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Authors: Heather Grothaus

BOOK: Never Love a Lord
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“If you think to follow her lead and escape before gaining London and your just punishment, I hate to disappoint you,” the brazen one threatened. “As it is, you’ll be taking her place in the carriage to forestall any attempt at flight.”
“Because that conveyance is so obviously effective at containing prisoners?” Julian scoffed at the man. “Very well. I accept.”
The man looked confused for a moment, but covered his uncertainty quickly. “I’ll be sending men back to Fallstowe. She shan’t escape for long.”
“A piece of advice, soldier,” Julian offered. “Your men will not intercept Sybilla Foxe at Fallstowe. But if they would happen to cross paths with her, I would suggest that they not try to apprehend her in any way, lest they long for a hasty death.”
“She’s but one woman, alone, afoot without even her shoes,” the man sneered.
Julian knew a pang of concern at the information that Sybilla was barefoot, but he did not dwell on it.
“She’s not afoot,” Julian said casually, and then lay back down on the ground, making a show of adjusting his arms to comfort his head. “And she shall beat us all to London. If I were you, I would not be anticipating the humiliation that awaits you at having your prisoner arrive before you.”
“Bollocks, you say,” the envoy scoffed from behind him.
Julian shrugged and closed his eyes.
The man said nothing for several moments. Julian feigned disinterest, but his body was rigid with impatience.
“Rally the men. Break camp at once for London. No time to lose—we ride in a quarter hour. Ready a group of men to return to the Castle Fallstowe, on the watch for the prisoner.”
Then Julian felt the toe of the envoy’s boot nudge him roughly between the shoulder blades.
“If this is some ploy to distract me, to try to buy your little lady traitor some time to further her escape, you would do well to keep in mind that your daughter is alone at Fallstowe, and I have rein to do as I see fit with interferers.”
Julian did not so much as flinch.
Come a bit closer, old chap . . .
He sensed the man crouching behind him now, heard his smug voice close to his head.
“Do you hear me, Griffin? You lead no one any longer. I am in charge.”
In a blink, Julian had rolled over, swinging up his arms until the chain suspended between his wrists looped around the odious man’s neck. Then he quickly rolled back again, yanking the envoy from his feet, across Julian’s body, where Julian held the man on the ground in front of him, his mouth directly over the envoy’s ear while the man gasped and kicked and clawed at the chain biting into his windpipe.
“
You hear me
,” Julian said in a low voice. “And hear me well: should you even so much as whisper an allusion to the fact that I have a daughter again, I will beat you to death. Chains or no chains, soldiers or no soldiers. I will kill you with my bare hands. That is my solemn vow.” He pulled the chain tighter with a little grunt. “And if you dare to touch me again as if you possess some authority over me, I will dismember whatever appendage has offended me and feed it to the king’s hounds while you watch. Morsel by bloody morsel, you cowardly piece of dung.”
Several of the envoy’s soldiers approached now, some of them reaching for their swords.
“This is a man-to-man conversation,” Julian warned them. “I have not yet been relieved of my duties, and so I outrank this piece of filth I am defending myself from. Stand down. That’s an order!” To the envoy still in his clutches, Julian asked, “Do you understand me?”
The envoy gave a jerky nod.
Julian drew his knees up beneath him and gained his feet awkwardly, dragging the envoy aright with him before quickly releasing the chain from around the man’s neck and stepping away.
The envoy whipped around, his hands still at his bruised throat. “I’ll kill you for that,” he croaked, his eyes wild.
Julian stared back at him, opened his hands slightly to let the chain dangle in a wide arc. “Whenever you’re ready.”
The envoy hesitated. “Lock him in the carriage,” the man shouted hoarsely, and a pair of soldiers reluctantly moved toward Julian. “And keep a closer eye on this one!”
Julian did not resist as the men indicated that he should move toward the reinforced wagon that had until recently interned Sybilla Foxe. In fact he went willingly.
Like the envoy he had just chastised, Julian wished to gain London before Sybilla Foxe did.
Chapter 24
Sybilla felt as though she and Octavian became one in the moonlight, her fingers tangled in his mane as the chains between her wrists clanged with each jarring gallop of the war steed. The flesh of her legs was hot and wet and prickled where it gripped Octavian’s sides. She leaned close over his neck, her knees pressed to his heaving flanks, her ankles drawn up behind her, the tops of her feet laid close along the bunched curve of Octavian’s rump. She had no need to drive him, lead him—it was as if he knew their destination, knew the urgency. His hooves were solid, sure, his gait steady and untiring.
They were spirits, wraiths, streaking over a dark and shadowed land toward London. Sybilla felt the tears on her cheeks leaving little ghosts of cold as the rushing air dried them. She was racing toward her death, and she couldn’t seem to get there quickly enough.
She had not gone back to Fallstowe Castle.
