White Lion's Lady (7 page)

“Think on it, Griff,” he said, pausing in the tower doorway to toss the jovial offer over his shoulder. “She’s yours for the night if you want her. You need only say the word.”

Griffin stared at the dark, yawning mouth of Droghallow’s tower keep for some long moments after Dom and his two prisoners had disappeared within, unable to purge the image of the lady’s face when she heard Dom’s plans for her. The look of fear in her eyes, her tiny gasp, her obvious struggle to maintain her dignity in light of this terrible circumstance. All of it haunted him.

That she seemed to know him—that she would call him by name, seemingly hurt that he did not recall her—was particularly niggling. Had he known her at one time? He did not think he could have. She had been cloistered for most of her life, and even had she not, Griff felt certain he would have never forgotten an exquisite beauty like her.

He stood there in the bailey, trying to reconcile in his mind what he had become this day. A kidnapper, certainly; bride stealing, the most cowardly form. Bad enough that an innocent be torn from her sheltered life and left to wait for ransom in some dank prison cell, but what Dom had suggested for the Montborne bride was something verily more nefarious.

Someone of great influence wanted her out of the way, he had said.

For what purposes, Griff did not know. But there was no reason to guess at who that influential someone was:
Prince John, the king’s treacherous younger brother. Dom had been currying the prince’s favor in secret for some time now, feigning allegiance to King Richard so long as Droghallow’s bribes won him the lands and titles he wanted, yet making it clear to John that given proper incentive, the prince would have a certain ally in him. This latest task was clearly a further test of that alliance. Griff could only imagine what Dom stood to gain for the misdeed.

And he was not fool enough to believe that his foster brother intended to surrender any of his pending boon to him—now or at a later date.

Dom was toying with him somehow, and Griff had little tolerance left for his continual games. Not that he’d ever had much. For too long he had banked his scorn of the arrogant lord, carrying out his orders and tempering his own disapproval because he pitied the weak-hearted, sickly boy Dom had been and he understood the bitter man he had become. Indeed, Griffin reflected for what had not been the first time, he may well have been to blame for some of Dom’s viperous nature. Dominic had long resented Griffin’s presence at Droghallow—and made no secret of the fact that he would have preferred him gone, though surely no more than Griffin himself had come to want that very thing.

But to leave would have been to break a vow, a promise made to Dom’s father, Robert, the old earl. Sir Robert was a hard man and a strict lord, but Griffin had respected him as he would his own sire. If not for him and the gentle-hearted Lady Alys, Griff would have had nothing at all in this life. He would likely have been dead if not for the benevolence of the noble couple who took him into their home when his own kin had deserted him to the charity of strangers.

Sir Robert loved his son, but Dominic was a source of frequent strife and constant concern. Though he tried to school his sole heir in the ways of responsibility and honor,
on many occasions, Droghallow’s earl expressed his fears to Griffin that Dominic might never be fit to rule his demesne. He had stunned Griffin the day he made him swear to stay on after he was gone. Griff’s assurances that Sir Robert would have a good many years before that was an issue that seemed to fall on deaf ears. In an uncustomarily bleak mood, the earl made him vow then and there to look after his interests and see that Dom did not make a mockery of his good name.

That pledge, spoken before Griffin could really know what he would be giving up—and put to the test when Sir Robert died later that year—had kept Griffin’s feet rooted firmly in Droghallow’s soil. It had kept him from pursuing his own dreams, from seeking answers to questions that had plagued him his entire life. Who was he? Where did he come from? Where did he belong?

Griffin did not recall the precise moment that he finally decided it was time to find out. All he knew was that one day he was staring at a pot full of hard-earned silver—more than two years’ wages—and he suddenly knew why he was saving it. He was leaving Droghallow. He would collect enough money to afford him a decent start somewhere else and then he would go. This last task for Dom, odious as it was, would have ensured the commencement of that new life. And now, despite Dom’s assurances, Griff was certain that inside the castle his foster brother was gleefully maneuvering a way to cheat him out of the chance at freedom he so desired.

Incensed that he had trusted Dom’s word in the first place, Griff ground out an oath and shouted for one of Droghallow’s squires to stable the horses stolen from the caravan. It took no coaxing at all for him to join Odo and the other men at the village tavern, where he proceeded for the next few hours to drink himself into a wicked black haze.

