Kade leaned against the chapel doorframe. He watched the setting sun, the direction he knew Lia was. He hated leaving her alone. He kept thinking of how alone his mother had been in her final hours. He pushed the thought from his mind.
This would keep Lia safe. He was doing this for her.
“You wanted to see me,” a voice called from inside the chapel.
He knew his brother had been in the village and had sent a boy to give him a message. Now, as he turned to face him, Kade felt victorious. He finally felt they had the upper hand against their father. He grinned at Ralf.
Ralf narrowed his eyes. “Are you still keeping company with that witch?” There was disgust in his voice.
“Witch?” Kade repeated, confused.
“The herbalist’s little red-headed helper.”
“Lia? Yes. She is helping me.” Confusion washed over Kade.
“Be careful how she helps you. She helped Mother, too.”
Kade nodded solemnly. “I know. I’m grateful she was there.”
“Grateful?” Ralf asked, his lips twisting in shocked disbelief.
Kade nodded. “She soothed her. She stayed with her in her final moments. She was a help and comfort to Mother.”
Ralf laughed viciously. “Is that what she told you?”
“Yes,” Kade admitted. “She said –”
“She killed Mother!”
“What?” Kade asked, stunned. He couldn’t believe it. Lia would never… “Be certain what you say, brother,” he said quietly, dangerously.
“I was there. I saw what she did. You weren’t. Mother was getting better before each of the little witch’s visits. When she left…” Ralf shook his head. “…she would be in agony.”
Kade remembered Lia telling him the same thing. He shook his head. “She would never hurt Mother.”
Ralf nodded in understanding. “She’s put you under her spell. Just like she did to Mother.”
“No. Lia tries to help. She –”
“You weren’t there. Mother got worse after her visits!”
Still, Kade refused to believe Lia would harm his mother. “Why? Why would she do that?”
Ralf shrugged. “All I know is what happened. Every day, Mother called for her. Every day. She begged me to bring the little witch to her. I did. And when she left, Mother was worse.”
“Didn’t you watch what she did? Did you leave Mother alone with her?”
Ralf waved his hand. “I didn’t know what she was mixing, what she gave Mother. And Father didn’t care. He ordered me to bring her to Mother, so Mother would shut up.”
“Why would Lia hurt Mother? She is a healer.”
Ralf shrugged. “I would escort her to the door of the keep after her visits and by the time I returned to Mother’s side, she was bent over in pain.”
Kade scowled. It didn’t make sense. Lia told him she sat with his mother and talked to her. She said she tried to ease her pain. She even gave him a message from Mother. Why would Lia give her anything to cause her pain?
“I don’t care if you believe me or not. I’m just warning you.”
Kade was too confused to answer Ralf. He couldn’t picture kind, beautiful Lia poisoning his mother. She tried to help everyone. Why would she poison Mother?
Ralf looked up at the wooden cross on the altar. “What do you want, Kade?” Ralf demanded. “Why did you send for me?”
Kade looked up at his brother. He was going to tell him about the treasure, about the parchment. Now, the treasure didn’t seem important. “You’re sure about Lia?”
“I can only tell you what I saw.” He sighed softly. “Who are you going to believe? Your brother or a murdering witch?”
Kade ground his teeth. She lied! Lia had lied to him. Now, he even wondered if her message from his mother was true. “Father can’t find the treasure?”
Ralf paused half way down the aisle. “He will, in time. He has too many men out looking for it.” Ralf stopped suddenly and whirled on him. “You found it. That’s why you sent for me.”
Kade ground his teeth, anger rising inside of him. Lia had poisoned his mother? “Are you certain?”
“Certain? Certain about you finding the treasure?”
“About Lia hurting Mother.”
Ralf stiffened, insulted. “I told you what I saw. Did you find the treasure?”
Fury washed over him. His brother had seen Lia give his mother something, something that caused her pain. “Yes. I found it,” he growled. He pulled the parchment from his tunic.
“You won. You beat Father. You found the knight first. You found the treasure first.”
“It doesn’t matter that I beat Father.” Nothing really mattered except that Lia had killed his mother, hurt her, and let her die in pain. She had lied to him, deceived him.
Ralf approached Kade. “What is it? What does it say?”
Kade handed him the parchment.
Ralf scanned it and his smooth brow furrowed as he read it. “No wonder Father wants this list.” He lifted joyful eyes to Kade. “Do you know what this means? We have power now. We can use this to get him to stop hurting us. I can finally become lord of Castle de Claremont.”
Kade didn’t care. His mind swirled. Lia hurt his mother. She had killed her! He gritted his teeth, setting his jaw tight. How gullible he was for believing her.
Ralf grabbed Kade’s tunic in a fist. “We have something he wants, Kade. We can negotiate. He can have the damned parchment, if he makes me lord. We’ll finally be free of him. He can spend the rest of his life searching for the knights and their treasure. I don’t give a damn. As long as he leaves us alone.” Ralf pulled Kade into a tight hug.
But Kade didn’t feel victorious. Anger simmered through his veins.
