Valentine (25 page)

Valentine looked at the other ship. The old nobles were conferring with their captain. All three were looking at the spot where Maria stood behind the two cousins.

“If I go with them,” Maria said suddenly, “will they leave you alone?”

Valentine turned to look down at her. “What? Maria, no.”

But Francisco acted as though Valentine had not spoken. “Hmm. I see what you are thinking. We could at least maneuver farther down the coast and send crew ashore there. Not Beckhamshire, though.”

“Oxley, then,” Maria suggested.

Francisco nodded, stroking his chin. “Yes. I agree. That would be a good place.”

The captain called from the other ship, drawing the trio’s attention just as the last of
The Skull
’s crew were reboarding their own ship.

“We will have the lady, Bird,” the captain warned, the elderly nobles hovering behind him, “or your neck will stretch, and well you know it. This is her home port. I’ll send up the signal, and every manned ship in the harbor will be obliged to assist.”

Francisco looked at Valentine with a shrug. “She has to go, cousin.”

“Francisco,” Valentine began in a chiding voice, “surely you can understand that—”

“He’s right,” Maria interrupted and pushed her way between the two men to stand at the railing. She raised a hand to the old woman but spoke over her shoulder. “If I don’t go with them now, none of us has any hope of reaching the shore for days, and that is if
The Skull
is not captured.”

She turned around to lean back on the railing and face Valentine. “If my betrothed has discovered my absence, I am caught either way. But the dowager will take me straight to Beckham Hall, where I hope I still have some authority. I shall also have an irrefutable excuse for my whereabouts. You can come ashore in Oxley unseen and make your way to me. It’s only a few hours, Valentine. I will be watching for you.” She paused, and glanced at Francisco self-consciously before asking, “It’s better this way, any matter, is it not?”

No,
he wanted to say.
It’s too soon.
Valentine felt that even though he would see Maria again in only hours, this was good-bye. And it was too soon.

“Let me go,” she whispered. “Before I think better of it and break my promise.”

She was right. If Valentine thought about it much longer himself . . .

Valentine pulled his dagger from his boot, then rushed toward Maria with a growl, lifting her around the waist with one arm as he stepped onto the railing. Maria squealed and clutched at his shoulders while he loosened a rope from its knot. He twisted the thick rough line around his forearm and grabbed at a loop and then hooked the ankle of his boot through the bottom.

“What are you doing?” Maria whispered into his face.

“Do no look down.” He pulled her close and took her mouth as he kicked off the railing.

They twirled in the air as the rope lowered with a whirring of wooden pulleys, and Valentine kissed her deeply, Mary’s arms entwined about his neck, her skirts blowing in the breeze above her bare feet. Her soft, unbound curls blew past Valentine’s face, shielding them both from the world as they held to each other for only a moment, suspended above the sea, between the ships, beyond reality.

Valentine pulled back to look into her beautiful eyes one last private time as his boots thudded onto the
Dane
’s deck. “I love you, Maria.”

Then she was ripped from his hold by the fat dowager and swung away behind the old woman. Valentine just saw the pale shock on her face, the glistening wetness on her cheeks.

“Get away from her, you filthy parasite!” the old woman screeched.

It took all of Valentine’s strength of will not to reach out and snatch Maria back. To tell Francisco to sail in any direction save the one that led to Beckhamshire harbor.

Thankfully, he felt the rope drawing him back up. And so once again he mustered his gift for pretend and touched the brim of his hat with the tip of his dagger, smiling for Maria’s sake. She stood on the deck, her expressionless face turned up as he rose above her, her arms hanging limp at her sides while the old woman pawed over her.

“Safe travels,
mi amor
,” he called.

But Maria did not reply.

And Valentine let her go.

M
ary said not one word to Lady Elmsbeth, Lord Roscoe, or the captain of the passenger ship; she spoke to no one for the remainder of the journey into port. She was deposited straightaway into the captain’s berth, and plied with food and drink, but Mary accepted none of it. Indeed, she stared into nothing, her eyes dry but blank.

