Temptress (6 page)

“A guard will be posted at his door.”

The sheriff glanced at the bloodied rock. “Let’s hope that’s enough.”

“He’s near death. I doubt we have much to fear from him.”

“But what of his attacker? What if he returns?” the sheriff asked thoughtfully.

Alexander said, “If he was attacked.”

“There are many questions here and few answers.” Payne clucked his tongue as the wind swept through the forest with a keening sigh. “Far too few answers.”

CHAPTER THREE

E
very bone in his body ached as if the pain would never stop. Muscles he hadn’t known existed throbbed and his face felt afire, as if someone had taken a dull knife and peeled away his skin. He heard sounds . . . disembodied voices talking over and around him, as if he were truly dead, the words whispering across his burning skin like the wings of moths. Still he was unable to move. Couldn’t so much as flinch.

He tried to speak, but no sound escaped his lips.

Where was he?

His mind was blurry and dark, as if he were lying in a fog-shrouded forest.

How long had he been here?

He tried to open an eye, but pain sliced through his brain, and he could do little but let out a moan and try to fight the blackness that pulled at the corners of his consciousness and threatened to drag him down in that blissful abyss where there was no pain, no memories. His mouth tasted foul, his tongue thick. He attempted to move a hand.

Agony ripped through his body.

He made another stab at speech, but his lips would not move and his voice failed him except to murmur a groan. As if from a distance, bits of conversation pierced through his pain from voices who had no faces.

“He stirs,” one old woman said.

“Nay, ’tis only the moan of a dying man. I heard he whispered Alena of Heath’s name when he was brought in.”

Alena
. . . Deep inside he felt something stir.
Alena
.

“But he weren’t awake then, nor is ’e now.”

“But—”

“I’m tellin’ ye, he’s not awake. Watch.” He felt a hard hand upon his shoulder and all the fires of hell swept through him in a painful blast. Yet he could not move. “See . . . he’s as close to death as any man should be, and ’twould be a blessing if he passed.” The heavy hand was lifted.

“Do ye think he’s a highwayman?” one worried female voice asked nervously. “An outlaw, then?”

“Mayhap” was the response from a surer, steadier voice. That of the older woman. “I believe ’e were a ’andsome one. I wouldna be afeard of ’im searchin’ me skirts.”

“Oh, ye’re awful, ye are,” the voice said. “How can ye tell, what with all his bruises and swelling? ’E looks more like a hog’s carcass after Cook has hacked off the meat fer sausage.”

Both women cackled before he blissfully drifted off again.

Later . . . how much time had passed he knew not, but his pain had lessened considerably and in his half-oblivious state, he heard prayers, intoned without inflection, from a man he presumed to be a priest, a man it seemed who thought his soul was about to leave his body, and it sounded, from the tenor of the priest’s words, that that very soul was about to plunge straight to the depths of hell. So days had to have passed . . . several days, he thought.

He tried to lift an arm to let the priest know that he could hear, but his bones were too heavy and he was able to only listen as the priest, without much conviction, asked that his sins be forgiven.

His sins
.

Had there been many? Or few?

And what had they been? Against man? Woman? God?

As he lay aching in the darkness, he didn’t know, couldn’t recall, didn’t care. He only wanted the remaining pain to go away, and as the priest left, he wondered if it would be better to embrace death rather than endure.

His periods of consciousness were thankfully brief and this one was no exception. As he began to slip away again, he heard a door creak open and then quiet footsteps.

“How is he?” This voice was that of a woman. Whispered, so as not to disturb him, he presumed, but clear and filled with an underlying authority. A voice that touched a far corner of his memory, a voice he knew instinctively he should recognize.

“About the same, m’lady” was the response from a gruff male voice.

M’lady? The lord’s wife? Or daughter?
He had to fight to keep from slipping back into the murk of unconsciousness.

She sighed loudly and the delicate scent of lilacs reached his nostrils. “I wonder who he is and why he was found as near to the castle as he was to death.” What was it about her voice that was familiar? Had he known her?

