Kissing the Bride (Medieval 4)

Help you? She had licked her lips and swallowed, trying to find her voice. For a moment his words had made no sense. “Help you?” she had managed. “I have tried to help you, my lord. What more can I do?”

“That is for you to decide,” he had said, as cold as he had been boiling with rage a moment earlier.

“If I help you, can I…can I have my freedom, my lord? A house in Normandy, mayhap? A life there.”

He had stared at her, his face unreadable, and then he had smiled. A slow, savage smile, with a touch of pride in it. As if he’d seen a part of himself in her. “Away from me, you mean? Aye, why not. Get me what I want, Rhona, and I will have no need of you anymore. You can do what you like.”

Her legs had trembled so badly that Rhona had thought she might have fallen over, but she’d locked her knees and stood straight. Her face had been deathly pale. “You say you want the Lady Jenova, my lord, but do you want her for my brother…or for yourself?”

He had stilled, arrested by the thought. It clearly had not occurred to him before. And if Jenova was to wed Baldessare rather than Alfric, then Alfric, too, would be free of his father.

Both of us to escape this monstrous place, and the monster within it….

Her eyes had remained fixed on her father. All manner of emotions had passed across his face, and she’d noted each one. Excitement, lust, anticipation and greed. Oh, especially greed. Greed for Jenova’s lands and her wealth, greed for her spirit and her beauty, greed for her body. Baldessare would enjoy breaking Jenova into one of those sniveling creatures he preferred.

Rhona had planted a seed and it had taken root, and with any luck it would grow into a tree that would shelter both her and her brother. That was all that mattered, she had told herself. That was all she must consider.

Abruptly Baldessare had nodded. “You are right, as always. I want her for myself, Daughter.”

Rhona had nodded slowly, refusing to feel pity for the other woman. This was a matter of life or death, her own life or death. “Then I will get her for you,” she had said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

Her father’s eyes had flicked to Alfric, and a spasm of his earlier rage had crossed his face. “Get him out of here.”

Rhona had not needed to be told twice. She’d hurried to Alfric’s side, shooing away the dogs and lifting him with trembling arms, murmuring in his ear. He’d leaned heavily against her as she’d led him from the hall and the scene of yet another humiliation.

“I hate him, I hate him!” he had wept, his face contorted like a child’s, stumbling along by her side. “I want to use it now, Rhona! Let’s use it now, and run away!”

“It” was the sleeping potion that they had been keeping hidden, to use at such a time they needed to run from Hilldown Castle. But the time had never been right, and they had always known that, once he woke from his stupor, their father would pursue them.

Rhona’s arm had closed tighter, a warning. “So do I,” she had whispered. “But what good is a sleeping potion if he will wake and find us? Do not despair yet, Alfric. I will take you to your room and you can rest there. I have a plan that I believe will set us free.”

He had looked at her in disbelief. “Free?” he’d spat. “We will never be free.”

But they would, Rhona thought now, gazing again at the huddled form of her brother. They would be free, finally free. And she knew just the man to help them.

The winter dawn was a pale wash of blue and pink on the horizon. Reynard, on his way to the stables to see Lord Henry’s horse readied for his morning ride, paused to stare. There was beauty in that sky, but a cold, bleak sort of beauty. He preferred warmer climes himself, a hot yellow sun and a blue sea and bright-colored houses along the foreshore.

“Reynard!”

One of the grooms was slouching toward him, wiping a sleeve across his nose. It was Formac, the man who used to work for Baldessare. Reynard suspected he was still Baldessare’s servant at heart.

“I have a message for you, Reynard.” Formac put a finger to his lips in the childlike gesture for secrecy, but his eyes were hard and knowing. “A certain lady has asked that you meet her after the midday meal, at Uffer’s Tower. Do you know it? It’s a ruined castle or somefing, in the woods, on the border of Gunlinghorn and Hilldown.”

Uther’s Tower was a falling-down pile of timber and masonry that had acquired a certain reputation among the local folk. A place of assignation for lovers, so the rumors said. But Reynard did not allow that to raise his hopes.

“A certain lady?” he asked nonchalantly, but his breath quickened and his body tensed.

Formac reached into his tunic and scratched about. “I was given somefing for you…ah, here ’tis.”

He brought out a small square of cloth and unwrapped it. A lock of hair, gold as the summer sun Reynard had just been dreaming of. He stared at it, then realized Formac was holding it out to him. He reached to take it in his big hand.

“The lady said to tell you she agrees to your terms.”

Reynard nodded, ignoring the other man’s curious glance, standing long after Formac had stumped away about his own business. He opened his hand and stared again at the smooth, golden lock of hair that lay within. It seemed to him that he could still smell the scent of her on it. A sweet, elusive perfume.

Lady Rhona. She had agreed to his terms. Her body for his soul.

He should be gleeful, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. He had won, after all. He had a foot in the enemy camp, and a chance to bring down a proud, stuck-up Norman lady. But despite that he felt as if he were wading into a swirling sea, tugged by unseen currents and well out of his depth.