Wild and Wicked

  Devlynn shifted. Pulled her closer still.

  Barely daring to breathe, Apryll slid the knife into the side of her boot and prayed it wouldn’t slice her skin.

  The door to the house banged open and light from the fire streamed into the shed. Chickens cackled, the goat bleated and the farmer grumbled under his breath.

  Devlynn raised his head as she pretended to be asleep. She sensed his gaze upon her, felt his hand steal up beneath her tunic to find her breast. Calloused fingers brushed her nipple but she dared not move, could hardly draw a breath. She longed to snuggle closer to him, to press her body against his, but she resisted and, as if he realized suddenly what he was doing, he jerked his hand away.

  “For the love of God, woman, why do you tempt me?” he grumbled, then rolled away. He was on his feet in an instant and said more loudly, “’Tis time to rise. Now.”

  Apryll sighed loudly, then opened an eye to find him towering over her. She stretched languidly and forced herself to a sitting position just as Yale, from the corner, roused himself. His hair was filled with straw, his eyelids still heavy with sleep.

  “Must we get up already?” he complained.

  “Only if you want to get home today,” his father said and a smile played upon Devlynn’s harsh features. “Mayhap you would rather stay here with the farmer and his wife. I’m sure they have plenty of work for a lad your size.”

  “Aye, that we do!” the farmer called up from the floor below. “Mayhap he would like to milk the goat, or clean out the dung in this shed, or stack firewood.”

  Reluctantly Yale climbed to his feet. Yawning widely and holding the blanket about his shoulders, he made his way to the ladder. “Will we really make it back to Black Thorn this day?” he asked Devlynn.

  “Only if we hurry.” Devlynn grabbed the boy and hugged him fiercely. “Wouldn’t you like to see Aunt Vi and Miranda and Collin and Bronwyn?”

  “Not Bronwyn,” Yale said, shaking his head. “I never want to see her. She’s a girl.”

  “So she is and there will be a time soon when you’ll want to be around her because she is a girl.”

  “Never.” Yale made a face and then dropped his blanket to scramble rapidly down the stairs. Devlynn’s gaze followed after him, his smile only fading when he pivoted and leaned a hip against the post. Folding his arms over his chest, he pinned Apryll in his cold, silver stare. “And it’s time for you, too, lady. Black Thorn awaits.”

  “You’re telling me that Devlynn abandoned you?” Collin tapped his fingers on the arm of his brother’s chair. Seated in the great hall, warming his backside by the fire and sipping wine, he glared up at the ragged group of soldiers who had returned a few hours after the sun had risen.

  Lloyd, the heavyset, foulmouthed knight, seemed to be the self-appointed leader. “That’s right,” he said, nodding as he did to the rest of the ragtag band. “He and the hostage took off in the middle of the night without a word. In the morning the two best steeds were missing. We waited for nearly a day, then reasoned that he’d brought her back here, so we broke camp and returned.”

  “Why would he leave with her?” Collin asked as Miranda, imperious as ever, swept into the room. Though she hadn’t appeared until this moment, Collin suspected that his sister had been listening from the other side of the doorway. But then he always suspected that she, or persons he had yet to identify, were spying on him, watching his every move, hoping that he would make a mistake … he took a swallow from his cup and the wine soured his stomach.

  “Are you certain that the prisoner did not escape and that Lord Devlynn gave chase?” Miranda eyed the soldiers as if they didn’t have a brain between them.

  “Why not wake us?” Lloyd asked and Rearden nodded. “Would we not be more likely to catch her if we all searched? Are not ten eyes better than two?”

  Miranda glanced thoughtfully at the fire. “Mayhap Devlynn didn’t think so.”

  “Or mayhap he wanted to be with her alone,” Collin thought aloud. He’d seen how taken with the woman Devlynn had been from the moment he’d first seen her in this very hall.

  He remembered the night well, and there were still remnants of the revels scattered about the hallways and chambers, swagged greenery and candles burned nearly flat, to remind him how short a time had passed. The last of the guests had left yesterday and with Devlynn’s absence and Yale’s life in question, the keep had become somber and dark, servants, knights, peasants, all mistrusting the other. No one knew who was enemy or friend.

