Kathryn Le Veque (9 page)

The hope in her heart surged and
crashed as her crazed thoughts returned. She thought of tall, immensely
powerful Roane, so determined to marry a woman with poor sight. Certainly he
wanted to rescue her so that Dodge could not marry her first and claim Kinlet
for his own. It seemed nightmarish that she had become a trophy in a bizarre
tug-of-war. And it was so terrible for her that she had feelings for Roane,
emotions that she should very well forget. She told herself that she didn’t
need him, or anyone else, for that matter. She would rather be a blind spinster
than an object of greed and indifference. But the thought of being without Roane
nearly killed her.

“Where was Roane when you last
saw him?” Her father was speaking to her.

Alisanne turned to him; all she
could see was a shadowed outline. “He left me in the glen by the fork in the
road,” she said. “He left me to go and look around, to see if he could spy
Dodge or his men.”

“That was the last you saw of
him?”

She nodded her head. “I don’t
know where he is.”

Edward eyed the men milling
casually about his great hall. “They haven’t asked you?”

“No. Don’t you find that
strange?”

Edward sighed ominously. He
wondered what the bounty hunters knew that he didn’t.
 
They had, after all, spent considerably more
time around the pair. “
Alisanne,
did you and Roane…
that is to say, what is your relationship with him?”

She blushed furiously and looked
away. “His is… kindly towards me.”

“
How
kindly?”

A bolt of anger shot through her.
“He’s never been anything but chivalrous, father. If you think….”

Edward put a hand on her. “I
don’t think anything, which is why I asked.”

Joseph Ari was watching them
both, analyzing the expression on Alisanne’s face. “He warmed to you, did he
not?”

She shrugged and Joseph Ari
laughed softly. “Do you know I have never seen that man warm to anyone? All of
the beautiful exotic birds in the Holy Land could not turn his head, but a
sweet English pigeon certainly did.”

He snorted with mirth and Alisanne’s
blush deepened.
 
“It wasn’t like that at
all, uncle.”

“The bounty hunters know he took
a liking to you, do they not? That is why they haven’t asked what you know of
him. They hope to lure him here.”

Her vacant eyes were wide,
fearful with realization.
“Lure?”

“Bait.”

Her voice was a whisper. “I was
the bait once before.”

“Now, for a different reason, you
are again.”

Alisanne closed her eyes,
squeezing off the tears. Since she had thrust herself into Roane’s life, he had
been abducted, beat, tormented and starved. She was a curse upon him, like a
nasty vicious pox that would attack and attack until it ruined him.

“They’ll kill him,” she murmured.
“If he comes here, they’ll
kill
him!”

Edward had nothing to say to
that, but Joseph Ari tried to be positive. “Roane is a bright man, Alisanne,”
he said quietly. “You must have faith that….”

He was cut off by a shout from
the main entrance. Abruptly, the bounty hunters scattered, including Dodge,
racing like mad toward the door. From where Alisanne and the others sat, it was
difficult to see what was transpiring and even more difficult to hear. But it
was obvious there was a great deal of activity taking place in the ward.

“What’s happening?” Alisanne
asked her father.

Edward shook his head, his
brilliant green eyes focused on the carved doorway at the end of the room. “I
don’t know,” he replied. Then, “Wait! They’re carrying someone… they’re
dragging someone inside.”

Alisanne was swept with terror.
Who else could they be dragging but someone they had captured, someone
reluctant to accompany them without a fight? There could only be one possible
answer.
 
Before she could utter her
fears, Joseph Ari abruptly hissed.
 

“Roane!”

Alisanne was on her feet,
stumbling blindly in the general direction of the door. Her heart was in her
throat, the taste of panic in her mouth. Her father leapt up, grasping her,
holding her back even as she fought valiantly against him.

“No, Father!” she grunted. “I
must go to him, I must!”

Edward caught a glimpse of the
massive blond man with an arrow hilt protruding out of his chest. His heart
sank. “No, my dear, no,” he said as gently as he could. “He’s… he’s injured
and….”

