Dreamspell

by Tamara Leigh

  The knight’s eyes widened. “Lord Wynland, I know the lady myself and this woman is not she.” He stepped forward and peered closer at Kennedy. “Even did you wring her out, she would be too tall, too broad, and her hair too dark.” He smirked. “You have been deceived, my lord.”

  As his companions nodded in agreement, Kennedy felt a wall go up between her and Fulke.

  Sir Daniel stepped forward. “’Tis true what he speaks, my lord. I bring you tidings that Lady Lark has taken sanctuary at the monastery of Farfallow.”

  Kennedy’s breath caught. Lady Lark lived?

  “As has Sir Crosley and your nephews,” the knight put the icing on the cake.

  Kennedy glanced at Fulke, a man changed from the one to whom she had declared her love. A muscle beating in his jaw, he stared at Sir Daniel. It was over.

  Deceived. The vulgar word rolled through Fulke, overturning emotions only just discovered. The woman before him was a charlatan, everything she had made him feel forged of lies. “If she is not Lady Lark, who is she?”

  Sir Conan shook his head. “Never have I seen her, my lord.”

  “One of Lady Lark’s ladies?”

  “Nay, my lord, Lady Lark had but a maid with her when she left London, and I fear I know not what the woman looks like.”

  Was it possible the one who had arrived at Brynwood was not the maid she claimed to be? Fool! Though it pained Fulke to accept the truth, this woman was the deceiver. “I thank you, Sir Conan.” He looked to the others. “We depart in half an hour.”

  “The rain comes harder,” Sir Conan said. ‘Twould do no harm to wait ‘til the morrow.”

  “Half an hour!”

  The man motioned to the others and stepped into the night.

  As the flap fell behind them, Fulke turned to the woman at his side. “Who are you?”

  The struggle on her face evidenced her search for a believable lie. She lifted her palms up. “This is only a dream, Fulke. I—”

  “Enough! Speak no more of dreams or I shall bind you and set you aflame myself.”

  She should have been frightened, but she raised her chin. “Not in this weather, you won’t.”

  How did she do it? Where had she learned to speak such that a man’s thoughts should scatter so far afield, requiring him to painstakingly gather them back together? “What is your name?”

  “Nedy Plain.”

  As there was too much ache in standing near her, making it hard to think, Fulke stepped away. It followed that Nedy Plain, if that was her name, possessed no virtue whatsoever. “As Crosley hired the man and his sons to pretend themselves to be who they were not, he paid you to be Lady Lark.”

  Beneath the deepening beat of rain on canvas, in the flickering light thrown by the lantern, she said, “You’re wrong.”

  “Is it not true that your friend, Sir Arthur, is responsible for the attack on Lady Lark’s baggage train?”

  That knocked the streak of stubborn out of her, lowering her chin a notch. “That’s not it at all.”

  “What I do not understand is what Lady Lark has to do with it. Was she part of Crosley’s plan to show me to be a murderer that he might gain wardship of my nephews?”

  “No! She had nothing to do with it. She’s supposed to be dead. No trace was ever found—”

  “She is at Farfallow with Crosley!”

  “Neither Crosley nor Lady Lark were behind the attack. You have to believe me.”

  Never again. “You lied about my brother’s missive to keep me from Farfallow because you knew ‘twas Crosley’s destination. Do you deny it?”

  She groaned. “I did know, but—”

  “I wonder if ‘twas Lady Lark whom Moriel sought to kill at the pond or Nedy Plain. More likely, Crosley was done with you.”

  “He doesn’t know me. We’ve never met.”

  Not a breath of truth to anything she said. He returned to her and gripped her chin. “You told me you knew him.” He could still smell the wood on her, the grass and leaves. “Now you have never met?”

  Tears washed her eyes, dampening his anger before he realized it was happening. Nay, the tears were for herself and the retribution he would visit on her.

  She laid a hand on his jaw. “If you have any feelings for me, Fulke—”

  He threw off her touch. “I have none.”

