The Elusive Bride

by Deborah Hale

  “Ow, let go! You’re hurting me!”

  Lord Ranulf limped toward them. “You will hurt worse before I’m done with you, vixen bitch!” He rasped the last words on an indrawn breath. “Your father erred in not beating this intractable streak out of you long ago. As your husband, I will not commit the same folly.”

  Cecily struggled to escape her brutish captor, but he tightened his grip on her hair until it brought tears to her eyes. She quailed at Lord Ranulf’s next words.

  “Bend my bride over the table, and bare her backside while I find a likely looking stick.”

  As the guard hauled her toward the table, Cecily writhed and kicked. Scratched, pummeled, bit, hissed, until she had exhausted herself. Her resistance had the opposite effect to the one she desired. Rather than loosening his hold, the brawny giant gripped her even more firmly. Painfully so.

  Inch by inch he dragged her to the table and bent her over it. The skirts of her borrowed gown and kirtle came up over Cecily’s head, further stifling her. Air bristled over her thighs and backside, like a manifestation of the men’s greedy stares.

  Never in her life had she felt so totally helpless and inescapably at the mercy of cruel forces. Never had she faced so high a penalty for her rash, headstrong ways. Never had she experienced the unique vulnerability of being a woman.

  Muffled slightly by the folds of cloth over her head came the soft but ominous hiss of a switch cleaving the air.

  The next sound Cecily heard was Ranulf Beauchamp’s voice, close to her ear. “I will thrash you, wench, until you beg leave to wed me.”

  His cold hand passed over her vulnerable rump in a proprietary caress that made bile rise in her throat.

  Give in, fool! her sense of self-preservation pleaded. Plead. Cry. Promise him anything.

  “Never!” The rebellious word burst from her lips like a gob of spittle.

  “Have it your own way, then. I do this unwillingly and for your own good. It is your intransigence that drives my hand. Every blow that falls is a blow you invite by your own mulishness.”

  Cecily tensed in anticipation of the first strike. Biting her lips hard between her teeth, she swore she would not give this man the satisfaction of hearing her cry out. Hard as she tried to steel herself against the pain, nothing could spare her the shock of that first blow.

  With savage vigor the switch bit into her flesh. A strangled cry broke from her throat. For a split second, she prayed the pain of that first strike might numb her against those that followed.

  The cane fell again, setting her aquiver with an even more intense agony. Another blow landed and another, bringing tears to her eyes. When, after the fifth swat, her tormenter paused, Cecily could hardly breathe for wailing.

  “Do you relent?” The breathlessness of Lord Ranulf’s voice told of the strength he was expending to chastise her. Or perhaps the lewd thrill it excited within him.

  “I…” The words heaved out of her between sobs. “I will die before I give myself to a brute who would use me thus!”

  “Perhaps a further ten will change your mind.”

  Cecily sensed him raising his arm. She squirmed in a futile effort to avoid the next strike. It landed awry, scoring her hip—painful still, but nothing compared to the others.

  “You there!” She heard Lord Ranulf call out to someone. “Come and hold the lady’s ankles. I do not want my aim spoiled again.”

  Footsteps approached.

  Then Cecily heard a strange and unexpected sound.

  In the darkness of his prison, Rowan DeCourtenay heard an unexpected but most welcome sound.

  A woman’s voice. Cecily’s?

  Trust her to outwit old Beauchamp and find a way to rescue him. Admiration for her rose like a lump in his throat. Never had he met a creature, man or woman, half so resourceful.

  As quietly as he could manage, Rowan scuttled back to the door and pressed his ear to the sliver of light beneath it.

  “Food for the prisoner.”

  His buoyant heart turned leaden as he realized the woman’s voice was too sharp and high-pitched to be Cecily’s.

  The guard bantered with the serving woman. “Will there be a feast tonight to celebrate your father’s wedding?”

  Father? What ho?

  The woman, no servant but old Beauchamp’s daughter, apparently, answered back. “Aye. Kill the fatted calf and all.”

  There could be no questioning the tone of mocking scorn in her voice. Perhaps he could use her discontent to his advantage.

  “Mistress Beauchamp,” he called out. “Hear me!”

