She knew how bad it must look.
But she couldn’t give up.
Her life was on the line, in more ways than she could imagine.
Dane had still been with Boden in the Duke’s solar when he heard the blast of the Shrewsbury horn.
Tipsy or not, the sound had launched Dane out of his seat and, with his brother on his heels, he flew from the keep only to be met by a closed portcullis to the inner gatehouse. Boden started screaming at the sentries, who cranked the portcullis up enough so that Dane and Boden could bolt beneath it.
On a dead run, they made their way to a large group of men and weaponry near the gatehouse. They could hear William yelling above the melee, but there was a fight of some kind going on and the portcullis of the main gatehouse was still open, though about halfway lowered. Dane couldn’t imagine what was going on until he began to push through the gathered men, all of them armed, all of them edgy as hell. They were fixed on a group of men in the gatehouse entry, and that’s why Dane saw it.
Grier was a hostage.
Dane had to steel himself. His first instinct was to run mad and kill the bastard with his bare hands, but the truth was that if he tried to do that, Grier would probably be dead before he could even get to her. Therefore, he forced himself to calm, knowing he had little choice at the moment. He had to draw upon his training, upon his innate sense of composure, if he was going to get through this. He had no idea what had happened but, clearly, it was something very bad.
Heart pounding, Dane pushed through his troops before he could clearly see Grier in the grip of a shaggy-haired man.
He took a deep breath.
“Why do you hold my wife hostage?” he asked the man with the blade to Grier’s neck. “Who are you?”
The man’s eyes widened. “You… your wife?”
Dane nodded. “I am Dane de Russe, Duke of Shrewsbury,” he said calmly. “The woman you are holding is my wife. How can we resolve this situation?”
After a moment’s shock, the man seemed to grow more agitated. He was looking at Dane as if he could hardly believe what he’d heard.
“Nay,” he finally breathed. “The duke is dead! He was killed!”
That was what the prisoner in the vault had said, so Dane proceeded carefully. There were a great many Welshmen who evidently thought he was dead and even as he asked his next question, he had an inkling of what the answer was.
“May I know your name?”
The man hesitated and, in that moment, Grier spoke. “Davies ap Madoc,” she said, her voice quivering. “This is Davies ap Madoc and the woman with him is his sister, Eolande.”
At the mention of her name, Eolande took another timid step towards her brother and Grier. “Please, Grier,” she begged. “Tell these men to go away. Tell them go away to ease the situation!”
She was begging for Davies’ life again, and that further upset Grier. Was the woman truly defending her brother, someone who was holding a knife to a woman she called a friend? Rather than stew in confused silence about it, she spoke up. She found that she couldn’t remain silent any longer.
Too many things about Eolande’s appearance didn’t make any sense, so for her own peace of mind, she had to know.
“Why are you here, Eolande?” she demanded, trying to look at her friend as Davies held her fast. “Do you know what your brother has done? He raided the town and killed a very fine knight, a man he believed to be my husband. He is a killer and now he has returned to finish the job. Did you know that?”
Eolande burst into tears. “I know,” she sobbed. “I told him I did not approve of what he had done. But he did it… he did it because you married the duke, Grier.”
“Shut your mouth!” Davies hissed.
“Nay!” Eolande cried. “I will not be silenced! You were not man enough to accept that Grier married another, so you came to kill a man you did not even know, to punish him for what you believed to be an offense against you. Now you hold Grier as if to kill her, and that is wrong, Davies. You cannot kill the woman because she never loved you!”
“I can do what I please!”
“You cannot force her to love you, not with all of the deaths and havoc you can create. Don’t you know that?”
They were shouting back and forth, and Dane was listening to all of it, realizing a great deal as the pale, poorly-dressed, sobbing woman and the shaggy-haired man barked at each other. It was more of an explanation than he could have hoped for, because the poorly-dressed woman had no stake in this. She didn’t know Dane, so she wasn’t speaking to somehow vindicate Grier. Even so, she had unknowingly done precisely that. She’d put Dane on the path to understanding.
You cannot kill the woman because she never loved you.
Those were the most beautiful words he’d ever heard.
“You are the man who killed Syler de Poyer,” Dane said, his gaze riveted to Davies as he interrupted the shouting going on. “I will say his name again; Syler de Poyer. He was a great knight and a fine man, and you stole his life away for something he had nothing to do with. It was me you wanted. I was told that you offered for my wife’s hand and that her father denied you.”
Davies was very close to losing his composure. He stared at Dane, appalled at what he was hearing. This man, this new duke who had married Grier, knew so much about him. That shook him to the bone.
“How do you know such things?” he demanded. “I do not know you. I have never heard of you, de Russe.”
Dane lifted a blond eyebrow. “But I have heard of you,” he said. “I heard of you through some Welshmen at a tavern after I had married my wife. I also heard of you from one of the raiders we captured yesterday, a young warrior who is even now locked up in my vault. And I also know of you from my wife, who was gracious enough to be truthful with me when I asked. Aye, I know a good deal about you, ap Madoc. Release my wife and we shall speak calmly.”
