Ah, she was a tease and a tart and looked the part of an innocent. Every muscle in his body screamed with the want of her and he could think of nothing save laying atop her, joining with her. . . .
“Nay!” she whispered as if at herself and pulled back to stare at him in dismay, as if she were ashamed. “Nay . . . I cannot—”
“Stay with me. Here.” He said the words before he’d thought them.
“What? Oh . . . nay.”
“Apryll, I—”
“Shh.” She placed a finger over his lips and before he could suck it into his mouth, she jerked her hand away and pulled away from him. “This is madness! Oh, for the love of St. Jude, I be such a fool!” Flushing crimson, avoiding his gaze, she pushed hard against his shoulders and shook her head. “Forgive me.” His arms dropped to his sides. “I’m sorry . . . I mean . . . I . . . need . . . if you could tell me where I might find the latrine. . . .”
“’Tis on the second floor, around the first corner, up a short flight of stairs to the tower.”
“I—I will be back,” she vowed, nearly stumbling as she approached the stairs. Cheeks burning, she turned on her heel swiftly. Lifting the skirts of her glittery dress, she flew up the stone steps and disappeared around the corner.
“I’ll wait,” he called after her, not knowing that she lied.
Chapter Three
Apryll bolted up the stairs. Oh, this was madness, sheer, horrifying madness! Why had she ever agreed to Payton’s bold, vengeful plan? She dashed around the corners of the upper hallway without error, meeting no one, her heart pounding as she found a small alcove, where she found, as Payton had promised, a change of clothes, huntsman’s garb.
Her fingers flew over the buttons holding her gown together and she stepped out of the frothy white dress that had been the bridal gown of her mother, Rowelda. With a fleeting thought of the woman who bore her, Apryll threw on the rough-sewn tunic that chaffed her skin after the finery of the wedding dress.
Oh, mother, I’m sorry.
She yanked on leggings and heavy boots, then tucked her hair into the cap that had been left, but nowhere did she find her dagger, the weapon she’d entrusted to Payton. Her fingers scrabbled over the few shelves but encountered no blade.
And time was hurrying past. Soon the baron would become impatient with waiting for her and come looking.
She ducked out of the alcove and made her way along a hallway where sconces burned low. Payton was inside a bed chamber and he was holding a boy who was slumped over his shoulders. “What is this?” she asked, stepping around a nursemaid snoring softly on a pallet in the corner. But she knew. The boy was the baron’s son.
“Are you daft?” she asked, striding across the fresh rushes. The boy was sleeping soundly, his head propped upon Payton’s shoulder. “What are you thinking? You cannot take the child.”
Another man entered the room—a huntsman from Serennog. “’Tis time,” he said. “All is as planned.”
Apryll tossed her mother’s wedding dress onto the floor. “Come, let us go. Leave the boy.”
Payton’s face grew hard. “We need more to bargain with.” His eyes flashed in defiance.
From the corner there was a moan. The plump nursemaid was rousing. “Ooh,” she groaned, her eyes opening a slit only to close again.
“We must be off,” Payton insisted.
“Not with the boy!” Apryll thought of Devlynn, how proud he’d been of his family, how he’d teased his niece.
“There is no time to argue. She”—he hitched his chin toward the groggy nurse—“will come ’round soon, and the baron will come searching for you, m’lady. We must be off.”
“Nay, Payton, I will not allow it. Leave the child.”
“We must be off,” the huntsman insisted.
Apryll took a step closer to her brother. “Do not defy me, brother, I still be the ruler of Serennog and—”
“And we’re not in Serennog any longer,” Payton snapped, fury flushing his face. “We leave now with the boy, or you stay and face the baron alone. However, if that be your choice, I swear to you that Devlynn will never see his son again and you, dear sister, will be held accountable for this lad’s disappearance.”
“You would not harm him.”
“Not unless he gives me trouble.”
“He is but a child,” she argued and reached forward, intent on snagging the boy.
Payton pushed her back. “I have no time for this.”
“You will leave him!”
“We must be off.” The guard at the door was nervous.
“Not with the child—”
“Hush, woman!”
“I will not—” Smack! Payton backhanded her, the sharp metal on his glove slicing her skin. Pain exploded in her cheek. Blood spurted.
