So Worthy My Love (74 page)

Maxim scoffed at the proposal. “How will I know that you won't kill my wife and then her father to hide your identity?”

“I'm leaving for Spain. I doubt any of you will follow me there.” Quentin crossed his wrists and rested them upon the high pommel of the saddle. “The time of our next meeting will be at the same hour, the day after the morrow. Come with the treasure.”

“I must see my wife ere you see a coin of the treasure. Bring her first, then I can go fetch Ramsey after I'm sure she's all right.”

Jeering laughter accompanied Quentin's denial. “If I were to grant your plea, my lord, you might try to save your wife and the treasure, too. I need time to make good my escape. If I leave Ramsey with you, I can be assured that you'll make haste to reach Elise. You have no other choice.”

Maxim's eyes flicked up to fix the shadowed face in the hood. “You use my wife's name with ease, as if you've been acquainted with it for some time.”

“What does it matter how I say her name? She'll not be released until I have the treasure in hand.”

“Quentin, is it?” Maxim queried.

Surprise shook Quentin's confidence, and almost breathlessly he asked, “How did you know?”

“You were not as careful as you thought you were,” Maxim replied. “And there were some who were curious enough to find out who you were.”

Quentin lifted a hand to sweep the hood back from his head, seeing no further reason in hiding his face. “If I were you, my lord, until this matter be done, I'd be most cautious about what is spilled . . . if you truly care for your lady.”

“And if I were you, Quentin, until this matter be done, I'd be most cautious about how you care for my lady. I'll not belabor the reason why. Let's just say I'll not be adverse to following you to Spain to have my revenge.”

With that stern warning Maxim reined Eddy about and sent him flying back up the ridge. He raced beyond the thicket and there halted the stallion as his men stepped from hiding. A vision of Elise lying upon a bed of stone drifted through his mind, but the blue eyes were sightless and the soft lips breathless in death. Maxim wiped a trembling hand across his brow to clear his mind of the nightmarish fantasy, but his heart still quavered with fear.

Sherbourne came forward to lay a hand on Maxim's knee and looked up with some worry on his face. “Is all well with Elise?”

A ponderous sigh slipped from Maxim. “Her captor has assured that she is well . . . for now. But he expects a treasure, and I fear he'll not be satisfied with what little I can offer on such short notice. As far as I know, no treasure exists. I've bought us
time, perhaps a day or two, but that's all. We must seek out the place where they're holding her before the day after the morrow.”

Quentin's men rode hard for perhaps half an hour or so, then they split into as many different paths as there were men. Most of them were to take circuitous routes and wait out the night ere they returned to the keep. Quentin, however, turned south and quickly found a thick copse of trees in which to hide. He dismounted, secured his mount, and selected a thick bed of moss where he dozed for a brace of hours. Finally assured that no one followed him, he went to horse again.

Traveling swiftly, he was soon in the vicinity of Kensington Keep. After a wary circuit of the place that uncovered no trace of strangers, he made his approach to the ridge. He was weary from the long hours in the saddle and stretched to ease the ache in his back as he left the shelter of the forest and rode out along the ridge. As he neared the tumbledown edifice, his ears caught the sound of a woman's voice raised in angry argument. Slashing his quirt down hard upon his horse's flanks, he charged into the dubious confines of the courtyard and was surprised to find his mother and three brothers surrounded by most of his men.

“Here he is! Quentin, my good son! Where have you been? Tell these buffoons that I'm your mother and these”—she swept a hand to indicate her sons— “your own blood brothers.”

“Half-blood, if that!” Quentin muttered the low grunt as he alit from the back of his mount.

“What did you say?” Cassandra's voice seemed overloud in the barren courtyard as it echoed back at her eldest son. “Speak up, Quentin! If I've told you once, I've told you a thous—”

“What in the bloody hell are you doing here?”
he railed. He struggled to control his temper and continued in a slightly more subdued tone. “How did you find me?”

“Why, Forsworth told me that you had stolen Elise right out of his hands,” Cassandra explained, launching a blustering excuse for their intrusion. “And of course I knew how you wanted to stand by your kin and help us as much as you could . . .” Her voice trailed off as she saw an angry glower darkening her eldest son's face.

