"I'm sorry, Mistress Brienne," the boy blurted out. Soon she heard sniffling and the boy's moan. It was all she could do not to cry herself.
"Hush, Nob," she tried to comfort him. Inching over on her buttocks, she made her way to him, cursing her hands and feet, which were securely bound with a chaffing hemp. Soon she felt the warmth of his thin little body next to hers. But she was horrified when her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, and she saw how Nob was bound. Circling the boy's neck was a rope that went down his back and then tied his hands through his groin. It was a complicated knot, and every movement the boy made caused more tightness for him below. Nob had to be still or suffer excruciating pain.
"I wanted to protect you, Mistress Brienne. I tried, truly I did. But then I saw Orillion laid out cold on the cobbles, and then the man—he was the one who killed Father!" He held back his tears in as manly a way as he could, but he could only last so long.
"Avenel will think of something. It was not up to you to take care of me." She soothed him, letting his head rest on her bosom. In the silence of the room, she wondered how her father had gotten past all of Avenel's precautions. But then she thought of the vastness of the Park and how well her father knew it, and she thought, too, how difficult it was to stop a man as evil and determined as he.
"It hurts," Nob quivered, making the rope tighter.
"Yes, I know." Her voice caught in her throat. "But you must relax. Just relax. Think of how brave you've been, and don't think of anything else."
"I haven't been brave," he chastised himself.
"Not brave? I only hope the child I carry now will be as courageous as you."
"Really?"
"Really. Now just relax. If you can, then perhaps I'll be able to untie you. I want you to run from here. Run as far as you can go and don't stop—not even in the village. I don't know who you can really trust."
"But you must come too. I'll untie you."
"I'm afraid not. You'll have far to go, no doubt. With the child I would not be up to that."
"I cannot leave you! What would Master Slane—?"
"He would want you to go, Nob."
"Where is he, Mistress Brienne?"
"I—f don't know." Fighting back hopelessness, she worked on the boy's knots. Her own wrists were tied in front of her, but her fingers moved as swiftly as they could despite this. Yet it was hard to concentrate. Where was Avenel? she wondered time and time again. Had her father caught him unawares? Was he already—? No! She refused to think of it. All she wanted, all she could think of, was to be with him. She and their child—they wanted to be with him, wherever he was now.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
"There!" Brienne cried in triumph as the complex bindings fell from Nob's small body. Quickly the boy started in on hers, but when they heard laughter from downstairs, she whispered quickly, "Someone is coming. You must go now. Out the window there is a small ledge. Be as careful as you can and take all the time you need. Beware the spire below. You must not slip, but get to one of the gables, then to the ground."
"I cannot leave you," Nob whispered urgently.
Hearing footsteps trodding menacingly up the stairs to the room, she implored him, "Someone must go. Along the way you can find help. But I'm of no use in this condition. Go!" She thrust her head toward the large window. Outside she could see the mist and the rain swirling about and the sky filled with heavy, dark clouds.
Nob stood indecisively for another moment, but finally her persuasions were enough to convince him. "I'll go for help! I'll get you assistance, Mistress Brienne!" He hugged her tightly. She held her breath as he pulled his skinny body through the little window out onto the outside ledge, and her heart skipped a beat as he almost slipped twice on the slick, wet surface. Closing the unlatched window behind him, he got away just before the footsteps reached the landing.
"Hullo, Papa's here," a voice droned from the top of the stairs. Jolting at the sound of it, Brienne shivered.
"I'll light a fire, Spense." Two men entered the room. One, thick and slow, knelt by the small hearth and quickly made a fire with old mildewy kindling. The other man, her father, merely stood in the threshold and stared at her. He was dressed in lavishly embroidered white silk and a waistcoat of deep, blood red.
"Hey! Where's the boy?" the giant asked her stupidly.
"He's gone," she replied, defiant despite the cowering fear she felt inside.
"No matter. Leave us, Bilikins," Spense ordered.
"But the boy!" the large half-wit almost whined.
