Releasing a silent breath, Audelia clenched her teeth and grasped the ledge of the window leading into the guv’s room. Pulling herself up slightly, she peered inside to see a fast-burning candle on the floor towards the door. One large manly frame lay unmoving on the bed to other side of the room. At the foot of the bed, she could make out well-polished black boots that would fetch a hefty price once she got her hands on them. All in all, the night looked to be a very promising one. Now, all she needed was to get this window open without waking the prized occupant of the chamber. Awkwardly reaching for the dagger at her waist, Audelia then placed it carefully between her teeth as she eased a bit more upwards so she could better see along the windowpane. Sliding her fingertips carefully beneath the window, she prayed it hadn’t been closed on the inside, and lifted slowly. To her utmost relief, the window slid upwards with not a creak, not even a murmur. Surely a man like this was not used to a place like Thornea to leave his chamber so breachable to outsiders. For a moment, she almost screamed with joy, her heart doing back-flips inside her chest.
Bracing her arms on the pane, she eased inside carefully, sucking in her stomach as she went. Now would not be a proper time at all for it to make its quarrelsome rants be known. As soon as she managed to slide inside the chamber undetected, she eased out of her boots and crawled across the floor slowly, her dagger already poised and ready to take aim if so necessary. She’d learned a lot over the past months while chasing pockets; a dagger was always necessary. Audelia moved pass the shiny black boots, vowing that she’d not leave them behind, and headed towards the armchair where the guv had hung his pricey coat. Promises of silver glittered like diamonds in her vision and she inched further, glancing behind her now and then to be certain she hadn’t woken him. She’d robbed many a men before but she’d never encountered one so sound a sleeper. It was almost as if he was knocked out-cold.
Audelia licked her lips and reached for the coat, hand poised just over the collar of the garment when a daunting shadow flickered across the wall.
“Release my coat, boy, and I shall spare you your dignity.”
Heart suddenly thundering, Audelia jumped at the softly spoken command and turned to look over her shoulder. Before she could make a mad run for it, the man shifted in the moonlight now flooding through the window. Rushing to her feet, she pointed her dagger and scowled as her vision adjusted on him. The man stood tall and formidable only a few feet from her and as far as she could see, this one was definitely of some import. The aristocratic nose and the burning arrogance in his gaze only gave way to the murderous ire that was emanating off his form. Audelia was in deep waters and she certainly knew it. But she refused to be bested now, not even by a giant who looked like he could snap her in halves.
“I suggest you stay your step, sir.” She licked her drying lips, gaze darting around for any other possible exit. What was she even thinking? There was no other possible exit. But he needn’t know that. “I’d sure not like to cut you.” And she raised her dagger-wielding arm much higher.
“Hell’s fire!” The man cursed and spat at his feet, tossing to the bed the knife he’d held boldly in his hand. “A damn...wench?”
Audelia watched on as the man ran a hand through his long shoulder length hair. “I say do not move, sir. I must warn you that I’ve wielded a dagger many times before and am yet to miss.”
“Youuu cheeky minx. I am going to wring your scrawny little neck!”
Eyes widening with fright, she ducked across the room, almost tripping over the blasted leather boots and headed for the door. Before she could even grab for the knob, one large hand yanked her by the long straight plait going down her back and she went flying backwards, connecting hard against one solid statue of flesh. Everything in her mind went scattering at that point, hopeless thoughts invading her head.
The door smashed open and a man rushed in, one of the guv’s men more than likely, holding Mart upright by his flimsy collar.
“Your Lordship,” he said, breathlessly. “I found this one beneath your window as if to climb up.”And as if the man had just noticed the slender wench being held tight around the arm by his beloved Lordship himself, he gaped openly and swore. “Bloody hell!”