  “Lord Devlynn could be at Serennog,” James offered as if he’d thought about it long and hard. “If he was chasing the lady, she might lead him back to her keep.”

  “And overpower him with her army?” Miranda asked.

  “If he was chasing her.” Collin stood abruptly, tired of the waiting. The idleness. The not knowing what to expect. “Dennis returned yesterday,” he advised the men. “He told me we were to send an army of men, horses and weapons to Serennog, but before I have amassed it, you arrive and tell me … what? That Devlynn has abandoned you and his keep and has taken off with a woman who helped deceive him? A woman who stole his son? Is that what you would have me believe?”

  “’Tis what happened.” Lloyd rubbed the end of his nose with his sleeve and looked longingly at the jug of wine sitting on the table next to Collin’s mazer.

  “Where are the others?” Miranda asked. “Sir Rudyard? Where is the captain of the guard? And Sir Nathan? Sir Spencer?”

  Ah, there it was again, her interest in Spencer. Though she might hide her concern for Spencer by inquiring of the others, Collin saw through her. She cared naught for anyone but the barrel-chested knight with a broken, aquiline nose and eyes as dark as obsidian.

  Miranda wasn’t all she seemed, Collin thought not for the first time. There was something she was hiding, some secret she held close. Not that he didn’t have a few of his own.

  “We must find them,” she said impatiently as she stood and worried her fingers against her thumbs. “All of them.”

  “How?” Collin watched agitation form lines across Miranda’s face.

  “Go after them, of course.”

  “To Serennog?”

  “Where else?” Her face lit with anticipation and her eyes took in the face of each tired soldier. “We’ll scour the forests, search the fields and ask of them in the surrounding towns. Surely someone has seen them and would recognize the colors of Black Thorn.”

  “Even though Devlynn ordered us to stay here?” Collin asked, enjoying watching the flush of color climb up her cheeks. Miranda was beautiful and knew it, but she was a woman who depended upon her wits more than her beauty to get what she wanted.

  “Did Devlynn not send Dennis back and ask for new recruits and weapons?” she demanded, crossing the short distance to Collin and staring down at him with bright, determined eyes. “What’s the matter, brother? Be you a coward? Would you rather stay here, hidden deep within the castle walls, than brave the cold nights and harsh days searching for our brother?”

  “I would do what’s best for Black Thorn.”

  “And who decides what that is?” she asked, anger radiating from her so intensely that Rearden actually took a step backward lest he become the object of her rage. “I am first born, am I not?”

  “I’ve heard this before.”

  “And you’ll hear it again. Just because I was born without balls, I was passed over by Father, looked upon as someone to barter with and marry off to the highest bidder or the best alliance, while Devlynn, because he was a boy child, was groomed to be lord and you … you are the replacement. Should Devlynn fail, then you will be lord. It matters not that you are self-centered, incapable of leading and hedonistic.”

  “While you are virtuous, is that what you’re suggesting?” He glanced at the expressions of the men in the room. Some were amused, other disgusted, still others showed awe or fear.

  “I’m suggesting that you are not cut out to be the ruler of Black Thorn.
Testicles or no testicles.”

  “Devlynn asked me to watch the keep.”

  “Then he was foolish. ’Tis the same as suggesting that a thief watch the jewels.”

  Collin was tired of the argument. “I’m doing what I think is best for Black Thorn,” he repeated.

  She arched a dark, disparaging brow and sneered at the mazer he’d so recently emptied. “By sitting on your arse and drinking wine?”

  He felt one corner of his mouth lift. “If that is what’s best.”

  “Then I’ll have to amend my opinion of you, brother. I thought you were only lazy, but now, it seems, you are cowardly as well.” Proudly swinging her hair over one shoulder, she marched out of the room in a cloud of self-righteous disgust.

  Collin decided if he were smart he would have a guard watch her, for Miranda, it seems, was more dangerous than he’d previously thought.

  Women!

  They were the most sought-after of his pleasures.

  And the bane of his existence.

