The Tower Grave (22 page)

             
“And so is your arse.”

             
“Yes, so is my arse, Jake,” he snapped back. “I do not wish to be tortured in there any more than your brother. Now what happened is unfortunate, but in the world in which we currently live, people will die. It is inevitable. A vicious war stirs in the very underbelly of this country’s nobility. Two factions exist here, and if we want the country to succeed our way, we must take risks. Now, I will arrange this for you and we will get your brother out, ok? Watch the walls.”

Jake grunted and turned his attention back to the seemingly impenetrable fortress before him. Counting the time between soldier movements, Jake caught sight of
a smartly dressed messenger standing near him at the periphery of his reduced, hooded vision. The man held a mallet and nail and hung a script on a wooden board by the wall beside them. Jake thought he saw some of the words but didn’t believe them until the messenger had gone and he moved forward to read it more closely.

             
“Ed,” he said. “What the hell is this?” He pulled it from the wall and swore in panic as he read the text. ‘MURDER IN THE TOWER’, it said across the top. Jake began to read to Courtridge.

             
“‘After a failed attempt to steal the King’s treasures and the subsequent murder of a Royal guard; nobleman Sir John De Rougemont is to be publically hanged on the Tower Hill at sunset, Saturday. Rougemont will be granted his last prayers then transported by cart to the gallows on the hill.’ That’s two nights from tonight, Edmund. We have to get him out. What shall we do?”

             
“Jake I’m sorry, I cannot allow it. I could spare manpower but I cannot use my favours and our surprise entry on anything before the job. If we do, we will have blown our chance at success and that is not a possibility. I’m afraid there is a bigger picture here.”

             
“Bollocks, there’s your own picture, you mean. That’s my brother in there. I can’t stand by and let him die. I won’t. With or without you, I’m getting him out.”

             
“Out? You? Are you planning to storm the castle with your little family? You have no other allies here.” Courtridge’s beard bristled as he thought about the predicament and weighed up the aggressive young man before him. He didn’t doubt the danger of the cocky knight, but the choice was easy and he told Jake straight.

             
“If you get him out of there yourself, you’re out. If you try, fail, and blow my plan, you’re dead.”

             
“He’s coming out, I’m not dead, and we’re still in.” Jake replied sternly. “Three guards by the barracks, patrol pass every ninety seconds. No other patrols until the forward inner wall.” He turned his back on the huge Lord and walked away.

Twenty-One

              Despite their location, Jake had an over-whelming urge to wrap his arms around Charlotte and kiss her in the darkness of the recess they occupied. She stood agonizingly close to him in the tight space and as she shuffled to move aside for him, their hands touched, silencing their breathing in an instant. Without communication, they gingerly gripped each other’s fingers and held on. Jake watched the side of her head from where he stood. She slowly lifted her eyes and glanced at him, grinning shyly as she saw he was watching her. He smiled back.

             
“What can you see?” he whispered to her, breaking the silence but not the tension between them.

             
“Straight across, next to the burn-stain on the wall, there’s a crumbling doorway under the overhang. Lean across and you’ll see,” she whispered back, trying to keep her mind on the job.

             
As he tried to shift past, he leaned out to look, acknowledged the door, and then turned back to find their faces only inches apart. He stopped and watched her, her chest rising and falling rapidly as his own heartbeat threatened to blow their cover. The tip of her tongue absent-mindedly moistened her lips as her eyes flicked between his gaze and his mouth. Still amazed at the full shape of her mouth, only Jake’s professionalism and the unfamiliar fear he felt kept him from kissing it right there and then.

             
“What are you thinking?” she asked, quietly.

             
“I’m thinking that no matter how hard I try to concentrate on this job, I can’t help falling in love with you.”

             
She took a sudden, sharp intake of breath in surprise then bit her lower lip in attempt to cover her excitement at his words.

             
“I think I love you too,” she said, almost giggling and watching him grin in reaction. “I can’t believe I feel like this after only just meeting you. But we have to be professional,” she teased.

             
“I’m getting sick of being professional.”

             
“Me too,” she said as she watched his mouth again. “But it is pretty dangerous around here, you know.”

             
“I know,” he said as he gently allowed his fingers to slide into the hair behind her ear. His thumb explored her cheekbone and down to the corner of her lips as their bodies leaned closer together in longing. She reached up to his face and pulled it towards her. Her eyes closed early as her lips reached out to kiss him and, spellbound, he found himself lost amongst them. Their softness entranced him as they pressed against him and opened, and he matched her, allowing her tongue to tease his own in a rush of warmth. Her kiss was both delicate and strong, and he pressed against her in reaction in a way that stirred them both to a deeper desire. They kissed with an urgency that worked them both into an unstoppable state, and they rocked together in the warmth of each other’s embrace, forgetting for a moment the harsh world they were stuck in. Breaking the kiss, Charlotte looked urgently out of the opening as her hands scrambled around the front of his robe and reached into his hose as it came apart.