“And of course,” he mimed in whining tones, “you wanted to get yourself a share of the treasure!”

Cassandra assumed a crestfallen posture. “Why, Quentin, we just wanted to . . .”

“Get out!” he shouted. “Get out of my sight ere I commit mayhem on my own kin.”

“Quentin!” Cassandra tried a sharper reproof. “ ‘Tis near dark and the nights are cold. There may be wolves out there . . . and we've no food . . .”

“Do you not ken,
Mother?
I told you to get out!” His bellow of rage echoed back from the surrounding hills as he pointed his arm rigidly toward the most obvious route of departure.

No longer able to deny his commands, his kin slowly mounted their weary nags and, filing in behind each other, made a doleful column of bedraggled riders as they left the keep.

Quentin watched them leave, then would have retired to the lower dungeon, but he found his way barred by the stout form of one of his guards. He stared at the thin, ratty beard of the man, noticing that it still bore the greasy signs of a recent meal before it finally penetrated that the man had something to say.

“Well?”
The word was more of a challenge than a question.

“ ‘Ere be another one, sir,” the man hesitantly apologized. “She said she knew ye.”

“Another one?” Quentin could hardly believe his ears.

“Aye, sir.” The man took heart. “This one's a foin liedy, I'd say. She come just afore ‘ese other ‘uns.”

Quentin silently bemoaned the quality of henchmen available these days and gave voice to loud, plaintive wailings. “Oh, craven fates! I've come to my secret bastion without a word to anyone and am here beset by . . . relatives? Some unknown wench? My adversary need only tread the best-worn path to find me out! How can this be?”

The guard heaved an exaggerated shrug and stretched his eyeballs wide in mute, innocent denial. “I don' know.”

Quentin slogged through the well-churned mud toward the tower door and, once within, found another guard leaning on a long quarterstaff as he leered down at a slight figure winsomely huddled on a stone bench. A shawl draped her head and was clutched tightly in a small fist beneath her chin. Quentin stepped closer and bent to peer into her face. “Arabella?”

Her relief was immediate. She came to her feet and threw her ams about his neck. “Oh, Quentin. I thought you'd never come!”

“What . . . ? How on earth . . . ? What are you doing here?” The question seemed inadequate.

“Oh, Quentin, darling.” Her grip on him was desperate. “I just had to come and talk with you.” She pulled away enough to look up into his puzzled frown. “You weren't at home . . . and then I recalled that once long ago you mentioned this place and said it would be a good place for us to hide from my father. I heard that Elise had been taken and knew how fond you were of her.” She sniffed as she lowered her gaze. “I was wondering if you had decided to run off with her.”

“My dear Arabella,” Quentin cajoled and solicitously laid an arm about her shoulders as he began to guide her toward the stairs. “You simply must trust that I'd never leave you. Haven't we been together for some years now? Why, now that Reland is dead, I was going to ask you to marry me.”

Arabella lifted starry eyes to his. “You were?”

“Of course.” He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze as they descended the dimly lit stairs. “You remember how quickly I came to your defense when Reland caught us together in the stable? I told you then that I'd always be there to protect you.”

“ ‘Tis frightening to remember.” Arabella wrung her hands in distress as the nightmare came back to haunt her. “I can still see him now, gaping at me as I huddled there in the straw. If only he hadn't come back so soon from his ride. He was so enraged, he might've killed me if you hadn't hit him over the head with your pistol. When he collapsed at my feet
and I saw the blood coming from his head, I could hardly believe it when you told me he was dead.” She heaved a trembling sigh. “ ‘Twas all so horrible! But you were right. ‘Twas best to let everyone think he had been thrown from his horse. We didn't mean to kill him. The whole thing would never have happened had he not found us.”

Her trust of Quentin was buoyed by her adoration as he led her to the gate of the cell where several torches and a pair of tallow lanterns now lit the area. Elise rose from the cot where she had been resting beside her father and approached the bars, only to be waved back by Quentin as he applied the key to the lock.