Chapter Seven
The sun had set a long time ago. Lia wore a path in the leaves and dirt of the forest floor, awaiting Kade’s return. She hid herself in the trees, not far from the road. The moon rose, a mocking sliver of an eye, gazing at her through the leaves of the swaying trees.
Where was he? She stopped and looked toward the village again. She should go after him, but she didn’t know where he had gone. And he had the parchment! Oh, how silly she had been to give it to him. It was her responsibility!
She shook her head. She trusted Kade. She would not doubt him.
The sound of a horse’s hooves echoed in the distance, drawing closer. Was it Kade? She took a step from the cover of the trees. Had he come back? Realization struck her too late. It wasn’t the sound of one horse, but many.
A group of men on horseback emerged from the forest, closing in.
Lia stepped back.
They brought their horses to a halt when they spotted her. She scanned the men and recognized Kade. Relief swept through her. “Kade!” She moved toward him.
Two men dismounted and intercepted her, taking hold of her arms to hold her back.
Kade’s eyes blazed blue fire as he stared at her. There was a coldness to him she didn’t recognize.
“Kade,” she called.
His brother signaled the men with a wave of his hand. “Take her to the castle.”
“Kade,” she whispered. Was he pretending? Was this part of his plan? She felt the terror grow inside her. He was not pretending. She had experienced rejection and hate for her entire life and she knew his gaze was real.
Her arms were jerked back behind her and secured with a rope.
She couldn’t stop looking at him. His lips were thinned, his eyes hard. His fingers clenched the reins of the horse so hard his knuckles turned white.
One of the guards lifted her onto a horse and mounted behind her.
“What have I done?” she whispered to herself as much as him.
“You killed my mother,” Kade snarled.
Lia’s mouth dropped open in shock.
Ralf urged his steed up beside her. “You will be hung as the witch you are.”
Her world crumbled around her. It felt as though she were falling
. Not because of the proclamation from the brother, but because of Kade’s betrayal. She closed her mouth, fighting back the tears that threatened. She dropped her chin in defeat as the horses started down the road, toward the castle.
Kade watched the squad of soldiers and his brother move down the road. Lia had not denied the accusation. She had simply looked at him with such anguish and hurt that he felt the breath rush from his lungs. His horse tossed his head as if in accusation. Kade turned the horse in a circle to steady him and noticed the cruck. The old woman stood in the doorway, locks of her scraggly hair and her thin figure accented by a fire burning inside the cruck behind her.
Kade moved his horse forward. He wasn’t sure why he approached, or what he would say to her. He was only hoping for answers. “You visited the castle with Lia to tend my mother?” he asked as he reached the old woman.
Maeve nodded. “On occasion. Lia went without me at times. I think your mother enjoyed her company. They were closer in age. She was lonely, I think, after you left.”
This wounded Kade. He and his mother had always been close. Then he became angry at his father’s vile behavior and that rage had blinded him to everyone around him, including his mother. He frowned at the old woman’s words. Why would his mother befriend Lia? Of all the people in the village, of all the people in the castle, why Lia? He knew this answer, he realized. He had befriended Lia too, had fallen under her charm. “You and Lia know a lot about herbs. Are there herbs that can kill?”
“Of course. You know that. Everyone knows that.”
“Has Lia ever used them?”
“You’ll have to ask Lia that.”
His horse whinnied and Kade tightened his grip. “Why would Lia want to kill my mother?”
A long silence ensued before she answered, “That is a question for Lia.”
Kade didn’t like these answers. They settled nothing. He scowled at the woman, then turned his horse toward the road.
“She was willing to go away with you,” Maeve said, calling after him. “She trusted you enough to see to her safety.”
Kade turned back to the old woman. “I didn’t know what I know now.”
“She has faith in you. She loves you.”
Her statement startled him. She couldn’t love him. He scowled fiercely. “She murdered my mother!”
Maeve was silent for a long moment, staring at him. There was something gentle and compassionate in her gaze that made Kade feel guilty. And he shouldn’t feel guilty! “My brother told me! He saw it.”
“Did he? Perhaps you should be questioning what he saw.”
Frustrated by her vague answers and the doubt she put in his mind, Kade turned away and spurred his horse down the road.
She loves you. The old woman’s words echoed in his mind. Love. How could she love him?
Kade shook his head, his hand clenching the mug he held. Love him. But that wasn’t what bothered him the most. He had betrayed her trust. She had given him the parchment and he had handed her over to his brother. She deserves it, he told himself. He sat in the Great Hall, unable to relax, even with the amount of ale he had already drunk. The Hall was empty; a low fire burned in the hearth. Servants slept close to the hearth for warmth.
Ralf had seen her do it. He said she had poisoned their mother. Kade frowned and wondered why he didn’t entirely believe his own brother.
Still, Kade couldn’t get rid of this doubt that nagged at him about Lia. There was no reason for her to kill his mother. None. She was gentle and kind. Killing, poisoning, wasn’t in her nature. Or was it? Kade grimaced. He stood quickly, knocking over the chair. He had to have answers! Why? Why would she do it? Why kill his mother? He stormed out of the Great Hall.
