by Julia Latham
When she’d first entered the cell, she’d held her breath, waiting for him to say, “Aha!” and proclaim her a murderess. But he hadn’t; he’d only demanded answers that she couldn’t give. Six years ago, over the course of several weeks, she had only seen him at the occasional meal, had only spoken to him a half-dozen times. And even then, he’d barely made eye contact with her. Perhaps he really didn’t recognize her, yet was searching for her, or even one of the other maidservants, Mary or Joan.
Or was it all a coincidence, and once again she was being impulsive? She’d worked so hard to conquer that weakness, training steadily in the doctrine of the League even though they had not called on her assistance in six years. They’d told her that she was too impulsive, that they would have to evaluate her again before placing her in a dangerous situation. But she was still waiting, her life of excitement and purpose gone. Now her past mistakes had returned to haunt her.
Could Bannaster really be here simply to look over her sister?
Well, she couldn’t let that happen either! God above, Diana had killed his brother! She would have to send word to the League and ask for their assistance. She hated to involve them, but she did not want her actions to jeopardize the secrecy of their mission to help those who needed it the most. Though she did not know where the League was based, she knew how to leave a message that would be sent to the right people.
Pushing tiredly to her feet, she turned and walked up the stairs that led to an outside entrance. The dungeon was beneath one of the corner towers, with its own separate staircase. Feeling distracted, she walked through the inner ward, remembering to nod at the greetings thrown her way by the dairymaids and the stable grooms, and the huntsman at his kennel. Her breath puffed before her, her toes began to tingle with numbness as her feet crunched over the packed snow.
The curtain wall of the castle had been breached at two points in a battle long ago, so in the gatehouse there was no longer even a need to lower the portcullis, the pointed iron gate that would normally guard against intruders. Diana had soldiers take turns patrolling through the night, but that was the best that she could do for security. The keep was nowhere near a well-used highway; what thieves would travel into the dales to steal what little they had?
Much as all the servants had been kind to her, Diana never felt like she belonged. She’d grown up on the plains near York, at the castle where Archie and his wife now resided when they weren’t in London. On a whim, her brother could send Diana anywhere he wanted. It was frustrating and humiliating, and although she was hardly the only woman to suffer so, she was a Bladeswoman, trained to take command of a situation, to act and even attack when necessary.
Instead she was as much a prisoner as Viscount Bannaster now was, running her household, it was true, but unable to leave. And of course she had to deal with Cicely, arrogant in her own beauty, as frustrated as Diana was with the way her youth was being wasted.
It was now mid-afternoon, and Diana entered the great hall to find dinner cleared from the trestle tables. The castle was drafty with age, leaving threadbare tapestries a last defense against the chill wind that snuck in through every crack and seemed to seep into the very stone. At least there were several stained glass windows cut high into the walls to let in light. An ancestor had once gone to a large expense for a small keep, and Diana was grateful for the meager warmth the light brought.
With a sigh, she slipped up the stairs and into her bedchamber before Cicely could find her. Diana didn’t want to hear how excited her sister was about the viscount’s visit, not when she knew that he wouldn’t arrive—at least not for Cicely.
Her bedchamber was Diana’s retreat from the world. She’d brought her favorite tapestries to hang on the walls to keep out the drafts. Her four-poster bed was comfortable, piled with cushions and warm coverlets. It looked like the bedchamber of any woman. Unless someone examined the coffer resting unobtrusively in the corner. It contained Diana’s weapons: her daggers and swords, the crossbow she’d become proficient at. Cicely had spent their youth taunting her, but to be different than her sister was something Diana was proud of.
Her skill had brought her the notice of the League and led to the predicament she found herself in now: she was keeping a man against his will in her dungeon.
The present viscount little resembled the eighteen-year-old boy she remembered. He had grown taller, and his work becoming a knight had made him broad with muscle through his shoulders, arms, and chest. Above his wide neck, he had a man’s face now, all hard angles. He’d lost that pale, pinched look of unhappiness. He seemed so…full of life, bigger than life, a man who’d found his proper place. Those brown eyes she’d once thought somber now snapped with authority and frustration. Yet he’d been living with the repercussions of her actions, just as she had. She’d lost her place in the League; he’d lost his people’s trust. Diana had not spared herself from hearing everything that had happened to him. He was not taken seriously at court, though his cousin the king was protective of him.
Yet…he would never be punished because of her crime—unless you counted her imprisonment of him. She groaned and sank into a cushioned chair before the bare hearth. Since he’d inherited the viscountcy, he was used to having everything his way. She couldn’t imagine he’d take well to being locked up, but what choice did she have?
She knew that no one had ever trained and succeeded to the knighthood as quickly as he had. But after that, he’d made terrible decisions. How could he complain about being held prisoner, when he’d done the same to a woman? He had long since left the gentle ways of a priest behind.
Shuddering, Diana hugged herself against the cold. She would have the servants light a fire for her.
And then she remembered Bannaster, and the cold depths of the dungeon. Though she wanted to avoid him, she would go to him once more.
