by Diane Darcy
Or there could be absolutely nothing at all.
Her anxiety level spiked as she rushed through the graveyard. There were headstones, trees, bushes, the road curving up to the castle in the distance. But nothing and no one seemed to offer shelter.
She continued forward, passing markers, flying across the bumpy ground, the castle her only likely goal. Please, someone be there. Please, someone see what is happening and help. If only it weren’t so far away.
The hills and grass gently rose and fell and, not knowing what else to do, Gillian flat out ran for the castle. She glanced over her shoulder and stifled a scream.
She wasn’t going to make it.
Pushing herself, Gillian ran faster, fear overwhelming her to the point of numbness, an unexpected blessing.
Her strides evened out and became almost effortless, and visually, everything sharpened into focus—each clump of grass jumped over, each headstone rounded, each random flower or weed crushed beneath her shoes—every step a dreamlike, measured movement.
Exhilaration surged through her veins, and her mind sharpened to the narrow focus of a straight line to the castle. She could do this. She could make it.
She pumped her arms to increase speed. She couldn’t hear anything other than her own harsh breathing and the dry slash of grass as it buzzed her shoes. She dared to believe she was outdistancing the men.
Or perhaps they’d given up the chase?
Ignoring the sharp pain growing in her side, she finally chanced a glance over her shoulder.
They’d gained on her.
One man, his strides even and his face set with determination, easily jumped a slab and kept right on running, his pace deliberate and eating the distance between them.
Disbelief had her half-tripping on a weed, her body lunging forward, her backpack slipping to one side, knocking her slightly off balance.
Fear came rushing back.
She pulled herself forward by clutching at grass until she regained her pace, but her gait was now frantic, clumsy.
How could this be happening?
She scrambled up a small hill and ran the few steps down the slope, nearing the far side of the cemetery. She could hardly breathe as laughter sounded behind her, close, and a scream rose in her throat.
They were enjoying this! How could they be enjoying this?
She was suddenly shoved forward, and the scream escaped as she failed to regain her balance in time, and fell hard to her knees. She quickly scrambled up and turned to face them, backing away, but toward the other two coming up behind her.
The men, breathing hard, faces filled with triumph, smiled as she halted against a headstone, her heart hammering, her eyes darting for escape. “What do you want? Why are you doing this?” She could hardly get the words out. Gillian pressed a hand to her chest and sucked in air.
The men, younger than she’d assumed, slowly surrounded her, one on either side, one directly in front of her, and another behind the marker where she couldn’t see him. He chuckled and the hair rose on the back of her neck.
She latched onto the idea that they were young, perhaps even teenagers of eighteen or nineteen. Maybe this was just a game to them. Maybe they were simply out for a good time and just wanted to scare her.
If so, it was working beautifully.
Looking into the dark eyes of the young man in front of her, hope slipped away. Those eyes, the color of coffee, were pitiless, ruthless, and mocking. She was in deep trouble.
Her hand tightened to the point of pain on the vial of pepper spray, hidden by the long sleeve of her jacket. Could it disable all four of them? She was afraid if she tried to use it, it would only anger them and have unwelcome consequences for herself.
She swallowed audibly. “What do you want?” she asked again.
The boy took a swaggering step forward, his dark hair half-covering one eye, a smirk spreading on his face. Tall and lean, he wasn’t bad looking, but his intense stare, sharp-boned features, and black wardrobe intimidated.
“That there is an interesting question, isn’t it, lads?” his deep voice, lyrically charming, struck her as incongruous in the awful situation. His smile widened. “What do we want?” His face bent toward hers and the smile disappeared. “Well, what are you offering?”
His friends laughed again, low and ugly.
Gillian choked back a sob and lifted a trembling hand to ward him off. “What are you going to do?” She glanced at the others, hoping for compassion, a hint of pity or disquiet, but could see in their eyes they meant to hurt her.
The sweat on her body chilled, her heart continued its relentless thumping, and her throat tightened. She couldn’t seem to get enough air into her lungs, but her chin lifted defiantly and she straightened.
