My Lady's Treasure

by Catherine Kean

  No way in blazing hellfire would he have another death on his conscience.

  Forcing the words through his teeth, Brant said, “I will take the gold, and you will be informed of the decision.” He turned to drop the vessel into his saddlebag.

  Her white-knuckled hand clamped on his arm. “Nay!”

  “’Tis the only way.”

  “Thief! You will ride off with the cup. I will never see it—or you—again!”

  What a wretchedly tempting thought. However, he could not break his vow to Torr. To do so would obliterate the last tattered threads of knightly honor by which he lived his life.

  With a gentle but firm shove, Brant broke free of her hold. The leather ties of his saddlebag were soaked, the knot tight beneath his rain-wet fingers. Drops splashed on the gold, making it slippery in his grasp.

  “The agreement demanded silver. I brought gold!” she shrieked over a wailing gust of wind. “I did as you asked.”

  She had. Curse Torr. She did not deserve such torment.

  Unable to shield the bitterness from his tone, Brant said, “If you wish to see Angeline again, you will obey.” At last, the saddlebag’s ties slipped loose. He dropped in the vessel, then cinched the bag shut.

  He swung back to face her. She stood with her arms folded across her stomach, despair etched into her ashen face. A violent tremor racked her. She moaned, a sound which seemed dragged from her very soul. The hair on his nape prickled.

  He could not stop himself reaching for her.

  She recoiled as though he handed her a hissing adder. Her voice painfully thin, she said, “The missive was a trick, wasn’t it? Why? To get the gold? How did you learn of it? ’Twas our sworn secret. No one else knew.”

  Her anxiety gouged like jagged steel. “Milady—”

  As though the last of her resolve snapped, she lunged at him, sobbing, her desperate hands clawing at his cloak. “Where is Angeline? Please, where is she?”

  The lady careened into him. The force of the impact knocked him backward two steps. His arms closed instinctively around her, even as his left boot connected with a slick stone. His horse, the rocky lakeshore, the sky suddenly blurred. With a startled grunt, he shifted sideways and managed to break his fall.

  Still struggling, the lady slid from his arms.

  Swiping rainwater from his jaw and chin, Brant straightened.

  Stones clattered.

  A shrill scream echoed.

  The sound abruptly stopped, as though snatched in mid-air.

  Brant spun on his heel. The lady sprawled face-down amongst the rocks, the fingers of both hands splayed as though to keep from hitting the ground.

  “Lady Rivellaux?”

  She did not answer. She did not stir. Water pooled in the folds of her mantle.

  Brant dropped to one knee, then pushed her wet hood from her face. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. She had fallen against a rock. He pressed his shaking hand against her mouth. Thank God, she still breathed.

  Through the soaked wool of her mantle, he felt along her arms and legs. On crusade, he had learned much about broken bones and how to splint them. When his fingers slipped down to her right ankle, relief coursed through him. No limbs broken. But he could not say for her ribs or pelvis.

  He carefully lifted her, turned her over, then rested her head back against the stone. With awkward fingers, he nudged aside the hair stuck to her face. Blood, oozing from a gash on her cheekbone, smeared her right cheek and ran into a thin line, as stark as his own scar, across her delicate skin. His mouth twisted on an oath.

  Under his breath, he prayed her loveliness would not be permanently disfigured. He deserved the ugly mark on his right cheek, a reminder of his sin he must live with for the rest of his life. She did not deserve such a blemish.

  Pressing his hands to her belly, he began to search for obvious injuries. Her mantle, of fine quality yet obviously much worn, hindered his efforts. He well knew all the enticing dips and swells of a woman’s physique, but, as his fingers crept lower in a thorough yet impartial examination, a strange tension plagued him. For one unsettling moment, he felt like a clumsy, green youth, venturing into forbidden territory.

  Aye, forbidden indeed. If the lady awoke to find his hands upon her, she would no doubt scream to raise the dead in the graveyard four leagues away.

  His gaze flicked up to her face. Her mouth remained slack, her eyelids closed and still above the sweep of her lashes.

  By now, she should have stirred. Even a tiny, pained sigh.

