Exile’s Bane (20 page)

My discomfort around him left me desperately unsure.

“Excellent meal, Countess,” Gorgon finally said. He wiped off his spoon with his napkin and placed it beside his bowl with a gust of satiated appreciation. “I was starved. Please forgive me for attending without changing out of my riding apparel.” He slapped a sleeve and dust spewed around the room.

Though the countess appeared prepared to respond, she closed her mouth and apparently thought better of it when Gorgon let out an arrogant laugh, as though he had told a hilarious joke.

“You are very sweet and appreciative,” Gorgon said to Annie. He poked his forefinger into the dimple in her cheek.

Annie put her hand to her face, uncertain and shaky at his compliment. Her gaze tracked to my face. “Than’ ee, kine sir,” she responded, against all advice.

Gorgon’s eyes opened in subdued amazement.

“A little more work there, eh?” the countess said with sour disdain.

Under Gorgon’s stark, disturbing stare, Annie and I finished our food, no fingers, no further conversation, and quickly returned to the safety of our rooms.

Chapter Fifteen

Too anxious to remain cloistered in my room, I took Kalimir out for an extended ride, avoided more than one desperate looking character, and evaded what appeared to be a Roundhead scouting party. The land truly was not safe. By the time I returned to the house late in the evening, I was sore and starving.

The stable boy took my horse and I limped, aching in every muscle, to the door that led into the back hall. It was warped and difficult to get through at the best of times. A shove with my shoulder pushed it open, but only halfway. From within, Duncan jerked the door open and offered his hand to me. Under his gentle guidance, I entered and we stepped back into the shadow of the corner leading into the lower south corridor.

All day I had yearned for his touch, his voice, his presence. I extended my arms to embrace him, but he held me in place with an outstretched hand.

“I have something to tell you while there is time. These men with Gorgon were told they would be taking over for the house guard.”

“Have you warned Wallace?” Hand at my throat, I stepped away in distress.

“Of course. The guard has been doubled and is on high alert. Our advantage is that we know their intent.”

“How did you find this out?”

“We helped one of their soldiers to a bottle or two of good wine, and he cracked like a ripe melon.”

“And that bastard is treating Marie Louise like a long lost sister,” I said in disgust.

“He’s waiting. He changes his tactics to match the landscape.”

I remembered the prince’s comment—
My most trusted officer, a brilliant tactical strategist—
and felt a surety in Duncan’s words that went far beyond simple trust.

“You are his way into this place. You must be very careful. Keep people around you. I will be close by, though you may not see me. I dare not challenge him directly. That is for the prince to do, if he so chooses.” He looked suddenly, desperately unsure. “Though you must understand that the prince’s priorities are elsewhere.”

With a furtive reach, he took my hand, and caressed the palm with his thumb. The passion between us leapt and flared. His longing gaze held mine. I reached for him, needing to hold him and to be held safe in his strong arms.

Footsteps rang out along the corridor. I looked that way, felt an emotional wrench, a separation, and in that moment Duncan was gone.

I urgently needed a bath, but did not have the privacy in my rooms to indulge in a barrel bath and so washed at length from the basin, Rosemunde having to refill the ewer numerous times. A knock came at our door and Annie came in to the dressing room, all afluster.

“Thomas is here to see you,” she said, excited.

I studied her in bland irritation. Then it struck me that perhaps Thomas had something important to tell me. It was not like him to seek me out. Maybe, after all, he had decided to abandon Gorgon’s patronage. With a thrill of expectation, I decided to take the chance, ready to do anything I could to avoid Gorgon and his intentions.

“Ask him if we could meet in an hour,” I told Annie. Should I steal away or even subvert Gorgon’s spy, my position would be all the stronger.

“He will meet you in the gallery,” Annie relayed moments later.

Finally clean and clothed in a fresh gown and wearing my good black mules, I fluttered about the room like a trapped bird. Anxious to see what Thomas wanted, I left Peg and a newly confident Annie working on proper social conversation, their pulled-down beds awaiting them.

