Impostress

  “Royal’s missing? What d‘ye mean?” Orson asked, but his gaze was already skating over the herd while he mentally checked off those that were elsewhere. “She was here this mornin’, wasn’t she?”

  “I don’t know.” Joseph rubbed the back of his neck and thought hard. “I don’t think so.”

  “Yesterday?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Ye’re talkin’ ’bout the ornery little jennet who kicked the carter last fall and near broke his leg?” Orson asked, disbelieving.

  “Aye, Royal, as I said,” Joseph snapped angrily. “She’s gone. Not a trace of her.” Joseph turned to look at the herd once more as if in so doing he’d spot the mare in the shadow of a taller horse.

  “Are ye sure or not whether someone took her out for a ride?”

  “Who?”

  His father lifted a hand toward the sky. “I don’t know. Anyone. The Lady Kiera, she rides her, don’t she?”

  “Sometimes, but not today. This morn she came to the stables and requested Garnet, as you know. But she returned her a few hours later—see there, near the tree.” Joseph pointed a long finger toward the jennet in question. As if she knew she was the center of attention, Garnet lifted her head for a minute, then went back to sedately plucking grass and swishing her long tail.

  “Curse it all,” Orvis muttered under his breath. “How could you let this happen?”

  Joseph didn’t answer as his father, a tic starting beneath his eye, studied the herd. His old eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Is she not being shod at the farrier or used by a huntsman or—”

  “Or what?” Joseph demanded. “I’ve thought about everywhere she could be and she’s not there. She’s missin’, I’m tellin’ ya.”

  “But who would take that one? If someone was to steal a horse, I mean.”

  “I didn’t say she was stolen,” Joseph replied, but the thought had crossed his mind.

  “Well, she’s gone and unless she ran off by herself, then someone took her. So where’s the sense in that?” Orson motioned toward the destriers in the next field. “Now, if Rex was missin’, that I’d understand. Or Falcon, there, a great one he is. But that mare.” He snorted as if the thought was absurd. “Royal. Humph!” Lifting his cap, he ran stiff fingers over his near bald pate.

  His voice was lower when he said, “Let’s find her before the steward or his lordship himself hears of this.” Orson glanced at the setting sun, and Joseph could read the older man’s thoughts. Soon there would be no light by which to look for the missing horse. Damn it, the day after the union of Penbrooke and Lawenydd should not be marred by a missing horse. Settling his cap onto his head again, Joseph’s father worried the handle of his whip. His tic was still trembling frantically. “Don’t tell anyone. Not yet. The damned horse might turn up and then we’ve riled everyone up for no reason.”

  His old eyes met his son’s and Joseph read the unspoken message in his father’s gaze, the fear that he could very well lose his job this time. Or worse. Banishment was possible. They both knew it. “Now,” Orson said through clenched teeth, “I’ll tend to the mare in labor. You, son, find the damned jennet.”

  Chapter Eleven

  As she stood on the parapet and stared out to sea, a chill wind cut through Hildy’s soul. The sky was now dark, and another day had passed without any sign of Elyn’s return. But then, what made Kiera so certain that her sister would reappear? Duty? Love? Responsibility?

  Bah.

  Elyn was only interested in herself.

  Hildy suspected the selfish woman would never show her face in Lawenydd or Penbrooke again.

  A storm was brewing on the horizon. Sunlight had fast faded, hidden by roiling purplish clouds. The ships anchored in the twilight waters seemed ghost-like with their tall, skeletal spars stretching to the dark sky.

  ’Twas her own fault, Hildy decided, fingering the beads surrounding her neck. She should have stopped this madness. Before it got out of hand. She’d known of the trouble even before it began, for she’d seen the glint of uncompromising rebellion in Lady Elyn’s eyes.

  Had Hildy not expected it? Elyn had always been a willful, spoiled child. Mayhap if the lord and lady had been fortunate enough to conceive a son ... but they had not.

  When she was younger, Elyn had been sent to Castle Fenn to learn the ways of running a household, to learn how to be a proper lady. But of course, that was not to be, for while she was at Fenn, Elyn had met Brock of Oak Crest.

  As fate and the stones had predicted she would.

