by Tamara Leigh
Though she knew she ought to climb the rope as fast as her hands could reach, she took a step toward him, and another, all the while practicing the delivery of what she would say. “Why have they not come?”
“’Tis apparent, is it not, that by murder you have stained the Wulfrith name?”
She knew his words for what they were, for never would her family believe such ill of her. “That is as large a lie as the lie that I…killed your brother.”
His brow lowered. “Then ‘twas not you with Simon in the ravine?”
“’Twas me, but—”
“Not your dagger that rent his flesh?”
“It was, but—”
”And you would do it again, did you not say?”
“I did, but—”
“Pray, of what lie do you speak, Lady Beatrix?”
The anger of which she had lamented the absence, once more spoke through her and she stepped nearer. “I did not—”
“But you did! Simon is dead.”
And no matter what she said, he would not believe her. Realizing how near she had drawn, she halted. “You know naught of me. Naught of what happened. Naught—”
Glimpsing the rope D’Arci held, she jumped back, but the loop on the floor, into the center of which she had stepped, struck her ankles and cinched tight as a hangman’s noose.
With a cry, she landed hard on her backside. As she was dragged toward the pallet and the man whose eyes gleamed triumphant, she scrabbled for something to catch hold of, but there was no purchase over the stone floor. The dagger the only thing left to her, she wrenched it from her boot.
D’Arci pulled on the rope one last time and sprang. A pained grunt tearing from him, he fell on her and caught her wrists together before she could wield the dagger.
“I know naught of you?” He thrust his face near hers. “Naught but that anger is more your enemy than your friend, Lady Beatrix.”
Friend to her tongue, enemy to good sense. Aching for her foolishness, she strained at her wrists.
“Now ‘tis done.” His warm breath fanned her face.
She searched a knee toward his man’s place, but when he pinned her harder, causing his splints to gouge her calf, she was reminded of his injury—the only weakness available to her. If she could only…
Her anger flickered. She could not. As he said, it was done. This day, this very hour could prove her last. Unable to bear the light in his pale eyes, she turned her face opposite.
“Release the dagger.”
Though she knew he would take it from her, she gripped it harder.
He levered up and pried at her fingers.
Certain he would snap her bones, she steeled herself for the pain, but there was only the discomfort of her resistance, and then he had the dagger.
She nearly wept. Would he disembowel her? Were he his brother, such a fate would surely be hers—after the ravishing.
He tossed the dagger aside. “I am done being your fool, Beatrix Wulfrith.”
She looked around. Amid dark whiskers that had known no razor these past days, his teeth were clamped and perspiration beaded his brow. Doubtless, he had suffered further injury to his leg.
“As tempting as it is to see justice done now,” he said, “you shall be punished before all as is Simon’s due.”
Emotion surged anew. “Already, your brother has his due. And you would have had I a-abandoned you down here as I should have done.”
“More the fool you,” he rasped.
Remembering the last time she had been so near a D’Arci, she closed her eyes. Aye, more the fool, and now he could not only do to her what she had denied his brother, but see her dead as Simon D’Arci had not. For all she had endured, she had gained but a month of reprieve.
“We are leaving this place,” he said, a tremble passing from him to her.
She frowned. How did he intend to do that? Though she did not doubt his arms would carry him up the rope, his horse was surely gone. And there was the matter of inducing her to follow him up the rope. Of course, he might simply bind and drag her up after him.
When moisture fell to her cheek, she lifted her lids and was surprised by the dark gaze above her—until she realized it was nearly all pupil, the pale gray having narrowed such that it was barely visible. She looked to his brow and followed the lingering course of perspiration that was diverted by a faint ridge.
She peered closer. Evidence of her escape from Broehne? Aye, it was where she had struck him.
Another drop fell, dashing his salted taste upon her lips.
“By the saints!” He rolled onto his back.
It was a long moment before Beatrix realized he had released her, but before she could scramble away, he said, “Do you move, I vow to be fast upon you. And mayhap I shall not wait for the sheriff to render justice.”
She did not doubt him. She looked at where he lay alongside her. He was flushed, his breath panting from him.
Though she told herself she should not care, that she should say nothing and await whatever advantage might be had, her heart rebelled against his suffering. “You have…injured yourself further?”
He levered onto his elbows, searched down his leg, and pushed to sitting. “You are a curse, Lady Beatrix!” Shaking, his fingers as deft as wooden pegs, he began to work the knot from the uppermost binding of his splinted leg.
Beatrix sat up. “Mayhap I—”
“Lie back!”
“But—”
“Do you wish me upon you again?” He wiped at the moisture running into his eyes. “Would you truly tempt me so?”
Was it ravishment of which he spoke? Death? Now that she saw the extent of his pain, she did not think it was the former. Too, there was something about him that did not mesh with Sir Simon—
Nay, he was no different. The circumstances were merely changed.
She returned to her back. What a fool she was when his ill fortune might mean her good fortune. Mayhap she was witless, but if so, the accident was not responsible. Her belief in God made her weak in a world where the strong made meals of their lessers. It seemed the only way to survive was to deny this heart turned to God. And that she could not do.
