Heart of Stone

by Quinn, Paula

  It was a pity his heart was so black, for his face was quite comely.

  “The tip of my blade was dipped in poison,” she went on. “A scratch was enough to fell him.” He was clever. He would never believe she brought the man down with a weapon or her own strength. Poison-tipped blades were common and would distract him from her jewelry.

  She expected him to take her knives, but he didn’t. He still did not come close though. “I do not want you to be defenseless against the men here,” he told her, “but let me warn you if you think to attack me. Without me to protect you, you will not last long.”

  He hadn’t tried to disarm her. He’d let Elias go—after the bastard held a blade to his neck. She wouldn’t poke him. Not yet, anyway.

  “And Lord Rothbury?” she asked, reminding him of their agreement.

  “He lives last time I saw him, but barely. He has been taken prisoner and will go before the king. If he makes it.”

  Oh, what could she do? How could she save him? She had to! She didn’t want to live in a world without him in it. “Where did you see him?”

  Bamburgh picked up his steps and continued on. “He was lying in a cart on his way to York. He will most likely die. He looked quite bad.”

  She felt tears stinging her eyes.

  “You just met him,” she heard the viscount murmur.

  “I have known him my whole life.”

  He said nothing after that but led them through the long halls, past the chapel, and outside, where more men waited on horseback.

  “What are you going to do with me?” she asked the viscount.

  “I’m going to take you to Alnwick.”

  Julianna stopped walking. She felt faint. Alnwick? Why? She didn’t want to ask. “Why are you going to take me there?”

  “Because that is where the governor wants you.”

  Julianna grabbed for something to hold on to. There was nothing. She tried to remember to breathe. She was having trouble. She fought hard to gather herself. Phillip’s brothers. Which one? Either would kill her for killing their brother.

  “Am I what all this was about?”

  He shook his head. “Not for me. I did it to expose the Earl of Lancaster.”

  “You are sending me to my death,” she whispered, continuing to walk.

  “Why?” he asked. “Why will he kill you?”

  “Because he thinks I killed his brother, Phillip.”

  The viscount stared at her for a moment longer, making her want to run. Then, “Miss Feathers, Phillip DeAvoy is not dead.”

  She blinked. What did he just say? No. She heard him wrong. No! This was some sort of cruel jest. She asked him.

  “Phillip DeAvoy,” he repeated. “He is alive.”

  “No,” she groaned out loud. It couldn’t be true. Phillip was dead. Phillip had to be dead! She helped bury him! No! Bamburgh was mistaken. Her hands began to shake—along with the rest of her. “We buried him.”

  “I know,” her captor told her. “He makes certain to tell anyone who will listen how he was buried alive. He escaped his grave and took his place as governor.”

  Buried alive? He escaped his grave? Dear God, no! She never meant to…Julianna shivered in her spot thinking of it.

  Phillip was alive. She was going back to him.

  No. No way in hell.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Bamburgh and his men (seven in all) made camp for the night on the outskirts of Cartington.

  The viscount gave Julianna a tent to sleep in, but she sat on a stool outside of it thinking about all that had happened. Was Nicholas still alive? If he was, would he take back Lismoor from the English? If he was not…she couldn’t think of it. She refused. She missed him now more than ever before. The weight of it felt dangerously heavy. She missed Elias and Agnes…she looked away and wiped a tear from her eyes for Molly and Margaret.

  She heard a sound when the wind died down and glanced to her left to see the viscount coming toward her. He carried a lantern, lighting his path and his golden countenance. He wore a long, brown coat over a stained léine belted at his narrow waist. His long legs were encased in breeches and boots. A strand of pale blonde hair had escaped the clasp at his nape and fell over his cheek and jaw as he sat on the other side of a fire.

  “Why are you not in the tent I provided? There are wild creatures lurking about, waiting to devour you. You should be inside.”

  She wondered if he was speaking of animals, or his men. “I cannot sleep, my lord.”

