"Oh. How clever of you." Relaxing, he moved forward. "I heard Mother order the servants not to bring you any supper, so I brought you something to eat." Reaching into his pocket, he tugged an apple and a chicken leg from its depths, and offered them to her as he took a seat on the bed beside her.
The apple looked lovely, but the chicken leg was a little less than edible. There were bits of lint and threads caught on it from resting in his pocket. Emma managed a smile of thanks anyway and bit into the apple. She hadn't realized that she was hungry until she spied the offering. Now she considered the fact that she had a long arduous journey ahead of her. She had no food and no horse, yet meant to find her way back to court, or at least a neighboring castle or keep, on foot.
Realistically, it was doubtful she would make it. On the other hand, sitting about waiting for news of her husband's death and her imminent marriage to the useless creature before her did not seem a viable alternative. Besides, there was always the possibility that she would stumble into the midst of some bandits. If that happened and she were allowed to plead her case, she might succeed at gaining their protection and an escort back to court in exchange for a reward.
"What did you say that pleased Mother so?"
Emma pulled the apple away from her mouth to peer at him doubtfully. "Your mother told the servants not to feed me because she was pleased?"
"Oh, nay. That was just to show you she was boss. She does that to me as well. Orders me to bed without my supper. But she has been smiling ever since speaking with you."
She digested that with some difficulty. It was hard to believe that a man of his age would allow anyone, mother or not, to order him to bed without his supper. But then Bertrand had proven himself to be a coward and somewhat less than intelligent. Shrugging those thoughts away, she considered his question. No doubt his mother was happy at the way her plans were working rather than at anything Emma had done. Still, she thought it better to keep that to herself.
"Mayhap she is pleased that we have affection for each other," she murmured, avoiding his eyes as she spoke the lie.
Bertrand perked up at that. "Aye, mayhap she is."
Emma took another bite of her apple. "How do you intend to kill my husband?" She tried to ask the question as nonchalantly as possible, but knew there was a thread of tension in her voice. Bertrand did not seem to notice it.
"Chancellor Arundel will see to it."
Emma nearly choked on the apple in her mouth at that. "The archbishop?"
"Oh, aye. He is a friend of Mother's. He plans to poison him at court. He most like has already done so. We should receive news any time now. Then we can be married." He smiled at her as he said that, then sighed. "I should leave now before Mother notices I am missing. She would not be pleased that I am visiting. She ordered that no one was to see you again to night." Standing as he said that, he bent as if to grace her with a kiss, then spotted the last of the linens lying on the bed beside her and backed away, a pained smile on his face. "No doubt we shall have to wait a day or two to be wed. 'Twill make the wedding night sweeter."
Emma managed to contain her grimace until the door had closed behind him. Then she dropped the rest of the apple onto the bed and pulled her rope out again. She had completely lost her appetite at the last bit of information Bertrand had imparted. The very thought that her husband might be dead was enough to make her stomach roil with fear. Determined not to think of it, she knotted the last linen onto the end of the rope, then stood and moved to the window.
It was full dark out now. So dark she could no longer tell where the wall ended and the ground began. It looked to be an abyss outside her window.
Grimacing, she turned and quickly stripped the linens off the bed, adding them to the end of her rope. Then she hurriedly checked each knot to make sure they were firm. That done, she paused to take a deep breath to bolster her courage, then stooped to tie the end of her makeshift rope around the bedpost before moving back to the window and leaning out to peer toward the guards. They were busy yelling at each other across the distance separating them. Emma waited a moment, but they did not glance away from each other so, giving her shoulders a shrug, she dropped her rope. It disappeared into the darkness even as it slapped against the wall. 'Twas not a very loud sound, but made her glance nervously toward the guards again anyway. They did not appear to have noticed.
She waited a moment just to be sure, then started to lift a leg onto the window ledge. There was every possibility that one or the other of them would glance over and spot her golden gown in the darkness. It was something she had thought of as she was making the ropes, but there was little she could do about that. It was a terrible shame she did not have on a gown of a darker color, but Amaury had insisted he did not wish to see her in anything even vaguely resembling black. She would give him hell for that the first chance that she got, she decided, refusing to consider the idea that he might already be dead. He simply could not be. She would not have it. She simply could not be widowed by him. And not just because she did not wish to marry Bertrand. Damned if she hadn't become used to having her husband about. Why, she was even becoming used to the idea of being in love with the great lug. Truly, her knees went weak whenever he touched her, and his smile somehow seemed to make the morning brighter. It would be a gray world without him in it.
Her thoughts managed to distract her from what she was doing as she sat on the ledge and eased to its edge, preparing to shimmy down her rope. A quick glance to the side assured her that she had not been noticed yet. It also helped to delay her descent. She was not sure what she would do if she were spotted. She supposed she could simply push herself out from the side of the castle and drop into the moat in the hope that she could get out and avoid her pursuers long enough to lose herself in the woods. On that thought, she wrapped the top of the rope around one arm, grasped it with both hands, and pushed herself off the ledge.
