White Lion's Lady (6 page)

“I made a vow before God,” she said, her voice sounding very small, her chest rising and falling between the too-close press of their bodies. “I made a vow, and I am bound by my oath.”

The rogue looked less than convinced. “Honor is a foolish master, my lady.”

“Honor, sirrah, is all that separates man from beast,” she informed him tightly.

“Indeed,” he relented, “so it is.”

He chuckled as he said it, lifting one tawny brow and baring his teeth in a decidedly wolfish grin, leaving no doubt in Isabel’s mind as to which of the two categories this scoundrel subscribed. She bucked against him once more, testing his hold on her even though she knew it was futile to fight him. He would let her go only when he was through toying with her, so much like a predator taking sport with his helpless prey.

“So, tell me, my lady,” he said, watching her with those unnerving leonine eyes, “how did you come to be left so long in the convent? Were you a tax on your poor papa? Too willful for your own good, perhaps? After all, most women of your advanced age have been wed, bred, and widowed twice over by now.”

“I am not willful and eighteen summers is hardly old,” Isabel retorted hotly. She saw his amusement deepen and took a calming breath, annoyed that she had let him goad her into defending herself. “As if it is any of your concern, I was sent to the abbey after my father … died.”

Heaven help her, but though she tried to say it without choking, the word still caught in her throat and drew her captor’s attention. She waited for him to pounce on the show of weakness, certain that having smelled blood, he would take this opportunity to tear her emotions to ribbons,
but instead he merely stared at her, saying nothing. There was no mockery in his gaze now, no amusement on his lips. Rather, there was a queer sort of empathy in his hard features, a distant look in his eye that said he knew what she was feeling. That, somehow, he understood.

Isabel squirmed under the weight of his silent consideration, thinking herself mad for believing this rogue could know anything of heartache. Like as not, he was merely tiring of his game of cat and mouse. Perhaps in his boredom, he would decide to release her.

“Please,” she said, “won’t you just let me go?”

He studied her for a long moment, his gaze drinking her in as he brushed aside her skewed veil and stared at her face. “I can see why he chose to take you,” he said at last. “Any man with eyes in his head would surely pay a king’s ransom for a woman such as you.”

His unsettling appraisal shocked her, but her mind locked onto his other confusing disclosure. “Who chose me? Are you telling me that you were sent to kidnap me … 
specifically?
” It made no sense to her at all. Especially not when Felice, as beautiful and favorably connected as she was, had been taken alongside her. “I don’t understand,” Isabel said, confused. “Who would want to take me prisoner? I am no one of import. The daughter of a …” She bit back the ugly word that had come to describe her fallen father. It still burned so painfully to admit it. “I am no one.”

Her captor shrugged. “Mayhap you do not appreciate your worth, my lady.” He brushed her cheek with his knuckles then, an unexpected and startlingly gentle caress that should not have made her pulse skitter for anything more than fear or revulsion.

“If ’tis money you seek,” she managed to whisper, “I will see that you are rewarded. I give you my word. Just let me go now. Release us both, Felice and me.”

“I cannot,” he said, whatever tenderness he might have
shown her before suddenly gone. He backed off of her then, rising to his knees and reaching out to grasp her about the wrist and pull her to her feet.

“What could my capture possibly mean to anyone?” Isabel persisted. “What could it mean to you?”

He paused for the slightest moment, his strong fingers swallowing her hand, those hard green eyes meeting and holding her worried gaze. His smile was anything but reassuring. “What you mean to the man who wants you is anyone’s guess, demoiselle. What you mean to me, however, is a fat bounty. Fat enough to start my life over—far away from all of this.”

He spat the last word like a curse, jerking his chin toward her. Isabel was not sure if his scorn was aimed at her or at himself and the crime he was committing. She had no time to consider it further, for in the next instant she was being dragged along with him as he barked an order to his men to wake, rousing the camp and setting them about the task of remounting with cold, efficient command. In a matter of moments, the party was off, making their way on a trail he seemed to know well.

A trail that came to its end far too soon for Isabel’s comfort.

Only a handful of hours later, their destination loomed ahead, a large castle perched on a high hill. The forbidding place rose out of the morning mist like out of a dream, a nightmare vision of dark stone walls and cold shadows. A feeling of bone-deep fear gripped Isabel as she, Felice, and their hired abductors approached the soaring curtain wall. She had to batten down a shiver of pure dread as they were admitted within the massive gates and rode into the center of the wide inner bailey. The party dismounted; Isabel and Felice were left to stand like chattel on the block before the soldiers who took them.