  Concern kindled the unease burning in his gut like red-hot embers. Focusing again on his task, tilting his head down to better see past the nasal guard, he moved his hands over the curve of her hips, the slim expanse of her waist, up to the base of her ribcage.

  A scowl knitted his brow, for even through the added layer of her gown beneath, his fingertips traced the bump of her ribs. Too slender by far, this lady. His hands edged higher, toward her breasts, but before his thumbs grazed their rounded softness, he drew away.

  Shaking rainwater from his hands, he sat back on his haunches. No broken bones that he could tell, but only by taking her to a warm, dry place and stripping off her garments could he examine her body properly and know for certain—a liberty he had no desire to take.

  He did not want the burden of a wounded woman. Not when by morn, with the gold cup safely in his bag, he aimed to be hunting for the rest of the treasure. Anticipation of the quest whispered inside him with wondrous enticement.

  He could not leave her here, however, alone and unconscious. Ruffians might prey upon her. She could die of a chill. Torr would blame him for her murder, and her death would mire Brant into even deeper servitude to the manipulative bastard.

  Nudging her shoulder, he made one last attempt to rouse her. “Lady Rivellaux.”

  Her head lolled from side to side like a cloth doll’s. Her eyelids fluttered before her face contorted on a whimper.

  She was waking. “Milady, can you—?”

  Her body tensed, then went slack.

  “—hear me.”

  Bowing his head, he stared at his hands. Damnation.

  The wind shrieked, sounding like a frightened old crone. Rain slammed against him. As he wiped water from his eyes, a flash of lightning preceded the distant, terrified whinny of her mare that had become untethered. Tossing her head, reins dangling, she disappeared into the deluge.

  There was only one choice left to him.

  Brant slid one arm under the lady’s torso, the other under her legs. He lifted her into his arms. The mass of her wet hair tumbled back over his arm, while her head listed back to expose the creamy smoothness of her throat. Her scent rose to him, sweet against the storm’s earthy tang.

  “Damnation,” he muttered through clenched teeth. Drawing her closer against his chest, his mouth a grim line, he strode toward his horse.

  Chapter Two

  Through a dark fog of pain, Faye became aware of a rocking motion. The shadows in her mind shifted, swirled, and she struggled to surface from the blackness pulling at her consciousness with ghostly hands. She vaguely felt rain on her face, heard the gritty clop of hooves plodding through mud, realized she was being supported by strong arms. Then, distorted fingers of memory tugged her back down toward the darkness that tempted her with an oblivion free of anguish and nightmares.

  Recollections of that stifling hell of emptiness and torment cried out inside her, shrill as a lost child. She tried to block the shadows. Fie, but they stole in through every patched seam of her resistance. They battered down every fragile wall protecting her resolve.

  Naaayyy!

  She wanted to fight, to break free, but the hands caught her consciousness and would not let go. A moan echoed inside her as she was sucked down, down, down, and the familiar images crowded her mind.

  She lay on her back in the river’s shallows, propped up on her elbows. Swift, vicious, the agony had knocked the strength out of her limbs while she wade
d in the sun-sparkled water, waiting for her servants to finish their meal before they all continued on to the village. Gasping, she had crumpled into the river. Her body trembled in a surge of pain.

  “Lady Rivellaux!” her lady-in-waiting cried from behind her, her hand smoothing Faye’s sweat-streaked hair. Stones rattled on the shore as a man-at-arms paced. On a strangled breath, Faye prayed that the other man-at-arms would return soon with Greya, the healer from the village.

  Greya would know what to do.

  The cold water lapped against Faye’s legs and waist, gently rocking her, even as her terrified gaze shot to the bloodied gown twisted up between her thighs. Through cresting anguish, she recalled the sharp cramps from earlier that morn which had rippled through her rounded belly as well as her lower back. Shame, that she had paid them no heed.

  “A bit of discomfort is common in women with child, milady,” the serving women at the castle had assured her sennights ago. “Do not worry. You will make Lord Rivellaux very proud. You will bear him the strong, healthy heir he has desired for so many years.”

  Tears burned Faye’s eyes, and her fingers dug into the mud and stones beneath her hands. How foolish that she had not postponed her journey to have her chatelaine’s chain repaired.