Mouth compressed, D’Arci bent over his leg. With the splints fallen away, he had pushed the hose down his muscled calf to reveal an unsightly bruise amid dark hair. Though it was difficult to see all of his leg, stretched on her back as she was, it did not appear misshapen as it had when he had fallen into the crypt. However, even a slight misalignment could cause the bones to mend such that he forever walked with a hitch.
With something between a shout and a grunt, D’Arci forced the bones together.
Beatrix turned her face opposite and stared at the rope that had carried her down into the crypt. If she could take D’Arci unawares, she might just reach it.
He shouted and added a curse to the tortured sound.
She winced at the blasphemy, and though she determined to not look upon him again, her chin came around as if pulled by an unseen hand.
Pain was grooved alongside D’Arci’s mouth, nose, and eyes, and his skin had paled. He had never looked so vulnerable.
With her left foot, she tested the rope about her ankles. It gave some, D’Arci having loosened his hold to reset his leg. This was her only chance, then.
When he reached for the uppermost binding, she jerked her feet apart, rolled to the side, and rose onto her hands and knees. As she got a foot beneath her, a feral growl resounded around the crypt and the mantle clasped at her throat dug into her flesh. With a wrench, D’Arci pulled her feet out from under her.
“Curse your trickery!” the blackguard snarled as he hauled her back to the pallet. Hands biting into her shoulders, he tossed her onto her back.
The mantle about her throat easing, Beatrix sucked air.
“Curse your lying eyes and tongue!” His eyes sparkled amid the dark hair fallen over his brow.
Beatrix reached with hooked fingers, but he jerked his head back, ca
ught one of her hands, and shoved it to her side. Pinning it with his body alongside hers, he seized the other.
Now would he kill her, making good the threat to not wait on justice? She twisted her lower body, kicked, and connected with one of the splints.
He bellowed, flooding her with regret though she told herself it was but a small measure of what was due him. Still, she once more fell prey to hesitation, and it cost her all.
D’Arci pinned her legs with his right, then fell on her. She could hardly breathe for the weight of him, and though she strained and writhed, he would not be moved.
The hair at his brow dampened by his effort, he stared at her across the inches separating their faces. “Termagant! I will see you to hell for this.”
Anger once more guiding Beatrix’s tongue, she snapped, “Then you and your beloved brother shall be reunited.”
A gleam entered his eyes, nearly sharp enough to run her through.
Fervently missing the Beatrix of old whose visits were too brief, she held his gaze.
His eyes were the first to waver, then she felt the tension ease from his muscles. “Soon,” he murmured and lowered his head alongside hers.
Beatrix caught her breath as his own filled her ear, shuddered at the peculiar sensation that played along her spine, and nearly whimpered when it came again with his next breath. Had he lost consciousness?
Every breath hard won beneath the crush of him, she slowly pulled an arm up her side and touched a hand to his shoulder.
“You test my patience,” he hissed.
Grateful he did not lift his head to witness her sudden tears, she said, “I can hardly breathe.”
“That is something to which you ought to become accustomed.”
And so she would when a noose tightened around her neck. Dear Lord, surely this is not your plan?
Despair settling in her breast, she turned her head opposite. Unless God intended to spring a miracle on her, her bid for life was lost.
CHAPTER EIGHT
He liked the feel of her, though not the smell. He slid a hand up her ribs and settled it to the undercurve of a breast, only to grimace at the absence of perfume that would do well to cover her scent. What had he been thinking? Or had he been? Mayhap he ought to have more closely watched the fill of his tankard. Too, why was she still in his bed?
She murmured something.
Stirred by her husky whisper, he told himself there was no reason why he should not take advantage of her stay and slid a hand to her thigh—only to still upon discovering she was clothed. He was not such a pig he did not first see a woman out of her garments. But then, he was also clothed.
He opened an eye and peered into the darkness. Though he slept with the shutters wide open, barely a glimmer of moonlight fell upon his chamber.
He drew a long breath and grimaced at the depth of odor that assailed him, and in the next instant jerked at the realization of where he was and who he sprawled upon. Not drink, but pain. Not his chamber, but this detestable pit. Not a willing wench, but Simon’s murderer. Not with two legs firm beneath him, but one.
He lifted his head and looked around the crypt. Gradually, his eyes took in the slender moonlight shining through the breach. It must be at least middle night, meaning he had slept long and deep to have not awakened sooner.
Just barely, he discerned the outline of Lady Beatrix. Not that he needed to see her face, for it instantly rose to mind. Her wan appearance had caused regret to tug at him when he had first confronted her amid the abbey ruins. Though at Broehne he had thought her face that of an angel, this past month of scavenging had turned it hollow and fatigued—still lovely, but no angel.
Beneath his hand on her thigh, he thought she trembled, and when he pulled it away, the release of her breath told him she was also awake. Did she fear he meant to ravish her? A woman he would sooner see dead? The thought made him recoil. Or should have.
“If you do more than breathe, I vow you shall know my wrath in full,” he said, then carefully shifted his weight off her.
She lay still, the only movement about her the fear she exhaled on her breath.