  “Louis, please,” he insisted with an easy smile she remembered from traveling with him and his grandmother in the carriage to Rothbury. “Tell me what is troubling you.”

  “You, for one,” she told him honestly. “Did I meet you just so you could deliver me back to my nightmares? Or was it for a better purpose?”

  His smile widened in the moonlight. “Miss Feathers, I never do the ordinary. But do not think I will risk my neck for you or your cause. I am fighting for enough already.”

  “Of course.” She remained quiet after that, partially because the wind picked up and was whipping their words away.

  “Do you work for Phillip?” she finally asked. “Did you tell him you knew where I was?”

  “Aye. To everything,” he answered honestly. “I did not know you were married to him.”

  She had told him some things about her life with Phillip on the way. She wanted him to know what she was facing when he brought her back.

  God help her, she was still married to Phillip! Waves of panic and fear threatened to drown her, engulf her in hopelessness.

  Was Elias safe? What if he no longer had a father? Elias could be an orphan. She would take him, become his mother and tell him all about his father.

  William. Nicholas. He couldn’t be dead. Not when they were just finding each other again. She loved him and she ached to tell him. He couldn’t be dead and Phillip, alive.

  “Come, let us speak in your tent.” He stood up and invited her inside.

  She didn’t know him. She didn’t want to be alone with him. She didn’t want to put him to sleep and face his men in the morning without his protection. Their eyes had strayed many times to the woman entering their company. They were hungry to devour her. She could feel it any time one of them was in her sight. She could run, but how far would she get before she froze to death?

  With no other option, she went when he commanded and followed him into the tent, her fangs ready.

  “Was the governor a difficult man to love?” he asked when they were inside. He set his lantern down in the center of the space and sat down on one of the loose cushions covering another corner. “Was he unfaithful?”

  She looked around for another cushion to sit. He tossed her one of his. “He was impossible to love,” she told him as she sat. “For me at least.”

  “Did he beat you?” he asked in a softer tone.

  She looked away and heard him swear under his breath. “All right,” he agreed, “we will figure something out.”

  Hope sprang forth and gave heat to her blood. “Help me by helping Lord Rothbury,” she implored.

  He smiled knowingly at her, “You love him.” It wasn’t a question.

  She nodded. “For a long time. Tell me, what can we do to find and help him?”

  He looked so uncertain for a moment that it shook her to her bones. “My lord, I—”

  “No.” He held up his hand and sat up. “Do not try to convince me of what this means to you, or what Rothbury means to you. I am not blind. I will have no begging.”

  She smiled at him, certain that he couldn’t see her in the dim light. His heart wasn’t so black after all. He had spoken to her on their way to Rothbury. He hadn’t cared if she had no title. And later, speaking with his grandmother, Julianna had discovered that the viscount’s compassion for the less fortunate had changed many minds in Bamburgh and, for the most part, servants were treated better.

  “What is this cause that would make a man like you follow a man li
ke Phillip DeAvoy?”

  He grinned at her compliment and his green eyes danced. Another moment passed and he grew serious. “The Earl of Lancaster is a traitor to his king. He makes dealings with the king’s enemy. That is treason.”

  She nodded. Aye, he spoke the truth. “I suspect I will be found guilty of it as well as murder.”

  “No,” he corrected with a clever smile. “You cannot be guilty of murder against a man who is alive. What had been done to him that made you believe he was dead and you allowed him to be buried? He warned me not to touch you.”

  She couldn’t tell him about the abbess. Not after the abbess had saved so many girls from the hands of their violent husbands or fathers.

  “He…consumed something that caused an unwanted reaction in him.”

  “He was poisoned.”

  Julianna stared at him over the lantern flame. What would he do with such knowledge? What would he believe?

  “I had fled from him,” she told him in a low voice. “He followed me and…he was very angry.” She didn’t continue for a few moments. She didn’t have to. “I prepared his supper and—”

  She was thankful when he raised his hand and motioned for her to stop. She wouldn’t have told him about the abbess. Now, she didn’t have to tell him anything more.

