Castle Mercer now seemed a very long way from here. A servant told her about Evan’s raid on Castle Mercer. Evan had gone there in the hopes of finally capturing the Black Fox, but Fox had been safe with her. In her arms. However, Evan had succeeded in capturing Fox’s entire band of followers, and now they were imprisoned in the Vaughn dungeon.
Jordan moved past the large doors leading into the Great Hall, lost in thought, trying to figure out some way to get word to John to take the letters to Castle Mercer. She could write John a letter, but she didn’t trust any of the guards to bring it to the boy. And besides, John didn’t read.
The sound of several men laughing heartily caused her to pause. She quickly recognized one of the voices as belonging to Evan. She paused for a moment, steeling her nerves. She should tell him now she would not marry him and be done with it. Or should she wait for her father’s return?
Evan chortled low in his throat. Something sinister in his laughter sent chills along Jordan’s spine. She hugged the corridor shadows, moving closer to the open doorway, careful to avoid being seen.
“Which one are you choosing first?” she heard another man ask.
“That blond one,” Evan replied. “His neck looks like it’ll snap pretty easily.”
More dark laughter from the others made Jordan cringe. Beau. He was the blond one, Jordan remembered. But what did they mean about his neck snapping?
“Then who?”
“I think that woman next. She might dangle on the end of the rope for a while and give us a good show.”
The cruelty in Evan’s statement made Jordan’s blood run cold. He had said it so calmly, so matter-of-factly. But for some reason she did not feel as shocked as she thought she ought to. Was she finally seeing Evan for what he really was?
“So we begin tonight?” a third man asked.
“Yes,” Evan responded. “Tonight at midnight. The Black Fox will arrive just in time to see us throw the first corpse into the moat.” Evan laughed a cold, evil laugh.
“What will you do if he gives himself up?”
“That’s quite simple,” Evan replied. “We will kill them all. And that will be a fitting end to the Black Fox and his band of thieves. Either way, I will be rid of Fox Mercer and his outlaws forever.”
Jordan felt her blood run even colder. Evan was going to hang them all, starting tonight! She quickly moved down the hallway away from the Great Hall. She had to stop him. But how?
***
“I’ll take that,” Jordan said to the servant girl.
The girl lifted surprised brown eyes to look at Jordan. “But, m’lady, it’s me job to bring the guards their food.”
Jordan ignored the girl’s comment and took the tray of food and the flask from the young woman. “I haven’t seen those fine men in quite some time. I would like to say hello.”
The servant girl looked at Jordan with curious eyes for a moment.
“That will be all.”
The servant girl quickly curtsied. “As you wish, m’lady.”
Jordan waited a moment until the girl disappeared around the hallway corner before moving down the murky stairs toward the dungeon. She made it halfway down the cracked stone steps before pausing near a fluttering torch hanging on the wall. She set the tray down and reached into the pocket of her dress, pulling out several dried herbs. She had gone to the herbalist after concocting a plan to free Fox’s men from the dungeon, and had complained of sleeplessness to the old woman. The herbalist had given her some crinkled old leaves and told her to mix them with an ale, and after but one drink she would be asleep faster than the king collected taxes.
Jordan opened the flask and crumbled two leaves into it, then quickly re-corked it. That should put the guards to sleep long enough for me to get Fox’s men out, she thought. She hesitated, then uncorked the flask to shred a third leaf into the ale. Just to be certain, she thought. She shook the corked flask, mixing up the new ingredients.
She continued her descent down the stone stairs, balancing the tray carefully. Raucous laughter just ahead warned her that she was almost to her destination. A light from the bottom of the stairs made her pause, her hand tightening around the tray. For a brief moment, she thought of turning around and heading back up the stairs. But there was no time for that, no time to think of the consequences, no time to think of other possibilities, other plans. The time was now to attempt this craziness. She forced her grip on the tray to relax. Then she took a deep breath and stepped out into the room.
Her heart sank.
There were four guards in the room where she had thought there would be only two.
Two guards sat around a table, scavenging at what looked like the remains of their previous meal. Another guard strolled back and forth across the floor, obviously bored with his turn at watch. Still another guard sat in the corner, sharpening his sword.
When they noticed her presence, the two guards at the table straightened, one quickly wiping the back of his sleeve across his greasy mouth. The guard in the corner stopped drawing the rock across the blade and slowly craned his neck up to study her curiously. The guard’s pacing halted momentarily.
“Good evening, sirs,” Jordan greeted them, forcing herself to move forward into the heart of the room.
“Lady Jordan,” the pacing guard said. “What brings you to the dungeon?”
“I came to see to your needs,” she said. She moved to the table and set the tray of food down, then grabbed the flask of ale and raised it. “Anyone thirsty?”
One of the sitting guards rose and jumped forward to relieve her of the flask. “Thank you, m’lady.” The man quickly uncorked the bottle and drank deeply. He passed the flask to his seated dining companion and he, too, took a long drink.
