Wild and Wicked

  He thought of Geneva, with her serene voice and noiseless footsteps. She’d always been a calm one and though he disapproved of her use of the dark arts, he’d found her to be kind and intelligent—a woman, he was certain, who, given enough time, would understand and accept the one true God. Oh, how he’d hoped for the day when she would step over the chapel threshold, renounce her sins and accept God as the Father.

  Again he deftly made the sign of the cross, then prayed for Geneva’s life.

  He heard men approaching, boots crunching against the cold ground and short bursts of angry conversation over the rise of the wind.

  “Father Benjamin,” Father Hadrian said and the older priest’s shoulder’s sagged. “Where have you been? I thought you were going to visit the bedridden who were not able to attend mass. Oh, no. ’Tis Lord Payton!”

  “Sir Payton,” Benjamin corrected, attempting not to show his disgust at the younger man.

  He sensed the younger priest bending over the body and heard another man—Sir Brennan?—swear under his breath. “Murdered. Run through.”

  “For the love of our Father, what happened?” Brennan’s deep, worried voice.

  “I know not,” Benjamin admitted but sketched out what he had gleaned.

  “You did not find him while you were ‘visiting the bedridden,’” Hadrian charged.

  “That is true. I decided to go onward into the forest.”

  “Why?” Hadrian demanded and, when Benjamin was not forthcoming, added, “You lied to me and lied to Sir Brennan, whom Lady Apryll left in her stead. This will not go unnoticed, you know, when the lady returns. I assume you saw no evidence of her, or the others who left with Payton?”

  “Nay, only Geneva.”

  “The witch!” Hadrian spouted in contempt. “God has seen fit to punish her for her pagan ways.”

  “Nay, I do not believe—”

  “You will have to explain yourself when Lady Apryll returns,” Hadrian interrupted.

  “And so I shall,” Benjamin agreed.

  “Now, you said the sorceress survived? Where is she?”

  “Geneva is inside, being tended to by Iris and Britt.”

  “As I said, the holy Father has struck her down for her heathen ways.”

  “I think not.”

  “Bah! What do you know, old man?” Hadrian charged. “You have no backbone to stand up to the heathens, now, do you?” As Benjamin opened his mouth to protest and point out that Jesus often walked among the sinners, Hadrian added, “I’ll hear no excuses. You have a position here at Serennog, a position that comes with responsibilities. What kind of example are you setting, Father Benjamin, by leaving the castle, lying to me and Sir Brennan, and returning with Sir Payton dead and an ailing sinner who herself lied her way out of the keep and forever flaunts her pagan ways? What have you to say for yourself?”

  “I ask no forbearance for my behavior. I will speak to the lady when she returns. As for Geneva, she was with child, Father. The babe is lost.”

  “God’s vengeance for a child conceived outside of the sacrament of marriage. It, too, would have been a savage and God saw fit not to let it live, to strike it down before it defiled our earthly kingdom.”

  “’Twas but a babe,” Benjamin argued.

  “The devil’s spawn. And with original sin and the sins of its mother. ’Tis a blessing it didn’t live.”

  He swept into the hut and Benjamin leaned against the exterior wall. There was no stopping Hadrian once he started ranting about the wages of sin or the suffering of those condemned to hell.

  “What do you think happened?” Sir Brennan asked. He was a calmer man, one who took his responsibilities to heart, and had a level head. Some called him weak. Benjamin considered him thoughtful, a cautious knight not quick to make rash decisions.

  “I am not certain, but I think she saw Payton, who was the father of her child, mortally wounded, and then the men who killed him took their turns with her and she lost the child.”

  “Where is Lady Apryll?” Brennan asked.

  “I know not.” Benjamin turned his face to the knight in whose charge Serennog was left and though he could not see Brennan’s reaction, he felt the man’s sadness, sensed his fear. Brennan was far from the strongest of the knights within the castle, though surely one of the most loyal and kind.

  But Brennan was unable to stand up to the likes of Father Hadrian, and the young priest used the man for his own purposes, even taking up residence in the lady’s chamber within the great hall. Something was very, very amiss.

