Just as he’d hoped. Edlyn ran right for him. He opened his arms wide—and she dashed past to kneel at Almund’s side.
“Is he breathing?” she rolled the old man over. “Push the water out of him!”
Hastily, Hugh lowered his arms and hoped no one had noticed his disgraceful bid for Edlyn’s attention. “He’s a touch old bird.” He stood dripping until Wharton handed him a linen towel from the supplies already on the shore. “He’ll survive.”
Edlyn pressed on Almund’s back until he vomited up river water. “If he doesn’t, it is your fault,” she scolded. “If you hadn’t been in such a hurry to get across the river at night, this would never have happened.”
Through the haze of his own outrage, Hugh heard Wharton say, “Don’t ye talk t’ th’ master that way! ’Tis not yer place t’ question his commands!”
“If someone questioned them occasionally, mayhap he would think before he made them!” Edlyn answered back, as spirited as Hugh had ever heard her.
In some way, Wharton’s indignation and Edlyn’s anger soothed Hugh. He had made a stupid decision, and he’d hear about it from Edlyn. That was as it should be; a wife claimed the right to educate her husband, and Edlyn clearly had settled into that matrimonial role. “I won’t do it again,” he said meekly, and all conversation stopped.
He looked around at his gaping men. “Well?” He snapped his fingers. “Have you retrieved everything from the river?”
The squires scrambled down the riverbank. With a shout, Parkin and Allyn went with them, and Wynkyn hurried after. Hugh addressed the still-dry Sir Lyndon. “Did everyone escape the river?”
Sir Lyndon opened his mouth, but wasn’t his voice that answered.
“I certainly hope so.” A strange man stood in the shadows at the edge of the road that led away from the landing. “It will make the ransom for you so much more lucrative.”
Hugh swung around in surprise and dismay. A row of swords glinted in the moonlight, and they pointed right at him.
“Who dares threaten the prince’s commander in the west?” Sir Lyndon shouted.
Wharton growled, and Hugh felt the sharp flick of exasperation. How stupid of Sir Lyndon to identify him to this enemy!
A warm laugh from the stranger confirmed Hugh’s unease. “The prince’s commander? I have captured Prince Edward’s commander?”
Hugh’s heart sank as he recognized the familiar voice.
“Hugh de Florisoun himself.” Richard of Wiltshire stepped into the moonlight and gave a flourish of his sword. “It is you, Hugh! It’s been many a year since I’ve had the honor of your acquaintance, but I admire you and your vaulted honor now just as much as I ever did.” His voice turned soft and cruel. “That is to say—not at all.”
“Did they capture everybody?” Hugh sat in the dungeon at castle Juxon surrounded by his men and interrogated them as briskly as if he could see them—which he couldn’t. The sun shone outside, but in this dank and vile cell beneath the very ground, no beam of light had a chance of ever penetrating.
“They got every thing and everybody,” Sir Lyndon answered, sounding dreary and discouraged. “My tent. My armor. My destrier.”
“My wife.” Hugh didn’t appreciate Sir Lyndon’s litany of his lost belongings when Edlyn’s purity and her life were at risk.
“Your wife,” Lyndon agreed, but he said it in such a lackluster one it was clear he didn’t comprehend the magnitude of Hugh’s loss.
If only Richard of Wiltshire hadn’t pounced on them while they were still in disarray from the sinking of the ferry.
“They didn’t get all th’ servants,” Wharton said.
“Well, I’ll be expecting them to besiege the castle and rescue us at once,” Sir Lyndon snapped.
“Shut your yap, London.” Hugh listened to the stunned silence with a sense of gratification. “You’ve given up, and I don’t like that. What kind of knight gives up just because he faces overwhelming odds?”
“One with good sense,” Lyndon answered defensively.
This imprisonment had shown Hugh a new side of his chief knight, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like Lyndon’s easy acceptance of defeat, especially when it had been Lyndon who had failed to set a guard. He didn’t like Lyndon’s attitude about women, and really he didn’t like Lyndon’s disrespect to his wife.