“Hey, give it ‘ere. Bloody hell, mate,” the pacing guard cursed. He took the flask from the seated guard and took a healthy swig of its contents, then lowered the flask and made a sour face. He reached into his mouth and pulled out a small flake, flicking the herb fragment to the stone floor. He spit out another, trying several times to get the tiny piece of wet leaf off his tongue.
Jordan felt her face going pale.
“Bloody heathens. Can’t anyone make a decent ale anymore,” the pacing guard exclaimed. He held the flask out to the guard in the corner, who had resumed sharpening his blade with the stone. “‘Ere, mate.”
The guard in the corner shook his head.
He wasn’t going to drink it. Jordan felt her heart rise up into her throat. Now what? Her plan would all be for naught if one of the guards was still awake. And what would he do when he saw his fellows suddenly dropping off to sleep.
The pacing guard took another drink. He lowered the flask to look at Jordan. “Is there something else, m’ lady?”
Again, Jordan forced herself to remain calm. “No,” she replied. “Thank you.” She looked at the guards at the table who were already eating heartily from the platter of food she had brought. The eyelids of the greasy- mouthed guard already seemed to appear heavy to her. She turned back to the pacing guard. “Well, have a good watch, men.”
The pacing guard nodded and moved toward the food.
Jordan turned and moved out of the room, heading for the stairs. She heard the guards talking as she moved into the shadowed stairwell and she paused at the bottom to listen, careful to stay out of sight.
“You better not be taking that mutton leg, or I’ll bash you over the head with it,” she heard the pacing guard say.
“She’s quite a sight, ain’t she, boys?” she heard another say, but couldn’t figure out whose voice it was. “I’d give a bag o’ gold to give her a romp, eh?”
The men laughed.
Jordan felt an angry blush rise into her cheeks.
“Give me some o’ that before you drain it dry, you dog,” a gruff voice demanded.
Jordan thought for a moment it was the pacing guard speaking, but then after a moment she realized it wasn’t him. She prayed it was the guard who had been
sharpening the sword, but there was nothing she could do about it now. And she couldn’t just stand in the stairway. She might be caught, and she would have a devil of a time explaining what she was doing. She would have to leave and come back later to see if the old woman’s potion worked.
She headed back up the stairs.
Jordan moved into the Great Hall and had one of the serving women bring her an ale. She sat alone at one of the long tables, sipping her warm drink as servants bustled about her doing their nightly chores and duties.
“Hello, Jordan,” a voice whispered in her ear.
Jordan jumped, startled by the sudden, close greeting, and sloshed ale all across the table in front of her. She sat stock still for a moment, collecting herself, biting back a hot retort. She glanced up to see Evan moving around the table to sit across from her.
“You’ll be happy to know I am setting a trap for the Black Fox,” Evan said. “You can rest easy.”
Jordan felt a moment of panic, but she forced it aside. “You couldn’t capture him before, Evan. Why do you think you can now?”
Evan leaned across the table closer to her. “I have something he wants,” he whispered.
Jordan nodded. “His men.”
“Not quite,” Evan said.
Jordan looked at him, scowling.
Evan brushed her chin with a gentle, if a bit possessive, caress. “I will not give you up, Jordan,” he said in a soft voice. “Not ever.”
Something cold in his tone, something challenging, put all of Jordan’s nerves on edge. She took another drink from her ale, avoiding his stare.
When she glanced up, he was gone.
Jordan slowly made her way back down the stairs leading to the dungeon. She already had a reason to give the guards for her return. She would say she was coming back to get the tray. She reached the bottom of the stairs and cautiously peered around the corner into the room.
This time, her heart soared.
The sleeping powder had worked! Three of the guards were slumped over the table, all of them snoring loudly. The fourth was on the floor not too far from the table, fast asleep. Jordan grabbed the candle and started searching for the keys, quickly finding them dangling from a hook on the wall near the table. She grabbed the keys and turned back to head deeper into the dungeon toward the cells.
But froze in her tracks as she saw the guard laying on the floor staring right at her.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jordan held her breath, her feet rooted to the stone floor, as the dungeon guard looked at her with a strangely blank stare. For the briefest of moments, he struggled to raise his head off the floor, but then his eyelids grew heavy and finally closed. Jordan watched him for a long moment, but he did not move again. She let out a soft, slow breath.
Jordan quickly moved down the hallway to the first dungeon door. She unlocked the large padlock, threw the bolt aside, and stepped into the room.
Darkness greeted her. The candle she held in her hand cast only a small circle of illumination around her. “Beau?” she called, unable to see in the dark, “Scout?”
“Jordan?” Michael’s voice came to her from out of the blackness.
Jordan stepped forward, the candlelight washing over a small group of battered men and one woman. They winced and cringed from the light, holding up their hands to protect their eyes.
“I’m here to free you,” Jordan said.
***
Jordan stared up the stairs from the bottom of the dungeon, chewing her bottom lip anxiously. Behind her, the guards all still slept soundly.
Beau stood by Pick’s side near Jordan. Scout had her arm around Smithy who was limping badly. Frenchie moved up to Pick, cautiously stepping over one of the snoring guards. “What are we waitin’ for?” he demanded in a harsh whisper.
