Impostress

by Lisa Jackson

  Kelan’s band was no longer alone. Groups of travelers appeared on the road as they closed in on Penbrooke. Huntsmen and soldiers, peasants lugging huge baskets, older children running along the muddy ruts while younger ones clung to their mothers’ skirts. Oxen, horses, and mules slogged onward, straining against their harnesses and yokes, pulling heavy carts laden with crops, goods, and trinkets.

  The muddy road curved through thickets of oak and spilled into fields surrounding a keep the likes of which Kiera had never seen. The rain had stopped, and the sight before her seemed nearly enchanted as a pale winter sun cast rays against the castle and its surrounding grounds. Kiera had been certain the old priest had been exaggerating when he’d spoken of Kelan’s home, but she’d been wrong. Penbrooke was a massive, sprawling castle sculpted from light gray stone. Eight square towers spired high into the sky, and a wide curtain wall extended far from the keep to encircle and protect the town.

  “Did I not tell you?” Father Barton asked proudly. “As fine a keep as any in the land.”

  Kelan quickened the pace, urging his mount faster, and the other horses followed at a swift gallop. The wind tore at Kiera’s hair, slapping her face, tearing the breath from her lungs, and she felt exhilaration mixed with that awful, never ending sense of dread. Hoofbeats ringing, the horses raced across a drawbridge and into the town teeming with merchants, peasants, animals, and children. As impatient as Kelan was, he had to slow as the streets were cluttered. Artisans and craftsmen sold their wares off tables. Peddlers and farmers had positioned their carts and wagons on the sides of the narrow streets and were offering their goods while people milled about, clogging the road.

  Over the hum of conversation and the creak of wheels, one man’s gruff voice caught Kelan’s attention.

  “Bless you and your new wife, m‘lord!” The skinny man was holding a cap in his hands, worrying the tattered wool. “ ’Tis sorry I am about your mother.”

  Kelan drew up hard. “My mother.” His face drained of color. “She’s not already passed on!”

  “Nay, oh, nay, Lord Kelan. I meant not to alarm you, but to express me concerns.”

  “Thank God.” Kelan managed a tight smile at the rail-thin man. “Thank you, Tom.”

  “Surely the physician will be able to help her.” This time it was a woman who spoke. She was carrying a baby while a toddler clung to her skirts and peeked up at Kelan with shy eyes.

  “Lady Lenore, she’s a strong one, she is. She’ll be fine,” said another woman wearing a heavy apron and a scarf wound around her head. She was nodding rapidly, as if agreeing with herself.

  “Me and the missus, our prayers be with ye and yer family, m’lord.” This from yet another man in a stocking cap and huntsman’s garb.

  The apple-cheeked woman at his side offered a bit of a smile. “Welcome home, Lord Kelan. ’Tis better I feel, knowin’ yer here in the keep. And congratulations on yer wedding.” Her gaze skated to Kiera before returning to Kelan. “May the Father bless you and the lady with many sons.”

  Astride her mare, Kiera closed her eyes, wished she could shut her ears. She felt the gazes of the curious turned in her direction and she dared not meet even one.

  “Is that the baron’s new wife? A tiny thing she is,” one cackling voice observed.

  Kiera’s eyes flew open, but she didn’t glance in the direction of the conversation.

  “Shh, Esme. She’s got ears, y’know.”

  “Is it true she didn’t want to marry Lord Kelan? By the saints, what’s wrong with her? Has she no eyes? I’d kick me husband out of the bed any day of the week for an hour or two with the baron. If he’s half the man he looks, he’d know how to keep a woman satisfied.” Esme cackled, amused at her own joke.

  “Hush! Are ye daft? She can hear ye!”

  “Oh, bother,” Esme, the cackler, muttered, her voice fading only to erupt in another nasty laugh. Kiera wanted to shrink into the sodden ground. What was she doing here, riding past the shops of the village? She was an outsider, and not only that but she was a fraud. These people—freemen and serfs, knights and merchants, husbands and wives—all seemed to show respect for Kelan, even revered him a bit. And she was a traitor amid them all, a liar of the highest order, a pretender.

  Kelan led them through another gate with its yawning portcullis to the grassy area of the outer bailey. He urged his tired horse to a lope, passing an eel pond where ducks swam through the reeds. Tadd spurred his horse forward so that he was on his brother’s heels with Kiera’s mount close behind.

