Anice's Bargain

by Madeline Martin

  The reiver in front of the heavy iron-bound door eyed James.

  “Move,” James stated simply.

  The man complied.

  James pulled a coin from his pocket and pushed it into the man’s hand. “I require some time alone with the prisoner.”

  The reiver grinned in understanding and melted into the darkness. James waited until the heavy fall of his wooden-soled shoes faded with him. Only then did he open the door.

  He pushed a candle into the darkness ahead of him. Drake squinted his eyes against the brilliance of the single flickering flame. Even as he flinched from the light, he swung a fist at James, who easily ducked away from the wild attack.

  James slammed the door shut behind him and locked it. “Enough.”

  “Where is she?” Drake lunged again.

  James evaded the attack.

  “What have ye done with her?” Drake demanded. “If ye’ve harmed her in any way, I’ll kill ye.”

  “Enough.” James spoke with the authority of a man who would someday be laird, a man who owned his own land and was doing all he could to protect the woman he loved. “Stop and I’ll tell ye.”

  Drake fell silent, though his vengeful glare glittered in the meager light.

  “I know what ye think,” James said.

  “That ye’re every bit the traitor we anticipated ye’d be?” Drake squared his shoulders. “If ye were an honorable man, I’d challenge ye to a duel.”

  Irritation tightened the muscles at James’s back. “I was working against Laird Graham the entire time.”

  “I dinna believe ye. Why would ye no’ tell Anice? Or me, for that matter?”

  James shook his head. “Anice would have wanted to warn her family and wouldna have been able to quietly follow the plan. Her sudden disappearance would be suspect, and if she were caught, we’d all have been killed. And ye…” James cast a disgusted look at the other man. “Ye’re in love with my wife.”

  The malice drained from Drake’s face. No doubt the color did as well, but it was too dark to be certain. “I have sworn to protect all the daughters of the Earl of Werrick.”

  “Had I no’ come about and taken her as my wife, ye’d have pursued her for yer own.” The candle flame flickered under the vehemence of James’s accusation.

  “Lady Anice is far above my station.” Drake’s face tightened with resolve. “I would never be worthy of her.”

  “She’s far above my station as well,” James goaded. He was being petty, he knew, but he wanted to dig the blade of his claim deep into Drake’s heart. Deep enough to score it with a constant reminder of one very important fact: Anice belonged to him.

  A slight tightening of the skin around Drake’s eyes was the only indication James had rankled the other man. “Did ye get Lady Anice to fall for these lies of yers? That ye claim to be working against yer father?”

  “She saw it as the truth it is.” James was sorely tempted to divulge the moments that had transpired after, but it was far too uncouth a thing to do. Not for a Graham, but for James. He would never disrespect Anice in such a way.

  “Let me see her,” Drake demanded. “Once I have ascertained her well-being with my own eyes and hear from her own lips that ye’re to be trusted, then I’ll believe ye.”

  “That’s no’ an option.” James folded his arms over his chest. “And unfortunately, we have need of ye.”

  Drake merely lifted his square chin in silent question.

  “Ye have to escape,” James said in a low voice. He hadn’t heard the reiver return but wouldn’t take any chances. “We need ye to warn the Earl of Werrick of the impending attack, so they’ll be ready.”

  He proceeded to explain the entire plan as devised by himself and Anice. How she would be used as bait to get Werrick to open its doors. It would look dark within, and safe. The first of the attackers would go in and promptly be slain by the waiting army. James would be at the rear of the battle, imploring the men to forego the attack and return to the safety of their fields and families. With luck, the reivers would be soundly defeated, many without injury, and return to Caldrick and the Debatable Lands.

  The wariness did not abate from Drake’s hard stare.

  “If I gave ye a dagger, do ye think ye could escape?” James asked.

  “Aye,” Drake answered without hesitation.

  It was as James had expected. No warrior worth his pottage would need more than a simple dagger to break out of a dungeon.

  “Verra well.” James withdrew a dagger from his belt and handed it hilt-first to Drake. “Take it.”

