Mary Reed McCall (26 page)

She’d been grateful for the respite, then, and she was overjoyed now, to see the huddled forms of her children sleeping under her old blankets, like puppies curled together for warmth.

Tears stung her eyes and her throat felt tight. Slowly, carefully, she stepped closer to the bed, until she was able to kneel on the floor next to it. She reached out and brushed her fingers across Isabel’s brow, stroking aside a silvery blond curl. Her hungry gaze took in Ian as well, seeing how he cuddled close behind his sister, his little fist clenched and tucked under his rosy cheek.

The tears overflowed, then, accompanied by a rush of love so great that it hurt to breathe. It was all she could do not to reach down and sweep the both of them into her arms right now. But she had to go slowly, she reminded herself. They thought her dead, and she’d give up her freedom before frighting them with her unexpected return.

“They are beautiful, my lady,” Alban said softly from behind her.

She looked over her shoulder at him, smiling through her tears. “Aye. They are my heart and soul. Truly, I do not think I would have survived to this day without them.”

Turning back to her children, she placed her hand on Isabel’s shoulder, murmuring, “Sweetheart. Awaken, now, darling. ’Tis time to get up.”

Isabel stirred, sighing and lifting her arm away from Lily, the doll Catherine had made for her when she was only a babe, to rub her fist across her eyes. Raising her head, she blinked a few times, finally staring ahead with a gaze almost identical to Catherine’s own.

Her delicate golden brows came together when she saw her mother, but she didn’t cry or start with fear. Instead, she whispered, “Mummy?” before blinking again. She let her mother take her hand, before releasing it and reaching up to stroke Catherine’s wet cheek. “Angels aren’t supposed to cry, Mummy. Have you come to visit us from heaven?”

Catherine’s throat squeezed tighter. “Nay, my love. Mummy isn’t an angel. I’m here, a real person just like you, and I’m going to bring you and your brother away to somewhere safe, where you won’t have to worry about anything ever again.”

“Away from Uncle Eduard?” Isabel asked, hugging Lily close to her.

“Aye, sweetie. Away from Uncle Eduard and Faegerliegh Keep for good.”

A brilliant smile lit the little girl’s face. “’Tis what I asked God for, Mummy! I prayed and prayed that you would come back home again to take us away from here, and God listened, just like you said He would, if I was a good girl and prayed very hard.”

Catherine laughed through a fresh swell of tears, and Isabel wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck, pulling her tight into an embrace. At the motion on the bed, Ian grunted and sat straight up, alert and bright as if he’d not been soundly asleep moments before; since infancy he’d come awake so, with enough energy, Heldred had always said, to drive the village mill for a week.

“Mummy, ’tis you!” he cried, scrambling over his sister to attach himself to her neck as well. “I knew Uncle Eduard told us a tale. I knew you hadn’t gone to live in heaven and left us here all alone.”

“Hush, darlings,” Catherine murmured, kissing their faces and hugging them hard to her. “We must needs be quiet and dress swiftly so that we can go from here with the nice men who are helping Mummy. Sir Alban will—”

A sudden burst of light and a strange whooshing sound filled the chamber, followed by a sickening thud and groan. Catherine sprang to her feet, whirling around as she gripped the hilt of her sword.

Her horrified gaze met Eduard’s icy stare, lit in the blaze of torches held aloft by the half dozen men who loomed behind him. Eduard stood over Alban, holding a blade to his throat to keep him pressed to his knees; a dirk protruded from Alban’s thigh, soaking his breeches crimson with blood.

“Ah, Catherine, my sweet. Sneaking about dressed as a man,” Eduard drawled, his smile cold.
“Suitable raiment for a woman like you, I suppose. But assuming that you know how to use that sword you’re wearing, I’d think long and hard before deciding to draw it on me.”

“E
duard.” Catherine tried to swallow her terror. “How did you find me?”

“I told you what to expect from my spies, sweeting. ’Twas stupid of you to have ignored me.”

“Where is Gray? What have you done with him?” she couldn’t help asking, even knowing in her heart that something must have gone terribly wrong with their plan.