  Across the bent grass, beneath bare apple and plum trees, past sheds that housed the livestock, the horses galloped. Goats bleated while pigs rooted and grunted from their pens, and everywhere men and women who had been working stopped long enough to nod at their lord or wave at some of the soldiers. They all knew that he’d left Penbrooke to marry. Now he had returned with his bride, and Kiera didn’t dare imagine how he would feel when the truth was known by all these people.

  She swallowed against a dry throat and tried not to think of the days ahead, of what would happen to her. To Kelan. To Elyn. Oh, dear God, where was her sister? Why had Elyn abandoned her and why, oh, why, did Kiera now feel a tiny bit of hope that she would never have to give up her misgotten title of Kelan’s wife? What had got into her?

  For the moment she could only follow Kelan through another gate to the inner bailey, where huts lined the walls, and the whitewashed keep, a fortress within these wide curtain walls, rose four full stories. The kitchen was detached, with a covered walkway leading to the great hall. The chapel, too, was separate, and the huts lining the inner walls were crafted uniquely, each more of a shop unto itself.

  Kiera had never seen anything so formidable, nor so grand, as Penbrooke Castle. The long-winded priest hadn’t stretched the truth an inch.

  Kelan’s mount slid to a stop at the steps of the great hall, and he was off the horse before the page, a pockmarked boy with wild hair, had reached him.

  “Take care of Fate, Will,” Kelan ordered, his expression grim.

  “Aye, m’lord.”

  “And the lady’s horse as well.”

  He had turned to help her dismount from her tired mount as Tadd vaulted from his steed, tossed the boy his reins, and headed up the stairs to the keep.

  As Kiera slid from the saddle, Kelan reached up, helping her land on the soft turf. “Come with me,” he ordered, taking her hand and starting for the stairs.

  Tadd had already disappeared within and before the door could swing shut, a tall, imposing woman dashed outside. “Thank God you’re here,” she said tightly. “ ’Tis mother ...” Her voice cracked. “I don’t think she will last out the night.” Tears glistened in eyes as blue as a midnight sky.

  “Sweet Jesus.” A muscle worked in Kelan’s jaw, and his grip on Kiera’s fingers tightened.

  “You’d best see her now.”

  “Aye.” He glanced at Kiera. “This is my sister, Morwenna. Morwenna, my wife, Elyn.”

  “Oh.” For the first time the taller woman glanced at Kiera and when she did, something sparked in her eyes. “Elyn?” Tiny furrows drew her eyebrows together as wind tore at her hair and rain drizzled from the sky. “Nay.” Impatienty she glanced at her brother again. “I have no time for jokes, brother,” she said angrily. “This is not Elyn of Lawenydd.”

  Panic gripped Kiera. Her heart nose-dived. Oh, God, all was lost!

  “What do you mean, not Elyn?” Kelan demanded furiously.

  “Just what I said.” Morwenna’s eyes scoured every inch of Kiera’s face. “I’ve met Elyn. Years ago. At Castle Fenn. And you,” she said to Kiera, “are not the same woman!”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Oh, by the saints, no! Morwenna had met Elyn?

  Kiera’s breath stopped still, but her mind was whirling. She could not have her web of lies undone yet. Sweat collected on her back though it was winter cold outside. “Of course we met,” she said quickly, silently praying she wouldn’t say the
wrong thing and strengthen Kelan’s sister’s doubts. ” ’Twas the time when my father sent me there to learn the ways of being a lady.” She managed a coy smile. “I think he thought it was a waste of time.”

  Morwenna’s frown deepened and her blue eyes clouded suspiciously as she stared at Kiera. “Mayhap I’m mistaken,” she said, though she didn’t sound convinced.

  “You are,” Kelan asserted, and Kiera shrank inside. She wanted him to believe her, but not to the point that he would embarrass himself later. Oh, how she hated this deceit. If she could get her hands on her sister ...

  “Well, there is no time to get reacquainted now. We’ll talk of it later. Mother has been waiting for you. Please, we must hurry.”

  Kiera forced her wooden legs to move. As she walked into the great hall, her lungs were so constricted she could barely breathe. What if Morwenna could not be convinced that Kiera was Elyn? What then?