Three
Chastelle Manor
Bryce Ulric St. Rosso was in a foul disposition. Not only had he been, just mere hours ago, the potential victim of a madly conceived intrusion but he had moreover almost been bested by a wily slip of a female who barely even seemed to be out of the blasted schoolroom. For all that was good and holy, the chit had dared to hold a knife at him much less have the audacity to attempt to use it. He’d been shocked straight down to his toenails if he were truly to admit it and furthermore, he could scarcely even believe it had he not witnessed it himself. The slender little thing had even looked as if she’d fall on her ass had he been to even blow in her direction. God’s teeth, save for the ounce of propriety that was left inside of him, he would have knocked a few senses into that obviously thick skull of hers.
Reaching for his tankard, he took a hefty swallow and groaned, easing back into his chair and thanking the heavens for small favors. If he had known the past eve would have ended in such chaos he would have never left the confines of his estate in the first place. But business had to be done and who would have known that he, Lord of Chastelle, would be accosted in the middle of the night by a feather-brained chit who wore men’s breeches. Releasing a throaty groan, he took another sip of the intense liquid. He was certainly getting too old for such dramatic things. A brief knock sounded on the door to his study and he sighed. Only one soul would dare interrupt him at this hour. Dawn had barely even cracked on the horizon.
“Pleasant morn, is it not?”
Edwin Montagu, his right hand man and most loyal friend, stepped inside the room without even the slightest of acknowledgments.
“What do you want, Edwin?”
The man marched across the floor, helping himself to a tankard of his own. “Simply to know what to do with the loose-tongued female you have locked up below stairs.”
“Let the witch rot in her cell and leave me be.”
“Even you, Ulric, can admit that this is complete outrage. The chit looks half-dead already. But appears she’ll live.”
“She should thank Jesu for that. I wanted to murder the little fool myself.”
Edwin shook his head, a few locks of his deep golden hair spilling over his forehead. “Your notorious gaol is hardly the place for a girl. Men have suffered down there.”
“She’s a criminal who made the grave mistake of drawing a blade in my presence.”
“A chit of that stature could never best you, milord.”
Looking up sharply, Ulric narrowed his eyes on his friend. “No chit of any stature could ever best me. I would like to think that you do not vex me on purpose.”
“Of course not. You are the Lord of Chastelle. No one would even dare.”
Although the words came with conviction, Ulric didn’t miss the twinkle in his best friend’s eyes.
“What do you suggest?”
Edwin paused and frowned, scratching his forehead. “Uh... I don’t-I don’t know.”
“Well, based on how you rushed in here declaring your humanitarian rights, I would like to think that your brain had managed to somehow cultivate a better alternative.”
“Well, that was long before I thought you’d even take my advice. Since when do you listen to me?”
Ulric wove a dismissive hand and brought the tankard back to his lips. “Then we shall agree to disagree and move on with our lives. The chit stays right where she belongs. Besides, I have more pressing matters to address. For instance, how everyone failed to inform me of my dear sister’s impending visit.”
This time Edwin made no attempt whatsoever at stifling his amusement. “I hear Lady Ryia misses her only brother terribly. And why wouldn’t she? Lord Ulric is known to have an extremely fetching personality.”
Scowling, Ulric deci
ded to ignore his friend’s taunt and rose from his desk to look through the window behind him. From this floor, on the main house of the estate, he had a tremendous view across the eastern forests of Bascain. Heavy green pastures spread outwards for miles, the icy-capped peaks standing high beyond them. He could see now, the orange and reddish hues of sunrise stretching across the sky. Ulric wasn’t particularly an avid admirer of nature but somehow he found himself yearning for a little dawn of something relevant in his life for a change.
He shook his head and turned. “I have not seen Ryia in nigh eight years since she had been wed off to that blasted baron she’d foolishly fallen in love with. What brings her here now?”
Edwin scoffed and swallowed the remainder of his beverage. “She’s your last living relative. The least you can do is see her.”
“As if I have a choice. The missive I received indicates she’s only a day away.”