  “I hear you already, stranger,” came the reply. “And you may address me as Lady LeMay.”

  Rowan pondered that for a moment, then he understood. A widow, returned to her father’s home. And not just any widow.

  “Kin to Lord Fulbert LeMay of Brookthorpe?”

  After an instant’s hesitation, she replied, “Aye. Do you know Lord Fulbert?”

  “I knew his sons when we were children. I was sorry to hear of Simon’s death.”

  “No sorrier than I to witness it, stranger. And who are you, pray, to have a boyhood acquaintance of my late husband?”

  Yes! Rowan could almost hear the door swinging open on its stout hinges already.

  Calm you, now, he cautioned himself. Don’t trip yourself up in your haste. An extra minute or two would make no great difference to Cecily.

  “I think that is a matter for private conversation,” he answered. “Send your man out of earshot and I will be glad to tell you.”

  He heard a muted but sharp exchange between Lady LeMay and the guard.

  “He goes.” The slap of footsteps confirmed her words. “Now say who you are and be quick about it.”

  “Very well. I am Rowan DeCourtenay of Ravensridge. My family’s honor is adjacent to Brookthorpe.”

  “DeCourtenay?” Her tone betrayed surprise. And fear. “How can this be?”

  “Never mind about that,” he snapped. “Think only on this—Cecily Tyrell is mine, awarded to me by the Empress. If your father commits this senile folly in wedding her, he will incur Maud’s enmity and that of my family. Old Saxon forts like Lambourn are very…vulnerable.”

  “Do you think I want this?” she hissed. “Do you think I have not tried to drum sense into his stubborn old pate? Even if the Empress gave him her leave, what would it profit me? Displaced as chatelaine of Lambourn by that Tyrell chit. If Father takes it into his head to breed a new heir, he’ll have no reason in the world to pursue a match for me. I’ll end up no better than a servant in my own home.” Her indignant outburst ended in a strangled little sob.

  It was just as he had hoped. “You are a woman of sense, I see. We have a common aim, Lady LeMay. To keep your father from marrying Cecily Tyrell. Will you work with me to achieve that end?”

  “How can I? If Father discovers I’ve been in league with you, he will flay me alive.”

  “He needn’t know.” Rowan lay on the stockade floor, his mouth pressed to the slit beneath the door. “All I need from you is a mistake, a lapse in judgment. It may vex him, but he need never suspect it was intentional.” His hand pushed against the door’s stout timber, as if the sheer force of his will might thrust his plea out to convince her.

  His words met with a prolonged silence. Did it bode well—or ill? What if he had made a grave error, trusting in their common aim? If she revealed his identity to old Beauchamp, Rowan dreaded the consequences.

  Just when he feared he would break under the weight of suspense, Lady LeMay finally spoke.

  “What mistake? How grave a lapse in judgment?”

  His bated breath expelled in a hiccup of laughter. “A minor one. One any person of tender heart might make. I will thrash around and cry out, as if I am in a fit. All you need do is coax the guard to open the door so you may check on my condition. I will take matters from there. If it goes awry and I am caught, you will not be implicated. Also, I need to know where I can find Cecily and where Lamb
ourn’s stable is.”

  “She is in the great hall with Father, on the second floor of the motte keep. You’ll find the stable beside the main gate.” Taking that as his cue, Rowan began to thrash and gibber in a noisy parody of the few fits he’d ever witnessed.

  From beyond the stockade door he heard Lady LeMay shrieking to the guard that something was wrong with the prisoner.

  “Open the door! Open it!”

  Perhaps the guard objected, for the next words Rowan could distinguish where the woman’s again.

  “If he dies in our custody, we may be in great trouble with the Empress. Now do as I say and open that door!”

  Keeping up the noise, Rowan watched for his opportunity, poised to act.

  The cell door swung open on screeching hinges. The guard poked his head in to inspect the goings-on. Swiftly and with all his might, Rowan hurled himself against the door, catching the guard’s head between it and the jamb. When he fell back again, the fellow dropped like a stone.

  Rowan hoped he wasn’t dead.