She flung herself at him, determined to wrest the boy away. “How dare you. I am the ruler of—”
“What you are is a pain in the backside. Nothing more.” Payton pushed her backward and her feet, tangling in her soiled dress, tripped her. She landed on the gown her mother wore to marry her father.
“Foolish woman. I will wait no longer,” Payton sneered, looking at her with contempt.
“Please, Payton, listen to reason,” she pleaded, pushing herself to her feet. “If you do this all the wrath of Black Thorn will strike our keep. You can’t take the boy.”
“But I can. And I will. That is the trouble with you, sister, you are never willing to do what must be done. You are a dreamer. A silly woman who cannot admit that she has let her castle fall to ruin and let those she rules starve because she has not sought vengeance, and she has not the will nor the balls to go to war. Now, hear me and hear me well. Stay if you will or come, but do it now. I’ll not wait.”
The boy moaned groggily. Payton dashed into the hall. The huntsman was at his heels. Apryll took off after him.
She could not fight Payton, not with bone and muscle, but surely she could outwit him. Stealing along the back stairs, she vowed to right this hideous wrong—a wrong of her own foolish making. If she could escape before the baron caught up with her.
Devlynn paced by the stairs. His pulse raced and his thoughts chased after the sassy woman who claimed to be the ruler of Serennog. ’Twas foolish to feel so smitten. So eager to lay with her. For three years he had been chaste, refused to look at a woman, wallowed in his guilt and mourned his wife. But now, from the moment he’d caught Lady Apryll’s gaze, he’d thought of little but ending his self-imposed celibacy. For the first time since Glynda’s death, his wife’s image faded from his mind.
From the archway he listened as the singer finished a morose ballad. He glanced toward the upper landing. Still she did not appear. But, in truth, she had not been gone long and mayhap needed some time to compose herself. A maid carrying an empty tray scurried past him, pausing to nod quickly in his direction before hurrying on.
Straightening his tunic, Devlynn leaned against the pillar at the base of the steps. Servants filed up and down, a few guests wandered up stairs and sentries changed posts, but there was no sign of the lady.
Be patient,
he told himself, though patience had rarely been his companion.
A second song ended and he looked up the stairs for the dozenth time. Still she didn’t appear. Anxious, feeling the first niggling of doubt that she might have abandoned him somehow, he waited longer, nervously tapping his fingers on the pillar as the candles were dimmed and a bowl of raisins splashed with brandy was carried into the room.
Devlynn tried vainly to push his edginess aside as the bowl was lit. Several of the braver souls tried to pick a raisin from the flaming pot, wincing and hollering, their fingers singed as they played snap dragon.
“Ouch!”
“Damn!”
“Cursed things.”
Laughter rippled through the castle. Bronwyn was half asleep in her mother’s lap. Aunt Violet had begun to doze, but Collin was still laughing, swilling wine and looking toward the hallway, his eyes meeting Devlynn’s before the lord glanced up the now dark stairs.
“Get one!” Collin yelled at a be-ringed guest trying to snag a flaming raisin.
Smoke collected near the ceiling and conversation hummed around the fire as the lighted bowl, illuminating the guests’ exhilarated faces, was passed from one to the other.
Footsteps sounded behind him. Devlynn whirled, expecting Apryll and finding a balding Sir Henry instead. “My lord, would you like to partake of the game?”
“Another time,” Devlynn snapped. What if she were lost? Black Thorn was a vast keep, with winding corridors and hidden doorways. If she made a wrong turn on the way to the latrine tower . . .
The game ended, the candles were relit and Devlynn’s elation ebbed, replaced by a slow-growing anger. Had she intentionally left him standing here like a besotted page? Walking to the archway leading to the great hall, he swept the vast chamber with his gaze, wondering if she’d eluded him. Had she somehow returned from another staircase and stolen quietly into the crowd? Impatience gnawed at him. He clenched his fists in frustration, searching the room, but as his gaze scoured his guests, there was no sign of her, no glimpse of a shimmering white gown in the midst of scarlet, jade and royal blue.
“Lose the woman?” Collin asked in amusement as he, a pouty-lipped maid attached to his arm, breezed past.
“Nay.”
“So where is the ‘angel,’ as Aunt Violet so aptly named her?”
“Upstairs. She’ll be down anon—”
AAAWWWWHHHH!