"Leave us!"
The hulk obeyed his master's orders, looking like a kicked mongrel.
"You're a beauty, Brienna love. Give your father a kiss." Spense picked her up from the floorboard as if she were a doll and placed her on the pallet. She tried to struggle, but his hands, held her down. She gasped when she felt a knife ruthlessly cut her feet free.
"Where is Avenel? Where is he?" She was not sure if she could stomach the answer.
"You want me to tell you he is dead?"
She lashed out at him with her bound wrists, trying to keep him away from her. "No," she whispered, horrified.
"Your lover also misses you, Brienna love. What say we give him something to be jealous of?" Spense tried to put his lips on hers, and she kicked him, groaning with revulsion.
"Don't!" she screamed.
"I've wanted you. Even when you were a child, you were so exquisite. So lovely." He attempted to kiss her again, but she kicked at him once more. This time her foot found its mark in his groin, and Spense pulled back with a jerk. "Rough is how you like it, eh?" He pulled her to him.
"Let me be! Let me be!" She struggled in vain.
"I'll let you be. I'll let you be. Just have a tumble with me like you've done with Slane." He dragged her, kicking and struggling, across the rough floorboard to the fire grate. The fire was already beginning to dim, but the heat was still intense near the source. The earl pulled a half-burned stick from it, which he held dangerously close to her face. "Have a care, girl. I don't want that lovely face marred by an accidental burn."
"It scorches! Please!" She felt the heat on her cheeks.
"You'll be a good girl? Who knows? Maybe I'll even spare that gelded lover of yours." He tossed his gray head back and laughed.
"He is no gelding," she defended despite the fear of being burned.
"Not so, eh? Where's your proof then, girl?" He laughed again. But this time she couldn't hide the triumph in her face. Seeing this, Spense stopped laughing. He scanned her body for signs of her pregnancy and she knew he found them by the murderous glint in his eye. "With child, are we? My little whoring daughter." His tone changed, and he spoke softly, drawing the burning stick even nearer. "I'll not hurt you or the babe. If you be the obedient thing you can be, know that I'll not hurt you by far."
"Please," she gasped as he pulled her head up.
"Take me. Bite me if you want." He began to unbutton his breeches.
"Please," she sobbed. Her fear was so real, she could taste it.
"Come on, Brienne love. You've done it for him, now do it for me."
"God, please, no!" she screamed, pulling her head back, but the burn she expected never came, for the door burst open behind them.
"Come alive, Spense!" Avenel stood in the passage. He saw that she was all right and watched as she scrambled away from Spense's hold, then he began to laugh. But it was laughter that lacked sanity. With his white linen shirt drenched with fresh blood that was obviously not his own and his buff-colored buckskins also splattered with blood, he made a terrible sight indeed. "Where are your cutthroats when you need them? Tsk, tsk." Avenel finally entered the room, calmly refusing to meet Brienne's overwrought gaze. She watched him, and relief poured over her seeing that despite his previous battle he appeared unharmed.
"I'll be rid of you yet, Slane. Bilikins! Bilikins!" Spense yelled as he rebuttoned his breeches.
"Bilikins and your other idiot sit below with
their throats slit." Avenel smiled. "You're alone, Spense. You're alone with me."
"Stay away, or I'll kill Brienne." Spense took her by the throat and pulled her toward the back of the room. It was getting very dark in the little stable room; the fire had spent its last flame, and the rain was falling heavily outside the window. In the dimness of the room Brienne could make out Avenel's body as he stalked them, but his face was now indistinguishable.
"Stay away from me, I warn you. Stay away!" the earl cried to Avenel's moving form.
But Avenel refused to stay away. He came closer and closer until, with a last grasp for self-preservation, the earl thrust Brienne toward Avenel and made a break for the door.
Gently Avenel lowered Brienne to the pallet and then went for the door.
