The Faithful Heart (25 page)

“Now, now, sweetheart,” Lydia cooed, stepping
over to rest a hand on the side of his sweating face. “We can play
rough as much as you’d like, but I’d rather we save it for
bedsport.” Her warm laugh shriveled him through. She stood. “Take
them to the common.”

Madeline pressed herself into the ground in
the corner of the tent, eyes wide. Jack grunted once more in pain
as he was marched away. She swallowed, listening to their footsteps
retreating until the sound was indistinguishable from the rest of
the noise of the camp. She hardly dared to move. Fiancé?

The sound of more footfalls focused her in
the present. The tent was now deserted but that didn’t mean it
would be for long. Lydia had sent Connor to search for her but no
one had bothered to search inside the tent. It was a small miracle.
Well, that or a sign that Lydia and her goons might not have known
what they were doing after all. She couldn’t wait around to find
out which it was.

Holding her breath, she lifted the bottom of
the canvas to peek at the immediate surroundings. Everyone had
gone. She rolled to a crouch and fitted the mask over the bottom
half of her face, settling the hood over the top. She crept out of
the tent and scanned the area as fast as she could before
zigzagging through the paths towards the corral. The sun was now up
in earnest and sounds of stirring came from all around. They
weren’t the only sounds.

“You there,” Connor’s voice cracked from the
other side of the tent she was passing. Her blood froze. “Get up
and show your ugly face!”

He wasn’t talking to her. A grumble was
followed by, “What the fuck do you want?”

She swallowed and rushed to the end of the
tent to get away from the investigation. Two women were walking on
a path to intercept her. She pulled back, waiting for them to pass.
They were chattering away like magpies as they crossed in front of
her. One of them looked right at her with a strange frown but
walked on.

Madeline’s legs quivered. She blinked as a
thought struck her. Changing tactics, she yanked the mask off of
her face and undid her cloak’s clasp. She ruffled a hand through
her hair, bent over to grab a handful of dirt and rubbed it over
her face. Then she wadded the cloak into a ball and set off towards
the corral again, breathing steadily to make it look like nothing
was wrong.

“You! What are you doing?” Connor’s shout was
straight at her this time.

She closed her eyes, said a prayer, and
turned to face him. “What, me, sir?”

“Yeah, you.” Connor strode up to her, arms
crossed, face fiercer than ever with the gash Toby had given
him.

“I’m … Lady Lydia told me t’ go get her cloak
washed.” She screwed her face up like a page sent on a nasty
errand.

“Yeah?” Connor didn’t look convinced.

“Yeah!” she snarled back at him, imitating
his bullying stance.

Connor scowled. As much as she wanted to
cower Madeline knew she couldn’t back down. Her matching glower was
met by a sudden twinkle in Connor’s eye. “Carry on, boy!” Connor
grunted, cuffing her upside the head for good measure. She wasn’t
sure, but she thought it might have been a sign of approval. She
grimaced and spit at the man’s feet for good measure. Connor
chuckled as he turned to stomp on.

Madeline swayed on the spot, wishing she had
something to lean on for just a moment. Since there was nothing she
pushed herself on. There was no need to rush now. All she had to do
was keep calm and find Tom.

Jack stumbled over a rock as Roderick pushed
him off the path and onto the wide, dirt area that was the camp
common. He fought for balance and would have landed on his face if
Roderick hadn’t grabbed his arm and wrenched him upright again. His
legs were rubbery, but at least he was able to move them as he and
Simon were dragged to a tall post towards the center of the area.
It was one of several standing in a row with lines strung between
them that held washing.

“Take this mess down,” Lydia ordered,
pointing at a group of men roasting something for breakfast at a
nearby fire pit. They jumped up and tore the washing down from the
tallest post. “Get some rope and string them up.”

“Rope again,” Jack muttered as Roderick spun
him around and shoved his back against the post. The pain of his
tattered flesh hitting the post poured blackness over him. He
sagged, floating in the dark.

Before he could lose consciousness someone
grabbed the wrist that held his rosary.