Dodge was standing over Roane,
watching Alisanne struggle against her father. His expression was smug. “He’s
not dead, not yet,” he said loudly. He turned to Bordeleaux as the lanky man
entered the hall. “I get paid whether he is dead or alive. I have delivered him
to you as I said I would.”

Bordeleaux held up a quelling
hand. “And I have brought your reward.
 
Excellent work, de Vere.”

Dodge smiled triumphantly. Alisanne
broke away from her father and staggered across the floor, following the shapes
and sounds until she literally tripped over Roane’s arm. Her father tried to
stop her, but he was too late. Alisanne fell on Roane and nearly impaled
herself on the arrow shaft in the process.

“My God,” she gasped, her hands
drifting over him protectively. “What have they done to you?”

Roane was ghostly pale, deeply
unconscious. Alisanne didn’t have to see him; she could feel him, already
familiar with the lines of his strong arms and the texture of his hair.
 
And she could smell him, the sweet musk that
belonged only to him. Forgot were her crazy thoughts of Roane’s greed and
ambition; even if it was true, still, she couldn’t help her own feelings for
him.

“Roane,” she whispered. “Don’t
worry, my darling. I’ll take care of you. You’ll be well again, I swear it.”

He remained deathly still. Disoriented
by her lack of sight yet determined to take charge of the situation, she began
barking orders as if she were not a prisoner in her own home.

“Take him up to my room,” she
snapped to the men standing about. She could feel her father lingering behind
her and she turned to him. “I’ll need water and witch hazel and thread. And
I’ll also need a mustard and willow poultice.
Hurry, father!”

Edward looked at Dodge and Father
Bordeleaux. They seemed rather unemotional about the entire thing. “You didn’t
bring him here so that we could watch him die, did you?” he demanded softly.
“You
will
let us help him.”

Bordeleaux nodded his dirty head.
“We brought him here because he would surely die before we got him back to
Birmingham,” he said coldly. “He must be of moderate health in order to face
his trial.”

“Trial?”
Alisanne tried to fix on the
outline of the man who was speaking; she didn’t like the sound of his words at
all. “What trial? He has done nothing.”

Father Bordeleaux gazed
distastefully at her. He thought on ignoring her but for some reason decided
not to. Mayhap it was the lustful gleam in her eye as she gazed at Roane that
inflamed him, prompting him to answer.
 
“Tell the wench who this man is.”

Dodge was already counting his
money in his head, planning on the improvements he would be making to Kinlet.
It didn’t seem to bother him at all that his intended was fawning over a dying
man. “Roane de Garr is a false prophet. He has powers wrought from hell, as you
well know.”

“That’s not true!” Alisanne
hissed. “He’s no more a demon than you are, Dodge. What he has is a God-given
gift, or are you all too ignorant to realize that?”

Dodge’s good mood wavered in the
face of her insult. “You are the one who is ignorant,” he growled.

He stood there a moment, watching
Alisanne’s protective stance, like a lioness guarding her young. He should have
felt jealousy to some extent, but more than anything, he felt anger. Roane de
Garr was trying to take away what was rightfully his and he would allow no man
to steal what he had worked so hard for. Alisanne was his, no matter what
foolish emotions were involved otherwise.

Dodge was gripped with a surge of
fury. All of his plans had come to fruition with the exception of one, and he
intended to remedy that immediately. He could not risk delaying any longer.
Like a snake striking prey, he reached out and grabbed Alisanne, yanking her
away from Roane’s supine form.
 
As she
gasped and struggled, he turned to Bordeleaux.

“You are a priest,” he bellowed.
“Marry us now!”

Bordeleaux expression didn’t
waver, but Alisanne, Edward and Joseph Ari crowed with horror.

“Dodge!” Edward breathed.
“Not now, not with all of this madness going on.
There will
be.…”

“Time enough
later?”
Dodge finished
for him, snorting cruelly. “Not a chance, old man. I am not going to wait for
you or your foolish daughter to somehow elude me.”

