Defiant (35 page)

Hand on hip, Kiera shook her finger at him. “My mama says that nobles are bad people, but Lady Gwyn isn’t bad.”

Jared remembered the way her mama and Gwyneth had tied him to a cot and sought to poison him. How he’d been dragged on his knees.

The dark-haired girl tugged Kiera’s sleeve. “We should go.”

“Aye,” Jared agreed. “'Tis time to take you back to your mother.” At the brothel.

Despite it all, his heart tugged. Gwyneth had wanted a better life for girls like this. She’d wanted to train them, give them skills. In only a few years, Kiera and the other one would be whores, the same as Irma. The only “skills” they would learn was how to open their legs several times a night.

He set his jaw.

The castlefolk were not his responsibility.

The women in prison were not his responsibility.

These girls were not his responsibility.

They would use him. Just as everyone he cared about did.

“We go to the brothel now,” he asserted quickly. Best to be rid of the two children as soon as possible. “Wait outside until I am dressed. ”

Quickly he donned his boots and cloak, determined to drop both children off at the brothel with Irma. He would be rid of them, then take his hawk and leave England forever, wash his hands of marriage.

A few minutes later they made their way down the steps of the keep and into the bailey.

“My friend’s name is Elizabeth,” Kiera said as they walked past the newly cleaned moat. “She doesn’t talk, but her name is carved on the wooden beads she wears. That’s what Lady Gwyn told me.”

“Wooden beads?” Coldness filtered through Jared’s chest, but he kept trudging ahead, his eyes on the path. “What do you mean, child?”

“The beads—the necklace she wears.”

Not slowing his pace, Jared glanced at the child. His brow furrowed. She had green eyes and straight dark hair. Could she be …

“Show me.”

Kiera pulled her friend close, hugging her tightly by the shoulders. “You can’t have them. You already took Lady Gywn’s hair.”

Jared stopped and glowered down at the defiant little girl. So much like her mother. So much like Gwyneth. “I’m not going to take them. I want to
see
them.”

“Nay.” Kiera turned to her friend. “Do not trust a man. Ever.”

A tense moment passed. Elizabeth cocked her head to one side, looking up at Jared as if weighing out the matter for herself.

“I saved your life, little one. I mean you no harm.” He held out his hand, palm up. A gesture of peace.

Abruptly, she nodded, pushed her cloak to the side and lifted the beads for him to see.

Jared’s knees trembled as he stared at the wooden necklace hanging around her neck. The one he had carved for Colette. He had not put her given name on it, but her middle name: Elizabeth.

This was his child. Her eyes, her hair. He should have known.

Dear God. He reached for her, touched her cheek. His legs shook and he could no longer hold himself up. Slowly he sank to his knees beside the little girl.

“What are you doing?” Kiera asked.

Blinking dazedly, he gathered both Kiera and Elizabeth into his arms. The two girls squirmed, but did not resist his open display of affection.

“Why are you crying?” Kiera asked.

“I-I-I’m not.”

Elizabeth rubbed his cheek, her tiny finger coming away wet.

“Or maybe I am. ”

God had not abandoned him after all. Somehow, through some miracle, God had given him back his child. God and Gwyneth. His wonderful, impossible, glorious, defiant wife.

Quickly lifting one girl in each arm, he quickened their pace.

Kiera grabbed him around the neck. “Are we in a hurry? ”

“Aye.”

“Why?”

“Because I need answers.”

Gwyneth slid her fingers across the damp stone walls looking for a hold so that she could climb to the lone window above her in the prison cell. Dismal rays of light slid across the flea-infested rushes. A rat rooted in a pile of putrid garbage that rotted in one corner.

Defeated, she sank to the floor, heedless of her kirtle and cape—the only things she had been allowed to bring before guards had hauled her from her chamber and dragged her to this hellhole. She knew all too well the fate of imprisoned women: slavery.