“What’s this?” Lydia’s falsely sweet voice
wrenched him to attention. “Still playing with trinkets?”

“Don’t touch it,” he mumbled, frustrated with
the weakness of his voice. Her fingers worked it loose. “Leave it!”
he shouted with a surge of panic, too dizzy to get away. “Leave it
alone!”

“Really, Jack.” Lydia tutted, yanking the
rosary off and holding it in front of his face.

“No! Give it back! Give it back!” He made a
swipe for it.

Lydia jerked it out of his reach, giggling as
he stumbled off balance and fell to his knees. “You won’t be
needing this anymore.” She threw it in the dirt and stepped on
it.

Jack tried to lunge towards the rosary but
Roderick’s hand was on his throat, hauling him to his feet in an
instant. He slammed Jack against the post again.

Everything went black.

When Jack opened his eyes again his hands
were suspended above his head, ropes digging into his wrists. He
slumped against something warm and moist. His head was pounding but
he forced himself to open his eyes. The forest tilted into focus.
He straightened to right the world and keep himself from being
sick.

“Are you alright?” the thing he had been
slumped against muttered. It was Simon.

Jack mumbled and took in a breath. He was on
his feet this time instead of sitting. The ragged smallclothes he
wore were loose and low around his hips. He shifted to rest his
shoulder against the post, glancing up to look at the taut rope
stretching from his bound wrists to a knot on the top of the post.
Sweat stung his eyes. He blinked his way down to Simon.

Simon had asked him a question.

“Oy, mate,” he replied, his voice vague and
miles away. “How long I been out?”

“Not more than five minutes.”

He braved a smirk. “Bloody hell. I was hopin’
it was longer.”

Simon grinned. The expression came off as
pained and desperate. It was the most unnerving thing he’d seen
since setting foot in the forest. If he’d had a hand free Jack
would have patted the man on the back to assure him that everything
would be alright. Except that he needed someone to give him the
same reassurance, and that man was usually Simon.

“Right,” he took a breath, ignoring his
precarious balance. “What’re we up against?” He glanced at the
common and the camp spreading out from it.

“Guards over there,” Simon nodded to their
right. “Not that they’re needed.” His eyes flickered to the edges
of the common, to the dozen or more people staring at them and
whispering while they ate their breakfast.

Jack’s stomach growled. “Oy!” he hollered to
their audience. “Anyone got any food they want to share?”

Some of the people laughed. A few of them
whispered to each other. One older woman stepped forward with a
bowl in her hands. She didn’t make it more than three steps before
one of the guards shouted “Get back, you!” and knocked the bowl out
of her hands.

Jack rolled against the post to a more
comfortable position. “Thanks anyhow, mate!” he called out to the
woman. She nodded back.

He rested as best he could with his head
aching, his wrists burning, and his back a web of pain. If he could
only clear his head enough to get a grip on their new situation
maybe he could do something about it. His gaze dropped to his
rosary, still lying in the dirt about twenty feet in front of him.
He squinted, straining his eyes to see if any of the beads were
cracked. It was too far away to tell.

He continued to watch the rosary, leaning
against the post, waiting for his head to clear and his muscles to
stop aching. The familiar chant of Hail Madeline, full of grace ran
through his head. What had happened to her? Had she gotten away?
She must have. If she’d been caught Lydia wouldn’t show her a lick
of mercy.

His thoughts see-sawed back and forth between
Madeline and Lydia, hope and despair, as the minutes ticked by.
Simon leaned against the post with him but was silent. The forest
people gathered and stared. The guards kept the adults at a
distance but ignored the children. He saw a ragged little girl, no
more than six or seven, inch closer out of the corner of his eye as
he focused on the rosary. She crept towards it and with a dash that
jolted him out of his thoughts she grabbed it and ran.

“Oy!” he called after her. “Bring that back!
Oy!”

The girl ignored him, vanishing into the
watching forest folk and the trees.

He heaved out a shaking breath, unable to
control the stinging in his eyes. There was no use in fighting it.
The pain was too much. The thirst and starvation, worry about
Madeline, the constant humiliation and degradation from Lydia and
half the nobles of Derbyshire, his failures as a noble, a friend, a
brother, all came crashing down around him. His breath turned into
shallow sobs as sweat mingled with tears on his face.

