Her head swirled. The touch of both his fingers and his words was like a drug.
“Rosamund…”
He was stroking her flesh. A strange feeling came over her, something akin to a trance.
She waited, not daring to breathe.
She was afraid he would kiss her. She wanted him to, she was desperate for him to take that one final step and she would be his completely. She would melt in his arms and tell him everything and weep on his strong shoulder. But that would only make the leaving all the worse.
Much, much worse.
Casting about for something—anything—to give her back her head, she murmured, “Lord Robert may be looking for me to return.”
It must have been the right thing to have said. He stopped those titillating sliding motions with his fingers. His features hardened. “He will not mind,” Agravar said, but his voice was sharper, stronger.
She was regaining control of her senses. “Still, I should not like to anger him.”
He seemed to struggle with some reply he wished to make, but he chewed the inside of his cheek and kept silent. Her body felt weak, but she drew on her reserves of strength. Slipping past him, she went only a few steps before she paused.
With a bit of distance between them, she turned to look at him. She thought about what had almost happened. She thought about kissing him. What did it matter? The pouch was in her hand, safe and secret. Tomorrow she would be gone and it would not matter at all.
What if she placed herself in his capable hands and lay with him, giving in to the desire that scalded her heart? What if she offered him her innocence in this last night together?
Tomorrow, she thought wryly, she would be dead. Would it matter that she was not a virgin?
“Go on, go to your bed,” he commanded. “I know you do not wish to return, and frankly we will all be relieved of your nerve-racking presence. I will make your excuses to Robert.”
Aye, she could not go back in there. The wonderful thing about death was that while it cheated passion, it also freed one from fear. Robert’s anger was no longer to be dreaded.
She slipped away, almost racing up the stairs to the exile of her lonely chamber to do what she must. Death and resurrection awaited her, and the mighty Viking Agravar could be no part of it.
Chapter Fifteen
It was a clear morning, with just a touch of mist. It would burn off later, but it was early yet and the tendrils clung low to the ground like wisps of ghosts reluctant to be banished from their midnight reveries by the clear, pure light of the sun.
In the armory by the east wall, Lucien, Will and Agravar stood inspecting the fine array of steel.
They were together again, the three of them, sharing the treasured camaraderie. With swords in their hands and their laughter mingling, it was as if the years that had changed them from the three soldiers fighting for a uniting cause had never passed.
Agravar was amazed how familiar it all seemed. Familiar and pleasant. Lucien was as relaxed as was possible for him, a state denoted by the small smile playing on his lips, with himself and Will forming a brotherly circle around him—the kind of fond affection expressed by tormenting and ruthless jests. Will’s quick wit and lighthearted antics were part of it, as was Agravar’s occasional, slightly snide comments, or brutal observations that Will wouldn’t dare.
A figure appeared in the doorway, cutting off the deep echoes of masculine laughter. The three turned to the woman. Agravar recognized her immediately, although they had met only once before, at Will’s castle, and she had looked…well, quite different.
Olivia was pretty and slim, a quiet woman who had first appeared wrapped in rags and mystery, both of which Will had made short shrift of last Christmastide. They had been wed the New Year’s Day just passed. Her gentle influence had healed the breach between Will and his overlord and brought Will back to the friendship from which he had become estranged.
She now looked to Will and smiled, but remained where she was when he held out his hand for her to come to his side. To Lucien, she dipped a curtsy. “My lord. I beg your leave.”
“Good God, Will, tell your wife to leave off such formality. Has she been taking lessons from Rosamund?”
Will grinned, gesturing to his shocked bride. “Come, love. Lucien detests such displays. Say what you need.”
“I regret to disturb you, but there is some problem with the Lady Rosamund. Veronica has sent me to fetch Lord Lucien.”
Lucien grunted in disgust. “Call Lord Robert, for she is his responsibility now.” At Olivia’s taken-aback expression, he amended reluctantly, “Oh, very well. What is the problem with the Lady Rosamund?”
Olivia, unlike Rosamund, was not at all afraid of Lucien’s bluster. She explained, “She has bolted her door against us. Her maid has been trying to gain entry, but the lady will not answer.”
Agravar felt the first flutter of alarm. He stepped forward. “Are you certain she is inside?”
“Sir, the door is locked.” She blinked prettily, showing her consternation. “If not she, then who could have thrown the bolt?”
“What does she say?”
“She says nothing. She has not answered our call.”
“God’s boots, what is the chit up to?” Lucien’s tone was curt. “She has been nothing but a trial since the moment she arrived on my lands. For all that is holy, she tests my nerves.”
“Surely you cannot fault her for falling victim to miscreants,” Agravar snapped. He was surprised at the irritation he felt at Lucien’s unsympathetic opinions.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
Undaunted by their bickering, Olivia interceded. “Lady Veronica sent me to fetch you. She fears you may have to force the door. Will you come?”
Agravar took off at a run, caring nothing for those who chanced into his path. Without apology, he shoved them aside, landing several unfortunate folks on their rumps. Up the stairs to her bedchamber he flew, his mind focusing on a single pinpoint of fear.
