by Lynsay Sands
Elysande’s eyes widened at the words. She recognized them as her own from a previous conversation, though somewhat rearranged, and realized the mistake she’d made. Nodding that she understood, Elysande told Tom and Simon, “Go ahead. He is right. We must talk.”
Tom hesitated, his concerned gaze shifting between her solemn expression and Rory’s grim one, but then a determined glint entered his eyes and he shook his head. “It would not be proper for you to be alone with him.”
“’Tis not proper for me to be alone with all three of you either,” she pointed out sharply, and then relented. “He is our protector, Tom. My mother trusted him with our lives. I think my virtue is safe.” And then smiling wryly, she added, “Besides, ’tis not likely he could want to seduce me the way I look now, is it?”
Elysande suspected she should be insulted by the way Tom and Simon both nodded and relaxed at those words. But she was just glad they finally obeyed her and headed out of the stables. Sighing as the door closed behind them, she turned toward Rory and then gasped in shock when she found his shoulder lodged in her lower stomach and herself being lifted into the air and nearly tumbling over his back before he caught her by the ankles to steady her. She’d slipped enough that her bottom was in the air and her groin rather than her stomach was resting on his shoulder now with her legs hanging in front and her chest down his back.
“Do no’ move,” he growled, carting her to the back of the stables in that undignified position.
Elysande didn’t respond. She couldn’t. He’d knocked the air out of her and she was still struggling to regain it when he released his hold on her ankles and began to climb the ladder with her hanging over his shoulder unanchored. More than a little panicked when the floor became farther and farther away and her upper body began to sway back and forth with his movement, Elysande grabbed at the back of his plaid for something to hold on to, and pulled. Instead of steadying her as a pair of breeches would have done, the cloth pulled upward and she found herself cheek to cheek with his bare bottom. At least temporarily, before her bobbing and swinging about had her sliding away and back.
“I suddenly feel a draft,” Rory said, and Elysande was sure she heard laughter in his voice rather than the embarrassment she was experiencing. It so annoyed her that she was tempted to bite the soft, white skin in front of her face when she swung the other way like the pendulum she’d become.
Common sense prevailed at the last moment, however, and she dropped the plaid, and threw her arms around him instead. It was a desperate attempt to stop herself from swinging, as well as to be sure she didn’t drop to the ground like a stone. It was not a well-thought-out maneuver. Elysande realized that when her hand slammed into his groin.
Mid-step, Rory let out a hiss of pain and instinctively hunched forward and lost his footing. For one heart-stopping moment, she was sure they would plummet to the ground, but then his foot caught on the next rung down on the ladder and they jerked to a stop.
Elysande groaned as his shoulder jammed into her groin. By the time her groan ended, he’d scooted up the last couple of steps and was setting her down on her feet in the loft. She immediately stumbled back several steps, casting him a baleful glare as she went.
“You are not taking me down the same way in the morning,” she growled, clenching her fists to keep from rubbing her pelvic bone. Dear God, he’d probably given her another bruise, she thought with dismay.
“We’ll find another way to get ye down,” he assured her, but his back was to her now and he’d lifted the front of his plaid, she presumed, to examine himself in the light that reached them from the torches below.
Sighing as guilt claimed her for unintentionally smacking him in the groin, Elysande glanced around the loft. It was quite large. Certainly big enough for all of them to sleep in, especially if they slept as close together as they had the night before. There was also lots of hay, bushels of it, that they could spread around if they wanted, and considering what they’d paid for sleeping there, she decided she wanted to. And Tom had been right; it was warmer than the lower level of the stables.
“Ye ken what de Buci was looking for.”
Elysande turned from her inspection and eyed Rory warily. He’d dropped his plaid and was facing her again. After the briefest hesitation, she nodded.
Apparently Rory wasn’t expecting that, because he simply stared at her, seeming unsure how to proceed.
“What was it?” he asked finally.
“A letter,” she answered without hesitation.
