by Kris Kennedy
But she was surely an angel, and seemed of immense value. Particularly as she stepped off the precipice of safety and plunged headlong into peril.
“No.”
The low sound wafted to the edge of the dais. Rardove turned so slowly the pungent scent of a freshly extinguished wick could have dissipated by the time his angry eyes locked on hers. The entire room went still, English soldiers and Irish warriors alike.
He clucked his tongue. “Ah, Senna,” he said softly. His gaze held no softness though. He could have shoved her backward off the dais with it.
Senna returned the glare, her eyes unwavering. Her heart, on the other hand, thundered a wild beat. This would never do. In a moment she would be lost to the terror wrapping around her heart. And that was unacceptable.
The backs of her knees hit the front of the seat and the bench jerked backward as she rose. She stepped out from behind the trestle table, her fingers still wrapped around the wine goblet’s stem.
The scenes of her life unraveled in a flash before her eyes, but her contrary slippered feet propelled her forward. She was mad, she knew that now, and doomed as well. But whatever was to be would be, because she could be nothing other than what she was.
“I bid you a simple enough thing,” the baron said. “Enjoy the bounty of my table.”
“No.” Again her soft voice wafted over the heads of the bloody warriors lined up four-deep on the floor.
His eyebrows shot up, then a sinister grin slid across his handsome features. “I see you’ve no aversion to the wine.”
As if yanked by strings, she thrust out her arm. Holding the goblet in the air between them, she looked into the baron’s eyes and slowly overturned the cup. Like a red flood tide, wine splashed across the floor into a huge crimson puddle.
Rardove’s jaw dropped. Then his face contorted and he strode across the dais until he was only inches away from Senna. His shoulders blocked her view and she could smell him—sweat, leather, anger. His breath lifted her hair in small, hot drafts.
“That wine was precious,” he said in a seething voice.
“As is my signature on a marriage deed, my lord—as precious as my blood.”
He angled his head slightly to the side, as if considering her point. “Your blood is easily spilt, Senna, that is all,” he replied, then reached out and smacked her backhanded across the face.
She reeled, cutting short a cry. Grabbing her hand, he yanked her forward again. “Do we understand one another?”
“I understand you, my lord,” she said quietly. “But I fear you do not comprehend me a’tall.” She pulled her hand free from his.
The anger seemed to wash out of him. A smile more terrifying than an outright assault spread across his face. Taking her chin between his fingers, he lifted her face. Faint blond stubble covered a chin that was not so square on close examination. He had a wide, sweeping forehead, hazel eyes webbed with thin red lines, and a well-shaped mouth that emitted such vileness it made her sick.
“If I need burrow into your very bones, Senna, you will heed me.” His fingers tightened and his thumb stroked her cut lip in an idle, threatening caress. “If this be your insurrection, it stops now. Do you hear me?”
She tried to turn her chin away, but his grip was stronger. “I hear you, my lord,” she said, her voice trembling.
He considered her a moment. “No, Senna. I don’t think you do.”
Without warning, he slammed her backward into the wall. She rebounded against the rock. He took her wrist and lifted it up into the space between their faces.
“Is this the hand you refused me?”
Low-pitched and sinister, the question froze her blood. She clamped down on her swollen lip to keep from screaming in terror and pushed her cheek flat against the stone.
He yanked her forward and slammed her hand down onto the dais tabletop. “You will learn right quick, Senna, that I shall be heeded in all things!”
This last boomed in a deafening roar. Grabbing a heavy, flat nutcracker, he smashed the instrument down on her hand.
Pain ripped a blazing path through her body, flashing out to every nerve ending God had created. She slumped to the ground at his feet, huddled and whimpering and fighting tears.
The Irishman lunged for the dais. His roar was silenced as the heavy chains jerked him backward and flung him to the ground. A soldier dropped on top of him, a knee wedged in his chest. Cursing, the soldier smashed an elbow into the Irishman’s jaw, then hauled him back to his feet.