Come what may, she’d go down fighting, not cowering. If they planned to hurt her, they weren’t going to come away unscathed. Her hand tightened on the pepper spray. She could hurt them. She could leave DNA under her fingernails to convict these men later.
Of course, if they were searching for DNA under her nails, chances were she’d be dead, so it wouldn’t personally do her much good. She’d watched too many Cold Case Files not to be kicking herself right now. Why had she isolated herself? Stupid, stupid, stupid! She knew better. One minute she’d been peacefully enjoying the countryside, and the next, hunted and afraid this might be her last day on earth. Her last hour. And it was her own fault!
“What do you want?” She asked the question again, more calmly this time. “Why are you chasing me?”
The young men snickered, obviously loving the power they held over her. The power of life and death. The man in front, obviously their leader, lifted a hand. “Well, for a start, pretty girl, we want that gold ring hanging from your neck. Why don’t you give us a look-see then, and, after, we’ll talk about anything else you may have that we might be wanting.” As the men laughed, their leader’s gaze dropped briefly to her chest, and there was no mistaking the lascivious intent.
Her hand flew to the ring. “It was my father’s ring. An heirloom. I treasure it because it was his. I-it’s engraved and everything,” she stuttered. “Y-you can’t have it.”
“Bad luck that, because actually, I can.” So quickly she didn’t have time to flinch, he knocked her hand away and grabbed the ring in his fist, scratching her chest with a long, hard fingernail.
Gillian shrieked, sucked in a breath, and sprayed him full in the face with a red stream of pepper spray.
He screamed and her chain pinched the back of her neck as it stretched taut and broke. He dropped to his knees yelling, holding his face, and gasping.
Through squinted, burning eyes, Gillian saw the ring fly through the air, the gold flashing, before it landed on a patch of matted grass behind the man writhing on the ground.
“Get her!” screamed the downed man. She jumped over him, made a dive for the ring, snatched it up, and ran. She shoved the ring onto her middle finger, scraping the skin and cutting herself in the process.
With blood dripping onto the grass, she ran, expecting to feel a hand or two quickly dragging her down. Gillian’s eyes burned and dizziness overwhelmed her. She didn’t remember tripping on anything, but fell for what seemed a long distance. Her knee landed hard on a rock, the pain so intense her vision blacked for a moment.
Fighting the darkness, she crawled, scrambled against a headstone, and tried to pull herself up. She finally stood, and forced her body into a limping run toward the other side of the cemetery where the graves seemed newer, better tended, and mounded with the recently deceased.
Strange she hadn’t noticed those before.
The men hadn’t grabbed her yet, and she didn’t dare waste a second to look back. Blinded by tears, her chest and knee aching, she limped out of the graveyard only to be faced by men on horseback.
A sob escaped her as she stopped, stunned. Where had they come from?
She pivoted to look for the men chasing her, but no one was there. She turned aroun
d to see a good-looking blond maneuver his horse to get a better look at her. He leaned forward in his saddle and smiled. “Well, well, what have we here?”
Her face slack with confusion, Gillian whipped her head around again, looking for the men who’d been on the verge of attacking. There was nothing but . . .
Gillian gasped as a village, and the well-fortified castle beyond, came into focus.
Where was she?
She slowly turned to the men on horseback. They’d completely surrounded her now, every one of them dressed in medieval knight’s garb.
Had these men scared the others off? Had she hit her head? Was she unconscious and dreaming? She looked at a nearby headstone. Was she dead?
“Excuse me, sir. But can you tell me what just happened?”
The blond man’s smile turned into a leer. “With a surety, I can tell you what is soon to pass.”
Gillian swallowed and tried to move away. She glanced at the faces of the men surrounding her, and each sneering, sly, suggestive grin made her wonder if she’d escaped a bad situation, only to land herself in a worse one. What was going on?
Chapter 2
“You goatish, idle-headed, footlicker—”
Kellen’s sword clashed with Sir Tristan’s, cutting off his friend’s familiar insults, and he tried not to laugh as Tristan attempted to force a retreat. Kellen welcomed both the effort and the exuberance displayed.