  “So,” he said, picking up their prior conversation, “there is no proof of you trying to kill him.” His smiled widened into a grin again. “And just because you cared for a traitor’s child, does not make you a traitor as well.”

  “Nicholas is no traitor,” she corrected softly. “He is a Scot, my lord. His king is Robert. How can he be a traitor to a man to whom he never swore fealty?”

  The viscount tilted his head to look at her from a different angle. “You speak the words of William Wallace. I must give you the same reply that knight received. If Rothbury is not for King Edward in this War of Independence, then he is against him. Treason.”

  Nicholas would be found guilty. Even if he lived to see Edward, he would die shortly thereafter for following Robert Bruce. Her belly turned and twisted. She had to help him!

  “Lord Rothbury was my father’s servant.” The words spilled from her mouth. They felt good rolling off her tongue. She would speak of Nicholas every day, no matter what it cost her. “He was taken from his family at the age of two and was put to work in the kitchen on his first night. His life was difficult, and yet, he managed to bring life and laughter to me every day.”

  Bamburgh was quiet for a moment. He looked pained and then pensive before he spoke. “Your father allowed you to spend every day with a servant?”

  She shook her head. “No.” She smiled and told him about Berengaria. He listened to her silly stories about she and William falling into a nest of hornets and having to jump in the river to escape them, and how she fell from a tree when she was seven and broke William’s arm when she fell on him.

  When she was done, Bamburgh smiled at her. “That is all quite something. He is, indeed, an intriguing man, your William/Nicholas. His is a story of hope for a poor man.”

  She nodded and studied him in the dim light. “Some men believe hope for the poor man is dangerous. It could cause an uprising.”

  His smiled gleamed over the fire and his gaze was colored with mischief. “Let us hope you are right, Miss Feathers.”

  He rose and, with a quiet voice, he bid her goodnight and left the tent.

  Julianna watched the flap where he’d disappeared. Could she trust him? Why would the viscount risk his neck and help her? Was he deceiving her about everything…including Nicholas? He wasn’t just going against Phillip by not bringing her back—he was also defying King Edward.

  She gathered all the cushions and fell asleep on them, dreaming of Nicholas searching for him and not finding him.

  Nicholas cracked open his eyes and looked up at the man who was trying to shove a spoon into his mouth.

  Food. He opened his mouth and felt his dry lips tearing. He didn’t care about pain. Only food. And warmth. He tugged at the plaid that was shoved beneath his wrists and tried to cover more of himself with it.

  But what the hell was this food? Piss water and rock soup? Nicholas spit it out, not wanting to discover if he was correct. The man grinned at him, exposing a gaping, toothless hole, and then he scratched his dirty face.

  Nicholas turned his face away. He was going to starve. He closed his eyes, resigned to his passing and then opened them again when he saw Julianna’s face in his mind. Was she hurt? Had DeAvoy’s man found her?

  Nicholas knew he loved Julianna. He might not have known how much he loved her until now. He couldn’t remember an exact moment that he first fell in love with Julianna, but he remembered seeing her as a babe, cradled in his mother’s arms. He remembered watching her walk to him, her red hair falling over her huge, chestnut eyes. He had memories of her running outside with the sun in her blazing curls and wings on her little boots. She was filled with exuberance and life, climbing trees, running into streams, defying her parents and sneaking off to the servants’ quarters to play with her best friend. Her best, forbidden friend. She stayed by his side until she was thirteen. But she never left his heart. He loved her always. He would never stop.

  He blinked his eyes and saw Elias’ innocent smile. His son! Where was Elias?

  Nicholas had to live and get back to them. If that meant drinking foul water, then drink it he would. He turned back to the toothless man but he’d leaped from the cart and was gone.

  Nicholas tried to move. His ribs weren’t having it. Pain shot through him and made him feel ill. The arrow he’d been shot with was still lodged in his shoulder, likely festering by now.

  He moved as slowly as he could, inch by inch until he was bent at the center. He tried to sit up and groaned.