The morning sun was high in the sky when the walls of the great city came into view, and Octavian began to instinctively slow. She let him wander from the road to drink from a rain barrel set against a little cottage, and she tried to smooth back the voluminous tangles of her hair, but it was of no use. The red velvet of her gown was caked with dirt and horse sweat, and she knew her face must be as well.
She would enter Edward’s court looking like a common beggar, which was in truth what she was now.
They were back to the road in moments, and through the gates without incident, although as she drew closer to her intended destination, she couldn’t help but notice the increasing stares she drew from the citizens of the city. By the time Octavian drew to a halt before the guards, a small crowd had gathered behind her. She dismounted with care, her joints and muscles creaking, and a pair of soldiers rushed forward with concerned looks on their faces as they took in her chains, her hard-traveled appearance.
Before they could approach her, Sybilla reached up with both hands to grasp Octavian’s muzzle and pull it to her face. She pressed her lips to the damp, scratchy hair, the warmth of him, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment.
“Thank you, boy,” she whispered. “Now go. Go home.” Her voice broke on the last word and she pushed his head away roughly. As her horse turned in a quick circle she slapped his rump, sending Octavian galloping through the crowd, which scattered and shrieked at the massive animal racing heedlessly past them.
When Sybilla turned back toward the palace, the guards were upon her.
“Milady, are you injured?” one of the guards asked, taking a quick assessment of her blood-smeared hands.
“I must see the king immediately,” Sybilla said, ignoring his query, although her voice sounded odd and faint to her own ears. When the guard took her elbow, Sybilla felt her knees buckle, and she stumbled against the soldier, who took her weight easily. “It’s urgent,” she managed to whisper. “I have come from Fallstowe Castle.”
“Come this way, milady,” the soldier directed her, and with his partner taking her other arm, the men commanded the crowd away and half carried Sybilla up the stairs to the ornate doors that marked the threshold to her fate.
A company of men seemed to appear from nowhere, opening the doors, accompanying her swift escorts into the grand entry, shouting orders for a surgeon, for a key to the chains that held her. The antechamber before the king’s court was already populated with the nobility who were of a mind to see the monarch, and they made no attempt to hide their shock and morbid curiosity about the woman being escorted across the marble floor.
“The king is not receiving yet this morn, milady,” one of the soldiers informed her with the utmost deference, trying to keep his words directed toward her ear. “But due to your state and the urgency of your request, you may await him alone while he is informed of your arrival.”
“Thank you,” Sybilla whispered, her lips numb as her eyes flicked to each lord and lady, openly staring at her. “Thank you.”
“But we must tell him who it is who awaits him,” the soldier continued with a slight smile. “Your name, milady?”
Sybilla turned her face up slowly to look at the soldier. “Sybilla Foxe,” she breathed, the two words barely stirring the air.
The soldier frowned. “I beg your pardon?” He leaned his ear closer toward her.
“My name is Sybilla Foxe,” she said, louder this time, and there was no mistaking that the majority of the persons gathered in the antechamber had heard her that time.
The air came alive with the sound of ringing metal, and as if conjured up, Julian’s blond general, Erik, appeared from somewhere deeper in the hall, leading his own group of travel-dirtied soldiers.
“She is a prisoner of the Crown!” Erik said clearly, his face darkened with fury as he stormed toward her, his own weapon drawn.
The hands once so solicitously supporting her elbows withdrew, leaving Sybilla to stagger aright under her own power.
The soldiers stepped away as Eric and his men reached her, joining the perfect circle around her where nothing but sword points lived.
Sybilla felt her shoulders draw up toward her ears, and she grasped her elbows, glancing around her at the handful of armed men, their weapons now trained on her without mercy.
“Seize her,” Erik commanded. “And take her immediately to the dungeons.”
“Wait,” Sybilla said. “I must see the king right away.” Her arms were grasped again, but this time there was no kindness in her captors’ hands.
“Oh, you’ll see him soon enough,” Erik promised. Then he stepped toward her, his face a mask of twisted fury. “Where is Lord Griffin?”
“He’s still with the king’s men,” Sybilla answered. “They follow.”
Erik glared at her. “You’ve ruined him, you know.”
Sybilla swallowed. “I hope not,” she whispered. Dizziness swam around her like hot little whirlpools.
A confused frown creased Erik’s brow for only a moment. “Go,” he commanded the men around him.
Sybilla was pulled backward from the antechamber, away from Edward’s private court, her bare heels skimming over the cold marble floor. In moments, she was in darkness, and yet it would be some time before she was interned properly in her cell.
 
 
“My God,” Alys breathed as she and Cecily waited in their cart at the crossroads. On the wider London Road before them, only a handful of miles outside the city itself, hundreds of the king’s soldiers stirred the brown dust as they passed. Men on horseback, men afoot, wagons carrying battle gear mostly hidden with tarps and covers. In the center of the mob, a lone, barred carriage rattled past, and its purpose was clear: a rolling fortress, a cell meant to contain the most dangerous of criminals.