He grabbed Spense back into the room and started punching him down. Brienne watched, helplessly, as the men tumbled from one corner to another, unable to do anything with her hands, which were still tied. At one point Avenel had the earl on his knees and was doling out painful kicks to the head, but then the earl rose, and they were once again knocking each other about.
"I'm going to kill you! Not for my father, not for my brother; I'm going to kill you just for touching Brienne. 'Tis enough just for that!" Avenel shouted at Spense.
"She's my daughter. I would not harm her," the earl whined in reply, trying to save himself.
"That's a lie! She can't be your daughter! Admit it! Tell her once and for all who her real father is, Spense!"
"She is my daughter! I say she is!"
"So help me, I'll slit your throat if you don't tell her now!" Avenel grunted and landed a heavy blow to Spense's jaw. "Admit it, and I may spare your life!"
"Her mother was carrying on behind my back, and when I found out I swore I'd make her pay! Grace was a whore, I tell you, a whore!"
"No!" Brienne cried out from the pallet. "How could she be expected to be faithful to a man who was cruel to her?"
"She was an adulteress, and after her aristocratic lover died from consumption, she was never the same." Spense looked at Brienne. "And I see she's got a whore for a daughter, too."
Letting out a fierce cry, Avenel threw himself on Spense, and again the two men grappled. But this time Brienne found it harder to tell who had the upper hand. Both men possessed the same build, and it was getting more and more difficult to tell them apart in the dark room. Furniture crashed as the two men fell to the floor, and when they righted themselves, there were more crashes as one tried to claim victory by tossing the other against the wall.
When the final crash came, Brienne heard a man's shrill cry and a great shattering of glass. Screaming herself, Brienne heard the thump below, more with her body than with her ears. Without thinking, she ran past the slumped body on the floor to the broken window, needing to see the destruction herself. She leaned over the sill into the driving rain, and through the heavy mist she saw a body impaled on the medieval spire below. Her heart seemed to stop beating from the shock and horror of it all, for she saw Avenel's blood-stained shirt front.
Screaming her disbelief, she clung to the jagged edges of the broken panes with her bound hands, which now bled profusely. Behind her, it was all the man could do to pull her away from the window.
"Take me with you, Avenel," she pleaded hopelessly to the fallen figure. "I love you. Take me with you," she sobbed. But soon her cries were muffled, and she was pulled struggling into the victor's strong arms. Soothing words were whispered in her ear, but she paid no heed to their meaning. All she noticed was the man's red waistcoat coming toward her, nearer and nearer, until she could stand it no longer. Her mind rebelled from the strain, and she sank into blackness.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Her whole world was full of sunshine when her eyes opened again. Brienne looked about her yellow taffeta room where she lay, adjusting her eyes to the bright, beautiful surroundings. She looked at everything, wanting to remember every detail. That the fire sparked happily in the fireplace was as important to her as that the cupids, plump and gold, were prettily carved into a chairback.
Avenel. She closed her eyes from the pain that stabbed within her. Curling on her side, she ignored the sun's bright rays from the window, which made square patterns of light on her bed. She sobbed softly and refused to think of the future or to try to answer the questions left from the past. It was only Avenel that she cared about, and his child who would be born in December. She felt her belly and found solace in its comforting curve. But despite this, she continued crying out of bitterness and regret.
"Crying, are we? And on a beautiful day such as this?" she heard a distant voice say. Afraid that it was Quentin Spense coming to take his revenge, she sobbed even harder.
"Go away! Please, go away!" she whispered miserably, closing her eyes.
"Now, that's gratitude for you. Have my bloody head nearly knocked off my neck, and what for?" She felt the mattress dip as the visitor sat down comfortably on the side of the bed.
"Can it be? Good Lord in heaven!" she exclaimed and backed away, holding onto the bedcurtains. It was Avenel sitting at the edge of her bed! His face appeared tired, and he had a great, ugly bruise along his temple. But it was Avenel.
"Don't faint again, wildflower. I say, the child has a stake in this, too, and he is decidedly against it." He smiled and reached for her. "Come, love, don't look so shocked. 'Twas not me who took the fall, I promise you."