  Father Benjamin heard the sound of a woman’s moans and he sensed a great sadness in the universe. “Father be with us,” he prayed, deftly making the sign of the cross over his chest. Astride the mule, the boy walking beside him, he was certain that a woman was nearby and in pain. The smell of the forest in winter filled his nostrils; dank, wet earth, rotting leaves, fresh rainwater, all carried on a brisk cold wind that bit at his cheeks and congealed his blood. Ach, he was too old for this. Riding the mule caused his legs to ache and walking hurt his feet.

  He heard the chatter of a squirrel and the flutter of wings, and beneath it all the woman’s moans. They were getting closer.

  “You’re certain this is the way?” he asked the boy.

  “Aye. I listened to Payton and Father Hadrian and Sir Brennan when they didn’t think anyone was about, the night before Lady Apryll set off for Black Thorn. Sir Payton insisted that they would split up on the way back to confuse Black Thorn’s troops, then, once they’d lost those following them, they were to meet at an old inn on the road that forked to Pentref, east of the new bridge. This be the road.”

  “It’s old—overgrown?”

  “Aye.”

  “Have there been horses here recently? Is the grass trampled, the earth turned?”

  “Aye, Father, many horses from the looks of it.” Benjamin squared his shoulders. Shook off the damp cold. “Then we’ll carry on.” The mule plodded forward and within a few minutes the boy stopped dead in his tracks, the beast pausing as well.

  “What’s that?” he asked, trepidation in his young voice, for the woman’s sobs were more distinct, her moans whispering eerily through the forest like a bad omen.

  “Let’s find out.”

  “But—”

  “It sounds as if someone needs our help. Now, come along, Henry, you must be my eyes.”

  Benjamin heard the boy gulp and tug on the mule’s lead and within minutes, he said, “By the saints, Father, ’tis Geneva!” And then his footsteps were hurrying away. “She’s hurt, oh, God.”

  Benjamin slid off the mule and, using his walking stick, hurried as fast as he dared through the long, wet grass toward the sound of her sobs. “I’m here, child,” he said, wondering what had happened to her. She’d left the keep but two days before to search out herbs, but she’d not returned to Serennog and he’d been worried.

  “Are you all right, Geneva?” Henry asked, then to Benjamin, “She’s just lyin’ here on the grass, cryin’ and lookin’ like she don’t see me. She’s shiverin’ cold and her face is bruised and … and there’s blood.”

  “Where?” Benjamin asked as the tip of his walking stick encountered something on the ground.

  “Careful, or you’ll step on her.”

  Praying softly, Benjamin kneeled, his stiff knees meeting the frigid earth. He reached forward and touched Geneva’s shoulder. “Geneva, ’tis I, Father Benjamin, what happened, child?”

  She moaned incoherently.

  “Tell me what’s wrong with her,” Benjamin said to Henry.

  “Her face, ’tis black-and-blue and there be scratches on her arms and … blood, lots of blood.”

  “Where?” Benjamin asked again, but started to understand.

  A pause.

  “Henry?” Father Benjamin asked sternly.

  “On her skirts. I think … I think it might be from her privates, Father.”

  God be with her. “And the inn, it’s nearby? Could we take her inside to shelter?”

  “Yes—”

  “Nay!” she screamed. “Nay, nay, nay! Oh, Payton … oh … the baby, the baby … precious baby. No! Please. Stop!” She was crying and shivering and as Father Benjamin tried to hold her she thrashed. “Bastards! Horrid monsters! A curse on you, on all of you!”

  “Shhh. I’m here, Geneva, and the Lord is with you. Shh, be still …” But he understood her cries as he listened to the undertones of her words, felt her quivering in fear and rage. That she allowed him to touch her was a miracle, for though his eyes were blind, he saw that this woman had been raped and, during the heinous act, had lost a child.

  “Go into the inn. See if there is anyone inside,” Benjamin ordered Henry.

  The boy took off running, his footsteps and breathing fading as the priest turned all of his attention to the woman trembling in his arms. “Now, Geneva, we must take you back to the castle. To Serennog. You need help.”

  She was shivering, her skin icy, her hair matted from the dirt and rain, her teeth chattering either from the cold or her ordeal.

  What monster lived within men to force a woman?

