Ransom My Heart (20 page)

“Finnula, I know what passed between you and my father—”

“No,” she cut him off, vehemently. “You do
not
know,
no one
knows. Your father was mad, completely mad, and thought I was your mother. Did Sheriff de Brissac not tell you that? Lord Geoffrey never called me by my name, he called me Marie. Wasn't that your mother's name?”

When Hugo nodded, dumbly, Finnula said, “It wasn't
me
he loved at all, he didn't even know
me
. But in his demented mind, I was the Lady Marie, and so he would have me, and nothing I could do or say would dissuade him—”

“Finnula,” he said, taking a step toward her, but she held up a hand, palm out, to stop him.

“I'm sorry to tell you this, but I felt it then, and I
still
feel that a miracle occurred to save me that night. No sooner had we stepped into His Lordship's bedchamber than he collapsed upon the floor. I was so frightened, I did not know what to do—”

“Finnula, listen to me. We'll lock up that room. You need never enter it again—”

But Finnula spoke like one in a daze, as if she hadn't heard him. “I stood over him as he clutched his chest, trying to breathe. I ran for Sheriff de Brissac, praying he had not yet left the hall—but by the time I'd fetched the sheriff, Lord Geoffrey was dead.” Finnula realized that she'd begun weeping as she spoke, and stared in bemusement at a single tear that splashed upon her sleeve. “And
then I was accused of—of
murdering
him, and Reginald Laroche wanted me hanged on the spot! Only Sheriff de Brissac wouldn't allow it—”

This time Hugo wouldn't let her stop him. He was across the room and at her side in one long stride. He snatched her up into his arms, crushing her to his chest and murmuring into her hair, “I know, I know. John told me all about it. But we can put that behind us, can't we? We can forget all that and start anew. The first thing I'm going to do when I get to the manor house is dismiss Laroche, and then I'll board up my father's bedchamber. No one will ever enter it again, least of all you. Oh, Finnula, do not weep—”

But she couldn't help it. She clung to him, sobbing, and despising herself for it. How could she show such weakness before him? Hadn't her pride been wounded enough? Did she have to disgrace herself in front of the man? Wiping her eyes on her sleeve, she tried to get hold of herself, and pushed ineffectually at his chest to get him to release her.

Only Hugo wouldn't let go. If anything, he only held on to her more tightly, saying, “Listen, Finnula. It isn't as if anything will change. Oh, you'll no longer live at the millhouse, but Stephensgate Manor will be yours, to do with whatever you like. And you'll still be responsible for all my vassals. They already think of you as their lady. Wouldn't it be better for you to be Lady Finnula in truth? You can help me return what was so wrongfully stolen from them. I need your help, you know. I've been away ten years. I can't trust Laroche. I need someone to tell me how things ought to be done…”

Finnula twisted to be released from his grasp. “Ask Robert. Robert can tell you. And John de Brissac. You don't need me—”

“But I do.” He kept his hands tight around her waist. “For
sooth, Finnula, I may not be Sir Hugh in name, but I am the same man beneath the new title. Why do you suddenly hate me so?”

“Because,” she grunted, writhing against him. “You lied to me!”

“That was before I knew who you were,” he explained. “Besides, you had a knife to my throat, remember? You couldn't honestly expect me to tell you I was an earl when you were holding me hostage as a knight. Act your age, Finnula.”

“
And
you only agreed to marry me because my brother threatened to kill you—”

“I beg your pardon, Finnula, but I believe
I
was the one holding your brother at sword point, not the other way around. And God's truth, I meant to have you any way I could the moment you straddled me at the spring and announced that I was your prisoner. And since marriage is the only way I can have you and still be respected by my vassals, then marriage it has to be—”

“Ha!” Finnula tried to find a way to lever an elbow into his stomach. “See, I told you so. You don't want to marry me—”

“No man wants to marry, Finnula. There are just some women they can't have any other way, and so it is a sacrifice willingly made in order to attain a particularly choice—”

“Ooh!” Finnula was so angry, she'd have bitten him, if she could have found a portion of him that wasn't so hardened and muscular that she feared to break her teeth upon it. “I knew it!” she cried. “Well, I'll have you know, there are some women who don't care for marriage, either! And I'm one of them! I'm telling you right now that I shall make you a miserable wife. I can't sew and I don't know how to clean and I'm disaster in the kitchen. I shall leave the house every morning at dawn and hunt all day and return home at night muddy and tired, and I'll look such a sight, you won't want to come near me—”

“If that's what you think, you are far more innocent than you
led me to believe last night.” Hugo said, and grinned, and before she could draw breath for another barrage of threats, he kissed her, as her sister had advised.

