Lois Greiman (12 page)

T
he girl was gone.

Keelan stared, mind stumbling blindly. Chetfield was down. Why? But suddenly he felt a fist in his hair, sharp-edged steel against his throat.

“What the devil are you doing here?” hissed a voice.

“I—”

“Answer me.” The grip tightened painfully against his scalp.

“I…Charity?” he guessed. Her voice seemed strange. Not to mention the knife she held at his throat. “Is that ye, lass?”

“What do you know?”

Not much apparently. “What happened to Chetfield?”

She nicked his throat, drawing blood. “I asked why you are here.”

“I was—”

“And who the hell are you?”

He shook his head, trying to clear it. “Tell me the truth,” he said, words slow as he tried to wrestle through the fog in his mind. “Be I sleeping again?”

She stabbed the tip of the knife a little deeper. A droplet of blood flowed down his chest, warm and sticky.

“Does that feel like a dream?” she asked.

He shifted backward the slightest degree. Her breasts felt soft and warm against his back. “A wee bit.”

Pain pricked his neck. Another droplet followed its mates. “How about that?”

He tilted his chin up, mind scrambled. “Not so pleasant as some.”

“Tell me who you are.”

He opened his mouth.

She gave the knife a nudge. “And no lies.”

“Me mum called me Angel, but—”

Chetfield moaned. Fear tightened Keelan’s gut, but he kept his tone bland.

“Might I inquire what be happening here?”

She tightened her fist in his hair. “I don’t want to have to kill you.”

“Good. Excellent. Neither—”

“But I will. Swear to God I will if you cause
me trouble,” she whispered, and glanced toward the door. “Follow me, and you’ll wish you were dead,” she warned, but he laughed.

The sound echoed with madness. “I already am, lass.”

“What?” Her attention snapped back to him.

Chetfield moaned.

“He’s waking up.”

“Dammit!” she swore, and suddenly pain exploded in his skull.

Keelan felt himself falling. Felt his knees strike the carpet. His hands grazed Chetfield’s downed form. He rolled to the side. The girl moved away from him, slanted and distorted as she grabbed something from the floor. The door opened, and then she was gone.

The ceiling wavered. Time trembled. Chetfield groaned, drawing Keelan’s attention. He was lying face down, but his arm was moving, sweeping slowly across the floor. Lightning flashed, illuminating the crawling blue veins in the baron’s outstretched hand. The skin looked parchment-thin, the fingers bent and gnarled.

“Where is it?” The words were a deep hiss of evil.

Terror brought Keelan to his senses with a jolt.

Chetfield’s eyes blazed as he raised himself
to hands and knees. He turned back, searching, then shifted his attention to Keelan. Lightning crackled across the sky, setting the golden eyes aglow. “You bloody, thieving Scot, what have you done?” he shrieked and lunged.

Keelan jerked, skittered backward on hands and feet, but Chetfield was already racing toward him, poker in hand. It rushed past Keelan’s head. He rolled sideways, staggered to his feet, weaving drunkenly and spinning away.

Pain sliced across his back, but the door was in sight. He staggered toward it. It opened beneath his hand. He stumbled out, Chetfield behind him. The hallway stretched out forever. Then, Frankie! Only a few yards away.

“Kill him!” Chetfield growled.

Keelan turned to sprint toward safety, but in that moment he heard a plaintive mew of sound. The world seemed to shift into strange, slow motion. He turned back in a gray haze. Lambkin was trotting toward him, little ears bobbing. Frank turned his massive head, glanced down, and suddenly the universe shifted back into gear.

“Holy fook!” Keelan swore, and lunging forward, snatched up the lamb. Frankie’s grasping hand closed over his shirt. Buttons popped, but Keelan was still moving, scrambling forward on
knees and one hand. The stairs appeared out of nowhere. He tried to run down them, but his legs tangled with his chest, and suddenly he was tumbling head over heels with Lambkin hugged tight to his body.

He hit the bottom with a jolt. The world spun away into oblivion, leaving him in its rocking wake.

But footsteps were thundering down upon him. He found his feet. The world tilted, throwing him off course, but he bore down on the front door. It was there. Just to the left. It opened with a snap. A giant loomed in the center.

Keelan jolted right, rolling on a wave of pain and terror.

“Catch him!” Chetfield screamed.

But Keelan was running, stumbling toward his room, slamming the door behind him, propping a chair beneath the latch.

“Bring him to me!” The world shuddered with the command. Something heavy struck the far side of the door. The house threatened to collapse. But Keelan was already moving, racing dizzily across the floor, ripping up the window, falling outside.