The disturbance drew a brief, furious glance from Rardove, before he swung back around. “I shed your blood now,” he lectured in a calm voice from above, “to teach you the wisdom of heeding me in the future. I do not wish to maim your beautiful mouth, but if it causes more trouble, be you assured, I will.” He dropped to a knee and bent close to her ear. “Do you think I understand you now, Senna?”
She sat perfectly still against the wall, clutching her hand to her neck. Silence, she thought wildly. No more. Not tonight.
So she nodded.
And that simple, surrendering effort took up more space inside her than all the losses all these years, more than she’d ever thought to hold inside her flesh and bones and blood. She was totally empty now. Filled with emptiness.
Rardove gestured to a servant. Gentle hands helped her from the floor. Her fingers throbbed, each wave a fierce, pounding hammer. Fighting the whimpers that would rise in her throat, she unfolded her body, her head held high. A length of hair wobbled free and dangled by her cheekbone.
At the far end of the hall a scuffle broke out and a courier dashed up the steps of the dais.
“My lord! A message has come.”
The baron herded the messenger into a corner. They spoke in rapid whispers, Rardove’s irritable voice rising occasionally to allow bits of the conversation to drift over those nearby.
“Curse the Irish!” Some faint reply came from another member of the group. A series of curses floated away into hushed tones, and the muted gathering waited. Finally the baron turned.
“Continue with the feasting, and take the prisoners back to the cellars. Except for the O’Fáil councilor. Lead him to my office after the others have been quartered.” He leaned to Senna. “You will spend the night in the dye hut, or in my chambers. Either way, you will be working. Tonight, the choice is yours.”
Without a backward glance, he disappeared from the hall.
Senna tottered sideways a step. The front of her skirts bespoke violence: a vivid ruby trail screamed across the emerald fabric. She walked to the long dais table, hyperventilating with pain, fear, and anger.
Anger won out.
She reached for a corner of the long table linen. The servants watched with wrinkled brows and wringing hands as she wrapped it around her palm twice and tugged.
One stepped up to her. He cleared his throat. “May I help bandage your wound?”
“No, thank you.” She smiled sweetly, then jerked the tablecloth off the table with all her might.
Plates went spinning into the air and a tower of fruit and sweets tumbled to the ground. A large oval platter holding an eel dish spun around twice, looked as though it might stay centered on the table, then skittered off, joining the rest of the mess on the floor. The clamor and racket thundered through the hall, drowning the incredulous gasps and shouts of the gathering.
The jug of red wine, oddly, stayed put, heavy enough to withstand the quake.
“Praise God, my lord’s wine is safe,” she murmured. “’Tis a most precious spirit,” she said.
Silence reigned. The servants, soldiers, and liege men gaped. Jaws dropped, heavy boots clomped on the ground as the men shifted nervously. What to do now? The baron had left no orders, although his last actions were clear enough indicators of how he planned to treat any disobedience on the part of his new “wife.”
Still, watching her ramrod-straight back, somehow not a single man was man enough to approach her. A few servants scurried to pick
up the downed items, and another ran to get water.
No one said a word to Senna.
The soldiers, after a spellbindingly long moment of indecision, went on with their task of rounding up the battered Irish warriors and leading them away.
Senna wrapped her bleeding hand in the cloth, leaving seven yards of fabric to trail out behind her, ridiculously excessive, as she walked to the window, a narrow, bailey-facing slit set at shoulder height in the wall.
She pushed open the shutter a hairsbreadth. Her hand throbbed with a fiery pain that made her breathing erratic. Blood seeped through the thick cloth. She was weary beyond words, and exhausted by the cold, hopelessness inside.
How had things come to this pass? All her efforts, to this end? It made one consider whether one ought to exert effort at all. Things went as they were meant to go, no matter how one fought against it. Destiny. Blood. Rardove had been right after all.