Finnula squirmed in his embrace, intent upon making it clear to him that by marrying, they'd be making a horrible mistake.

But it was so difficult to remember how angry she was when his lips were on hers…especially when first one of his callused, knowing hands dipped beneath the wide neck of her gown, and then another cupped her backside, drawing her even close to him until, really, she had no choice but to wrap her arms around his neck, merely for fear of losing her balance.

Things got even worse when, with a knee, he parted her legs, thrusting an iron-hewn thigh against the crevice where her legs met. And Finnula, though she tried to resist it, could not help sighing and relaxing against him, feeling the pleasant wave of desire that passed over her as it always did when he touched her there. Fie! Had the sultan's daughter taught him that devil's trick?

She gave up after that, all the fight gone from her trembling limbs. She didn't care if they married or not, so long as he kept touching her there, sending such delicious sensations through her body.

Hugo felt her surrender, and took full advantage of it. He hadn't fought as a soldier these past ten years not to know enough to seize whatever victories came his way. Perhaps it wasn't fair, this power he had over her, but he wasn't about to feel any guilt over it, not while he had her exactly where he wanted her. Laying her pliant body back against the bed and lifting her skirt, he caressed with his hand now what he'd previously stroked with his thigh, eliciting soft murmurs of pleasure from Finnula, who, in some distant part of her mind, thought it a little wicked of them to be making love in her childhood bedroom.

But it didn't seem to matter where they were when Hugo wanted her and made her want him, too.

Before she was fully aware of what Hugo was about, he'd dipped his head between her thighs, and was caressing with his mouth what he'd previously caressed with his fingers. The feel of his tongue on her most sensitive area had a poleaxing effect on Finnula. She had to grasp the quilt beneath her fingers merely to have something to hang on to as his tongue sent her into ever widening spirals of orgasmic pleasure. She was doing her best not to cry out—and alert her entire family as to what the two of them were up to—when suddenly Hugo was unlacing his braies, and that part of him which she had grown to appreciate most fondly of late sprang free from the confines of his chausses.

She gasped as he filled her. His repeated thrusts soon sent her over the edge once more, into that place she'd been only with him. Though this time she tried to be quiet about it.

When Hugo, too, found release, he collapsed atop her, and they lay in a damp pile, breathing hard and barely able to see each other in the darkening room.

Still, Hugo's green-eyed gaze sought out hers, and he asked, panting, “
Now
will you marry me?”

She could barely speak, her throat was so dry from their passionate exercise. “I don't suppose I have much of a choice,” she said.

“No. I'll force you, if I have to. On sheepskin.”

Finnula thought about this. “I won't give up my braies,” she said.

“Yes,” he panted. “You will, if I have to burn them.”

“You wouldn't dare!”

“I would. And I want my emerald back.”

Finnula looked at the ceiling. “I don't know where it is.”

“'Tis round your neck. You think I can't feel that thing pressing into my gut?”

Finnula frowned, noting that the house seemed oddly silent. “You don't think they heard us, do you?” she wondered anxiously.

“With you gasping like that? They probably think I was up here killing you.”

“Or that
I
was killing
you
—”

“You were the one crying, ‘Oh, yes, please—'”

Finnula gasped. “Oh, no! I wasn't. I tried to be so still…”

“You failed. The whole village probably heard you—”

Finnula looked at him in the twilight. “You did that apurpose, didn't you?”

“Did what?” he inquired innocently, rising and straightening his braies.

“You know.”

“No, Finnula, I don't know. And now I suggest you start packing, because I'll only give you this one night of reprieve. Tomorrow we wed.”

“Tomorrow!” she cried indignantly, rising to her elbows.

“Aye, tomorrow. And don't try to run off, because I'm of a mind to flay you if you disobey me.”

“I thought you told Robert—”

“I told Robert the only man who'll lay a hand on you from now on is me.” He leaned down and kissed her hard on the lips. “I didn't say I'd never take you over my own knee if you were ever so unwise as to disobey me.”