For a moment the world went black, but Lambkin’s nose on his face brought him to. Something crashed inside the room. Snatching up the lamb,
he stumbled into the darkness, leg throbbing, lungs screaming as he glanced behind. Chetfield was framed in the window.

“Come back here, boy.”

Keelan jerked toward the woods.

Chetfield hissed. Someone shrieked in pain. But it wasn’t Keelan. And that was enough. The stable loomed before him. He rushed inside. Death leapt from the shadows. He jumped back. The hounds lunged again, but their tethers held. A horse nickered from a nearby box. Keelan fumbled against the wall, feeling for a bridle, but a noise from outside distracted him. They were coming, expecting him to take a steed.

Leaving the door open behind him, he searched frantically for another escape. Lightning split the sky, spilling through a high, open window. Hugging Lambkin to his chest, Keelan scrambled up a ladder, across ragged floorboards, and through the shuttered opening. The night beyond the barn was only marginally lighter than the interior of his skull. He crept carefully through it. Behind him, voices shouted. A door slammed against the barn. He steadied his heart. They were there, inside the stable. He was safe for the moment, for the giants were behind him, vainly searching—

A noise rustled to his right. He jerked in that
direction. A pale image flashed through the night and was gone. Another followed, indistinguishable, and yet Keelan knew. Roland! And suddenly like a beacon in his mind, he saw Charity’s face, smile broken, eyes raw with pain.

Rage roared like a blaze inside him.

He raced forward, stumbling on a root, falling, mind spinning with uncertainty. What the hell was he doing? She had struck him. Why? It made no sense. Unless she was not what she seemed. Unless she had come for the same reason as he. Had gotten what she’d wanted, snatched it from under his very nose.

Unless she’d been fooling him from the start. Fooling them all.

Arm curled about Lambkin, Keelan slipped into the woods after Roland. The pace was fast, but the bastard wore white. It was not difficult to follow, only to keep up. Keelan’s ribs throbbed with the effort, but he dare not slow his pace. The terrain slanted downward. Branches slapped his face. Lightning cracked the sky. Air rasped in his lungs. And suddenly his cover was gone. The land was open, shorn short. Sheep were scattering in every direction. Up ahead, Roland was half crouched beside a tumble-down shelter.

Painful memories stabbed through Keelan.
He stumbled back into the cover of the trees, but the bastard’s voice was clear.

“Come on out, girl. I won’t hurt you.”

The tone was wheedling, twisting Keelan’s stomach. His legs were shaking, his strength draining away. Shushing the lamb, he set her carefully on her feet and crept to the edge of the woods.

“I’ve got no quarrel with you,” Roland continued. He was inching around the building, then crept from sight. Finally, able to wait no longer, Keelan rushed through the darkness past the opposite side of the building. From that vantage point, he watched the bastard emerge from the other side and glance about.

“So there you are,” said Roland, and straightened.

C
harity remained where she was. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The rain had stopped—rain that blurred vision and erased tracks. Dammit!

“What are you doing, Cherie girl?” Roland asked, tone wheedling.

She set her attitude carefully to match. “I didn’t do nothing wrong.” Her own voice sounded as if she might cry, making her wonder if she could manage tears.

“Then why are you hiding?” he asked.

“Master Chetfield…” She was crouched against a tree. A branch was jabbing her in the back, but she remained exactly as she was, her hands curled tight around the bottom of Chetfield’s staff. “I never seen him like that before. He was out of his mind with rage.”

“Was he now?” Roland took a few steps for
ward. She tightened her grip and waited.

“Aye.” She sniffled. But tears wouldn’t come. Damn the luck! Months of pretending, years of scheming, shot to hell. “I don’t know what set him off. I was just…I couldn’t sleep is all. So I took me a bit of a stroll outside. ’Twas there that he found me. I didn’t think nothing of it. Thought perhaps he couldn’t sleep neither what with the pain in his hip and all, but then he…” She let her words tremble to a halt.

“What did he do?”

“He touched me,” she whispered.

She could hear the chuckle in Roland’s voice though he tried to hide it. “Did he now?”

“I didn’t mean to ’it him but I was—”

“You hit him?” He did laugh now.

“It ain’t proper. I know I don’t speak real pretty nor nothing but that don’t mean I don’t have no principles. Me mum raised me right, she did.”

“Of course she did.” He laughed again, quietly. Evil personified. Crouched in the underbrush, Charity stifled a shiver. “It’s shameful what he did. But he’s an old man. Sometimes he forgets himself.”

