Ransom My Heart

by Meg Cabot

  “What, throw something at that?” Peter was appalled. “He’ll come up here and sink those teeth in me next!”

  Grunting, Laroche bent down and found a fist-size rock. Finnula gasped as he hurled it at Gros Louis, but she needn’t have worried for her hound. Reginald Laroche could not have hit a duck in a barrel, his aim was so bad. The stone flew harmlessly past Gros Louis’s head, and the dog, busily devouring his prey, failed even to notice the missile.

  “Oh!” Isabella Laroche came out from behind the curtain, rubbing her eyes prettily. “Oh, what is it? What is wrong?”

  “A wolf,” Peter informed her, in a voice Finnula had not heard him use before. It was deeper than his normal speaking tone, and Finnula supposed he thought it manlier. “Never fear, though, mademoiselle. I’ll not let it harm you.”

  Isabella Laroche didn’t look the least bit afraid, however. She flung back some of her long, loose hair, and approached the edge of the rock lip. Though she slept in a cave, she wore one of her diaphanous nightdresses. Her bed robe, tightly cinched around her waist, did nothing to hide the curves of her voluptuous body, Finnula noted.

  The minute her gaze focused on Gros Louis, Isabella gave a snort. “That’s no wolf,” she said scathingly, turning to go back into the cave. “That’s Finnula Crais’s dog.”

  Finnula, crouching in the brambles, dropped her face into her hands in despair.

  “What?” Both Laroche and Peter spun around to stare at Isabella, who blinked back at them as if they were simpleminded.

  “You heard me,” she said. “That’s Finnula Crais’s dreadful dog. I think I’d know it. She never goes anywhere without it. Get rid of it, why don’t you? Nasty thing.”

  Finnula lifted her head in time to see Isabella turn around to go back to her bed, not in the least suspecting the effect her words had upon her father and Peter. Both men stared at each other, and then down at the dog.

  “If the dog is about,” said Reginald Laroche, in a tone that sent shivers up and down Finnula’s spine, “then can its mistress be far behind?”

  “But that’s impossible,” Peter scoffed. “Finnula Crais is in jail!”

  “And her dog just happened to wander in this direction?” In the firelight, Finnula caught a glimpse of Laroche’s yellowed teeth flashing beneath his dark mustache. “Nay. She is near, I can feel it. At any moment, I expect an arrow to come streaking out of the night—”

  Peter looked hastily over his shoulder, as if anticipating a shaft in the backside. “Verily, sir? But it cannot be! We took such care—”

  Laroche waved Peter to silence with a flick of his fingers. His dark gaze scanned the woods in which Finnula hid. She felt those eyes come to rest upon her, then move restlessly on. He had not seen her. Not yet. But he knew she was there.

  Oh, yes. He knew she was there.

  His next action confirmed it. Reaching down, the bailiff snatched Jamie up by the arm, hoisting the boy roughly to his feet. With a coldheartedness with which Finnula would not have credited him, had she not seen it for herself, Laroche pressed the edge of his blade to the boy’s throat. Jamie, dazed from both fear and his abrupt awakening, whimpered softly. Laroche called out, into the darkness, “Show yourself, my lady. I know you are there. Show yourself, or the boy dies.”

  Finnula’s fingers curled into fists so tight that her fingernails nearly broke the skin of her palms. She felt physically ill. Sweat had broken out along her hairline, and the night breeze, which was actually quite warm, felt cold as ice to her. Knowing she had no alternative, she rose from her protected hideaway, and glided out into the light of the clearing, oblivious to the thorns that clung to the material of her skirt. As she approached the rock lip, she saw a variety of expressions cross the faces of those who stood before her. Laroche looked triumphant, Peter incredulous, Isabella angry, and Jamie…Jamie burst into tears.

  “No!” he cried, struggling piteously in Laroche’s grasp. “No, m’lady! Go back! Go back!”

  Finnula didn’t pay the boy any heed. She walked until she stood directly beneath the grinning mask of Reginald Laroche, and after a quick glance at Jamie to see that, though scared, he was basically unharmed, she lifted her face to meet the bailiff’s gaze.