Chapter 2
It was late in the evening before Diana was able to slip away from the household. Joan had already prepared a tray for their prisoner and left it in Diana’s chambers. Diana took a rear staircase down to the small door seldom used that led to the lady’s garden and beyond, to the inner ward. She used no torch, just carried a sack over one shoulder, and the tray in the other hand, moving slowly through the dark, her bright hair covered by a hood for secrecy. Only when she was on the far side of the tower did she breathe easier, opening the dungeon door, careful not to disturb the cobwebs draped across it.
She hurried down the stairs in the dark. The grill in the cell door was the only source of light. Setting everything on a small table, she used the key she kept hidden in the girdle belted about her waist. The sound of movement from inside ceased at once. She gritted her teeth as she forced the lock to turn, fearing it was rusting with age. After pulling open the door, she found Bannaster standing in the center of the cell, the chain piled at his feet, his face pale and furious. To her dismay, the rock cell was even colder than this afternoon. Well, at least she’d remembered his plight before he spent a freezing night. She brought in her sack and tray and knelt down to unpack.
She was prepared when he rushed at her, only blinking when he came up short and cursed.
He stared down at her with narrowed eyes. “You do not show fear,” he said coldly.
“There is nothing to fear.” A mistake, those words. Too brave for a mere maidservant, as if she were still a Bladeswoman.
He scowled, and she realized she’d offended him.
“When I am free,” he said, “you’ll remember what fear feels like.”
She barely kept herself from asking if those were the threats used by someone who’d once studied for the church. But again, that would reveal herself as more than a servant—and as someone who knew much about him. His garments were still immaculate, as if he hadn’t tried hard to escape. But the shackle around his ankle left him little leeway.
“Threatening me will not help, my lord,” she said softly. “I fear someone else more.” My own conscience.
�
�Who is your master?” he demanded again.
Without answering, she took the cloth off the covered tray. She’d had Joan prepare a selection of stewed beef and mutton, which now rested on another bread trencher. There was a salad of carrots and beans dressed with verjuice, and another wineskin. Before she added a spoon, she looked at the tray he’d discarded and found his earlier spoon missing.
She slid the tray toward him. “My master told me not to give you another spoon if you had hidden the first one.”
With another scowl, he started pacing, ignoring the offering of sustenance. “How long do you intend to keep me here? I will be missed.”
“I’m glad that you are certain of that, my lord.”
“And what does that mean?”
She could not keep talking to him if she could not control her words. Why did he affect her so poorly? She calmly pulled the brazier out of the sack, and then produced a smaller sack full of coal.
“You carried all that on your back and managed a tray, too?” he asked.
Some of the fury had left his voice, and to her dismay, he was studying her more closely now. She hid her face by staring intently at her work. “I did not wish you to be cold, my lord. You can light the coal from your torch. There is a small hole high in the ceiling for the smoke to escape.”
“The torch is about to burn out.”
She slid the sack toward him. “There are several more in here.”
“And now you’ve told me about a possible means of escape.”
Did he sound wary beneath his satisfaction? She stared up over his head, to where blackness concealed the true height of the ceiling. “Should you even be able to reach it, my lord, the hole is not wide enough for a man to crawl through. And it leads not to the outside.”
He gave what sounded like a growl, then sat down cross-legged to face her. She was so surprised, that she met his gaze without thinking of the effect. As she knelt facing him, eye to eye, to her consternation something seemed to…shift inside her. She could not give a name to the strange sensation she’d never felt before. Looking into those fiery dark eyes made her feel unusually defiant, ready to challenge him word for word.
But she was a maidservant, she reminded herself, reining in her emotions.
“Why am I here?” he demanded all over again.
She shook her head, trying to appear helpless.
“You seem familiar to me,” he continued.
Her insides tightened, but she was well trained to show no reaction. “Have you been to this corner of Yorkshire before, my lord? Because I have never left it.”
“You were born here?”
She nodded the lie quite easily.
“Your master, too?”
She made no answer, only started to rise.
“Wait!”
Impassively, she stared at him. “Aye, my lord?”
“You have not tasted the food.”
With a sigh, she sat back on her heels and tried a bite of everything. He remained silent while she did so, watching her every move. She could have sworn he was paying too much attention to her lips, felt almost as if he touched her. After a sip from the wineskin, she began to rise again, feeling relief and the need to escape. Had she become a coward?
“How do I know the poison won’t act slowly?”
“You do not, my lord. All you can trust is that my master does not want me to fall unconscious when I leave here. And there’s no point in harming you, when he already has you vulnerable.”
She thought she could hear his teeth grinding.
Rising to her feet, she said, “I will bring more food on the morrow.”
“And how long will we keep doing this?” he said with obvious frustration, rising to stand tall before her. “He cannot possibly mean to break my mind, not when you’ve given me food and drink and fire.”
“Perhaps that is not his intention.”
“Then what is? What is this about?”
He stood facing her, hands on his hips, the very broadness of him intimidating. He had been so very different six years ago, still a boy, destined for the priesthood; now he seemed to fill the cell, crowding her out.