Hugh’s men shuffled and coughed as they tried to make themselves comfortable among the rats and the leavings of other prisoners, and Hugh wished he had started his sojourn in dry clothes, for the dampness of the dungeon seeped through to his skin and shivers racked him periodically. “Where’s Wynkyn?”
No one answered.
“He had orders to watch Edlyn’s sons. Could he have saved them from capture?”
“I didn’t see those lads anywhere in th’ line o’ prisoners,” Wharton said thoughtfully. “M’ lady would have kept them by her if she could.”
“It would have been better,” Lyndon said, “If she hadn’t told Richard she was your wife.”
That, unfortunately, was true. Richard of Wiltshire had ordered Hugh stripped of all weapons while he unerringly found his way to the side of the only woman among the company, touched her under the chin, and asked who owned her.
Hugh wouldn’t soon forget that haughty little answer. “I am the wife of Hugh, earl of Roxford, Sir Knight, but no one owns me.”
“They do now.” Richard had linked his arm with hers and smiled quite wickedly into her face. “They do now.”
If Edlyn had understood the implications of that, she had given no indication. She just instructed Richard’s men to lift Almund onto a cart so he could be carried to a bedchamber, and after a nod from Richard, his men had scrambled to obey.
Hugh dropped his head onto his knees and muffled a groan. All the scorn he had heaped on Richard in previous encounters returned to haunt him now. What nefarious activities would Richard force Edlyn to endure as vengeance against Hugh?
The tiny door creaked open, and a flickering light stabbed the room with little blades of agony. His men stood, almost in unison, shading their dark-accustomed eyes, but Hugh remained on the floor leaning against the wall. A man-at-arms stuck his head in the low opening and said, “Me master wants Hugh o’ Roxford, an’ he wants him now.”
Hugh’s men turned and looked at him, and Hugh waited a few beats of the heart to show his indifference before he rose.
The man-at-arms stepped back, holding a sword on him with capable hands, and said, “I have orders t’ kill ye if do anything out o’ place, an’ I’d love t’ kill an earl, so please, m’ lord, try an’ rush me an’ me men.”
Hugh held up his hands to show his defenselessness and bent to exit the dungeon. Straightening, he looked around at the narrow, short corridor that led to the stairway, then at the dozen men who stood at various intervals with swords, maces, and quarterstaffs, all pointed at him.
Hugh found cold comfort in knowing Richard respected his fighting ability.
The men-at-arms placed him in the middle, then paced upward toward the cellars, which were on the windowless ground floor. Here servants scurried, tapping the casks of wine. They all stepped back as Hugh and his guards came through.
Up the spiral staircase they went, moving toward light and warmth and noise. Hugh could smell roasting meat and bread and the sharp, shrill odor of spilled ale, and his stomach rumbled noisily. The man-at-arms in charge laughed at the sound. “If ye please th’ master,” he said, “mayhap he’ll let ye eat—wi’ th’ dogs.”
Hugh waited until they entered the great hall before he replied. “The dogs would be better companions than my present company.”
The man-at-arms stopped short, then whirled and raised his sword.
“Halt!” Richard’s voice rang out over the babble of voices. “You’ll not kill that man while he lives on my charity!”
Hugh allowed himself a nasty smile as the man-at-arms lowered his sword. On one thing he knew he could depend—on Richard’s sense of fair
play.
In this massive great hall, the rough trestle tables were set up in a U-shape, with the diners seated around the outside for the servers’ convenience. As usual, the bottom of the U was the raised dais where the noble folk ate, and there he saw Richard, sitting in the place of honor—with Edlyn at his side.
Hugh lunged toward the head table.
Blades gleamed as they flashed out of every scabbard in the hall.
Silence quivered as challenge met challenge and everyone awaited the next event.
“By the saints, you men are such children.”
Edlyn’s voice broke the tension, and she rose gracefully from the bench beside Richard. Richard grabbed her arm, and she glanced down at him. “I must go greet my husband and escort him to his place at the table.”
Richard watched her with a scowl, then she smiled at him, and he softened. “Go on, then.”
Hugh ground his teeth at the sight of raven-headed, wicked Richard of Wiltshire yielding to the charm of Edlyn, his countess of Roxford.