  In all his years Benjamin had recognized his own lust, he’d experienced a mind-numbing want of a woman, he’d felt desire run hot through his veins, but never had he given in, never had he let temptation overrule his vows. He’d spent hours on his knees on the hard stone floor of the chapel, praying to God for forgiveness for his wanton, carnal thoughts, and the Lord had helped him, given him strength, showed him the path. Too many men gave in to the sins of their bodies—too few spent hours in prayer.

  And this poor woman, good-hearted Geneva, had paid the price, as had the poor little innocent growing within her. He prayed for the baby’s soul, for though it was conceived beyond the sacrament of marriage, it was a person nonetheless, a child of God, a pure little being who should not be punished for the sins of his parents.

  Ah, ’twas a dark world at times. “Rest easy,” he said, stroking Geneva’s cheek. “We will find a way to get you home.”

  “AAAAAHHHHHHH!” The boy let out a cry that shook through the forest. Geneva screamed. Father Benjamin flinched. He was struggling to his feet when Henry’s quick footsteps returned.

  Breathing wildly, he was stammering and making no sense whatsoever.

  “What?” Father Benjamin snapped, for though Henry was a good boy, a true heart, he was a bit of a coward and tended to be overly dramatic.

  “’Tis Sir Payton,” the boy said.

  “Get him.”

  “Nay, I cannot. He’s dead. Stabbed to death.”

  Benjamin’s old shoulders sagged. Sadness and despair overcame him. “You’re certain?” he asked, now understanding Geneva’s rantings.

  “Aye. Oh, aye.”

  Geneva let out a pained wail. “Murderer,” she cried. “Murderer. Black Thorn. May the gods curse your soul … oh, oh … Payton …”

  “Shh, child, ’tis time we pray, for Payton’s soul,” Father Benjamin said, crossing himself, and ignoring the fact that Geneva had defied the teachings of the church, had trusted in the dark arts. Mayhap this was God’s way of punishing her, for He was a vengeful God as well as a loving Father.

  “Pray with me.” Benjamin closed his sightless eyes. “In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Ghost …”

  The castle loomed before her, a behemoth of gray stone turrets and wide walls perched high on the hill, a forbidding fortress of bleak, formidable rock. From the highest towers the black and gold standa
rds of Black Thorn snapped in the winter wind. Apryll’s heart sank as she eyed the banners so proudly displayed. Her fingers felt like ice as they gripped the pommel of her weary mount’s saddle. The straps holding her wrists were tight, the winter air raw against her cheeks, the knife tucked into her boot cold against her leg.

  Trepidation stirred in her soul.

  Less than a week before she’d been in this very spot.

  She’d remembered shivering as she’d dressed in the forest, working at the fastenings of her mother’s white gown, her fingers numb with cold. She’d managed to finger-comb her hair and lace it with ribbons, then, forcing a poise she hadn’t felt, slip past the drunken guard at the main gate. Carefully holding her skirts above the puddles and mud, she’d picked her way to the great hall, knowing that she was to distract the lord while Payton and the others crept through the keep, stealing from the treasury, taking the horses, getting back some of what Morgan of Black Thorn had stolen from Serennog two decades earlier.

  When she’d spied the lord, sitting high on his dais, glum and spiritless despite the music and revelry, she’d been caught by his handsome despair, the secrets in his gray eyes, and when he’d approached her and asked her to dance, she’d been wary, but intrigued. During the dance, as he’d held her in his arms, she’d lost herself in some silly romantic vision—an illusion she’d helped create.

  Even now as she rode behind him she stared at the width of his shoulders and the proud bearing with which he rode. She noticed the way his dark hair fell over his collar and her silly heart skipped a beat. She was being brought back to Black Thorn a prisoner and still she dreamed of loving him.

  Payton was right. She was foolish. A woman unfit to reign. A female who sometimes let her heart rule her head.

  And so it had come to this. She was prisoner and half in love with her captor. Silently she cursed her fate and remembered Geneva’s prediction. ’Tis about destiny, m’lady. Your destiny.

  You will marry the Lord of Black Thorn.

  ’Twas a joke.

  A vile trick.

  For once, it seemed, the sorceress was wrong. Completely and utterly mistaken.