“Poor thing,” Lady Elmsbeth said to Roscoe in a not very quiet whisper. “She’s likely in shock. I can only imagine the trials those criminals put her through. A lone woman aboard a pirate ship full of bloodthirsty villains. She’s even without shoes.” She tsked and shook her head. “I clearly saw the one who delivered her—I vow he was at the tavern in Prague, dressed as a monk, no less. Little wonder Mary acted so strangely desperate. She must have known he was there the entire time.”

“We can say nothing to her betrothed, Beth,” Roscoe said quietly, gravely. “You know that, don’t you?”

“But Roscoe, justice must be done,” the dowager cried out. “Her betrothed will pursue those dastardly men to the ends of the earth to avenge his love.”

“He may, certainly,” Roscoe agreed. “But think you he would still accept for his bride a woman so dreadfully used in such a way? Is that fair to Mary? That, after all this, she be turned out?”

“Oh! You’re right, of course,” Lady Elmsbeth fretted. “You usually are. But how are we to explain her appearance on this ship? The other passengers are to disembark at Beckham, and they all witnessed the spectacle of her release. There will be talk in the village.”

Lord Roscoe was quiet for a moment. “I will speak to the captain. He will announce that Mary had been a passenger on our ship the entirety of the voyage, only away in an isolated berth, ill. She was only kidnapped at the start of the attack, but we saw her aboard before the brigands could escape with her.”

“Oh, Roscoe, you
are
brilliant.” Lady Elmsbeth sighed. “That is just the thing, yes.” Mary heard the scrape of footsteps as Lady Elmsbeth appeared at the side of the berth. “We are only going above for a moment, dear. Have no fear—no one shall disturb you. You rest a while.”

Mary continued to stare at the ceiling, so very much like the one she’d awoken beneath just that morning, after being loved by Valentine.

Lady Elmsbeth patted her arm. “Yes, then. All right.”

Then she was thankfully alone, the creaking of the ship and the hush of the water against the hull the only witnesses to her grief. She fell into a defensive slumber, her dreams frightening conglomerations of Glayer Felsteppe once more feasting on Beckham Hall’s curtain wall, with a burning Melk perched atop a distant hill.

Mary was drenched in her own sweat and came awake with a jolt to see Lady Elmsbeth spring back from the side of the berth, her gnarled hands clutched to her bosom.

“My goodness, you gave me a fright, Mary.”

Mary blinked and stared about the small dark room, lit by two lanterns now. She had been hoping that this too was part of her nightmares. That she would be wrapped in Valentine’s arms when she woke, ready to saddle the horses and set out on the road once more together, outrunning the dangers that pursued them.

But this terror was no simple bad dream—indeed, the unknown trouble that lay before her was all too real, and all too inescapable.

“I’m sorry,” Mary murmured, pushing her hair back from her face. “Are we landed?”

“Yes, dear. The other passengers disembarked some time ago. Lord Roscoe and I thought perhaps it would be best if you were not available for spectacle.”

Mary nodded. “Thank you.”

The dowager seemed uncomfortable. “Roscoe and I shall take you straightaway to Beckham Hall ourselves. Er . . . whenever you are ready, dear.”

Mary swung her legs over the side of the berth and looked down at her bare, dirty feet, the ragged hem of the servant’s costume, which was the only gown she had since escaping Hamburg on Francisco Alesander’s pirate ship. She had not even a ribbon to tie back her hair with. Even though she was returning to Beckham Hall a woman who had traveled the world in a grand and harrowing adventure, loved and lost a man, known many exciting and exotic places and people and would soon become a married woman, for the first time in her life, Mary deeply felt like the abandoned orphan she was.

And then she thought of Agnes. Her nurse who was only moments away from her right now. Oh, how she longed to embrace her!

Mary stood from the berth and took the dowager’s arm as if she was an invalid, all the strength and will she’d come to know in herself the past months completely vanished, and departed the cabin for the brisk night air of the deck.