  Oh, God, how—

  Twisting pain again lashed at Faye’s innards. She cried out. Her shaking hand clawed at her belly, fisting into the wet, muddied fabric as the agony came again. Warm blood gushed between her legs.

  “Nay,” she moaned. “Naaayyy!”

  A terrible weight crushed Faye’s abdomen. Pain ripped from the inside out, so intense it seared the very core of her soul. Darkness exploded around her, and from it came the echoes of splashing water, the sensation of being half lifted, half pulled to the shore.

  A sob racked Faye, even as her lady-in-waiting crouched beside her, murmuring comforting words.

  Footfalls intruded on her waning consciousness. Greya’s voice. Urgent hands pushed up Faye’s bloodied gown, then pressed on her bare belly. Cool air brushed between her legs.

  Shocked whispers.

  “Greya?” Faye moaned.

  “Hush, now,” the old woman soothed, her hands probing again. Then she gasped. “Mercy!”

  Faye struggled to form words past the blackness clouding her mind. “Please,” she said, “my babe—”

  A ripping sound, then a long silence. The gurgle of the slow-moving river, the drone of bumblebees in the sunlit meadow, the trill of birdsong seemed to fade into that awful moment which said so much, without a single spoken word.

  “A girl,” Greya finally said.

  Faye forced her watery eyes open. Greya’s lined face softened with tenderness. She cradled a little bundle wrapped in a length of cloth. A swatch torn from her own woolen gown. Her moist gaze locked with Faye’s, before she laid the motionless bundle against Faye’s breast.

  A perfect little girl with the face of a cherub. Plump cheeks. Dark eyelashes sweeping against fair skin. A rounded nose above perfect … blue … lips.

  Anguish squeezed Faye’s heart as she caught one of the baby’s tiny hands. “Oh, please—”

  “I am sorry, milady,” Greya whispered. “She was too small.”

  “Naaayyy!” The scream burst from deep inside Faye. Shrill, desperate, it flowed from the raw, gaping hole in her soul—the part of her which had communed with, nurtured, and cherished the new life growing inside her.

  Now gone.

  Faye’s throat hurt from screaming. The emptiness inside her devoured like a massive, distorted beast.

  Suffocating blackness crept into her mind. She welcomed it. Let it overshadow her body’s pain and her last, fading glimmers of consciousness.

  Closing her mind to the concerned voices around her, the gentle rocking of hands trying to nudge her awake, Faye prayed that the darkness dragged her down into an oblivion from which she would never awake.

  ***

  Bowing his head against the driving rain, Brant splashed through the muddy water swirling across the dirt path between the run-down stable and the door of The Spitting Hen Tavern. Rowdy laughter and off-key singing came from the building’s lower level, while water dripped down from the thatched, second story roof with a steady tick, tick.

  As he strode to the doorway, guided by the light streaming out into the darkness, he tilted the unconscious lady in his arms so her face remained concealed by her mantle’s hood. Best to keep her identity hidden from any curious onlookers inside. Water ran off his helm and trailed down the back of his neck, sticking his wet garments to his chilled skin. Clenching his teeth against his discomfort, he kicked open the rough-hewn door.

  The wooden panel flew in on its hinges. It smacked into the arse of a drunken sot leaning over to shout in a friend’s ear.

  “Oof!” The drunkard pitched forward. He landed belly-first on a table, sending ale mugs crashing onto the dirt floor. The earthy smell of spilled drink carried on the breeze that howled into the smoky room.

  Brant slammed the door shut with his heel.

  All laughter and singing stopped.

  The men at the disrupted table rose to glare at Brant. He glared back at them. The scruffy farmers and travelers grumbled amongst themselves, then slumped back down in their chairs.

  A low buzz of conversation resumed.

  Brant’s boots creaked as he strode to the tavern’s wooden counter. A heavy-set man with oily skin—the tavern owner whom Brant had met earlier that day when he arranged for a night’s lodging—stood there, holding a burning tallow candle to another one that had been extinguished by the blast of wind. His mouth at a faintly apprehensive slant, the owner watched Brant approach.

  “I need a hot meal sent up to my room,” Brant said, adjusting the lady’s weight in his arms. “Also, boiled water and drying cloths.”