  “Quick!” he ordered Lord Ranulf’s daughter. “Help me haul him in.”

  Working fast, he stripped the prone body of scabbard, sword, leather hauberk and helm, equipping himself with them. Kissing Lady LeMay’s hand, he pulled her into the cell, then stepped out himself and fastened the bar.

  “I’m sorry to have to lock you in, too,” he called. “I fear suspicion would fall on you if I didn’t.”

  She may have answered that she understood the necessity, or she may have railed at him for imprisoning her. Rowan did not stay to find out.

  Keeping his eyes cast down and his stride purposeful, he headed for Lambourn’s great hall. The sound of Cecily’s howls drove him up the stairs three at a time. Rage burst into flame within him, fueled by a sense of remorse that he had not come to her rescue more quickly.

  Entering the room, he saw her bent over the table receiving a sound thrashing on her bare bottom. For the second time in his life, murderous fury overtook him.

  As he closed the last several steps between himself and Ranulf Beauchamp, the old man glanced up.

  “You there!” he cried. “Come and hold the lady’s ankles. I do not want my aim spoiled again.”

  The casual cruelty of his words unleashed a feral blood lust, caged in the deepest recesses of Rowan’s being. Instead of grabbing Cecily’s legs, he took hold of Beauchamp’s switch and jerked it tight against his windpipe. The older man struggled, but Rowan drew him back against his own body, throttling him soundly.

  The massive guard restraining Cecily took a moment to digest what was happening. Then he let go of her and lumbered to his master’s aid.

  Time slowed for Rowan, like flowing blood congealing in the cold. He experienced a lingering void of silence between each thundering pulse of his heart. A hundred separate thoughts cascaded through his mind, accompanied by a hundred separate sensations.

  The boulder-size fists of the guard bearing down on him. Lord Ranulf’s increasingly weak efforts to free himself. Cecily righting herself and taking the situation in with a single glance.

  Their eyes met. In that fleeting instant, he begged forgiveness and received it. Promised her his heart and received her pledge in return. Called for her help and received her assurance.

  As the hulking guard’s fist hurtled toward him, Rowan held Ranulf Beauchamp up like a shield. A sickening crunch of bones broke the spell of his vengeful madness. He loosened his hold and let the older man crumple to the floor.

  Stunned, perhaps, by what he had done to his master, the guard froze for an instant. Then he lunged for Rowan. Rowan tried to draw the sword he’d taken off the stockade guard, but it jammed in the scabbard. Giving the hilt one last desperate tug, he expected a bruising blow from his assailant to land at any second.

  But it never came.

  Instead, the fellow’s eyes rolled back in his head and his whole huge body went limp, plummeting to the floor. Rowan looked up to see Cecily wielding a great wrought-iron candlestick with which she’d bludgeoned Lord Ranulf’s man.

  “John!” She dropped the candlestick and vaulted over the pair of prone bodies into Rowan’s arms.

  Drowning in a sweet wave of relief, he enfolded her so tightly it was a wonder she could breathe. When she raised her face to his, no power on earth could have stopped him from kissing her.

  Their lips collided, grappled, parted. For a first kiss, there was nothing hesitant or bashful about it. Instead, they drank each other in, like sweet, rich malmsey at a homecoming feast. To Rowan, it felt like a homecoming after years of exile. Like heaven after a lifetime of barren purgatory.

  Then Lord Ranulf stirred and moaned, breaking the spell of passion that bound them together.

  With aching reluctance, Rowan released Cecily—all but her hand. “We must fly!”

  She nodded dumbly, her eyes large and liquid, her lips swollen and ripe from their long, fierce kiss. It took every warrior’s instinct in Rowan to keep from kissing her again. Only the imperative that such a kiss might well be their last spurred him to action.

  They ran for the door.

  At the threshold, Cecily suddenly tore herself from his grasp. “Wait!”

  Gathering her skirts up in one hand, she bolted for the table and yanked a knife out of the suckling pig. As she caught up with Rowan again, she flashed him an impudent grin. It tugged at his heart even as it excited his admiration.