Finnula considered this and decided that, overall, being taken over Hugo's knee would not be the worst thing that had ever happened to her. Still, she thought it better not to tempt him.

I
t had been ten years since Hugo had last seen his home, if one could call Stephensgate Manor a home. Hugo himself could not. The memory of his brother's betrayal was still as fresh in his memory as if it had occurred yesterday. And though his brother was long gone, and his parents as well, Hugo could not help giving a shudder as he approached the manor house's gates.

Though the village church bell had struck eight, there was still plenty of light in the sky. It was only the second week of May, but the sun stayed above the western horizon well past Vespers, and in that purple light, Hugo could make out only too well the twin towers that flanked the stone walls surrounding the structure that had come to be known as Stephensgate Manor. Not quite a castle, lacking moat and drawbridge and the normal accoutrements one came to expect from a well-fortified structure, it nevertheless was
an imposing building, looming over the village of Stephensgate like a bird of prey.

Constructed entirely of stone, including the roof, which consisted of piled slate, and the six-foot-tall wall surrounding the house and its adjoining stables, bakehouse, and storehouses, Stephensgate Manor been built as a shelter for Stephensgate's lord and his minions during a time of warfare, but the only concession to that purpose were the towers that flanked the two-story structure. Topped by battlements jutted with merlons, behind which archers might crouch, the towers served no purpose other than a military one, as the only thing existing within them were curling staircases to the platform roof.

Since Stephensgate hadn't known feudal warfare in over a century, the towers had fallen into disuse before Hugo's father's lifetime, and except when Hugo or his brother, Henry, had climbed those stone-carved stairs to enact some boyhood prank, Hugo could not remember anyone ever having entered the towers for any reason whatsoever.

Which was why, when he and John de Brissac passed through the manor house's gates and dismounted, Hugo was surprised to hear a voice call down to him from the battlements.

“Hullo, there.”

Looking up, Hugo squinted in the half light, and saw the face of a towheaded boy staring down at him from between two merlons.

“Hullo,” Hugo said. It was a quiet evening, the stillness broken only by the occasional cooing of doves that nested, as they'd done when Hugo'd been a boy, between the slates on the manor house's roof. His voice sounded unnaturally loud in the silent yard.

“Hullo, there, Jamie,” Sheriff de Brissac called jovially. He had dismounted, and his mare, relieved from the burden of her master's immense girth, danced a little on the cobblestones. “Fetch
old Webster down here, would you? We need someone to put away the horses.”

Jamie's head didn't budge. “Who's that with you, Sheriff?” he demanded. The boy couldn't, Hugo judged, have been more than nine or ten years old, but he had a commanding presence, even from twenty feet overhead.

“That?” Sheriff de Brissac chuckled. “That's His Lordship.”

The boy's tawny eyebrows rose with interest. “Give over. Lord Hugo?”

“That's him.”

The boy stared down at Hugo a second or two more, and then the golden head disappeared. Hugo flashed the sheriff a look of mild amusement.

“Who was that?” he asked, removing his riding gloves and slapping them loosely against his thigh.

“That? That's Jamie.”

“How many hangers-on is Laroche allowing to hole up here, anyway?” Hugo looked about the yard, amazed at how little anything had changed in ten years. The stables, the bakehouse—everything looked the same. A little shabbier, perhaps. Certainly not more prosperous. But oddly, strangely, homelike.

“Ah,” the sheriff sighed. “All sorts, all sorts. Including that squire of yours you sent ahead—”

“Oh? Peter made it here all right, did he?” Hugo was surprised. He wouldn't have counted on the boy to find London Bridge without getting into some scrape or another.

“Arrived yesterday, with quite a tale to tell. Said you'd been waylaid by highway robbers who'd be sending notice of your ransom sometime in the near future. Laroche didn't know what to make of 'im, and sent for me. Of course, when the boy clapped eyes on me, he shut up like a clam.”

Hugo chuckled to himself. “Finnula told him at peril of my life was he to say anything to the shire reeve concerning my, er, disappearance.”

“That would explain it, then. Ah, here's Webster.”

The old servant, who'd managed the Fitzstephens' stables since Lord Geoffrey's father's lifetime, shuffled toward them, his milky gaze on Hugo.