Chapter 15
EMMA did not have far to drop with the rope wrapped around her as it was, but she realized her mistake in doing so the moment the rope jerked tight around her arm. The pain was excruciating. She managed to bite back a shout of agony and hold on as she swung just below the window ledge. Forcing herself to concentrate on the solid stone wall before her, she tried to ignore the pain in her arm. It felt as if that limb were afire.
After a moment of time in which she waited to see if the pain would lessen any, she glanced nervously to the side to see the guards. They were still talking, but she knew she could not count on their continuing their conversation forever.
Biting her lip to keep back the whimper of pain and fear that wanted to escape, Emma shifted her hold and allowed herself to lower a hand's span down the rope. She paused again then before lowering herself the same amount once more. Then again. She traversed most of the wall like that, inch by painful inch, every second expecting a shout to call the warning that she was trying to escape. She was halfway down the wall, the muscles in her arms and shoulders aching so badly she feared she could hear them screaming in her head, before she stopped worrying about that. It seemed that in the dark the guards could not see her.
Emma discovered she had arrived at the end of the rope when she reached down to grab it a bit lower and grasped nothing but air. Holding still, she glanced down, squinting in an effort to see the ground. After a moment she was just able to make it out. From what she could tell she was a little over two thirds of the way down the wall. That still left a third of the way to traverse. With no rope. She felt panic rise up in her briefly, then stomped down on it determinedly as she tried to consider her options.
Climbing back up the wall to her prison was one.
"Not bloody likely," she muttered under her breath.
Jumping to the ground was another option, but it carried the possibility of breaking her legs with it. It would be difficult to escape on broken legs.
She surveyed the ground again, then glanced at the moat. She could always make a jump for that. Her nose wrinkle
d at the idea. She had begun to smell the moat before she had traversed a quarter of the distance down. Right now the scent was almost unbearably strong. Diving into the source of that smell was not the most appealing option. Unless she put it next to seeing her husband dead, she thought grimly and peered below again. She would have to move quickly. Her splashing into the moat would no doubt be heard. It would at least be enough to have the guards send someone to look about. She would have to pull herself out and reach the woods before being caught, but there was no help for it, she decided. Yet she still hesitated.
A sudden shout from above brought her head up. She could just see Bertrand's silhouette in the window of the tower, framed there by the candlelight in the room. It seemed he had come for another unapproved visit. He did have the damnedest timing.
Grimacing, Emma turned to face the wall, took a deep breath, pushed herself out with her feet, and released her hold on the rope.
She dropped like a stone, her skirts flying up over her face as she slammed into the stinking water of the moat. It was deeper than she had expected. It seemed to take forever for her to plummet to the bottom, though she supposed that at the moment, as she imagined guards pouring out of the gate to search her out, everything seemed to take too long. Feeling slightly uneven ground beneath her feet, she pushed upward, only to reach the surface and barely manage a gasp of putrid air before her skirts dragged her down again.
She struggled briefly, attempting to reach the surface anyway, but it was impossible. When her lungs began to burn from lack of air, she started to tug desperately at her gown, shedding it as quickly as she could before struggling back to the surface again. As fetid as the air that she drew into her lungs then was, it was about as sweet as the scent of a rose to Emma.
Gasping more air into her lungs, she struggled through the foul stew toward the outer edge of the moat, aware of the shouting above her head as the guards on the wall tried to pinpoint her in the dark. She could also hear the rattle of the drawbridge being lowered.
Emma had almost reached her goal when she felt something brush up against one of her legs. Images of what might actually be alive, or even dead, in the moat exploding in her head, she grasped desperately at the turf on the far side, and quickly pulled her shuddering body out of the water. She would have liked to do a little dance of disgust as she drew herself to her feet on the grass, but there was no time for it. Gaining her feet, she glanced over her shoulder at the men pouring over the drawbridge after her, then sprinted for the woods.
Emma had almost reached the trees when a solid wall of men stepped from them, barring her path. She paused in astonishment, then turned to flee to the side.
"Emmalene!"
Freezing at that voice, she whirled, peering in the direction it had come from. But all she could see were the dark shapes of soldiers. Until one stepped forward. He had the vague outline of her husband and she truly wanted to believe that it was him, but it was so dark . . . Then someone lit a torch, holding it aloft as the men pursuing her began to slow in confusion. The man bearing the torch was Blake. Beside him stood Amaury, and beside him was King Richard. On either side of them stood a line of men that seemed to go on forever.
Sobbing her relief, Emma raced forward and threw herself against Amaury's chest.
Amaury raised his arms automatically to catch his little wife to his heart. He had never been more relieved in his life than when he had spotted her at the tower window. The soldiers who had trailed them all day had just caught up to them when she had appeared. They had all stood silent as they stared at her. His relief to know that she was at least alive had been nearly enough to make his legs collapse beneath him as he had recognized her gold gown in the candlelight.
Then she had leapt from that window and his heart had stopped dead. When she had been brought up short in her downward flight and he had realized that she was hanging from a rope, his legs had given out. Only Blake and the king's speed in catching his arms had kept him on his feet. The following few minutes had been sheer hell as they had watched her descend inch by painful inch toward the ground. All of them, every last man, had seemed to hold their breath as they watched his wife do what few of them would have dared. And all of them had felt completely useless from their position on the edge of the woods.
