The man inside lay on a pile of filthy straw against a wall that oozed black slime. His eyes had squeezed shut at the sudden flare of light and he flung his arm over his face. Hugh stuck the torch into a bracket on the wall, then turned to study his brother.
Raine sat up and then got slowly to his feet. He moved stiffly, like an old pair of bellows, and the heavy chains that bound his ankles to the wall clanked and clattered against the stone. His eyes, glinting silver in the flickering torchlight, stared at Hugh out of a gaunt, bearded face. There was a resigned look in those familiar gray eyes, the look of a man quietly waiting to die … wanting to die.
“Raine … big brother,” Hugh said, and to his shock his voice sounded unused, as if he had been the one locked in a hole for the past two months. “I’ve a surprise for you.”
Raine stared at him, saying nothing. In the dim light it was hard to see his face, but Hugh thought it bore the look of a man for whom there were no surprises left.
Hugh motioned at the door where the gaoler still stood and the man ushered Arianna inside.
She made a tiny mewling sound when she saw him, like a lost kitten, and Raine’s head snapped up. For a moment he simply stared at her—stiff, unmoving, as if he could not let himself believe. Because to believe and then to be disappointed was more than a soul could bear.
With a stifled sob, Arianna threw herself into his arms.
His head fell forward and he rubbed his face in her hair. His head fell back again, and his lids squeezed shut. Hugh, suddenly embarrassed for him, thrust the gaping gaoler from the cell, shutting the door.
Raine’s fists were clenching and unclenching in her hair. His cheeks were wet with tears. She pulled his head down, and their mouths came together. He drank of her mouth the way a man dying of thirst would suck on a costrel of water.
He shuddered hard, and held her tightly against him. “Arianna …”
They stayed that way a long time, moving back and forth in a slow rocking motion. She leaned back within the circle of his arms and stared at his face. She ran a finger along the scar Henry had given him, now a thin red line beneath the curve of his cheekbone. “I didn’t die,” she said, and there were both tears and a smile in her voice. “And my scar is uglier than yours.”
“Oh, God …”
His fingers rubbed her cheeks as if he were gathering up her tears to save them. “What a babe you are,” he said, and she gave him a watery laugh that cracked on a sob.
Again she touched his face, the scar. “You have not lost your land, Raine. Father has taken back Rhuddlan, but he only keeps it for you. Do you mind this?”
Raine shook his head, but Hugh suspected he hadn’t really heard, didn’t really care. He was running his fingers over her face again and again, as if to assure himself that she was real. “What of—” His voice cracked and he had to start again. “What of our babes?”
“They’re with my mother on the Isle of Môn. They thrive, Raine.”
“This is all very touching,” Hugh said suddenly. Christ, it was damn near making him cry. “But we have some important matters to discuss and there isn’t much time. I have devised a plan, big brother, whereby tomorrow night you will escape from this tower.”
The announcement hung there in the dank air of the cell. Then Raine said, “Why?” as Hugh had known he would. For his brother knew, better than anyone, to expect no charity from the Earl of Chester.
“ ’Tis very simple really,” Hugh drawled, lifting his elegant shoulders in a lazy shrug. “Because I want a night with your wife. She has agreed to give me the use of her delectable body for one sweet night, in return for which I will put all my considerable resources to bear on seeing that you escape. Of course, neither in nor out of the Tower are you welcome any longer in England. You’ll have to spend the rest of your life in dreary little Wales, I fear, but in a manner of speaking you were near enough to done as doing that anyway …”
He let his voice trail off, pleased with the results of his little pronouncement.
Arianna hadn’t expected him to blurt their agreement out like that—he could see by the stunned shock on her face. And Raine … his brother had that look he always got as a boy when he was about to be given a beating. Rigid and gathered into himself, all prepared to take something that was going to hurt, to hurt like hell.
He pushed his wife away from him, holding her at arm’s length. “You have agreed to this?”
