The Loyal Heart (6 page)

“Yeah,” Jack added. “And we took her back.”

“Tried to take her back,” Tom mumbled.

“Until someone tripped and we got caught.” Jack raised a pointed eyebrow at his brother.

Ethan shook his head. “One horse? Huntingdon told us it was six.”

Jack snorted. “Six! Oy, that’s rich. The legend grows.” He laughed and lounged against the wall. “No, mate, it was one natty old nag with a lame leg that we couldn’t even ride.”

Ethan scowled and clenched his jaw. So much for the theory that Buxton only executed hardened criminals for enjoyment. The two men that stood in front of him were no more criminals than … than Aubrey when she put on her disguise and took to the forest. “This is intolerable,” he muttered up to the ceiling.

“Oy, you’re tellin’ me!” Jack agreed.

Ethan began pacing a circle around the tiny room. “This isn’t the shire I left behind.”

“Yeah, well it’s the shire you got now, mate,” Jack told him.

“Where did you go?” Tom asked, gaze following Ethan’s every move.

“To fight with King Richard in the Holy Land.”

“You’ve been to the Holy Land?”

“Yes,” Ethan replied, much good that it did him now.

Tom’s eyes were wide. “Have you seen the king?”

“Oh here we go.” Jack threw up his hands.

“I have.” Ethan glared at Jack. “I even spoke with him once.” He could have told Tom that he flew up to the sun and brought back a sack of magic for all the glitter in the young man’s eyes. It made him writhe with frustration. “If only he were here now,” he growled, beginning to pace again. “He would right this injustice. He would give me my land back.”

Jack barked out a short laugh. “You gonna send him a letter asking for our immediate release?” he drawled. “Oy, think it’ll get an answer before sundown? ‘Cuz I hate to break it to you, mate, but we don’t got time to sit around and wait for a war to end.”

“I know.” Ethan frowned. He turned to face the door. The alcove was dark and quiet but he knew the sentries at the entrance were still at their posts. He could just make out the outlines of their shoulders. There were only two guards and three of them. Those were good odds if they could just get the door open. He grabbed the bars with both hands and shook them, hoping they would come lose.

“Right. That’s gonna work,” Jack commented from the back of the cell as one of the guards hollered, “Shut up, you!”

Ethan exhaled and turned to him. “Well you could help.”

“I’m sorry, mate, but we’ve tried everythin’. I mean everythin’. We’ve been in here for a week and that door ain’t movin’, the guards are heavily armed, and the food is rubbish.”

Ethan blinked at the streak of humor. “Probably literally,” he added, his boyish grin coming out of nowhere. Jack smiled. Tom looked to Ethan with utmost confidence. “I don’t suppose either of you has anything sharp? A knife?”

Tom shook his head. Jack pushed away from the wall and took a few steps to stand in front of Ethan. “They shoved food through the bars but they don’t open the door. If they open the door, between the three of us we could overpower them.”

Ethan nodded, surprised that a peasant could be having the same thoughts as him. “We need to come up with a way to convince them to open the door. Maybe if one of us was hurt.”

“They wouldn’t care about us,” Tom said and lowered his head. “We’re beneath notice.”

“Oy! Speak for yourself, mate.” Jack shook his head at his brother. “Now, if we was fightin’, that would be a different story.”

“Fighting?” Ethan repeated, shifting his weight and staring at the man.

“Yeah,” Jack grinned. “Two horse thieves beatin’ on one ill-fated noble. That’d get them to open up right quick.”

Ethan wasn’t sure. “I don’t know if they would see it the same way.”

“But you’re a noble, sir,” Tom protested. “It’s their duty to protect you.”

Ethan tried to grin at the show of support from Tom. “Alright,” he nodded. “We’ll give it a try. But we have to wait until they think we’ve settled in to our fate.”

“Well don’t wait too long,” Jack spoke up. “Some of us haven’t got the time that others have.”

Ethan nodded. He didn’t have the time either.