The sunlight streamed in through the thin arrow slits that cut through the massive stone walls. It fell on the dark heads, light heads, knightly heads, and servants’ heads with equal grace. The packed chamber vibrated with masculine ribaldry and rivalry, and Hugh expected one of these men to reach out a hand as Edlyn passed and pinch her rump or fondle her breast. He prepared himself to leap like a wolf to her defense.
No one did. Most of them turned their gazes away. A few of them responded to her smiles. A few blushed bright red and buried their faces in their curved horn mugs. And Hugh found himself wondering what the woman had done to tame this bunch of cutthroats.
She reached him before he could even begin to speculate. She held out her arms to embrace him, then stopped short and plugged her nose. “What have you done with yourself?”
He glanced down at the filth that covered him. “The river and the dungeon are a lethal combination, my lady.”
“Too true.” She flapped her free hand at him, then turned to the aggressive man-at-arms with his ready sword. “How can you bear to stand so close?”
The man-at-arms stared at her, then at Hugh. “I didn’t notice anything lackin’.”
Edlyn laughed, a carefree trill that sounded quite unlike her normal merriment. “You are too diplomatic, my man.” Plucking Hugh’s sleeve between two fingers as if he were a slug she disdained, she said, “Step back and I’ll take him to Richard.”
“Richard?” Hugh rumbled. “You call that blackguard by his given name?”
With a slight tug, she urged him forward. “I call him as he wishes. I do whatever he wishes. I told him of my skill in storytelling, and he wishes to hear a story this night.”
Hugh didn’t hear the significant note in her voice. He only heard I do whatever he wishes, and he snarled, “If he wishes your tongue to entertain him in private ways, will you rush to do that, too?”
The knights and yeoman who lined the tables heard him and started to laugh, until she slapped him. Once, hard, across the face.
Silence fell again, an amazed and anticipatory silence this time, and everyone waited to see the direction his anger would lead him.
It led him nowhere. He was blank. Stunned. She’d hit him. Edlyn had hit him, and he would have sworn this woman never hit anyone, ever, as long as she lived.
So why…?
“I hate stupid men,” she said.
Stupid. He’d been stupid. She’d been telling him something, and his jealousy had led him astray.
Bending his head in apology, he worked to recall the bent of her conversation, and after drawing a breath, he said, “You’re going to tell a story.”
A tension relaxed in her. It told him she had a message to impart, if only he would listen.
“Richard wants me to entertain him with one of my famous tales of yore, and I have assured him I will so fascinate him and all the men they will be captivated”—she glared at him meaningfully—“and helpless.”
Richard vaulted up and over to them before Hugh could reply. He picked up her hand and kissed it. “Are you scheming to escape, my lady?”
She stared around the great hall, filled with brigands, thieves, and blood-thirsty mercenaries. “Escape? Not even my lord is strong enough to battle this army alone.”
“I’m glad you realize it.” Turning to Hugh, Richard clapped his hand on his shoulder. “My friend! Welcome to my castle.”
Hugh didn’t know how to respond, and he didn’t like it. If he answered in a civil manner, Richard would be pleased, for it would be a tacit acknowledgement of his illegal possessions. Yet to spit in his eye would endanger Edlyn and his men.
Richard understood Hugh’s dilemma, and he revealed in it. His bright white teeth flashed, highlighted by the sooty beard that covered his face, and Hugh hated him anew. Lifting the hem of his surcoat, now dank and dirty, Hugh said, “Your welcome is one I will always remember.”
“Next time,” Richard said, “dress a little better.”
Edlyn got between them so quickly Hugh didn’t even have time to raise his fist. “Lads. This is a civilized meal, remember!”
The only satisfaction Hugh got in bridling his anger was seeing Richard’s expression when he realized he’d been addressed in that motherly, admonishing tone Edlyn used so effectively.
“Get used to it,” Hugh advised.
Richard showed a flash of boyish defiance before turning an enchanting smile on Edlyn. “I do as you command, my lady. I’ll even bring the offal up out of the dungeon.”