  A few years older than Elyn, Brock was already a squire at the time, a roguish, wayward boy. While learning the skills and duties of a knight, he had somehow burrowed his way into Elyn’s naive heart.

  And now she’d been gone for nearly two days. Gone to be with him. Nay, she would not return. Would not be separated from him. Would not endure her father’s and husband’s wrath.

  So what to do now? Hildy closed her eyes and sent up a prayer to the Holy Mother.

  Could she confess to the baron?

  Insist that Kiera do the same?

  Now, after the false marriage?

  Hildy imagined Lord Llwyd’s embarrassment, his shame. He would be furious. And yet, his anger would be naught in comparison to Kelan of Penbrooke’s rage. He would look a fool, duped by Kiera, Elyn, and, he would surmise, everyone in Lawenydd. He would never live down the shame of it. Nor would it go unpunished.

  The gossip would spread like fire through the baronies, and the Lord of Penbrooke would become a laughingstock, considered a buffoon or worse, a prideful man duped by a mere woman.

  What would he do to Kiera?

  To Elyn if he found her?

  To all of Lawenydd to reclaim his pride?

  Tears filled Hildy’s eyes and she made the sign of the cross over her bony chest. Lips moving silently, she sent up a prayer to a God who had rarely given her His ear. “Have mercy on us,” she whispered. “Have mercy on us all.”

  If only she could find Elyn. But alas, it was already too late. With a premonition of doom weighing heavily upon her, Hildy hurried down the steep steps of the north tower. The rushlights were flickering dim, cobwebs clinging to the smooth stone walls. She heard the scrape of tiny claws over the sound of her own footsteps. The sound of mice and rats scurrying out of her path, though she barely noticed. Her mind was on Brock of Oak Crest, a son of Satan if ever there was one. Handsome, cruel, and self-serving, he promised to be a tyrant.

  Yet Lady Elyn was certain she loved him. Have you not known the pain of a love that could never be? Would you not, if given the chance to live your life over, chase that dream more feverishly rather than die a shrunken, barren old woman?

  She shouldered open the door and bent her head against the wind as she made her way along the path to her hut. Aye, she’d been foolish over a man, but he was twice the man, nay, thrice the man that Brock of Oak Crest would ever be.

  Elyn had met and fallen for Brock when she’d been sent to Castle Fenn, shortly after her mother’s death when she was thirteen. It had been a dark time for all, and realizing that Elyn would be the first to marry, Llwyd had sent his eldest daughter to complete her training as a lady at Fenn. As a youth Brock had been cocky and brash, irreverent and a rebel, a boy after Elyn’s own wayward heart. Elyn had fancied herself in love with him, it seemed, from the moment she’d set eyes upon him. They had been together at Fenn but had been separated when Brock had returned to Oak Crest and she to Lawenydd. Then, as cursed luck would have it, Brock, who had become a knight, had been loaned to Lawenydd before assuming his duties as firstborn at Oak Crest.

  ’Twas a dream come true for Elyn, and though Hildy disapproved, she could say nothing.

  The passion between Brock and Elyn, always smoldering, had once again sparked when Brock had come to Lawenydd more than three years ago. Hildy had seen it then but had held her tongue, for Elyn was not allowed a choice in the matter of her marriage. Lord Llwyd had thought the alliance with Oak Crest was n
ot important enough for his firstborn and heir to Lawenydd. Oak Crest was a poor keep, the old baron a drunkard, Brock unlikely to make the castle flourish and prosper. Nay, Llwyd had been set to make a pact with Penbrooke, and had succeeded.

  Hildy had watched the events of Elyn’s life unfold and she’d seen far more than Lady Elyn would have liked. For there was something besides hot passion simmering between the two lovers, something darker, a secret Elyn dared not confide.

  Hildy had yet to understand what it was. She passed the candlemaker toting sacks of candles into the great hall to brighten the darkness of the evening as she rounded the corner to her hut.

  “Good evenin’ to ye, Hildy,” he said with a nod of his head.

  “And to you, Thomas. Give Belinda my best. The babe, it’s due next month.”