Aubrey strolled through the lower halls of the castle like nothing was out of the ordinary, Toby on her heels. She received a few curious stares from the servants, but as long as she acted natural they wouldn’t see anything amiss in one disheveled lady picking through the halls with a bedraggled servant on her heels. They’d made a quick trip to the castle’s armory, an outbuilding beside the stable, to secure weapons. The door had been locked, necessitating climbing in through the window. She’d managed to rip her kirtle, smear the skirt with dirt, and tangle her loose hair, but she now had one dagger in each boot and a small stiletto up her sleeve. Toby had succeeded in not passing out at her antics. Barely. She considered it an accomplishment on his part.

He followed her down an eerie spiral staircase that let them out at the end of a dark hallway. Two steps into the hallway he trod on the hem of her dusty dress, ripping it further. “Sorry, my lady.”

“Ssh!” she hushed him as they started around a corner. She jumped back and Toby nearly plowed into her as she bent to retrieve the daggers from her boots. He tried to crane his neck to see what had her so excited but she held him back. “Toby,” she charged him, smacking one of the daggers into his trembling hand. “Stay quiet. Do as I say. Get in, get out, get home.”

Cool as the early Spring, Aubrey rounded the corner, swinging her hips and smiling at the two guards sitting at a table beside a low archway. “Good evening, friends,” she used the same coaxing tone she’d tried on Crispin. This time she didn’t feel an ounce of guilt. And this time it worked.

“Who are you?” The guards shuffled to their feet. One knocked his chair over in his haste to get up. He glanced at her and licked his lips.

Aubrey sashayed closer. She could feel Toby skittering close behind her. The dagger was heavy in her hands. She closed her fist around it. The guard stepped forward to meet her. “I was just wondering if you might-”

Before she could finish her sentence she pounded him hard across the jaw, grabbed his shoulders and smashed her knee into his groin. He dropped to the floor like a rock as the other guard blinked in shock. “You-” She didn’t give the second guard time to react before lunging at him and hammering the butt of the dagger against his head. The man collapsed to the floor beside his mate.

Aubrey took a step back and snorted, shaking her sore hand.

Toby gaped at the men and worked his jaw before stammering, “What did you do, my lady?”

“I got very lucky.” She jerked her head towards the low archway. “Very lucky indeed.”

Ethan paced in front of the cell door, waiting for the opportunity to put their plan in motion. It came quickly. When he heard the noise and leaned up against the door Jack leapt into action, Tom behind him. Ethan pressed his face against the bars as hard as he could and tried to see what had caused the guards to get up. He heard voices but couldn’t see a thing. He thought he heard a crunch and a thump. Then his eyes widened and he whipped around to Jack.

“They’re coming!” He took two steps towards the man, made a fist, and pounded him hard across the jaw.

Jack’s neck twisted with the force of the blow and he staggered to keep his balance. “Oy!” he shouted, holding the side of his face with an irate frown. “What the bloody hell was that for?”

“To make it look like a fight!” Ethan explained, bursting with energy.

“Yeah, but I thought I would hit you!” To prove his point Jack threw a hard punch at Ethan.

Ethan dodged just enough to let the blow land without doing any damage. “Get off me, you cur!” he shouted, glancing over his shoulder at the door.

“I’ll cur you!” Jack made a run at Ethan.

Ethan was set to grapple with Jack when the door to the cell flew open to reveal Aubrey looking like a wild warrior. “Aubrey?” he barely had enough time to say before Jack crashed into him shoulder first. Jack expected Ethan to counterbalance and when he didn’t they toppled full force to the floor in the doorway with a thud that knocked the wind out of both of them.

Aubrey didn’t miss a beat. She tossed her dagger in the air to change her grip, slammed her foot into Jack’s shoulder, and when that pushed him off of Ethan, she lunged at him with full force. She planted her right foot on the back of his knees and grabbed his ginger hair. When she squatted he was forced to bend backwards, spine stretched over her leg near to the breaking point. Her dagger was cold against his throat before anyone had a clue what was going on.

“Aubrey stop!” Ethan shouted as he recovered.

Jack was ready to soil himself. “I didn’t do it, I swear!”

“Stop,” Ethan repeated, eyes wide. “He’s a friend.”