Were she any other woman, he would explain why he had laid a hand to her that she would know he was not one to force his attentions on a woman. But what did it matter what she believed of him, she who had thrice seen him injured? Indeed, now that he was past the surprise of discovering she was not a wench who had come into his bed, his ire billowed. Because of her, he’d had to reset his leg. True, the bones had shifted only slightly, but even that could lame him for the remainder of his days.
Filling his lungs full, he suppressed a groan. Though Lady Beatrix would fair well from a bath, the smell was also of him. Even worse was the odor of fish rising above the stink of four days spent in the crypt.
Determinedly, he turned his thoughts to the darkness stretching before him, during which Beatrix Wulfrith would surely seek another opportunity to escape him.
As it would not do for him to cover her again, she would have to be bound. He sat up and, jaws clenched, searched a hand over the pallet and found the rope that had delivered his prey to him.
“Your hands,” he ordered.
Though she remained unmoving, he sensed the pulse of her fear.
Why he thought he had to soothe her, he did not know, but he said, “Upon my vow, I shall not ravish you. Indeed, bedding you is most distant from my mind. Now reach your hands to me that we might rest well the remainder of the night.”
Beatrix stared at the shadow over her. Did he speak true? If so, why had he touched her? His weight through the oppressive afternoon and into the night had rendered sleep nearly impossible and, when finally she had slumbered, it was only to be roused by his hand upon her. Now he wished to bind her?
Slowly, she turned onto her side to face him. “I give you my word,” she whispered twice-practiced words, “and I beseech God in…this place to take heed: if you do not bind me, I shall not try to escape.”
“The word of a murderess?” he scratched out in the dirt of contempt.
She sighed and pressed her wrists together. “Aye, ‘twould be asking much.”
As he bound her, his blunt fingers against her palms and wrists made her shudder such that, when he finally released her, she nearly went limp with relief.
“The blood should still flow,” he said.
It was true. Though he had allowed no slippage of the rope, neither was it so tight her hands would lose feeling.
With a tug of the end rope, D’Arci asked, “Do I need to bind your feet as well?”
Beatrix swallowed. “I can go nowhere without my h-hands.”
“Indeed.” He lay back and drew the rope taut.
She stared at D’Arci’s dark figure. Could it be he was not the same as his brother? Or was it his injury that deterred him?
Her belly grumbled. As she had last eaten a dozen or more hours past, and then only berries, she was hungry.
D’Arci levered up. “Sit.”
She pressed her bound hands to the floor and rose. “What is it?”
She heard the sound of his rummaging, then he pressed something between her palms. “Satisfy your hunger.”
She lifted it and sniffed—dried beef, though that second day he had said he had finished the foodstuffs in his pack. “You lied.”
“With good reason.”
“All lie with good…” She closed her eyes and, behind her lids, worked through the words before speaking them. “All lie with good reason. Their own, of course.”
“You are right.”
The tear of his teeth telling that he had settled to eating, she took a bite. The meat was so tough it made her teeth ache, but she could not remember any foodstuff tasting so fine. It took a dozen bites and ceaseless chewing to get through the piece, but she savored every moment.
“More?” D’Arci asked.
Why so generous? For fear she might expire ere he had his justice? “Please.”
He passed her a chunk of st
ale bread.
“Drink?” he asked when she had swallowed the last bite.
She opened her bound hands and accepted the skin. Before the liquid touched her lips, she knew what it was. No matter how tainted, water did not scent the air so. It was the skin he had said he no longer possessed. And it was half full.
“Another lie,” she breathed. “With good reason, I am sure.”
“My own, of course.”
As she put the spout to her lips, she was struck by the thought that his mouth had last been there. Swallowing the rush of wine, she thrust the skin at him. “Thank you.”
His hand curved around hers, slid up, and pulled the skin free.
Beatrix heard him swallow, and something shuddered through her at the realization his mouth was now where hers had been. And it was not fear with which she was afflicted. If she was honest as she had ever endeavored to be, this feeling was carnal.
Dear God, mayhap I am witless.
She squeezed her arms against her sides and silently repented the temptation of D’Arci. What was it? The dark? The brief contact with his flesh? His faceless voice resounding through her? The danger of him?
She did not know, for she had no experience with men. Before Sir Simon had forced his unwanted attentions on her, the closest she had drawn near a man was as her father’s daughter and brothers’ sister. And she must not forget Sir Durand who had looked at her as if she was not promised to the Church.
Had her next thought not been so bitter, Beatrix might have laughed. Even if she escaped D’Arci’s justice, the Church would not likely want her now, and neither would any man. Thus, she was adrift, or had been before falling fool to Michael D’Arci. Soon she would be aloft. Unless her family—
She caught her breath. Now that she was had, would D’Arci speak the truth? “My family. Why have they not come? And do not tell me it is…shame that keeps them away. Never will I b-believe it.”
He was silent so long, she thought he did not intend to answer, but then he said, “You are dead to them, Lady Beatrix.”
“They believe I died?”
“From the fall. Your sister and her escort told that they saw you and my brother in the ravine. Certes, they believed Simon’s blood was yours.”
