Lord Greville's Captive

She shot him a quick look, but drew her chair obediently closer to the flames. Now that they were alone with no further interruption, she seemed to have withdrawn into her own thoughts. The vivid spirit that had burned before was banked down, invisible, leaving nothing but the outward show of beauty. Simon took the chair opposite and studied her for a moment, until she lifted her gaze to his.

‘What can we make the toast,’ he said, ‘given that we support different causes now?’

‘All men’s loyalties are tangled and confused by this conflict,’ Anne said. ‘It spirals out of our control. I know not where it will end.’ She hesitated. ‘I had heard that you were estranged from your father because of your allegiance—’ She broke off, colouring slightly.

‘You heard correctly,’ Simon said abruptly.

Anne looked away. ‘I am sorry,’ she whispered.

Simon felt her grief touch his own heart. His estrangement from his father was never far from his mind. Less than five years before he had sat beside Fulwar Greville in Parliament. Looking back, it seemed that the country had slipped almost insensibly into civil war. Fulwar had not approved of the King’s arrogance towards his subjects, but he had served the crown for forty years, had broken bread with his sovereign and could not forsake his allegiance now. Simon, on the other hand, had seen only a monarch who had gathered an army to fight his own countrymen and whose power had to be curtailed. When he had signed the militia oath to protect the Parliament he had seen his father’s face grow old before his eyes. They both knew what it meant. Did he honour his father or his country? His loyalty was torn for ever.

‘Perhaps the only true toast can be to loyalty itself,’ Simon said, ‘though it may mean different things to different men.’ He touched his glass to Anne’s and a moment later she smiled and raised her glass in silent tribute, taking a small sip of the wine.

‘Loyalty,’ she said. ‘I can make that my pledge.’

A flush crept along her cheek, rose pink from the fire and the warming effects of the drink. It made her look very young.

Simon sat back. There was no sound, but for the brush of the snow against the roof and the crackle of the fire in the grate. For a moment the room was as close to peace as it could come.

Then Anne broke the silence. ‘So,’ she said, ‘will you stand down your troops, Lord Greville? Do we have an agreement?’

‘No,’ Simon said. ‘Not yet.’

Anne started to get to her feet. Her hand moved to take the dagger from the table, but Simon was too fast for her. He caught her wrist in a bruising grip.

‘You are too hasty.’ His tone was smooth, belying the fierceness of his clasp. ‘There are questions I wish answered before we strike a bargain. Stay a little.’

He released her and Anne sat back, rubbing her wrist. Simon picked up the knife and turned it over in his hands. The firelight sparkled on the diamonds in the hilt.

‘This is a fine piece of work,’ he said.

‘My father gave it to me.’

‘And no doubt he taught you to use it too.’ Simon pocketed the knife. ‘You will forgive me if I keep it for now. I have no wish to feel it between my shoulder blades.’

Anne shrugged. Her gaze was stormy. He knew she was angered by his blunt refusal to agree terms, but she was unwilling to let it show.

‘I have little choice, it seems,’ she said. She looked at him. ‘You said that you had questions, my lord. Ask them, then.’

Simon nodded slowly. ‘Very well.’ He paused. ‘Is it true that General Malvoisier does not know that you are here and is not party to your decision to tell me about Henry or to bargain for the safety of the manor?’

Her gaze flickered at his use of Malvoisier’s name, but it was too quick for Simon to read her expression. ‘It is perfectly true,’ she said. ‘Malvoisier does not care for the welfare of the people of Grafton as I do. He would not have agreed to try to come to terms with you.’

‘So you have betrayed your ally?’

The look she gave him would have flayed a lesser man alive. ‘I am the ally of the King. I have not betrayed my Royalist cause and never would I do so!’

Simon inclined his head. She was not going to give an inch and would certainly do nothing to compromise her loyalty. He could feel the conflict in her; she wanted to tell him to go to hell, but too much was at stake. He could also sense her desperation. She cared passionately about the fate of Grafton. It had to mean that she was telling him the truth about Henry. Either that, or she was a damnably good actress.

‘So you maintain that it is true that Henry is alive and well, and that Malvoisier lied to me about his death,’ he pursued.

Again he saw that flicker of feeling in her eyes. ‘It is quite true,’ she said. Her gaze dropped. ‘That is, Sir Henry is alive, but he has suffered some hurt.’

Simon felt a violent rush of anger and hatred. ‘At Malvoisier’s hands?’ He brought his fist down hard on the table. ‘I might have known it. Damn him to hell and back for what he has done!’

