Every muscle tense, ready for action, she planted her feet. “When I am your wife, you will have the right to command me. Until that time, I am free.”
“Free?” he scoffed, gesturing at the chamber with his dagger. “You’re not free at all.” His expression changed to fierce anger as he pointed to his feet with the tip of his weapon. “Now come here and kiss me, or I’ll make you sorry you refused.”
“No.”
“Always proud, always stubborn,” Osburn jeered. He shoved the knife into his belt. “Very well. This time—this once—I’ll come to you.”
He strode toward her and reached out for her. She deftly twisted away from him. He whirled around, his back now to the wall. She put her hands on his chest and with all her might, pushed him against the wall.
“What in the name—!” he cried, putting out his arms, his hands against the stones that were not loose. The stones shifted back a few inches. He lost his balance, but that was all.
She ran to the door. With a furious cry, he caught her by the arm and swung her around. Her shoulder ached as he tugged her close. “You stupid bitch!” he snarled, his whole body seeming to seethe with rage. “Can’t you see you’ve lost? You’re mine, and you will be for the rest of your life! If you don’t want to suffer—and by God, I’ll make you!—you’ll do what I tell you. Whatever I tell you.”
Cursing him for the loathsome, disgusting beast he was, she kicked and hit him as hard as she could, in any way she could. He could not draw his dagger if he had to fend her off.
“Let her go, Osburn.”
Neither Isabelle nor Osburn had heard the chamber door open. They both stared at Alexander DeFrouchette, limned in the torchlight from the burning brand in the corridor outside. He looked huge. His cloak was thrown over his shoulder, his sword drawn, and on his face was an expression of such outrage that he looked like the very embodiment of a warrior heritage stretching back for centuries.
“Get out!” Osburn screeched, letting go of her to pull out his dagger. “You’ve no business here, DeFrouchette. I’ll call the guards! Let’s see how you fare against the Brabancons.”
Alexander kicked the door closed behind him, shutting the three of them together in the room. “The Brabancons will not risk their lives for you, Osburn.”
He tossed his sword onto the bed, and with slow, deliberate movements began to take off his cloak. He threw that on the bed, too. He had a length of rope slung around his shoulder.
What was that for? Osburn stared at it, obviously wondering, too.
“I have given this lady my word she will be safe, and I mean to keep it.” His lips curved in a sneer as the rope followed his cloak and sword onto the bed. “I don’t expect you to understand that. It’s time we settled this matter, Osburn, man to man. If you want the lady, you must fight for her.”
“I’ll do no such thing!” Osburn cried, still waving his dagger at Alexander as Isabelle began sidling toward the door. With both of them occupied, she could get away. She didn’t doubt that Alexander would triumph, but what then would her fate be?
Crouching, his fists raised to protect his face, Alexander closed on his armed opponent. “You may keep the dagger, Osburn. It won’t make any difference.”
“Get back!” Osburn cried, panic in his voice and tears starting in his eyes. “I’ll kill you!”
“As I told a certain lady, you are most welcome to try.”
Isabelle moved another foot toward the door, then halted as Osburn lunged at Alexander.
Alexander grabbed his wrist. Osburn’s face contorted with pain but, desperate, he did not let go of his knife. He managed to twist away and free himself.
He ran at her. As she dove for the door, he got hold of the back of her gown and tugged her close. Wrapping his arm about her, he held his dagger at her throat. She stood perfectly still, certain Osburn would kill her as he had his father if he thought that was the only way to save himself. “What will you do now, DeFrouchette?” he said, gloating.
She stared at Alexander, knowing that he was her only hope.
Yet knowing that, her fear diminished, even as the blade of Osburn’s dagger pricked her throat.
“We are fighting for the lady, not with the lady,” Alexander noted with a cold, deliberate calm. “If you would prove yourself a man worthy of such a woman, Osburn, let her go and leave this between the two of us.”