What had the little fool gotten herself into?
Arriving at her chamber, he tried the door first, futilely jiggling the latch.
“We have tried that,” Lady Veronica said dryly. He hadn’t seen her, waiting off to one side of the corridor with Rosamund’s maid.
He looked over the portal and raised both his fists. Bringing them down on the oak planks until it shook on its hinges, he called, “Rosamund!”
Veronica looked impatient. “We tried that as well, Agravar!”
Hilde flew up to him and grasped his arm. “I have been calling her, sir, but she comes not! Oh, I know ’tis disaster. I daresay, that child has come to an evil end. Oh, my good, sweet Rosamund, so gentle, so fair—”
Hilde’s wails were cut off abruptly as he disengaged himself and turned his attention again to the door in front of him. His eyes quickly scanned the perimeter of the portal, assessing, weighing options.
Behind him, Hilde clucked and retreated behind Veronica.
“Break it down,” Lucien ordered.
They arranged themselves three across, each with their shoulder turned in toward the door, hunched, legs bent. Agravar counted, “One, two—”
On three, they surged, crashing painfully into the wood. The sound of it splintering was crisp, but it did not give way.
“Again. One, two—”
It took two more tries before a plank succumbed. Agravar stepped back and drew back his mighty fist, thrusting it through the broken wood. His hand groped, found the bolt and threw it from its brace.
He drew in his hand, gritting his teeth against the splinters sliding under his flesh. The maid shrieked at the blood dripping from his hand. “My Lord, your arm is in ribbons.”
He didn’t even glance at the wounds. Opening the door, he and his companions rushed into the room.
There was no one there. The bed was not slept in, not a thing was disturbed. He stood in the middle of the floor, taking it all in with a sweep of his eyes and not moving anot
her muscle.
Hilde brushed past them. “Mistress Rosamund? Mistress? Oh, my dear, where can she be?”
Veronica was calling Rosamund’s name in a gentle, shaking voice. Olivia crept in, wary, looking about with wide eyes.
She shrieked and Agravar followed her line of sight. He saw the blood. His heart froze in his chest.
Several things happened in the space of a single instant. His vision converged on the thick, brownish puddle by the window. He saw that there were touches of it on other things—the chest, the dressing table, a long, grisly smear against the wall. Another by the hearth mantel.
Then he heard a scream. Hilde, probably, just now spotting the blood. A gasp followed, and some muttered words behind him. Veronica.
Will stepped forward and began to inspect the stains.
Lucien spoke softly from behind Agravar. He was ordering the ladies out of the room.
Will went to the window and peered down. Glancing back over his shoulder, he shook his head at Lucien then continued to search the room. Agravar instantly understood what he was doing. He was looking for her body.
Nay. She isn’t dead.
Agravar’s brain was crowded with snatches of memory. Phrases, visions. The turret stairs, the garden. The woods. Just last night, in the alcove off the hall.
Lucien placed a hand on his shoulder. “Agravar, you know her best. Do you have any knowledge that would help us?”
Will came up just then and said one word. “Nothing.”
No body, then.
“Agravar,” Lucien prodded.
He closed his eyes, turning away from the press of emotion in his breast. Think, he commanded. What the devil was going on here? Think!
The priest. She had been terrified of him. Had he returned and done this out of revenge? Or had whatever secret she had harbored driven her to take her own life?
But if that were so, where was she? Even if she were murdered, why would her assailant take away her lifeless body?
Agravar snapped his lids open. “The blood means nothing. We must assume she is alive.”
“Agreed.”
His thoughts churned. She had said once that she was an expert of sorts on evil. What did that mean? What evil was done here last night?
“Agravar, did you hear me?”
“We must ride out.” He drew in a bracing breath before he spoke. “If her body is not here, the blood means nothing. Even if she is…is dead, then her murderer cannot be far-off.”
Lucien was unsure. “Perhaps we should search the castle first.”
“Nay,” Agravar shot impatiently. “I say we waste no time in getting under way.”
Will was uncomfortable. “The stains have already turned stale. It has been hours.”
Agravar looked at Will with such intensity the other man actually blanched. Through grinding teeth, Agravar growled, “Then we best hurry, hadn’t we?”
There was nothing else said. They went to make ready.
In the open, in the meadow, the world seemed unreal. The color of the sky seemed lurid, a distastefully gaudy blue clashing hopelessly with the sour greens of the fields.
Agravar was numb. He kept trying to shake himself out of it, for he needed his senses sharp, but his brain was stuck on the unspeakable question of what he would do if he lost her.
It was his fault. He was captain—it was his duty to see to the safety of the castle and all within. He had known there was something wrong with her, some trouble, some…secret thing she held away from him. He should have known to watch her more closely, to question her with greater force.
Lord Robert had joined them, riding between Lucien and Will. His face was ashen, his wide-shouldered body taut. His men rode with Lucien’s guard as they swept into the woods.
Agravar had an odd thought. The last time they were in these woods, he had ridden down her abductors and gotten her back. Twice, in fact. Please, Father, he prayed, let me be lucky one more time.
Twice. He had saved her twice.