  The keep was twice the size of Lawenydd’s. A fire raged in a grate that was large enough to hold a horse, brilliant tapestries decorated whitewashed walls, and a musician’s balcony was perched high on the far wall. Tables were pushed to the side, and a raised dais covered with rush mats supported an intricately carved table that ran the width of one end of the hall.

  Rushlights flickered, servants scurried down hallways, and the castle hounds, shaggy, spotted beasts, barked and bounded toward Kelan, their tails whipping so frantically that their backsides wriggled.

  How would she ever learn how to navigate through these intricate corridors? How would she ever be able to escape the castle to find Elyn? ’Twas impossible. Ridiculous. Immensely so.

  Kiera hardly had time to contemplate her sorry fate, for Morwenna snapped her fingers at a servant woman gossiping near a thick velvet curtain.

  “Rhynn!”

  The woman’s head jerked up. She sported hair that had once been fiery red but now had begun to gray. Her eyes were tiny and her chin had a deep cleft. “M’lady?” she asked, her skin coloring a bit as she realized she’d been caught being idle.

  “This is the baron’s new wife, Lady Elyn,” Morwenna said, her lips pinching a little as she said the name. “Please, Rhynn, look after her needs. See that she’s made comfortable in her quarters. Have a bath prepared, food and wine brought up. Make certain that she is able to get settled and rested.”

  “Aye, m’lady,” the servant replied, though her eyes sparked rebelliously.

  Morwenna didn’t notice, nor pay any attention. She was already following Kelan up the wide staircase, leaving Kiera alone with this tiny, dour servant.

  “Come along upstairs, m’lady,” she said. She didn’t so much as crack a smile as she caught sight of a slight girl with long arms and skinny legs who was diligently sweeping the staircase. Rhynn repeated Morwenna’s instructions, sending the girl after bathwater, food, and drink. “I apologize for Nell in advance,” she said as the girl scurried away. “Not right in the head is she. Your rooms are this way.” Kiera immediately disliked the judgmental servant and hoped that the rest of the staff was more pleasant.

  Rhynn led Kiera up three flights of stairs, the very steps that Kelan had dashed up only moments before. She’d watched him take the stairs two at a time and felt a stab of disappointment that he never so much as glanced over his shoulder at her.

  Of course he had to see his mother; she understood that. But as she glimpsed only a portion of this immense keep, spying chambers and dark corridors that angled from the staircase on each floor, her despair grew. How would she ever sneak away from the labyrinth that was Penbrooke? How would she ever find Elyn? Was she destined forever to live this lie?

  And would that be so bad?

  Of course it was! Oh, she must be so tired she could no longer think straight. She had to tell the baron the truth. Soon. Before things got worse. Even if it meant she would have to suffer the consequences. But not tonight. Not just yet. Not until she had everything sorted out in her mind and had exhausted every opportunity of finding Elyn.

  “In here,” Rhynn directed, opening the door to a spacious chamber with a wide, canopied bed that faced a grate nearly as large as the one she’d glimpsed in the great hall. Curved windows overlooked the inner bailey. Tapestries, sconces, and weapons adorned the walls, and sweet-smelling rush mats covered the stone floor. Aside from the bed. there were two chairs, a short bench, and a small table crowded together. Two alcoves veered from the main chamber, each opening to spacious rooms. “I’ll check on Nell and see that a bath is being brought up, but that might take a while, so mayhap you would like to rest,” Rhynn said as she turned down the bed. “There’s water in the basin, and the latrine is just down the hallway, outside the door to the left. Now, is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Nay. I’ll be fine. Thank you, Rhynn.”

  “I’ll be back shortly to see that your bag has been brought up. I’ll make sure that the cook realizes you need food and drink. A stubborn one, he is, and doesn’t like his routine disturbed, but I’ll see that you aren’t forgotten.” Her eyes glittered a bit. “You’ll find that some of the servants here are a bit lazy, not that I’m gossiping, mind you, but they’ll need to be watched carefully. The laundress, oh, she’s a slothful one, always barking orders to the girls, the cook is stubborn, and the butler samples too much of the wine ... oh, well, I’ve said too much. I’ll see to them all, I will, and you’ll not have to worry, for I won’t let any of them take advantage of you.”

  “Thank you, Rhynn,” Kiera said again, her dislike for the woman growing, “but I think I can deal with the servants myself.”

  Rhynn’s smile tightened as she walked to the door. “As you wish, m’lady, but if you need any help, or ... information about the keep, I’m at your service.”