I also heard about you from one of the raiders we captured yesterday. Davies’ heart sank when he heard that. In truth, that hadn’t occurred to him. He was furious at himself for being arrogant enough to think that all of his men from the raid had escaped Shrewsbury.
There had been fifty of them, but only forty-three had been accounted for, which wasn’t unusual. Sometimes it took a few days for all of the men to show up and be counted, and Davies hadn’t waited to find out, and he hadn’t given the fact that he hadn’t waited any thought. But he should have.
God, he should have.
Now, he was in trouble.
“You know nothing about me,” he growled. “It was my offer for Grier that should have been considered. It should be me living in the castle now and not you. Who are you, anyway? You are no one. You know nothing of Wales and of Shrewsbury, and of our lives here on the Marches. You are no one!”
He was shouting by the time he finished, and Dane could hear the desperation in the man’s voice.
“My father is the Duke of Warminster,” Dane said. “I also hold the title of Lord Blackmore, of Blackmore Castle. Surely you know of it. Who I am? The son of a duke, and now a duke myself, and I know and love these lands. They are mine. So is the woman in your grasp. Return her to me unscathed and I will show mercy. Harm her and you shall feel pain such as you cannot comprehend.”
It was a threat, pure and simple. Davies knew it, but he wouldn’t surrender, at least not yet. His pride prevented it.
“I hold the power, duw,” he said, using the Welsh word for duke. “I hold the woman we both want. You will listen to me.”
Dane remained calm. “I will listen.”
“Nay!”
Grier suddenly piped up. She’d been listening to everything, terror in her veins, but she wasn’t going to remain silent any longer. She wasn’t entirely certain Davies wouldn’t kill her and if he did, she didn’t want to die without speaking the truth of the situation. She had to give it one more try, even if Dane wouldn’t believe her.
Her heart was crying out to make things right if this was the
last moment they would have.
“If I am to have my throat slit, then you will hear me, Davies ap Madoc,” she said, tears forming in her eyes. “Never have I given you hope that I return your feelings. Never did I say I wished to be your bride, or that I wished to belong to you. We were never lovers and we never will be, for I would rather die than be part of anything with you. Do you understand me? I used to feel pity for you, because you felt for me the way I did not feel for you, but now I hate you. I hate you with everything that I am.”
Davies could feel her heaving against him, the emotion in her body, and he was feeling increasingly ashamed. He’d come to Shrewsbury, hoping to claim her, hoping to secure a marriage with a new widow, and she was telling everyone who would listen that she hated him. She wanted no part of him. When he spoke, his voice was low, because he certainly didn’t want to shout a reply. There were enough ears listening to his humiliation.
“Quiet, now,” he told her. “You are distraught. I did not wish to…”
She cut him off, trying to jerk away from him and piercing her own neck with his dagger tip in the process. She gasped in pain, her hand going to her neck as the blood began to flow.
“Release me,” she said in a tone between a plea and a demand. “I have never loved you, Davies. You know this. Your own sister has told you this. Eolande, can you hear me? Tell him!”
Eolande was just out of her line of sight, still trembling, still weeping. She heard her friend’s plea and had no choice but to answer her.
“I have told him, Grier,” she said. “He does not want to listen. He thinks he can make you love him.”
“I can!” Davies boomed, realizing he had shouted and suddenly embarrassed because of it. His personal business was being shouted for all to hear and he was greatly ashamed in a situation that was completely out of his control. “You have never given me the chance.”
“I will never give you the chance,” Grier said, now trying to stomp on his feet so he would release her. “Let me go, you blackheart. Let me go this instant!”
She stomped hard enough that she hit something tender, and Davies faltered. Dane flinched, prepared to move forward and grab his wife, but Davies saw him coming and he grabbed Grier by the hair, holding the long side of the dagger against her throat. One flick of his wrist and he could drag it across her neck, opening her up to the bone. When Dane saw that, he froze.
“Stay away!” Davies cried, dragging Grier back a few feet and moving her clear of her desperate husband. “Stay away or I will kill her! If I cannot have her, then you cannot have her, either.”
Dane had been listening closely to the chatter going on between Grier and Davies and Eolande, enough so that he could see one thing in particular – there was no doubt in his mind now that everything Grier had told him had been the truth. When she’d denied being ap Madoc’s lover, she hadn’t lied. Davies ap Madoc loved a woman who did not love him in return and, in that instant, he knew there had been no collusion.
No betrayal.
Dane felt worse than he had ever felt in his life as he realized his mistake. She tried to tell him, but he hadn’t listened. He’d been stubborn and blind. Now he found himself praying that he would have the chance to tell Grier himself. He would apologize to the woman if it took the rest of his life, until she knew how much he loved her and how very sorry he was for having doubted her. A bad set of circumstances had caused him to lose faith in the only woman he’d ever loved.
God forgive him, he was a fool.
He had to save her.
From the corner of his eye, he could see William’s red hair and he turned slightly, motioning the man to him. When William leaned into him, he spoke quietly.
“Get men on the battlements with crossbows aimed at ap Madoc and his men,” he whispered. “They are to wait for your command.”
