Wild and Wicked (24 page)

“I was drugged,” he growled, casting an embarrassed glance over her shoulder to the men he’d banded together. One found a jug of wine and began passing it around. “With the potion you gave me.”

“How?”

Again Rudyard’s grating voice as he stood at the fire, declining a drink from the communal jug. Payton’s gaze fixed on the heavy vessel and he remembered Apryll offering him “one last cup.” Oh, she was a clever one, his sister, but not clever enough.

“I don’t know, I thought I gave it to the boy, but now I think Apryll slipped some of the potion into my cup and somehow filled the vial with something else—or mayhap she split the last dose . . .” Why had he trusted her? Why hadn’t he tied her as he had the boy?

“Then you failed,” Rudyard said with a lift of his palms, as if it was a simple fact anyone should understand.

“I made a mistake. ’Twill be soon fixed.” Payton glowered down at the gaping hole where he’d hidden his pouch of stolen gold, coins and gems.

“You failed,” Rudyard repeated and this time his voice was much closer. His breath brushed Payton’s back.

“’Tis not a failure but a misstep.” Payton spun quickly, just in time to see a flash of a blade.

Geneva screamed.

Payton ducked but wasn’t fast enough. Rudyard’s sword plunged deep into his stomach. Twisted. White hot pain burst through his gut. He couldn’t believe it. The coward had run him through? A satisfied smile contorted Rudyard’s lips, showing off his crooked teeth.

“God in heaven, no!” Geneva cried.

Payton’s legs trembled, couldn’t bear his weight.

“Nay, nay, nay!” Geneva threw herself upon him as he fell to his knees. “Payton, oh, God, nay. Please spare him, please . . .” Tears streamed from her eyes. “I love you . . . I carry your child . . . do not die . . . do not!” He gasped, his breath rasping, and he knew the fight was over.

With a horrid sucking sound Rudyard retrieved his blade. “You failed. A leader has but one chance.”

Geneva’s tortured face swam before his eyes, the entire room spun. “Payton, oh, love, your son needs you.”

A father? He was to be a father? He reached out and she took her hand in his and, as if understanding what he needed, placed his palm on the flat of her abdomen. Blood streaked her tunic—his blood, he realized as his gaze shifted to the man who had double-crossed him.

Rudyard, the unfaithful captain of the guard, was not his ally after all. The world shifted, became blurry.

Geneva, holding Payton, rocking slowly, glowered up at Rudyard. “A curse upon you.”

“There may be many already, woman.”

“I’ll see you in hell,” Payton rasped, fixing his eyes upon Rudyard’s bony face. ’Twas that of a skeleton already. Darkness threatened from the corners of his vision.

Rudyard laughed and the sound was like dry leaves crushed under a destrier’s sharp hooves. “Don’t wait for me.”

Geneva sobbed, or was it another woman? Apryll? His mother? His mind was foggy again and, by the gods, he was cold, bitter cold as if he were buried in the snows of winter.

“What shall we do with her?” a deep voice asked as the woman holding him was dragged away, her warm arms no longer about him. Payton tried to locate the owner of the voice, but his gaze was fixed and dark; he knew he should try to stop what was about to happen, but his body wouldn’t move. Couldn’t.

“Do whatever you want with her. I care not,” someone—Rudyard, aye, Rudyard—said heartlessly.

Somewhere a woman screamed, crying, begging . . . “Nay, do not do this . . . nay, nay, nay, oh, Mother, do not make me suffer so . . .” Payton couldn’t reach her or say a word. There was laughter, men’s drunken laughter, and the sound of rutting and a woman’s terrified howls . . . and then nothing but a soft buzz in his ears. Nothing.

As the lifeblood seeped out of him, Payton of Serennog, born a bastard, raised by a lord who hated him, never realizing that one woman had loved him, gave up his battle.

A rooster crowed so loudly that Apryll started. Blinking, she tried to rise, but was held fast by a strong arm.

Devlynn.
He was lying beside her, pinning her against him, his breathing soft and gentle against the back of her neck. It felt so natural, so warm, so right to be snuggled against him.

He is your enemy, Apryll,
her mind taunted.
Forget it not. Has he not bound your wrists, kept you prisoner? Did he not promise to punish you for your sins against him?

She thought of the knife buried somewhere beneath the matted hay. Where had she hidden it? Slowly, moving with painstaking deliberation so as not to awaken him, she explored the area around her with her hands, gently patting the straw, probing carefully with the fingers of both hands. She’d tucked it away quickly but had barely moved from this spot. It had to be nearby. Was it stuffed in the hay beneath Devlynn’s body? Or somewhere else? It was still dark in the loft, though the animals were stirring and she heard the creak of footsteps in the house. Again she sifted through the dry hay and her fingers brushed against something cold and sharp.

At last! Pretending to stretch in her sleep she managed to grab the hilt and draw it downward as she lifted her leg so that she could slide it down the inside of her boot. There was no time to use it now—the farmer was already up, his gruff voice filtering through the thin wood walls.

“Mina! Up with ye! There’s milkin’ to be done and me breakfast to see to!”

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.”