Ransom My Heart

by Meg Cabot

  Sheriff de Brissac held up an impatient hand. “You forget yourself, Miles,” he said quietly.

  It was Patricia who stepped forward and, her eyes burning with hatred, lit into the mayor. “I know it rests ill with you that your daughter is to wed my brother, sir,” she whispered, menacingly. “I know that you intended Rosamund for a much richer man, or at least a man with a better standing in the community. How convenient for you that Lord Hugo was shot, and apparently with my sister’s bow—”

  Mayor Hillyard’s eyes narrowed. “What say you, madam?”

  “Need I repeat myself? For I will gladly do so, only louder, so that all these folk might hear how you abandoned your better judgment for the sake of sparing yourself a son-in-law with such relations—”

  The mayor sputtered indignant denials, but John de Brissac interrupted wearily.

  “I am reeve of this shire,” he reminded everyone. “Appointed such by the king himself. The lord mayor does not make the laws here. He abides by them, like any other God-fearing man. And I say that the Lady Finnula shall not be taken to any jail.”

  Miles Hillyard looked ready to argue the fact, but he closed his mouth with an audible snap when Finnula’s brothers-in-law, accompanied by a half dozen of Lord Hugo’s vassals, loyal to the woman who had helped their families through the long winter, broke free from the crowd and strode toward him. Crossing arms heavily sinewed from toiling the earth over chests made brawny from years of hauling wheat and livestock, the farmers glowered down at the corpulent mayor, while Patricia’s husband shoved an indignant finger at him.

  “Miles,” he said, evenly. “You ain’t never settin’ foot in my pub again.”

  The mayor stammered something, but was interrupted.

  “’Er Ladyship ain’t goin’ to no bleedin’, rat-infested jail,” one of the farmers announced, and the others agreed, employing language of varying degrees of obscenity.

  Mayor Hillyard, whose red face had blanched at the sight of the burly farmers, held up two hands, palms out. “So be it,” he cried. “So be it. But if Lord Hugo dies, and she escapes, let it be on your heads, not mine.”

  Finnula, clutching the sheriff’s cape about her shoulders, had watched the arguments concerning her guilt as dispassionately as if they concerned some other woman, and not herself. All her concentration was focused on the manor house, which she could see in the near distance. She blinked when the sconces in the lord’s solar were lit, and offered up a prayer that Hugo be spared much suffering. If he should die, she thought, over and over again, then so shall I.

  Her sister Patricia, her face a mask of irritation, turned toward her and hissed, “What is wrong with you, Finn? Where’s your mettle? These people are saying such things about you, and yet you stand there, dumb as a statue. Tell them you didn’t kill anyone. Tell them!”

  But Finnula, who’d never before had a problem finding her tongue, could not, even to save her own life, utter a sound. The lights in the windows of the lord’s solar flickered, but she saw no other movement within. When Sheriff de Brissac finally approached her, looking as shamefaced as if he himself had accused her, she lifted tear-filled gray eyes upon him and nodded mutely when he informed her that he was placing her under arrest. The sheriff seemed as disturbed by her silence as her sister was, and he barked for his mount to be brought round with uncharacteristic asperity.

  “Oh, Finnula!” Mellana, her hands clasped to her breasts, sniffled miserably. “I’m so sorry you’re to be arrested again! And ’tis all my fault. If I hadn’t asked you to capture a man for me to hold for ransom, none of this—”

  “Mellana,” Patricia said sharply. “Shut your mouth.”

  Brynn, too shy to have taken part in the argument over Finnula’s arrest, spoke up for the first time. Laying gentle hands upon her youngest sister’s arm, she whispered, “Finnula, dearest, tell me what I can do for you. Of course I shall look out for Lord Hugo, but what else? Is there aught I can bring you while you are in the sheriff’s house?”

  Finnula was still wholly incapable of speech. She saw that Sheriff de Brissac’s horse had been brought round, and that he and her brother were standing by the mare, waiting patiently for her to finish her good-byes. Obediently, she started toward them, ignoring her sisters’ clinging hands.

  “This will not be borne,” Robert ground out, his gaze darting from Lord Hugo’s grinning squire, who, with the mayor, was congratulating himself on a job well-done, to his pale, trembling sister.