  Drake’s gaze flicked between the weapon and James. “I could kill ye.”

  “Aye, ye could try.” James tilted his head in consideration. “But if ye actually succeeded, ye’d be hung and Werrick Castle would never know of my father’s plot. If ye take it and escape, however, ye’ll save them all.”

  Drake reached for the blade, wrapped his fingers around the hilt and slowly accepted the weapon. “Ye’ll need to hit me.” He angled his sharp jaw in James’s direction. “The guard thinks ye came in here to beat me. If ye leave with me looking unharmed, it will arouse suspicion.”

  It was tempting, of course. Especially when it was so obvious Drake was in love with Anice. Still, there was something about hitting a man he was trusting that did not sit right with James. Instead he grabbed Drake by the shirt and jerked him closer. The fabric of the man’s doublet tore beneath James’s grip. “Get on the ground and roll about, so ye look dirty.” James released Drake with a little shove.

  Drake did as instructed and popped up, sufficiently filthy. “Ye still need to hit me. At least twice where it can be seen.”

  James clenched his hand. “I’m no’ going to hit ye.”

  “I can take a hit.” Drake’s body tensed for the impact. “This is necessary.”

  James hesitated. It would feel so damn good to crash his fist into that bonny face.

  “I’d do anything for the people of Werrick.” Drake’s gaze softened. “I’d do anything for Anice.”

  That was all it took. James’s body launched into action at the sound of his wife’s name on the other man’s lips. His blow struck Drake hard on the cheekbone. It left James’s hand blazing with the agonizing pain of the impact. He struck again with his left hand, catching Drake in the eye.

  For his part, the younger man held his braced stance and gave only a grunt with each hit. James did not strike again. Even with Drake’s words resounding in his mind, the idea of hitting a man who did not hit back was without appeal.

  Drake nodded. “Good. One more.”

  Already the flesh at his cheekbone and eye were reddening. James shook his head. “I’m no’ going to pummel ye senseless. Ye need yer wits about ye to escape.”

  “Once this is done,” Drake said. “I’d like to spar with ye. Ye’ve got a solid hit on ye.”

  “Keep the people of Werrick Castle safe and I’ll gladly spar with ye.” James departed from the cell, summoned the reiver to return to his post and went to find Tall Tam.

  The former reiver had become James’s most trusted ally after Anice had taken on Ingrith as her lady’s maid. Through him, James would send another missive to Lord Bastionbury informing him of the changes to the plan.

  It would all work out.

  It had to, or Werrick would fall and James would lose everything.

  Three days in a dungeon was an interminable stretch of time. Or at least Anice thought it had been three days. It was nearly impossible to tell for certain.

  It wasn’t so much the damp cold seeping into her bones that nearly drove her to madness, though that was miserable for certs. Nay, it was the endless nothing.

  Night and day blurred into one in her black world, and times of day were only gleaned from the groan of the floorboards above her head from people walking about. Only when everything went completely quiet did she assume it to be night. The meals were all the same—a thick, gray pottage with barely any flavor. The stuff was nearly in
edible, but Anice forced herself to choke it down. She would need her strength.

  James had not come to visit again. The risk was far too great. But it had not stopped her from thinking of him, dreaming of him.

  At long last, after the mind-numbing passing of time, the day had arrived for the attack on Werrick. It was the footfalls above that first alerted her. They were no longer the careful treads of servants and castle inhabitants, but the wooden-soled leather shoes of warriors, thundering about in their preparations. Had she not heard them, she would still have known from the charge hanging in the air, seasoned with the pitch of excitement brought on only by war. The tang of it hummed through her and made her pulse quicken with anticipation.

  And so it was that when her door was thrown open and the blinding light of a candle thrust in, she was prepared. After all, she was a daughter of the Earl of Werrick. She straightened her spine and stared at the empty black beyond the candle to the unseen person carrying it. Whatever the outcome that day, whatever her fate, she would face it without fear.