His brain kicked into action.
They rode on, not talking. Listening, searching the ground for hoofprints, the horizon for a flash of color, a sign.
Twice she had been abducted. This time being the third.
Three times? What were the chances of a maid coming to harm three times in so short a space as a few fortnights?
And then he remembered that the very first time he had spotted her, it had been from across this very meadow, riding with the kidnapper toward the woods that led to the river.
Riding alongside the man in the red hat. With no tethers on her. Why had it never occurred to him before?
Unfair, he thought. That would not, in itself, have meant anything. A terrified maid would follow orders under duress, or threat, without need of binding.
Perhaps only now, after knowing her restive nervousness, her fears, her haunted face and all of the secrets she clasped so desperately to her heart, could he suspect such a thing.
Could he suspect such a thing?
Lightning fast, images flashed through his mind again, this time with a purpose.
Are you an expert on evil, Rosamund?
Aye, I am. Of sorts.
Sneaking off to the turret, alone in the darkened corridor near the kitchens.
The man in the red hat.
Why had the kidnapper wanted only her—not even her jewels had been stolen. Ransom? Some grudge, perhaps?
Reining in his horse, he stopped.
“Lucien,” he called, “I…my brain is nagging me.”
Interested, Lucien stopped and twisted in his saddle. “What is it?”
He suddenly felt ridiculous. “I do not know. Something. I cannot explain.”
“Speak, Agravar. Your instincts are always keen.”
When he had fetched her back before, she and her companion had been headed to the river that ran through the woods up here. Following it north, it wound around the foundations of Thalsbury, Will’s demesne. South, it led into the Dove, which fed into the Trent.
Such a clever abduction, so close to the waterways and easy access to escape. As if the kidnapper had known she would be along just at that moment in the opportune place where they could away to the sea.
“Let me go to the river. I go alone. We cannot spare the men for the search of the woods. If ’tis but my imagination, I’ll not risk her life on mere suspicions, but I have to see for myself if what I suspect is possible. You go on and comb the forest.”
“Go ahead, then, but take some men.”
“Nay. It may mean the difference in the ground you can cover, and yours is the more plausible route for them to have gone. If naught comes of my hunch, I shall join you presently.”
Lucien paused, considering it. Nodding, he murmured, “A-Viking.”
Agravar jerked his destrier about. “A-Viking.”
Rosamund paced the banks of the river.
Davey was hunched over the small fire he had built, chuckling and rubbing his hands together against the encroaching chill. “The blood will scramble their heads,” he crowed. “They will search the castle, high and low, and they will sit and puzzle and puzzle. ‘Where has she gone? What has become of her?’ they will wonder, all to no avail.”
“But why did we bolt the door?” She rubbed her arms briskly. “Does it not make it seem more suspicious?”
“Of course, Rosamund.” He was calling her Rosamund now. No more “my lady.” It made her uncomfortable, as did his swaggering confidence. “The intrigue of it all shall have them tied into knots for hours. That was my plan, you see, to outwit them so that they would not know what was what.”
“Will they find the scaling ladder, do you think? Then, they will know.”
“What of it? ’Tis something every castle keeps. They will take no note of it, rest assured. Nothing to connect it to our little game.”
She glanced up the river. “The boat should be here soon. I wish it would hurry. To be this close to freedom, and still know they are on our trail,
it makes me nervous.”
“There is time, yet. And I assured you, they will not be after us so soon. Relax. Ah, there is something I have not yet told you. The boat…it was safer to arrange for it not to come until the morrow.”
“The morrow? We must spend the night here, so close to Gastonbury?”
“Rosamund, be at ease. I sent a messenger ahead with a bag of gold and the boat will be here at first light. And in a few moments, we shall take to the trails again.”
Rosamund didn’t like it. She didn’t like any of this. One night away from her long-relished dream of freedom, and her heart was filled with nothing but regret.
Davey was saying, “We still have a ways to travel, but no rush. We have ridden hard, we must give the horses a chance to rest.”
“I should feel so much safer if we were under sail. Why could not the boat come up the river today?”
“Lord Lucien keeps up patrols too well, and I wanted to leave plenty of time for the rendezvous in case there were any problems.” He seemed disgruntled to have to admit this weakness in his plan. “Rosamund, cease this questioning. I have planned well for all eventualities. Come, sit by me. Warm yourself. There is a chill in the air this morn. Summer is over.” He flashed her a triumphant smile. “By winter, we shall be in warmer climes.”
She was cold, but it was a coldness no fire could cure. She continued to walk her tight circle. “I cannot be reassured, Davey.”
“Rosamund.” His voice, amazingly, sounded chiding. Even demanding. “It wounds me that you doubt me so.”
“I just do not see why we have to linger here when it is so dangerous.” But she did understand part of it. It was his triumph, to languish just under their noses, refuse to hurry because his clever plan was so brilliant that they could never figure it out in time.
Rosamund was reminded of the old fable of the tortoise and the hare. She was tempted to say so, but Davey had had enough of her challenges. He snapped, “’Tis all taken care of, now sit yourself down and not another word about it!”
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