Dreamspell (39 page)

She hugged her arms to her. She was back, this time forever. No regrets, except for the woman she had left behind. She swallowed the lump of emotion. Mom would be fine. She had Jack. And the journal.

Fulke was somewhere out there. Unfortunately, since he would have no recollection of the alternate past when he had implored her to stay with him, he wouldn’t be happy to see her, but they would get past that. Now it was time to put her plan in action, which meant locating John and Harold’s chamber and holding vigil over it. Though she had considered trying to get to Fulke to tell him of the medallion, she feared he wouldn’t believe her and she would end up with Mac again. He needed proof of what had yet to happen—the perpetrator caught in the act.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and into the afternoon light spilled through the window. She paused at the sight of the chest at the foot of the bed—the same one that had held Lady Lark’s clothes. On it sat a pack. Whose? She stood. She
had
brought herself back to the correct day, hadn’t she?

She breathed the air, tasted it. It was clean, no evidence of the smoke that had rolled from the keep as she and Mac helplessly watched death come to Brynwood. All was well. Though curious as to who owned the pack, it was irrelevant.

She crossed the chamber and nearly got a face full of door when it swung inward.

“Nedy! What. . .?”

She stepped back from the man who stared wide-eyed at her. “Sir Leonel.”

He swept his gaze over the chamber. When his eyes fell on her again, there was knowing in their narrowing. “You are looking for something?”

Of course. He had been given this chamber and, if she guessed right, it was the medallion to which he referred. Inwardly, she groaned over her dismissal of the pack. What if he had stowed the medallion there? But was he such a fool? More likely he had disposed of it.

He closed the door and leaned against it. “I wager Wynland does not know you are absent his prison.” He smiled. “You really are a witch, aren’t you?”

She almost denied it, but why? Better a witch with supposed powers than a mere mortal whose only defenses were tooth and nail. She shrugged. “You found me out.”

He stepped toward her. “As you have found me out.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He halted before her. “Don’t you?”

This was only going to work if the puppy love he had displayed earlier had a grain of truth to it. Though his musty breath offended, she pressed her palms to his chest. “I came to take you up on your offer. You do still want to save me from Wynland’s wrath, don’t you, Leonel?”

“Save you? I would think you could do that yourself, witch.”

“Of course I could, but how much more pleasant to have a travelling companion.”

“’Tis too late for that now.”

“No, it’s not. You tell me where and when and I’ll be waiting with bells on.” She tilted her face nearer his. “I want to go with you. To be with you. Isn’t that what you also want?”

“I want you, aye.” He looked to her mouth. “But it’s not all I want.”

It wouldn’t be. He
had
murdered. “What else, Leonel?” She hoped she sounded seductive, rather than repulsed as she felt.

His lips curled unbecomingly, reversing his handsome face. He didn’t trust her. As if she were a horse he was considering buying, he stepped back and slowly looked her up and down. “I like this gown better. It promises much.” He walked around her and stood silent at her back until Kennedy thought she might scream.

She was in over her head. But what else could she do? She could call for help, but would Fulke come? If he did, what hope had she that he would believe her when told of Leonel’s medallion, especially now that it seemed likely it no longer existed? Would he return her to the tower, leaving the boys’ death sentence in place?

Leonel’s hands closed over her shoulders, body pressed against her back, unshaven face brushed her ear. “For now, what I want is what you gave Wynland.”

Only her love, though he wouldn’t believe that. “That’s all?” Kennedy laughed. “You don’t ask for much, do you?” She turned to him and slid her arms up around his neck. “Once we’re gone from here, we’ll have all the time in the world to enjoy each other.” If he took her up on her offer, there would be no one to set tonight’s killing fire. Later, she would worry about escaping him. “When can we leave?”

He leaned in and lightly rested his mouth on hers. “We cannot. Not so long as Wynland holds me under watch and refuses me my sword.”

Hating the feel of his lips, she lowered her face and pretended an interest in his tunic. “Surely you can get around that.” She touched the embroidery at his collar.

“Not as easily as you, witch. Now, let me see you.” He began prying at her laces.

She jumped away and spun around. “Really, Leonel, now is not the time. Once we leave—”

“You lie, Nedy Plain.” His eyes glittered, mouth slanted cruelly. “You did not come here for me, but for Wynland that you might redeem yourself. You love him.”

With every beat of my soul.
“You’ve got to be kidding. I don’t—”

“You told him of the medallion, did you not?” He advanced on her.

He was guessing, Kennedy realized as she retreated from him.

“Aye, you did. Last night when he came to you in the tower, you told him.”

Then he was watching Fulke.

“But still he left you there. He believes ‘tis just another lie.”

“No, he’ll look into it—you’ll see.” She came up against the wall, missing the door by three feet. Could she make it? “Then what will you do, Sir Leonel?”

He took a long stride that placed him in front of her and voided the chance of her making it to the door. “The medallion is gone, as you will be when I am done with you.” He placed a hand on the wall on either side of her. “As you should have been had Moriel not desired to lie with you.”

It
was
Leonel who hired the assassin. She cringed at the memory of him offering her comfort following Moriel’s attack.

“Ironic, is it not,” he mused, “that Cardell would also seek Moriel’s services?” He laughed. “But then, there is only one Moriel—or was.”

“You won’t get away with this.”

“When Wynland finally learns who bears the two-headed wyvern and heather-in-hand, I shall be in France.”

Did his escape plan include Jaspar?

He trailed a finger down Kennedy’s throat. “You should have gone with me from Farfallow. Now you know more than you ought to know. Pity.”

“Answer me one thing. If you knew I was not Lady Lark, why hire an assassin?”