The village looked so small after her journey, and the villagers she passed in the streets were strangers to her now. No one paid her any mind as she preceded the dowager and Lord Roscoe up the main thoroughfare toward the stone keep looming in the distance. She could have been a poor maidservant or a beggar. Even the few who might have recognized her face would never accept that this bedraggled woman was their lady. And Mary took advantage of this fact, walking relentlessly toward Beckham Hall, having no care for the filth she tracked through. She didn’t dwell upon what she would do if she encountered Lord Felsteppe; at the moment, she didn’t care at all what he would think.

She only wanted Agnes, and her own bed.

As Mary drew near the steps to the hall, she noticed even in her daze of sorrow the lack of bustle, the absence of sound of the ever-present soldiers. There were no men milling about, no carts coming to or from the rear of the keep, where the entrance to the stores lay. The stones were gritty beneath her feet as she climbed the steps and entered the little guard house.

No guard.

She pulled at the door, some part of her worried that it would be barred to her, but it opened easily with its familiar screech.

“Mary?” Lady Elmsbeth called out in her warbly voice. “Is everything all right?”

“I don’t know,” Mary said. She held the door open behind her as the elderly nobles followed her into the soldier’s hall.

Empty. No fire in the hearth.

She crossed the bare stones—even the rushes were gone—to the little alcove where the stairs to her personal, upper floors were defended by the heavily reinforced door Mary had opened to Glayer Felsteppe what now seemed ages ago.

The door stood open.

A chill raced up from the floor to the crown of Mary’s head.

“Where
is
everyone?” Lady Elmsbeth whispered.

“Shh, Beth,” Roscoe advised, and Mary heard the papery sound of his hand on the dowagers arm.

Mary climbed the steps, her heart seeming to pound one hundred times with every tread she gained. Near the top, the golden glow of flames could be seen, and the warm scent of beeswax candles filled Mary’s nostrils with a familiar tingle. Agnes would be sitting before the hearth as she always was this time of night. Working at some mending or polishing, a small cup of warm milk at her side. Oh, how surprised she would be!

Mary’s eyes filled with tears when she gained the top of the stairs and saw the chair pointed away from her, toward the fire. The hem of long robes, wide sleeves, draped over the edges of the chair in dark silhouette.

“Agnes,” she called out, walking toward the chair, already raising her arms for the embrace she was sure would come. “Agnes, I’ve come home!”

The shadow jumped and then rose, turning swiftly before the fire to face her.

“Lady Mary!” Not Agnes, but Father Braund. “Praise be to God that you are safe!” He came around the chair quickly to meet her in the middle of the floor. The young priest took her hands with a gentle smile and then glanced at the pair behind her.

“I see your guardians did their job well,” he said.

Mary glanced behind her to see Lady Elmsbeth open her mouth, but before she could say anything, Lord Roscoe cut in.

“Yes, she’s safe and sound,” Roscoe said quickly. “An astounding adventure we’ve all had, isn’t that right, Lady Elmsbeth?”

The dowager pressed her lips together for a moment but then nodded. “Astounding, certainly.”

Father Braund looked back at Mary, and she noticed the deep creases in his face that had not been there when she’d left, the sunken appearance of his eyes. He had even less hair now, and his robes seemed to hang on him.

“You’ve arrived just—”

“Where is everyone?” Mary interrupted. “The servants? The soldiers? Where is Agnes? I would see her immediately.”

“I think we should leave Lady Mary to the care of Father Braund,” Lord Roscoe announced. “Don’t you, Beth?”

Lady Elmsbeth nodded, and Mary couldn’t help but notice the way the dowager’s eyes flitted about the room nervously. “I do. Our things have already been delivered to the inn in the village. We shall call on you on the morrow, Lady Mary, to see that you are well.”

Mary blinked at them both and then looked back to Father Braund. “All right,” she said. “Good night. And—” She broke off suddenly, turning once more to the elderly couple before rushing toward them and throwing her arms about the pair. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you both so much. I’m sorry to have caused you such trouble.”

“Yes, dear—think nothing of it,” Lord Roscoe said, patting Mary’s back awkwardly.