He followed the corridor and entered a door. Stairs led down to the dungeon; he took them two at a time. He was angry at being deceived. He had befriended her! He had trusted her. He had…admired her. He slowed when he saw the two guards standing before the long hallway of cells in the dungeon. “Which one is she in?”
“Second one on this side, m’lord,” one of the guards said.
Kade moved by them to the cell. He slid the bolt on the door aside and threw it open. The flickering light from the torch on the wall cut through the darkness to illuminate Lia. She sat on the floor of the dungeon cell, her knees pulled up to her chest, her red hair wild about her head. She looked up and he saw two pools of blue shimmering in the torchlight. His heart twisted instinctively. This unexpected, unwanted feeling made him even more angry. “Why did you do it?”
She bowed her head.
He stomped into the cell. “Why did you kill my mother?”
“Where’s the parchment?” Her voice was small, but ferocious.
“I gave it to my brother.”
She flinched as if he had struck her. Her face came up and there was anger glimmering in her eyes. “I trusted you.”
“And I believed you.”
“He’ll give it to your father. You were the one that said your father could never get it.”
“We are family. He will never give it to Father.”
“You said it yourself. You are family. He will not betray your father.”
Dark, molten fury burned through his veins at her words. His fists clenched. “Are you saying my brother would betray me?”
“He already has.”
Lies and more lies. He shook his head. “He’s my brother. He told me what happened with mother.”
“I told you what happened with your mother.”
“What did you use to kill her with? What herb?”
Lia shook her head and looked down again. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Tell me!” Kade demanded.
Lia looked up at him again. “I would have done it. Lady de Claremont begged me to end her life every day I went to see her. Just something to put her to sleep. Just something to make the pain go away forever. Nothing I gave her was enough to stop what your father was doing to her.”
Kade’s eyes widened. She knew there were no accidents. She knew his mother was not clumsy.
“The beatings were horrible. I would come back the next day and there would be new bruises on her stomach and back.” Lia shook her head. “I gave her everything I could think of to ease her pain. But it wasn’t enough. She was broken, in body as well as spirit.”
The image she painted was gruesome. His mother slipping away beneath his father’s lashings.
“The one thing I couldn’t figure out was your brother. He must have known. If he didn’t hear or see the beatings, he must have seen the bruises on her face, on her arms. She had different bruises each day. He never said a word to me about what was happening. He never spoke to me.”
Kade scowled and half turned away from her in embarrassment. She had tried to help his mother. He had known it all along. “You didn’t kill my mother.” He had abandoned his mother. And now, he had abandoned Lia in his disbelief.
“I was afraid. I was horrified she would even ask me to end her life. I was a coward for not doing it.”
“No,” he said firmly. “Not a coward. A saint. An angel for watching her go through that, for standing beside her.”
“I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop the abuse. I couldn’t stop the pain. I did nothing.”
Kade dropped to his knees before her. “You did more than I could… Than I did do.”
“And yet, it wasn’t enough for you to believe in me.” She looked down at her bound hands. “It wasn’t enough to save her…or me.”
“Because it is easier to believe people are evil.” He took her hands, her soft hands, into his own. “It was easier for me to believe you were bad. That you would take my mother’s life instead of try to save it.” She tried to pull her hands free, but he held them tight. “Because I was raised with evil. I was raised to think all people were like that. Until I met you, I thought it was true. I thought there was no way to stop my father. But I was wrong. It was my job to save my mother. But instead, I
left. I left her to my father.” Lia’s hands tightened around his own. Even after his betrayal, she still sought to comfort him. “I won’t do the same with you.”
He leaned his forehead against hers. “I love you, Lia,” he whispered.
Lia lifted her hands to frame his face. She lifted her lips to his, brushing them against his.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her kiss.
She shook her head as the kiss deepened. Tingles of life danced across his skin, heating his body, waking his soul.
“Your father can’t get the parchment. Don’t let him. No matter what happens to me,” Lia whispered.
“Nothing is going to happen to you.” Kade rose. “But you must remain here for a little while longer. I will come for you by morning.” He turned toward the door with purpose.
“Kade!”
He stopped and turned to her.
“I didn’t want to tell you about your mother. I didn’t want you to think of her like that. In that much pain.”
Lord, he loved her. She was protecting him! She had always been protecting him. “I’m glad you did.”
Kade strolled down the hall. He knew Lia was safe for the time being, even though he couldn’t stand thinking of her in that rotting dungeon. He had to make things right with her. He had been wrong giving the parchment to Ralf. Even to save them, his father could never get it. He would never hand over that much power to him.
He took the stairs of the spiral stairway toward the family bed chambers. As he reached the second floor, he saw Ralf coming down the hall toward him.
“There you are,” Ralf greeted. “Father wants to speak to you.”
Kade nodded. “Do you have the parchment?” He waited for his brother to reach him. Ralf nodded his head and patted his belt. “Let me see it.” He held out his hand.
Ralf hesitated for a moment. Then, he reached down to his belt and pulled the parchment out. He handed it to Kade.
Kade opened it and scanned it. “Are you certain we should give this to him?”
“Of course!” Ralf exclaimed. “He’ll go on his treasure hunt and give me control of the castle. We’ll be free of him!”
A Knight's Protection Page 5