“Hold it together, Jack!” Simon’s steady
voice was the only thing that kept him from tipping over the edge.
“You can do it. You are ten times the man any of them are! You can
face this and you can beat it! You can beat them!”

“No I can’t,” he moaned.

“Yes you can. Yes you can. Listen to me,
Jack. Yes you can.”

Jack nodded slowly, teeth clenched to keep
them from chattering. Simon leaned against him, using himself as a
prop to keep Jack upright.

“Take a deep breath.”

He did as he was told.

“The rosary is gone,” Simon went on. “Think
of the girl who took it. She’s a hungry child in the woods, nothing
more. Think of what must have happened to get her here. Maybe her
parents were turned out of their home under Buxton’s rule. Maybe
she only has a mother. Maybe that rosary is the only pretty thing
she has ever seen in her life.”

Again Jack nodded, squeezing his eyes shut
and forcing himself to listen, to lean his head against the post.
He had to breathe. To breathe and listen to Simon.

“Think of everything you can do to help her,”
he continued. “Remember that these people look up to you. You are
Bailiff of Derby. You are the peasant who became a noble. Think of
how you can use that to help them. Look at them.”

Jack opened his eyes and glanced around. Men,
women, and children, all of them worse for wear. They all watched
him and Simon with wary, expectant eyes. They all held their breath
to see what would happen.

“You watch when Lydia comes back. They won’t
look at her that way. These are your people, Jack. All of
Derbyshire. We are your people. Not Huntingdon’s, not Matlock’s,
and never Buxton’s. These are your people and they need you. Now
stand up straight.”

He didn’t realize Simon had been whispering
straight into his ear until he found himself struggling to do
exactly what he said. He stood with his tattered back as straight
as he could make it, in spite of the maddening itch of seeping
wounds. He sucked in a breath and held his head high, scanning the
watching crowd and making eye contact with as many of them as he
could.

“Think of all you could do for them, my
lord,” Simon’s voice was his rock. “The power you have to
understand them, to make their lives better is like nothing any of
us have ever known. They need you to be strong. They need to see
you as invincible. Because they see you as one of them. Don’t think
about the pain. Don’t think about the hunger. Think about how you
can help them. These last few days are nothing compared to all that
you can do, all that you will do for these people.”

Simon fell silent again. Jack stood with his
feet solidly planted, studying the forest people. Young and old,
men and women, not one of them were as bad off as he was. Not one
of them had it as good as he did. They looked at him with restless
expectation. Unlike the nobles who watched him, expecting him to
fail, these people held their breath, waiting for him to
succeed.

“What do I do, Simon?” he asked, voice far
steadier than he felt in his heart.

“You wait for opportunity to present itself,
my lord,” Simon told him. “And then you do what you have to
do.”

Chapter Fourteen

Finding Tom in a sea of unfamiliar tents and
people was easier said than done. Without the Bandit mask Madeline
felt exposed, even though reason told her she was better hidden
without it. She tried to steer clear of people as she rushed to the
rendezvous point.

Tom wasn’t at the corral. She checked all
around and through the large pen. The two young boys tending the
horses gave her funny looks as she searched. They could see right
through her ruse but they didn’t seem likely to say anything.

Not wanting to spend too much time in one
place, she doubled back and headed for Tom’s tent. As she
approached she saw two burly men coming out of it. Half of Tom’s
things had been scattered around the opening. She walked right past
with only a curious glance at what the men were doing. The men
didn’t look twice at her.

It took her ten more minutes of walking and
praying she wouldn’t run into Lydia to find him. Or rather for him
to find her. As she passed a thick old tree a hand reached out and
grabbed her. She shrieked until another hand slapped over her
mouth. She glanced up to find Tom shaking his head, eyes wide. She
swallowed and nodded. He let her mouth go but continued to stand
close and hold her arms.

He sent a panicked look around before
whispering to her, “I heard what happened.”