“It was our pleasure,” Lady Elmsbeth assured her when Mary at last pulled away. “Good night,” she called over her shoulder as Roscoe escorted her back into the stairwell.

Then Father Braund was at her side, taking Mary’s arm and leading her toward Agnes’s chair before the hearth. “Sit down, Lady Mary. I’m afraid I only have a bit of wine at the moment. I’ve sent the servants home for the evening.” He pressed the cup into her hand.

“Why?” Mary asked, raising the rim to her lips and gulping. She lowered the cup and gasped a little shallow breath. The wine was strong. “Is Agnes already abed? Surely she would want me to wake her.”

Father Braund looked at her for a moment, seeming to gather his thoughts. “Not three days after you left Beckham Hall, a ship came into port bearing returning Crusaders. And those Crusaders brought with them a terrible sickness. The keep was quarantined, and so the illness was largely contained to the soldiers garrisoned here. Of course, many of the servants were also touched.”

“But not Agnes,” Mary said. “Agnes never had anything to do with the soldiers. She despised them.”

“If you had not left when you did, you might have contracted the illness. It was a miracle. God’s own plan,” Father Braund insisted. “I barely lived myself.”

Mary stood abruptly from the chair, the empty cup tumbling to the wooden floor with a clang. In some corner of her mind, she acknowledged that the thick rug that should have been there was no longer.

“Is she still ill?” Mary demanded in a shrill voice. “Who is tending her?”

“Please, sit down,” Father Braund said quietly.

“No!
Where is she?
”

The priest reached out and tried to take her hand, but Mary jerked away and ran toward the shadows.

“Agnes!” she called, her bare feet flying over the smooth wood. She pulled up her skirts and raced up the dark, narrow staircase to the uppermost floor, once as familiar to her as her own appendages, but now feeling strange and cold and foreign.
“Agnes!”

She ran across the central corridor, past the columns supporting the roof, and flung herself against Agnes’s closed door. She threw it into the wall with a crash.

“Agnes?”

The moonlight shone through the single narrow window, casting its white light in a beam across the floor and in a zigzag up onto the wooden skeleton of the bed.

No crisp coverlet over a mattress. No embroidered pillow. No rug beneath the bed frame. Every inch of the room was stripped clean, empty.

Father Braund gasped to a halt behind her. Mary could hear the wheeze in his breaths, but at the moment, she was oblivious to everything save the enormous, bewildering pain in her heart.

“She’s . . . dead?” Mary asked in a tiny voice. It should not have echoed in such a small chamber, but it did, reinforcing the newly realized knowledge that Mary was now completely, utterly alone in this world. “But she was always so strong. I can’t recall her ever being ill.”

“A fortnight after you left,” Father Braund said, his breathing at last calming. “I couldn’t risk sending word to . . . to where you were going. I’m sorry.”

Mary couldn’t seem to take her eyes from the stark frame of the bed. She realized then that everything that had touched the ill had likely been burned. “It was because I left, wasn’t it? The worry of it killed her.
I killed her.
”

“No! No,” Father Braund insisted. He forced her to turn away from the empty room and look at him. “Mary, I told her. The sickness, it was so strong, it overcame so quickly—I told her the mission you had undertaken. She knew, and she was
glad
for you. She was
thankful.
” He tried to give her a smile. “She said that you were so brave, and that perhaps once you had a taste of the world, you would not return. She did not begrudge you your secrecy. She knew better than any that you felt stifled here, waiting all those years for your life to begin.”

“She did what she felt she must to protect me,” Mary said, her words breathy with disbelief of the altered state of her home. “I realize that. But now, here I am once more.” A rogue tear escaped down her cheek, hot and bitter. She swiped it away and focused her attention on the priest fully. “Where is my lord? His ship should have landed yesterday. Surely this place is not cursed now, so that no fighting men dare to sleep within its walls.”

Father Braund shook his head. “He did arrive yesterday, but he did not pause at the keep. He ordered all his men to muster at a nearby estate, where one of the betrayers was rumored to be en route. He hoped to intercept him there.”