Aubrey blinked at the shocked man whose spine she was about to snap. “Really?” she arched an eyebrow. “Any reason why he was attacking you?”

“It was part of the plan.” There was something about the fire in her eyes that made his throat tighten and a grin play at the corners of his mouth.

“Yeah, the plan!” Jack stammered. “Someone please tell her about the plan!” Aubrey glanced to Ethan and when she saw the sparkle in his eyes she loosened her grip on Jack and stepped away. Jack collapsed, legs sprawling, and squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them and glanced up to Aubrey’s beautiful face his eyes danced to a grin and he winked. “Well, that would’a beat hangin’ any day.”

Aubrey had already started turning to Ethan, but snapped her head to Jack at his comment, lips twitching to smile in spite of herself. “What’s going on here?” she returned to business.

“We thought you were the guards,” Ethan told her and Toby. “We planned to stage a fight so that they would open the door and we could overtake them.”

“The overtaking’s already been done, my lord,” Toby informed him, jerking his head towards Aubrey with a flicker of his eyebrows and an impressed smile.

“Yes, and we don’t have time to sit here and chat about it,” Aubrey pressed on. She stepped over Jack, still lying on the floor with a dazed smile, and rushed to the mouth of the alcove.

“You’ve got that right,” Ethan nodded in agreement. He stretched out a hand to help Jack up and beckoned for Tom to come with them. The four men met Aubrey in the corridor.

“There are a lot of servants in the halls above us but no one on this floor,” she explained. She handed the dagger in her hand to Ethan and slid the stiletto out of her sleeve.

“Oy!” Jack spread his arms in offence that she had nothing for him.

“Sorry, I didn’t know I would be rescuing anyone other than Ethan.”

“Oh here, you can have mine.” Toby handed his dagger over to Jack as though it were a dirty rag.

“You aren’t rescuing me,” Ethan protested, his charming grin back in full force. The sight of her fierce eyes and the way her excited breaths made her chest stand out had him wishing they were alone.

“Then what do you call it?” she drawled, planting a hand on her hip.

“We had a plan,” he reminded her.

She shook her head. “Yeah, well, you can tell me all about it later. Come on.” She scurried along the hallway, keeping tight to the wall, the men right behind her.

At the first corner Ethan darted ahead of her and took the lead. “This way.” He turned them down an off-shooting corridor. They rounded another corner and started up curving stairs. As they neared the top he slowed and put out a hand to stop the others. Aubrey was right behind him, Jack on her heels. Tom and Toby brought up the rear. Ethan crouched as they reached the top of the stairs and got his bearings. They were near the kitchens and a handful of servants were hard at work at the end of the hall and in the rooms beyond.

“Kitchens,” he explained in a hushed voice. “We’re going to have to go through to get out and we’re going to be seen.”

“That’s easy,” Toby replied. “Lady Aubrey and I walked right through them earlier and they didn’t blink.”

Ethan glanced to Aubrey who confirmed it with a nod. Still he frowned. “That was just two of you and you look like you belong. There are four of us and some of us look a little worse for wear.”

“Thanks,” Jack drawled at the same time that Aubrey said, “Five of us you mean.”

Ethan pressed his lips together and let out a breath through his nose. “We’re going to have to run, Aubrey,” he explained to her.

“So?” she shrugged.

“We’re going to have to
run
.”

She stood straighter and planted her fists, one still holding the stiletto, on her hips. “I can run faster than all of you combined.”

Ethan rolled his eyes and shifted towards her. He was not used to people questioning his orders. “No, I mean we are going to have to be on the run. I have no place to go and I can’t go back to Morley, not without jeopardizing you and Geoffrey.”

“What?” she spat.

“What do you think Buxton is going to do when he finds out I’m not in the dungeon?” he scowled at her. She was so beautiful when she was fuming that it made it hard to keep his train of thought. “He’s not going to just throw up his hands and say ‘oh well, too bad about that’. He’ll send men after us. He’ll send Huntingdon after us.” The idea clicked into his head so fast it made his eyes widen. “But not if you’re hanging off him.”