  From inside the hut, Geneva, who once was stoic and silent, let out a horrid scream. Benjamin shivered.

  “We must find the lady,” Brennan said, as if to himself.

  “Aye … and soon.” But in Father Benjamin’s heart, he was afraid it was already too late. Serennog and the woman who ruled her were already lost.

  This thought had barely passed through his head when he heard the sound of hoofbeats and bridles jangling. The guard at the gate shouted, “Who goes there?”

  “’Tis Isaac. Open the gates, I’ve got some wounded men with me.”

  Hadrian was out the door of the hut as fast as if he had Satan himself at his tail. “Open the gates! Draw up the portcullis! These men left with Payton.”

  There was hesitation and Benjamin felt a movement beside him. “What’s happening?” Henry whispered, suddenly at Benjamin’s side, as if he’d been lurking in the shadows all along.

  “Open up!” Brennan ordered as he swept past the priest on his way to the gate.

  Ancient gears ground and the heavy metal grill clanged upward. The feeling of foreboding in Father Benjamin’s heart bored ever deeper. The ground shook as if dozens of horses raced into the bailey.

  “Is it really Isaac? Has he returned with Payton’s soldiers?” Benjamin asked the boy.

  “Aye. And Sir Melvynn. And Sir Douglas and others.”

  “Soldiers you know?” the priest clarified.

  “Some, but not all, and the leader, he is a scarecrow of a man. And he wears the colors of Black Thorn.”

  “A traitor,” Benjamin whispered and held back his other thoughts, for they were dark indeed. “Is Lady Apryll with them?” he asked, though he knew the answer.

  “Nay.”

  “You must be my eyes, boy,” Benjamin said softly. “So watch carefully.” He pulled Henry closer to the side of the mason’s hut, hoping to melt into the darkness.

  “Who are you?” Brennan shouted.

  “Rudyard of Black Thorn. My men and I are in alliance with Payton and Lady Apryll. Though we wear the colors of Black Thorn, we have pledged ourselves to Serennog.” Benjamin heard Geneva moan from in the hut and he drew the boy farther away, around the corner.

  “Then you have not heard,” Brennan said. “’Tis sad news. Payton is dead. Father Benjamin brought back his body along with one of our women who herself is near death.”

  “Aye.” Hadrian this time. “The witch, Geneva.”

  “She lives?” The stranger’s, Rudyard’s, voice.

  “For the moment.”

  “’Tis Black Thorn’s doing,” Isaac charged. “He and his soldiers must have come across Payton, defiled her and killed Payton when he tried to stop them.”

  There were gasps and cries, as more people had joined the crowd that was gathering near the mason’s hut. Men grumbled while women whispered quiet outrage.

  “This is but conjecture,” Brennan cautioned.

  “Aye, but I know Devlynn of Black Thorn.” Rudyard again. A few of his men mumbled their agreement.

  “Each of these men with you has turned against Black Thorn?” Brennan asked, clearly skeptical.

  “Aye.”

  “That’s right.”

  “All of us.”

  Different voices chimed in. All in agreement and yet Father Benjamin felt the discord among them, the lies that were unspoken, deep currents that ran beneath the words. ’Twas Satan’s doing.

  Chapter Twenty-four br />
  Miranda tucked her daughter into her bed. Leaning over, she kissed Bronwyn’s smooth forehead. The girl sighed and rolled over, her lips moving in her sleep. She was an angel, a perfect child.

  Except for the fact that she’d been born female. Hence, she was as cursed as her mother and grand-mother, born to serve and breed. Oh, there were those who believed it was women who ran the world, that with their charms, seduction, gentle urging or blatant bribery they could make a man do what they wanted. Women had but to be smarter, to scheme, to plot what they desired and simply trick a man into doing their bidding. Some believed women got exactly what they wanted.

  Miranda knew differently.

