Lady Of Fire (42 page)

Six days she must hold him. Then, for his refusal to wed his enemy, his lands would be forfeited. Unless she failed.

I shall not,
she promised herself.

Even now Boursier was likely feeling the effects of the draught she had slipped into his drink a half hour past. That had been no easy task, one nearly rendered impossible when the cook had approached her. Blessedly, as she had tensed for flight, someone had called him to the storeroom.

Quickly, El had stirred Agatha’s preparation into the cup that was to be delivered to Boursier’s bedchamber, the lord of Castle Adderstone’s habit of wine before bed having remained unchanged since Agatha had endured a year in his household.
 

“’Tis just ahead,” Agatha said low, raising the torch to burn away the cobwebs blocking their passage.

El peered around the older woman at stone walls laid not by man, but by God. Here was the place to which Boursier was destined—carved out of the bowels of the earth outside his own castle, the shaft with its branching passages dug by Penzers and De Arells twenty years past when, for a few months, they had joined against the Boursiers. El’s own grandfather had assisted with the mining that had brought down a portion of the castle’s outer wall. It had been a victory, but a small one.

She recalled her visit to Castle Kelling several months after the thwarted siege when she had bounded onto her grandfather’s lap and only one arm had come around her. Bayard Boursier’s father had taken the other.

Agatha turned left off the passageway onto another, at the end of which lay an iron-banded door with a grate set at eye level. “This is it, my lady.”

El considered Boursier’s prison. “It will hold him?”

Agatha fit one of several keys into the lock and pushed the door inward. “‘Twould hold three of him.”

El accepted the torch offered her, stepped into the chill cell, and grimaced as light revealed the foul place. The stone walls were moist with rainfall that seeped through the ground above. To the right, a rat scuttled out of torchlight into shadow. Ahead, three sets of chains and manacles hung from the walls. Were Boursier of a mind to be grateful, he would be glad he had only to endure this place for the six days remaining of the two months given him to wed his enemy.

As El turned out of the cell, she wondered again how Agatha had learned of the passage formed from the mine of that long ago siege, the entrance to which was a cavern in the wood. More, how had she obtained the keys? Unfortunately, Agatha’s secrets were Agatha’s, but El dared not complain. While wed to Murdoch, she had benefitted from the woman’s secrets in the form of sleeping powders.

Meeting the gaze of the one in the doorway, she said, “Aye, it will hold him.”

Agatha inclined her head, drew from her shoulder the pack that would sustain Boursier, and tossed it against the far wall. “You are ready, my lady?”

“I am.”

With a smile that revealed Agatha’s teeth were surprisingly white, the woman turned to lead her into the devil’s lair.

“I know what you do.”

Bayard had wondered how long before she stopped hovering and spoke what she had come to say. He jabbed the quill in the ink pot and looked up at where his half sister stood alongside the table.

Jaw brushed by hair not much longer than his own, she said, “I will not have you sacrifice yourself for me.”

He stared at Quintin, wished she were not so perceptive. Though she had recently her twentieth year, she looked back at him out of the eyes of the aged. Yet for all the wisdom to which she was privy, she was a mess of uncertainty—the truest of ladies when it suited her, a callow youth when it served. And Bayard was to blame, just as he was to blame for her broken betrothal. Had he not allowed her mother and her to convince him she was not suited to marriage, the king could not have dragged Quintin into his scheme.

Hands clasped at her waist, she entreated, “Pray, wed the Penzer woman, Brother.”

He was tempted to laugh. “I assure you, one Penzer wife was enough to last me unto death.” He curled his fingers into his palms to keep from reaching to the eyepatch.

Her brow rumpled. “Surely you do not say ’tis better to wed a De Arell?”

He shrugged. “For Edward’s pleasure, we all must make sacrifices.”

Her teeth snapped, evidence it had become impractical to behave the lady. “Then sacrifice yourself upon a Penzer!”

Never. Better he suffer a De Arell woman than Quintin suffer a De Arell man. Of course, he had other reasons for choosing Thomasin. The illegitimate woman was said to be plain of face, whereas Elianor of Emberly was told to be as comely as her aunt whose beauty had blinded Bayard—in more ways than one. Then there was the rumor Elianor and her uncle were lovers and, of equal concern, that she had given her departed husband no heir. Such a woman he would not take to wife.