  “That it is,” he said, offering a wide grin missing several teeth. “Our fifth. Belinda, she’d like ye to come over and”—he glanced over his shoulder as if he expected someone to overhear the conversation—“and, you know, bless the birth.”

  “That I will,” she promised.

  “I wouldn’t want the priest to know about it.”

  “Worry not, Thomas.”

  With a nod, he hitched his load to his shoulder and strode quickly away. Hildy stepped into her small quarters. The hut smelled of dried herbs and spices. Carefully she lit a candle from the embers of the slow-burning fire.

  Her nimble cat hopped atop the table. “A bold one ye be, Sir James,” she chided, stroking his sleek black coat. “And have ye caught me a mouse today? Or a rat? Or a snake? No?” Smiling, she scratched the skinny animal’s chin as the door burst open, causing the fire to glow bright.

  Baron Llwyd loomed in the doorway, his expression dark as midnight, his walking stick in one hand. Sir James hissed and scrambled up a post to the rafters as Llwyd’s favorite hunting dog, the one forever at his heels, sniffed his way inside. “Something is amiss here at the castle. I think you may know what,” he said, his cloudy eyes trained on her.

  “M’lord, I know not of what you speak,” she said, lying as easily as she had all her life.

  “ ’Tis Elyn. And Kiera. They both are acting strangely.” He threw up his free hand in disgust and made his way into the hut. The dog was sniffing around the table, and Sir James growled, his hair standing on end as he hid upon the rough beam.

  “Why have I not seen my daughter and her groom?” Llwyd demanded as the dog whined. “You, hush!” he tapped at the dog with his cane.

  Though the years had stooped Llwyd of Lawenydd’s once broad shoulders, and taken most of the sight from his eyes, he was a handsome man and, in Hildy’s estimation, still more noble than any other. The skin surrounding his jaw was looser, his girth wider than it had been in his prime, but he still was commanding. Every time Hildy saw him, her old heart skipped a guilty beat.

  “It’s been nearly a day since the wedding.” He leaned one hip against the smooth planks of her table. “Though I am pleased that Elyn has accepted her marriage, ’tis odd that they have not come down from her chamber for any of the meals. Nor has Penbrooke spoken alone with me. There is much I would like to discuss with him, agreements to be made.”

  “Mayhap you should be thankful that your daughter is so taken with her new husband.”

  “Humph. ‘Tis odd. She was against the union, I know. She even claimed that the arranged marriage was archaic. Can you imagine? What did she call it? ‘Hideously old-fashioned’ or some such rot.”

  Hildy opened her mouth to protest, but the baron lifted a hand in her direction, effectively cutting her off. “There are other strange things as well. Elyn has never been one to stay in the castle. She and Kiera ...” He shook his head, some of his white hairs glinting in the light from the fire. “Both of my older girls are much like me ... too much, perhaps. I encouraged it, of course, and Twyla never forgave me for it.” Sighing, he made the sign of the cross over his chest. “Well, she never forgave me any of my sins.”

  Watching as the dog circled and nestled upon her hearth, Hildy ignored the shame that touched her tired old soul.

  “And what of Penbrooke? Does he not want to settle some things between us? We are now family, aye, but I would like a formal agreement that we are allies ... oh, bother ...”

  For the first time since entering her hut, he stopped ranting long enough to look at Hildy. She wondered what his murky eyes saw. The young woman he’d first taken to his bed nearly forty years earlier, or a haggard old crone who had never loved another man? Distractedly, she pushed a strand of coarse hair from her face.

  He reached forward and touched her arm. “You’re still a beauty, you know,” he whispered as if he’d read her thoughts.

  But that was always the way it had been between them. Oftentimes, after a few stolen hours of lovemaking, they had lain in silence upon the cold bedsheets, touching only fingers, and it had been as if they were still one. Oh, how she’d lived for those days.

  “And you’re half blind.”

  “Not enough that I don’t see into your heart, Hildy-lass.”

  She swallowed hard. Fought hot tears. “What is it you want?”

  His fingers rubbed her shoulder. “Throw the stones for me. Tell me of the future of Lawenydd. I have the feeling something is very, very wrong within the keep.”