“You must be careful and watch out for the changing of the gatehouse guards,” Jordan said. “This is all I can do to help you.”
Michael emerged from the darkness, approaching her.
Beau stepped protectively in front of Jordan.
Michael stopped before him, his stare on Jordan. “You have to come with us,” he said.
Shocked, Jordan stared at him. She should go with them. There was only a life she wanted nothing to do with here. Yet how could she abandon the children? She shook her head. “I can’t leave the children,” Jordan answered.
“We can bring them with us,” Michael said hopefully.
Grateful he was treating her as a friend, grateful he was trying to find an answer, Jordan grinned glumly at him. “They can’t live like that. I can’t force them to go back to scrounging for food.”
“When they find out what happened, you’ll be in danger,” Beau said.
Jordan shook her head. “Evan would never hurt me.”
“You don’t know him as well as I do. I remember everything now. I know what he is capable of. Come with us,” Michael encouraged.
Jordan shook her head. “No. You’d best go quickly. You have to get out of the castle before an alarm is sounded.” She glanced at the guards. “You have to go before they wake up. The sleeping potion will wear off soon.”
Beau squeezed her hand as he passed. Frenchie nodded his head. Jordan watched them move up the stairs, regretting with every fiber of her being that she could not join them.
Michael paused before the spiral stairs and looked back at her. “You’re making a mistake about this, Jordan. Fox cares very deeply for you.”
Jordan shook her head, but she felt the tears welling in her eyes. “I know,” she whispered. “I’ll find him as soon as I see the children to safety. I just can’t leave them.”
Michael returned to her. “Let us help you, Jordan. We can see the children to your father’s castle. Surely there they would be safe.”
Castle Ruvane. Yes. Here, she was a prisoner, but in her father’s castle she and her children would be safe.
“Don’t abandon us again,” Michael whispered. “He wouldn’t be able to stand it.”
And neither would she. Jordan nodded.
Michael took her hand, a grin of satisfaction and approval lighting his face.
“The children are in a cottage on Ruvane lands just north of the Mercer border. It shouldn’t take but half a day to get to them if we can find some horses,” Jordan whispered as they moved up the stairs. “We can get the children and then head for Castle Ruvane.”
Michael nodded.
The others had halted at the top of the stairs, and they glanced back as Jordan joined them. She nodded and the group started out of the darkness and down the hallway. Jordan led the way toward the Great Hall and the large double doors leading to the inner courtyard. She would have the stable boy saddle horses for them. Maybe Beau and Pick could help to hurry things along.
She halted as she heard footsteps echoing down the hallway. She moved back a step and bumped into Michael. The footsteps disappeared into an open doorway.
Jordan waited until she heard the door close and then let out a sigh of relief. She urged them on, motioning for Michael to move past her. They all continued forward until they reached the large double doors and freedom, Jordan bringing up the rear. Scout and one of the men slipped out the door, then Beau and Pick and the cook. Then only Michael and her were left in the Great Hall.
“Jordan!”
Jordan froze and looked up. Evan was strolling toward her down the hallway just before the Great Hall. Panic streaked through Jordan. She instinctively stepped forward to greet Evan, hoping to put enough distance between herself and Michael for Evan not to notice him. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Michael ease out the door and disappear.
“What in heaven’s name are doing up so late?” Evan asked.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she answered softly. “I... I was worried.” She continued walking, forcing Evan to turn and follow her, luring him away from the escaped prisoners.
“About what?” Evan wondered.
“Emily,” Jordan said. “She was sick an
d... well, I just hope she is doing better.”
“I can send a man to check,” Evan offered.
“No!” Jordan said a little too emphatically. “I mean, I’m sure she is all right. I’ll check on her in the morning. I think all I need is an ale.”
Evan nodded. He held out his hand.
Jordan hesitated for a moment. It was almost as good as a shackle. If she took his hand, she sealed her fate, but she ensured the escape of the others. Jordan nodded and placed her hand on Evan’s.
***
Jordan raced into her room. She had sat with Evan for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for a cry of alarm to ring out. But total silence had engulfed them. There were no shouts, no cry of alarm. She hoped Beau and the others had escaped, and something in her heart told her they had gotten away without being detected.
Jordan knew she had to leave Castle Vaughn before Evan discovered the prisoners were gone. But first she had to get the children out of the cottage so they would be safe. Castle Ruvane was her only hope.
She donned a cloak and moved toward the doorway, planning to sneak out of the castle in the middle of the night. She should have felt horrible. She should have felt devious sneaking around like this. But she didn’t. Not when confronted with someone as untrustworthy as Evan.
Jordan stepped out into the corridor, shutting the door quietly behind her. She moved down the corridor to the spiral stairway and descended toward the main hallway.
Outside, thunder rumbled. Jordan paid the weather no heed as she stepped from the stairway into the corridor. She was already formulating the trip to Castle Ruvane. They would ride in the wagon, using her horse to pull it.
For the thousandth time, she wished her father were here. He would see to it she was safe. He would protect the children. But he still might very well take Evan’s side about the marriage.
Champion of the Heart Page 23