“Hear me,” Quintin said so composedly he nearly startled, for once her temper was up, it was not easy for her to come down. “’Tis far better I wed Griffin De Arell who already has his heir.”

Feeling his hands tighten into fists, he forced them open. “As I believe you will give Penzer the heir he yet waits upon.” Or so he prayed, for once she was wed to their enemy, she would need someone to love through the long years.

Quintin drew a shuddering breath. “I will not give Magnus Penzer an heir.”

He sighed, lifted his goblet. “It is done, Quintin. Word has been sent to De Arell that I ride to Castle Mathe four days hence to wed his daughter.” Though the wine was thick as if drawn from the dregs of a barrel, he drank the remainder in the hope it would calm his roiling stomach and permit a fair night’s sleep.

He rose from the chair. As he stepped around his stiff-backed sister, a wave of fatigue unsettled him, and he pondered the peculiar discomfort he had not experienced since the treacherous woman who was no longer his wife had worked her wiles upon him.

“Make good your choice, Bayard,” Quintin warned.

He looked across his shoulder. “I have made as good a choice as is possible.” Thus, she would wed Penzer, and the widow, Elianor, would wed the widower, De Arell, thereby allying the three families—at least, until one maimed or killed the other.

Quintin shook her head. “You have not.”

Pressed down by fatigue, he bit back a reprimand with the reminder she only wished to spare him marriage into the family of his darkest enemy. “If I give you my word that I shall make the De Arell woman’s life miserable,” he said, “will you leave?”

She pushed off the table. “
Your
life, she will make miserable.” She threw her hands up. “Surely you can find some way around King Edward!”

Edward who demanded the impossible—who cared not what ill he wrought. Though Bayard had searched for a way past the decree, it seemed the only means of avoiding marriage to the enemy was to vacate the barony of Godsmere. If he forfeited his lands, not only would Quintin and her mother be as homeless as he, but the De Arells and Penzers would win the bitter game at which the Boursiers had most often prevailed. Utterly unacceptable.

“I am sorry,” Bayard said, “but the king will not be moved. And though I have not much hope, I must consider that these alliances could lead to the prosperity denied all of us.”

Her jaw shifted. “You speak of more castles.”

He did. When the immense barony of Kilbourne had been broken into lesser baronies twenty-five years ago to reward the three families, it had been expected licenses would be granted to each to raise more castles. However, the gorging of their private animosities had made expansion an unattainable dream.

“Accept it, Quintin.”

She opened her mouth, closed it, and crossed the solar. A moment later, the door slammed behind her, catching a length of green skirt between door and frame.

Her cry of frustration came through, but rather than open the door, she wrenched her skirt loose with a great tearing of cloth—their father’s side of her. Later, she would mourn the ruined gown—her mother’s side of her.

Though Bayard had intended to disrobe, he was too worn out to bother. Stretching upon his bed, he stared into the darkness behind his eyelid and recalled the woman at the market. Not because of the comely curve of her face, but the prick of hairs along the back of his neck that had first made him seek the source. There, in her glittering eyes, he had found what might have been hatred, though he had reasoned it away with the reminder that his people had suffered much on all sides of the discord between the three families. And that was, perhaps, the worthiest reason to form alliances with the De Arells and Penzers.

Strangely aware of his breathing, he struggled to hold onto the image of the woman. As the last of her blurred, he determined it was, indeed, hatred in the eyes that had peered at him from beneath a thick, woolen shawl. A shawl that made a poor fit for a day well warmed by sun.

CHAPTER THREE

The squire made a final, muffled protest and slumped to his pallet.

“Now The Boursier,” Agatha said, pulling the odorous cloth from the young man’s mouth and nose.

For the first time since slipping out from behind the tapestry, El looked to the still figure upon the bed. Though the solar was deeply dark, the bit of moonlight filtering through the oilcloth showed the big man lay on his back.

Thankful for Agatha’s size that would bear much of Boursier’s weight, El crossed to the bed. “Does he breathe?”