“Raine—”
He shook her slightly. “Have you?”
Her head bowed. Raine let go of her and Hugh began to smile. He watched the change come over his brother, saw his eyes turn empty, his face harden. He had counted on this—that Raine had always been too damn proud for his own good. How quickly, Hugh thought, we revert to what we are.
“I forbid it,” Raine said to Arianna’s bent head, his voice hard and flat as well.
Her head snapped back up. “You have nothing to say to it. It is my decision and I have made it.”
She started to turn away from him, then she whipped back around, reaching for him. “Raine—”
He jerked out of her grasp, his chains clattering.
She stood before him, stiff as a lance, her hands fisted at her sides, and tears wet on her face. “Damn you, Raine. I want you with me again, I want you to live! I would do anything, anything—”
“Don’t whore for me!”
She flinched as if he’d slapped her. Head held rigid, she turned to Hugh. “I’m ready to leave now,” she said, and she started for the half-open door. Raine watched her go, a wistful yearning leaping into his eyes before he shuttered them again.
Hugh turned Arianna over to the gaoler and then came back for the torch. Raine was sagging against the wall, and Hugh realized to his shock that his brother must be weak. From hunger probably, and from being shut away from the light for so long. Hugh removed the torch from the bracket, holding it over his head. He could see more of the cell now, and he shuddered. It really was a vile place. Some unspeakable filth covered the dirt floor, and the slime on the walls was not black, it was a strange iridescent green. His skin began to itch. When he got back to Winchester, he thought, he would soak for an hour in a hot bath and throw away everything that he was wearing.
“Hugh …”
Hugh turned back from the door.
“Don’t do this to her,” Raine whispered softly.
“I’m not doing it to her, I’m doing it to you. I owe you this, Raine. I’ve owed this to you for years. I want you to spend every night of your marriage as I have spent mine. From now on when you lay between your wife’s slender white thighs I want you knowing that another has been there before you.”
Raine’s head fell back against the wall, his eyes closing. “Do you want me to beg?” he asked.
Hugh laughed. “I must admit the image of you on your knees before me does have a certain appeal. But I prefer to picture you as you will be tonight, lying on your miserable pile of straw and imagining Arianna being pleasured in my bed.”
Raine’s eyes came slowly open. “I will kill you for this.”
Hugh cocked his head, his golden curls sliding softly over his shoulder, as he thought about it. “No, you won’t,” he finally said. “Because I will never fight you. And you are much too honorable a knight for murder.”
Hugh, Earl of Chester, paused with his hand on the latch to his bedchamber door. He thought about knocking, then didn’t.
She had been standing before the window, and she whirled, her hand going to her throat. She stared at him, her eyes wide, then she smoothed her hand down over her breasts. It was an unconsciously nervous gesture, but it caused a stirring in Hugh’s groin.
She wore only a scarlet robe of soft vair. She was naked underneath.
“Take it off,” Hugh said.
She undid the sash at the waist and let the robe slip back over her shoulders, to fall into a scarlet pool, like blood, at her feet. Moonbeams spilled through the window of fine translucent linen, bath
ing her with a silver light. It was so quiet he could hear her breathe.
She was too thin and the scar on her chest showed mean and red. Yet, still, there was a ripeness about her. She is a creature of the earth, earthy, he thought. Lusty. She would probably scream and claw a man’s back when she peaked. His sex responded, swelling and hardening.
Slowly, he came to stand before her, and she watched him with eyes that were the dark green of a forest at night and just as empty. He wondered what she saw as she looked at him.
He brought his hand up to track the curve of her neck. He saw the effort it took her to keep from shuddering, and he admired her for it. She and his brother were really well suited, he thought, both so damn brave and honorable. He doubted Sybil would ever make such a sacrifice for a man, even one she claimed to love.
He let his hand drift downward, to brush across the peaks of her breasts, back and forth, back and forth, and after a moment her nipples began to harden. But he saw no pleasure on her face. “Do you think you could try to enjoy this?” he said, an edge to his voice.
