Outrageous

by Christina Dodd

  Nodding, Griffith said, “We’ll ride as far around the castle as we can without taking a dip in the lake, and stay in plain view while we do it.”

  Henry eyed Griffith’s horse with misfavor. “You’ll be like sitting drakes. You don’t even have a saddle on that beast.”

  “Then give me one.” Griffith dismounted. “This vicious steed understands me quite well now, and he’s been well trained in the ways of war.”

  Henry hesitated, then signaled his squire and gave the order to strip the tack from the squire’s own horse. When the lad would have balked, Henry said irritably, “By my troth, we’re not going anywhere. Do as I tell you, and quickly!” He watched with a brooding gaze as the transfer was made, then instructed his squire to give up his weapons as well. “Lord Griffith is determined, and will need them, I suppose, although I’d prefer a siege. ’Twould keep the miscreant caged until such time as I humbled him.”

  “I don’t have time for that, my liege.” Griffith accepted a lance and shield, a long sword and war hammer, and placed them as he had been trained. “My wife and my child are inside, and I fear for them. I imagine the queen would be most fearful for them, too.”

  “Of course.” Henry ran his finger along the collar of his gorget. “Of course. But wait at least while my squire fetches armor. You should not be so exposed for this ride.”

  Irritation at Henry made Griffith adjust and read-just the strap over his shoulder. It was only too obvious that Henry struggled between his conscience and expediency. If the child were killed, convenience would be served. If Henry appeared to be the executioner, hell itself could not shelter him from Elizabeth’s pain and fury. So he vacillated while Griffith took action. “I’ll make do with the leather armor and the shield. It will be sufficient”—he gripped the lance—“for my heart is pure.”

  Henry heard both what Griffith said and what he meant. “You’ll take care,” he insisted, then lifted a hand before Griffith could speak. “I know you will, but your previous encounters have not been auspicious, and Griffith, I need my loyal men about me. Especially now. Especially you. Especially Lady Marian’s husband and the adopted father of the lad.”

  Proudly Griffith realized that men had no need for the too obvious sentiment that so impressed women. He and Henry communicated very well, and he put aside the uneasiness Henry’s uncertainty had created in him. “My time has not yet come, my liege, nor will I open the door to death. I will take care.” With a grin that resembled a snarl, he said, “This will be as simple as kissing a maid on May-day. Just be prepared to ride when we get the gate down.”

  Numb with amazement, Marian hoisted Lionel onto her hip and followed Cecily down the hall. The silence stretched until Cecily demanded, “Aren’t you going to say anything? Like tell me how stupid I’ve been?”

  Words were inadequate to the occasion, but Marian tried. “How are you feeling?”

  “Oh, fine. Just fine. I’m fat and ugly and sick, and he doesn’t want me anymore and he won’t marry me, but I’m fine.”

  Marian nodded cautiously. “I’m sorry.”

  Stopping by the rooms where Marian had wintered, Cecily opened the door, then bowed to Marian. “After you. I mean, I’m just the servant here.”

  “My thanks.” Marian stepped over the threshold. The rooms were dim and dusty and looked like a prison. Lionel dug his head into her shoulder and whimpered, and in an instant Marian realized what she wanted. “Nay,” she said decisively. “I’m staying in my mother’s rooms.”

  “What?” Cecily cried. “You can’t do that. Lord Wenthaven said—”

  “He said for me to stay in my chambers in the manor. So I will.” Marian nodded and took Cecily’s arm. “Come. We’ll be happy there.”

  Cecily tugged free. “You’ll be happy. I’ll have to climb the stairs, up and down, up and down. There’s no railing, the countess’s room is at the top—the very top, Lady Marian!—and I can’t walk in comfort.”

  Ignoring her, Marian strode briskly to the tower, and Cecily trailed behind, ever the martyr.

  “Don’t let that worry you,” she went on. “I can see that it won’t. After all, you are the legitimate heir to Wenthaven. I’m just carrying his only son.”

  In the doorway of the tower, Marian whirled on her. “By my troth, Cecily…”

  Pleased to have provoked a reaction, Cecily smirked. “How do I know it’s a son, you ask? I consulted the witch in the village, and she told me I would prove Wenthaven’s downfall. He would tumble for me, and give me a child, and after a struggle and a period of suffering, all would be well.”