“I gave you my word,” Edward said
calmly. “We will not elude you, but this is hardly the circumstance for a wedding.”

“It’s the perfect circumstance,”
Dodge snapped, his calloused hand biting into the tender flesh of Alisanne’s
upper arm. He jabbed a finger at Bordeleaux, a sinister, demanding gesture.

“Marry us!”

CHAPTER EIGHT

“
Shhh
,”
he heard soft voices in his dreams, sweet visions in his dark-hazed mind.
“Don’t move, Roane. You’ll tear your stitches open.”

He struggled with a groggy,
sickening fog that seemed to cloak his body like a numbing vise.
 
There was pain, though he wasn’t sure where
it was coming from. He only knew that it was
everywhere,
and even opening his crusty eyes proved to be a chore.

But open he did. The first thing
that came into focus was Alisanne’s beautiful face, her brilliant green eyes so
red and irritated. “Alisanne,” he breathed. “What... where...?”

She stroked his face tenderly.
“It’s all right, my dearest,” she murmured. “You are going to be fine. Father
and I have taken care of you.”

Roane was completely confused. He
blinked, perusing the sparsely furnished room until his gaze came to rest on a
small, gray-haired man standing at the foot of his bed. The man smiled timidly.

“Sir Roane,” he said. “My
daughter has told me a good deal about you. Welcome to Kinlet.”

Kinlet.
The last conscious events flooded
Roane’s mind and he remembered the Hospitallers and the arrow penetrating his
body with painful clarity. Anxiety surged through his lethargic limbs and in
spite of his physical state, he struggled to sit up.

“Kinlet?” he repeated hoarsely.
“Damnation, what’s happened? Alisanne,
where’s
...?”

She put one hand over his mouth,
the other on his shoulder, trying to hold him down.
 
“Please, Roane, you must be quiet,” she
begged softly. “I will explain everything, but you must calm down.”

He didn’t have the strength to
fight her at the moment. In truth, the room was spinning and he forced himself
to lie flat against the pillows. From the corner of his eye, he caught movement
in the shadows and turned to see a familiar face emerge into his line of sight.
Father Joseph Ari smiled warmly at his old friend and held out his hand.
Immediately, it was as if they had never been apart.

“Roane,” he said fondly. “I must
say you were looking better the last time that I saw you.”

Roane smiled weakly, glad to see
his faithful old companion. “I was feeling better, too,” he said. “Alisanne
said that Dodge tortured you to find out where I was hiding. I am so sorry, my
friend.”

Joseph Ari waved him off. “Don’t
be. It should be I who am sorry for telling them what they wished to know. It
was betrayal, Roane, and I must beg your forgiveness.”

Roane patted his arm in a weak
gesture. “There is nothing to forgive,” he glanced at Alisanne. “Had you not
been so cowardly, I would have never met the lady. For that, you have my
eternal thanks.”

Alisanne blushed furiously. Roane
had never seen cheeks flush red so rapidly and her discomfort amused him.
Joseph Ari grinned, watching the expression of adoration on Roane’s face and
amazed that the somewhat hard man he had known had the capacity for such
emotion. But it would make what was to come that much more difficult.

“Roane,” he said, not wanting to
ruin the moment, yet knowing there were pressing matters at hand. “We are in a
bit of a quandary, as you have probably suspected.”

Roane reached out to take Alisanne’s
hand before replying. He seemed to draw strength from it. “I can guess,” he
said. “What is the situation?”

Joseph Ari stood back from the
bed and began to pace. He didn’t like what he was about to say. “First and
foremostly, the Brothers are here. They intend to take you back to Clavell Hill
when you are well enough to travel.”

Roane truly had no idea how badly
he was injured. “When will that be, by your estimation?”

The priest shook his head.
“Weeks at least.
Your chest wound was very bad. Though a rib
deflected it from doing any real damage, you lost a great deal of blood and a
moderate infection followed. Had Alisanne and Edward not stayed up day and
night drawing the poison from you, you would surely not be here.”