Cecily stood suddenly on the seat, the reins still in her hands. “Sybilla!” she shouted at the carriage, her voice breaking with volume and emotion. “Sybilla!”
“Cee, sit down!” Alys hissed, and yanked hard on her sister’s hand even while one of the mounted guards blocking the narrow throat of their smaller path swung his horse around to face them with a suspicious glare. “Do you want us both arrested as well?”
“But what if she’s in there, Alys?” Cecily demanded. “I can’t just sit here and watch her pass!”
“There is naught we could do to aid her now, any matter. Keep your seat lest we find ourselves in our own metal box. We shall gain the city soon enough.” Then Alys groaned. “Oh, damn. Too late. Here he comes.”
The soldier kicked his horse lightly and trotted up to the sisters’ cart, his eyes keenly taking in the bed of the conveyance, the blankets, the limp sacks.
“Ladies,” he said dubiously, eyeing Alys’s obviously rounded shape. “What business have you on the London Road?”
“I don’t see how it’s any concern of yours,” Cecily bristled. “What are you now, a toll collector?”
Alys gave Cecily a sharp pinch on the back of her arm before saying, “We’re on our way to London, good sir.” Her face glowed with sweetness.
“Is that so?” the soldier challenged them. “What is your purpose?”
“We’re to see the king, if you must know,” Cecily informed him straightaway.
Even as the guard became obviously wary, Alys gave a merry laugh. “Isn’t my sister funny? Of course we’re not meant to see the king. What would two lone women, in a cart, have need to press the king for? Only a jest.”
The man didn’t look convinced. “You wouldn’t be following a royal caravan containing a dangerous prisoner of the Crown now, would you? Having a little looky? Thinking of making a little mischief?” He looked them both in their eyes, in turn. “For if you were, that could turn out very badly for you.”
“Oh really?” Cecily demanded. “And just who are you to—”
“We’re going into the city to sell our wares, of course,” Alys interrupted her. “Not very much business in the village lately. Thought we’d try our luck with a larger market.”
Alys could feel Cecily fuming at her side.
The soldier looked pointedly into their empty cart once more. “I don’t see any wares,” he accused them. “Only some old blankets.”
Alys swallowed with a gulp. She hadn’t thought this particular charade through.
Then Cecily rescued them both, in a most shocking way. “Our wares are of a . . . feminine nature, you understand.”
A sly, nasty smile grew across the soldier’s bristly face. “I see.” The tail end of the royal caravan was now rolling away in a cloud of dust, leaving the soldier alone at the crossroads with Cecily and Alys. “And where had you been plying your . . . wares?”
“Bellemont,” said Alys, in the same instant that Cecily offered, “Gillwick.”
The man’s eyes narrowed.
Alys laughed again, but this time even she could detect the quiver of uncertainty in her tone. “We do tend to get around.”
“Like the clap, I’m sure,” the soldier said. He eyed Alys’s rounded stomach again. “I can’t see how
your
services would be much in demand.”
“You’d be surprised,” Cecily quipped. “Farmers adore her.”
The man’s eyes flicked to the road, cloaked in a storm of dust as substantial as an earthen wall, then back to Cecily. He didn’t look closely enough.
“Perhaps
you
could give me a little sample then. A
toll
for using the road.” He grinned.
Alys’s hand went to her mouth to cover her own smile as Cecily leaned slightly forward on the seat.
“You’d need to ask my employer first,” she said coyly.
“Really?” the soldier said, leaning forward to brace his forearm on the pommel of his saddle. “And where might I find that old bloke on a deserted road such as this?”
Cecily waggled her index finger over the soldier’s shoulder. “It must be your lucky day, for he’s right behind you.”
“Prostitutes!” Oliver shouted for what had to have been the twentieth time. He glared down at Cecily from his perch on his horse. Piers Mallory’s mount followed meekly on its lead.
“I couldn’t very well tell him that we were Sybilla Foxe’s sisters, come to aid her,” Cecily said in their defense. “We’d have been arrested straightaway!”
“Why did you have to be seen at all?” Oliver said. “You could have stayed back off the road until they passed. It wasn’t a holiday parade, Cecily.”
“If you would have taken us with you in the first place, we wouldn’t have been here on our own at all, would we?”
“I told you Piers and I would do all we could to help Sybilla. You don’t trust me.”
“You’re not us, Oliver,” Cecily said simply.
“She’s right,” Piers said calmly. Then he turned to look at Alys over his shoulder as he drove the cart. “I’m sorry, love. I’m only glad that you are unharmed.”
“You’re apologizing?” Oliver said in a strangled voice.
Alys reached up and patted her husband’s broad back from her seat in the cart bed. She looked rather mollified. “It’s quite all right, darling. I daresay that soldier is going to have a fantastic ache in his skull when he awakens, thanks to you. You’re such a wonderful protector.”

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