“A letter,” he echoed with disbelief. “He killed yer father and all of his men, beat yer mother to death’s door and then verra nearly beat ye there as well fer a letter?”
“Well.” Elysande shrugged helplessly. “’Twas an important letter.”
Rory shook his head mildly, and then sighed. “I think ye’d best be explaining it, lass.”
She nodded solemnly, but then walked to the edge of the loft to peer down and make sure no one was below before moving to perch on a bale of hay.
“De Buci is a powerful lord,” she began slowly. “But he is impatient, and too fond of coin and power. He dislikes anything that he feels gets between he and that.”
When she paused briefly, Rory nodded and settled on a bale of hay across from her. “Many lords are like that.”
“Aye,” she murmured. “Well, he’s long been a critic of the king. He feels he takes too much in taxes and wastes it on . . .” She waved away the explanation and simply said, “He just dislikes him. Mostly because he could not worm his way into being one of his favorites, I think.”
Rory nodded again.
“We all knew this. Father even teased him for it, but none of us imagined that he would decide to do something about it. Except his wife,” Elysande said heavily. “While we thought he was all talk, she knew it was more than that. But then, I suspect he was more circumspect with us and was perhaps just talking to feel Father out to see if he was of a like mind.”
“But he was no’,” Rory guessed.
“My father was loyal to our king,” she said firmly, and when Rory nodded, she continued. “So was Lady de Buci.”
“Was?” Rory queried.
“I suspect she too is dead,” Elysande admitted on a sigh. “As I said, she apparently suspected he might be moved to do something. I gather she noted certain lords visiting more often, other lords of a like mind to her husband. He would send her away to the solar and have meetings with them. In her letter she said she tried to slip out to hear what they spoke of, but de Buci would post a guard outside the solar who would suggest she stay put and he would fetch whatever she needed. She felt like a prisoner in her own keep at those times and it only made her more certain he was up to something. But two weeks ago a messenger arrived while de Buci was away on a hunt. She accepted the message and opened it.”
Pausing, she met his gaze before saying, “It was a most incriminating letter. De Buci and several lords have contrived a plot to kill the king and his young son and replace him on the throne with his brother, who they feel will be grateful for their efforts and reward them accordingly. Because the lords have been careful never to meet all together at once so as to avoid suspicion, Lord Wykeman was writing to confirm the entire plot. It mentioned names, the time and place of the planned murders and who was expected to do what.”
“Damn,” Rory breathed.
“Aye.” Elysande stood and walked over to peer into the empty lower floor again before continuing. “Lady de Buci was horrified. She needed to get the message to the king, to warn him, but her husband was in total control of his men. Every last one was faithful to him. She could not send a message with any of them. But the servants and villagers were faithful to her. However, none of them could have got the message all the way to court and to the king. So she wrote a letter to my mother explaining everything, rolled up Wykeman’s damning scroll inside her own message begging her to get her letter and the one she had opened to the king. She then gave it to
the blacksmith along with coin and had him take it to a spice merchant who had visited the castle that day and whom she knew was still in the village. He was to give the coin and the message to the spice merchant and have him deliver it to my mother when he stopped in at Kynardersley.”
It was not an unusual occurrence; messages were often delivered by the slow-moving traveling merchants if they were not urgent. This message had been urgent, but Lady de Buci had felt she had no choice but to send it the slower route.
“What happened to the spice merchant?” Rory asked, drawing her back to their conversation.
Elysande stared blindly toward the stable doors, the tops of which were just visible where she sat and said, “He did not make it to Kynardersley before de Buci did. So none of us knew or understood anything that was happening when de Buci arrived. He must have asked Father about the message from his wife at the table, and demanded he hand it over. Father would have said, quite honestly, that he had no knowledge of a message from his lady wife, and de Buci, thinking he lied, killed him.”
A sudden image of her father rising from the table and stumbling back to fall dead to the floor with the dagger protruding from his chest flashed through her mind, and Elysande firmed her lips and continued.
