The YIELDING (10 page)

“You wish to know of your family?”

Arresting her retreat, Beatrix stared at the rope she had come down a minute earlier.

“’Twas for tidings of them that you risked Broehne Castle, was it not?”

She looked over her shoulder at where he sat on her pallet. It bothered her that he had claimed that which she had every night lain upon. Then there was the matter of the wooden splints that had returned his sword to him.

“Was it not?” he pressed.

Not what? She looked to where she had tossed the skin of water alongside his uninjured leg. Of what did he—? Ah, her family.

“I l-learned all I must needs know.” A lie, but surely he would demand a price for the telling of whatever he knew—
if
he knew anything.

“What did you learn?”

She started toward the rope.

“You know the reason they have not come for you, do you not?”

She swung back around. “What do you know of it?” She was but ten feet distant from him when she realized she advanced on him, just as he wished her to do. She hastened to the rope.

“I am in need of my packs,” he snapped.

Heart bumping against her ribs, she looked from D’Arci on her pallet to the packs. If she retrieved them, it would put her distant from the rope, but would it give him enough time to come between her and escape? He
had
gotten himself across the crypt.

If not for the dagger, she would have refused him. She pulled it and, holding him with her gaze, hurried to the column. D’Arci did not move when she stepped toward him and tossed the packs at his feet. Keeping the dagger before her, she backed away.

“Too, I am in need of sustenance.”

“There are…foodstuffs in your pack.”

“No more.”

She did not care for this game. “I do not believe you.”

“Come near and I shall show you.”

She shook her head. “At the noo—” The remainder of the word slipped away, and she felt her lids flutter as she struggled to recapture it.

“The nooning hour?” D’Arci supplied, derision in his tone.

Grasping anger to right her words, Beatrix said, “At
middle day
, I shall bring you f-fish.”
Lord, if only I could harness my anger better!

“Then my jailer intends to cook for me?”

“I do not. When your belly aches to pain, Lord D—” Gone again!

“D’Arci.”

Frustration stung her eyes. Why did she persist in conversing with him?

“When it aches to pain, what?” he pressed.

Thankfully, his condescension caused her anger to course. “Then you shall eat it as I do. Uncooked.”

That quieted him long enough for her to make it to the rope where she was struck by a feeling she would never be free of Michael D’Arci. Wherever she went, he would follow, and one day she would fall to him. Aching to clasp the psalter she had left aboveground, she climbed the rope.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Three days in this stinking pit. Three days waiting to catch her unawares. But she never came near enough. This day would be different.

Drumming his fingers on the flint box, Michael looked to his lower leg. It was too soon to know how he would pass the remainder of his life, as a cripple or with two legs firm beneath him, but the pain had lessened and the spasming was nearing its end. Of course, what he intended might jeopardize—

Curse the leg!
If it needed to be set again, so be it. He glanced at the collapsed stairway that was of no use to him. However, the coil of rope found beneath Beatrix Wulfrith’s pallet was of certain use.

Where was she? It was past the nooning hour and she had not appeared. Had she gone for more fish? He grimaced at the ripening scent that transcended the other foul odors marking his stay in the crypt. On the day past, she had come with fish wrapped in cloth and tossed it to him. He had tried to coax her nearer, but to no avail. Thus, he had asked her to refill the skin, the water of which he had emptied on the stone floor. It was late afternoon before she returned, and then again she had not spoken a word, even when she saw the fish was untouched.

Twinged with regret at having shown contempt for her faltering speech, Michael frowned. For this—the shame that had shown upon her face—she held her words that might otherwise have brought her within reach. But his regret went deeper. It made him feel cruel to seek her unease by such means. Though impatience had made him speak for her, anger at his situation set the tone with which he had done so. Aye, cruel.

He stopped on that. As
she
surely did not war over the cruelty dealt his brother, why did he? The woman had bled out Simon’s life then told he had ravished her!

Struck by memories of the boy left behind seven years past, Michael closed his eyes. Twice, sometimes thrice a year, he had returned to the barony given over to their eldest brother, Joseph. Each time, the impetuous Simon had begged at Michael’s heels, seeking attention no others provided.

Michael had given what he could, training his half brother at arms, challenging him at chess, talking with him late into the night—excepting the last time that Michael had returned before joining Duke Henry’s army. Simon had been absent, belatedly sent to the north to begin his squire’s training. Though it was needed for him to transition from boy to man, Michael had missed the brash youth, as had Simon’s fragile mother. She had wept on Michael’s shoulder at having lost the argument with Joseph to keep her only child with her.

Not until Duke Henry gained the throne of England years later had Michael seen Simon again. When Christian Lavonne had awarded Castle Soaring to Michael—not only out of gratitude for Michael saving his arm from amputation, but out of need for a physician for his infirm father—Michael had sent for his brother. Eager as ever, Simon had appeared within a fortnight. Though Michael had intended to enlist him as a household knight, Aldous Lavonne encouraged his son to take him into his own household. Grudgingly, Michael agreed, knowing it would provide better opportunities for Simon, never guessing it would mean his death when he was sent to fetch the baron’s unwilling bride.

Michael drew a breath of dank air. Cruel mockery was the least Beatrix Wulfrith deserved. Where was she?

Would they never come? They searched for D’Arci, that she knew from talk of the villagers she had slipped amongst this morn, but none found their way to Purley.

Leave. Someone will come.