  “Ah,” cried Laroche delightedly. “Look what we have here, Isabella! The Lady of Stephensgate, come all this way to pay a call upon you!”

  Isabella glared at Finnula. “Kill her, Father,” she said.

  “Ah, my bloodthirsty daughter.” Laroche laughed. “You must forgive her, Lady Finnula. Isabella has quite a temper, you know.”

  Finnula maintained enough presence of mind to say, quite calmly, though through fear-whitened lips, “Gros Louis. Go home. Go home.”

  Before anyone could make a move, the great mastiff was loping away, his pink tongue lolling. Finnula watched with satisfaction as her pet disappeared into the thick bracken, and did not see the hand that descended toward her until it was too late.

  The blow caught her full on the side of the head and sent her reeling. She would have fallen if a hard hand hadn’t reached out and caught her by the arm to jerk her upright. Dazed, the left side of her face aflame, Finnula lifted her head, and saw a furious Reginald Laroche glowering down at her from atop the rock outcropping.

  Before the man could say a word, Finnula found her tongue, and lashed out with, “The sheriff and his men follow me. They will be here anon. You had best release us at once.”

  “My dear.” Reginald Laroche had let go of Jamie, who’d collapsed against the rocks. Now, keeping a firm hold of Finnula, he squatted upon the stones in order to meet her gaze. “You are such a very dreadful little liar. What am I to do with you?”

  “Kill her, Father,” Isabella suggested, again.

  “Indeed, she will die.” Laroche reached out and lifted a fine tendril of red hair that had escaped from Finnula’s braid and lay across her cheek like a streak of blood. Examining the auburn curl, the bailiff said, his breath hot on Finnula’s face, “That has always been the plan. Or at least, ’twas what we decided the day my fool cousin Geoffrey married you, my dear. But then he so conveniently perished before he could get you with child, and we thought we were safe.” Laroche sighed gustily. “And then our beloved king had to go and ransom his brave crusaders, following which you took Hugo prisoner yourself…though I doubt by doing so you expected to find yourself chatelaine of Stephensgate Manor once more. What could I do then, but employ the same plan that had worked so well before? Of course, ’twas more difficult this time, since I’d been banished from the manor house, and could not employ poison, as before—”

  Finnula listened to this speech with growing dread. She would not, she knew, be hearing this frank confession, were it not absolutely certain that she was not going to be allowed to live long enough to repeat it. This suspicion was confirmed when Isabella interrupted her father impatiently.

  “Kill her now, Father,” Isabella insisted. “Do not waste time on pretty speeches. Kill her and let’s to bed! I’m so tired.”

  Peter looked more than a little surprised at Isabella’s vehemence. “Kill her, in cold blood?”

  Isabella rolled her eyes. “What say you, boy? You were willing enough to kill Lord Hugo and let her hang for it. Why balk at killing her yourself?”

  “But—” In the glow from the firelight, it was evident that Peter was blushing. Was it possible, Finnula thought, that he was having second thoughts about his ladylove? “But to kill a woman…like with the boy. ’Tis wrong. Not very chivalrous. When we first set out together, monsieur, you said nothing of killing women and children—”

  “Idiot,” Isabella spat. “Kill her now, Father, and bury the body. No one will find her this deep into the woods. People will think she ran away to escape hanging for the murder of her husband—”

  “But Lord Hugo yet lives,” Peter burst out. “They will not hang her, for the earl yet lives!”

  “Hard I’ve tried to forget it,” Laroche grumbled. “Had you played your part
right, boy, he’d be well and truly dead now. I am starting to think you did not aim to kill after all…”

  “I told you, Father,” Isabella cried. “Send me back to the house in the morning to finish His Lordship off. ’Twill be simple. They none of them suspect me. If Hugo is truly as ill as they say, ’twill be but the work of a moment to suffocate him with his own pillow—”

  Finnula could stand it no longer. She felt a killing rage within her, but, weaponless, was helpless to save herself or anyone else, for that matter. Instead she said, her voice shaking, but with anger, not fear, “Kill me, if you must. And Hugo, too, if you can, which I doubt. But spare Jamie. He is just a child. Killing him will gain you nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Laroche tugged on the lock of hair he held. “Jamie is your husband’s heir, my dear. In order for my plan to succeed, there must be no heir but me.”