My rooms were on the upper southeast corner of the stronghold, beside Amilie’s tower. To avoid the private tower entry on the east corridor, where Gorgon was likely to be, I moved quietly down the long south hallway until I came to the west passage, which connected to a short expanse of the watch-tower stair and thereby to the gallery.

I opened the doors on an empty room. Dinner had gone on without me, it seemed, for the picked-over sideboard had not yet been cleared away. With an available table knife, I stabbed a slice of ham off the tray, and munched contentedly. I quickly grew tired of waiting in the oppressive humidity, and finally descended the great stair, my wooden heels clicking on the steps. When I reached the bottom, the loud scrape of a footstep sounded atop the stair. It was Gorgon, not Thomas, who grinned down at me with obsessive pleasure.

“Come to me, woman,” he commanded as he moved quickly down the stair behind me.

I fled down the main hallway.

Another figure began to walk toward me from the far end of the hall. It was Thomas, his wavy brown hair tousled, as though he had been running. With a rueful grin, he spread his arms to collect me. That action confirmed my sudden suspicion that Gorgon had used him to deceive me.

At the next intersecting passage, I raced up the left corridor that led to the library on the lower level of the private tower. I took a quick look back down the hall, where the two men met. Gorgon waved Thomas away and ran toward me. His bulk in no way impeded his ability to run, and he quickly closed the gap between us.

The library was, of course, locked. I did not even try it, but rushed up the tight, dark stair toward the second floor guest room.

Behind me, footsteps stumped heavily onto the stairs. If the second floor entry was clear, I should be able to outrun him. The dry, slightly acrid smell of the walls closed around me like a tomb. To overcome this disabling sensation, I concentrated on my feet, forcing them quickly up the narrow, unlighted stairway.

I topped the stair and turned left into the open archway, where a single sconce illuminated the entry. A heavy step sounded behind me, and a muscular arm collected me like so much bagged chaff.

“Put me down,” I demanded.

He lowered me to my feet. His hand still on my arm, I turned into Gorgon’s despicable, bearded face.

“You want to see me so badly you come flying into my arms, eh?” This comment I assumed pertained to my coincidental presence at the lower entrance to his quarters. His strong hand tightened on my upper arm.

“Get away from me.”

“You want to keep your home, do you not?”

“You have broken any faith you might have had with my uncle.” I struggled to break his hold on my arm.

“Not at all, my dear.” A deep, resonant chuckle bubbled out of him. “Our betrothal is not so easily broken. But we can hurry things along by consummating our union. Come, let us finish what we started before the earl interrupted us.” His gaze probed mine, the heat of his desire clear and malicious. “I need your seer’s mind, your sensual, lavender-scented skin. Engulf me, Elena.”

“You only want Tor House.”

“As do you. Come with me.” He released my arm and attempted to embrace me within his bulk, but stopped and cocked his head, listening.

At that moment, a sword slid artfully between us, its flat edge slipping past my face. With a truncated gasp, I froze.

Gorgon took an instantaneous leap backwards, dropping his hold on me. The blade followed him and pinned him against the curve of the archway, pressing hard into his chest.

Footsteps rushed upward. The countess puffed onto the landing behind a grim-faced Duncan, who stood at the other end of that long sword, his arm extended in knotted solidarity, an incongruous love lock hanging loose beside his face.

“You would deflower the heiress when you have no continued agreement with my lord?” cried the breathy countess, still in the pink house dress she had worn much earlier in the day. She brought up her fan and fluttered it prodigiously, her jowls wet with perspiration.

“My betrothed beckons me,” Gorgon spit at her. “Get out of my way. Call off your watch dog.”

“You will lay no hand on Elena until you are married.”

The sword moved and Gorgon yelped, bright blood spreading over his fine coat.

“I will do as I please. You, sir,” he snarled at Duncan, “are a dead man.” He gasped for breath. In the shadows, his long eyeteeth resembled viper’s fangs emerging from his beard.

Duncan withdrew the sword, but watched for the slightest movement from the devious steward. He smiled his wide, white smile, no humor in it, inviting Gorgon to try, but the larger man turned, took the steps up to his third-story quarters, and slammed the upper door behind him.

“What . . .?” I gaped at these two unlikely comrades.