  “Fear not, Miller Crais,” Sheriff de Brissac murmured. “The truth will out. And ’tis better that your sister remain with me. Whoever is trying to kill Lord Hugo will not stop until he is well and truly dead, and ’tis likely he’d be only too glad to dispatch Her Ladyship as well. She will be safer at my home than here at the manor house.”

  Robert agreed, and added, “’Tis His Lordship for whom I fear…I always thought ’twas Reginald Laroche that killed Lord Geoffrey, but now ’twould seem the enemy wears the smile of a friend.”

  “I shall post men outside Lord Hugo’s solar,” the sheriff said emphatically. “No one shall be admitted save the herbalist. Unless his enemy is a ghost and can walk through walls, the earl ought to be safe enough until he recovers…”

  Both men fell silent as Finnula, pale as the ghost the sheriff had been referring to, approached, four of her sisters trailing anxiously behind her. The crowd of spectators had thinned considerably since Lord Hugo had been felled; concerned mothers had hauled their children home to bed and out of the line of fire of stray arrows. But many of their husbands had stayed, and now somberly observed the arrest of the woman to whom many of them owed, if not their lives, then a good deal of prime venison.

  The mayor, standing with arms akimbo in the ruddy glow of the bonfire, which had nearly burned itself out, called, “You’ll be needin’ some rope, eh, John? Peter, my lad, run and fetch a length of the stuff—”

  “That won’t be necessary, Miles.” Sheriff de Brissac swung himself into his saddle, then bent down from his horse to hold out a hand to his fair prisoner. “Step upon my boot toe, my dear.” Finnula did as he requested, lifting her skirts with one hand and grasping his large fingers with the other. “That’s right,” the sheriff said with satisfaction, as she sprang nimbly into the saddle before him. “Just like last time, eh?”

  The dismal smile with which Finnula greeted this small joke soon faded altogether as Mayor Hillyard’s voice rang out.

  “Sheriff! When you arrested Fat Maude last week for that lewd display of nudity she exhibited in front of the Fox and Hare, you did not invite her to sit before you in the saddle!”

  “No,” Sheriff de Brissac replied mildly. “I did not. Winnie wouldn’t have been able to stand Maude’s weight.” As the crowd of onlookers chuckled, John de Brissac leaned past Finnula and gave his mare an affectionate pat on the neck.

  “Sheriff.” The mayor frowned. “Your prisoner ought properly have her wrists bound, and be forced to follow you and your horse on foot—”

  “Oh, Father!” For the first time, Rosamund, who’d been a mute witness to the proceedings, spoke up. “Surely such precautions are unnecessary!”

  “Unnecessary? The girl is a murderess! What’s to keep her from slipping a knife into the good sheriff’s heart, eh? She’s already destined to hang for one murder. What’s one more?”

  “Father!”

  “Faith, child, you’re the one who begged me to have her arrested.” Mayor Hillyard shook his head. “And now you take her side?”

  “Father!”

  Rosamund turned tear-filled eyes upon her betrothed, but Robert had been paying close attention to their conversation, and said curtly, “Nay, do not cut your father off, Rosamund. I long for him to finish what he has to say.”

  “Well.” The mayor coughed, flattered that someone was finally listening to him. “When Rosamund returned from the millhouse this afternoon with such wild tales about falling merlons and burrs under saddles, I hardly knew what to
believe. But I must say I am not in the least astonished by tonight’s turn of events…especially taking into consideration your sister’s long-standing, flagrant contempt for all that we men cherish in the fairer sex.”

  “I see,” Robert said, and turning toward Rosamund, bowed coldly. “Madam, I can only assume that, considering your behavior today, you wish to be released from our betrothal—”

  Rosamund gasped. “What? Robert, no!”

  “I release you, then, and have only to wish you a long life and much happiness.” Glaring at her father, Robert turned away from Rosamund. “You have certainly made it most clear that my own is of no consequence to you.”

  With that, Robert strode away in the direction of the manor house. While his sisters looked on in astonishment, the woman he was to have married burst into tears.

  “Oh, Father!” Rosamund cried. “Oh! What have I done?”