“Oh, I haven’t done anything to him. Not yet,” Eduard answered with a malicious smile. “I expect he’ll be coming along in a few hours, which is why time is short. There’s much you and I need to…settle, shall we say, before your loving husband enters my trap and finds his just reward. Now drop your sword like a good little warrior so we can get on with it.”

“You bastard,” Alban growled. “If you touch her, you’ll pay.”

Eduard answered his threat with a brutal cuff to the head, jamming the knife harder against Alban’s throat as he commanded him to silence.

Catherine shifted her stance, trying to keep her children behind her as she strained to come up with a plan of action. Her heart thudded painfully, her breath coming shallow as her gaze darted to the open door that led to the twins’ chamber.

Eduard saw her glance and his smile deepened. “If ’tis Camville’s two other lackeys you seek, don’t bother. They’re already taken care of, as Warton here will be as well, unless you do exactly as I say.” Alban grunted and flinched as Eduard dragged his blade along the exposed skin of his neck, making a thin line of blood well and trickle down to his shirt.

Catherine bit her lips to keep from calling out for Eduard to stop, knowing that was what he wanted from her in this perverse game of power he loved to play. Four more of Eduard’s knights filed into the room behind him, fully outfitted in armor like the rest; one of them held a bloodied sword, and Catherine cringed to think whose life’s flow stained the blade.

She looked quickly behind her to murmur soothing words to Ian and Isabel; they’d begun to cry, clutching the back of her tunic as they hid from their uncle’s gaze.

“Aye, hush now, little lambs,” Eduard said softly, never taking his cold stare from Catherine’s face. “Mummy has an important choice to make. ’Twill
ensure whether this nice man lives or dies in the next few moments.” To punctuate his comment, he rammed his knee into Alban’s wounded thigh, and Alban roared with agony.

“Don’t do what he wants, Catherine,” Alban gasped, his face ashen as he looked up at her. “Don’t give up your weapon.”

Without another sound, Eduard pulled back his arm and smashed Alban in the temple with the heavy hilt of his sword, and Alban crumpled to the floor. Kicking him aside, Eduard stepped closer to Catherine.

“I’ll deal with Warton later. But you should keep in mind that he isn’t the only one who will suffer my wrath if you don’t begin to cooperate, Catherine,
very soon
.” He flicked his gaze with unmistakable meaning to the twins.

Nausea shot through her, and she swallowed hard against it, forcing herself to concentrate. She licked her lips. “What do you want me to do?”

“Do?” Eduard cocked his brow and grinned his evil, mocking smile again. “Oh, there’s much that you will do, Catherine. Much you must atone for, I’m afraid. You’ve put me through quite an ordeal, with your little escapade.”

She felt herself blanch. Old fears and agonizing memories of Eduard’s favorite methods of punishment sprang to mind, but she tried to stand firm as she faced him. “If I agree to your terms, you must promise not to hurt the children. Swear that you’ll leave them alone.”

“You’re in no position to bargain, woman. Con
cede now or suffer the consequences, both for yourself and for my darling niece and nephew.”

She gazed at him helplessly, at his men clustered in the doorway. Beyond them she saw more knights carrying in the limp forms of Sir Payton and Sir Newell. Finally her gaze fell on Alban’s prostrate body, and defeat gouged her with claws of steel. Hands trembling, she unclasped her sword belt, letting it fall heavily to the floor.

In an instant, Eduard’s men surged forward, responding to his command to take the twins and lock them in the solar for safekeeping. Catherine bit her lips to keep from screaming as her children were picked up and carried from the room, shrieking her name and reaching out to her over the shoulders of the knights who held them. When they’d gone, the last of Eduard’s men lifted Alban, still senseless, and dragged him from the chamber between them like a butchered animal.

The door closed to resounding silence, leaving her alone with Eduard. Slowly she raised her face to him, meeting his icy stare. He wore a look that she knew too well. The look that told her far more powerfully than words ever could how much she was going to suffer—how much he was going to enjoy making her hurt for her transgressions against him.