“The spice merchant arrived shortly after Simon and Tom returned, and like them he was stopped by the servants hiding in the woods and warned against continuing on to the keep. Apparently he was trying to decide what to do about the message Lady de Buci had paid him to deliver when he heard Tom and Simon charge Eldon with the task of getting word to my mother of their presence in the woods. The spice merchant saw this as his opportunity to complete his task and gave Eldon Lady de Buci’s message and a coin and told him to deliver that to her as well.”
“Ah.” Rory almost sighed the word, and when she turned to peer at him, he said, “That is why it took hours fer Tom and Simon to hear anything. Yer mother had to read the letters and decide what to do.”
“Aye. That is part of the reason,” Elysande murmured. “When Eldon said the message was from Lady de Buci, Mother knew at once that it must have something to do with what was happening at Kynardersley. She immediately had Betty open both scrolls and hold them up for her to read, and then she—” Elysande paused abruptly. Her mother had admitted to her that she’d cursed Lady de Buci and her husband to hell in that moment of realization and then had wept for all she’d lost and the troubles they were in through no fault of their own.
Leaving that out, Elysande simply said, “She started to plan then. She had Betty take Eldon down to the kitchens using the secret passages, and while he gathered food for our journey, she prepared the dungeon guard’s evening meal, dosing his ale with a sleeping potion as she did, and then delivered it. She then returned to the kitchens, collected Eldon and snuck him back up to the master chamber with the food for us. Then they had to wait for the sleeping potion to take effect. Once they felt enough time had passed, Eldon waited with Mother while Betty came down to the dungeon to free me. And then she took Eldon out to the woods with her when she went to speak to Tom and Simon.”
“And while they were fetching Tom and Simon, yer mother told ye about Lady de Buci’s message and dictated her own messages to Sinclair and meself,” Rory finished for her solemnly.
Elysande merely nodded. There was nothing else to say. He knew everything now.
“Ye should ha’e told me this, lass, when ye told me the rest,” Rory said.
That made her sigh unhappily. “I would have told you, but Mother cautioned me not to. She said ’twould put your life even more at risk than your escorting me would. She said that would be a poor thank-you for your aid.”
Rory’s eyebrows rose and a smile tugged at his lips at that. “I suspect just aiding ye puts me life and everyone else’s at risk. Kenning the danger involved could only help us, lass.”
Elysande didn’t comment. She didn’t know if he was right or not. Not knowing was the only reason she herself was alive. Had Lady de Buci’s letter arrived before Lord de Buci had shown up, and had they handed it over, she was quite sure he would have immediately killed them all anyway. He wouldn’t have been able to risk anyone who knew about the letter carrying word of it to the king.
“So the letter to Sinclair has the other letters inside it?” Rory asked suddenly.
Elysande’s mouth curved into a half smile. “Actually, it has three messages inside it. The original letter Lady de Buci opened, Lady de Buci’s letter to my mother about it and my mother’s letter to the king about Lady de Buci’s letter and the other.”
“Ye have them somewhere safe?” he asked.
“Aye,” she assured him, but didn’t tell him that the bulky scroll was in a small sack that Betty had quickly sewn into the lining of her skirts.
“So ye need to get news to the king ere the attempt is made on his life,” he said slowly.
Elysande nodded unhappily. “The plan is set for late December, before the New Year. Even if we are not snowed in somewhere until spring, ‘better than two weeks’ from here to Sinclair means most like another five weeks for a messenger to get all the way down to court to warn him.” Pausing, she shook her head and then fretted, “I do not know why Mother did not think of that when she insisted I travel to Sinclair first.”
“Has she been home since she traveled to England to marry yer father?” Rory asked.
“To Scotland?” she asked. Quite sure that’s what he meant, but she found it odd to think of Scotland as her mother’s home. Their home had been Kynardersley her entire life.
“Aye. Has she traveled back and forth to Scotland at all since her marriage?”
“Not that I know of,” she said slowly, scanning her mind for any mention of such a trip, and then she added, “Definitely not since I was born.”