“That you, my lord?”

“Aye, Webster.” Hugo's heart swelled with unexpected emotion at seeing the old man, still up and around and performing his duties at the manor house, in spite of the fact that it had lain lordless for a year. One year or twenty, Hugo doubted Webster would have left until he was certain all his beauties, as he referred to just about any horse that wasn't swaybacked, were taken care of.

“Well met, old man,” Hugo said, striding forward and taking hold of Webster's spindly arm. “Well met!”

“'Tis you, all right,” Webster said, apparently unmoved. “I'd recognize that grip anywhere. Never did know your own strength. Well, you're back, then.”

“I'm back,” Hugo assured him, dropping the arm. “To stay.”

“'Tis about time, I'd say.” Narrowing a disapproving look at Hugo, he nodded. “Me beauties were beginning to suffer. But now 'at you're t' home, they'll be right enough.”

Without elaborating further, the old man turned and collected the reins to both horses, shuffling toward the stable door and muttering to Skinner beneath his breath. Hugo stared after the old servant, his lips pressed into a frown of disapproval.

“I suppose,” he said to the sheriff, “I should be happy they kept him on. God knows they could have turned him out, blind as he is. But why they haven't taken on a boy to help him—”

“Another mouth to feed?” John de Brissac grinned beneath his dark beard. “Not your cousin Laroche. No, he kept him on, since
he couldn't find another to work so well so cheaply. Devoted to those horses, the old man is. And doesn't cost your bailiff more'n a milkmaid's salary—”

“So that's how it is, is it? I should have guessed. What about that boy Jamie?” Hugo looked about the yard for the inquisitive mite. “He's not a stable boy?”

“Jamie? Nay.”

“Not one of Mistress Laver's, surely? Mistress Laver's still in the kitchen, is she?”

“Aye, workin' for her keep and a pittance besides. Nay, Jamie ain't hers, but he lends a hand where he may, though without doubt he causes more harm than help.” Sheriff de Brissac clapped his palms together, a favorite gesture of his, Hugo had learned, and rubbed his hands together. “Well, now, my lord, shall we knock, or merely enter?”

Hugo could tell that the sheriff was anxious to get to the business at hand, not out of any impatience to be home—nay, John had told him, quite without self-pity, that he had no wife to come home to, only an aged mother who was known as a scold—but for the action to be under way.

Unlike the sheriff, Hugo was not looking forward to the scene awaiting him. He'd witnessed more than his fair share of death and violence abroad, and longed for nothing more than a life of quiet domesticity, which certainly would not be guaranteed by his choice of a wife, but he supposed he might hope to attain it by the time he and Finnula were grandparents. Watching over his vassals, engaging in a tournament or two, and rearing children would be all the excitement he needed for the remainder of his life.

But the ousting of Laroche from his home was necessary to achieve that peace, and so Hugo squared his shoulders and said, “Fie on you, John. Why should I knock upon my own door?”

So saying, he bent to throw open the heavy portals, but found the iron latch moving before he ever even touched it. Creaking, the oak doors parted, and a familiar blond head peeped out between them. Hugo saw now that the face the towhead tipped up at him was as filthy as any he'd seen.

Standing no higher than Hugo's hip, Jamie said, in his high-pitched voice, “Well, come in, then. Don't just stand there.”

Hugo frowned down at the boy. “Quite at home here at Stephensgate Manor, aren't you, lad?”

“I should hope so,” Jamie said. “I was born here.”

“Were you now?” Hugo stepped past the boy and entered the manor house's Great Hall, nothing more than a vast dining area, surrounded on all four sides by a gallery that skirted the second floor and allowed those gathered there to look down upon the heads of those dining below. The Great Hall took up nearly all of the manor house's main floor, but only the very center of it featured the vaulted ceiling of a cathedral, from which hung two or three tattered banners, left over from some battle long since forgotten.

At the far end of the hall, opposite the doors, stood a wide fireplace, high enough to warm the entire room, or most of it, anyway. It was in front of this fireplace, in which roared a fire too hot for so fair an evening, that two high-backed chairs had been placed. In one, Hugo saw at once, though the boy's back was to him, lounged his squire, Peter. In the other was hunched a man Hugo thought he recognized as his father's cousin, Reginald Laroche.

At the sound of their entrance, Peter turned his head, and let out a glad cry.