  Had she not been married off to a man older than her own father, a man who had wanted a young wife to bear him an heir? Had she not been told that her sole purpose was to bear Lowell of Clogwyn a son? Even though the elderly man’s infirmities had rendered it impossible for his cock to remain hard enough for penetration, Miranda was required to give him an heir. ’Twas folly. Fortunately the old coot was full of himself and drank himself into stupors often enough that he believed he’d got his young wife with child. His biggest disappointment had been that the baby had been a girl. He had no thought that the child might not be his.

  And so Miranda, a woman who had always held her virtue and principles high above those of her brothers, had compromised herself and passed this precious child off as Clogwyn’s daughter when she was actually fathered by a dark-haired knight.

  Oh, Spencer, where are you?

  How had she come to love a man so deeply, a man who would never be able to claim her?

  Sadly, Miranda brushed a curl from Bronwyn’s cheek and sighed. It was a wonder that no one saw the resemblance, though she had purposely picked a man who had the same coloring as her aged husband had in his younger years.

  How foolish she’d been to fall in love with him. ’Twas an impossible situation. One even she couldn’t rectify.

  She thought of Lady Apryll, one of the few women who ran a castle on her own. Now she was a prisoner to Devlynn, though, Miranda suspected, Devlynn was falling in love with his hostage.

  Well, it served him right!

  But Apryll, how could she have been so foolish as to have been duped by Payton? Miranda admired the lady and yet pitied her. Devlynn’s temper and wrath had no bounds. Aye, even as a ruler of a castle, Apryll would now have to bow to the demands of a man. ’Twas always the same.

  It would be no different for Bronwyn.

  “Good night, little one,” she whispered to her daughter.

  Assured that the girl was fast asleep, Miranda crossed the room and pulled off her tunic. She was the only daughter of Morgan of Black Thorn, his eldest child. Yet she had been passed over in favor of her younger brothers time and time again. “No longer,” she thought aloud as she slipped into her lonely bed. “No longer.”

  Apryll was alone. In Devlynn’s chamber. Standing near a raging fire burning in the grate, wondering about the jug and mazers that had been left upon a small table, knowing that guards were stationed at each door, including the seldom-used one that led to the chapel.

  Yale was sleeping in the room next door and there was an anteroom connecting the two chambers, but his door to the corridor, too, was watched by a man Devlynn trusted.

  She walked to the window, the long skirt disturbing the fragrant rushes covering the floor. Peering outside, she saw no ledge to walk upon, no ladder left carelessly by the opening, no rope conveniently tucked in a corner of the sill. No, ’twas a sheer drop of three stories that did not end in a rick piled high with soft, cushioning straw but in the ground itself, muddy in the moonlight. Clouds had dropped their icy raindrops and scudded along, leaving the night clear and crisp. Silvery starlight shimmered on the eel pond and the puddles near the creek. She eyed that dark ribbon of water. The stream ran past the mill, where it deepened into a pond.

  Mayhap that was how she could escape, by following the stream to the other side of the mill where it ducked beneath the heavy curtain wall and dumped into the river, a natural moat that surrounded the castle on three sides. No doubt there would be a grate or heavy screen, but she was a strong swimmer and might be able to wedge her body through or around the mesh.

  But first you have to escape this room and the castle, get past a dozen guards who had been scolded and warned about leaving their posts. Tonight it would be the most difficult to leave.

  Mayhap if she were to stay a fortnight or longer the guards would become lazy again and fall back into their ways of dozing or drinking …

  A fortnight?

  Dear God, how could she last so long under Devlynn’s suspicious glare? Dealing with the barbs and looks of disgust from Sir Lloyd and the rest? Waiting for her brother?

  Where was Payton?

  Why had he not come for her?

  Could he have given up the fight and returned to Serennog? Why would he bother trying to ransom her or help her escape, as he could rule the castle, appoint himself baron, saying it was but temporary? Perhaps his thirst for revenge and his need for his own brand of justice had been quenched.

  Sighing, she watched the giant sweeps of the windmill turn and creak in the night. A few windows of the huts that surrounded the bailey were ajar, firelight glowing in the cracks, laughter or bits of conversation reaching her ears. Someone was singing, a clear, deep voice, another woman scolded her children and from the stables came the soft call of a nervous horse.