“Then she probably just did no’ recall how long a journey ’twas to get from one place to the other,” Rory reasoned, then pointed out gently, “And she was verra ill at the time she made these plans. It is no’ surprising that a few details may have been fuzzy fer her, or slipped her mind altogether.”
“Aye.” Elysande nodded agreement. That made perfect sense. “But it does cause problems. I must get Mother’s message to the king ere the end of December. Mayhap I should not go to Sinclair at all. Mayhap Tom, Simon and I should head to court to give the king Mother’s message.”
“Nay,” Rory said at once. “Ye could ride right into de Buci, or he could ha’e men watching the roads fer ye.” He shook his head. “Nay. Yer mother sent ye to me to see ye safe to Sinclair, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
When she opened her mouth to protest, he added, “But I’ll think on a way to deliver her message to the king that will get it there faster,” he assured her, standing and moving toward the ladder. Pausing there, he looked thoughtful and murmured, “Perhaps if we had the messenger travel by sea part of the way.”
Elysande’s eyes widened slightly at the suggestion. Traveling by sea would be much quicker, she was sure. The idea at least gave her new hope that they might accomplish the task in time, after all, something she’d begun to seriously doubt when she’d learned how long it would take to reach Sinclair.
“Anyway, that’s enough talk fer now. Ye need yer rest. We all do if we hope to leave tomorrow if we’re able,” Rory said as he began to descend the ladder. “You go ahead and get settled. I’m just going to fetch the men and let them ken they can join us now.”
Elysande waited until he was out of sight, and then moved to the edge of the loft to watch him walk out of the stable. She couldn’t help noticing how the light from the torches caught the red in his hair. Most of the time his hair just looked a rich, dark brown but there was actually red among the brown.
And wasn’t she pathetic for even noticing? Elysande thought with disgust. She was acting like she’d never seen a handsome man before when there were plenty of fine-looking men at Kynardersley. Or there had been, she corrected herself solemnly. They were all dead now.
Suddenly wearied by the realization, Elysande turned to survey the loft. The fur she’d slept on the night before was lying in a corner with the bags that held her clothes. Tom and Simon had obviously put them up here earlier, probably when they’d tended the horses with the other men, though Elysande had been here and hadn’t noticed at the time. She’d probably been too busy watching Rory brush down his mount, she admitted to herself. She did find her eye drawn to him more and more the longer she knew him, which made her feel rather guilty. Her father had been murdered and her mother too, along with every man under them except for Tom and Simon. She should be grieving too much to notice that any man was attractive. Shouldn’t she?
Elysande didn’t know. She’d never been through anything like this before. And where was the numbness that had claimed her directly after those horrible events? It had cloaked her for the journey to Monmouth, and even for the beginning of her journey with the Buchanans, but it had been fading ever since she’d told Rory and Alick and their men what had happened at Kynardersley. It was as if talking about it had stolen the protective numbness from her. Or perhaps it was the tears she’d shed on her horse. Whatever the case, she missed that numbness. Elysande didn’t know how she should behave or feel, or what was appropriate. She felt like she should be numb still over such a great loss. Instead, she was feeling attraction for a complete stranger and it felt wrong.
Elysande fretted over all of that as she spread some hay around and then fetched and unrolled the fur in the middle of the loft. She then gathered her cloak around her and eased herself down to lay on the bed she’d made, resting on her good side and using one of the sacks of clothing as a pillow. It was surprisingly comfortable, and actually warmer than she’d expected. It would be warmer still when the men arrived, she thought, and as if drawn by her thoughts, she heard the stable door open and the soft murmur of the men’s voices as they entered.
Their soft speech died off as they neared the back of the stables. Elysande supposed they were being quiet in case she was sleeping. The possibility made her close her eyes and feign sleep. Confused as she was, she didn’t feel like talking anyway. So she lay still and breathed steadily as she listened to the quiet movements around her as the men climbed up into the loft one after another and bedded down.