  She stared at him as if she were the one wronged.

  “And, henceforth, you will address me as Lord Wynland.”

  Her eyes flashed with an anger so bright it blinded the hurt she had allowed him to glimpse. “Dream on.”

  As tempted as Fulke was to set her right, he had told the king’s men a half hour. He stepped past her and, at the tent flap, looked over his shoulder. “Do you think to escape me, I vow I will find you—no matter where you go, no matter how far you run.”

  Her retort was lost in the slap of the flap. Drawing on fury to stifle other emotions vying for recognition, Fulke crossed to where Squire James held his horse.

  Tomorrow, Farfallow.

  It’s only a dream, Kennedy told herself for the hundredth time since the miserable ride began.

  Night having turned to dawn, dawn having turned to noon, noon speeding toward evening, she stared ahead. The last time the scenery had passed so swiftly was when Fulke had been at her back. Now it was Sir Leonel, the only one willing to accept the task of transporting a witch.

  She looked to where Fulke rode so far ahead she wouldn’t have known it was him if not for his horse. If only his rejection didn’t hurt so much. If only he hadn’t jumped to conclusions about her character. If only he would have suspended disbelief long enough to hear her out.

  Accused, tried, found guilty, and sentenced in a matter of minutes. It followed, though. As Sir Arthur had hired impostors, her own masquerade fell in neatly beside the others. If she was the one trying to make sense of it, she might arrive at the same conclusion.

  Her bottom and thighs sore, she shifted and once more felt the medallion between her shoulder blades—at least, she assumed it was a medallion Sir Leonel wore beneath his tunic. She had only seen the chain around his neck, but during the past night and day had suffered the gouge of what felt like a metal disc. Did it bear a two-headed wyvern? Not that it was likely to change Fulke’s opinion of her if it proved the one the dying soldier had spoken of.

  She looked up and, in the distance, saw enormous walls set with arched windows that reached toward heaven, the mist surrounding the lofty perch making the edifice appear to live among the clouds. The monastery of Farfallow.

  “The loveliest of them all,” Sir Leonel dropped into her ear. “When God comes to visit, ‘tis surely where He stays.”

  The monastery was, indeed, awesome, but by no means elaborate. In fact, its splendor lay in its simple design.

  A bell tolled, resounding above the pounding hooves as they ascended the hill on which the monastery was built.

  When Sir Leonel halted his horse before the walls, Fulke had already dismounted. In conversation with a man whose dowdy robes and prayer-clasped hands identified him as a monk, he and the king’s men stood in front of wooden doors built to the scale of a giant.

  Though fifty feet separated Kennedy from Fulke, it was the nearest she had been to him since he had walked out on her last night. He looked even more hard and unapproachable.

  “’Twas foolish of you to love,” Sir Leonel said low.

  Though it didn’t sound like a taunt, Kennedy ignored him. Affable he might be, but what she and Fulke had shared was nobody’s business.

  “I am sorry,” the knight said, his sincerity making her nose tingle.

  Fulke’s voice rose toward anger, his body language that of a man who was trying to control himself and on the verge of failing.

  The monk said something, then stepped away. A small door set at the base of the larger left-hand door opened. Followed by the king’s men, the monk stepped through.

  Fulke turned, and his gaze slammed into Kennedy. The loathing there took h
er breath away, and even after he dismissed her, she struggled for air.

  “Make camp!” he shouted and swung into his saddle. As his men dismounted, he guided his destrier toward Kennedy. “Sir Leonel”—he looked past her as if she were not there—“this woman is in your charge. Fail me and suffer her fate.”

  “Aye, my lord.”

  “She is to be bound and never to go from your sight, not even when she must needs relieve herself.”

  Kennedy’s heart kicked in as he spurred away. “He never even looked at me,” she murmured, not realizing she had spoken until Sir Leonel responded.

  “Such a man is he. Without heart.”

  No, he wasn’t. She had seen his heart, though it was now returned to that dark place inside him.

  “What is your name?” Sir Leonel asked.