“Now see for yourself, my dear. Elise is here, as my prisoner, and I've made no plans to run away with her.” He took Arabella's arm and urged her through the meagerly opened door. “Why don't you visit with her for a space and satisfy your curiosity. She can tell you that I only want her father's treasure so we can go away together.”

Quentin closed the door gently behind the trusting woman and snapped the lock into place before he applied the key. As his eyes swept the cell, his gaze settled on a wooden bowl left on the table. It was still heaped with globs of greasy gruel, and apparently had gone untouched.

“The fare here insults the term ‘food,'” Elise commented wryly. “It leaves much to be desired.”

“I shall see that you get something decent to eat.” He moved toward the stairs.

“Quentin?” Arabella's plaintive voice echoed in the cell. “Come back to me soon, my love. I don't like this place.”

“Soon, love. When I finish my business.”

“Quentin?”

He ignored her plea and mounted the stairs to disappear into the settling darkness.

Arabella turned to face Elise, but the accusing stare she thought would be there was not. Instead, there was pity in the deep blue eyes, an emotion she had played on for many years now. Only now, it served to prick her conscience, and wearily she sagged upon the empty cot to sort out reality from illusion. For too long she had wrapped herself in the protective armor of the latter. Perhaps it was time she faced the truth and realized just where she was.

Maxim despaired of success at finding a trail as night encroached. By the time darkness had descended hard upon the land, many furlongs had been consumed beneath Eddy's hooves, and though the gallant steed seemed to understand the urgency, even he tired of the relentless pace and labored to keep it up. Finally, after the animal had stumbled twice in the dark, Maxim had to admit failure. He drew the tired mount to a halt and waited for the others to catch up. A small rise situated deeper in the forest promised a safe and dry haven for a camp, and it was there Maxim led his road-weary companions.

The men shared cold rations that even Nicholas and
Herr
Dietrich tolerated without complaint, then they spread their cloaks over beds of moss and settled for the night, all save Maxim. A troubled wakefulness haunted him and, after an hour of restless tossing, he rose to make a careful patrol of the area. He paused to lean against a tree and gaze out into a small glade
where a doe and her fawn grazed in idyllic peace in the moonlit shadows. Slowly his gaze moved on, but everywhere his eyes ventured, a vision of Elise was already there. He was greatly troubled by the fact that he could not find her and that there was so little time to search. He cruelly castigated himself for having ever come up with the foolhardy notion that he knew of the treasure's whereabouts. If not for that tale, Elise might not have been taken, but then, he had to remember her cousins had tried a similar tactic long before.

Of a sudden, the doe raised her head and flicked her ears. The rasp of a twig on leather warned Maxim, and he stepped around slowly in the moon-cast shadow of the tree, his hand moving to the hilt of his sword.

“Rest easy, Maxim. ‘Tis I.” Sir Kenneth's soft whisper was hollow in the quiet of the night.

“Hmmm.” Maxim acknowledged the knight's presence with a half-voiced sigh and returned to his musings, finding the glade now empty. There was a long silence as the two men savored the smells and sounds of the cool night. It was Maxim who finally broke the quiet.

“The fire will help banish the chill, and I guess ‘twill do no harm.”

“What do you mean?” Kenneth asked. “We made no fire.”

Maxim tested the air again. “Someone has.”

The knight sniffed. “You're right.”

Maxim moved away from the tree. “It cannot be far. Rouse the others and let's search this out afoot.”

Cassandra and her brood had retreated just far enough from Kensington Keep to be safe, a distance
determined only by the weariness of their bones. The leader of the group sat huddled upon a rotting log, her cloak clutched close about her. Her grating, whining voice berated her sons as they labored to build the fire higher and secure enough comfort for her and thereby obtain peace for themselves.

“If only we'd brought some victuals.” Her mewling filled the glade. “I'm withering with starvation.”

“You didn't say to bring food,” the youngest grumbled the reminder. “You only said to fetch muskets and horses.”

“Must I think of
everything?
Aarrgh!” She coughed suddenly and waved an angry hand as a cloud of smoke from the dew-dampened logs engulfed her.