A blood-chilling scream ripped down the stairs from an upper story.
Devlynn’s heart froze.
Apryll was upstairs.
The music stopped.
Laughter died.
All the guests hushed.
“What the devil—?” Collin asked as the woman on his arm paled.
Without a word Devlynn unsheathed his sword. He ran up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. Boot heels rang behind him. Collin was at his back. As were guards. Swords rattled. Boots thundered.
Apryll,
Devlynn thought wildly. Something’s happened to her. His heart leapt to his throat.
“What the bloody hell happened?” Collin demanded as they reached the second floor.
“I know not.”
“The woman—?”
Devlynn’s heart was a drum. Weapon held high, he rounded a corner, nearly running over the nursemaid, a round ninny of a girl with a face as white as curdled cream, her eyes wide with fear.
“M’lord . . . oh, by the saints, he’s missing,” she cried, her hands wringing in her skirts, fright evidenced in the trembling of her lips. “I don’t know how or—”
“Who?” he demanded, but he knew in a heartbeat. His son. The woman’s charge. “Who’s missing?” His blood turned to ice and he pushed past the stricken girl. God forbid it be Yale.
“’Tis your boy,” the maid mumbled, stumbling after him, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I . . . I closed me eyes but a second, honest I did . . . and . . . and . . . oh, for the love of Jesus,” she crossed herself and slumped down the wall as the pound of boots reverberated through the corridor.
Soldiers shouted, an alarm bell pealed.
Heart in his throat, Devlynn barreled through the open door of his son’s chamber. Red embers glowed in the grate. Yale’s bed was mussed but mockingly empty.
The Lord of Black Thorn’s son had been kidnapped, stolen from beneath his very nose.
“No!” Devlynn yelled, damning the fates. Disbelief and anger surged through his soul as he spied evidence of a hideous betrayal.
In a crumpled pool beneath the window, stained with smears of fresh blood, lay the shimmering white dress that had so recently been worn by Apryll of Serennog.
Chapter Four
“Where is my son?” Devlynn demanded, looming over the woman who was supposed to have been guarding the boy. His fists balled in rage and it was all he could do not to grab the feebleminded woman and shake her to loosen her silly tongue. “Where the devil is Yale?”
“I know not,” the nursemaid admitted, her lower lip quivering in fear, her eyes round in the flickering light from the fire. She seemed dull and disoriented, blinking and crying piteously.
“You were here. Yale was your charge.”
She threw herself onto the rushes, bowing low at his feet. “Oh, m’lord, please forgive me,” she said, her voice breaking on a sob. “I am so confused, ’tis not like me to fall asleep and yet I could not keep my eyes open . . . I . . . I only dozed for a moment. . . .”
“One moment too long.”
Her shoulders shook. “Oh, I know, I know,” she said, sniffing loudly.
The woman was no help. Devlynn kicked the bloodstained dress and wished to heaven that he had not been so trusting, opening the castle gates, allowing strangers into the keep. And Apryll . . . if he ever got his hands on her he’d wring her beautiful, traitorous neck.
The splotches of red on the white fabric sent fear into the depths of his heart. Was the blood Yale’s? Apryll’s? That thought should have appeased him. It did not. Nothing did. Not the gawking looks from the soldiers who had rushed into the room, not the pathetic nursemaid’s hiccuped apologies and not his brother’s stern, reproachful look.
“’Twas Apryll of Serennog who stole my child,” he admitted, glancing at the small crowd that filled the doorway and corridor. Soldiers, servants and a few curious guests were clustered under the sconces. Snagging the damning dress from the floor, he clutched it in fingers made of steel. “And she shall return him.” His nostrils flared at the thoughts of her deceit, her audacity and how easily she’d duped him. His gaze narrowed on Collin. “Order the castle gates be closed! No one shall leave. And send sentries and guards around the perimeter of the castle, they could not have been gone long nor gotten far.” He pushed past the priest and stormed out of the room, his head pounding with anger, his heart hollow with fear. What if harm had already come to Yale? What if even now he was dead or dying?
Christ Jesus, it could not be. But a dark pain cut through Devlynn’s soul and he suddenly knew a fear deeper than any he’d met before. “Fetch the captain of the guard. Now!” He stormed down the hallway and the crowd parted. The baron of Black Thorn’s temper was legendary—no one dared cross him.