  “I’ll remember that.” Kiera didn’t trust this servant an inch and was grateful when she slipped into the hallway and the door closed with a soft thud behind her.

  Thank God.

  Kiera was left alone for the first time in days. She wanted nothing more than to collapse on the bed, close her eyes, and squeeze out the world, but she couldn’t. Not before she figured a way out of this mess. Her mission was to talk to every person she met and find out about the workings of Penbrooke. As lord, Kelan would have a daily round to attend to, business to conduct, and surely he would be behind in his work. And the vastness and the intricacies of the castle would provide her excuses for hours alone. In that time, she’d either find Elyn or tell Kelan the truth.

  “I want to meet your bride before I die,” Lenore insisted as she lay in her immense bed with her children gathered around her. She looked so frail and birdlike, barely a skeleton. The physician was tending to her, but he was a useless man who scurried about appearing busy while Kelan’s mother was wasting away.

  “Elyn is weary from the journey, but she will visit you in the morn.”

  Lenore moved her head upon her pillows. “Promise me you will have sons. Many sons,” she whispered, and Kelan caught the stiffening of his sister Morwenna’s spine. All of her life she’d carried the weight of not being firstborn, and not being male. He’d heard often enough what she thought of that. “Some of us are not so lucky as to have been born with a royal scepter dangling between our legs,” she’d said baldly when she’d been dispatched to learning embroidery and Kelan had been taken out hunting.

  “Women have other attributes,” their father had explained. “ ’Tis a clever woman’s wiles that cause men to go to war or create great alliances. Use what you’ve been given wisely, Morwenna, and you, Kelan and Tadd, be careful with your ... what did you call them?” he’d asked his eldest girl. “Royal scepters? They can be the source of much pleasure or intense pain.”

  Morwenna had always harbored a bit of jealousy against her brothers. When Kelan had been forced to accept this arranged marriage, Morwenna at seventeen had swallowed a smile and told him it was his “duty” to marry the woman that their father had chosen for him. It was the curse of the firstborn. Bryan
na, his middle sister, had thought it incredibly romantic that he was to set out and claim his bride. But then at fourteen she was forever lost in romantic dreams. And Daylynn, the baby, not yet twelve, had giggled openly at the thought of her wayward older brother, who had at one time been banished from the castle by their father, now doing the old man’s bidding. Even from the grave, Lord Alwyn’s will had been imposed.

  Now, however, all Kelan’s siblings were stone-cold sober. Even Daylynn’s usually laughing eyes were sad as Lenore of Penbrooke’s children surrounded her bed.

  “Take your lesson from Kelan,” Lenore rasped, her voice rough and frail. “He married a woman he didn’t know, a woman he didn’t want, but he did it because it was best for Penbrooke. For the family. All of you must do the same. Form strong alliances, have children .... oh, I wish I would be here to see them all.” She blinked rapidly and Kelan’s heart tore.

  Though he and his father had always been at odds, he had loved his mother. She had always been his champion, forever forgiven him his mistakes, even during those dark days when he seemed lost to her. Now, as she gripped his hand in her fingers, he felt a deep pang of regret. For his willfulness. For his rebellion. The subject of Kelan’s marriage had always been a sore point between him and his father. Alwyn had forever been plotting about who would make the best alliance and on one particular night had been heavy into his cups. As always, Kelan had balked at his father’s scheme. His father and he had exchanged words and the argument had escalated to the point that Alwyn had drawn a sword. Kelan had taken up the challenge, defying the old man and showing him up, stripping him of his weapon. His father had been mortified, and Kelan had only made matters worse by toying with the older man, for which he’d been banished. Alwyn had borne the scar his eldest had inflicted upon him, a neat little cut on his chin, and Kelan regretted that little flick of his wrist that had drawn his father’s blood.

  He’d left Penbrooke, run afoul of the law, and finally, realizing that his father was dying, returned. The old man had forgiven him but demanded that he marry Elyn of Lawenydd, and Kelan had agreed. Reluctantly, like the prodigal son, he had been restored to his place of honor as firstborn and to this day Kelan was tormented by his past. Oh, if he could change things so that he had never turned his back on his family and nearly broken his mother’s heart. She, who had never lost faith in him, had prayed for him, welcomed him back into the family with open arms and tears in her eyes. And now she was dying and there was nothing he could do.