Sweat had beaded Amaury's brow and his hands had ached from clenching them by the time she had reached little more than halfway down and suddenly stopped. He had known right away there was a problem. Still, none of them had been prepared for her sudden plummet down into the moat. They had all stood frozen to the spot briefly. Then she had pulled herself from the water and charged across the grass as if nothing had happened. At first she had headed straight for them. Almost as if she knew they were there. It wasn't until she had suddenly changed her course that he had realized that she did not know it was them.
Now, he lowered his face to press a tender kiss to the top of her head, only to stiffen, dismay crossing his features as he got a whiff of her. A glance to the side showed the king taking a hasty step back, waving one hand frantically before his nose as he too caught a sniff. Blake had taken two decidedly large steps to the side, taking the torch with him and nearly casting them in darkness again.
The sound of hoofbeats drew Amaury's attention to Lady Ascot as she crossed the bridge on a horse, her son behind her on another. The men who had stopped in their pursuit of his wife, and now hesitated uncertainly a few feet behind their quarry, immediately made way for their mistress as she rode up before them.
"Ah, de Aneford. I see you saved us the trouble of hunting down both your wife and yourself," she drawled, then glanced toward her son. "Kill him."
Bertrand looked nonplussed for a moment, then turned to the men standing on the ground before his horse. "Kill him. But do not harm Emma."
The men simply stood there with expressions of uncertainty. They had seen the king. They had also had time for their eyes to adjust to the darkness, and now saw the number of men they faced. None were willing to act.
"Did you not hear my son?" Lady Ascot snapped impatiently. "Why do you hesitate? Kill the man!"
"I fear it may have something to do with my presence." Richard stepped briefly back into the torchlight, wrinkled his nose, then hurriedly moved around to Blake's other side, as far from Amaury and his aromatic little wife as he could before relaxing again and smiling at Lady Ascot. A smile that became decidedly predatory as his soldiers made their numbers known by circling Lady Ascot's men.
To her credit, the woman paled, but retained enough of her wits to try to protect herself. "Your Majesty, what a . . . lovely surprise. We were just . . ."
"Attempting to recapture your prisoner?" Richard finished for her archly.
"Nay. Never. Nonsense. Lady Emma was our guest."
"Do many of your guests leave by the window?" Blake asked dryly.
"Only the more adventurous," Lady Ascot snapped.
Thinking he had most definitely comforted his wife more than enough, Amaury barked over his shoulder for his squire. "See your lady to the horses."
"Nay," Emma protested, pulling back to peer at him, "Amaury--"
"Aye, wife. We will tend to Bertrand and his mother," he insisted, grimacing as a fresh whiff of moat reached his nose.
"But I must tell you, Gytha is her maid. And they knocked me out and held me captive. And Arundel was supposed to poison you at court. Then they were going to force me to marry him." She gestured toward Bertrand, who was doing his best to appear invisible at the moment.
"Aye, wife. Now go with Alden. You are barely dressed." He gave her a gentle push toward the boy, then turned back to face Ascot and her son.
Emma frowned at his back, then turned reluctantly toward the squire.
"Come, my lady." Alden stepped forward to take her arm, then immediately stepped back as far as he politely could and still lead her by the arm into the woods.
Bertrand watched the woman he had coveted disappear into the woods, and took a moment to
wonder at the unfairness of a bastard son of a village maid having gained everything he sought. Then he sighed and slid off his mount. It was apparent to him what he must do now.
Both Amaury and Blake drew their swords, crossing them before their king when he suddenly hurried toward him. The action brought him to an abrupt halt, but did not stop his saying, "I beg your leave. Your Majesty. It must be obvious to you that I had nothing to do with this? 'Twas all her doing."
"Bertrand!" Lady Ascot roared furiously when he waved vaguely in her direction, but her son ignored her.
"I was a mere pawn! A victim as surely as Lady Emmalene herself!"
Blake and Amaury glanced at each other, sharing a look of amused disgust at this display. The king was less than entertained, however.
"Quit your sniveling, man! Yer in this up to your neck." A quick gesture was enough to bring two of his men forward to collect Bertrand as the king faced Lady Ascot. Blake and Amaury lowered their swords and turned to glare at her as well.
She lasted a moment or two longer under their combined accusing scowls than her son, but it was only a moment or two.
" 'Twas Gytha!" she screeched at last. " 'Twas all her idea. I only told her to get her cousin, that fop de Lascey, to take her with him so that she might spy on you. She took it upon herself to poison you. 'Twas she who knocked your wife out as well. She caught her listening to us--" Lady Ascot's panicky babbling came to an abrupt end when the servant she was accusing pushed her way through the horses and yanked the woman off her horse by the skirt. Before anyone could move, the maid had her mistress before her, a dirk at her throat.
" 'Tis glad I am that loyalty works both ways in our relationship," she muttered bitterly to her betrayer, then pressed the knife closer until a bead of blood appeared at its tip when Amaury made to move forward. "Nay, de Aneford. While you may have nine lives, I much fear her Ladyship here does not."
Amaury stopped, but shrugged at the intended threat. "Kill her then."