  Marian’s exasperation got the better of her. “I hope you didn’t pay her.”

  Cecily’s chin wobbled.

  “Cecily, I wish you’d told me what you were doing. Did you imagine Wenthaven, with his lofty aspirations and his lust for power, would wed one of his wife’s illegitimate cousins?”

  Tears trickled down Cecily’s cheeks, and she sobbed softly.

  “I don’t mean to hurt you, but I am Wenthaven’s heir. The estate of Wenthaven came from my mother, and is entailed to her lineal descendants. It is not just my inheritance—it is already mine, although my father maintains control as my guardian. Regardless of Wenthaven’s remarriage and begetting of future heirs, it will never be his.” Marian put her arm around Cecily’s shaking shoulders. “Wenthaven is enamored of mastery. He could have wed many times over, and increased his wealth and power through the marriage settlement. He has not—because of my mother, I suspect.”

  Cecily’s weeping reached a crescendo.

  “Let’s go up to the countess’s room. I’ll care for Lionel. You lie down and put your feet up, and we’ll think of what to do for you.”

  Cecily leaped back. “I won’t be married off. I want Wenthaven to see this child. When he sees his son, he won’t be able to resist.”

  “Wenthaven resists childish charms with remarkable ease.” Marian got behind Cecily and urged her up the stone stairs that spiraled up into the darkness. “He resisted both mine and Lionel’s very well.”

  “You remind him of the countess. And Lionel isn’t really his grandson.”

  Marian stopped.

  “What did you say?”

  Reaching the final landing, Cecily smiled a terrible smile. “Did you think I didn’t know? You’ve never had a child. That boy is not your son, he’s Elizabeth’s.”

  Marian bounded up the remaining steps and grabbed Cecily. “Did Wenthaven tell you that?”

  Cecily wriggled like a guilty child. “I told him my suspicions, and we compared the facts. Together we—”

  “Forget everything you know or think you know. Forget it! You’ve got a child to think of now, and if you get involved in this mess of Wenthaven’s, there’ll be more than you who will suffer.”

  “You don’t think Wenthaven will be successful, do you?” Cecily asked.

  Remembering Henry, remembering the devoted entourage around him, remembering the loyalty he inspired in Griffith, Marian shook her head.

  “But I’m different. I believe in Wenthaven. I understand his ambitions.” Cecily straightened her shoulders, and some of her old glow shone through. “I’d be a helpmeet for him.”

  “Perhaps you would.” Giving up for the moment, Marian pushed open the door and stepped into the countess’s room.

  Home. It smelled, looked, and felt like home. Despite everything, she relaxed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this way. It had to have been…in Wales. She jumped guiltily. In Wales, with gruff Rhys and gentle Angharad. With Art and Griffith, still alive, still well.

  Tears overflowed, tears she hadn’t even known she was holding back. Lionel reached up and patted her cheeks. Cecily looked at her curiously. And the comfort of the room closed over Marian like a blanket.

  Lionel seemed to feel it, too, for he struggled to be put down. Marian rubbed her aching arms as she watched him explore the room, recognizing it in the touch of his little hands and the occasional smil
e. At last he came and stood before her. “Griffith?” he asked.

  It was the first word she’d heard him speak since the rescue.

  “Griffith?” he asked again.

  “No Griffith,” Marian answered. “Not now.”

  “Huh! Not ever,” Cecily said.

  Marian glared a warning, and Cecily shivered as she glanced around the room. “I hate this chamber. It stinks, and it feels cold.”

  “I’ll open a window,” Marian said, suiting action to word. “I don’t think anyone has been up here since I left. It’s dusty. The firebox is full of ash.” She swept it out and laid the fire, lighting it with flint and feeding it with chips until it burned well enough to accept logs. A glint caught her eye; leaning against the stone of the fireplace was her sword, clean, erect, and waiting for her hand. She picked it up and felt the heft and balance of the blade.

  It recalled earlier days, better days, the day when she’d met Griffith.

  Hastily she put down the sword once more.

  “Stand by the fire, Cecily, it’ll warm you.”