  “Hush, child. Don’t take on so. You’re well-rid of the chap. He wasn’t half good enough for you. Now, Sheriff,” the mayor continued, as if they hadn’t been interrupted. “About your prisoner. Hadn’t you ought properly to bind her wrists at least?”

  Sheriff de Brissac was in no mood for further catering to the lord mayor’s whims. He said, “And hadn’t you, Miles, ought properly to be tending to your own duties as mayor? Please allow me to treat my prisoners as I see fit.”

  Puffing up indignantly, Mayor Hillyard shook an index finger up at the mounted man. “I shall appeal to the king, John. Wait and see if I don’t. Your partiality for that young woman will be your undoing…Wait, where are you going? Come back here. Did you hear me? I said come back here!”

  John de Brissac ended the argument by simply riding away, Finnula sagging dismally in the saddle before him.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  When the man who had called himself his father was shot with the arrow with the purple tip, Jamie had crept away and hidden, knowing it was his fault.

  It was Jamie’s fault because he’d known about the danger. He had seen the person who’d pushed over the merlon. He had known that someone was trying to hurt Lord Hugo. He ought to have told the sheriff, who had taken him fishing before. He ought to have at least told Lady Finn, who never complained about him not having had a bath and had even given him lessons in how to hunt and draw a bow. He ought to have told his father himself.

  But he hadn’t told anyone. Instead he had hidden, like a baby, underneath the table where they’d set up the beer barrels. And by the time he’d felt brave enough to come out, both the Sheriff and Lady Finn were gone, leaving him no one to tell what he knew. He was no better than the tabby cat that licked the milk pails clean. He hadn’t done anything to stop his father from getting hurt.

  Until now.

  Now his father was lying on the great bed in Lord Geoffrey’s solar, and an old man was hovering over him, doing strange things to him. The old man had told Mistress Laver that Lord Hugo wasn’t going to die. And that’s when Jamie had fetched the sword that had been hung on one of the bedposts.

  Lugging the heavy weapon behind him, Jamie crouched down in the shadows before the door to his father’s solar, intent on keeping out the person who wanted Lord Hugo dead. He was too small to heave the sword at anyone, but he would hold it, anyway. He could trip someone with it. He could swing it at someone’s legs. He could stop them from hurting his father some more. Soon the sheriff and Lady Finn would come back, and then Jamie would tell them what he knew. In the meantime, he would protect his father. He would keep him safe.

  No one saw Jamie in the shadows. No one ever saw Jamie, unless he wanted to be seen. That was because Jamie had learned, long ago, that the only way to avoid Lord Geoffrey’s wrath was to not be seen by him. And so he’d learned to disappear, to blend in with shadows, to be silent as a wraith. He hid well, melting into walls. Not being very clean helped, of course. No one noticed his white face, because it was always covered with dirt.

  After Lord Geoffrey had died, instead of not hiding anymore, Jamie took to hiding from Monsieur Laroche and his daughter. Though the bailiff had never beaten him, it was only because he’d never been able to catch him. Mam’selle Isabella had been a different story. She was quick, with long fingernails that sank into Jamie’s skin. Holding him by the arm, Mam’selle Isabella would hit him with the back of her hairbrush. Once the Lady Finn had caught her at it, and had threatened to take the hairbrush to Mam’selle Isabella. Mam’selle Isabella had continued to beat Jamie after that, but only indoors, where there was no chance of Lady Finn seeing her.

  Crouching in the shadows with his father’s great sword, Jamie waited confidently for the sheriff. Now that he knew Lord Hugo wasn’t going to die, he was not so afraid. In the days since Lord Hugo had come, Jamie hadn’t been beaten once. No one had even threatened to beat him. He had not wanted Lord Hugo to die. And that was why he was so ashamed of himself for not telling what he had seen.

  But now he would tell. He would guard his father’s life, and he would tell what he’d seen. And then everything would be all right.

  Inside his father’s solar, the old man was still doing mysterious things to Lord Hugo. Mistress Laver was helping him, holding a basin of hot water and saying things like, “Oh! Should ye be doin’ that now, Gregor?” and “But what if ye were to put it this way, Gregor?”