Tearing her gaze from his, she searched the room wildly for something, anything that she might use as a weapon. Anything to keep him at bay. But there was nothing. Her chamber was empty, as always. As he’d ensured it would be.

Her entire body began to quake with treacherous
weakness, with tingling dread as he stepped closer. And closer…until he stood near enough that his breath misted warm on her temple.

His smile was dark as he reached up and stroked his finger across the delicate, fragile line of her cheekbone. He touched her gently. Softly. Profanely.

A moan of fear escaped her and her knees threatened to buckle when he leaned a little closer to murmur, “’Tis a fine contrast of sensation is it not, sweet Catherine? To experience such tenderness before such pain…”

He paused for a moment. Then, with a sudden, savage growl, he raised his arm and backhanded her, sending an explosion of agony rocking deep into her skull. When his fist sank into her belly, she dropped retching and gasping to the floor.

And then she was lost in a nightmare of violence and torment from which she knew there’d be no escape.

She hurt. Sweet Jesu, everything hurt so badly
.

Struggling to open her eyes, Catherine tried to get her bearings. She was on the floor of the chamber, her cheek pressed into the cool, hard wood. Pushing herself to a sitting position, she gasped and cried out, sucking in her breath. Tasting blood, she spit it out, swiping the back of her hand across her lips.

He’d beaten her badly this time. Worse than ever before. He’d wanted to kill her. And he’d have suc
ceeded, too, she knew, if something hadn’t stopped him. If something hadn’t happened, forcing him to cease kicking her after she’d curled herself into a ball on the floor.

The messenger
…

Wincing, she sat up a little more and closed her eyes, trying to remember what the man had said. Her mind felt enveloped in a fog, paralyzed by the throbbing ache in her skull. She had to think.

It had been one of Eduard’s knights. He’d come to the door, interrupting the beating. She remembered the man’s brown eyes, thick with sympathy when he’d seen her lying on the floor. But then he’d looked away, clearing his throat and announcing that Lord Camville’s forces had been spotted surging over the hill east of Faegerliegh. He’d arrived several hours earlier than expected, and the men needed Eduard to lead them against him in the battle to come.

Lord Camville’s forces had been spotted
…

Gray had come! The realization sent a joyful shock through her numbed brain. He’d led his army to Faegerliegh Keep to help her and the twins. She struggled to her feet, ignoring the pain as she stumbled to the door. She had to find her children. Had to try to lead them outside the keep’s walls. Outside to Gray.

The solar
. Eduard had ordered his men to bring Ian and Isabel to the solar for safekeeping. She tried the door, her heart leaping when she realized that it was unlocked. Eduard hadn’t even posted a guard in the corridor. Most likely he’d thought her too
weakened to stir from the floor. ’Twas his mistake, and she planned to use it to full advantage.

Murmuring a prayer of thanksgiving, Catherine limped down the corridor, willing better clarity to her muddled brain and bursts of strength into her weakened legs. With each step, she focused on her purpose, gaining power and resolve. And anger. She felt the welcome burn of it, recalling Gray’s advice to her during their training, to focus her passions and rage into something useful. To work them to her benefit.

She grimaced, which only made her lip bleed again. Dabbing it gently with her fingers, she stumbled on. Aye, she’d use her anger well. She’d wield every ounce of it against Eduard. She’d been given a second chance to save her children, and she’d get them away from here if it took her last breath.

Catherine ducked behind a thick curtain as one of the keep’s maidservants came running down the hall. The woman was pale and obviously frightened by the sounds of battle echoing outside the walls. After she passed, Catherine came out of hiding and continued toward the solar.

She concentrated on the hate she felt for Eduard, and it helped her to keep going, to push through her suffering. Her loathsome brother by marriage had made a great tactical error this day, an error for which he’d pay dearly. He’d underestimated the force of her will to survive and fight his brutality and evil…

And that, she vowed, jaw clenched as she trudged
down the seemingly endless corridor, was going to prove his most deadly mistake of all.

