Ana Seymour - Moonrise

Her heart had almost stopped thundering. But she felt weak. Months of confinement and poor food had taken their toll. She’d give anything for some strength at this moment. Desperately she grasped at the table as she felt her legs give way beneath her. In an instant he was beside her and she was lifted in arms that were as familiar to her as her own.

“Sarah!” Anthony cried in alarm. He crossed the tiny cell in a single long stride and settled her on the narrow straw bed. “What is it? Are you sick?”

His head was bent over hers, the window casting its slanting light over the strong, dark features. She took a ragged breath. “What are you doing here, Anthony?”

He smoothed her hair back from her forehead in a gesture that was so loverlike, Sarah bit her lip to keep it from trembling. “I’ve come to take you out of here.”

She gave a humorless chuckle. “In case you’ve forgotten, Lord Rutledge, your king has other ideas for me. If the royal prosecutors have their way, I’m to have my head smitten from my body.”

Anthony’s black eyes shifted to her slender white throat. She could see the muscles of his neck ripple as he swallowed with difficulty. “That’s not going to happen, Sarah. You’re leaving here with me...today.”

“Oh, certainly. I just walk on out past the guards? A condemned prisoner?”

“Not as a condemned prisoner.” His dark eyes gleamed. “As my wife.”

Sarah pushed herself up on the bed, her face ghost white. “Your wife!”

Anthony reached for her hand, but she snatched it away. Patiently he said, “I knew you might be opposed to the idea, but it’s the only way, Sarah. Marry me, and you can leave here today, a free woman.”

She pulled away from him, against the cold stone of the wall. Her soft gray eyes grew deadly. “I’d sooner rot a thousand years in hell,” she said.

December 1665

“Don’t be such a stick, Jack Fairfax,” Sarah said with a laugh, tumbling her brother off the end of the settle. He landed in a heap in the rushes and groaned a protest. Sarah jumped on top of him, her knees gouging his stomach and holding him pinned beneath her.

“Just look at this,” Sarah said triumphantly. One by one she began pulling jewels from inside a knotted kerchief and dropping them on Jack’s chest, where they slithered in glittery trails to the ground. “It’s a bloody fortune.”

“Don’t swear, Sarah,” Jack said gravely. At eighteen, his arms already had the lean muscles of early manhood. His strength was far greater than that of his sister, and he pushed her off him with rough gentleness. “Father will be resting uneasy in his grave to hear you talk so,” he chided as he sat up beside her.

Sarah frowned. “Don’t speak to me of Father,” she said curtly. Then in a quicksilver change of mood she reached out to give Jack an exuberant hug. “All this from that fat old bishop. Who’d have thought the old toad would have such a hoard stashed away beneath that big belly?”

“We shouldn’t have taken it.”

Sarah stared at him in amazement. “Shouldn’t have taken it? What are you thinking of? This will feed our families for the rest of the winter.”

Jack shook his head. “There’ll be trouble to pay, robbing a cleric.”

“Oh, pooh. A bishop’s not a cleric. He’s a lackey of the king who cares more for his mistresses and his flagons of ale than for the Bible.”

“You don’t know that, Sarah. He may have been a godly man.”

“Parson Hollander is a godly man, not that old windbag we robbed last night.” Sarah’s gray eyes and honey brown hair made her look deceptively plain at times, especially against the background of the simple Puritan garb she still favored. But at the moment her hair had pulled loose from its bindings and framed her face in a disheveled golden cloud. Her eyes danced and her flawless cheeks were flushed with her latest success. Even Jack had to admit that he had never seen beauty equal to hers.

He gave a deep sigh. Though Sarah was the older by almost five years, she was nevertheless his sister and it was his duty to be her protector. But how did one protect a maiden who could wield a sword and ride a horse better than any member of the king’s guard? And how did one shelter the sensibilities of a young woman who had seen her father’s head parted from his body?

He picked up a gold necklace set with amethyst. “These are very fine. Recognizable. Will Parson Hollander be able to sell them?”

Sarah shrugged without concern. “His Dutch contacts will take anything and dispose of it abroad,” she said. “And the good people of Wiggleston will eat well this winter, in spite of the king’s new taxes.”

Jack shook his head. “We’re at war with the Dutch these days, Sarah. ‘Tis sheer folly to do business with them.”

Sarah picked the last of the jewels out of the rushes, then jumped to her feet. “The king’s too busy playing with his mistresses to wage a real war.”

Jack stood up more slowly. “The war’s real enough, believe me.” His handsome young face was sober. “I might have to go fight in it myself one of these days. Even Uncle Thomas might be called.”

Sarah turned to him, her expression furious. “Never! Charles Stuart has taken enough from this family. You’ll walk over my grave before you’ll ever fight for him.”

Jack smiled in spite of himself. If there was one sight more beautiful than his sister excited, it was his sister angry. “Uncle Thomas is one of the finest generals England has,” he reminded her mildly.

Sarah’s voice was steady, but her knuckles were white where she gripped the kerchief full of jewels as though it were King Charles’s neck. “Uncle Thomas and General Monck handed Charles Stuart back his throne on a silver platter, and he repaid them by executing some of the finest men in the land, including our own father, in case I have to remind you, Jack Fairfax.”

Jack knew that his sister’s opinions on the subject were somewhat unfair. It was true that the loss of their father had been almost beyond bearing. But John Fairfax had signed his own death warrant long ago when he put his signature on the document condemning the king’s father, Charles I. In reality, the executions after the Restoration had been relatively few, the new king proving himself to be more interested in the entertainments of the new court than in revenge and bloodletting.

“And as for Uncle Thomas,” Sarah continued, “he will do as he pleases, and shall the rest of his life. The king can’t afford to offend him. It’s as simple as that.”

She relaxed her death grip on the kerchief and let out a tense breath. “So no more talk of war, my dearest brother.” She hefted the kerchief in her hand and gave a grim, satisfied smile. “Come on, let’s go show the good parson this latest evidence of the Lord’s bounty.”

* * *

“I can’t afford to offend Thomas Fairfax, it’s as simple as that.” King Charles stretched out his long legs and looked up at the tall, scowling man standing stiffly in front of him. “Sit down, Anthony, you’re making me tired.”

The newly appointed Baron Rutledge grudgingly sat in a small gilt chair near the king’s bed. The royal apartments at Oxford were not as sumptuous as Whitehall, but they were certainly much more luxurious than many of the places Anthony had stayed with Charles Stuart during the long years of exile. And at least they were away from the dreadful plague that had been ravaging London these past weeks. The death toll was up to a thousand poor wretches a day, and the haunting cry of “Bring out your dead!” echoed incessantly throughout the crowded streets of the old City.

By moving first to Salisbury, then Oxford, the court had managed to isolate itself from the devastation. Charles and his courtiers played their games and vied with one another for the most elaborate costumes and hairstyles with only an occasional pang for the sufferings of those left back in London.