  The small, flickering flame lowered for a breath of a moment and revealed the exact face she’d summoned in her mind the last three days: James.

  It was only for an instant, but that one swift glance was all she needed. His eyes met hers, tightened with emotion, with sadness and love and longing. Her heart crumpled at the power of that holding stare.

  “Drake?” she mouthed.

  “Escaped,” he replied in kind. The candle went up. “Get out of yer cell.” His voice was louder now, with an authoritative gruffness he had never once used with her.

  Though she knew his hardness was all merely show, she could not help the stab of hurt at his tone. After the cold, the darkness and the pressing solitude, she wanted nothing more than to curl her arms around him and breathe in the comfort of his familiar cedar scent.

  “Get on with ye,” he growled.

  But the hand that reached for her was absent a similar malice. Rather than grab her, he put his fingers to the small of her back, much as he’d done in that first happy month of their marriage, and gently guided her forward.

  “Wait,” he whispered.

  Quickly, he knelt and pushed something cool into the ankle of her leather shoes. She’d glanced down as he did this and caught the telltale glint of a blade.

  He rose and took her arm in his. His squeeze on her was one of reassurance. “Keep going.” He swung her forward and nodded his chin in silent indication of direction.

  Anice allowed herself to be propelled into the hallway and staggered to a stop.

  Several reivers stood by, a rope in their hands, their eyes fixed on the ground. They all knew her, just as she knew them. She had been by their cottages to offer bread when they had none and tinctures when they were ill. She’d cared for their children, for their wives, and in some cases, she’d cared also for them.

  “You’ve come here for a purpose,” she said in her best lady-of-the-manor voice. “I suggest you get on with it.”

  A fair-haired man she recognized as little Mairi’s father, a man named Gregor, lifted a chastened gaze in her direction. “Forgive me, Mistress.”

  She held out her arms and leveled her gaze on him. “I know you mean to sack Werrick and destroy all the lives within for the sake of plunder.” She looked between the two others who had still not raised their eyes. “Only God could forgive such deeds.”

  Gregor’s large hands shook as he bound the rope around her wrists, his concentration intensely focused on his task rather than fixing on her again. When he was done, the knot was sloppy and the bounds around her wrists were loose.

  It was a restraint she would be able to easily free herself from.

  They led her from the dungeon like a band of naughty children who had already been caught and thoroughly reprimanded for their deeds. If she wished to, surely, she could easily flee the morose group of reivers.

  “Where is Piquette?” she asked suddenly.

  “Ye needn’t worry about him,” James snapped.

  Anice clenched her fists. She didn’t like this charade, not when she couldn’t see Piquette to ensure herself of his safety. James would never let anything happen to him, of course. But such awareness could not stop the emptiness in her chest from yearning to see her beloved dog.

  The reivers led her from the castle and into the bailey. The sky was so bright, Anice jerked back, blinking and unable to see. Her eyes teared no matter how much she squinted against the sun’s radiance.

  Her vision hadn’t fully adjusted as rough hands grabbed her. “Take her to the back for her to be watched properly.” Laird Graham’s voice rasped through the air.

  Finally the overwhelming light in her eyes normalized and her vision returned, just in time for her to be pulled from James’s side. His expression remained impassive as she was dragged away, watching for only a brief moment before putting his back to her, seemingly uncaring.

  And though it shouldn’t have affected her, the coldness of his apathetic attitude struck her to the core. The loneliness from the prior days, the inability to see Piquette, the indifference in the face of the man she loved.

  “I’ll take her.” Gregor gingerly took her from the reiver she did not recognize, doubtless one of the many who had arrived from the Debatable Lands.

  “Forgive me.” Gregor cast a glance over his shoulder as he settled her on the pony. “Did ye love him? The laird’s son, I mean.”

  “Aye,” Anice said through a tight throat. “And I still do.”