Isabel squeezed her eyes shut, clasping her hands tight around Lily as she struggled to pray. She felt her own breath misting warm on her chilled fingers, but ’twas difficult to concentrate on talking to God with all of the banging and shouting going on beyond the keep’s walls. There were no windows to see outside the solar. No way to tell what was happening.

“It sounds like a big fight,” Ian yelled, his breath hanging in white puffs in the air. He hopped from the tabletop to a trunk ten paces beyond it, finally leaping to the massive mantel, where he dangled for a moment like a monkey before dropping to the stone hearth. He clambered up onto the unlit logs inside, standing up so that his head disappeared from view as he peered up the chimney, hoping for a glimpse of the action.

“Get out of there,” Isabel yelled, getting up from her prayers to yank him from the fireplace.

Ian coughed and scrubbed his sooty arm across his eyes, leaving black smudges all over his cheeks. “You didn’t have to grab me like that! I was just scouting.” He coughed again and scowled at her. “Now I can’t see, and you made me breathe in a pile of cinders!”

“Well, look at you!” Isabel scolded, brushing flakes of ash from his blond hair and using her sleeve to wipe his eyes. “What would Mummy say if she saw you, Ian?”

“Mummy isn’t here.” His lower lip wobbled a little and Isabel sighed, putting her hands on her hips.

“Well she will be, just as soon as she talks with Uncle Eduard.”

“Uncle Eduard doesn’t talk, he hits,” Ian muttered, kicking his toe against the hearth.

Isabel felt the sick feeling in her stomach too, but she couldn’t show that to her brother. He might get scared again, and if she’d learned anything in the year that they’d fostered away from home, it was that you could pretend yourself into feeling any way you wanted. It worked most of the time, anyway.

“We need to do something,” she said, pursing her lips and tapping her toe.

“Like what?”

“Like getting out of here to find Mummy.”

“But we can’t! Uncle Eduard told those two men to stay outside our door. If we try to leave they’ll just throw us back in here.”

“Not if we trick them, they won’t.” Isabel paced slowly to the fireplace again, sticking her head in to look up at the square of blue sky she could see at the top of the chimney.

“Hey, I thought you told me not to do that!”

“I’m not doing what you were,” she retorted, leaning her head out to glare at him. “I’m thinking out our plan.”

“Our plan?” Ian’s face lit up and he clambered back onto the wood next to her. “What is it? Are we going to climb the chimney to freedom?”

Isabel crossed her arms over her chest and favored her brother with a look of disgust. “And what
good would that do? We’d end up stuck on the roof.”

He shrugged, squinting to peer up at the patch of blue. “Once we were up there we could wave and jump about until someone threw a rope to us.”

“Or shot us with an arrow.” Shaking her head, Isabel peered up again. “Nay, I think we should reach a stick up there and scrape down the ash.”

Now Ian screwed up his face with derision. “And why in blazes would we want to do
that
?”

“Don’t say blazes—Mummy said ’tis a foul word.”

She ignored the even more foul sight of Ian’s tongue sticking out at her, instead ducking from the fireplace and pointing at the large chamber pot in the corner. “We could gather the ash in that, then hang it above the door and begin shouting and jumping, as if something was amiss…”

Ian’s scornful look faded. “And when the guards rush in to see what’s the matter, the ash will fall on their heads and blind them so that we can escape!”

“Well, the pot might hit the first guard,” Isabel conceded, “but I think we’ll need something else to stop the second one.”

Ian grabbed a large, knotted walking stick that was propped against the wall near the fireplace. “How about this? I can hide behind the door, and when the second guard comes in I can trip him with it.”

Isabel frowned, not at all certain that these plans fit in with the virtues that Mummy had always taught them. They were to say their prayers, tell no
lies, be good to each other, and treat no other living thing with harm. ’Twas that last part that would be a problem now, Isabel thought, grimacing. But they weren’t really going to harm the men, just trick them so that she and Ian could escape.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Isabel sent a prayer up to God, asking Him if what they were about to do was bad. She stood very still, waiting for some kind of sign against it, anything to let her know that they should think of something else in order to escape.

There was no answer.

She whispered the prayer again, just to be sure.