  “He isn’t legitimate.” Finnula shrugged, with dissembled indifference. “Hugo cares naught for him. The child will never inherit. Let him go. He will run away, never again show his face at Stephensgate Manor. All the world will think him dead.” She dared not look at Jamie’s face as she spoke, and hoped the boy knew she was lying to save him.

  Laroche laughed, but gently. “You plead so eloquently for a life not your own. I am not so interested, I confess, in the boy’s death, as in yours. His claim is far shakier than any progeny you might yet birth. And yet, ’tis necessary to kill you both, to secure what should be mine.” Laroche nodded, as if to himself, and rose to his full height. “Yes. That will be the way of it, then. Peter, find some of that rope we used to keep the boy from escaping. We will dispatch the Lady Finnula at once, the way the hangman would have, had she ever stood trial.”

  Finnula stared, completely taken aback. She had not supposed that they would kill her with so much swiftness—and coldness. She fretted more over killing a stag than this man did over killing a woman. She knew then that Jamie stood no more chance of surviving capture than a fatted suckling pig.

  Suddenly Isabella’s face filled her field of vision, as the older girl peered down at her, gloating. “Little fool,” she said, and laughed at Finnula scornfully. “To think my father would let one of your husband’s bastards go free! He’d have killed him long ago if your husband’s pathetic squire hadn’t put up such a fuss about it.”

  Finnula shot a glance at Peter, to see how he bore this statement. He would not meet her gaze.

  “Is that why Lord Hugo had to marry you?” Isabella demanded. “Because you’re carrying another one of his bastards?

  Fool! Now you will hang and the boy will die and I will take my place as chatelaine of Stephensgate Manor. And a more proper lady I make than you ever did,” she sneered, “with your orange hair and leather braies and wild ways!”

  Isabella ought to have known better than to taunt someone who had absolutely nothing left to lose. Or, at least, she ought to have waited until Finnula’s wrists were bound before insulting her. Instead, Isabella found a fist launched in her direction that she was not agile enough to duck. Finnula’s knuckles connected solidly with Isabella’s nose, making a highly satisfying crunching noise that nearly drowned out a great crashing of bracken that occurred in the woods just beyond the clearing where the cave rose. Horses whinnied, and Finnula, drawing back a throbbing fist, heard Gros Louis’s bark, and her own name bellowed in a voice she knew only too well.

  “Finnula!”

  Her jaw slack with disbelief, Finnula turned at the very moment that Skinner, bearing a pale but very resolute Hugo, leaped into the clearing.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  No amount of cajoling, pleading, or threats on John de Brissac’s part had any effect whatsoever on Hugo’s resolve to join in the search for his wife. The Earl of Stephensgate was dressed and mounted upon his horse before the sheriff could even summon his men. Impatient to be on his way, Hugo did not wait for the sheriff’s entourage, and headed into the woods, armed with only his sword and a grim determination to shake Finnula silly when he got his hands on her.

  Not that he blamed her for taking action when all around her seemed wallowing in confusion. It had become clear to him, those days he’d spent upon his back, how it was that a man like Reginald Laroche could abuse his power for so long, without a single person rising up to say nay. All it took was one man, just one, to declare that something was not right, and others would follow.

  But Finnula had been the sole dissenter in a village of over a hundred people, and because she was a woman, her dissension meant nothing…or rather, it pegged her for an eccentric, and when next came the time to blame someone for something, her former dissension was now used as proof against her.

  But the Mayor Hillyards and Reginald Laroches of the world were exactly the sort of people against whom Hugo had been fighting all his life, in one form or another. The time for him to lay down his sword and live in peace had not yet come.

  But when he entered the dark woods where, according to de Brissac, Jamie’s scent had been lost, he was suddenly seized with a certainty as to the boy’s location. The boy had gone to Wolf Cave, that desolate place, the one place every boy in the village had been forbidden to explore. Hugo and his brother had climbed those monstrous rocks many a time, though had never worked up the courage actually to enter the dark cave. Of course…if the Laroches were looking to hide somewhere in the area where no one would think to look, Wolf Cave was the logical place.

