Margaret Moore - [Maiden & Her Knight 03] (28 page)

“But I digress,” Oswald continued, folding his hands over his belly and speaking with a placidity that showed just how cold-blooded a man he was. “This is how it shall be, my dear. You will marry my son or I shall take the ransom and kill you. Then I will move to have my vengeance of your sister and her husband. Not right away, perhaps. Later. Maybe I shall even spare them—but not their children. This is your chance to save them such anguish. You see, my dear?” He feigned moving a piece across a board. “Checkmate.” His hand returned to rest. “You are a clever chess player, I know—more clever than you’ve ever let on.” The corners of his lips curled up even more. “But you are not better than I.”

She sat up straighter. “This is not a game, my lord. Either way, Connor will hunt you down and kill you.”

“He can try. It will take some time, this hunting down, and by then, you might be with child.”

Which would mean Osburn in her bed, making love with her.

She nearly threw up.

“Oh, it won’t be as bad as all that. Osburn will do his best there whatever else he does and he’s had plenty of experience,” Oswald said in a way that made her feel even sicker. “One could say he’s spent years practicing.”

“You’re disgusting, the pair of you!”

“Come, come, my dear, that’s no way to address your future father-in-law.”

She gripped the arms of the chair so hard that her nails dug into the wood. “I won’t let him touch me!”

“Your
permission
will not enter into it. I must confess my son has had plenty of experience with unwilling women, too, or so I hear, and I do not doubt it. Do you?”

Isabelle choked back a sob, because she did believe it. Osburn surely enjoyed having a woman helpless beneath him, beaten into submission.

“I must encourage the dear boy to give it his best effort,” Oswald said, leaning forward as much as his bulk would allow, “because you see, my dear, if you have children, they will be my blood, and by them my family will be restored to its rightful place at court.”

Isabelle’s whole body quivered with disgust, with fear, with rage, with righteous indignation. “If you had been an honorable man, you would not have betrayed your king and lost your place at court, as you so richly deserve.”

Oswald waved his fat fingers dismissively. “Let us leave the question of guilt, shall we? In the end, it doesn’t matter.”

He put his hands on the arms of the chair and heaved himself to his feet. “What does matter is that if you do not marry my son, there will be death and retribution. If you do, there will be life and hope that I will stay my hand.”

Defeat and despair washed over her. He had beaten her. She had no real choice. She had to agree. If she refused to marry Osburn, she would be ensuring that Oswald would act against her family immediately. If she agreed, his actions—which she was sure he would take one day, no matter what he promised—would at least be delayed. During that time, she could hope that Connor would find them and save her, or that she could escape.

She might have to wait until she was Osburn’s wife before she could get away at last, she realized with a shiver of revulsion, but she would not give up. Not yet. She had managed so far; she would find the strength to continue with the hope of rescue, or liberty. Until then, she must do whatever she could to stay Oswald’s hand, in any way she could, all by herself. “Very well, my lord. You win.”

Oswald came toward her, a lascivious look in his dark eyes that made her tremble anew. She shrank back in her chair.

“You know, my dear,” he said in a smooth and oily voice, “I thought it a pity Allis was betrothed to Rennick, and always rather regretted I never offered for her myself. I begin to think you will indeed be wasted on Osburn.” He took her hands in his fat, pale ones and tugged her to her feet. “Perhaps I should marry you myself.”

As terrible as marriage to Osburn seemed, she discovered there was something worse. “You already have a wife.”

“She could die.”

Never had she felt such a disgusting loathing for anyone, not even Osburn. Was there nothing this man would not do to satisfy his lust, whether for gain, or power, or to satisfy his own desire?

Yet she said nothing, because this man truly terrified her, in a way Alexander DeFrouchette never had. Alexander had told her he would not hurt her, and deep in her heart, she had believed him. He had meant it when he’d said he would protect her, whether from Osburn or Ingar or all the Brabancons. She had felt free enough with him to say what she thought, to speak her mind, even to upbraid him, while maintaining her pride and dignity. Alexander had given her that. Oswald would not.

“But no,” Oswald murmured.

He let go of her hands, and she breathed again.

“I fear I would find you too distracting and, like Rennick, forget what is most important, and that is not the fleeting pleasure to be found in a woman’s arms, however tempting.” He pulled her arm through his and patted it companionably. “Now come, my dear. Let us find the future groom and tell him of his good fortune.”

H
umming to himself, Denis crossed the courtyard, heading toward his quarters in the tower. He had been in the stables, tending to a sick horse and trying to avoid the men of Lord Oswald’s entourage, who seemed to be a better-dressed version of the Brabancons. Alexander was probably still in the hall with the nobles, discussing the ransom and the return of the lady to her home, and trying to convince himself that he felt nothing for her.

Of all the men he had ever met, Alexander was the most willfully blind, stubborn—

“Mon Dieu!”
Denis gasped, staring at the sight that met his eyes when he entered the ruined tower. He couldn’t have been more surprised if he had found Hielda naked in his bed.

Denis had never seen Alexander look so upset. Indeed, he had never seen Alexander look upset at all. Angry, certainly, stern, forbidding—but never like this, as if all he felt was an all-consuming anguish.

“What is it?” Denis demanded. “What has happened? Is it the lady?”

“Then you don’t know?”

“She’s not hurt or … or dead?” Denis asked fearfully, his voice quavering—but that would explain Alexander’s eyes.