She lifted her unsteady hand to sweep back the hair that had escaped from the pins. Her gaze traveled dully over the room. It was arrested by the Irish warrior, the man whose eyes she’d met earlier, the one who had leaped to save her, a new seepage of blood his only reward.
Their gazes locked, and he smiled, a crooked, satisfying smile. Dark blue eyes sucked her into their depths. A surge of blood warmed her face. But more than that, the coldness inside her belly warmed, and the sounds of the hall faded away, so that the world became peaceful for a moment.
He lifted his head and jutted his square, stubbly chin. His smile grew, became mischievous, and he lifted his head another inch.
Senna almost smiled back. What was he saying?
Saying? Why would he be saying anything?
He pushed back his shoulders ever so slightly.
“Dear God!” She started in soft exclamation, her skin prickling. He’d read her thoughts. ‘Don’t surrender’ his silent message came as loudly as the baron’s bellow had.
She glanced involuntarily to the door Rardove had exited by, then back to the beaten warrior. He inclined his head the briefest inch.
I will not give up. Chills raced across her skin. So be it. She would not surrender, not in this way at least. Not if this doomed warrior could attend to her need in the midst of his misery, and offer succor.
She pushed back her shoulders as he had done and met his eyes, acknowledging receipt of his gift.
Finian grinned. As if he hadn’t known. As if he hadn’t seen her head rise, watched the sparkle dance back into her eyes. As if he hadn’t known the moment her drowning spirit was buoyed up.
And as he was led away, it gladdened him to know he’d had a part in keeping the flame lit in some small way, flickering in the beautiful woman he’d never met that night. He looked back, hoping for another glance of the angel fighting for her dignity in the slop of Rardove’s hall.
He saw her eyes widen and, following her gaze, spied a knife lying among the litter the servants were cleaning up. His eyebrow lifted. She chose a dangerous route to rebellion. Then again, he decided, it seemed she would prove capable on most any path.
If the way were cleared. Would she be able to get her hands on the blade?
He was torn away from these musings by his captor’s rough wrench, and shoved forward a few feet. Their progress was halted by a skirmish at the door leading out of the hall and the guard stopped, waiting for it to clear. Finian craned his head around again.
The chestnut-haired lady was bent over the ground, picking up a platter. She set it on the table and smiled at a nearby servant. This time his eyebrows almost met his hairline. Well, he hadn’t expected her to help clean up.
Glancing around surreptitiously, she slipped the razor-sharp dagger into her pocket.
He grinned as he was hauled away.
Chapter 7
Throughout the castle, the story was passed mouth to ear. Soldiers and maidservants, livery staff and merchants on deliveries, guards and prisoners, everyone heard of Senna’s defiance.
Foolish, they said. Reckless. Unwise. And in the end, hopeless.
But Senna was not without hope. Nor was she without a plan.
She appeared the next morning, utterly transformed. Docile, compliant, quiet and meek, she appeared on her betrothed’s arm soon after the bells rang Prime, and seated herself quietly at the dais table.
Rardove grinned from ear to ear. “Eat,” he laughed in a bellowing sort of way, gesturing to the hall.
The gathering shifted uncomfortably. Senna was a bruised and battered wreck. Her smashed fingers were tightly wrapped, but the cloth was stained a pale rose color, the dainty shade belying the violence of the wound seeping below. Her lip was swollen, her cheek black-and-blue. Her hair was pulled back softly from her face, but it was hard to miss the angry red line around her neck. Almost as if she’d been choked.
But whatever the castle prophets said as they stood around the wash buckets that dawn, Senna had hope and a plan.
But, as she stood over Rardove’s prone, drugged body, where he’d fallen on the bed after leading her to his chamber, she wasn’t sure it was the best plan, but as it was the only one to hand, it held great allure.
Had Rardove no notion how many uses some of these herbs had, aside from mixing agents for dyes? And he’d left them all within her reach.
