by Alyssa James
“Set Lisette free,” Rowan demanded again. “You have no quarrel with her.”
“Oh nay, I won’t be letting your wife go,” Malin told him. “That would spoil the fun. But then you always were so serious, Rowan, never into fun. Always out to impress. You were too busy trying to please the man you called ‘father’ to ever become involved in my childhood pranks. Instead you kept delivering your sermons to me about how I should behave. You. A bastard’s son lording it over me, the rightful heir to this seat.”
“You may have been rightful heir by blood, Malin, but you are a disgrace to your title and your rank.”
“Ha! You are truly amazing. You are here at my mercy yet you still have the arrogance and the audacity, to insult me. Soon, brother, you’ll be crying like a baby and begging me for a quick death.” He pointed to Rowan’s feet. “Secure his legs as well.” Malin turned to Lord Blake.
Two great balls of iron were rolled forward and Rowan’s legs were manacled to them.
“Don’t do this,” Lisette pleaded, her anguish evident in every word. “If you let Rowan go now, King Henry will surely go easier on you than if you seriously harm his first knight.”
Malin merely sent her a contemptuous sneer before he turned to Lord Blake. “Forgive me if I bore you while I explain the features of my collection to my prisoner and his wife.” He turned back to Rowan. “Lord Blake has already had a tour.”
“I’m sure he was fascinated,” Rowan drawled.
“Riveted.” Blake smiled maliciously.
Malin moved to the first device—a hollow brass statue which resembled a bull. “This is the brazen bull. ’Twas invented by a Greek by the name of Perillus. The victim is placed inside after having his or her tongue cut out. The door is shut,” he closed the door and rubbed his hands together in an excited manner. He gestured to a tray around the statue. “Fires are lit in these trays. Can you imagine? The searing heat makes the person thrash about and scream in agony and without a tongue the victim sounds like a real bull, creating extra amusement for spectators.” The enthusiasm left his features. “The only problem is that I’ll have to time it well so you don’t die. That would spoil all the fun. And, I don’t want to cut out your tongue just yet, because I want to hear you begging me for mercy!”
“You’re depraved.” Lisette looked as though she was about to be physically ill.
That she was being subject to all Malin’s madness made Rowan half-crazed himself with anger.
“Not at all.” Malin looked a little offended. “I merely aim to provide my men-at-arms with imaginative and unusual forms of amusement. And, of course, it keeps them remarkably loyal to me.” He moved a few steps to his left, to a structure Rowan had heard of but never seen. “This is the horse.” Malin trailed his hand almost lovingly over the beam on top of the horse’s back. “The victim is tied to this beam. These pulleys below tighten ropes attached to hands and feet. He or she is stretched until the joints are,” he snapped his fingers, “dislocated.” Taking a few more steps to his left, he reached the wheel. “The horse would be quite painful for you, but again, I don’t want to just pop your joints in one go. As I’ve gone to the trouble of amassing this collection, I’d like to think I’ll get value for my money and give you the whole experience. This wheel of torture is far more creative. We can tie you to this wheel and drag your flesh over fire or across metal spikes—or both, so the pain will come from all directions! I assure you it will be most sensational.”
“Enough!” Lisette demanded, even though her lower lip trembled and she was a picture of misery.
“Oh, nay. Not nearly enough,” Lord Blake said close to her ear. “Don’t you want to hear about all that awaits your husband? Baron Baddesley still needs to tell you all about the Iron Maiden and the Scavenger’s Daughter. Mayhap you would rather witness your husband’s torture as my men have you. That way you can both suffer together.”
The time would come, Rowan vowed silently. Somehow, he would break free and he would not spare Lisette’s former guardian any mercy. The blood pounded through him and pulsed so hard in his temples he thought it may well rupture a vessel. Blake would pay for his cruel mistreatment and taunting of Lisette. No man would dishonour Rowan’s wife and live to tell the tale.
“I cannot believe my former commander possessed such poor judgement as to make you the legal guardian of his two daughters,” Rowan grated, hoping to buy more time before Malin began the use of his torturous devices.