“Of course he does,” the woman said as she came alongside, “though if you wish—”

“Nay!” She was no murderer, and holding him would accomplish what must be done.

“Then make haste, my lady.” Agatha tossed the coverlet over Boursier’s legs so they might drag him down the steps of the walled passage. And drag him they must. Though the older woman was relatively strong of back and El was hardly delicate, Boursier’s size outnumbered them.

El put her knees to the mattress and reached past him to the other side of the coverlet upon which he lay. As she did so, her hand brushed a muscled forearm. She caught her breath and looked up his dark form. For some reason, it bothered her to see such an imposing man laid helpless before his enemies. Of course, once she had also pitied Murdoch. Only once.

Returning to the present, she dragged the coverlet across his torso. As she reached higher to flip it over his head, his wine-scented breath stirred the hair at her temple and drew her gaze to his shadowed face.

By the barest light, something glittered.

She gasped, dropped her feet to the door.

“What is it?” Agatha rasped.

El backed away. “He…” Why did he not bolt upright? “He looked upon me.”

A curt laugh sounded from Agatha. “It happens.” She pulled forth the cloth used upon the squire and pressed it to Boursier’s face. “But let us be certain he remembers naught.”

Would he not? Of course, even if he did, the glitter of her own eyes was surely all he would know of her. Heart continuing to thunder, El watched as Agatha swept the coverlet over Boursier’s head.

“Take hold of his legs,” she directed.

El slid her hands beneath his calves. Shortly, with Agatha supporting his heavier upper body, El staggered beneath her own burden. Boursier seemed to weigh as much as a horse, and by the time they had him behind the tapestry, he seemed a pair of oxen. Garments moistened by perspiration, she lugged him through the doorway and onto the torchlit landing.

“Put him down,” Agatha said, lowering his upper body.

With a breath of relief, El eased his legs to the floor.

Agatha closed the door that granted access to the keep’s inner walls and jutted her chin at the wall sconce. “Bring the torch.”

El retrieved it. As she turned to lead the way down the steps, a thud sounded behind. She swung around.

Agatha had hefted Boursier’s legs, meaning his head had landed upon the first of the stone steps. “Nay!” she protested. “We must needs turn him. His head—”

“What care you?” Agatha snapped, lacking the deference due one’s mistress. But such was the price of the woman’s favors.

Why
do
I care?
El wondered. Still, she could not condone such treatment, for a blow to the head could prove fatal. “We turn him, Agatha. Do not argue.”

“My lady—”

“Do not!”

Agatha lowered her eyes. “As you will.”

El assisted with Boursier and, shortly, Agatha gripped Boursier about the torso. His feet taking the brunt of the steps, they continued their descent. At the bottom, they turned left.

Huffing loudly, Agatha dragged the big man through the doorway that let into the underground passage.

“Give me the key, and I will lock it,” El offered.

Continuing to support Boursier, Agatha secured the door herself.

Trying not to be offended, El led the way through the turns that eventually placed them before the cell.

When Agatha dropped Boursier, once more having no care for how he fell, El glared at her companion.

Staring at her from between strands of hair that had come loose from the knot atop her head, Agatha raised her eyebrows.

El held her tongue. She supposed the rough treatment of Bayard Boursier was the least owed one whose grievance against him was great. Agatha had spent a year in his household serving as maid to his wife who had also been El’s aunt. For one long year, Agatha had been at Constance’s side, aiding her when Boursier turned abusive and comforting her when he took other women into his bed. Given a chance, it was possible Agatha would do the baron mortal harm.

El fit the torch in a wall sconce, then aided in propping Boursier against the cell wall and peeling the coverlet away to bind his wrists.

She tried not to look upon him as she struggled to open a rusted manacle, but found herself peering into his face. And wishing she had not.

She returned her attention to the manacle and pried at it, but not even the pain of her abraded fingers could keep from memory her enemy’s dimly lit face—eyepatch risen above his eyebrow, the exposed, scarred flesh of his left eye. More, she saw the tousled auburn hair on his brow, cheekbones above an unshaven jaw, and relaxed mouth. All lent vulnerability to one who did not wear that state well.