His Lady's Ransom

“Aye. I won you in the tourney.” A sardonic gleam flared in the blue eyes hovering over her. “You, my lady Madeline, are the Lord John’s ransom.”

Chapter Four

Ian felt a grim satisfaction as the lady’s eyes widened to huge, mossy pools and she sank back into the now-scummy water. With her face scrubbed clean of all paint and her body stripped of rich silks and furs, she looked younger than she usually did—and far more vulnerable. Deciding from her dazed expression that she was sufficiently cowed, Ian straightened.

“You have an hour to dress yourself and see that your belongings are packed.”

“Packed?” She swallowed painfully. “Wherefore packed?”

“Now that you are in my keeping, I will see you properly housed. You leave today for the north.”

“The north? Today?”

He strode toward the door. “You have an hour. Bring with you only what you need for the journey. The rest may follow with the baggage train.”

“Wait!”

The stupor that seemed to have locked her limbs loosened. She knelt upright in the tub and glared at him.

“Wait. You cannot be so thick-skulled as to think I can leave Kenilworth within the hour. There’s too much that needs doing. And I’m expected at the banquet this eve,” she finished on a shrill note.

And Ian had thought her cowed! He turned and advanced on her once again. She blinked, but refused to shrink back as she had before.

“’Twould appear you’ve held a favored position in the king’s wardship for far too long,” Ian said softly. “You’ve become lax in the respect due those above you.”

“But—”

“You will call me ‘lord’ when you address me.”

Her jaw clamped shut.

“And you will be ready within the hour.” His voice lowered dangerously. “Do not make me lesson you, Lady Madeline. You would not enjoy it.”

Nay, she would not, Madeline thought in simmering fury, but no doubt he would, the cur. The varl. The whoreson knave. Her whole body shook with the need to launch herself at him and scratch and claw. She wanted nothing so much as to add more bruises to that marking his lower lip. She, who had always won her way with smiles and merry laughter! She, who had enchanted one husband with her wit and enthralled another with her body! Never in Madeline’s life had any man spoken to her thus, nor raised such violence in her soul.

Shaken by the force of her unaccustomed blood lust, she curled her hands into fists under the surface of the water. As angry as she was, she had yet the sense to know that she could not win in any physical encounter with this broad-shouldered, muscled man.

Taking her smoldering silence for acquiescence, the earl nodded once, then turned and left. The wooden door slammed behind him. It opened again almost immediately, catching Madeline half out of the tub. With a gasp, she sank back into the chilled water.

“Ooh, milady,” Gerda cried, “I couldna bring the guard! His lordship’s men blocked the corridor!”

“It matters not. Just help me with my hair. Quickly. Quickly!”

Bending over the tub so that Gerda could rinse the last of the soap from her heavy fall of hair, Madeline twisted it into a tight rope to wring it free of excess water, then tugged on the shift she’d discarded just a short time ago. She pushed aside the stained red robe she’d worn to the tourney to find her jeweled girdle. Her fingers fumbled with the flap of the embroidered pouch attached to it.

“God’s teeth,” she hissed, as clumsy in her haste as Gerda ever was. Finally she wrenched the pouch open and extracted a handful of copper pennies. She pressed them into the maid’s palm, folding her plump fingers tight over them.

“Get you downstairs immediately and find out where Lord John is. Give these coins to a page and ask him to tell the king’s son that I desire urgent speech with him. If it please his grace, I would meet with him…” She searched her mind frantically for a place where she might have private speech with John. “I would meet with him in the chapel. Go! Go quickly!”

Without Gerda’s help, Madeline lost precious minutes fumbling into her robe and pulling the silken laces tight. Not wanting to take the time necessary to braid her hair, she grabbed a thin wool mantle and flung it over her wet, tangled mane. She stuffed her bare feet into her boots, then raced out of the tower room. Unconcerned for her dignity, she sped through the corridors, following the same route she’d taken just that morning on her way to mass.