  “Good morn to you, William,” Phillip said, riding to him.

  “How many days have I been captive?”

  “Four,” Phillip answered. “We will soon be in York and Lancaster will go before the king with you as his judge.”

  “The arrow in my shoulder needs tending to.”

  DeAvoy laughed at him “You think I will do anything to make you stronger after you tried to choke me to death? You are a fool.”

  Aye, a fool not to kill him when he had the chance.

  “Julianna?” He couldn’t help but ask. He had to know.

  DeAvoy rode closer. “You have seen her then?”

  Good. He didn’t have her.

  “In my dreams,” Nicholas told him, not caring what her husband thought.

  “Fool,” DeAvoy croaked out a pitiful laugh. “She cannot follow simple orders, and she is cold in bed. Cold as ice.”

  Nicholas closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. He wanted to smash DeAvoy’s face with his fists. He vowed then and there to kill the bastard as soon as he had the chance.

  “Perhaps I should not have sent the Viscount of Bamburgh to find her,” DeAvoy complained. “The ladies do adore him. If he finds my Jules, he might seduce her.”

  He gazed into the distance as if he were hoping to see someone there. “Charlie!”

  “Aye, my lord?” A man with no coat, only a thin cloak around his shoulders hurried toward them.

  “Prepare me something to eat. I am going back to Alnwick.”

  No! What if Bamburgh had found her and Elias and taken them to Alnwick?

  “But, my lord, the king expects you,” Charlie reminded him.

  DeAvoy let his horse bump Charlie’s shoulder when he spun his mount around. “I have something to see to. ’Tis very urgent. Keep the prisoners alive or you will answer to me.”

  He waited for Charlie to get to his duties. When they were alone again, DeAvoy moved closer to Nicholas’ wounded body. “I believe that once she was free of me, she would have found you, Stone. I’m going back to get her. She is guilty of trying to kill her husband. She is a mad vixen who can only be controlled one way.”

  He began to sweat and lick his lips.

 
; Nicholas struggled to be free, ignoring the pain of his wounds. He couldn’t let DeAvoy go back and find her or his son. Nicholas pushed against his binds and DeAvoy laughed looking at him.

  “I will bring her back so she can watch you die, William Stone.”

  He kicked his horse’s flanks and thundered off toward Charlie. Nicholas listened to him go, cursing his own body. He fought to sit up and swore an oath when pain lanced through him. He had to do something. He had to get up and go help the people he loved. But even if he managed to get himself out of the cart, how would he get past DeAvoy’s men?

  He would worry about that when he got there. For now, he struggled through and managed to turn himself around. He pushed himself slowly up the back of the cart until he was almost in a sitting position, still bound, looking out of the back of the cart. He let a wave of nausea pass over him and tried to catch his breath. He counted at least thirty men, going as far back as a half-mile, some walked, liked Charlie, and some rode horses.

  He was going to have to fight—once he got himself free of his confines. The harder he worked, the more exhausted he became. He no longer felt cold but warm, burning up as a matter of fact. He’d managed to get his right arm and leg free before he passed out.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nicholas woke up twenty-two hours later. The first thing he became aware of was that he was no longer on the cart. The ground felt spongy and blessedly still beneath him. He was covered with several blankets and a fur cloak.

  He heard sounds around him. A pot hitting into another. A campsite? Someone’s footsteps to the right. He opened his eyes to the sun hidden behind the tangle of thick, bare treetops. He moved his fingers, and then his wrists…his arms. He was free!

  “Nicky!”

  Rauf?

  “Och, hell, Nicky! Simon, Margaret, he is awake!”

  Nicholas closed his eyes again, this time to keep them from turning to liquid. They were alive. He gave thanks to God.

  “Wait!” Rauf shouted them off. “I think he passed oot again!”

  Nicholas should have known his friend wouldn’t leave him for too long. “No,” he said, smiling as he opened his eyes and saw their concerned and elated expressions hovering over him. “I am awake.”