  The man’s gaze traveled over the lady’s motionless form before he touched the flickering taper to another unlit candle. “I will see to it, milord.”

  “Be quick about it, and I will pay you twice the silver.”

  The innkeeper’s eyes brightened. With a brisk dip of his head, he pushed aside the candles and hurried through a crooked door off the main room.

  Shrugging to ease the growing strain of the woman’s weight, Brant strode toward the planked staircase that led up to the second floor. His boots sounded a hollow thud on the scarred wood. The strumpets reclining on the bottom stairs preened as he passed by. “Oy,” cooed a brunette with painted red lips. “Can I join ye in a bit o’ fun?”

  Further up, he encountered a busty wench with rouged cheeks, her skin pocked from a past illness, her brown hair escaping from her braid. She pulled her tattered skirt up to her thighs. “Deane’s me name. Will ye choose me?”

  Sweeping past the whores pawing at his wet cloak, he plodded up the stairs. He had not told the innkeeper he wanted a lusty strumpet in his bed, but mayhap they had overheard his comment about the silver. Opportunists, all of them, wanting a bit of his hard-won coin.

  On any other night, he would welcome a willing wench to his bed, but tonight … His gaze dropped to the ashen, blood-streaked face of the lady in his arms. Tonight, he already had a woman to attend.

  He reached the top of the stairs, lit by some candles on a battered table, then turned right, toward the door at the end of the hallway. The uneven floor creaked with each of his strides. Shifting the lady slightly, he reached for the room’s iron door handle and pushed the panel inward.

  The click, click of tiny clawed paws, then happy whimpers of greeting, came from the shadowed chamber. Brant stepped inside, noting that servants had lit the fire, per his prior agreement with the owner, but it had burned down.

  A warm muzzle brushed Brant’s calf. “Out of the way, Valor,” he muttered to the little dog squirming at his heels. Elbowing his way into the room, Brant lowered the lady onto the low, straw pallet against the wall. Locating the chamber’s unlit tapers in metal holders, he strode to the hall candles to light them, then r
eturned. Brant nudged the chamber door closed behind him and drew the bolt.

  He set the candles on the oak table beside the bed. The flames’ warm glow reached out into the shadows as he slid his saddlebag strap over his head and set the bag by the chair turned toward the hearth. He removed his dripping cloak and slung it over the chair back. With a relieved groan, he pulled off his helm.

  Another whimper, then a howl.

  “I hear you, Val.” Brant placed the helm on the chair and dropped down on one knee. He reached out to the little dog, whose fur looked honey-gold in the firelight. His tail wagging at a furious pace, Val scooted closer and licked Brant’s hand.

  He scratched the wavy fur between the mongrel’s shoulders and patted the small head. Val’s pink tongue lolled out of his mouth. Brant couldn’t resist a wry grin. Those brown eyes, fringed with unruly tufts of fur, stared up at him with such adoration and trust. As if Brant held the power to make everything right—or, at least, fetch some fare.

  He rubbed Val’s muzzle, while his gaze dropped to the scarred stump where the dog’s right front leg should have been. Months ago, he had made everything right for Val. A terrible choice, to have to take an animal’s leg, yet Val had quickly adapted to his infirmity. He ran as fast on three legs as most dogs on four.

  Behind him on the pallet, the lady stirred. Her hands fluttered, as though she tried to protect or defend herself, before she muttered incoherent words. Then she fell silent.

  Giving Val one last pat, Brant pushed to his feet. “Our meal is on the way. I have work to do now,” he said, crossing to the hearth. Crouching before the glazed tiles, he piled more logs on the fire’s dwindling flames.

  Warmth crackled in the strengthening blaze. Never had Brant been more aware of his soggy boots and damp garments. But he could not linger in the soothing heat.

  Val trotted at his heels as Brant returned to the bed. He crouched beside the lady. Her face looked very pale against the dun woolen blanket covering the pallet, her lips almost blue. Leaning over, he carefully removed her soaked leather shoes. Water trickled from her mantle onto the floorboards, so he carefully lifted her to slide the outer garment from her shoulders. The bedding beneath her was damp. He must remember to ask the tavern owner for more blankets when the man brought the meal.