  She moved away from the seduction of his touch. What they had shared was long over. Years of passion and love had ended with the baron’s guilt. Guilt due to his wife’s death and the acts of adultery he had committed with Hildy. But she still loved this man. “You asked me once never to toss the stones,” she reminded him. “No matter how you begged, pleaded, or beguiled me, I was never to do what you just asked.”

  He frowned. “That was long ago. I ...”

  “I understand. But you were serious about it then.”

  “My wife had died,” he said, and looked at her as if his blue eyes were clear again. “Just as you’d predicted. I hadn’t listened, but now ... now I need to know.”

  “You are certain?”

  “Aye.” He pulled her into his arms and rested his forehead against hers. “I’ve been a fool most of my life. I’ve hurt those who were closest to me. I know I misused you as well as my wife, but it was because I was torn between the two of you. I make no excuses, Hildy; you know that. I was wrong and have had the misfortune to live long enough to regret each and every day. I thought your magic was nonsense, or dangerous, but I must have the truth. Because of my children. Please.”

  She sighed, hearing his steady heartbeat over the quiet hiss of the fire and the dog’s soft snores. How could she deny him? Had she ever? Nay. “As you wish, m’lord.” She turned to reach into her cupboard, but he spun her around to face him and placed a warm kiss upon her lips, the first one in years.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  Blushing, she pulled out of his embrace and dashed away the spiteful tear that had fallen from her eye. What was wrong with her? She was no longer a naive girl whose heart was young and free. To mask the emotions that strangled her, she scrounged quickly in her cupboard. There, within a small, chipped dish, she found her threadbare pouch. Oh, this was a mistake. She knew it.

  The stones clinked as she opened the sack and rolled them into her open hand. They were different sizes, their colors distinct but far from brilliant, the edges worn soft from being rubbed together.

  She felt the baron tense.

  As she whispered a soft prayer to the Mother Goddess, Hildy closed her eyes and tossed the polished pebbles onto the table. Rattling ominously, they tumbled across the scarred boards, bounding and rolling to stop suddenly, the fates visible in the way they settled.

  Hildy’s soul turned as dark as night. ’Twas as if a demon had cursed them all. For the briefest second she closed her eyes.

  “What? What is it?” Llwyd demanded, pointing at the stones. “What do you see? Tell me!”

  “You were right. There is trouble,” she admitted, forcing the words out and fee
ling as cold as if she’d been cast into the winter sea.

  “What kind?”

  “I know not,” she lied, avoiding the baron’s gaze. Worrying the beads at her throat, she glanced back at the damning position of each pebble. “But it will be dire.”

  “I knew it.” He leaned heavily against the table. “I’ve been a fool, Hildy. This marriage that I wanted so badly is cursed.” Scratching the whiskers on his chin, he asked warily, “What is it you see there, in the stones?”

  She hesitated. How could she tell this man whom she loved with all of her heart that because of his greed, because of his misguided goals, one of his daughters would die? She could not. Gathering up the cursed rocks, she offered him a sad smile. “I see a man who loves his children, a man who cares about his keep, a good man who has made mistakes throughout his life and will probably make more.” He was staring at her through those milky eyes, silently willing the truth from her lips. She cleared her throat and said, “I see also that we must accept what the fates have cast in our direction.”

  “Mayhap I can change things. Annul the marriage. Send Penbrooke back to his keep.” Llwyd hobbled to the fire and glared into the hungry flames. Deep lines creased his face. Worriedly he rubbed the worn knob of his cane. “I’m afraid, Hildy,” he admitted as he stared at the fire. “In my life, there has been little I feared; you know that. But right now I’m certain I’ve damned my own soul to hell.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Kiera smiled. She had successfully kept Kelan from leaving Elyn’s room almost all day. Now it was nighttime, and she could breathe a small sigh of victory. She watched as he stoked the fire, his bare back scarred, his thighs thick as he bent on one knee. He was wearing only breeches and they strained across his buttocks. She, herself, was half dressed, wearing only her chemise. She had spent the large part of the early evening hours making love to Kelan. Guilt lay on the edge of Kiera’s conscience, but her body felt too magnificent to worry for the moment. She was definitely sore, but she had never felt so content in her entire life.