  And Finnula certainly knew these woods well enough to have figured that out. Like Hugo, she’d need neither moonlight nor a torch to find her way to that place.

  But what she’d had to guide her infallibly was Gros Louis. And when Hugo saw that massive beast streaking toward him in the pinkening light of predawn, barking his alarm, his heart had nearly exploded in sudden fear. Why was the dog alone, and why was he running from his mistress? Unless, of course, she had ordered him to do so…

  Hugo shouted a command, and the dog halted, looking up at him with a face that bore a great deal more intelligence than Hugo had ever credited any animal before. His tail wagging energetically, Gros Louis turned and began streaking back in the direction from which he’d come, not even looking behind him to assure himself that Hugo followed. This fact, more than any other, struck Hugo as peculiar, and he spurred Skinner into a gallop, though with low-lying branches and unsteady footing, the horse moved with a slowness that, to Hugo, was maddening.

  He did not know what he’d envisioned he’d find when he reached the clearing in which the cave was situated. He certainly expected to find Finnula, though in what state, he hardly dared guess. But when Skinner broke through the last of the brambles and pines and burst upon the unsuspecting participants in what looked to Hugo to be a scene straight out of a Greek tragedy, lit by the lavender light of an early dawn, he could only gawk.

  Atop the rock lip that led to the cave’s opening crouched Isabella Laroche, clutching her nose, from which blood was flowing freely. Fists cocked, above her stood none other than Finnula, her red hair flying about her head like an aurora. Lying prone beneath her was Hugo’s squire and would-be assassin, Peter, looking very much as if he’d just been kicked in the chest, and not far from him, holding a length of rope that he’d tied into the semblance of a noose, stood a very startled Reginald Laroche. Slumped some few feet away lay a small bundle that Hugo could only assume was the boy Jamie.

  All five people gaped at Hugo, who, his sword having already been drawn sometime back, stared at them with the blade aloft, uncertain as to whom he ought to cut down first. He ought to have known that Finnula, weaponless, would have already gained the upper hand. Now he felt a ridiculous and almost overwhelming desire to burst out laughing.

  The impulse died immediately, however, when Laroche, the first to recover from his astonishment, leaped onto the outcropping and flung an arm around Finnula’s slender neck, dragging her toward him.

  “Good evening, Lord Hugo,” the older man quipped, the point of his jeweled dagger aimed at t
he hollow of Finnula’s throat. “What a pleasant surprise. If we’d known you intended to pay us a call, we’d have put on our finery, would we not, Isabella?”

  Isabella only moaned, ineffectually trying to stanch the flow of blood from her nose with the hem of her bed robe.

  “Hugo,” Finnula said, her voice a rasp thanks to the pressure Laroche was exerting upon it. “Hugo, what are you doing here? You oughtn’t be out of bed. You’re not well!”

  Hugo smiled at his wife’s scolding. It had been some time since she’d last chastised him. “Well enough,” Hugo replied mildly. “And the sheriff and his men follow me. They will be upon us anon.”

  “Precisely what your wife said.” Laroche chuckled. “You two are naught but a pair of liars. You deserve one another. How touching that you shall die together!”

  Hugo cleared his throat. “As I was saying, the sheriff and his men will be upon us anon, and will undoubtedly arrest you, Laroche, which will deprive me of the pleasure of slitting your throat myself. So I suggest you release my wife and take up a sword, since I intend to kill you now.”

  “You think me a fool, cousin?” Laroche’s grip on Finnula tightened, and she was no longer capable of speech. Her gray eyes, however, spoke volumes, as they flashed angrily in the firelight. “I know there are few handier with a blade than yourself. You are as good a swordsman as this one is a markswoman—”

  “Think you so? Even with a wounded shoulder in my sword arm?” Hugo turned so that the bandage beneath his white shirt was obvious. “Look, even now, blood is soaking through the padding. I am a wounded man, Laroche, and yet you are too cowardly to fight me?”

  “I shan’t fight you, wounded or no. I know you won’t dare lay a hand on me while I hold such precious cargo, and so I beg your leave to depart—”

  “Fight him, Father,” Isabella begged, through her blood-soaked fingers. “Do fight him. He insulted me most grievously! Peter will help you, won’t you, Peter?”