  Within minutes, the remainder of the troops were assembled, an overwhelming number even for the Grahams. News of Laird Graham’s desire to take Werrick must have inspired the larger part of the population in the wild Debatable Lands to join them. Though the Earl of Werrick would have forewarning, he would still have a difficult time fending off so many men.

  The steady beat of a drum began and matched the worried thud of her own heart. The lines of stocky horses made their way forward for the ride to Werrick Castle. All too soon, Anice was swept among them in a sea of faces and horseflesh, dragged in the direction of her former home.

  She only hoped her plan with James would work, so she would not have to watch Werrick fall and those she loved die. For with such a mass of soldiers at Laird Graham’s command, Anice was truly worried.

  A familiar face caught the corner of Anice’s eye. Drake?

  She spun about in her seat, but the man was lost in the shifting crowd once more. Surely, it had not been him. James had confirmed with her that Drake had escaped.

  And though she did not see the man again, one who could well have been a mere conjuring of her imagination, an uneasy knot began to form in her stomach.

  28

  James rode at his father’s side and tried to keep from glancing back at Anice. The entire journey, he’d been tortured by her absence, by the not knowing. He wanted to spin about in his saddle and confirm she was still safe.

  As it was, he could not arouse suspicion. Not now. Not here. The army Laird Graham led was far too large for James’s liking, and the separation between James and Anice weighed thoroughly on his thoughts.

  “Are ye prepared to strike down the inhabitants of Werrick Castle?” His father leered at him.

  “Aye. I’ve heard ye talk of it long enough,” James replied. But the words could only be uttered with half enthusiasm. He fixed his gaze on his father to solidify his resolve not to look back.

  “I had my doubts about ye, lad.” Laird Graham narrowed his gaze at a distant shadow.

  Werrick Castle.

  The pace of the large party increased as they drew closer. James’s blood roared in his veins, but not with the excitement of an impending battle as it had years ago. Now it thundered with apprehension. For Anice. His wife. The woman he loved.

  She was absent any armor, lacking a sufficient weapon, save the dagger he’d tucked in her boot. If battle broke out, she would be in the melee. Vulnerable.

  And he was too far to reach her to co
me to her aid.

  “Ye’re worried about yer wife, eh?” Laird Graham smirked.

  James gritted his teeth. “Why would I care about that slattern?”

  The Graham laird gave a wheezing laugh. “Because it’s obvious ye’re still in love with her, ye foolish whelp.”

  The walls of Werrick’s outer curtain were in full view now, a dark band that stretched protectively around the castle within. James did not reply. There was no good answer to offer, not when his lie might come out too wooden.

  “I actually believed ye at first,” Laird Graham said.

  At first. James’s stomach slid down into his toes. He cast his father a wary glance.

  “Ye put up a good show of it.” His father nodded approvingly. “Speaking with the Grahams, acting with keen interest in the raid. Until I intercepted that missive ye wrote to that bastard, Lord Bastionbury.”

  A chill touched James’s spine. “What missive do ye think I wrote?” he asked through numb lips.

  “The missive I know ye wrote.” Laird Graham shifted his gaze from the figure appearing on the battlements to James. “Ye’d always liked that bloody lord, looked up to him like he was yer da. Like ye wished he was yer da instead of the one ye got.”

  James didn’t bother to protest his father’s words. His father had always clung to his own interests and had used James to get what he desired.

  “I know ye went to the dungeon to see yer wife.” Laird Graham spat. “And I know ye freed that protector of hers. I tried to give ye the opportunity to tell me the truth, but ye only lied more.”

  James was grateful for his betrayal now. If nothing else, Drake’s freedom would give the people of Werrick Castle a fighting chance.

  Laird Graham grinned at him. “But I know much that ye dinna.” He snapped his reins and his horse flew forward.

  Before James could give chase, before he could process what his father was trying to say, something jerked at his leg, swift and strong, so he was pulled from his saddle and flung to the ground.

  James struck the hard earth with such force that it knocked the wind from his lungs. His legs thrashed in an attempt to find purchase, but rather than grass and dirt, his heel planted into something soft. A body.