“Wonderful. Now how about we pay your captive a visit, eh? I still do believe you should have just handed her over to the public gaoler. Especially with your delicate sister freely roaming the castle beginning next morn.”
Scratching his chin, Ulric grumbled and strode pass his friend. The only thing he believed was that his audacious captive deserved a sound thrashing.
**
Audelia Rolfen paced in the dark cell, suddenly all too aware that she had been captured and left to die in a stink-hole far from any chance of escape. If that pigheaded beast of a man thought she’d sit still and waste away like some hopeless fool then he had sadly mistaken. She’d come too far now to give up. Swearing, she cringed as the chill from the cold concrete seeped its way through the naked soles of her feet. Damnable barbarians. The least they could have done was hand over her boots and perhaps a blanket. Now the only thing she had to her back was the sweaty long-sleeved cotton shirt she’d been wearing for days and the linen breeches she’d taken from Mart.
Nibbling on her already crooked nails, Audelia slid down against the wall, the rough floor doing terrible harm to her backside. She wondered where the little idiot was now. Perhaps if he hadn’t gotten himself caught lingering beneath the guv’s window at the inn, she would have afforded a greater chance at escaping. Audelia was almost sure she would have managed to break away from the man’s hold back in the chamber but when the other came rushing in with Mart by his collar, she’d lost all hope then. How had she to really stave off two full-sized males with just one dagger?
Heaving footsteps echoed from somewhere beyond the dark walls and Audelia found herself rising quickly despite the ache in her limbs. The harsh sounds of boots grinding against cobbles and stones came louder now, followed by a beaming light which gave her the very first if not repulsive glimpse of her gaol’s interior. Swallowing deeply, she braced herself against the wall and waited. The approaching whoever-they-were stopped beyond the thick wooden door that held the only exit to her cage. In one heart-wrenching moment, said door was flung open and in marched the beast himself.
Audelia’s lips curved into a nasty snarl as she beheld her jailer. She couldn’t understand how he managed to look even taller but just gazing at him made her want to shrink away into the nearest hole if she could find one. He was dressed in black garb and the shin-high leather boots she’d craved so much to make a fortune from. For some reason her gaze lingered on his face far longer than she had liked but a countenance like that certainly deserved more than a single glance. In admission, her jailer was a good-looking man, an unconventional rugged type of handsome that must have left countless lassies thinking of days on a ship and naughty nights in it’s main cabin. Her glare dipped lower though despite her best efforts, sliding over his neatly pinned back shoulder-length hair, it’s blackness glistening in the torchlight.
Mentally shaking the apparent cobwebs from her mind, she straightened to her full five-foot-six-inches height and screwed up her face.
“Come to pay your lucky prisoner a visit, have you?”
To her surprise her jailer grinned, all teeth and throaty amusement that she wished she had a rock to slam into his arrogant face. “Actually, I’d every intention of showing you my favorite noose but my dear friend, Edwin, somehow has developed a strange liking for outlandish females.”
Audelia narrowed her eyes. “Tell your friend, Edwin, that I am specially skilled at cramping a man in even the most private of places. Come near me and I shall de-man both of you.”
Her jailer came closer, legs moving fast as he towered over her, face stricken. “That’s hardly the right thing to say in the presence of the man who holds your life in his palm, wench.” He looked her over quickly. “What is your name?”
“My name is no more important than my wish to exchange words with you at the moment. Do you honestly think that I--”
Audelia gasped as one big hand pawned her throat and squeezed. Not to kill her but certainly to hurt the hell out of her. Pawing at his thick arm, she wheezed and strained for the air she hadn’t known she’d want so much.
“Listen carefully,” he was saying. She could see his eyes more clearly now. They were a deep green, much like the color of the forests she’d dreamed daily of escaping into...and certainly the last thing she should have been noticing at the moment. “I am not in a gaming mood. So if you seek to be amusing, I am sure the devil and his compatriots wouldn’t mind bidding you a fierce welcome.”
