doing so on one winding through crowded city streets.”
“I know it,” said Giles. “I took care, but I will never do that again. Too fast, too unsteady, and too long a journey for such a game as well. They are in there.” He pointed to a large window on the side of the house and then tensed when Iago, Bened, and Gethin joined them.
“My cousins,” Orion told Giles and introduced the men to his son even as he moved closer to the window Giles had pointed out to him.
“Window is open so we need to be very quiet,” said Giles, staying close to Orion so that he could speak softly yet still be heard. “When Catryn and Alwyn first came here they were in there for a while, and then they were taken to the cellar, but I could not find a way inside. All I could do was let them know I was here. Morris had just sent for them again when I saw these fellows”—he nodded at Bened and Iago—“and waited to see if they were a new threat.” He looked at Bened. “You are a big ’un.”
“That I am,” said Bened and smiled.
“And calm. So much calm in you,” muttered Giles. “Is that a gift?”
“I have long thought so, or possibly just a necessity provided by my gifts to ensure that they can work as they should.” Bened studied Giles for a moment. “I believe I know what your gift is, and it is quite strong already.” He looked at Orion. “Planning for him to spend some time at Elderwood with Modred and Aunt Dob?”
“The time may come when it is needed,” Orion replied. “Giles knows that.” He tensed. “I believe Alwyn and Catryn are back in the room.”
“If one of you can raise me up, I might be able to peer in and see something worth seeing,” said Giles as he eyed Bened.
“Can you make certain you are not seen?” asked Bened.
Giles looked offended. “Of course I can.”
“Then come along,” Bened said as he moved to press himself up against the wall.
Orion watched as Giles climbed Bened like a tree. By the time the boy was standing on Bened’s shoulders he was just out of reach of the window. Before Orion could express his disappointment, Bened, after a quick whispered exchange with Giles, grabbed the boy by the ankles and slowly raised him up until he could grab hold of the window ledge. Although he knew Giles was just a skinny boy of eight, Orion had to marvel at the ease with which Bened steadily held the boy over his head. It was a long, tense few moments, however, before Bened lowered Giles back down to the ground.
“You were right,” Giles said to Orion. “They just brought Alwyn and Catryn back into the room. There are two men with them and they are standing guard at the door. Inside the room. Morris is sitting in an ugly chair to the right of this window. I know there are two more men at the back of the house, but I am not sure if there are any more inside.”
“We will take care of the two at the back,” said Bened and disappeared into the shadows with Iago.
“Once they are done with that, perhaps we could go in through the back of the house,” said Orion.
“A good idea,” agreed Gethin. “Once those two rid us of the guards back there we would only have to deal with whatever servants might be in the kitchen. From what you have told us of this man, I do not believe we will have to fear that the servants will be compelled by loyalty to risk anything to warn him.”
Orion nodded and cautiously started toward the back of the house, Gethin and Giles following him. It did not surprise him to find Iago and Bened already finishing the binding up of the two unconscious guards.
“We are going in through the kitchens,” Orion told them.
Bened nodded. “That will work. Let me go in first.”
Before Orion could express the opinion that sending the biggest man in first might not be the best plan, Giles nodded. “He will make them all calm,” he said, looking at Orion. “He has so much calm in him it just comes right out and touches people.”
“Oh, aye, there is definitely a visit to Elderwood and Aunt Dob in your future,” murmured Bened before he went down a short stairway to the door leading into the kitchens.
It astonished Orion when Bened simply knocked once and then walked right in. No one cried out in alarm, despite the sudden appearance of a large, dark-haired man in their midst. There was some murmuring, and then Bened briefly appeared in the doorway to signal them all to join him. Inside, Orion found what had to be all of Morris’s servants seated at a table, obviously having been in the midst of eating a meal when Bened had walked in. They eyed him and his three companions a little warily but there was no outcry, no sign of any fear, just curiosity.
Giles was right. There was something about Bened that worked to calm people, even in situations where calm was the last thing they should be feeling. Then, too, Gethin was probably also right. The servants had no loyalty to Morris, for the man had done nothing to earn it.
“If what you are doing is going to make de Warrenne leave,” said a thin young man in a footman’s livery of the same colors as Morris’s carriage, “can you make certain he pays us what he owes us first?”
“We will do our best,” said Orion, “but I fear that might take time, even if he agrees to do so.”
The man shrugged. “We can wait. Got nowhere else to go.”
And that, Orion thought, was probably why Morris still had servants. They would have left him long ago if they could have found other positions. By the looks of the very fine meal laid out on the table, they had found at least one way to gain some compensation for their work.