Roane’s eyes drifted to Alisanne’s
sweet face. “How long have I been unconscious?”

He had directed his question at
her. “Almost eight days,” she said softly. “We didn’t think you would ever wake
up, Roane. You were so very sick.”

He squeezed her hand and turned
back to Joseph Ari. “We must think of a way to stall them. I must be stronger
if we are going to escape them.”

Joseph Ari didn’t say anything
for the moment. Edward, standing at the foot of the bed, spoke up. “It is more
complicated than that, I am afraid.”

Roane looked at him. “Why say
you?”

Edward cleared his throat, trying
to think of the proper words. He thought mayhap that his brother-in-law should
tell him, but Joseph Ari seemed unwilling or unprepared to move forward.
 
The priest lingered beside the bed, his head
bowed and his attention diverted. Edward could see, at the
moment,
that
he had no support from him.

“We cannot go with you should you
flee,” he said finally. “At least, my daughter and I cannot. But you can take
my brother. I encourage you to do so.”

Roane’s expression immediately
hardened. “I am not leaving you or your daughter behind. There is no question
that when I go, I take all of you with me.”

Edward scratched his head
wearily. “It simply isn’t possible, Sir Roane. Believe me when I say I would
like nothing better than for you to take Alisanne away from here, but it is
infeasible. She cannot go.”

Something low and disturbing
rumbled through Roane’s chest. The growling, anxious surge gave him the
strength to push himself onto one elbow, his eyes blazing with challenge.

“She is going and you will not
stop me,” he rumbled.

“Roane,” Joseph Ari found his
tongue. “Please understand that there is more at stake now. Alisanne must stay
here.”

Ill or not, Roane would not take
no for an answer.
 
He glared daggers at
his old friend. “She is
not
staying
here. I’ll kill anyone who tries to stop me.”

Edward and Joseph Ari passed
glances. At Roane’s side, Alisanne suddenly burst into low, body-wracking sobs.
Startled, Roane struggled to put his arm around her without passing out from
the pain. “What’s wrong, love? What is it?” he whispered to her.

Her hands were over her face as
she caved like a weakling onto his shoulder. “They’re right, Roane,” she
gasped. “I cannot go with you.”

His face was in her hair. He
could sense something terrible but intangible, unable to put his finger on the
source of their mystery and pain. “Why can’t you?”

She pulled away from him; it was
the hardest thing she had ever had to do. More than anything she wanted to give
in to his strength, his life, but she knew she could not. She could never again
depend on him, as sweet as the dream had once been. Now she was resigned to a
life that would be as terrible and desolate as she could imagine.
 
She tried to stop crying.

“Because I am Dodge’s wife,” she
whispered.

Roane stared at her. As pale as
he was, he paled further and his body began to shake with horrible, fitful
jolts. “What?” he demanded in a short, painful breath.

“Bordeleaux married them on the day
they wounded you,” Joseph Ari said bitterly. “She has been Lady de Vere for
over a week now.”

Roane didn’t say anything. In
truth, he wasn’t sure what he could say; there were so many horrible thoughts
roiling through his mind that it was difficult to grasp just one. In spite of
that, he knew exactly what he must do. Pain and threat of death aside, there
was no other solution open to him and in a burst of horror-fed energy, he
shoved himself into a sitting position.

“I need a sword.”

The voice coming out of him
sounded surreal. It wasn’t Roane at all, but some avenging angel determined to
bring death and destruction.
 
Alisanne
shrieked, stumbling in his direction.

“Roane,
no!”
she cried “You can’t do anything about it. Please
lay
back down, let me....”

He ignored her, grabbing hold of
Joseph Ari with a grip like iron. “Find me a sword. Do it now.”

“Roane, Roane,” Joseph Ari
pleaded. “You’ll only succeed in getting yourself killed. You can’t do anything
about it!”