She took in the sight of the tower keep and its outlying
buildings, feeling that this was not the first time in her life she had stood in this very space.

In a far corner of her mind she heard children laughing, taunting. She heard a little girl crying, felt the sting of her humiliation. A name whispered in the back of her memory, elusive, too many years distant for her to discern it now. She tried to coax the name forward, but then a dark-haired man emerged from out of the keep and said it for her.

“Well, well,” he said, smiling as his gaze swept the group, lighting with interest on the two women. “Welcome to Droghallow, ladies.”

Isabel’s heart lurched. Of course she knew this place.

Droghallow
.

How could it be? She stared at the nobleman standing before her in his rich attire, a man of slight frame beneath the lush fabric of his fur-trimmed mantle and dark blue tunic and hose, his leering smile and wicked eyes recalling now the bully she had encountered on this very spot ten years ago. Dominic of Droghallow. What did he want with her?

But a more alarming—some hundred times more distressing—realization made her turn away from the nefarious earl and look instead to the man he had dispatched to carry out his ignoble deed. The man responsible for the decimation of her traveling party and her subsequent capture.

The man tethered to her by a short length of leather cord.

“Griffin?” she asked, stunned, shaking her head. “No. No, I don’t believe it.”

But looking at him now, Isabel wondered how she had not seen it before. In truth, standing in the stark light of morning, she realized that he had not changed so much at all. Save that the noble boy she recalled and had revered as a hero for nigh on a decade was the selfsame man who had delivered her into captivity for the sake of a few silver
pieces. Her heart shattered as she gazed upon him now. The stunning green-gold eyes she remembered so fondly were still that beautiful shade, but colder, flashing at her when she said his name, not with charm and kindness, but with something unreadable. Something cold and dangerous.

“Griffin of Droghallow,” she breathed, aghast. “It
is
you.”

“You don’t remember me,” Isabel said, an absurd accusation when she stood shackled to him, a prisoner captured for reasons she dared not imagine.

He said nothing; under the harsh slash of his brows, his eyes registered only the vaguest confusion, and she thought, perhaps a measure of mild annoyance that he was unable to place her. He cut her loose from him without a word as Dominic descended the steps that led down to the courtyard. Droghallow’s dark lord was smiling as he strode forth to where Isabel stood, cursing herself for feeling so wounded.

“What’s this, another female heart broken?” Dom asked, chuckling. “My foster brother has quite a way with the fair sex; you’re doubtless not the first chit he’s forgotten.” His assessing gaze traveled over Isabel before sliding to Felice. “Which of you two lovely ladies would be betrothed to Sebastian of Montborne?”

“She is,” Felice volunteered eagerly, pointing.

Dom pivoted his head to Isabel, brows smugly arched. “Excellent,” he remarked. “You’re going to make me a very wealthy man, my lady.”

“I suppose it should not surprise me to find that you are behind this,” Isabel said, refusing to cower under Dom’s arrogance. “Droghallow’s heir always was an ignoble bully, utterly lacking in honor. ’Tis not so far a stretch to think
that he would stoop to building his future on bride stealing and ransoms.”

“Ransom?” Dom chuckled. “I assure you, I haven’t the interest in trifling with something as pedestrian as that. Suffice it to say that for reasons of his own, someone of great influence preferred that your wedding to Montborne did not take place. I am merely the tool by which that feat was accomplished, and I expect to be handsomely rewarded for it.”

“As do I,” Griffin interjected, his cold gaze narrow and fixed on Dom.

Isabel was unsure which chilled her more: the unknown fate that awaited her at Dom’s hand, or the mercenary undercurrent in Griffin’s voice. She could sense the air of challenge in him, could feel the tension permeate from where he stood behind her, a lion, poised to kill and ready to strike.

At Isabel’s side, evidently oblivious to the weight of their present situation, Felice daintily cleared her throat. “My lord,” she said, pleasantly addressing Dom, “as it appears to me that I am here only by a chance—and highly misfortunate—association, perhaps you would be kind enough to release me now and see me safely transported back to London.”

