In the few days he was with Leah, he’d fallen in love with her. Though Sorcha was the forceful one, the sister with the ideas and the power and the birthmark proclaiming her the savior of Prydd, it was Leah, sweet, simple, and good, to whom he had been drawn.
Mayhap it was because she seemed so quiet. She hardly dared look a man in the eye, and yet he sensed in her an inner strength. He’d heard the rumors, knew that Darton had forced her into his bed and raped her. His teeth gnashed and hate poured through his blood.
During their one night alone together in the forest, Bjorn had heard Leah scream in her sleep, and when he’d tried to awaken her, to hold her until the demons of the darkness left her mind, she’d scratched and fought, pushing him away with more strength than he’d expected. Perhaps she was terrified of all men. Because of Darton. His lip curled and he spewed a curse at the new master of his fate.
Bjorn and Leah had become close during their few hours together, and she had seemed to come to trust him. But he’d failed her and they had been ambushed by Darton’s men and brought back in humiliation to Erbyn.
By the blood of Christ, he would save her.
In the darkness of the dungeon,
Bjorn swore on the grave of his mother that he would seek revenge upon the evil one who called himself baron. For himself. For Sorcha. But most of all, for Leah.
Somehow, he intended to kill Darton with his own hands before he’d let the hangman kick the stool away and snap his neck.
Anne had never considered herself a coward, and yet sweat ran down her spine as she faced the guard at Sorcha’s door. For once, her usually graceful bearing seemed forced. She smiled sweetly, but wanted to kick the man into doing what she wanted.
“I didn’t hear nothin’ about a visit,” Sir Patton, the dullard of a guard, said as he scratched his head.
Anne looked down her nose at the man. “The lady has not been eating. My brother is concerned and thought she might need company to bring back her appetite.”
The guard didn’t move. “Brady says no one goes in but the servant girl.”
“Brady is not the lord. Now, Sir Patton, the baron has asked not to be disturbed while he and Lord Tadd work on the details of the truce between our houses, but if you will not allow me to visit his bride and take her the meal Darton so wants her to eat, then I’ll go fetch him and he can tell you himself. Maybe he’ll bring Lord Tadd along as well.” She smiled coldly and let her words settle into Patton’s thick skull.
He swallowed and shifted from one foot to the other. He knew that Tadd and Darton were drinking together and that Darton was hoping that under the influence of wine and Lucy’s considerable charms, Tadd would ask for less compensation for the trouble of the kidnapping and the murder. Darton would be furious if he was interrupted, and Sir Patton had tasted Darton’s wrath once before. He still bore the scars of Darton’s whip from the last time he’d stupidly disobeyed the new lord of Erbyn.
“You’ll not be staying long,” he said.
“But a few minutes, just to assure myself that she eats some of Ada’s eel pie.” Grinning coyly, she opened the linen covering, and in a warm cloud of spice, the scent of onions and fish wafted through the hallway.
Patton licked his lips and moved the bar from the door. “See that you hurry.”
“I promise,” she said sweetly as she swept into the room and found Sorcha huddled before the dying fire. The door clanged shut behind her, and Sorcha looked up sharply, expecting Darton and finding his white-faced sister.
“What do you want?” Sorcha asked. She’d never trusted Anne because the woman was often with Darton.
“Only your company,” Anne replied, glancing over her shoulder, then letting out a long sigh. She held out the pie tin.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You must eat.”
“I’ll not—”
“Come, Sorcha, we have little time,” Anne whispered firmly as she cast another worried glance over her shoulder. “If you are to escape before Bjorn is hanged, we must work quickly.”
“Escape.”
“Aye. Look, I know I’ve not been … kind to you, but I cannot stand idly by and watch my brother … Oh, Lord, please, just trust me.”
Sorcha didn’t know if she should bother listening. Anne had not been overly friendly to her since her arrival at Erbyn, and she’d seemed closer to Darton than to Hagan. Could this be a trick to test her allegiance? “You want me to plan my escape? Why? So you can run back to your brother and tell him?”
In vexation, Anne blew a strand of hair from her eyes. “Nay—”
“Why should I trust you?”
“Because you have no choice.”