Lord Blake laughed. “He didn’t! He was just as self-righteous and pompous as you are Romsey. But, even though he mistrusted me, he still did what he considered to be his duty and had me to stay at Bridlemere. He had no inkling that I possessed a forged document giving me guardianship of his two precious daughters.” He shook his head and smiled. “’Twas so easy to gain access to his solar and use his seal to make the document official.”
His boasting confirmed that Lisette’s suspicions had been true. Her father had never intended for his distant cousin to become guardian to his two daughters.
“’Twas even easier to ambush him and make sure I became guardian sooner rather than waiting for nature to take its course,” Blake bragged.
Lisette gasped. “You murdered my parents?”
“The whole exercise was pathetically easy, really.”
Tears began to run down her cheeks.
“I would have spared your mother, Lisette. I truly loved her once. But she was besotted with your father and would never have yielded to me. So, she had to die.”
“Ysabel was right,” she whispered. “She said their accident was suspicious.”
“That bloody interfering French bitch?” Lord Blake turned to Malin. “I’ve heard of some other torturous devices especially designed for women. Mayhap you can use them on the French woman.”
Malin stepped away from the wheel and toward Rowan, shaking his head in denial. “There was only ever one woman I would have liked to have made suffer more for what she did. Apart from her, I don’t have a predilection for torturing women. I prefer to hear their cries of ecstasy.”
“You bastard!” Rowan vented, knowing the woman he referred to was their mother.
Circling him completely, Malin stopped behind him. “Nay. You forget your place. Being the Earl of Romsey has gone to your head. You forget that you are the bastard. You should hate her too, for ’twas her sinful fornicating with the Duke of Winchester that made you what you are.” Rowan jerked away instinctively from the touch of Malin’s fingernail scoring along the scars of his back. “I did a good job with my whip. Quite a pretty design, really.” He walked around Rowan so that they were almost nose to nose. “So satisfying to know that Henry’s great knight bears scars I inflicted.” He turned briefly to Lisette. “Did I mention to you how your husband was whipped out of Baddesley like the cur that he is?”
Lisette bit her lip. Through her tears, there was blazing blue hatred for Malin. “You will burn in Hell!”
Malin’s lip curled. “You haven’t fallen for this coward, have you?”
“Rowan is the bravest, strongest, most noble knight in the land,” she retorted.
“Rowan isn’t a man, dear Lisette. If you think he is, then you know not what a true man is,” Malin returned.
“She’ll know very soon,” Lord Blake inserted with a lewd smile.
“He was betrothed once, you know,” Malin told her with a reminiscent smile. “Ah, Rowan. Lady Eleanor confessed to me just how much you disgusted her. Do you remember how she cheered when you were whipped out of Baddesley? And having seen you naked that day, she was completely unprepared for and overwhelmed by my manhood the night of our wedding. So grateful she was for having been spared a lifetime of your inadequacy and cowardice.”
Rowan pulled fruitlessly at the chains at his wrists but remained silent. Despite Malin’s words that he did not torture women, Bethia had told Rowan that Eleanor had suffered both physical beatings and mental distress at Malin’s hands. Although Rowan had grown to
despise his former fiancée for her avarice, he would never wish her physical ill.
“No escape for you this time,” Malin pronounced with a laugh of satisfaction. “And this time the hounds will get their reward. When I am finished with you the hounds will be allowed to feed on your corpse—if there is any flesh left to pick off your bones. Mayhap I will just have to let them in to scavenge the shreds of your flesh from the floor of this chamber.”
Lord Blake and the guards joined in the laughter.
“There would be no escape for either of you,” Lisette pronounced vehemently, “if you had the courage to challenge Lord Rowan in fair combat.”
“I would never demean myself to fight with one who is of lesser true status than I,” Malin pronounced with a snort.
Lisette squared her shoulders and her lips thinned into a line of contempt. “You are no man. What are you but a jealous, insecure little boy who killed his own parents in cold blood?”