Leading the others, Orion started to make his way toward the room where Catryn and Alwyn were being held. As he moved along as cautiously and quietly as possible, he made and cast aside several plans. The last thing he wanted to do was to put them at risk with a fumbled attempt at rescue. Morris might not be a real threat to them, but the two men guarding the door might not care who got hurt as they fought to escape any punishment for their crimes.
A man half-asleep in the hall caused them no delay. Iago had him unconscious and securely bound with an efficiency that made Orion decide to request a few lessons. Once at the door to the room they sought, they all hesitated. On the other side of the door were two guards, and it would be necessary to take them down as quickly as possible. Then Morris’s bellowed words caused Orion to stop worrying about the guards. He had to put all of his concentration to the matter of fighting the urge to barge into the room so that he could immediately, and violently, shut the man’s mouth.
“That brat is no de Warrenne!”
“I begin to see that,” said Catryn, and Orion had to get closer to the door to be certain he heard her clearly. “Just who was Aeddon Vaughn, Morris? You knew him. Tom knew him. And now my son knows him.”
“He cannot know him,” protested Morris in a voice that shook as much with fear as with fury. “The bastard is dead! Dead and rotted, damn his eyes!”
“I know he is dead, but who was he? Why does my son believe the man is his father?”
“Because he was. He was, and that is why the title and all that goes with it should be mine.”
Orion could only imagine how Catryn must feel. It was a truth he had begun to suspect, but he could not bear her having to hear it from Morris. Signaling his companions, placing Bened at one of the doors and himself at the other, he counted to three. The moment he raised the third finger, he and Bened slammed open the doors. It did not work as perfectly as he had hoped, but well enough that there was only a brief struggle before both men were secured.
When Orion looked up from binding the hands of one of the men, his heart sank. They had not been quick enough. Morris held Catryn tightly against his front, a pistol pressed into her side.
“Let her go, Morris,” he ordered after sending Gethin a look he prayed the man read correctly.
“No. You have no right to interfere here,” Morris said. “She is
my
family, not yours. Just because the two of you have been rutting like rabbits as you chased me all over the countryside does not change that. You are not her family so you have no say here at all.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Orion watched his relatives slowly begin to encircle Morris while Giles went to Alwyn and tugged the boy back, further out of Morris’s reach. “You have to know that your plan can never work.”
“It can if I can shut her father up.”
“We have the boy now, so you have nothing left to make Catryn do as you want or, I suspect, to make her father obey you, either.”
“I can make the boy come back to me.” Morris looked at Alwyn. “He would not want his mother to get hurt, would you, Alwyn?”
“No.” Alwyn took a step toward Morris but Giles held him back.
“You will come here, boy, or I will put a bullet in her.”
“Then you will have no shield,” Orion said quietly and watched the way Morris’s eyes narrowed as he tried hard to think of a way out of the mess he was in.
“I will get the bugger to let her go,” said Alwyn.
Orion started toward the boy, fearing that Aeddon might be pushing the child to do something that could get him killed. He had just put his hand on Alwyn’s arm when the strangest feeling flooded his body. The combination of being too full and a chilling nausea nearly brought him to his knees. The last clear thought he had, the last one that was solely his own, was that he really did not like ghosts.
Catryn stared at Orion when he turned from Alwyn and glared at Morris. There was such hatred in his eyes, such a dark murderous fury, that she barely recognized him. The snarling smile on his face actually frightened her, yet she had never believed she could be frightened by Orion. Then she noticed that his eyes were wrong. They were no longer blue but almost black.
“Orion?” she whispered as he stalked toward where Morris held her.
“I will give him back to you in a moment, m’lady,” Orion said. The voice was not his, but rougher and deeper. “I but need to have a little revenge on this mewling piece of scum.”
“Aeddon?” she asked in a voice she could not keep steady, for she was awash in shock and utter fascination. “Is that you?”
“Aye.” Orion/Aeddon looked down at Orion’s body. “A fine man you found yourself, m’lady.” He looked at Morris, all that furious hatred returning to harden and twist his features. “Let her go now, you bastard.”
Catryn realized that Morris’s hold on her had loosened and the man was shaking so hard he was making her body tremble from the force of it. She lunged forward, breaking the last of his grip, and ran to where the three men who had come in with Orion now stood watch over Giles and Alwyn. They looked an odd mix of intrigued and concerned.
“Can ghosts do that?” she asked them as she watched a panicked Morris run around the room like a fool while the Aeddon-possessed Orion easily blocked all escape. “Can Aeddon truly possess Orion?”
A handsome man with thick black hair and hazel green eyes smiled at her. “I am Iago Vaughn, Baron of Uppington, and Orion’s cousin. And, to answer your question, I rather have to say yes, although this is the first time I have ever seen it done.”