William nodded, losing himself in the crowd of soldiers around the gatehouse and trying not to draw Davies’ attention. As William headed off, Dane returned his attention to Davies, trying not to be unnerved by the sight of Grier’s bloodied neck.
But it was a struggle.
“You cannot leave with her,” he said calmly. “Ap Madoc, I can accept the attempt on my life. I understand your motivation. As a knight, death is part of my vocation. But the threat to my wife is something I cannot stomach. I have a feeling that even if you surrender her and I let you go, it will not be the end of it. You will come back, and back again, until either I am dead or you are dead. Is this a fair assumption?”
Davies was becoming increasingly unstable. He was ashamed, and cornered, and the woman he loved had told him in no uncertain terms that she did not return that love. That bewilderment was turning into rage.
“It is fair,” he said through clenched teeth. “I will never stop.”
“Then we must end this now.”
“What do you mean?”
Dane dipped his head in Grier’s direction. “Let her go and fight me,” he said. “The winner shall get the lady and the dukedom. I do not wish to go the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for you and your archers. Fight me now and let us decide this matter, for I grow weary of this foolishness. Let us be done with it, once and for all.”
Davies’ gaze flicked around to all of the English standing around him. “It is not a fair fight,” he said. “You have more men that I do.”
Dane shook his head. “You misunderstand,” he said. “I meant we shall fight each other, man to man. No armies, no teulu. Just you and me. Are you afraid to do it?”
That comment insulted Davies’ courage and he didn’t take kindly to it. Unfortunately, when he was enraged, he was reckless, as he was about to prove. Recklessness was one of Davies’ most predictable traits.
“I am not afraid of any Saesneg bastard,” he growled.
“Then accept my offer. You came to kill me, did you not? Let us see if you can.”
In a flash, Davies removed the dirk on Grier’s neck and shoved her at some of his men standing off to his right. Eolande was there, too, and Eolande rushed Grier before Davies’ men could get to her. They threw their arms around each other and wept as Davies’ men closed in around the pair.
The message was clear.
Dane knew that even as he looked at Grier, embracing Eolande. Grier was still in the control of Davies and his teulu, and he didn’t like that in the least. But at the moment, he couldn’t linger on it. She was safe so long as his men were close by, with their weapons, and they could get to her before Davies could stick a dagger into her should the situation go terribly wrong. He had to count on that. At the moment, he was more concerned about Davies himself.
He was about to have a fight to the death with the man.
And he was prepared to kill.
Dane took a moment to look Davies over; he was taller than Dane, but he was slender. That didn’t mean he wasn’t strong. Dane had no doubt that he could beat the man, and with Grier as the prize, he could do nothing less.
He intended to keep the woman he loved.
“Choose your weapon, ap Madoc,” he said. “Anything you wish.”
Davies had the dagger in his hand and he looked at it a moment before tossing it aside. Then he held up both hands.
“Fists,” he said. “For what I have to do, I can do with my bare hands.”
Dane thought the man was a bit overconfident, but he was pleased by the choice in weapons. He knew for a fact that he could pummel the man into the ground. But maybe that was him being overconfident. In any case, he was eager to get on with it, but not before he said something to his wife.
If ap Madoc got the better of him, he had to make sure it was said.
“Grier,” he said.
His voice was quiet but firm. Hearing her name, Grier looked at him, her head coming up from Eolande’s shoulder. She was pale, and her eyes were red-rimmed, but the love Dane felt for the woman when he looked at her was overwhelming. He’d made a terrible mistake; he knew that now. And he wasn’t too proud to admit i
t.
He wanted her to hear it from his lips.
“I was wrong,” he said. “I was wrong not to have believed you. If you cannot forgive me, I understand, but I hope you will consider it. I would be grateful.”
Grier’s mouth popped open in surprise and her hands flew to her mouth as if to hold back the gasp of shock. With all of the turmoil she’d gone through, the heartache and the anguish, those simple words ended it all as if her pain had never existed. Dane’s words had wiped it all free until the love she felt for the man was the only thing she was aware of.
“There is nothing to forgive,” she said tightly. “It was my fault. It was my clumsy attempt to help in a situation I should not have meddled in. I thought I could help, but I made a mess out of things. I hope you will forgive me, too.”
Dane smiled faintly, hearing the adoration and sincerity in her voice. His heart swelled with joy. He wanted to tell her that he loved her, but there were dozens of men standing around, including one man who wanted Grier very badly. He was afraid that if he told her of his feelings for all to hear, it might incite ap Madoc somehow. But as he thought about it, he truly didn’t care if the man knew or not. They were both fighting for the same women. The winner would depend on who loved her most, who was willing to fight the hardest.
Dane intended it should be him.
“Of course I forgive you,” he said simply. “I love you. Remember that.”
Grier looked at him with an expression that suggested she was shocked to the bone by his admission. But the light of warmth in her eyes, the one that Dane had become so familiar with, flamed into a roaring blaze as a smile of unimaginable beauty spread across her lips.
“And I love you,” she said softly. “So very much.”
Dane returned her smile. He heard her words, as nearly everyone else standing around them had, but he didn’t care who knew it. He loved the woman and she loved him, and that was all that mattered. That knowledge gave him the strength of angels.