Suzanne Barclay - Knights Divided

Terror drove out the pain. Had he talked? Then he remembered Emma, and an agonized moan clawed its way out of his chest.

“Ye’re awake,” said a coarse feminine voice. A cup pressed against his lips. But when he tried to lift his head, hot pain tore through it. “Easy, don’t try to move. Just open yer mouth.”

He obeyed, sighing as something cool slid down to ease the wool from his parched throat. Sweet wine laced with herbs. No dungeon fare this. Opening his eye, he focused on his nursemaid, an older woman in clean homespun. She offered him the cup again, and he drank, a dozen questions whirling dizzily in his mind. When she took the cup away, he asked the uppermost one. “Emma?”

“If ye’re meaning Mistress Emmeline, she’s sleeping.”

“Safe?” At her nod, he took heart. “Where am I? How long have I been here?”

“Two days.”

“Can’t stay.” Jamie tried to sit up. There was a loud clanking noise, and something caught at his wrists and ankles. That was nothing to the agony in his head. Fighting to stay conscious, he lay still. When the worst of the pain had passed, he rolled his good eye toward the maid. “Have I bedded down in the scullery with the pots and pans?” He smiled faintly.

“Nay…” She frowned.

The pounding in his head disoriented him. “Then where am I?”

“Tis not for me to say.”

“Is he giving you a hard time?” asked a familiar voice. Emma’s face appeared above him in the gloom.

“Emma.” The relief at seeing her was almost as dizzying as his headache. “How is your ankle?”

“Fine. Go up and break your fast, Molly. I’ll sit with him.”

Jamie smiled as he watched Emma primly tuck her skirts about her and take the stool Molly had vacated. “I fear I failed miserably at rescuing you and am now in your debt What happened? My limbs feel like they’re made of lead.”

“I expect that’s the chains,” she said flatly.

Chains? Teeth clenched against the pain, Jamie lifted his head just far enough to survey his body. His bare feet stuck out of the end of a coarse blanket, shackled at the ankles. “What the hell?” His wrists were chained, too. Belatedly his dazed brain fit the pieces together, the thin pallet on the floor, the meanness of the stone walls, the dank smell of earth and straw. “Giles Cadwell’s dungeon?” he croaked.

“My storeroom,” she countered. “You are my prisoner.”

“Yours, but why? Did Giles put you up to this?”

“No one employed me to imprison you. I have my own—”

“How much to release me. That is what this is about, is it not? Ransom,” he added when she still didn’t catch his meaning.

“Certainly not” She seemed affronted. “I want justice.”

“Because I tried to seduce you?”

“Not for myself, for my sister. Celia is…was my sister.”

Good God! “Impossible. You don’t look anything like—”

“I am aware I am no beauty, but she was my sister.”

“I didn’t kill her,” Jamie exclaimed.

“So you told Sir Thomas, but we do not believe that.” Her expression tightened. “He explained that his hands are tied—” her gaze flickered to his bound wrist, a half smile hinting at wry humor he’d have appreciated at another time “—by your alibi and your family’s prestige. I, however, am not so constrained.”

“What do you hope to gain by this insane—?”

“Your confession.”

“For something I didn’t do?”

Emmeline glared at him, disgust mingling with disbelief. “You had been my sister’s lover for several months—”

“Once! I took her to bed only once. And rued the episode almost the moment it was over.”

“So naturally when she told you she was pregnant, you—”

“Pregnant! That’s impossible.”

“You refused to marry her, and—”

“She never told me she was pregnant.”

“And when she persisted, mayhap even threatened to drag your precious family name into the mud, you killed her.”

“I did not!”

The door to the room flew open, hitting the wall with enough force to make the room tremble. A large, sturdy man strode in. “Do ye need help, mistress?”

“Nay. Toby, could you hear us upstairs in the shop?”

Shop? Jamie’s eyes widened. A shop meant people. If—

“Not a whisper,” Toby said.” This room’s hollowed out of solid stone. Ye could scream your lungs out down here, and no one would hear ye.” As he spoke, the big man grinned and fingered the knife in his belt. “Mistress Emmeline’s got some odd notion of wringing a confession from ye. Me, I’d as leave slit yer gullet for what ye did.”

“I did not kill Celia,” Jamie said, enunciating every word as though speaking to backward children. Or lunatics, which he very much feared they were. “I was only with her the once, and that five months ago,” he protested. “If she was carrying my child, she’d have contacted me.”

“Her maid claims you were a frequent visitor this summer.

“Impossible. Bring her here. Let her say so to my—”

“Lily is not available. But according to Sir Thomas, the neighbors saw a man of your description enter my sister’s house on several nights over the past months.”

“It was not me. There is another man, a knight with a grudge against me and your sister. Giles is tall and blond, like me, and he knew your sister.”

“Celia wrote and mentioned you…by name. She said she loved you. She hoped you’d wed her. My poor, trusting sister.”

Jamie groaned. None of this made any sense. It must be some diabolical scheme of Giles’s to get rid of him. “You have my word as a knight and a gentleman that I did not murder your sister. Please, release me. I must return to my ship.”

“You’ll stay till I have your confession.”

“Nay! I have to be in Cornwall by Wednesday,” he exclaimed.

“Well, your latest doxie will just have to wait.”

“This isn’t about some woman.” He choked back his anger. “’Tis a matter of import to the whole country,” he risked adding.

“And I’m the queen of England.” Her lips thinned. “You men are all alike, full of lies and deceit”.

Jamie cut her off with a string of creative curses garnered from ten years at sea. He strained and thrashed against the chains, but they didn’t give an inch.

“You will cease spewing such filth.”

“Want I should gag him?” Toby asked eagerly.

“Nay. We will remove ourselves from earshot”. Emmeline stood and glared down at him, her arms crossed over her chest. The gesture was robbed of its militancy by the way the plain brown cloth molded to her surprisingly generous breasts.

Jamie was in no mood to appreciate the sight. “I’ll take you with me, and Toby, too, if it would make you feel safer.” Lies and more lies. He couldn’t afford to have anyone witness his meeting with DeGrys. But he was desperate enough to promise anything to get away.

“As if I’d trust you.” Her lips curled. “You’ll find I’m not the gullible fool my sister was where men are concerned.”

“Nay, I’d say you’ve shriveled into a vengeful prune because no man would have you,” he snapped.

“I thank God I am not a target for every puffed-up male who fancies himself nature’s gift to women.” She marched out, head held high as a queen, the faithful Toby close on her heels.

“Damn you, let me out!” Jamie shouted at the top of his voice.

“Not till you confess,” Emmeline snapped. She punctuated the statement by slamming the door.

“But I’m innocent,” Jamie shouted.

“Men are born guilty” came the muted response.

“Come back here.” But beyond the door, all was quiet She’d left him here. Bloody left him here. Enraged, he tugged on the chains till the rusted cuffs bit into his wrist and ankles.