“You think I’m stupid, too! You’re a trained fighter, DeFrouchette, like those Brabancons below. What chance have I against a man like you?”
Alexander’s frosty blue eyes regarded Osburn with a warrior’s intensity, and his whole body tensed with anticipation. “You should have thought of that before you attacked the lady.”
Isabelle bit her lip as the dagger pressed more against her throat. “She is mine, DeFrouchette, not yours. You were but the soldier sent to fetch her.”
“I will never be yours,” Isabelle muttered through clenched teeth, determined to get away if he loosened his hold on her for a moment.
Alexander’s eyes flared with admiration, and then he smiled a smile of such icy deliberation that it made Osburn tremble. “You hear her, Osburn? Do you think you could ever really conquer her?”
Osburn’s grip tightened about her and she felt a trickle of blood as his knife scored her throat. “I mean it, DeFrouchette! I’ll kill her if you come any closer.”
“If you do, I’ll gladly disembowel you. Slowly.”
That gave her the moment. Osburn was so frightened, the dagger wavered, and in that instant, she shoved her left elbow hard into his belly and pushed his hand away with her right. Freed, she lunged forward.
With a screech, Osburn tried to grab her. His feet got tangled in her skirts and together they fell to the floor.
Ignoring Osburn, who lay moaning and unmoving, Alexander swiftly helped her to her feet. His gaze anxiously searched her face. “Are you hurt?”
She wiped the cut across her throat with the cuff of her gown. “It’s not deep.”
“Thank God! If I had come any later—!” He left the rest unsaid as he gathered her into his arms.
For a moment, she delighted in the comfort of his embrace, but only a moment, for she could not forget his earlier betrayal.
She stepped back. “Your confederate is wounded, I think.”
His eyes flared with dismay, but he said nothing as he went to kneel beside the fallen Osburn and rolled him over.
Isabelle gasped. Osburn’s dagger protruded from his chest. He had fallen on his own knife, the force thrusting it between his ribs. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, and he was not moaning anymore.
His eyes glassy, Osburn stared up at DeFrouchette. “Perhaps I am a fool after all,” he said, gasping for every breath. “But you’ll never have her, either.”
A bubble of blood formed between his lips, and when it broke, he died.
Alexander rose and turned toward her. “I’ve come to take you back to Bellevoire.”
Uncertain, doubtful, trying not to believe him or have hope in him, she moved back toward the door. “Below, you said—”
“I said what was necessary to avert suspicion.”
“How can I trust you? You might be taking me away to sell to the Norsemen.”
“I might, but I’m not. I came to your chamber to help you escape. That’s why I brought the rope.”
Oh, how she wanted to believe him! But how could she, after all that he had done? What evidence was there that she could put her faith in the son of Rennick DeFrouchette?
“We must hurry, my lady, before Oswald or the Brabancons wonder where Osburn is.”
“Oswald is dead.” She glanced at the body on the floor. “Osburn killed him.”
Alexander followed her gaze. “I should have seen that coming. He is as his father made him, as I am.”
Isabelle shook her head as she went toward him. “I would have said so once, but if you are truly going to help me get home, you are a better man than your father would hav
e made you.”
Gratitude crossed his face, but he said no more before he bent and rolled Osburn’s body into a corner of the room. When that was done, he faced her and spoke with a soldier’s brisk efficiency. “We are going out the window, as you did before. Denis and Kiera will be waiting for us on the wall walk, then we will climb down from there.”
“Kiera?”
“Denis would not leave her, and now I’m glad he would not. A terrible fate would have awaited her with the Brabancons, now that Osburn is dead.”
“I’m glad she’s coming, too,” she said as she joined him at the window.
They worked silently, and as she slowly lifted down the stones, she marveled at the ease with which he did this task.
He caught her looking at him. “I worked for a mason, remember? I have carried heavier stones than these many a time.”
She nodded and went back to work, thinking of his past, and her own.