Malin stilled. “Oh my.” His eyes narrowed into dangerous slits and he made a clicking noise of disapproval with his tongue. “You lied to me, Lady Lisette, when you said your husband had not spoken of me. You always were quick to tell tales, brother.” He moved to Rowan’s side. His hand jerked out and upward to grasp a fist full of Rowan’s hair. He pulled it painfully so that Rowan was forced to turn his neck at an awkward angle. Malin moved his own head forward creating scant space between them. His breath was hot and sickening as he vented his next words. “Interesting, isn’t it? I suspect you may have only told your wife half the story. Did you, by any chance, tell your sweet bride about the murder you committed in cold blood?”
Rowan’s stomach plummeted to his feet while acid rose to his throat. Despite the angle of his head, he strained so that he saw Lisette out of the corner of his vision. Lisette’s confusion was obvious, yet ready denial sprang to her lips as she leapt to his defence.
“Rowan may share some of your blood but he does not share your ways.”
Malin swung toward Lisette, releasing the fistful of hair he’d held and pushing Rowan’s head away as he did so.
“He is a noble knight,” his wife continued, “who would never do as you say.”
Oh, God. If only ’twas the truth.
Lisette’s heated defence had Malin throwing back his head and clutching at his belly as he laughed loud and hard. Rowan’s jaw locked. Whatever physical torture Malin put him through would fade into insignificance compared to the anguish it would cause him to see the light of admiration and respect die in Lisette’s expression when she knew her championing of him was misplaced.
“You don’t know your husband, Lisette,” Lord Blake informed her with a gloating smile.
“This man, a noble knight?” Another bitter laugh came from Malin. “The Earl of Romsey has deceived his king and the people of England. He is nothing but a cowardly fraud.” Malin moved toward Lisette. “This man, if that is what he would call himself, burst into the chamber of a man of the cloth and murdered him in cold blood while the priest lay defenceless in his bed.”
Lord Blake cut in. “What is even more precious to tell you, is that this heinous deed against God involved the two men you admire most. Your husband carried out the murder, but your father, who was your husband’s commander at the time, acted swiftly to cover it up.”
“Nay. I do not believe you.” Her words were strong. Each carried her conviction in her belief of both Rowan’s and her father’s honour. Each made Rowan flinch and was like a separate stab with a dagger or a lacerating flick of a whip on his bare flesh. As much as he wished he could deny the charge so that he would not see her expression when she knew he was not as honourable as she believed, her trust in him was misplaced.
“Your father invented a lie to blacken the slain man’s name,” Blake said. “He branded the righteous man of God a traitor and claimed he had proof that the man was plotting against the king. ’Tis the only way your husband escaped the gallows.”
“Nay.” The word was now a mere whisper from Lisette’s lips. Rowan heard the doubt creeping into her voice and saw her horror.
Malin sneered at her. “’Tis true, Lady Lisette. Ask this noble knight you call your husband. Henry’s first knight indeed!”
“Will you deny it, Lord Rowan,” Blake demanded.
It took every ounce of courage he possessed to look at Lisette. The silence hung heavily between them as her chin tilted proudly and he knew she willed him to deny the charge.
Part of what Malin had said had been a lie. The man had not been defenceless but had reached out to raise a dagger against Rowan. The priest had been in bed—but the so-called holy man had not been alone.
Rowan exhaled a long breath and shook his head. Malin had twisted the truth, but the truth was merely technicalities. Rowan was guilty as charged.
“Well, Rowan. Are you going to lie to your wife or will you find the balls to confess to your sin?” Malin challenged scornfully. “Lady Lisette’s father isn’t here now to cover for you. It’s judgement time.”
Rowan met Lisette’s regard once again. The hope that flicked over her features communicated to him that she still believed he would deny the claim, but was now less certain he would.
“Nay. I do not deny it,” he said at last, “for ’tis true that I committed murder and the man was indeed a priest.” Witnessing his wife’s lips part in shock—the disappointment and pain—Rowan could look at her no longer.