“Because of the way Wynland watched you”—he pondered her mouth—“touched you”—his finger traced her clavicle—“kissed you. It could have ruined everything.”

“For you?”

“Aye.”

“And Jaspar?”

Following an absent moment, he said, “And Jaspar.” His hand crept lower.

Kennedy knocked it aside and pointed a finger at him. “Back off or I’ll cast a spell on you!”

For a moment, he appeared to consider her warning, then grabbed her arms and yanked her around.

The floor skidded out from under her as he propelled her backward. The mattress broke her fall.

“Now, witch,” he said, leaning over her, “cast your spell.”

Kennedy slammed the heel of her palm into his descending mouth, snapping his head back and causing him to yelp.

“Witch!” He drew back a fist.

She threw up an arm, but the blow was stopped by sounds in the bailey.

Leonel froze. “Jaspar,” he said.

She had arrived?

He narrowed his gaze on Kennedy. “Methinks this shall have to wait.”

She did a stupid thing then—lowered her arm and was rewarded with a fist to her eye. Amid the pain, she was vaguely aware of Leonel’s brisk movements about the chamber, then his hands on her again.

She fought him, but he quickly gagged her, bound her hands and feet with rope from his pack, and tossed her over his shoulder.

Kennedy continued to struggle. Night was coming and she was about to be disconnected from it, which would leave John and Harold wide open. She caught a glimpse of Leonel’s meat dagger, but there was no way to get to it with her hands at her back.

“You may have escaped Wynland’s prison,” he said as he lugged her to the indoor outhouse she had come to know as the garderobe, “but you will not escape mine.”

He threw open the garderobe and dumped her.

On her descent to the floor, Kennedy’s arm hit the rough edge of the stone slab seat, tearing the sleeve of her gown and abrading the flesh beneath. But the sting was nothing compared to her landing. The thrust of her weight on her arms at her back set fire to her joints and shoulders. If not for the gag, her cry would surely have brought someone running.

“We are not done.” Leonel looked down on her where she lay crammed in the small space.

Kennedy glared at him, grunted against the gag.

He grunted back, laughed, and slammed the door.

She stared into the semi-darkness that would have been pitch if not for the slotted window that let in a ray of light. Tears of frustration and pain rising, she commanded herself to concentrate. If she didn’t get out of here, all she had done would be for nothing. There had to be a way, even if it meant going through Fulke and his disbelief. She surveyed the dim garderobe and stopped on the door. Could she get herself turned around in this impossibly narrow space? Kick at the door and cause enough ruckus to—

The door opened and, for a breathless moment, she thought it was Fulke who stood there.

“It occurs to me, witch, that you will not go easy,” Leonel said. “Can’t have you rousing a chamber maid, can I?” He booted her alongside the head.

The pain, worse than the blow to the eye, and frighteningly comparable to the worst of the tumor, swept Kennedy toward darkness.
Please, no!

A
ngered that he had not been allowed a moment alone with Jaspar since her arrival less than an hour past, Leonel stared at her where she stood before the table at which Wynland was seated. For each question Wynland put to her, she looked imploringly to Leonel, which made him long to measure her neck with his hands.

Wynland repeated the question he had asked a few minutes earlier, and over which Jaspar had fumbled as if she knew little of the English language. Sensing the swing of her eyes, Leonel set his gaze to the hearth where Lady Aveline, Lady Marion, and Lady Lark were seated. No sooner did he than the latter turned her face toward him. As with each time they drew near one another, he was fearful recognition might hit upon her, be it due to a mannerism or facial feature she might have glimpsed when she struck him with the stone. He leaned forward, put his elbows on the table, and clasped his hands before his face. It was as near a disguise as he could manage.

“Very well,” Wynland ground out. “Then tell me this: what know you of a device bearing a two-headed wyvern?”

Leonel’s throat constricted. Though he had thought he was prepared if it was proven that Nedy Plain had told Wynland of the medallion, he was wrong. His gaze clashed with Jaspar’s, but this time, rather than pleading, disbelief shone from her eyes.

As much as he longed to shake his head to silence her desperate tongue, he knew he was watched. Thus, he gripped his clasped hands to the bones and shifted his gaze to the table.

“I. . .” Jaspar floundered. “Does not. . .? Aye, methinks Baron Fulkirk bears a wyvern. Is it. . .is it two-headed, Leonel?”

“I know not, Cousin.”

Wynland’s brother, Richard, stepped from the alcove across the hall. “I know the baron’s device. ‘Tis a wyvern with but one head.”

Wynland’s gaze pared Jaspar. “’Tis a two-headed one I seek on a medallion seen last by one of Lady Lark’s escort who was killed in the attack.”

Jaspar stepped nearer the table. “I am sorry, Fulke. I fear I know naught that might aid you. If the lady was held at Cirque, as you say, neither I, nor my cousin know anything of the attack upon her. Is that not true, Leonel?”

“As I have already told Lord Wynland.”

The suddenness with which his liege rose from his chair struck fear in Leonel and caused Jaspar to jump back so that she nearly toppled from the dais.

“Someone is lying,” Wynland said. “Ere this night is done—” The entrance of one of his knights halted his speech. “What is it, Sir Malcolm?”

The knight ascended the dais. “My lord, she is gone again.”

From Wynland’s expression, he did not require a name for the one gone missing.

Ah, sweet reprieve. Leonel drank in deliverance. Though it might be of short duration, hopefully it would be enough to see him gone from this place. Unfortunate for poor Jaspar, he might have to leave her behind.

“Is there none competent to hold her?” Fulke shouted as he struggled to contain the emotion that slammed through him, the pain of which demanded a more violent expression.

“’Tis as before, my lord,” the knight implored. “She could not have escaped, yet did. Mayhap ‘tis true what is said, that she is a—”