Dom paused, breaking from Griffin’s steely gaze to regard Felice over his shoulder. She was smiling hopefully, blinking at him with every ounce of charm she possessed. “What is your name, my pretty, prattling little dove?” he asked.

“Felice, my lord. Lady Felice of Rathburn, grand-niece to William de Longchamp.” She curtsied as if presented before the palace court, her deep, graceful dip somewhat undermined by her wrecked coif and rumpled state of attire.

Dom seemed not to notice. “Fascinating,” he purred around a throaty chuckle, giving her an appreciative head-to-toe
glance. “Your uncle refused to have audience with me on my last trip to London. Terribly rude of him, wouldn’t you say? Especially considering the fact that he was perfectly willing to keep my bribe. I wonder what the pompous dwarf will have to say when he hears that you are now a guest of mine here at Droghallow.”

Felice’s bright smile faltered. “M-my lord?”

“Take the ladies to the tower cell and lock them in,” he ordered of his guards. Then he raised his finger in hesitation. “On second thought, split them up. Put the blonde in the chamber adjoining mine.”

When two men moved forward to seize the women, Griffin placed his hand on Isabel’s arm, possessively holding her back. “My payment, Dom. Where is it?”

“In time,” Dom replied in an affable tone. “Certain arrangements will have to be made before either of us sees our reward. Have a little patience, brother.”

But Griffin’s grip remained firm on Isabel; the look he gave the guard who would have taken her in hand at that moment was warning enough to make the man retreat a healthy pace. “I’ve delivered you the Montborne bride as promised. You said nothing about waiting for payment.”

“Yes,” Dom conceded with a sigh. “I suppose you are right. I didn’t. But tell me you would have been willing to undertake this little errand had you known your compensation would not be immediate.”

“I wouldn’t and you know it,” came the rumbling growl from beside Isabel. “And I’m not about to surrender your prize until I have what is owed me.”

“Come now, Griffin. You’ve seen the sorry state of Droghallow’s coffers of late. The bulk of my wealth is tied up in London and abroad. I need this boon every bit as much as you do.” He grinned suddenly, his eyes gleaming with malice. “You needn’t worry. I’ll see that you get what’s coming to you. Then you can be gone from Droghallow, as is your plan.”

Isabel sensed a new tension in the air. Though his grip on her remained solid, Griffin’s body had gone utterly still at her side; indeed, she could scarcely hear him breathing in that moment.

“What’s the matter, Sergeant? I daresay you seem surprised to hear me say it. Of course I know you’ve been plotting to leave Droghallow. Scrimping and saving every last farthing to buy your way out of here and finally make something of yourself.” The earl’s chuckle was as cruel as any blade. Even Isabel flinched to feel its cutting edge. “Old dreams die hard, don’t they,
brother
?”

Isabel ventured a sidelong glance at Griffin. He stood unmoving, his hard gaze narrowed on Dom, nostrils flared, his mouth set in a grim line. If looks alone were capable of slaying a person, then the Earl of Droghallow would surely have been struck dead in that moment, his black heart ripped wide open by the anger burning in Griffin’s eyes. But Griffin made no move to act on the violence that was so apparent in his gaze, and Isabel knew that he was far more dangerous in his calm than he would have been had he raged and bellowed and beat Dom into submission.

The earl must have come to the same conclusion, for all at once he adopted a less smug expression, his voice taking on a friendly, if somewhat placating tone. “My apologies for this little inconvenience, Griffin. I should like to make it up to you if I can. Perhaps you would be willing to accept a token of my good faith? Something to soothe your churlish mood?” He grinned, nodding in Isabel’s direction. “She’s passably attractive after all, and spirited, in a simmering sort of way. I wager she’ll make entertaining enough bed sport.” He pursed his lips and gave a careless shrug. “God knows, she will have no need of her virtue where she is going.”

Isabel’s breath caught in her throat. At her side, Griffin swore an oath, but to her horror, he finally released his grip on her arm when Dom motioned again for the guards to
take the women to the keep. Tears pricked her eyes as she was led away, but she refused to let them fall. She would give neither of them the satisfaction of seeing her break. Instead, she ground her heels into the hard-packed earth of the bailey, pulling against the guard’s hold, but her resistance was to no avail. She and Felice were walked up the steps none too gently and pushed into the entryway to the castle. Dom followed close at their heels.