She put her head in her hands and drew her knees up to her chest. Jared had been in a place such as this for three years. Her fault. All her fault. Had he felt this lonely and deserted? She recalled how his lips had flattened when he learned she was a murderess.

The flutter of wings sounded on the ledge above. She glanced up. A hawk’s head poked through the bars, her yellow eyes gleaming in the dim light.

“Aeliana!” Hope sprang in Gwyneth’s chest.

The hawk swooped through the bars holding a pigeon in its claws. With a thunk it was dropped at Gwyneth’s feet. Just as Jared had described that the bird had done for him.

“Food!” one of the other prisoners said.

Quickly Gwyneth snatched the pigeon. A tiny rolled parchment was tied to its leg with a piece of twine. Puzzled, she untied it and pulled it open.

Bold, thick handwriting was scrawled across the missive.

Keep silent.

Jared?

She held the note to her heart, read it again, then held it back to her heart. Jared had not abandoned her after all!

But what did he mean, “keep silent"?

At that moment the cell’s door clanged open. The guard, Jared, and Irma entered. A fierce scowl marred Jared’s handsome face and his hand was latched around Irma’s upper arm. He wore a black tunic and she was dressed in a scarlet dress. An angel of death and a lady of the night.

Gwyneth leapt to her feet. “Irma! Jared!”

Irma’s hands were bound behind her back and she wore her yellow scarf around her head.

The town magistrate filed in after them. He wore a wide wine-colored cape and a white wig.

“I am innocent!” Irma exclaimed, wide-eyed. “Tell them, Gwyneth! Tell them!”

The parchment crackled in her hand.
Keep silent,
it said.

She gazed at Jared’s face. His jaw was tight and his eyes guarded. There was no twitch, no wink, to tell her his thoughts.

Irma grabbed her shoulders. “You must help me! Please, Gwyneth.”

Keep silent.

“Lady Gwyneth,” the magistrate said. His wig hung irritatingly askew.

“This harlot is an accomplice to the murder of my brother.” Jared pushed Irma into the cell. “Leave her here.”

“We have come for your story, Lady Gwyneth. I know of your kindness to the poor and wish to release you. Noblewomen should not be in such a place as this. ”

Keep silent.

“If you are innocent, then speak, Lady Gwyneth.” The magistrate puffed out his chest.

Keep silent.

“Gwyneth! Tell them! What is wrong with you?” Irma pleaded.

Gwyneth tried to catch Jared’s gaze, tried to discern what to do. If she spoke up, she could go free. But the note. Could she trust him?

The judge tugged his misaligned wig so that it hung lopsided and askew the other direction.

Her mind raced.

You will no longer consort with whores.
He had been furious that she and Irma had tricked him. He had locked her in a brank.

But her mind went to the way his arm had wrapped around Kiera and carried her gently from the jail. At how he had shown concern for her people.

“Well, Lady Gwyneth?” The magistrate propped his hands on his hips.

Gwyneth looked at the man’s sweating face. Clearly he had his reputation at stake.

“See,” said Jared, “it is as I said. Both Gwyneth and Irma are guilty. ”

Gwyneth wrung her hands. “There has been no trial.”

Jared turned sharply to the judge. “You do not wish for your mistake of my imprisonment to be made public. It would be quite an embarrassment.”

Gwyneth’s heart lurched. If she said naught they would spend the rest of their life in prison. Did Jared have a plan?

Keep silent.

She considered all the times Jared had insisted that she keep silent, all the times that he had threatened her with the brank.

Was she a fool to trust him?

“Please, Gwyneth, please!” Irma raised her hands into a prayer position.

“You have only to speak for her and I will release her.” The magistrate tapped his chin.

“She is guilty,” said Jared.

Gwyneth looked from Jared’s unsmiling face to Irma’s pleading one to the judge’s anxious one. Was she risking their lives on something as flimsy as fragile hope? What if Jared had sent the note to ensure her silence so that he could be rid of both of them? If only there was one instant of time where he let his guard down so she could be assured that she could trust him.

Naught.

He was an enigma. As always.