Beatrix sighed and once more swept her gaze over the ruins. All appeared as it had when she had left. The rope alongside the breach was barely visible, coiled as it was beneath dirt and leaves, and the only movement was of birds and a trio of squirrels scurrying among the ruins.

She stepped from behind the tree and grimaced as her boots sucked mud up over the toes. Not that they were any worse than the rest of her, the journey to the village having flecked her toe to hip. Mayhap this afternoon she would bathe in the chill stream.

As she started across the nave, she dropped the hood of the mantle and pushed the garment off her shoulders so it hung down her back. It was not so much a warm day that made her seek relief from the heat, but exertion from having run all the way to the abbey.

She lowered to her haunches before the true crypt and touched the pouch at her belt. Berries of deepest pink, the name of which fled her, swelled the cloth and seeped their juice through the loose weave. Outside the village, she had paused to indulge in the sweet, slightly sour fruits. Though she told herself D’Arci would reject them as he had the fish, she had nothing else to offer. Was it poisoning he feared? If so, why did he drink the water? Or did he?

She leaned forward. The high sun shone through the breach, and when she peered nearer, she saw D’Arci was on her pallet. Watching and waiting.

She let the rope down and began her descent. When her feet met the floor, she stepped forward and only then realized she had not removed the mantle. As it was gotten by ill means, she was loath to wear it in D’Arci’s presence, but there was nothing for it now.

Her eyes adjusted as she neared him and nose twitched at the ripening scent made worse by fish turning foul. Though she could not help but resent the waste of food that would have eased the ache of her own belly, she removed the pouch from her belt. Twelve feet distant from D’Arci, she halted.

“’Twas the red that revealed you.” He jutted his chin. “My mantle.”

So he had glimpsed the crimson when she had passed him at the castle—that bit of color her undoing. For the fool her tongue made of her, she resisted his attempt to converse and tossed the pouch to him. He caught it but granted it no more than a glance.

“Stay,” he called as she retreated. “I would speak with you.”

Nay, he would taunt her.

“You do not wish to know about your family? The reason they have not come for you?”

She struggled against snapping at the bait. And failed. “The reason?”

His hand tested the weight of the pouch. “Surely it must pain you to know they have left you at the mercy of Baron Lavonne.”

Though she knew she ought to climb the rope as fast as her hands could reach, she took a step toward him, and another, all the while practicing the delivery of what she would say. “Why have they not come?”

“’Tis apparent, is it not, that by murder you have stained the Wulfrith name?”

She knew his words for what they were, for never would her family believe such ill of her. “That is as large a lie as the lie that I…killed your brother.”

His brow lowered. “Then ‘twas not you with Simon in the ravine?”

“’Twas me, but—”

“Not your dagger that rent his flesh?”

“It was, but—”

”And you would do it again, did you not say?”

“I did, but—”

“Pray, of what lie do you speak, Lady Beatrix?”

The anger of which she had lamented the absence, once more spoke through her and she stepped nearer. “I did not—”

“But you did! Simon is dead.”

And no matter what she said, he would not believe her. Realizing how near she had drawn, she halted. “You know naught of me. Naught of what happened. Naught—”

Glimpsing the rope D’Arci held, she jumped back, but the loop on the floor, into the center of which she had stepped, struck her ankles and cinched tight as a hangman’s noose.

With a cry, she landed hard on her backside. As she was dragged toward the pallet and the man whose eyes gleamed triumphant, she scrabbled for something to catch hold of, but there was no purchase over the stone floor. The dagger the only thing left to her, she wrenched it from her boot.

D’Arci pulled on the rope one last time and sprang. A pained grunt tearing from him, he fell on her and caught her wrists together before she could wield the dagger.

“I know naught of you?” He thrust his face near hers. “Naught but that anger is more your enemy than your friend, Lady Beatrix.”

Friend to her tongue, enemy to good sense. Aching for her foolishness, she strained at her wrists.

“
Now
‘tis done.” His warm breath fanned her face.

She searched a knee toward his man’s place, but when he pinned her harder, causing his splints to gouge her calf, she was reminded of his injury—the only weakness available to her. If she could only…

Her anger flickered. She could not. As he said, it
was
done. This day, this very hour could prove her last. Unable to bear the light in his pale eyes, she turned her face opposite.

“Release the dagger.”

Though she knew he would take it from her, she gripped it harder.

He levered up and pried at her fingers.

Certain he would snap her bones, she steeled herself for the pain, but there was only the discomfort of her resistance, and then he had the dagger.

She nearly wept. Would he disembowel her? Were he his brother, such a fate would surely be hers—after the ravishing.

He tossed the dagger aside. “I am done being your fool, Beatrix Wulfrith.”

She looked around. Amid dark whiskers that had known no razor these past days, his teeth were clamped and perspiration beaded his brow. Doubtless, he had suffered further injury to his leg.

“As tempting as it is to see justice done now,” he said, “you shall be punished before all as is Simon’s due.”

Emotion surged anew. “Already, your brother has his due. And you would have had I a-abandoned you down here as I should have done.”

“More the fool you,” he rasped.

Remembering the last time she had been so near a D’Arci, she closed her eyes. Aye, more the fool, and now he could not only do to her what she had denied his brother, but see her dead as Simon D’Arci had not. For all she had endured, she had gained but a month of reprieve.

“We are leaving this place,” he said, a tremble passing from him to her.

She frowned. How did he intend to do that? Though she did not doubt his arms would carry him up the rope, his horse was surely gone. And there was the matter of inducing her to follow him up the rope. Of course, he might simply bind and drag her up after him.