Sir Owen, as well as most of the other men, stopped training to watch. “Come, Tristan, press forward! You can defeat him! He’s been in a foul mood for months now, and this is your chance to pay him in kind!”
Tristan continued to strain, his face red and damp. As he was one of the few with enough experience and muscle, and therefore a slim chance of beating him, Kellen was having more sport than he’d had in months.
“Aaaahhhhh!” Tristan managed to shove Kellen off, only to fall forward. Tristan’s face went from triumphant to angry as he realized Kellen had moved apurpose, and Kellen laughed aloud at Tristan’s wild expression, reminiscent of battles past.
On the sidelines, Sir Owen’s cheeks reddened and he shook a fist. “Come, Tristan, fight harder. ’Tis not our fault his bride is late in coming. Defeat him!”
Off to the side, three young boys commenced cheering for Kellen, and Sir Owen turned to chase them away. Shrieking, they ran out of reach.
Kellen’s smile widened. It was the first time he’d felt alive in months. The first his spirits had lifted since his wife’s death. Tristan, breathing hard, ran at him and they took up the fight again, swords clashing, metal sliding, muscles straining. Kellen snickered at Tristan’s obvious frustration. “Tired?”
“Nay, curse you, you puny, beslubbering wretch.” Tristan hacked like a novice with his sword. “You infectious bunched-backed haggard. You cold-hearted miscreant.”
Swords clashed a few more times, then Kellen slid his sword around Tristan’s, metal slipping against metal, disarming the man. Kellen kicked Tristan’s feet out from under him, and set the tip of his sword against his throat.
Breathing hard, Tristan pounded the dirt with a fist, gulped in air, and finally smiled his usual gamine grin. “Have I mentioned I admire such qualities in you?”
Kellen laughed again and backed away. “Many times.”
Sir Owen groaned, threw up his arms, and turned away. The men moved back to their training.
Tristan threw Kellen a dark look as he surged to his feet and quickly retrieved his sword. “Not so many times as all that.”
“Again?”
Tristan took up his stance and Kellen circled.
Kellen understood the point his men were trying to make. He’d been irritable, bad-tempered, and impossible to live with. Mayhap they’d all needed a good tussle to clear the air, and if it had the added benefit of keeping him from brooding, so much the better.
It had been almost eight months since his wife’s death, and he had yet to wait another five weeks for his new bride to arrive. Corbett had already moved the date back twice. Would Kellen declare war on the Corbetts if they didn’t bring their daughter this time? He was considering it, but wasn’t sure he had the stomach for the deed. But he needed an heir and, to his mind, they owed him one.
Two of his foster boys came running, breathing hard, excited. “My lord, someone is on our property. We can see them from the top of the gatehouse.”
Kellen and Tristan both stepped back, checking their swords. Kellen ignored the fact that the boys had been where they should not. Their fascination with the murder hole was understandable, but dangerous just the same. “Scottish?”
One of the boys, Lord Marlowe’s son, eyes gleaming, shrugged and shook his head. “I do not know, my lord. ’Tis too far away.”
Grimly pleased, Kellen smiled. A real fight was exactly what he needed to take his mind off his problems. He turned to his men still training on the field. “Mount up.”
Excited whoops were followed by a quick scramble toward the stables and, minutes later, Kellen rode out, his men behind him. They quickly made their way through the village, across a vast, wet field, and closed in on the cemetery where a group of riders huddled together. Kellen was disappointed to see it was just his neighbor, Sir Robert Royce, and some of his men.
Tristan, now riding beside Kellen, remarked, “It’s that pox-marked, fly-bitten, eye-offending lout, Royce.”
“I can see that.”
But there was nothing offensive about Royce’s looks other than he’d been born pretty enough to be female. As lads, they’d been companions, taking their training together, fostering with Lord Wallington. But Kellen’s fighting ability caused awe and admiration among their lord, others, and finally the king. That, in turn, caused jealousy on Royce’s part. No doubt it hadn’t helped that Kellen and the other boys had once forced Royce into a gown.