“Why, look here!” the squire called out, his voice echoing in the vast chamber. “'Tis my master!”

Coming unsteadily to his feet, Peter crossed the flagstones to greet Hugo and the sheriff, the former of whom realized immediately that the boy was drunk. What fool had opened the wine cellar to this cocksure lad, Hugo could only guess, but the boy could barely stand, he was so intoxicated. Still garbed in his velvet tunic, the boy had at least removed his chain mail, though he'd replaced the ermine-lined cloak with a new gold necklace Hugo had never seen before. He hoped Laroche hadn't given it to the boy in an attempt to win his loyalties. Hugo was only too certain such a ruse would succeed, knowing Peter's vanity. Showering the lad with gifts and keeping him drunk as a pig in mud would win him over very nicely.

“Look, here he is, monsieur,” Peter said, pointing at Hugo, a ridiculous, toothy smile on his youthful face. “No ransom n-necessary, I s-see. D'ja give 'er a tumble, my lord? Lord, I wish I'd been in your boots! I tol' you she was a choice piece—”

Hugo ignored the boy, his gaze going past him to the man who had stood up as well, and was coming toward them more slowly, but with his arms spread wide in the age-old gesture of welcome.

“But this can't be Hugo Fitzstephen,” Reginald Laroche cried. “Not the raw youth who left here ten years ago, in such a fury. Laid a curse upon every head within this hall, you did that morning, did you not, my lord? And now look at you. Twice as broad as your father ever was, and taller than our towers, I swear. What a joyful homecoming this is, is it not, John? I see you rescued our lord from those vile highwaymen Peter told us of—”

“No highwaymen about it, Reginald,” John said, and grinned, purposefully using the English pronunciation of the bailiff's name, to irritate him, Hugo had no doubt. “Just the work of our favorite little huntress.”

The bailiff's face clouded over a bit at the mention of Finnula.
He was a tall man, though not as large as Hugo, mustachioed and lean, with a dark head of hair just going gray in front. Hugo remembered him as ever-present back in his father's day, more than a family member, an adviser, overseer of the estate, but Geoffrey Fitzstephen's best friend. A friend who, if what Hugo suspected was true, just might have murdered the old man to gain control of the manor, and then blamed the crime on the dead earl's innocent bride.

“Ah,” Reginald cried, the dismay in his voice only half feigned. “And your squire told us it was cutthroats!”

“She said she'd kill him if I told,” Peter slurred happily. “Only, what a way to go! I'd've gladly died a thousand deaths for just one kiss from 'er—”

Reginald's grin seemed frozen on his narrow face. “Ah. Well, we were expecting a missive demanding your ransom, my lord, but happily, here you are instead. Fortunately, my daughter—you remember Isabella, I'm sure? She's grown into quite a young lady since you last saw her—had your father's old bedchamber made up for you—”

Hugo quirked up an eyebrow. “Weren't you using it, Reginald?” he asked, following the sheriff's cue.

“What, me? Well, yes, but now that we have you back, my lord, 'tis only fitting—”

“Quite.”

Hugo saw how Laroche intended to play it. The loyal cousin, who had struggled to keep the manor running smoothly after His Lordship's untimely death, now delighted to be of service to the late lord's heir. Laroche could have no idea that Hugo had been briefed already concerning the state of his demesnes and vassals. John de Brissac would have no reason to say anything, and no one else would have dared. Except, of course, for the Fair Finn. But
she was suspected of murdering Lord Geoffrey. Who would be foolish enough to believe
her
?

Hugo said, slapping his riding gloves loosely against his thigh and glancing about with seeming indifference, “The place looks fine, just fine, Reginald. I was happy to see old Webster outside. But you must find he's a bit slow these days. You never thought to get him a hand?”

“Well, things aren't quite the same as they were when you left, my lord. No, not at all, not at all.” The bailiff shook his head mournfully. “Your father sold off most of the horses shortly before he died. Didn't see the use in keeping such a large stable when it was just him, you know—”

“Strange he'd have done so, don't you think?” Hugo flicked his gloves at a shield mounted against the wall, bearing the Fitzstephen crest of two falcons and a lamb, and frowned at the dust the gesture produced. “Considering he was marrying. He must have expected his bride to have use of a mare, at least. And there'd have been children—”