Roane began looking around the
room as if a weapon would miraculously appear. “I can make her a widow.”

“I cannot allow it,” Joseph Ari
said with more conviction than he felt. It was difficult to be brave in the
face of Roane’s rage. “You’ll condemn yourself.”

“I am already condemned.”

Alisanne put herself in front of
him. “Roane, please,” she begged softly. “There must be another way, but
murdering Dodge is not the answer.”

“Murdering Dodge is precisely the
answer,” he tried not to bark at her.
 
His searching gaze came to rest on her pale face and, as always, he felt
himself soften. He touched her cheek to let her know that he was in no way
angry with her. “Nothing will keep me from you, Alisanne, not Dodge nor the
Hospitallers nor God himself. I fear this is the only way to remedy the
situation.”

She wasn’t convinced.
“You against all of those men?
Do you really think they’ll
all stand by while you kill Dodge?” She grabbed him by the shoulders, forcing
him to be still and think. “Of course they won’t. They’ll kill you. And then I
shall be at the mercy of Dodge forever and you will never be able to help me.
Is that what you want?”

His rage tempered. His fury had
affected his thinking until all he could see was blood. Now he was cooling and
coming to see reason somewhat. They were right, all of them. He suddenly felt
very exhausted and toppled back over onto the bed.

“I cannot stand by while
he
… as his wife, he can….” He couldn’t finish his sentence.
There was suddenly a lump in his throat.

Alisanne sat down beside him,
soothing him gently. “He hasn’t consummated the marriage,” she said. It was a
rather embarrassing subject, but one he must know. “He hasn’t touched me.”

Roane looked at her.
“Why not?”

She flushed again, clearing her
throat. “I… I told him it is my woman’s time.”

“Is it?”

“No, but he believes me for now.”

The mystery of life deterred most
men and Roane was infinitely grateful. He squeezed her hand, bringing it to his
lips for a kiss. “Then there is still a chance,” he looked at Joseph Ari. “What
about an annulment?”

The priest shook his head. “Not a
chance, unless we could prove that Dodge was a follower of Satan or that he was
demon possessed. Anything that has to do with the immortal soul would be
considered, but nothing earthly. You know that, Roane.”

He had, but he had asked anyway.
Desperate men didn’t think clearly often times.
 
As the mood of the room cooled, Roane lost himself in thought. He ran
scenarios through his mind over and over, holding Alisanne’s hand, feeling her
trembling warmth. Nothing was more important than being with her, married or
not.

“Then I’ll simply take her away
from here,” he said quietly. “We shall go to Gargrave Castle.”

Alisanne’s eyes grew large. “We
are going to Gargrave?”

“Indeed,” he thought on the great
castle, lodged on a rocky promontory in a dominant position over the Yorkshire
countryside. “I’ve not seen my home in some time. ‘Tis time to make amends to
my brother and rejoin the family. I’ve been the prodigal brother long enough.”

Alisanne was hopeful. “Do you think
he can protect you from the Hospitallers? If they discover he is your brother,
they’ll track you….”

He waved her off gently. “We have
discussed this before. My brother can withstand far worse than what the
Hospitallers can throw at him, or even Dodge should he be stupid enough to
follow us. We shall be perfectly safe, forever.”

Joseph Ari, shaking his head,
interjected. “Roane, you’ll be living in sin with another man’s wife. How can
you…?”

“I think it is a good idea,”
Edward declared. “If Baron Coniston is his brother, nothing could be more
perfect. De Vere wouldn’t dare tangle with a powerful warlord, nor would the
Hospitallers, if they were wise."

The priest looked at him. “But
the Hospitallers are a godly sect and the Baron, not even the king, would
refuse God’s messengers if they were to demand Roane’s return.”

Edward’s features twisted
irritably. “Joseph Ari, you know as well as I that the Church does not support
the Hospitallers, just as they do not acknowledge the Templars. The church
would not intervene.”

“But they would intervene if
Dodge demanded his wife back.”