  Oh, she longed for Serennog. Though not nearly as grand as this huge castle, ’twas home, where people needed her, depended upon her. What would become of them if Devlynn decided to keep her here?

  But why?

  To wait for trial?

  To punish her?

  To keep her as his whore?

  She felt her cheeks burn at that thought, for she’d heard it in whispered speculation often enough since she’d arrived. Girls carrying eggs and buckets of water had tittered with the thought, soldiers had grunted their lusty approval, older women had glanced her up and down, then looked away, to their own husbands, some of whom had already undressed Apryll with their hungry eyes.

  And yet, sleeping with Devlynn held much appeal. She knew of the things done between a man and a woman, had heard talk and gossip, but, heretofore, she’d experienced very little. Devlynn’s hands had been the first to dare touch the skin of her abdomen, or brush over her breasts.

  Deep inside she trembled, not with fear, but with that dark, desperate want she’d experienced at his hand only nights before, the touch of his calloused skin against hers, the feel of his wet tongue sliding over the curves of her body, the sear of his kiss on her lips and eyelids and every hollow in her flesh.

  He’d sworn he would punish her and yet she was not afraid; instead she anticipated being alone with him. Oh, she was a fool. Her fists bunched in the folds of her skirt and she bit her lower lip. She could not have these wayward thoughts. Too much was at stake.

  Again she wondered what had happened to her brother. Where was the band of men who had ridden with such wild abandon to the inn just as they were escaping? Apryll was certain a few of them had given chase, but Devlynn had driven the horses hard and taken seldom-used roads, doubling back here and there, and never had a soldier appeared or accosted them.

  Nor had they been waiting at Black Thorn.

  ’Twas as if they’d vanished.

  Or were waiting.

  For what?

  She heard footsteps outside the door and her heart jumped to her throat. Her pulse leapt at the sound of Devlynn’s voice. She licked her lips nervously as he pushed open the door, gave some muffled commands to the sentry and slipped inside. In the past hour he’d shaved and washed. His black hair glistened in the firelight and the fresh smell of soap surrounded him.

  She swallowed hard, watched as, without a word, he took a seat in a chair by the fire, poured a mazer of wine and while swirling it, crooked a finger at Apryll, silently ordering her to come clos
er. She hesitated and he crooked not one, but two, his jaw tightening at her disobedience.

  Slowly she stepped forward until she was standing in the shifting circle of light from the fire. His eyes narrowed upon her and he let his gaze move painstakingly slowly from the crown of her head, down her face and neck, past the rising swell of her breasts at the low neckline to her waist and farther down, eyeing her as if he could see through the heavy folds of velvet, lifting an eyebrow in speculation as he would if he were to buy a new mare for the stable.

  “Take it off,” he said.

  “What?”

  “My wife’s dress. Take it off.”

  “Nay, I’ll not—”

  “Do it. Now.”

  She started to protest again, saw the glint in his eye and clenched her jaw. So this was how it was to be. Fine.

  Spine stiff, she held back a hot retort and, feeling like an utter fool, unlaced the bodice as he sipped from his cup, his eyes never leaving her. This is to be my punishment, she thought, allowing the yards of lush fabric to pool on the floor at her feet. Feeling the flush of embarrassment climb up her body she stood before him wearing nothing but a thin, lacy chemise that held her breasts tight to her body and flowed downward around her legs. Well, so be it. She could endure this.

  “The boots, too,” he said without emotion.

  “As you wish,” she shot back at him and bent down to remove his wife’s pinching footwear. She could either show him her rump, or her breasts, so she faced him and with some difficulty peeled off the boots, careful to leave her knife tucked inside the soft leather, aware that her breasts were falling forward, the nipples visible and hard against shimmering white silk.

  He took a long swallow from his cup, but his eyes followed her every move. Kicking the boots aside, she straightened again, standing barefoot on the rushes, shorter than before, more naked and, she knew, more vulnerable.