He shoved her firmly against the wall and pressed even closer, his big hard frame leaning into her much much slender one. Those intense green eyes burned into her soul like a piercing dagger and she trembled, watching in terror as his gaze roamed her face swiftly and then dipped below to the loose neckline of her shirt.
“How old are you?” His voice came out rough and demanding.
She wheezed. “N-Nineteen.”
Ulric tore his gaze from the exceptional bosom that peeked its way through the flimsy material of the chit’s shirt. What the hell was he thinking? He hadn’t intended on choking the life out of her and by far more, had no reason to be liking the delicious swell of her small breasts either. But just the sight of them had driven him to a heady state that he had tried hard to avoid as of late. He certainly hadn’t noticed how delicate a face she sported or how light and slender she was...until now. God’s blood, she wasn’t even pretty. He could hardly call her that but she had a defiance about her that got under his skin like a raging itch. And for some reason, he was beginning to find that realization oddly fascinating, which was why he dropped his grip from her throat and stepped a few steps back before he fully lost his mind.
Taking a sharp breath in, Ulric watched with pained guilt as the girl sucked in rapidly needed breaths and massaged her more-than-likely burning neck. He hadn’t felt so remorseful since the day his sister had married that stupid baron just to escape his so-called ‘controlling ways’. Perhaps, he was not well in the presence of women at all.
“Why were you in my room at the inn?”
The girl glared at him and although he did not blame her, he was more desperate for her to speak up quickly. He had other concerns that needed his attention.
“What do you think? Do not get your thoughts muddled, milord.” She mocked him and he knew it. “I, unlike most women, have never craved common attention from strange men.” She straightened and swallowed visibly. “Why, you looked to have mighty deep pockets, sir.”
Ulric’s brows almost shot off his face. Surely, she must be jesting. “You’re...a thief?”
“An excellent one too.” She smiled widely as if with pride, one corner of her mouth turning up in a sly grin.
“You mean to tell me that your intention was to take my coin?”
He definitely could not believe what he was hearing and just having the girl so near made him very...very uncomfortable. She was only nineteen years old; two years more than his sister Ryia’s age when she herself had been wed. From all he’s ever known, nineteen year old females could not be thieves. They were innocent and annoying and married off to firm gentle
men who could keep them in line.
“Not just take your coin, sir.” She fidgeted with her trousers a while, pulling at the crotch. “I meant to rob you blind. Coin like yours could save the life of someone like me.”
Ulric knew he should not feel an ounce of empathy for this criminal who would have stuck a knife inside his chest at first opportunity but somehow he found himself staring into those pale brown eyes which spoke volumes of a scared young woman. Whatever could have driven her to become a thief? It surely ought not to be a celebrated profession. “Where is your family?”
Audelia frowned as she regarded the man before her. She hated being the subject of any form of talk and she certainly was no story-teller either. “Are you going to hang me tonight or in the morn?”
“I have not decided yet.”
“Well since I am meant to be hanged for my crimes, kind sir, my last and only wish is that I’m afforded just a wee bit of privacy while I await my looming death.”
Giving the girl one last glance, his glower sweeping from the crown of her disheveled hair to the toes of her dirty bare feet, Ulric turned on his heel and left the cell. As he walked, he wondered what the hell he was going to do with his new prisoner.
Four
Baroness Ryia St. Rosso Hyslop flew through the front doors of Chastelle Manor, swept the large and very familiar foyer and bound up the endless staircase to her brother’s study. As far as she remembered, it was his favorite place on the entire estate. She supposed, as the reputed hermit her brother had transformed into, he probably was swimming in tankards of brandy and sulking the day away. But oh, she had a piece of her mind to tell Bryce Ulric St. Rosso and he was going to hear it. Slamming the side of her fist against the thick wooden door, Ryia grumbled when no answer came.
Coins and Daggers Page 2