He guessed it to be somewhere around midnight when
he finally decided he’d had enough. He was drunk, but he was not about to let Dom’s present manipulation go unmet. Downing the dregs of his ale, he pushed himself away from the table and stalked across the tavern’s earthen floor.

“Something wrong, Griff?” Odo called from around the neck of a serving wench who had seated herself in his lap. “Where ye goin’?”

“To collect on what’s owed me,” he replied, and let the door slam behind him.

The night was half expired before exhaustion finally claimed Isabel, but despite her fatigue, she slept restlessly, jolted awake in stark fear by every bump and movement that sounded in the corridor beyond her locked chamber door. Every voice that echoed through the tower keep made her sit bolt upright on the cell’s crude bed, listening, waiting in dread for the nightmare of this new existence to truly begin.

Whatever fate Dom had in store for her, whatever reason he had for ordering her kidnapped—and for whom—Isabel was certain of one thing: her life now was as good as forfeit. And of all the people in this world, Griffin had been the man who delivered her here. It was too horrible to contemplate, too terrifyingly real to acknowledge.

She heard the heavy fall of footsteps nearing the other side of her door and rose up off the thin, down-filled mattress of the bed. The guard Dominic had posted outside hailed the person who approached with a chuckle and a friendly greeting.

“Come to take Dom up on his offer of the wench, have ye?” he asked knowingly. “Can’t says I would’ve turned it down either.”

“Shut up and open the door,” the visitor ordered in a gruff drawl as he approached, his voice heavy and slurred with drink.

It was Griffin, Isabel realized in horror. A tremor of
disbelief snaked its way down her spine as the lock bar slid out of its sleeve and the door to her chamber swung wide. She scrambled to the edge of the bed, not at all certain what she meant to do, knowing there was nowhere to hide, no means of escape.

“Someone here to see ye, m’lady,” the guard laughed.

He stepped aside and Griffin’s silhouette filled the doorway. He looked even bigger to her than he had before, grim and ominous, now that she was seeing him in this new, truer, light. His dark mantle swirled around his muscled calves as he stepped over the threshold, the spurs on his boot heels gleaming in the torchlight that spilled in from the corridor behind him. There was a feral look about him, a hard gleam in his eyes as he stared at Isabel from across the short span of floor that separated them. His tawny hair was windblown, hanging in reckless spikes over his brow and shoulders. His sculpted mouth was set in a line of grim determination, his squared jaw tight and unforgiving.

Even from where she stood, her slippered feet crushing the dried rushes on the floor, the backs of her thighs pressed against the bed, Isabel could sense the air of resolve that radiated off of him in waves. Heaven help her, but she was looking at a man capable—and fully certain—of getting precisely what he wanted. She swallowed hard and sidled a wary step to her left.

“Leave us,” he instructed the guard.

Isabel flinched at his calmly voiced command. The door closed with a soft groan, sealing Isabel in to meet her fate like a helpless Daniel, alone in the lion’s den.

“W-what do you want?” she stammered, her voice rising in fear. “Why have you come here?”

“Shh,” Griffin hissed. “Don’t be frightened.” He spread his arms as he came toward her, his feet a trifle sluggish, palms exposed in a seeming show of peace. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Isabel’s heart was pounding like a drum. Had he come
to take his use of her as Dom had offered? she wondered, panic rising in her breast. No. Her mind struggled to deny the terrible thought. Griffin would never hurt her. He would never stoop to something so vile as rape.

But this was not the Griffin she thought she once knew, she reminded herself, her feet inching away from him of their own accord. This was not the same person she had idolized as a hero—the one person whose honor she had believed in all these years.

She did not know him now, this man who reeked of ale and smoldering anger. He was a stranger to her. Worse than a stranger, he was her enemy, no less a threat to her well-being now than Dom himself. Perhaps more, because her heart so dearly wanted to trust him, even now.

“You have nothing to fear, my lady. Just do as I tell you and everything will be all right.”

