A violently protesting Berkle was dragged from the hall, and immediately after issuing that command, a calmer Lord de Savrille returned his attention to Maris. He made a surprisingly subservient bow. “I pray you will accept my apologies, my lady, for your abuse at the hands of my loyal knights.” He leered at Maris, leaning forward to capture one of her hands in his and raising it to his mouth for a damp kiss.
Maris had been struggling to focus, to make sense of her predicament at the same time as keeping her composure.
Just as her thoughts began to separate and to clear, her gaze swept the group of men surrounding her. They rested on a face that was familiar, but out of place…and as the realization that Sir Dirick de Arlande stood in the crowd with her enemy, the world went blank.
She slid to the floor in the first swoon of her life.
“My lord!” exclaimed Ernest of the hillock as he was ushered to the dais in the great hall. Merle, along with his guests and wife, was breaking his fast after attending mass that morning.
“My lord Merle,” began Gustave, who approached with the horrified serf, “Ernest begs an audience.”
Ernest fairly trod upon the seneschal in his excitement to reach his lord’s table. Executing a brief, but respectful bow, he stammered in his guttural English that he’d found not only the body of Lady Maris’s maidservant, Verna, but also his lady’s brilliant blue cloak crumpled in the snow.
“What say you?” Merle bellowed, standing in his alarm. His words, too, were in English, and thus the meaning was lost upon the other nobility at the high table.
“Aye, my lord, ’twas a fright to me, my lord, whenst I came upon the bloodied, ravaged body of Verna of Langumont. Her’s not breathing or moving and sure as I stand, the wench is dead. And my lady Maris,” his eyes grew round, “’twas nawt sign of her’n but for her cloak, ’round the bend from mine own home.”
“Gustave, send for the guards of last eve,” Merle roared in French to the hovering seneschal.
“My lord, what is it?” cried Allegra, standing with a horror-stricken look on her face. Victor and Michael d’Arcy had stopped eating as well.
“Know you where Maris is this morn?” asked Merle fiercely of his meal companions. “Have ye seen her yet this morrow?”
They each in turn shook their heads. Allegra’s eyes had grown wide and her face pale as the snow beyond.
The guards from the watch of the night before rushed into the hall, startled out of their sleep, half dressed and with mussed hair.
“My lord,” bowed the captain of the night watch. “What is amiss?”
“Did my daughter leave in the company of her maidservant during your watch?” Merle fired the question before the man rose from his bow.
“Aye, my lord, she said on as she were called to the side of Ernest of the hillock,” explained the captain. “He was gravely injured.” His eyes swiveled to Ernest and realization washed over his face. He looked back at his lord, “She is gone missing?”
“Aye,” said Merle. Then, his voice rising in supplication, he bellowed, “Has no one seen my daughter?”
Silence greeted him.
“Á Langumont!” he cried, standing and nearly toppling the large table in his haste. “We must search while the trail of her abductors is fresh! Á moi!”
“My lord husband,” Allegra’s voice wavered, barely heard above the roar of men calling to arms. “My lord!”
“I shall return her to you safely, fear not,” Merle told his wife, worry creasing his face even as he gave orders to his men.
“But my lord, I—I believe I may know whence she has been taken.” Allegra plucked at the sleeve of his tunic. “’Tis my—my brother—my half brother, Bon de Savrille.”
She was hardly able to choke out the words. Merle froze and turned, giving her his full attention as she stammered a wary description of his visit, including his threat to have Maris to wive.
Maris regained consciousness as she was carried up a long staircase.
Having never swooned before, she felt a momentary pang of shame that she’d succumbed to such a feminine weakness…and then dismissed the misbegotten feeling immediately in light of her predicament.
Strangely, her blind fear had ebbed with her faint, and now she was able to think more calmly.
The buffoon who carried her none too gently up the stairs misjudged a corner, and one of her hands—still ice cold—slammed into the heavy stone wall. She could not hold back a moan of pain, but, mercifully, no one was behind to notice that her eyes had flown open at the shock. She determined to feign unconsciousness long enough to gain her bearings and make some sense of her situation. Assess the situation, her father told his pages and squires during their long training in the art of war, before developing a strategy.
It was, however, more difficult than she’d anticipated to fake an extended faint…especially when she was dumped unceremoniously onto a bed of some sort. Through slitted eyes, she recognized that the clumsy oaf who’d carried her jerkily up the stairs was none other than her intended husband—at the least, it was his intention that he be her husband.
“Agnes!” he bellowed suddenly, and Maris nearly jumped at the loud noise.
Then there was a rustling sound, followed by a voice, squeaky with fear. “Aye, my lord.”
“See to my betrothed,” ordered Bon in a rough voice. “She is weak after her long journey. I would that she were bathed and dressed and prepared to sup with me at the evening meal.” There was a short silence, then, “And see to it that she is cared for as befits her station. Do you not forget she is to be my wife.”
Maris held her breath as she felt his presence near her face. A large hand took hers and raised it to dry lips and a brush of prickly moustache. “Until later, my lady,” he murmured. She felt the air stir as he whirled and left the room, bellowing for hot tubs of water for her bath.
She was to be his wife. Maris held back a shudder at the thought. Not bloody likely!
She listened carefully, eyes still closed, as Agnes bustled about the room. She heard calm, efficient orders were given to the servants who brought sloshing buckets of water, along with linens and other rustling items, into the chamber.
As she lay in repose, listening, her mind whirled, uncontained.
The biggest shock of all was no longer her abduction—for Bon de Savrille’s purpose was clear—but that Dirick de Arlande was here. In the home of her captor.
The pit of her stomach—mostly empty, for the fare on her unexpected journey had been little more than hard bread and old cheese—twisted in fear and anger. Had he merely wooed her, and her father, too, in order to plot her kidnapping for Bon de Savrille?
Many things made sense now, she thought, trying to keep her lips from twisting bitterly. His destrier was much too fine and expensive to belong to a mere mercenary knight…and his knowledge about Henry’s court had been so pat that she’d wondered how a traveling knight from France knew such detail. And Papa—and she—had taken him at his word, invited him into their home, and treated him as an honored guest all the while he plotted to snatch her for his master!
Maris swallowed, holding back tears. And he’d even kissed her, making her feel as if—
Nay. She would not think on that.
At the last, there was silence. Maris heard the door close, and the unmistakable sound of a bar sliding into place across it. She was just about to open her eyes when the barest of sounds told her that someone was still in the room.
“My lady, you may open your eyes,” came a quiet voice. “All have gone save myself. But be yourself ware, my lord has stationed a guard outside your chamber.”