Although his gut churned with the knowledge that his admission would mean that he went to his death with his wife despising him, Rowan could not deny the truth. In a way ’twas a relief to confess to the crime he had committed—the horrible truth he had carried around for so many years.
“You hear that, Lady Lisette? Your husband has confessed to the cold-blooded murder of a man of the cloth!” Malin’s tone was triumphant.
Had he been on trial before King Henry, Rowan had no doubt the king would listen to all the evidence that had led to the priest’s death and exonerate his first knight—for the priest had, in truth, committed treason and had not been the holy man of God he had pretended to be.
Here and now, there was no just king to try him, and the fundamental truth was that the death of the priest could have been prevented. Rowan could easily have defended himself and disarmed him, but the raging beast of revenge that had welled up inside him had insisted he cut the man down.
His wrongdoing was an indelible, shameful stain on his soul.
He could not bear to see the abhorrence in Lisette’s expression. The same abhorrence that he’d seen when Eleanor had learned he was a bastard son and not worthy of the title Baron of Baddesley.
“Aye, my ward, the revered first knight of King Henry is a fraud. That he and your father managed to deceive the king only goes to prove that the monarch is a fool.”
“He is not a fitting king for our land,” Malin added. “But there are those of us who recognise that and will see an end to Henry’s reign to ensure the rightful line is restored.”
Rowan couldn’t help himself. A quick glance at Lisette and he saw the raw anguish flitting across her features. Denial. Disbelief. Confusion. Rejection. Doubt. Abhorrence. That she could feel those negative emotions in regard to his actions was unbearable, but he could not let her believe the worst of her father.
“The priest was a traitor, just as both of you are! My commander, the honourable Lord Blake, had evidence of the man’s treason against the king. ’Twas not a lie that he invented to save me from my crime.” He made an appeal to Lisette. “Your father was a great man, Lisette, and regardless of what these two would have you believe, you should never doubt his honour.”
“You committed murder but you got off, didn’t you Rowan?” Malin jeered. “You had that wretched father-figure to cover your back because you’d wormed your way into your commander’s affections—the same way you wormed your way into the affections of the man who was my father, not yours. Your commander was all too willing to believe in you and he lied to
save you. You went unpunished. You always got off everything.”
Rowan’s verbal retaliation was immediate. “You’ve escaped justice for the murder of our parents!”
“My father was never yours,” Malin denounced vehemently, “and he was pathetically weak. I will never understand how he could favour a bastard babe over his own flesh and blood. As for the woman he married...You can claim the whore who bore us as your mother, for I will never claim her as mine.”
“She loved you. They both did.”
“Nay. She favoured you. That she could love you when you should have been naught but a constant reminder of her shame, added to her disgrace. That she lay with another out of wedlock, and when she was already betrothed, is proof that she was a whore. For years she continued her deceit, covering up the truth by foisting you on the man she married.”
“’Twas a mistake she repented. A folly of youth.”
“Judgement day arrived for her,” Malin declared. “She paid.”
“Aye. You and your zealot priest made sure of that, even though our merciful God would have forgiven her when she repented.” The heat of condemnation Rowan felt blazing from his own eyes should have been enough to incinerate Malin. Manacled as he was, Rowan was powerless or he would have ripped his half-brother apart limb from limb. “’Tis my greatest wish to bring you to justice for your crimes, Malin.”
“Ha! That will never happen. You tried and you failed.” Malin moved to stand in front of him and delivered a stinging slap to his cheek. “You are pathetic. You’ll never escape from me, and even if you did, you have no evidence to bring me to trial.”
“Your trial has only been delayed, Malin. Justice will be done and you will pay for your sins.”
“You’re delusional,” Lord Blake remarked with scorn.
“The king is aware of the charges I brought against you, Malin. You only escaped his justice because you had the backing of the priest—a man who is now a known traitor. And, unsurprisingly, all the other witnesses to the murder had mysteriously disappeared.”