Eventually all had been forgiven and they’d fought side by side in several battles, at home and across the ocean. Afterward, Royce tried his hand in beating Kellen at several tournaments, but of course, had as little luck as any other against him. They’d grown distant in the last few years, and even more so when Lord Wallington died on Royce’s watch, something Kellen could never quite forgive.
“Does this mean we don’t get to fight?” Tristan asked.
Kellen considered. Mayhap they should take this opportunity to rile Royce. Lax as ever, the idiot did not even see them coming, as he and his men looked at something on the ground. They were laughing and Royce appeared vastly amused. Kellen, curious, signaled for his men to spread out.
Royce and his followers finally turned at their approach, and Kellen saw a girl in their midst. She was in a state of partial undress, wearing short breeches that formed to her figure, and in no way, hid a beautiful set of legs, and a tunic so tight, it concealed nothing of her body.
If she’d been trying to pass for a lad, she’d failed miserably. She was attractive, curvy, and blonde as his wife had been. Her long hair tumbled about her shoulders.
Fear was evident in the girl’s face, but the beauty’s fists clenched and unclenched and she looked ready to fight. One of the villagers? Kellen hadn’t seen her before and would have surely remembered if he had.
Royce’s men quieted as Kellen moved in, looking between Royce and the girl. “What is happening here?” Kellen asked, his mild tone apparently not putting anyone at ease as their expressions remained wary.
The girl answered before Royce had the chance. “These men are scaring me. They won’t back off. I just want to get back to my car. Could you please help me?”
Not a villager, then. Her speech was strange, but Kellen was able to sort through her words and understand most of them.
He looked around for a nearby carriage, but was unsurprised when he didn’t see one. With spring barely over, flooding had washed the road out in several places, and it wasn’t yet dry enough for cart nor carriage to travel on.
He addressed Royce. “Why are you and your men on my property? Who is thi
s girl?”
Royce lifted his chin. “Some of my livestock went missing, and we were searching out the thieves when we came across the chit.”
“You were thinking to find your cattle on my land?” Kellen’s words were smooth as silk. “Are you making an accusation?”
Royce went still for a moment, then smiled slowly, that smirky lifting of lips that always made Kellen want to punch him in the mouth. Or stick him in a dress. “Of course not. I simply think the thieves used this route. Scottish, no doubt.”
Tristan and Sir Owen moved forward to get a better look at the girl. “She does not look Scottish,” said Sir Owen. “But you never know. As weedy as your cattle are, perhaps she’s hidden the beasts behind her back?”
Kellen’s men laughed. Royce’s did not.
The girl raised a hand to her forehead as if dizzy, and Kellen froze. As impossible as it seemed, the ring she wore looked to possess the Corbett emblem.
Off his horse in an instant, Kellen quickly covered the ground between them, grabbed her arm and lifted her hand. She hit him in the chest with her free fist, but he barely noticed as he studied the ring.
There could be no doubt. The Corbett coat-of-arms, a raven in flight, glinted bright and clear in the sun. Kellen would know it anywhere, having endured Corbett’s insulting missives of excuse in past months, the raven seal always seeming to mock him.
He quickly looked about, but saw no other knights, near nor in the distance, only Royce’s. Could Corbett’s men be hiding? He turned to Sir Owen. “Search the trees.”
Had Corbett simply dumped her here? Was he afraid to face Kellen? Did he truly fear Kellen’s wrath enough to leave his daughter to make her own way to the castle? To leave her vulnerable to attack? It was cowardly and insulting to them both. Kellen had always respected the man in the past, but no more.
Kellen studied his bride’s face. Edith was her name, if he remembered aright. She was lovely, with blue eyes exotically tilted at the corners and fringed with lashes as dark and thick as any he’d seen before. At least her features were nothing like those of her sister. She was even more beautiful, but in a completely different way. “Come.”