What could she have possibly thought she could do with him? All she’d felt was the blind panic of a woman guilty of murder, who’d worried that another suffered in her place. But he didn’t look like he’d suffered.
Regardless of the weather, she would have to send her message to the League tomorrow. She could not keep speaking to him every day, with no answers to give, no solution to her dilemma.
“Good evening, my lord.”
He almost gaped at her. “Is it good? I cannot even tell if it’s evening.”
“Then listen for the church bells.” She turned and walked through the door.
“Damn you, return to me at once!” he thundered, even as she locked the door behind her.
In the darkness, she fled up the stairs, glad to leave.
Tom strained to the limits of the chain, feeling the shackle cut the skin of his ankle, furious with the sound of his voice echoing in the dungeon. He had not meant to sound as desperate as he felt, but he hated the cold and the solitude more than anything else. It reminded him of all the hours he’d spent kneeling on the stone floor of the church, reciting the prayers he’d had to memorize, feeling like he would never be warm again. Life had gone on outside his small church, his prison, but he had not been a part of it.
He ran a hand down his face, bitter laughter welling up inside him. His mysterious captor didn’t need to deny him food and water to break him, if Tom continued to allow his own mind to work against him. He sat down on the pallet, picked up a rock, and began to hit the hinge of the shackle. It looked far too solid to break easily, but at least he was doing something that might lead to escape.
He couldn’t stop thinking of the maidservant, and he told himself it was because she was his only contact with the world. But in his mind he saw the grace of her movements, the blankness of her gaze—not the blankness of unquestioning obedience, but something else, almost like a curtain he could not see through. She knew much more than she was saying.
Diana was awake before dawn. She had washed herself quickly in a basin of cold water and was already dressed in her plain garments before Mary arrived. Mary was a buxom redhead who always caught men’s eyes. Were she a noblewoman, she would have easily found a husband. But instead she was a maidservant, abused by the late viscount, and so she shied away from men altogether. Diana had thought giving her a home would help heal her, and Mary claimed to be—and seemed to be—happy at Kirkby Keep. Diana, who’d never felt a real desire for the restrictions of marriage, thought Mary should be left to her own wishes. But it was Joan, the other maidservant from Castle Bannaster, now being courted by the huntsman, who said they needed to help Mary find a husband.
Mary closed the door behind her and came swiftly to Diana’s side. “I did not see you yesterday eve, milady. Did ye go to him again?”
Diana sighed. “I could not leave him to freeze. I took him a brazier and more torches.”
“He could harm himself.”
“If he’s foolish enough to try. But he will not. He is too intent on discovering all the answers.”
“Would you not be, if ye were captured like that?”
Diana frowned at her, knowing that Mary was right. “Are you telling me that we did wrong?”
“Nay, of course not! We had to know his purpose here. But milady, now what?”
“We send a missive to the League. And I go to see how he spent the night.”
“He must be very angry, if he be anythin’ like his brother.”
When Mary shuddered, Diana almost comforted her friend, but remembered in time that Mary wanted no reminders of her past weakness.
“He’s angry, aye,” Diana said, “but he’s not like the late viscount.”
Mary cocked her head, green eyes curious. “And how do ye know that, especially after the things we’ve heard about him? Though I lived in the
same castle, I knew nothin’ of his mind. He kept to himself, he did, forced to by that family of his.”
“There is not the same cruelty in his eyes.” Diana willed herself not to blush.
“And ye trust that?” Mary asked, her own eyes wide with disbelief.
“I trust nothing. I promise I’ll be careful.” Diana sighed. “Will I escape my sister this morn?”
Mary grinned. “Nay, she’s already awake, too busy anticipatin’ a suitor to sleep past dawn, her usual custom.”
With a groan, Diana went to the door. “Then I will bear her delirious happiness.”
“And I shall fetch a tray for your guest and leave it here for ye.”
“My thanks, Mary,” she said, giving a tired smile.
The maidservant studied her. “I think ye did not sleep much either.”
Diana shook her head. “I did not realize how my actions would…weigh on me.”
“’Tis not too late to change our minds, milady. We can use the potion again, blindfold him, and set him free.”
“And when he comes here to meet Cicely, how am I to hide my face?”
“Oh.”
“And he makes me taste the food and drink, so I would suffer the effects of the potion as well.”
“A clever man.”
Diana sighed. “But I vow to be more clever. Somehow I will set this to right.”
Mary looked skeptical, but said nothing as they turned opposite ways at the next corridor. Diana went down to mass in the chapel built into the curtain wall of the castle and then headed toward the great hall to break her fast. Her sister was humming as she followed on her heels across the inner ward.
Cicely Winslow was a true beauty, there was no doubt about that, Diana admitted, objectively studying her sister’s light blue eyes, heart-shaped face, and blond curls. Since Cicely was unmarried, she took advantage of the custom for maidens to wear their hair down—impractical as it was for women such as Diana, who worked hard through the day. But to Cicely, others existed to serve her. A year younger, her sister was delicately petite and well curved next to Diana’s tall and sturdy build. Their father had doted on Cicely, favored her to the point that she thought special treatment was her due. Behind that sweet smile lurked a selfish woman.