He nodded slowly, as if he had no doubt that she would obey, and stepped closer. Then he reached for her. Isabel turned on her heel as he seized her by the shoulder, his big hand clamping down on her like a vise. She cried out and lunged away sharply, but he held firm, curling his strong fingers into the neckline of her gown. The seams of the fine silk garment popped under the strain, tearing open at the neck and sleeve. He was undaunted. In the space of a heartbeat he had changed his grip, latching onto her arm and pulling her to him with a firm tug.

“Damnation, woman, stop fighting me!” he grated harshly beside her ear.

But Isabel screamed instead and threw herself forward. Blessedly, his grasp gave way, drink no doubt hindering his ability. Freed of his hold, Isabel fell to the floor on her knees in the rushes. Behind her the door to her cell creaked open.

“Help me, please!” she cried in desperation, but it was only Dom’s guard, a hard-eyed man who glanced in dispassionate silence from where she sat, trying to hold together
the rent shoulder of her gown, then to Griffin, who stood over her, breathing hard, fists clenched, a solid wall of dark intent.

“Do you mind, man?” Griffin growled at the soldier. “I think I can manage to do this on my own. Why don’t you take a walk for a couple of hours? I’ll fetch you back to your post when I’m through here.”

The guard grinned appreciatively and closed the door. His booted footfalls retreated down the corridor, and Griffin turned his attention back to Isabel. He held out his hand. “Come up off the floor, my lady.”

Isabel shook her head. “Stay away from me.”

“We haven’t a lot of time to waste,” he told her matter-of-factly when she refused to budge. “The less difficult you make this, the better.”

She could hardly believe her ears! That he would stand there so arrogantly, advising her to cooperate with him while he defiled her, outraged Isabel beyond comprehension. “I would rather die first,” she declared, then vaulted to her feet and made a headlong break for the unguarded door.

He caught her around the waist and flung her backward onto the bed. The sudden impact of hitting the mattress stunned her, but not nearly so much as the feel of Griffin’s body when he placed himself atop her in that next moment, trapping her beneath him.

“Mayhap you’d prefer to sulk in this chamber until Dom is ready to ship you off to God only knows where,” he suggested tightly, his eyes flashing in the dim light of the candle that sputtered at her bedside. Isabel scarcely registered his comment. She struggled under Griffin’s pinning weight, fighting with all she had, even though she could sense the futility of her efforts in every hard plane of muscle and bone that held her prisoner against the mattress.

“Dom promised me a healthy reward for you,” he
drawled, his voice low and full of resolve. “If he won’t deliver on that vow, then I shall collect it through another means instead.”

“No! Don’t touch me!” Isabel cried, bucking and thrashing. He held both her wrists locked in his steely fist, leaving her few defenses to use against what was certain to be a brutal, degrading attack. But when she expected him to descend on her with the full drunken force of his lust and violence, he began to ease off of her. He stilled suddenly, staring at her exposed neck and heaving bosom.

“What the devil?”

She flinched as if struck when he reached down, frowning, distracted now by something he saw. The medallion, she realized, feeling the weight of the cold metal where it lay against her flushed skin. Panting, still tensed for flight, Isabel watched Griffin’s expression change as he lifted the bronze half-moon-shaped disc up toward his face, his reaction going from surprise, to confusion … to recognition.

“Izzy?”

His momentary hesitation was all the opportunity she needed. Teeth clenched, lips flattened in a sneer he might have mistaken for a smile, Isabel arched her back off the mattress and, with every ounce of fury she could muster, kneed him squarely in the groin.

He drew in his breath sharply and collapsed atop her, his face diving into the space of mattress above her shoulder. With surprisingly little effort, Isabel pushed him over onto his back and scrambled away, triumphant as her feet touched the rush-strewn floor and carried her swiftly across the room toward the door.

He groaned on the bed behind her, muttering an incoherent oath. “Izzy,” he gasped, his hand feebly groping for her and catching only a handful of air. “Isabel, please. Wait.”

“Why?” she shot back with a haughty bark of sarcasm. “To give you another chance to molest me?”

“God’s wounds, lady,” he croaked, still doubled over in apparent misery and struggling to drag himself up off the bed. “It wasn’t my intent to steal your virtue—I came to take you out of here! I mean to take you to Montborne.”