"But I saw . . . I saw with my own eyes." She held back a sob.
"It was dark, and the rain and mist blurred your vision. Feel me, touch me—I'm real enough."
"I want you to be real," she whispered. "But I'm afraid. So much has happened, so much has been a nightmare. When I looked out the window in the stable block, I thought I saw my worst fears come true."
"That's exactly what you saw, little one. You saw your fears, nothing more. You must have been so overwrought that when 'ou saw Spense dead, you thought you saw me. But touch me, et me reassure you. He's the dead one. Not I." He held out his hand.
Slowly, she took Avenel's strong, bronzed hand. Soon she vas entirely enveloped in his embrace and in every aspect of him. His scent, the feel of his queued hair against his neck, and the way his lips touched her so demandingly convinced her that he was indeed all right. When they finally parted, ears of joy streamed down her cheeks, and she saw the happiness that lit up his own gray eyes.
"I thought I'd lost you."
"And was that so terrible? You would have had your precious freedom then."
"Do not speak of such things!" She grabbed him and held him close.
"I love you, little one. Do I say that too often?"
"Nay, you can never do that." She pressed her mouth against his and kissed him desperately. All that mattered in the world was sitting before her.
"Where is Nob?" She lay back on the pillows sometime later. "I untied him, and he escaped. But last night how did he fare?"
"He's fine. I found him climbing down one of the gables in the stable block before I got to you and Spense. He and Orillion are both a bit stiff, but they could have been worse off." Avenel's eyes narrowed with the thought.
"I see Orillion's master is a bit sore, too, this day." She touched the bruise on his cheek tenderly. "Why has all this happened? Can you tell me now?"
"I shall tell you. You'll need to become used to your title."
"I no longer have a tide. Legally I've been the daughter of a commoner I loathed, and now I find out I'm the bastard of an aristocrat I'll never know. But tell me, Avenel, how could the earl fake a thing like that? How could he steal your father's title and for so long go undetected?"
"Because the real earl, my father, had been away for a long time. He'd been in America."
"Your father left his title?" she asked incredulously.
"Yes. He left Osterley to find adventure in the Colonies, planning to return after a few years. But there he met my mother. She had two sons by him, and after that he could
not bear to take her away from her beloved American home. When she died of fever, I was thirteen. My brother Christopher had married, and my father thought it best to return to England and give his sons back their heritage. Unfortunately he died on the first leg of the voyage."
"But it wasn't until you had set sail that—?"
"We were docked at Annapolis. A man named Quentin Spense was the captain of our ship, the Rosalie. He had a motley bunch of cutthroats working under him. The cruel twist of fate was the remarkable likeness he had to my father. The same build, the same age, the same coloring. There were differences, of course, but my father had been gone from England for twenty years, so those who were close to him had either died off or were getting too old to trust their own instincts. And of course, there was the Duke of Degarre."
"It's all his fault. A shabbier excuse for a man—" she said vehemently.
"And how would you know, love?" He grabbed her small hand, and she relished the warmth of his touch.
"I called on him when I was in Bath. I wanted him to do something about the earl—Quentin Spense, I mean. He was pathetic. This trickery has gone unnoticed for years because of him."
"Fortune has not smiled upon the Morrows—until now." He touched her cheek.
"But Avenel," she looked concerned. "Everyone believes Spense to have been the earl. How will you ever prove otherwise?"
"Never fear. Already I have been accepted into the peerage with my vast amount of coin. With a claim to a title, I'll be even further venerated. And of course, if anyone doubts my claim, I have the Laborde jewels to prove my bloodline."
"The stamp on my comb, QB. Is it somehow a part of these jewels?"
"The Laborde jewels were given to us by Queen Elizabeth when she traveled to Osterley to escape the Black Death that was the scourge of London at the time. The amethysts and diamonds were pan of the royal jewels, and she had the necklace and comb made before her trip."
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