“If you kept your dungeons cleaner, you wouldn’t have to worry about offal.” She crushed his pretensions with a snap. “Now be civil.”
Hugh noted a swollen purple bump on Richard’s forehead on the fringe of his bangs that hadn’t been there earlier. Was that how Edlyn taught him respect? And what had Richard done to deserve such treatment? The two men exchanged glares, each wishing the other would break the bonds she had set on them and attack.
Then they noticed Edlyn had walked away. They leaped after her, each competing for her attention, but she ignored them until she reached the head table. There she waited, regally indifferent, as they struggled to pull out her bench. She sat, then they sat, one on either side of the only noble lady in the room.
They might have remained locked in silence, but Edlyn leaned away from Hugh. “You have a greater stench than Almund at his ripest.” She turned to Richard. “I’m not eating next to him while he smells this way.”
Richard leaned around her and grinned. “You heard the lady. Move.”
Hugh could scarcely comprehend her impertinence. “You want me to leave you here at the table with this thief?”
She waved her hand. “Just move back a little so the odor’s not quite so fresh.”
What was she doing? Was she mad? Hugh stared at Edlyn, but she pushed at him. “Go on.”
Richard gloated and his men jeered as Hugh shoved back his part of the bench and slowly rose.
“Oh, stop looking like a beaten dog,” she scolded. She rose, too, and stepped away from the table with him. “The knights won’t mind if you sit with them.” She lowered her voice. “And while I have them interested in the story, I want you to steal their weapons and get us out of here.”
Relief and indignation mixed in his chest. Relief that she had reasons for chasing him away. Indignation that she had humiliated him. Indignation that she planned to use him. Indignation…well, the indignation far outweighed the relief. “You want me to get us out? With a sword? Not everything can be solved with violence.”
His sarcasm scorched her, but she did no more than pinch him as she pointed at a bench at the far end of the head table.
“Parkin? Allyn?” he asked.
In a low tone, she said, “Not captured.”
He was reassured. Women and children were notoriously difficult to rescue, and the less he had to worry about, the better.
Seeing the anxiety that briefly etched lines on her face, he knew she
saw it otherwise, and he touched her hand.
She gripped him hard for one brief moment, then stepped back. “Almund is recovered and roaming the castle. He will free the rest of your men.”
“That’s a help,” Hugh said encouragingly as he seated himself.
She nodded and smiled, then returned to the head table.
He’d lied, though. A wizened old man had no chance against the dungeon guards.
Still, Hugh had to admit she’d come up with a plan. Not a good plan, but a plan. Unfortunately, it hinged on her storytelling ability, and as he stared around at the rough bunch of mercenaries who made up Richard’s troop, he hadn’t much faith in their willingness to listen.
His neighbor, as seedy a knight as any he’d ever seen, turned to him and on a wave of mead-sour breath said, “Great little light skirt you got yourself, my lord.” He stared hungrily at the sweet sway of Edlyn’s hips as she walked away. “We’ll all get a bite of that later.”
In silence, Hugh stood, grabbed the lecher by the throat, and lifted him off the bench. The knight kicked and tried to squeal, but Hugh towered above him and his grip on the cur tightened as he struggled.
In a great mass, Richard’s men leaped to their feet and started for Hugh. Hugh swung the offensive knight in a circle. The limp and booted feet knocked half a dozen warriors down. They scrambled to stand. They swung their fists. They pounded each other by mistake, then on purpose. Shrieks of wrath and pain rang in Hugh’s ears—his shrieks, others’ shrieks, he didn’t know. He didn’t care. He went down in a pile of tackling bodies. He wanted to kill this rabble. He crunched his knuckles into their faces. He dodged some blows. Others slammed his face and belly.
The battle shifted somehow. He heard bellows of rage and saw bodies lifted and flung—away from him. He struggled to his feet and found himself back to back with someone, fighting like a madman.
They were winning. Winning!
Then the shouted words of the man at his back suddenly made sense. “I’ll kill you, you asses! He’s mine!”
Hugh spun on his heel, and Richard did the same. They stared at each other, enemies who despised each other.