  “Nedy.”

  “I knew you could not be Lady Lark.”

  “What gave me away?”

  “Lady Lark may be illegitimate and born into peasantry, but you are. . .different.”

  Was it true about Lark? The book’s author had lamented the gaping holes in the woman’s origins. How did Leonel know what no other seemed to know? Through Jaspar who had heard of Fulke’s betrothal long before he had known of it himself?

  “You are not a witch, I wager. Who are you?”

  She shook her head. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Mayhap I can help.”

  “You can’t.”

  Argument entered his eyes, but he said, “We will speak again when we are alone.”

  Not about this.

  He guided his horse into the midst of Fulke’s men. Though occupied with setting up camp, several took time out of their busy schedules to give her the evil eye.

  Kennedy settled back against Sir Leonel only to sit forward when the medallion dug into her spine. If they were going to be spending any more time on a horse, the medallion would have to go. But not before she got a look at it.

  Night. And still the king’s men had yet to reappear. How much longer?

  Fulke straightened from a tree at the edge of Farfallow’s orchard and peered past the tents to the doors. Were it not a place of sanctuary, he would scale the walls and bring his nephews and Crosley out himself. But it was God’s house and there had been no convincing the abbot to grant him entrance.

  If Harold was still ill, as the abbot reported he had been when Crosley brought him and his brother here three days past, it would be different. He must be patient. Soon enough, the boys would be with him and Crosley would be put to the sword.

  Try though Fulke did to keep from treading the path of Nedy Plain, she pushed her way into his thoughts and pulled his gaze to where she sat back from the fire. Sir Leonel hovered near.

  The knight had bound her hands, but not her feet. Though great was the temptation to order him to fully secure her, Fulke suppressed it. She was going nowhere. Even if the young knight fell to her wiles, the others would ensure she did not escape. They believed there was a witch among them and, if not for Fulke’s presence, would likely do as was done to one thought to be the devil’s apprentice. Even Sir Malcolm, who had fallen under her spell at Castle Cirque, maintained his distance.

  Curse her! Would the memory of her—the longing—forever haunt him? It was as if she was the beginning, middle, and end of him. And he hated himself for it. After Limoges, he had vowed to never again give any part of himself he could not easily retake. He would not allow anyone so near him again.

  He strode forward, the ground that the recent rain had turned sodden sucking at his boots and stirring the air with the scent of earth. His men looked up at his approach. Doubtless, they thought him a fool. And they were right.

  “Fulke!” Nedy called.

  He should have ignored her, but he halted.

  Hands bound before her, she stood. “May I speak with you? Five minutes is all I need.”

  All? And his soul as well. Just the sight of her, the firelight glancing across her face and through her hair, swept him back to when he had laid beside her in the wood and known happiness at the thought she would be his wife.

  He crossed to his tent and felt her gaze past the flap he dropped behind him.

  “For him, you no longer exist.”

  Kennedy closed her eyes against the pain of Sir Leonel’s words, tried to sew up the tearing inside her. Though she had been determined to ignore Fulke as he ignored her, when she had seen him she had to try to reach him.

  “Come,” Leonel urged, “’tis late and you ought to sleep.”

  And if she did, would that be the end of this? Of her?

  “Nedy?”

  She turned. “I’m ready.”

  He led her from the campfire to where he had earlier spread blankets. “Yours.” He indicated the one on the right.

  She settled on it, eyed her bound hands, and tried to pull the blanket around her.

  Leonel stepped in. “Lie back. I will help you.”

  Complying, she grimaced at the cold, damp earth that seeped through the blanket.

  “Sleep well, Nedy.” He sat down and pulled a blanket around his shoulders for the night vigil.

  Kennedy caught a glimpse of the chain around his neck before the blanket fell over it. “Do you always wear that thing?”

  “What thing?”

  “Wasn’t that a medallion that dug into me throughout the ride?”

  The moonlight on his face traced his dismay. “I am sorry. I did not realize it caused you discomfort. As I am never without it, I oft forget I wear it.”