Her lips curled into a sneer. “Enjoying this was no part of our bargain, my lord earl.”
He turned away from her, went to the table and poured himself some wine. He studied her while he drank. Clouds had shrouded the moon and now her skin glowed golden in the soft candlelight, like honey. Only a faint band of color across her sharp cheekbones betrayed her embarrassment to be standing naked in front of him.
“You don’t have to go through with it, you know,” he said. “You could take your chances with King Henry—he’s always had a weakness for a pretty face. Or you could try to buy your husband’s freedom yourself. Raine hardly appears filled with gratitude for this grand sacrifice you’re all set to make on his behalf.”
“Raine is being a fool,” she said, her voice low. “For it is not so unforgivable a thing, what I do. I would sleep with the devil, I would whore in the streets, I would spread my legs for every man in England, to save his life.”
“And his pride would never forgive you for it.”
Her head came up. “It matters not. I would do it anyway. I am doing it.”
“No …” He set the wine cup on the table with a sharp click. “No, I do believe that you are not.”
He picked up the discarded robe and held it out to her.
She didn’t take it. Her breath rasped in her chest as she sucked it in. “Please, you cannot renege on our agreement now. Please … I will try to pretend that you pleasure me. I—”
He laughed. Even Sybil had never bothered to pretend. He pushed the robe into her hands. “Nay, girl, it isn’t you. I’ve thought about it, you see, and I’ve discovered there are certain flaws in my logic. If you lie with me out of love for Raine, it can hardly be equated to my wife lying with me while she dreams of my brother. In both instances, I’m only getting another man’s leavings.”
There was another reason, too, although he would never say it aloud. Raine, with his easy courage; Raine, with his arrogant knight’s code that he pretended to scoff at, but in truth would have died for; Raine, with his hopeless, naive yearning to believe that there really was truth and goodness in this God-rotted world—Raine had always been the man Hugh wished that he could be. There had been many times over the years when he had hated his brother. But there were other times when he had never loved anyone more.
Hugh shook his head, laughing at himself.
Arianna held the robe in her hands, her fingers clenched white in the deep red cloth. “Do … do you mean still to go through with the escape?”
Hugh poked his tongue into his cheek and cocked his head. “Well, I can hardly watch my poor brother come to a bad end on Tyburn Hill. It would be a blot on our father’s good name.” He picked up the cup of wine again to study it. “You know, I never understood why Raine always tried so hard to earn the old earl’s respect and love.” His lips curled slightly. “He was the true bastard in our family.”
He looked up. Arianna still stood with the robe clutched in her hands, her eyes on his face, wide and desperate. “I do suggest you put that back on,” he drawled, “before I’m moved to change my mind.”
When she had covered herself he came again to stand before her. To his own surprise he bent over and dropped a brotherly-like kiss on the end of her nose. “Stay here the night. Bolt the door if you’ll feel the better for it, though on my honor, miserable as it is, your virtue is safe from me.”
He turned quickly away from her before he changed his mind.
At the door he paused. She stood in the middle of the room, her hands holding the edge of the robe together at her breasts, her lips parted slightly open, in surprise still, or perhaps relief. She really was quite lovely. For a moment he cursed his conscience, which had at this belated time in his life suddenly decided to make an appearance. The trouble was, lovely as she was, she wasn’t Sybil. It was really ironic when you thought about it. Here he was, handsome as sin, richer than the Pope, a damned earl, for Christ’s sake—he could command any woman to spread her legs for him with but a snap of his fingers. Even Sybil, the bitch, had to open her legs for him.
But she wouldn’t open her heart. And that was where the irony came in. Because if she would have loved him, even just a little, he never would have had any desire to bed any others.
If she loved him, even just a little, he could have forgiven her for Raine.
He bowed farewell to his brother’s wife, his mouth jerking into a mocking smile. “Behold, villainy is redeemed.”