  Cecily did as she instructed and watched Marian as she moved about the room, straightening it. Slyly she said, “The bed’s just as you left it.”

  Marian stopped, remembering that night.

  “I wager the sheets are the same. Don’t you want to lay down and pretend you’re in his arms again?”

  When Marian wished, she could be as haughty as her father. “Cecily, you go too far.”

  Cecily burst into tears again. “I know. I know. I beg your pardon.” She ran to Marian and flung her arms around her. “I’m just tired and frightened. All my dreams are dying, and I keep looking for a way to keep them alive. I think if I’m mean to other people, it’ll help, but it doesn’t.”

  Touched by the first sincere statement she’d heard from Cecily since her return, Marian patted her on the back.

  “Nothing helps,” Cecily muttered.

  “I’m sorry, too.” Marian gave Cecily a gentle push. “Now dry your tears. I’ll make the bed, and you and Lionel can rest.”

  “What will you do?” Cecily demanded.

  “I’ll tend the fire.” She smiled. “It will be good to put my feet up. I need to think, but I’m too tired.” And too worried and discouraged, but she didn’t say that.

  To her surprise, she found she had to coax Lionel to lie with Cecily. She had thought Cecily would be welcomed as an old friend, but it seemed he trusted no one any longer. But he couldn’t resist the lure of sleep for long, and soon Marian sat on a bench by the fire.

  She had lied to Cecily. She no longer needed to think. She knew what had to be done and was prepared to do it.

  But it hurt.

  When Cecily complained that her dreams were dying, she’d struck a sympathetic chord in Marian. Marian’s dreams, too, lay in ruins around her feet. The temptations that Wenthaven brandished still had the power to move her, and she still had the power to follow them.

  She could go to London. She could control Lionel and, through Lionel, the kingdom. She could have wealth and power above her greatest imaginings.

  If she didn’t seize this chance, go with Wenthaven into battle and defeat Henry, she would never have a chance to be powerful—and she was, she had discovered, enough like her father to long for power.

  Yet if Wenthaven rebelled against the king and failed, Henry would seek Lionel to the ends of the earth. She and her son would be in exile in a foreign land, seeking the kindness of a patron, begging, starving, always in fear for their lives.

  But whether Griffith lived or died, she knew what he expected. She knew what was right, and she knew how to take the initiative away from Wenthaven and place it in her own hands.

  So with one last glance at the bed, she lifted her skirt and untied the pouch that held the page from the marriage registry. After removing the parchment and smoothing it out, she read the words that could set the world on fire. She remembered the wedding so vividly—Richard, dark and domineering; Elizabeth, beautiful and frightened. The priest, hurrying through the rite as if it were something dirty. Lord Norfolk. And her, three years younger—only nineteen—and infinitely more naive.

  The chapel had been lit by only one branch of candles. She had signed the registry with shaking fingers, and when Elizabeth whispered of her pregnancy, those same shaking fingers had stolen the page from the book.

  She had never been able to view that chapel again without seeing it as if through a smoky glass. And smoke is what the proof of marriage would be. It would be best—for Lionel and for Griffith.

  Leaning forward, she placed the parchment near the flame.

  “Don’t!”

  The scream from Cecily made her jump and drop the registry page.

  “Nay!” Cecily screamed again, and leaped toward the fire. With her bare hands she rescued the parchment as the edges turned brown and began to curl. “Sweet Jesú!” She dropped it on the floor and stamped out the impending flame, then blew on her fingers. “You’ve got it. You’ve got it! I always thought you did. I told Wenthaven you did. I searched the cottage, but I couldn’t find it.”

  Astounded, Marian remembered the destruction of her home. “You searched the cottage?”

  “Aye. I couldn’t find it easily, so I tore the cottage apart. I thought it clever, but Wenthaven was angry with me. Now here it is, and you”—Cecily’s eyes narrowed—“you were trying to burn it.”

  Marian lunged for it, but Cecily snatched it up.

  “Give it to me,” Marian coaxed. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “Aye, I do. I’m getting Wenthaven what he seeks above all else. For this he will wed me.”

  “Not while I live.” Marian leaped, and Cecily was no match for her. Clutching Cecily’s wrist in her strong hand, she squeezed until Cecily cried aloud and the parchment fluttered toward the floor.