“We all do,” the man said.

More footsteps. Short. Hurried. Nearly frantic. “Has he awakened?” Another woman, older, he thought, with anxious threads running through her words.

“Nay. Not yet.” The priest again.

“By the Great Mother, I trust him not.”

“Aye, Isa, we all know,” the man said.

The older woman is Isa
. He tried to commit her name to his memory and remind himself that she believed in the old spirits as he battled the blackness picking at the edges of his brain.

“As you’ve said.” The younger woman again.

“Lady Morwenna, he is healing. Mayhap we can now transfer him to the prison,” the older woman suggested.

Why did that name strike a chord in him?

Try to remember the younger woman, the one who seems to have some power here, is
Morwenna.

“Look at him, Isa. Does he look like he could harm anyone?” Morwenna demanded.

“Sometimes things are not as they appear.”

“I know, but for now, we will not treat this man as a prisoner.”

More footsteps. Louder. Heavier.

He struggled to stay awake, to learn of his plight.

“M’lady,” a man said gruffly, and with him came the smell of rainwater and horses, a hint of smoke, and a rising of the hairs on his arms, as if this unknown man with the deep voice was an enemy.

“Sir Alexander.” The younger woman’s voice.
Morwenna’s
voice. By the gods, why was it so familiar? Why did her name resound in his mind? Why the hell couldn’t he remember?

“How is he?” the man Alexander inquired, though there was no hint of interest in his voice.
He is the enemy. Beware!

“About the same. He’s not yet awakened, though the physician says he’s healing and you can see that his wounds have scabbed over, the swelling lessened. Nygyll says no bones were broken, that most of the wounds were of his flesh and, as he’s not gotten worse, no organ was damaged significantly.”

Such good news,
he thought wryly as he decided Nygyll was the physician. Another name to be committed to memory.

“Should we not send a messenger to Wybren and notify Lord Graydynn?”

Wybren?
He knew in an instant that they were speaking of a castle.
Lord
Graydynn? That didn’t sound right. Or did it? Graydynn? Aye . . . surely he’d known a Graydynn . . . or had he? His stomach knotted more painfully and he sensed something was wrong, so very wrong.
Graydynn!
He tried to conjure up the man’s face but once again failed and was left with a sour taste in the back of his mouth worse than before.

“Send a messenger to Wybren and tell the baron what?” Morwenna asked in a tone of disbelief. “That we have a near-dead man we found in the woods and that the only identification we have is a ring with the crest of Wybren upon it?”

“Yes,” Sir Alexander said. “Mayhap the baron or one of his men could identify this one and we could then determine if he’s friend or foe.”

“ ’Tis a good idea,” the older woman said hurriedly, almost as if she and Sir Alexander had planned this conversation in advance. “Then we would know once and for all if the man is Sir Carrick.”

Carrick?
His heart nearly stopped before racing wildly. He was
Carrick
?
Carrick of Wybren?
The name pounded through his brain in a way none other had. He tried to concentrate, to think past the pain, to remember. Was he Carrick?

“Not yet,” the younger woman said. “I agree, eventually we will have to contact Lord Graydynn, but let’s wait until we find out more about the stranger.”

“And how will we do that?” Isa demanded.

“We’ll talk to him, once he awakens.”

“
If
he awakens,” the older woman said with a disgusted snort. “It has been over a week since we found him and yet he doesn’t respond.”

Isa added, “He may never awaken.”

The crone’s words were like a prophesy, for struggle as he might, he was losing the fight and soon he slipped back into the oblivion of darkness.

 

“ ’Tis not idle gossip,” the fat merchant insisted. Wedged into the chair before the fire in the great hall at Heath, he licked his fingers and then plucked another jellied egg from the platter laden with wedges of cheese, slices of salted eel, and dates. “I was at Calon but two days ago. The guards who knew me well, they stopped me and questioned me and searched my cart. They would not say why, but later in town I was playing dice and having a few cups when I spied Wilt, the apothecary. Though he had to be urged into speaking, he finally admitted that Carrick of Wybren had been located and brought to the castle.”