  Down the stairs they leapt. Skidding on the steep incline of the flying bridge to the bailey, they all but collided with a party of Lord Ranulf’s men. Rowan made to draw his sword, wondering how they could ever take on so many at once.

  Before he could tug the wretched thing from its scabbard, he heard Cecily gasp, “To the great hall, at once! There’s trouble!”

  To his amazement, the men swarmed past them up the bridge.

  “I’ll see the lady safe!” he called after them.

  No lie, that.

  He clasped her hand again. “If you are not the most quick-witted wench…”

  She chuckled ruefully. “It comes of boxing myself into too many tight corners. Which way to the stable?”

  Rather than waste more time in speech, Rowan set off toward it. There they found a rider just dismounting.

  “What’s all the commotion?” he asked.

  “This,” answered Rowan, wrenching his sword free at last and braining the fellow with its hilt.

  He looked around for Cecily, who was moving rapidly from stall to stall. “Come, lass! We haven’t time to saddle another. You’ll have to ride pillion with me.”

  “I’m not trying to saddle them.” To prove her point, she slapped one horse on the rump, sending it trotting out into the bailey.

  When she had set them all into a ponderous stampede, Cecily made her way back to Rowan and let him help her mount. They emerged into a courtyard seething with chaos. Women screeching and hustling their children away from the horses. Poultry scattering noisily. Skittish mares rearing in panic.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Rowan saw several of Lambourn’s guards rushing back down from the motte.

  Weaving through the press of horses, he led their mount toward the postern gate.

  “What’s all this? Where do you think you’re going?” demanded the guard.

  Rowan lifted his sword to the man’s throat. “I think we’re going back out the way we came. And I think you’d be a wise fellow to unbar the gate. I’m in rather a hurry and I’d hate to run you through in my haste.”

  Perhaps something of his blood lust for old Beauchamp still glittered in his eyes, for the guard almost tore himself to pieces hastening to follow the order.

  “I’ll give you the count of ten to bar the gate again after us,” Rowan said as he led the horse through. “If you fail, I will have to come back and carve you up like a joint of mutton.”

  The portal slammed so hard behind them, the horse shied.

  “Whoa there!” Gracelessly, Rowan managed to scramble on
to the bay gelding in front of Cecily. As they galloped away from Lambourn, into the undulating, green countryside, he felt her arms tighten about his waist and her face press into his back.

  It warmed his limbs, assuaged his hunger and revived his weary spirit. A man could do worse than have such a woman cleave unto him for the rest of his life. Vigorously as she might protest, she obviously needed his protection. From her own reckless tendencies as much as anything.

  Before she could cleave, though, and before he could offer her his protection, he needed to test her feelings. To be certain they were genuine—woman to man.

  As Rowan contemplated the form that testing would take, his body roused with the keenest anticipation.

  Chapter Nine

  “Please, can we stop now, John?” Cecily asked through clenched teeth. “I haven’t seen anyone following us.”

  For the first few miles, the relief and exhilaration of their escape had overridden all other sensations. Then the jostling of her battered backside against the horse’s solid hindquarters began to take its toll. She had tried to keep from dwelling on it, knowing they dared not stop. The torment could no longer be ignored.

  Her buttocks felt as though they were on fire.

  Now and then, a more pleasant warmth spread through her lower regions as she mused on the heart-stopping kiss she had shared with John FitzCourtenay in the great hall at Lambourn.

  What had it meant?

  Cecily could scarcely answer for herself, let alone for him. Relief, perhaps? Joy at finding each other again? The rush of elation for having bested Lord Ranulf and his guard? She had an uncomfortable suspicion her own feelings went deeper than these. If so, she must find some means to root them out.

  For her own peace of mind, she could not afford to entertain such sentiments about her brother by marriage. In exchange for helping her liberate Brantham, she would owe Lord DeCourtenay her undivided loyalty.

  And owe his brother nothing for saving her hide—perhaps her life?

  Though her companion gave no sign that he had heard her plea to stop, Cecily noticed that he was steering the horse toward a wooded copse.

  As they neared the clump of trees, he called back to her, “If Beauchamp’s men manage to track us here, they are a good deal more clever than I thought. By the time they get to scouring the countryside, we’ll be long gone.”