Hunched over her embroidery frame, Dougless was listening to one of the ladies telling a juicy story about a woman who’d tried to bed another woman’s husband. Dougless was listening to the story with all her attention when suddenly a fierce, burning pain stabbed her left forearm.
With a cry of pain, Dougless fell back on the stool and landed on the floor. “My arm. Something has hurt my arm.” She cradled her arm to her, tears of pain coming instantly.
Leaping to her feet, Honoria ran to kneel by Dougless. “Rub her hands, do not let her faint,” Honoria commanded as she quickly untied Dougless’s sleeve at the shoulder and slipped it down. Honoria winced a
t Dougless’s moan of pain as she had to pull Dougless’s arm away from her breast to remove the sleeve. Once the sleeve was off, Honoria pushed the linen undersleeve up to look at Dougless’s arm.
There was nothing wrong with it. The skin was not even reddened.
“I see nothing,” Honoria said, suddenly afraid. She’d grown to care for Dougless, but the woman was very odd. Sir Nicholas accused her of being a witch. Was this pain a manifestation of her witchcraft?
The pain in her arm was blinding, but when Dougless looked down, she saw that there was nothing wrong with her forearm. “It feels as though it’s been cut,” she whispered, “as though someone has cut it deeply with a knife.”
She used her right hand to rub her forearm, but she could barely feel her own touch. “I can feel the cut,” she whispered, trying not to whimper. The women around her were looking at her strangely, as though Dougless weren’t quite sane.
Suddenly, Dougless could hear Nicholas’s voice in her head. They were in bed together and she’d touched the scar on his left forearm. He said he’d been injured on the day Kit had drowned.
Dougless was on her feet instantly. “Where do the men practice swords?” she asked, trying not to sound frantic. Please, God, she prayed, do not let me be too late.
At her remark, the other women seemed to be assured of Dougless’s lack of sanity, but Honoria answered. Nothing Dougless did could surprise her. “To the back, past the maze, through the northeast gate.”
Nodding, Dougless wasted no more time. She grabbed her skirts, thanked heaven for the farthingale that held the skirts away from her legs, then began to run. In the hall she crashed into a man, and when he fell, she leaped over him. A woman in the kitchen was getting something off a high shelf. Crouching, Dougless kept running under her arms. A wagonload of barrels had come untied, and Dougless leaped five barrels, one after another, looking like an oddly dressed Olympic hurdler. She ran past Lady Margaret outside the maze, but when the woman called to her, Dougless didn’t answer. When the gate in the wall at the back of the maze stuck, Dougless lifted her foot and smashed it open.
Once outside the gardens, she ran as fast as she could.
Nicholas, his arm swathed in a bloody bandage, was sitting on a horse and watching her progress toward him.
“Kit!” Dougless screamed, still running. “We have to save Kit.”
Dougless didn’t say any more because a man swooped her into his arms and dumped her onto a horse, and, oh, thank all that was holy, it was a man’s saddle. She jammed her feet into the stirrups, grabbed the reins, and looked at Nicholas.
“We ride!” he shouted as he kicked his horse forward.
The wind in her eyes stung and her arm still hurt, but most of Dougless’s concentration was on following Nicholas. Behind them thundered three men trying to keep up with them.
They ran across plowed fields, through gardens of cabbages and turnips. They ran through the dirty, barren yards of peasants, and for once Dougless gave no thought to equality as their horses’ hooves destroyed crops and even once, a shed. They ran into the woods, tree branches low overhead. Dougless put her head down on the horse’s neck and kept going. Leaving the trail, Nicholas headed into the forest. Even though there was no path, the forest floor was clear of deadfall, for even twigs were needed for firewood, so, except for the overhanging branches, their way was unhampered.
Dougless never thought to question how Nicholas knew where Kit was, but she was sure he did know. Just as he’d known she would come when he hurt his arm, he knew where his brother was.
They broke through the trees into a clearing, and ahead, surrounded by more trees, sparkled a pretty, spring-fed pond. Nicholas was off his horse while it was still running, and Dougless followed him, tearing her heavy, long skirt when it caught on the saddle.
When she reached the pond and looked down, what she saw chilled her. Three men were carrying Kit’s nude, lifeless body out of the water. Kit’s body was facedown, his long dark hair falling forward, his neck limp and lifeless.
Nicholas was staring at his brother. “No,” he said, then, “NO!”
Shoving past Nicholas, Dougless went to the men holding Kit. “Put him down here,” she ordered. “On his back.”
Kit’s men hesitated.
“Obey her!” Nicholas bellowed from close behind her.
“Pray,” she said to the man nearest her as she straddled Kit. “I need all the help I can get. Pray for a miracle.”
Instantly, the men went to their knees, their hands clasped, their heads bowed.
Nicholas knelt before Kit’s inert body and placed his hands on Kit’s wet head. When he looked at Dougless, his eyes showed that he trusted her in whatever she did to his beloved brother’s inert body.
Dougless pushed Kit’s head back to make a straight line of his air ducts, then began to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Nicholas’s eyes widened as he watched, but he did not try to stop her. “Kit, please,” she whispered. “Please live,” then she again forced air into his lungs.