  The old man only grunted in response. Old Gregor did not like women. Jamie was forced to agree with him there. With a few exceptions, women were a continual source of strife in Jamie’s life.

  When he heard footsteps on the stairs, Jamie sank deeper into the shadows, but took a firmer hold on his father’s sword. He hoped it was the sheriff, or even the Lady Finn, but he saw that it was neither. It was the boy Peter, the one Lord Hugo had brought to the manor house from London. Peter thought a great deal of himself. Though he hadn’t yet hit Jamie, Jamie thought it was only because Peter felt himself to be so much above him. Jamie didn’t think much of Peter’s velvet tunics and London accent. He would have liked the older boy better if he hadn’t complained so much his first few days after arriving.

  Peter, lighting upon the top of the stairs in his fancy boots, saw that the door to Lord Hugo’s solar was open, and headed toward it.

  Heaving the sword over his head, Jamie let its weight carry the blade forward until, with a resounding clang, the sword struck the flagstones directly before the threshold to the solar—and just inches from Peter’s toes.

  The older boy stared down in astonishment.

  “What the hell d’you think you’re doing?” Peter demanded, in a strangled voice. “You could have cut my foot off!”

  Jamie only glared up at him. “You are not to enter my father’s room,” he said firmly.

  “Your father!” Peter laughed. “I like that! Lord Hugo, your father?”

  Mistress Laver, hearing the disturbance in the corridor, came bustling out of the solar.

  “What’s this, now? What’s this?” Seeing Jamie with Lord Hugo’s sword, she frowned. “What’s the matter with you two boys, playin’ at yer games when ’Is Lordship is ’overing on the brink of death? Jamie, give me that—”

  With a yank, Mistress Laver took the heavy sword from Jamie, and, glaring at Peter, said, “I’m ashamed of the both of ye. You, Peter, should know better. You should be settin’ an example for the young one. Now be quiet, and let old Gregor do his work.”

  The heavy wooden door did not slam behind Mistress Laver, because she was too concerned for her patient to make that much noise. But it did close very firmly. Jamie stared at the portal, and wondered what he was going to do now.

  “What were you doing with Lord Hugo’s sword?” Leaning against the wall, Peter folded his arms and stared down at Jamie. “Did you think I was going to try to hurt him?”

  Jamie pressed his lips together to keep himself from speaking. Peter noticed, and observed, “I’m a good deal bigger than you, boy. I could make you talk if I wanted to.”

  Jamie started to sidle backward, knowing tha
t if he could shrink back into the shadows, he would be able to disappear again. He knew he should lie, but lying was not something he did well. He was much better at hiding.

  “What is this about Lord Hugo being your father?” Peter was smiling, but Jamie knew better than to let his guard down because of a smile. Mam’selle Isabella had smiled a great deal, as well, and then she’d gone straight for the hairbrush.

  “Has Lord Hugo acknowledged that you’re his child?” the older boy demanded. When Jamie failed to respond, he laughed. “I can’t imagine he much liked that, coming home to find his bastard running about like a half-wild thing, covered in dirt and God knows what. So, tell me. Has he called you son?”

  It occurred to Jamie that beating the son of an earl, even a bastard son, was not something much smiled upon. If admitting that Lord Hugo had, indeed, called him son would spare him a beating, then Jamie would confess to it readily.

  “Aye,” he said, his voice gravelly from disuse. “Aye, Lord Hugo called me his son—”

  “Is that so?” Peter grinned, his face shadowed in the light from the wall sconce. “So if Lord Hugo dies, you’re his heir?”

  Jamie didn’t know what the older boy was talking about. Instead, he reevaluated his position, and decided that he was likely to get beaten anyway, earl’s son or no. He continued sidling backward.

  “Well? Answer me, boy. Did Lord Hugo say anything about you inheriting?” Peter rubbed his chin. Earlier, Jamie had noticed that the squire did this often, even though there was no hair growing there. “Nay…Nay, he would have had legitimate heirs enough from that red-haired bitch. There’d be no need to claim you. But we mustn’t take any chances…”

  Jamie turned and started to run. He didn’t know what made him run, only that something in the older boy’s tone of voice sent the hairs on the back of his neck rising.