Lord Ryden, sipping from his mazer, listened while the obese man told the story of a savagely beaten, near-death stranger found close to the castle gates. Ryden’s blood heated and he tried to tamp down his anger, or at the very least, disguise it. The thought of Carrick of Wybren infiltrating the fortress that was Calon infuriated him. It mattered not that Carrick was near death; the fact that he was close to his fiancée, Morwenna, caused Ryden to clasp his mazer in a death grip.

The merchant was caught up in his tale. He gestured wildly in between bites and, no doubt, exaggerated the captive’s wounds and the ensuing mayhem at the keep, playing up his own part in risking his life to bring Ryden the information.

But the tale had merit. This was not the first person to have brought him news of Carrick’s capture, which was all the more distressing.

Ryden wasn’t a man who deluded himself. He knew that Morwenna of Calon had agreed to become his bride only after she’d been jilted by Carrick. Ryden had no illusions that she loved him; nor did he love her. But Calon was her dowry, so the marriage would be a strong union, solidifying two baronies that abutted each other into one stronger, with vaster lands over which he would rule. He itched to see it happen and wouldn’t let anything or anyone stop him.

Especially not Carrick of Wybren, the lying spawn of Satan who had bedded and then mercilessly killed Ryden’s sister, Alena, in that unforgivable fire. Ryden felt his rage return as he thought of the sibling who was young enough to be his own daughter. She’d had so much life within her. With straight flaxen hair, a melodious, near-naughty laugh, she’d also been blessed with a twinkle of devilment in her gold eyes. She’d been beautiful, had known it, and at the age of seventeen had pronounced she was madly in love with Theron of Wybren and had married him scarcely six months later.

Ryden hadn’t been fooled. Alena was too much of a flirt to settle down with one man, and not long after the nuptials there had been trouble, rumors abounding that she had taken up with Theron’s brother Carrick. Ryden had even sent a spy to watch his sister, and the spy, curse his soul, had never returned. Just taken his hefty fee and disappeared.

Now, as the merchant rambled on, losing pieces of fish in his heavy beard so hasty was he in stuffing the food into his thick throat, Ryden silently considered his options. He’d known of Carrick’s fate long before this smug trader had driven his cart through the gates of Heath.

Managing to appear only slightly interested, Ryden sipped from his cup, plotted his revenge, and heard the man out. Carrick would have to be dealt with; he’d known this from the moment he’d heard that the wounded man brought into Calon was suspected of being the missing son of the dead baron Dafydd.

Eventually the merchant’s story petered out, which, it just so happened, was when the trencher was empty, and Lord Ryden rose, signifying that the audience was over. He thanked the man profusely, then passed him off to the steward with instructions to buy more of the merchant’s wares than the castle actually needed.

The fat man left happy and thinking Ryden was his ally.

But then it was obvious the seller of goods was a fool who liked to think he was more cunning than he was.

So many were like him and they were so obvious, their motives clear to anyone with a brain. But Ryden outwardly treated the slob with respect. Though Ryden had a small army of his own trustworthy spies and was perfectly capable of looking after his own affairs, it never hurt to have another set of eyes watching out for his interests. So he managed a thin smile just to show that he appreciated the fat man’s efforts and then let it fall from his face as the tradesman waddled off with the steward.

Once he was alone, Ryden simmered, rage burning like cinders in his blood. He walked to the fire and stared into the flames, conjuring up the conflagration at Wybren and the horror that had ensued.

Carrick
.

Morwenna’s lover
.

“Hell,” he muttered and spat into the flames. They exploded and sizzled, shooting sparks. He told himself to bide his time with Morwenna. Somehow he would have to be as patient with her as he had been with his other wives, perhaps even more so. Both Lylla and Margaret had been headstrong women, rulers of their own keeps, but Ryden had remained ever patient with each of them, intent upon his ultimate purpose, and in so doing had increased his lands threefold.