When the last stone was on the floor, she straightened and arched her aching back. He was already lifting and dragging the bed across the floor toward the window, no doubt intending to anchor the rope to the post, as she had done.
In preparation, she hiked up her skirt and tucked it into her girdle. “I can’t climb with my skirt around my ankles,” she explained when she saw him looking at her legs.
“I see. Come here.” His deep voice was low, and his eyes seemed to smolder in the moonlight like a tinder glowing in the dusk.
She moved toward him hesitantly, uncertain of what he wanted, yet unable to resist his entreaty.
“Stand still. I need to tie the rope around you.”
She stood as stiffly as any soldier facing his commander while he took the free end of the rope and passed it around her waist.
His fingers skimmed over her bodice, the way his thumb had skimmed over her nipple. She felt them tighten and pucker. Her breathing quickened, and she tried to ignore the throbbing blossoming lower in her body.
Biting her lip, she raised her head so that she was looking at the beams in the ceiling and not at him while he knotted the rope. They were about to flee, not make love.
When he finished and straightened, he was very, very close. She could see his chest rising and falling as rapidly as her own. She could almost feel his heartbeat against her breasts. She raised her eyes to his face, his lips, and then wished she hadn’t. She must not trust him beyond getting away from here, and she must not believe that he cared for her.
His brow furrowed and his gaze intensified. “I gave you my word you would be safe. I do not break my pledges, my lady.”
She regarded him steadily, her gaze searching his face, and especially his brilliant blue eyes. “And of course, you will still get the ransom.”
His gaze hardened and he stepped back. “I’ll lower you to the wall walk where Denis is waiting, then come down after you.”
He braced his feet, ready to play out the rope as she made her way down.
She crawled backward through the space, and with the rope tied about her waist and Alexander to lower her, she was not nearly so afraid. There was still that horrible moment when she was half in and half out, but once she had purchase on the rough stones with the soles of her feet, that terror departed.
Although she held onto the rope tightly, it was merely to steady herself, so her hands did not suffer nearly as much.
Nor was it raining. The moonlight made it more dangerous, though, because they might be seen by the sentries on the wall walk. She was glad that Alexander lowered her quickly.
When she was a few feet above the wall walk, Denis grabbed her waist and wordlessly guided her down the rest of the way.
Once she was on the walk, she began untying the rope. Her fingers were slightly stiff, and Denis had to help her. “Well done, my lady,” he whispered.
“Where are the sentries?”
“Still at their posts, but unable to see.” She followed Denis’s nod. One man leaned against the parapet, apparently looking out at the shore, but he was slumped over rather oddly. His cloak billowing around him, Alexander began to climb down the wall.
“Is he—?”
“Dead. There was no other way. What took so long?”
“Osburn came to my chamber.”
Denis sucked in his breath and she told him briefly and quietly what had happened.
Denis glanced over his shoulder at Kiera, waiting huddled in the shadows. “Say nothing of this to her yet, my lady. I will tell her when we are safely away.”
Isabelle nodded and went to join Kiera.
“I’m so glad you’re coming with us,” she murmured. If there was one thing she would have regretted about fleeing this place, it would have been leaving Kiera behind.
“Not nearly as glad as I am,” Kiera replied softly. “What a fool I’ve been!”
The instant Alexander was safely on the wall walk, Denis picked up another length of rope Isabelle had not noticed near him.
“We can go over here,” Denis whispered, pointing to a place where rocks had been haphazardly tumbled into the gap. Rather than a vertical wall, it was like the rocky side of a hill down to a narrow ledge of land between the castle and the bluff. From here, that bit of ground looked very narrow.
“I will go first, in case the stones are unsteady,” Denis offered.
“No, I should—” Alexander began.
Denis held up his hand to silence him. “I am lighter on my feet than you. Let me test the way, Alexander.” His gaze flicked to Kiera. “It is the least that I can do.”
Isabelle caught Alexander’s eye and knew he was thinking the same thing: that Denis wanted to prove himself in front of Kiera.