  Before it landed, a male hand caught it.

  Wenthaven’s hand.

  20

  The jeers of the mercenaries never gave way to arrows as Griffith and Billy circled Castle Wenthaven, and their very lack of aggression made Griffith uneasy. Why the forbearance? What plan was Wenthaven putting into motion?

  He prodded Billy. “Do you recognize anyone?”

  Squinting at the colossal battlements, Billy said, “T’ tell ye th’ truth, me vision ain’t what it used t’ be. I can’t tell th’ Englishmen from th’ Welshmen, an’ I ain’t close enough t’ smell them. Damned Welsh traitors.”

  Griffith stiffened. “What’s that, Billy?”

  Resentful and angry, Billy asked, “Well, why can’t they support Henry? He’s Welsh—isn’t that good enough fer them?”

  “Wales is a poor country, with not enough land and too many hungry mouths. Those men are feeding their children the only way they can.”

  But Griffith’s explanation didn’t touch Billy. He only stared sullenly, and Griffith realized Art had been right. Until a man had his own wide-eyed, hungry children, he didn’t understand the desperate measures to which a parent would resort. Griffith had a child now. He had Lionel, and he sat within range of an enemy’s arrows, attempting a scheme so desperate that it was unlikely to succeed in the best of circumstances. And Billy couldn’t see? “Billy, if I describe the men, would you know them?”

  Billy was close enough to see Griffith’s face and realized he’d better make the attempt. “Aye…er…maybe. If ye describe them well, I suppose I might.”

  “A black-haired man with a brown tunic on.”

  “Welsh,” Billy said decidedly.

  “A black-haired man with”—damn, the walls loomed over them, and even Griffith’s eagle vision had trouble discerning details—“two or three fingers missing.”

  “Uh…lotta black-haired Englishmen, too, especially around these parts. Welsh, I suppose.”

  Fast and hard, Griffith said, “A black-haired man with half a nose.”

  “Welsh.”

  “A bald man with one eye.”

  �
��Welsh, I guess, although I haven’t seen him around th’—”

  Giving a whoop, Griffith galloped toward the wall. “Art! Arthur, for the love of God—”

  Art waved, grinning, and another black-haired man appeared beside him.

  Splashing into the lake, wetting himself and his horse, Griffith exulted, “And Dolan. Oh, praise be to God, ’tis Dolan, too.”

  He couldn’t remember when he’d experienced such joy. Art! Dear old Art, alive and as conniving as ever. And Dolan, that old pirate who lived in the village and gave his father fits with his sly and surly tricks. Never had a man such competent allies. Never had Griffith found himself so blatantly optimistic.

  Had he ever been a controlled and cautious man? Banish the thought! For he now knew himself to be in a state of grace. Nothing could touch him, and he would triumph.

  His two conspirators leaned out and, without a word, pointed at the gate.

  Griffith indicated his approval, and the men ducked back. Laughing, he shook his fist at the gray walls that excluded him and opened his arms to heaven. “I will prevail!” he shouted. “I will conquer! I will—”

  A single bolt from a crossbow smacked the water beside him.

  Far above, Cledwyn stood in the crenelation and shrieked, “Griffith ap Powel, ye lickspit, I’ll kill ye yet!”

  As Griffith stared, Cledwyn reloaded, and Griffith tarried no longer. He might conquer, he realized, but only if he now retreated. Protecting his back with his shield, he returned to Billy, shouting, “Welsh! Saint Dewi has blessed us, those men are Welsh, and they’re going to open the gate.”

  Scarcely waiting until Griffith drew abreast, Billy joined his headlong retreat. “But there’s only two!” he shouted back.

  Griffith grinned with all his teeth. “They’re Welsh. Two are all it takes.”

  Marian stood in front of the closed door, sword pointed at her father’s throat. “You cannot leave with that document. It’s mine. Give it to me.”

  Unconcerned by her threat, by Honey’s scratching demand to be let in, or by Cecily’s simulated panic, Wenthaven rolled the parchment carefully. Bits of the charred edges fluttered to the floor as he said, “Don’t be foolish, dear daughter. You can’t kill your own father. Unlike me, you have some morals.”