“No, not hurt or dead.”

Denis let out his pent-up breath. “Thank God. But then, what is it?”

In a few short sentences, his face settling back into its usual grim demeanor, Alexander told him of the lady’s true identity and Oswald’s change of plan.

His eyes as large and round as the wheels of a cart, Denis lowered himself to sit cross-legged on the edge of the straw, looking as stunned as Alexander had been. “She is not Lady Allis?” he repeated in a whisper as if trying to get that thought lodged in his brain.

“No, she is the lady’s sister.”

“Not married to another?”

Alexander tried not to think about that part of the revelation. “No. That is why Oswald came up with this other despicable plan.”

“And it
is
terrible.
Diabolique!
So what do we do about it?” Denis asked. He regarded his friend warily, as if expecting him to announce that they should attack all the Brabancons by themselves and spirit her away.

Alexander was grateful that Denis was not ready to abandon him yet, and he was ashamed that he had gotten his only friend involved in this.

“I should have made you stay in Dieppe. Then you would be out of this mess—and it’s only going to get worse,” Alexander muttered as he opened the door and peered outside to make certain nobody was within earshot. He wouldn’t be surprised to find Hielda listening at the door.

Denis’s grin was the first thing Alexander saw when he turned back into the dim room. “If you had left me in Dieppe, I would not have met Kiera, so say no more about ‘this mess.’ I would not have missed it, or her.”

Alexander sat beside his friend and regarded him gravely. “I will not let Oswald’s plan proceed. That is not what I agreed to, and I promised her she would not be harmed. I intend to get Lady Allis—Isabelle—out of here tonight.”

Denis’s eyes lit up. “Of course, and Kiera must come with us.”

As he’d made his plan walking across the courtyard, Alexander had feared that Denis would suggest this. It was not going to be easy to tell Denis that the girl was too dangerous. “I don’t think we can risk telling her our plans, Denis.”

An unusually stubborn look appeared on his friend’s face. “I trust her.”

“Involving her in our escape could put us all in danger. She may tell Osburn.”

“When he is going to marry another? I think not.”

Alexander did not raise his voice; instead, he spoke with firm command. “She may love him still and be willing to do anything to prove it, Denis, to show him that she’s worthy of his love—and that includes betraying us. That’s a risk we cannot take.”

Denis regarded Alexander with equal intensity. “Alexander, have I ever asked anything of you before? Even when you saved my life, did I ask you to intervene?”

Alexander subdued a sigh. Perhaps everyone harbored hopeless dreams and yearnings that logic and rational thought were powerless to destroy. “No, you never have.”

“Then I am going to ask her. It is as simple as that. I do not think she will betray us, whether she stays or goes.”

“What if she decides to stay?”

“Then so will I. I have hope that one day, she will see that Osburn does not really care for her, and on that day, she will need a friend.”

His words compelled Alexander to persist. “You’ve been as good a friend to me as any man could ever ask, Denis, and that’s why I don’t want you to risk your life. That’s what you’ll be doing if you don’t come with me. If we get away and you’re still here, do you think Oswald will believe you knew nothing about our escape?”

Denis’s features became innocence itself, and he spread his hands. “If I knew, why would I remain, my lord? That bastard deserted me! I should have known he was not to be trusted.” Denis grinned. “You see? I will make him believe I knew nothing of your plans. After all, that is how Lord Oswald does things, is it not, by keeping most of his plans to himself? Surely he will believe that another man would do the same.”

Denis’s words and actions did not assuage Alexander’s dread for his friend’s safety. “He may not believe you. That butcher didn’t.”

“When someone has a cleaver about to chop off your head, it is difficult to lie well. I do not expect Lord Oswald to have a cleaver.”

Still agitated and far from convinced, Alexander got to his feet and started pacing. “He might have a sword, and he probably wouldn’t hesitate to use it. I don’t like this, Denis. I don’t want you dead.”

Denis joined him, keeping up with Alexander’s strides by taking two steps for every one of his friend’s. “I don’t want to be dead, either, but as you will not leave the lady, I will not leave Kiera. Besides, I think you are wrong to believe she has not seen the light about that drunkard. If she is given a chance to go, she may take it and gladly, even if she is not taken with me. I think the more important worry is, does Oswald have any suspicions of your feelings and intentions?”

As Alexander checked the door again, he gave up trying to make Denis see reason. Nobody could have convinced him to leave Isabelle behind, either. Who was he to say that Denis’s unrequited devotion and determination to do what he felt was right was any less deeply felt than his own? “No. As far as he knows, I am still willing to do anything for money and a knighthood.”

Denis looked impressed. “Excellent! So, what is the plan? I assume you are not thinking of simply escorting the lady to the stable, saddling some horses and riding out the gate with a wave of farewell?”

“The Brabancons are used to me standing guard outside the lady’s door, so they will not question my presence there after she retires, nor will they wonder about my cloak, because I sleep in it. I will go there as always, but this time I shall have a rope beneath my cloak, and we’ll climb down the tower wall from her chamber and meet you on the wall walk below.”

Denis looked at him as if he’d gone mad. “Are you planning on shrinking like wool in steam, Alexander? You cannot fit through that loophole.”

“The stones around the loophole are loose. We can enlarge the window that way. In fact, she’s already been halfway down the wall herself. Her rope broke and she would have fallen if I hadn’t heard her.”