Sweet Mary, was it just this morning that she’d traveled these same corridors? Just a few short hours since she’d stumbled into the earl’s arms and then taunted him with her mocking smile? It seemed days, nay, years, ago. She could not believe that she’d been so secure in herself this morn, so secure in her position at court. Now de Burgh had turned her world upside down. Picking up her skirts, she ignored the surprised stares of a pair of pages and ran the last few yards to the chapel.

Panting, she gazed around the small, dim hall. The vaulted nave where the lesser ranks stood during mass was bathed in silent shadows. Her eyes searched the wooden upper gallery that circled the chapel like a monk’s tonsure, but found no occupant. Madeline drew in a shuddering breath, scarcely noticing the heavy scent of myrrh that lingered in the air, and leaned back against one of the stone pillars. Please, John, she prayed, please come.

He did, as he always had come for her.

When the door swung open, Madeline started, then held out both hands. He took them in his strong grasp.

“You’ve heard, then?” he asked, his dark eyes taking in her disheveled appearance and distraught manner. “I’d hoped to tell you myself.”

“Lord Ian came straight from the lists to inform me,” she replied bitterly. “How—how could this happen?”

John’s mouth hardened. “I swear, Madeline, I had no idea that he would demand such a ransom, nor that my father would grant it.”

“Why did the king do so? You told me that you had spoken to him and that he’d agreed to give me say in arranging my future.”

“And thus I reminded him! But de Burgh pointed out that the lands your first lord dowered on you march with those he holds in his youngest brother’s name. Were he to garrison your castles, as well as those of his brother, he could guarantee a strong line of defense against attack by Welsh raiders.”

“I see. I’m to be handed over once again for another man’s gain!” Madeline tugged her hands free, knowing it was useless to rail against her fate, but too angry and hurt to still her words. “So much for Angevin promises!”

A flush of hot anger stained John’s cheeks. “You forget yourself, Lady Madeline.”

She realized immediately she’d gone too far. By the saints, this was indeed her day for letting her tongue slip its hold. For all their friendship, Madeline never let herself forget that John was as much an Angevin as any of his clan. She had often seen him fly into one of his rages, as awesome as his father’s, although she had learned long ago not to let it intimidate her.

“Your pardon, my lord,” she said stiffly.

“Granted.” John let out his breath on a gust of air. “In truth, I wish I could aid you, but the king is adamant and de Burgh too powerful. There’s naught I can do. Not now, at least. Mayhap soon, though. Mayhap soon things will change.”

For the space of a heartbeat, hope flared in Madeline’s breast, followed quickly by a new, dangerous worry. Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Oh, John, you don’t listen to Richard and those who plot with him against the king, do you? You mustn’t. These barons would play you brothers against each other, and you both against your father, all for their own gain.”

He hesitated, as if debating whether to speak further. For a moment, the only sound that disturbed the chapel’s stillness was the unsynchronized rhythm of their breathing, hers quick and shallow, his heavy and slow.

Madeline saw the doubt in his eyes. With a perception honed by years of closeness, she sensed that John hovered on the brink of some momentous decision. Fear for him clutched at her heart. He courted disaster. She felt it in her very bones.

“Of all his sons, the king loves you best,” she told him quietly. “Were you to turn against him, his rage would be ungovernable.”

Despite her anger with the king at this moment, Madeline knew that John had not the strength to defy him, not without losing his soul to the greedy barons who would use him.

He stared down at her, his dark eyes unfathomable, then shifted his shoulders, as if pulling at a garment that was too tight for him. “Come, do you think because I could not turn the king’s decision to give you into de Burgh’s keeping that I plot some mischief?”

“My lord…”

He waved aside her concern. “You were ever one to let your imagination run away with you, Maddy.”

She bit her lip, knowing it was useless to press him when his eyes took on that hard, black glitter.

“Look you, ‘tis not so bad,” he said, with an attempt at reason. “You’re not being forced to marry the man. He but holds you in keeping.”