For the rest of the day he would have terrible stomach cramps, and be in and out of a drugged state. Come morn, he would be enraged.
By then, though, she would be gone.
She meant to explore the castle from bailey to dog pens today. She would befriend every person, overcome every fear, crush every opposition, and find a way to the prisons. Then she would free the Irish rebel who’d given her strength in a moment of weakness and have him get her to the Dublin quay.
She had hope, determination, and a plan. What she was running out of was time.
Senna’s younger brother, William, stared at the paper in his hand. “When?” He looked up at the servant, who cleared his throat before replying.
“Tomorrow ’twill be a sennight since she left, sir.”
Will looked down at the missive again, an indefinable disquiet unraveling through his body. Senna had been running the business masterfully for ten years now, so he wasn’t sure why he felt so uneasy. Yet he did. And after a year on the tourney circuit, and three hiring out his special services to lords with ambitions both noble and base, Will knew to heed such rumblings.
Still, this was simply a message from his quite-competent sister, outlining her current business venture. A much-needed one, in truth, after so much of the money flooding into the business went pouring back out again, to plug up the holes created by their father Sir Gerald’s ever-increasing need for coin.
Their father had been cold and distant and for the most part gone, ever since their mother left, when Will was but a year old. Servants had been present for a while, on and off, but mostly it was Senna who had raised him. Senna who had saved the business. Senna who took on abbots and royal clerks and shipping merchants, and spun the faltering wool business their parents had founded into something with the potential for true greatness.
Senna could manage this matter with Lord Rardove. And yet…Will couldn’t toss his uneasiness aside. It’s what had brought him riding north after a servant sent him a message with a query about a collapsed roof on one of the barns, anecdotally reporting their mistress had abruptly gone to Ireland.
To Lord Rardove. How odd.
He lifted his head and looked at his knobbly-shouldered squire. “Well, we’re off again, Peter,” Will announced. “You’ve always wanted to see Ireland, haven’t you?”
The boy blinked. “I have, my lord?”
“Good. Saddle Merc, put Anselm and Tooke on lead.” Will tossed the message on the table and looked at his men, the small entourage he had assembled for various and sundry—often highly sundry—purposes.
“Roger, look lively,” he said. One of the lightly armored men unraveled to his feet. “Find out what you can about Rardove’s a
ctivities of late. Attend any rumors in particular. Meet us at the dock at Milford.”
He glanced at the other men lounging about on stubby-legged benches while Roger tromped out, Will’s squire hurrying behind. The small hall of the manor house was suffused with afternoon light, speckled with shadows from the riot of rose vines draped over the windows and shutters. Will looked his men over thoughtfully. They peered back, mugs of tepid ale hovering expectantly before their mouths.
“Did I ever tell you louts I have a small piece of land in Ireland?”
His men exchanged glances, eyebrows raised. “No, Will, you never did,” said one.
Another grinned. “I don’t believe it. You always said you were landless and wanted it so.”
Will shrugged. “Did I? I talk a lot.”
“Who enfoeffed you, Will?”
“’Twas a grant from someone appreciative of a job well done. How could I refuse? ’Twas after that business up in the north of England.”
“That was Scotland, Will,” one man pointed out.
“So it was. In any event, I think it’s high time for a visit.” He looked at them pointedly. “’Tis in Ireland. Across the sea.” They just peered at him. “Get up,” he finally said in disgust.
They did immediately, although one shook his head as he set down the mug of brown ale regretfully. “We heard you, Will. Just didn’t believe it.”
“Oh, believe it,” he replied grimly, following them out the door. “Something is amiss in Ireland. I’m going to find out what it is.”
Finian knew something was amiss the moment he heard voices coming down the corridor. One sounded drunk.
From out of the darkness, two soldiers escorted a stumbling third down the narrow corridor that ran in front of the cells. They wrenched opened the squeaking iron door to his right, tossed the mostly limp body in, locked the door, and strode away.