Her price is above rubies.
He’d carved a bracelet for her with his own hands. Surely even tarnished rubies were too valuable to throw away.

Jared released Irma and thrust her toward Gwyneth.

The cell’s door shut with a loud clang.

Irma leapt toward Gwyneth, hands outstretched like claws. “How dare you!”

The force of her friend’s anger felt like a blow to her stomach. “Irma?”

Irma whirled quickly to the bars of the cell, grasped two in her hand, and peered down the hallway. “Ho! Come back here, you lumbering jackasses!” She rattled the bars back and forth. “I can make it worth your while, I can. We can make a bargain. I have skills …”

Gwyneth’s heart sank. “Irma, no.”

“Shut your piehole! We can get a larger cell if they know it’s good for them.”

Queasy sickness washed over Gwyneth. The idea of tupping prison guards in exchange for petty favors brought bile rushing into her throat.

Irma turned to Gwyneth and blinked. “With your looks, you’ll be able to secure extra blankets for us when it gets cold.”

“I will not—”

Irma rattled the cage again and hollered down the hall, “Come back, guard! I’ll ‘old her down while you cram it in ‘er. ”

Saints.

“Irma, stop it!”

“Come later!” Irma waved her arms toward the guards. “She’s of noble blood. Practically a virgin.”

Gwyneth threw an arm around her friend and clamped a hand over her mouth. “Shush!”

Their eyes met. Dark wisdom rather than fear or desperation shone in Irma’s gaze. Irma tugged Gwyneth close until her breath whispered against Gwyneth’s ear. “We have a plan.”

A plan? Heavens. It had been Irma’s plan that had gotten them both here in the first place. If she had never stolen Jared and forced him to marry her …

“What do you mean?” Gwyneth whispered.

“Keep silent.”

Keep silent?
The same thing that had been written on the parchment. “I do not under—”

“Is there a problem in here?” One of the guards appeared at the cell’s door and peered through the rusty bars. He wore a dingy tunic and worn breeches. A scar slashed down the side of his cheek.

“You betraying bitch!” Irma screamed and thrust Gwyneth away so hard that she staggered backward. “I refuse to share a cell with this woman.”

Keep silent?

“Irma—”

The guard looked from Irma to Gwyneth. “Do you need something?”

“Nay.” Irma flounced to the wall and sat beneath the lone window.

Keep silent?

Praying that she was making the right decision, Gwyneth shook her head.

The guard gave her a sly smile. “I will come for
you
later. The boat leaves tonight.”

Hours later, Gwyneth paced back and forth, back and forth across the small cell. She had packed down the flea-infested rushes and was now wearing a path to the stone floor. Her fingers rubbed fretfulcircles on the tiny missive until a hole had torn in the parchment.

Her mind raced, one thought slithering over the next like a pit of angry snakes as she gazed at Irma, who was asleep against the damp stone wall.

Irma had said the same words that were on the parchment:
Keep silent.

She had claimed that “we have a plan.” We?

Jared and she?

Her friend had refused to talk or even come near but as the hours passed and moonlight winked on and off through the window, Gwyneth wondered if she should shake her awake and demand answers.

Keep silent.

Why?

Had Jared tricked her friend the same as the two of them had tricked him and planned to leave both of them here?

Footsteps sounded against the flagstone. “That cell yonder. Take them all. Pay careful heed to the woman with the silver-gold hair. She will fetch a high price.”

Price?

Her heart hammered. She scampered to the back wall and reached for the high window, wishing she were a spider so that she could climb the stones and escape.

“The boat is here. Take her quickly.”

Two men stopped in front of the cell. A key rasped in the lock and the door clanged open.

“Come, woman.”

Gwyneth’s heart lurched into her throat. If Jared had a plan, why wasn’t he here? Her gaze darted back and forth, measuring the distance to the door. Her legs tensed to run. “Nay!”

“This way, woman.” A meaty hand gripped her upper arm in a painful grip. “Get the other one too.”