28
The king’s gaoler groaned at the sight of the elegant earl sauntering toward him down the length of the White Tower’s great hall. This time the man had a priest in tow instead of a woman.
What now? the gaoler thought. What bloody now?
“Ye can’t see the prisoner,” the gaoler said as the earl came up to him, all sleek smiles on his fair and handsome face. “It’s near curfew time.”
“But this was the soonest I could get the priest,” the earl said, looking disappointed. “The prisoner informed me yesterday that he sought the comfort of a man of God.”
“He can seek all he wants, but he won’t be gettin’. It’s worth my life, it is, to be lettin’ all of cursed London in and out his cell like it were a bloody toll gate.”
The earl leaned forward and the gaoler caught a whiff of some spicy perfume. “I spoke to the king this morning, do you understand me,” the earl said, his voice low and confidential. “The king does not want his prisoner denied the absolution of God. The man is close to confessing.” One of the earl’s lids closed in a sly wink. “A confession might be very useful to the king when the issue comes to trial. Eh?”
The gaoler’s gaze wandered over to the man in a grease-stained black cassock who stood beside the earl. The gaoler knew this priest—he was cure at All Hallow’s Barking, and he was supposed to be ministering to the souls within the Tower as well, although in the gaoler’s opinion he ministered more often to a bread trencher and an ale cup.
“Oh, very well,” the gaoler said in a petulant whine. “Come along, come along. I’ll take him his bloody priest. Christ bejesus …”
Raine lay on the straw in the crushing darkness, waiting. With his iron will he did not let himself think, he simply waited.
The door grated open, and the gaoler entered, holding aloft a torch. A fat man in a black cassock followed on his heels. “Here’s yer priest,” the gaoler said. “Take all the comfort ye want, but be quick about it.”
There was a flicker of movement behind him and the gaoler half turned … to be struck in the back of the head by the hilt of a gem-studded dagger.
“Hullo, big brother,” Hugh said, with a flash of white teeth. He bent over and fished the keys off the gaoler’s inert body, tossing them at Raine.
“What are you doing?” the priest squealed.
“Escaping,” Hugh said. “Take off your cassock, Father.”
The priest thrust a dimpled chin into the air. “I will
not.”
Hugh jabbed the fat man in the stomach with the point of his dagger. “Take it off before I poke a hole in your belly and let out some of the hot air.”
Whimpering, the priest pulled his cassock off over his head. He wore nothing underneath and his flesh looked like whale blubber in the flickering torchlight. Raine snatched the garment from the priest’s hands. Christ, he felt so weak and dizzy, and even this little bit of light was stabbing at his eyes.
Hugh took Raine’s chains and fastened them around the priest’s plump wrists, threatening to break the man’s teeth with the dagger’s hilt if he didn’t quit his bawling. He looked down at the gap between Raine’s dirty bare feet and the hem of the cassock and his mouth curved into one of his mocking smiles. “I should have picked a taller priest. Don’t you want to know how Arianna is? How we passed the night together?”
“I’m going to kill you,” Raine said.
“Well, you can do that later. Right now we have to get out of here.”
“You can’t leave me down here like this!” the priest cried. “I’ll freeze.”
“Pray then for the heat of hell,” Hugh said, and pushed Raine out the door, laughing.
They were crossing the Tower courtyard when the curfew bells began to ring. And then they heard the shouts of alarm.
“Hell,” Hugh said, picking up his pace into a quick walk for they did not want to attract attention. “That gaoler must have a head harder than a Yule log. We’re going to have to run once we get out the gate. Are you up to it?”
Raine glowered at him. “I can still beat you in a race, brother.”
Hugh grinned at him. “You’re on.”
The guards, still confused over what the commotion was about, had started to shut the gate, but their attention was on the men spilling out the doors of the hall. Raine and Hugh slipped beneath the falling portcullis and disappeared into the dark labyrinth of London’s narrow lanes and crooked alleys.
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