“Does he?” She tried to remember the path south of the shanty, but it was dark, and she’d been running. Running until her legs gave out. But they damned well better gain their strength
back soon. “I’ve not thought so in the past.” She wiped her nose with the back of her left hand and kept her right where it was, hidden in her skirt and bracken. “He’s always been so kind to me.”

“Well, you’re a pretty girl, Cherie. And the man’s not dead…” He chuckled. “Not yet anyhow.”

What the hell did that mean? Did Roland have plans of his own? Probably. Who didn’t? And what of Angel? What the devil had he been doing in her room? “Maybe I been taking me place at Crevan ’Ouse for granted. Maybe I ain’t been working ’ard enough.”

“Well, we don’t want you working too hard. It might wear you out for more important things.”

She glanced to her right. Where was that damned path?

“Come on out of there now. We’ll go back. Explain everything to Chetfield. I’m sure once he realizes he frightened you, he’ll make amends.”

“I don’t want to go back.” She made her tone petulant and allowed herself one quick glance to the left. The terrain was fairly steep there, but maybe she could use that to her advantage.

“No?” He was close now. Within five paces. It was almost time. “Then I’ll take you somewhere else. Somewhere safe.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“Of course I would. I’m not a barbarian.”

“But won’t Master Chetfield be angry when I ain’t in the kitchen in the morning?”

“Not so angry as he’ll be when you’re not in his bed.”

“What’s that?”

He chuckled. “Nothing, Cherie luv. I know a place where you can stay while Chetfield calms himself. You can rest for a while. Decide what you want to do.” He closed the gap.

She remained where she was, drawing back just a little, like a frightened child or an animal that’s been cornered. In a way she was both, had been for many years. “Where’s that?”

“Don’t you trust me?”

She paused for a second. “You always been good to me.”

“Then come on out of there.”

Her heart was pounding against her ribs. Her hand ached against the wooden staff. “You ain’t gonna hurt me?”

“Hurt you?” He was grinning. “No. Of course not.”

“All right then,” she said, and rising to her feet, swung the staff with all her might.

But Roland’s instincts were strong. He lunged sideways. The metal knob grazed his shoulder.
He fell back with a curse, but she was already running, scrambling up the slope, staff in hand.

“Damn you,” he snarled.

Close. So close, but she didn’t turn back. Didn’t dare.

His fingers grazed her leg. She shrieked and kept running, but a hand closed over her ankle.

She kicked with all her strength and felt her foot strike flesh.

He grunted. His grip loosened. She scrambled upward again, but he yanked her back. Her chest hit the ground. The air left her lungs in a hard gasp, and suddenly he was straddling her. She rolled over, kicking and cursing, but he was already on top of her, crushing her down.

“A spitfire,” he panted. “I like that even better than the milksop you been pretending to be.”

“Get off me!” she snarled, but fear was crowding in, crushing her lungs.

“Oh, I’ll get off, sweet thing, when I’m done.”

“I’m not who you think I am,” she rasped.

He laughed, teeth gritted so close to her face that she could smell the hot stench of his breath. “I figured that much out for myself, luv.”

“My real name’s Lady Dorenton. I’m a baroness.”

“Really?” he said, and grabbing both wrists in one hand, tore her gown down the front.

She couldn’t stop the scream. His breath felt hot against her breasts.

“I’ve never had a baroness before.”

“Please.” She couldn’t stop the plea either, though she gritted her teeth against it. “Don’t do this.”

“Had a preacher’s daughter once though.” He bit her nipple. She shrieked, hating herself for the weakness. “She was a scrapper too. For a while. Then she went all still. Come to find out she was dead before I finished up. Guess the joke was on me.”

She felt sick to her stomach. “I’ve got money,” she rasped. “I’ll pay you.”

“Never mind, Cherie girl, I’ll fuck you for free,” he said, and reached between their bodies for his pants.

For a moment he lifted his weight from her. She brought her knee up with a snap, but he was quick and jerked aside. Her knee grazed his thigh, and then he hit her. Lightning exploded in her head, but she still struggled.

He was spreading her legs, pushing between them. She felt the heat of his member press against her as he reared above her.

“You’re going to enjoy this,” he gritted, and then, suddenly, something swung from the sky.

There was a crack. His eyes went wide, limned
with white. His lips parted, and then he fell, toppling over sideways.

She scrambled backward on hands and feet. Angel stood over her, legs spread, tree limb in hand.

“He was right,” he said. “It was fun.”