“Very well,” Alexander said. “There’s no time for argument.”
Grinning, Denis tied the rope around his waist. “When I am down, I will shake it, like this.” He flicked his wrist like a man with a whip, and the rope snapped. “Then you tie your end around that part of the merlon there and start after me.”
He nodded at a portion of the remaining wall intended as cover for archers. Alexander inclined his head, silently agreeing.
With a final grin, Denis disappeared over the wall.
As they waited, every moment seemed to stretch into days; for Isabelle, it was like the slow passage of time when she’d been in that dank cell. Kiera’s cold hand found hers, and Isabelle clasped it, feeling the girl’s tension matching her own.
She did not envy Denis the task of telling Kiera of Osburn’s death. Although Kiera was leaving him, hearing of his death would surely upset her. The man had helped her once, and despite all that came after, she would remember that, just as she would remember that Alexander DeFrouchette had come to her aid.
Isabelle watched him waiting motionless by the merlon for Denis’s signal. If there was anybody who could get her away from here, he could. She could even believe he would die trying.
Yet even with his help, she would not be safe until they were far away from here. If the Brabancons discovered them fleeing, they would surely kill Alexander and Denis and take her for their spoils. They would sell her to Ingar, at the very least. But first....
She shuddered, trying not to think of what would happen to her—and Kiera—if the Brabancons discovered them trying to escape.
Her gaze went to Ingar’s ship rocking on the waves and the Norse camp, like a blockade on the beach.
Then, like a lightning strike, she had a sudden horrible thought: once they got out of the fortress, how were they going to get back to Bellevoire? They had no horses. The Brabancons would chase them down on foot. Perhaps Alexander and Denis had stolen horses awaiting them below … except that they were climbing down the wall closest to the sea.
Leaving Kiera, she hurried to Alexander. “How are we getting away from here after we get down that wall?” she demanded in a whisper harsh with anxiety. “If we climb down here, we’ll be between the fortress and the bluff.”
“We will make our way along the edge to the steps leading to t
he beach. Ingar has agreed to take us back to England.”
“Ingar!” she gasped. “He’s in the pay of—”
The rope in Alexander’s hands jerked twice. “It’s time to go.”
“But Ingar—!”
“Has no loyalty in his heart save to the man who makes the best offer, and today, I did.”
What could he have to…? Of course. The ransom.
“Now come, my lady, go down. I have no idea how long before someone suspects all is not well. We must be on the ship and out of the bay before that.”
Kiera started to weep. “I-I can’t climb down,” she said as she splayed her hands back against the wall. “I thought I could, but I can’t. I’ll slip and fall and the guards will hear and we’ll all be caught.”
Isabelle went over to her and spoke softly, tenderly, as she would to a frightened child. “It is a slope, not straight down. We’ll be fine.”
“I’ll slip and the height.... I’ve never even been able to look over the wall.”
Isabelle grabbed her shoulders and gave her a little shake. “Kiera, we have no choice!”
Alexander joined them. “You go first, my lady. Kiera and I will come down together after you.” He regarded Kiera with a calm confidence. “I will make sure you don’t fall.” He slid Isabelle an urgent glance, a silent plea to lead the way. “Now, my lady, please.”
She grabbed hold of the rope and began to make her way down the wall. The hemp was rough and cut her hands, but she would get down this wall if it killed her.
The stones held firm, and soon enough, she was on the strip of land. She didn’t look beyond that; she already knew they were precariously perched and a few steps would send her straight down to the beach below.
“Mon Dieu!” Denis gasped, looking up.
She did, too, to see Alexander climbing down with Kiera on his back, her arms wrapped around his neck as she clung to him as a man sinking in quicksand would cling to a log.
Kiera must be nearly strangling him! How could he hold on with such a burden? And if her hands were raw, his would surely be worse.
“Why is he…?” Denis murmured before he choked on his own words.
Margaret Moore - [Maiden & Her Knight 03] Page 22