‘Sir Henry will recover,’ Anne said. He saw her put her hand out towards him briefly, but then she let it fall. ‘Your brother is young and strong, my lord, and given time…’ She stopped and the silence hung heavily between them. Simon knew what that silence meant. Henry would recover if he survived the assault on the Manor the next day. He would recover if Gerard Malvoisier did not use him as a hostage, or make an example of him by hanging him from the battlements.

He got to his feet in a surge of restlessness. He was torn. When he had thought Henry dead there was nothing to lose with an all-out attack on Grafton. But to attack now, knowing that his brother was a prisoner within…It was dangerous—perhaps even reckless—but he was not going to let a man like Malvoisier hold him to ransom.

He strode across the room, unable to keep still and contain the rage within him. ‘He sent me a body,’ he said, through shut teeth. ‘If Henry is alive, how is that possible?’

Anne’s very stillness seemed a counterpoint to his fury. She did not even turn her head to answer him, but he saw her clench her hands together in her lap and realised that she was nowhere near as calm as she pretended.

‘The dead man was one of Malvoisier’s own troops,’ she said. ‘He died of a fever.’

Simon felt revolted. He spun around to look at her. ‘Malvoisier denied one of his soldiers a true burial? His body was defaced to make me believe that it genuinely was Henry?’

Anne’s expression was sombre. ‘They were the same height and build, my lord. All Malvoisier had to do was to dress the body in your brother’s clothes.’

Simon’s fingers tightened about his wineglass so that the crystal shivered. He had never questioned that the dead man had been Henry. The body had been so mutilated that it had been impossible to recognise, and, drowned in his misery and regret, he had never once imagined that Malvoisier had deliberately played him false. He had buried his brother with all honour, had written to their father apprising him of his younger son’s death in action, and had laid his own plans for a cold and brutal revenge. No matter that to attempt an assault on the garrison of Grafton was a foolhardy undertaking. He cared nothing for that. All he wanted was to wipe out the stain on the family honour and grind Gerard Malvoisier into the dust.

‘Why did he do it?’ he asked softly. ‘Why make me believe my brother was dead?’

‘You are the strategist, my lord,’ Anne said. ‘Why do you think he did it?’

Simon considered. ‘He wanted me to believe Henry dead in order to provoke me,’ he said slowly. ‘He wanted to end the siege, to drive me out into the open so that he had a better chance to defeat me.’

‘Exactly so.’

‘So now he has two advantages.’ Simon was thinking aloud. ‘He has forced me into a rash course of action and he still holds my brother.’ He nodded slowly. ‘It is very cunning. I might almost admire his tactics.’ He came across to Anne’s seat and leaned on the table beside her, so close that his breath stirred her hair. ‘That is—if it is true, Lady Anne. Almost I believe you.’

He knew that to trust her was madness. Even now she might be lying to him, tempting him to withdraw his troops, tricking him to defeat. Every instinct in his body protested that she was honest, but he could not afford the weakness of allowing himself to feel sympathy for her. He was tired. His mind was clouded with fatigue and the prospect of the killing to come and he knew it could be fatal to his judgement.

Anne turned her head abruptly. Her dark glare pinned him down like the dagger’s point. She tried to rise, but Simon caught her arm and held her still. They were so close now. A mere hair’s breadth separated them.

‘I do not lie,’ Anne said disdainfully. ‘If I were a man, you would answer for such an insult.’

Simon pulled her to her feet so abruptly that her chair rocked back and almost fell. She felt taut beneath his hands, shaking with anger and resentment.

‘Fine words, my lady,’ he said. ‘Yet you must have lied to one of us, to Malvoisier or to me. And he is your ally now.’

Anne wrenched her arm from his grip, suddenly furious. ‘Do not dare to accuse me of disloyalty to my cause,’ she said. Her voice shook. ‘I serve the King and until and unless he releases me of that charge my loyalty is absolute. Malvoisier—’ She stopped, and there was an odd silence.

‘Aye?’ Simon’s voice was harsh as he prompted her. He was breathing fast. ‘What of him?’

Anne paused. ‘Malvoisier and I share the Royalist cause, but our other loyalties are different,’ she said slowly. ‘My first loyalty is to the King, but my next is to my people. I have to protect Grafton. So…’ She spread her hands. ‘I came here of my own accord this night to beg a truce, my lord. If you attack the Manor, you will almost certainly kill your brother along with half the population of the castle. You have cannon—we cannot survive such an onslaught! Call it off and spare Sir Henry’s life and that of my people!’

The silence spun out between them, taut with tension. It was, Simon knew, the closest that Anne of Grafton would ever come to begging. She had so much pride and she had humbled it to come here tonight to ask him to spare the lives of the people she cared for. And now he had to deny her. He shook his head slowly.