  “It must be special.”

  He touched the chain. “My former liege, Baron Brom, awarded it to me for saving his life.”

  “May I see it?”

  He considered her, then leaned forward and pulled the medallion from his tunic. The disc spun on its chain, too rapidly for Kennedy to make out the impression in the dim light. Hoping she was wrong, she pushed onto an elbow and reached her bound hands to it.

  The medallion stopped in her cupped palms, its metal retaining the warmth of Leonel’s body. She tilted the disc to moonlight. Though it wasn’t light enough to make out the details, the medallion bore no wyvern, two-headed or otherwise.

  Relieved on one hand that the knight was no murderer, frustrated on the other that she could make no connection between what the dying soldier had told and who had attacked Lady Lark, she looked up. “I can’t make out what it is.”

  “’Tis the baron’s device—a hand grasping heather. He is proud of it, though not as proud as he is of what his third wife brought to their marriage. She is of royal blood. Do you allow me, I will—”

  “I imagine there are hundreds of devices. Do you know who possesses a two-headed wyvern?”

  He stared at her, then slipped the medallion from her hands and returned it to his tunic. “For what do you ask?”

  Should she tell him? He was as close to an ally as she had. “Before one of the soldiers killed in the attack on Lady Lark died, he told me one of the assailants wore a medallion bearing a wyvern with two heads.”

  “You thought it was me?” Though his face was in shadow, hurt sounded from his voice.

  “No. I just needed. . .confirmation.”

  He was silent, as if grappling with feelings of betrayal. “’Twas likely Moriel,” he finally spoke.

  She revisited her last glimpse of the man and saw the dagger protruding from his bared chest. “Perhaps, but he wasn’t wearing a medallion when he attacked me. Besides, he wasn’t alone in the attack—not with that many dead.”

  “You are right. Have you told Lord Wynland of the medallion?”

  “No, though I should.”

  “He will think it a lie.”

  He was probably right. “Do you think I had anything to do with the attack, Sir Leonel?”

  “I do not.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  “Because you and I are much alike. Though I have not known you long, I have watched you. However you came by Lady Lark�
��s baggage train, methinks you cannot have been privy to the attack.”

  He knew that just from watching her? More than likely it was a case of puppy love. Kennedy laid back. “I’m tired. Good night.”

  “Nedy?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Be ready.”

  She lifted her head. “For what?”

  “I shall free you of Wynland.”

  He would help her in spite of Fulke’s threat? “How do you intend to do that?”

  “I do not know, only that, at first opportunity, I will take you from here.”

  He did have a crush on her. Remembering what he had said that day by the stream when she introduced him to acupressure, she realized he had been granted his wish that she not be Lady Lark. Sweet, but it could end in his death. “If I’m going to get out of this”—and she would eventually—“I’ll do it myself.”

  He stared at her. “Upon my vow, I will let Wynland do you no harm.”

  How gallant. How foolish. “Goodnight, Sir Leonel.”

  Though the insomnia that had plagued her in the twenty-first century had been firmly on the back burner during her stay in the fourteenth century, it returned. Seconds straggled past, minutes meandered, an hour dragged into the next, but finally she slipped over the edge.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Now!” A hand gripped her arm.

  Kennedy pared back her lids.

  The night framed Leonel’s face above hers. “Crosley is coming out!”

  Kennedy lifted a hand to rub her eyes and realized it was no longer bound with the other. “But it’s still night.”

  “Aye, and ‘twill serve our escape do you make haste.” He pulled her to sitting.

  She looked past him. Torches lit the monastery and the ground before it where Fulke’s men had gathered. And Fulke? Where was he? Doubtless at the front, sword drawn.

  “Nedy?”

  “I can’t go.” She pulled her arm from his hold. “I have to stop him.”

  Leonel shoved his face near hers. “What speak you of?”

  “I can’t let him kill Crosley.” She tossed back the blanket.

  “Do not be a fool. We must leave now.”