             
“Jesus,” Jake exclaimed in surprise, closing his eyes and gasping at the cold touch of her hands as she took hold of him and played with him energetically. Lost again in her kiss as she made his legs quiver, he too reached down and dragged up her skirt, letting his hand ride her inner thigh and feel her muscles tense as he teased upwards into the heat of her crotch. His own sensation threatened to overwhelm him and he broke the kiss in surprise as he discovered her absent underwear, catching only her devious grin in reply before her face changed to concentration, working him harder as she moved against his own touch.

             
The excitement and intimacy of their position coupled with the unexpected declaration of love caught Charlotte unawares. She found herself shuddering, her ever weakening legs shaking and her stomach squirming as her muscles tightened around him and she began to climax. She released a restrained howl as she came and the feeling of her climax where he touched her brought Jake to his own sudden end, pulsing as she felt him and eased off to see him through.

             
Pressing themselves together, their legs shaking and breathing laboured, they stood there, shocked and silent as they relived the moment and calmed enough to speak. Charlotte giggled mischievously at what she had initiated most unusually, and leant her head against his chest in embarrassment.

             
“I didn’t expect to react like that,” she said through heavy breaths.

             
“Me neither,” he replied. “That was, well, wow.”

             
“I know, and ever so professional.”

             
“It felt professional!”

             
“Hey!” she exclaimed, smacking his chest playfully. “What are you suggesting?”

             
Jake laughed.

             
“I’m calling you talented and sexy,” he said, smiling.

             
“Well, you’re not too bad yourself. I had no idea you’d make me feel like that, and I can’t wait to explore you more.” She bit her lip as she looked up to him. “But we’ve got plenty of time for that,” she said, shaking herself. “We mustn’t dwell here, the sooner we’re back indoors, the sooner I can get to know you better.”

             
“Good point,” Jake said grinning and managing to pull his attention away from her back to where they were.

             
“We should get in there.”

             
“Are you ready now?”

             
“Yes,” she said, reaching up and kissing him once more. “As long as I’m with you I am.”

             
Correcting themselves, they lifted the hoods of their cloaks and crept across the rainy, filth-ridden street to the doorway on the far-side. Touching the door gently, it swung open to reveal an almost pitch black room within. Checking the street, Jake held Charlotte’s hand as he led her into the room and let the door shut behind them, concealing them in a blind, inky darkness. With weapons stowed upon them, they both touched their knives gently with their hands as Jake slowly led the way through the almost unbearable smell that threatened to make Charlotte gag. A sweet and sickly scent like rotten, perfumed fruit covered the smells of faeces and garlic that was thick in the air around them. To Charlotte it was like rotting flesh and human excrement. It intensified suddenly as a waft of warm air hit her face and she let out a small scream as a voice sounded only inches from her ear.

             
“Can I help you, Miss?” said the husky, deep voice behind her, making her spin round to be met only with an eerie darkness still. Holding her breath, she stepped backwards and pulled her knife nervously. The voice sounded again. “Put the blade away, my sweet, or I’ll cut your eyes out with it before you ever see light again.”

             
“Where are you?” Jake bellowed, turning around, but the voice replied from a new position.

             
“I’m in here with you, of course. Now, I’m not hostile, so put the blade away. Please tell her, Rougemont.”

             
Jake’s head snapped round towards the voice as his heart thumped at the recognition of him.

             
“Who the hell are you?” he asked, aggressively. “How do you know us?”

             
“I know everybody, Jake. That is my job. Mademoiselle Du Lac, the knife, now.”

             
Reluctantly, Charlotte lowered the knife and re-sheathed it under her cloak. With the door still standing slightly ajar, the tiny piece of light was enough to let their eyes adjust to the room and get a rough measure of the space and the hooded shadow moving before them. As the shadow sat down, he indicated for them to do the same.

             
“Please,” he said. “There is a bench behind you.” Waiting until they were seated, he spoke again. “What is it that you want here?”

             
“I want you to reverse what you’ve done,” Jake said.

             
“What I’ve done?”

             
“My brother is rotting away in a dungeon suffering torture and disease, and he is due to be executed on Saturday.”

             
“I know.”

             
“Well, I need him out.”

             
“And understandably so, but what exactly do you think I can do about it?”

             
“You got him there, you can get him out.”

             
“I got him there?”

             
“You were involved in the set-up, don’t deny it.”

             
“I deny nothing, ever. But I don’t discuss my business either.”

             
“Business? Is that what this is to you? Are you working with Spence? Do you still?”

             
“I don’t discuss my clients, Jake.”

             
“You don’t discuss much, do you? Right, well we’re getting him out and you’re helping us.”

             
“That’s no way to ask.”

             
“I’m not asking, I’m telling,” Jake threatened.

             
“Telling?” the voice replied before dropping harshly. “You don’t tell me, Rougemont. You ask me or you don’t get answers, do you understand.”

Jake
took a gamble and pulled his knife from his sheath.

             
“You will help us, or you will die,” he said.

             
The figure paused as though angry for a moment, before seeming to relax and leaning back in his chair.

             
“You cannot threaten me, Jake, believe me,” he said. “It would serve you well to put that blade away, or you will die holding it. I will say no more about it. But I do like your courage and your aggression. You’d make a good client, I think.”