In one quick, shielding motion, Duncan’s arms enfolded me, a kiss touched the top of my head, and he stepped back, aware of the countess’ continued presence. Lips compressed, his face soured in intense dislike as he deferred to her.

“The captain saw the steward follow you up the stair,” the stout countess explained, her overgrown eyebrows pushed together in disapproval. “He broke into a run, and I made him wait for me. I want no murder on my hands. In terms of your virtue, Elena, I felt it my responsibility to protect my husband’s interest in this matter.” She gave me a look of utmost discomfort, the fan flipping across her face again.

“Of course. I should have realized.” I looked aside in chagrin.

They accompanied me to my room where I was forced to say goodnight to Duncan with the countess’ stern glare over his shoulder.

“Annie has been wanting to see you,” I said to Duncan, hopefully.

“Not tonight. The morrow will do,” the countess croaked with a huff. “The captain must see me to my quarters as well. We are none of us safe from Gorgon now.”

They turned away. I closed my door and stripped off my clothes in the dark. Sick with concern for my situation, I slipped into bed without tripping on the trundle bed or stepping on Annie. I snuggled beneath the cool sheets. My mind played over my options, but before any ideas or solutions could emerge, I fell into a deep sleep.

The dream came, this time . . .
to the sound of a sudden trumpet blast.

“Ironsides away,” screamed a man from far beyond a tangled line of hedgerows that lined a ditch.

Royalist musketeers scrambled out of the trees where they were meant to be a deadly sniper force to stationary mounted troops beyond the ditch. The foot solders struggled to retreat as the leather and thunder sound of a sudden enemy cavalry charge flooded their hearing.

As the Parliamentary cavalry made their move, the Royalist Horse rushed into a long wobbly line, men still loading their charges and unsure of their positions, as though they had been taken unaware. They pulled up quickly in tight formation and at their captain’s scream, pulled their pistols and charged. But the Parliamentary troops were already over the ditch and among the Royalist musketeers, whose position between two opposing cavalry charges left them milling around in confusion. They fell back upon one another in useless attempts to get out of the line of fire.

Pistols discharged, horses screamed, men cried, as the charge disintegrated into a monumental hand-to-hand struggle, the sound of clashing swords accentuating the enormous effort taking place in the smoke-tainted air.

At the back center of the battlefield, the red-cloaked lifeguard troop clustered around their tall general. The commander’s arm went up and, as one, the elite force galloped to the Royalist right rearguard, where men stood in hopeless disarray. A bounding blur of white followed them.

“Damn, do you flee?” a voice screamed. The tall commander twisted in his saddle to encompass every man within his sight. “Follow me.”

My heart clenched, for there was no question as to the identity of that rousing voice.

Prince Rupert led the second charge into the melee in support of his overrun right. Pistols went off in a unanimous shattering volley. Swords came out with a metallic clang, the tide of the battle a long uneven rush of push and shove, kill and be killed. Men hacked at one another in the heavy smoke. Horses screamed and went down. Men grunted, groaned, and strived. The earth, purged red, trembled with their effort.

I awoke, my limbs shaking, to sore, reluctant muscles, and the dream’s slow seep from my mind. My head felt like it was stuffed with shifting rocks. Excruciating sunlight blasted through my eyes when I threw back my bed drapes. I clamped shaky hands to my head.

Peg, brush in hand, and Annie watched me accusingly from the table by the doorway.

“What?” I croaked at them.

“I heard what the countess said when you came in last night,” Annie said in her provocative manner. “And Peg thinks—”

“The countess is right, for once. Ye should heed her word. Gorgon has a black heart, remember?”

“Thank you for asking Duncan in to see me,” Annie said quietly, looking uncomfortably at her hands, as though they were the last words she wanted to say to me, of all people, her perceived competition.

“Are ye sick?” Peg rushed over to me, took my shuddering hands and held them against her chest. Her face changed, suddenly intent. “No, ye’re pale as death. A dream ye’ve had now?”

I shook my head in a quick, painful negative. How could I ever explain to Peg what I had seen and felt on that monumental battlefield? Who I had seen would undo her.

Peg made a sound of disgust, her troubled gaze still on me.