“Have you secured shelter for the night?” he asked in a lowered tone. The lion’s eyebrows were drawn together, and had Piers been in possession of his capacities, he might have seen the concern there.
“Ah … no. No, I’m afraid not. I’ve”—he cleared his throat—“I’ve only just arrived in the city.”
The lion-maned man seemed to think for a moment, debating something behind his golden eyes. “My wife bears our first child even now. I do expect it will be some time before I see my court suite or my own bed.” He reached into a slit in his tunic and withdrew a key on a ribbon. He held it out to Piers.
Piers frowned and took it as if in a dream. If he could only think straight for one moment. “Forgive me, but—”
“Go above. Show the guard this key and tell him you have Lord Julian Griffin’s permission to pass the night in his rooms.”
Piers stared at the man for several moments. “Why are you doing this?”
Julian Griffin looked at Piers, and there was no ulterior motive in his eyes, no trickery. Only truth.
“Because I saw your boots,” he answered low. “And the little strand of beads you now hold was not in your possession only a moment ago. I believe you have a great battle before you.”
Piers nodded faintly. “I will one day repay you for your aid.”
“Good day, Lord Mallory,” Julian Griffin said dismissively and directed his eyes over Piers’s shoulder. “Good day to you, my lady. How can I be of service?”
Piers turned to see the frowning woman behind him, obviously impatient to speak with the keeper of the king’s court. Piers sidestepped out of the way, nearly stumbling. The woman swept past to take his place.
“Is there any time to spare today, Lord Julian? I fear my grandmother is—”
Piers dragged his feet back down the length of the receiving hall toward the wide stairs he’d seen when he’d arrived.
Somewhere, somewhere close, Alys was being held by a madman. And it was all Piers’s fault. Sybilla Foxe had not been the only spy tracking them after leaving Ira’s village, and Piers’s innocent beacon to alert Alys’s rescue had brought hell down upon her instead.
He looked to the ornate ceiling above his head, as if by concentrating he could discern Alys’s location amidst the warren of rooms stacked atop him. Was she even being held in the king’s home, though? Or an inn nearby? He did not know where or how to begin to search. Should he tear the stones apart and still fail to locate her, should he raise alarm to the king’s guards—mayhap even the lion-maned Julian Griffin—Judith Angwedd would surely hear of it. She would hear of it, and then Alys’s life would be forfeit.
He had but one recourse.
He would disavow his claim before the king. Gillwick had just slipped out of his fingers, for good this time. He would truly never have anything to offer Alys. Nothing but her life, which was in his hands now. And Piers was determined to move very slowly, act very carefully in the next several hours. There would be death in London, but Piers would breathe his last before he allowed that death to be Alys’s.
He forced his feet to move him from the hall and climb the steps mechanically, the worn soles of his boots slapping marble. He jostled people he passed but he could not care. He did not see them.
Chapter 22
After straining her neck to push the basket containing Layla from the side of her face—with a silent apology to the monkey who screeched indignantly—Alys began concentrating on her breathing. Deeply in, slow and easy out through her nose. Her tongue felt as though it was being forced down her throat, blocking her airway. She could not swallow properly. She knew that if she let herself succumb to panic, she would faint at the very least.
In, out.
She turned her head to the side, to give some sort of escape for the saliva in her mouth. Her jaws ached. In her futile struggle with the gag, she had managed to swallow more air than she had breathed, and so a sharp pain now stabbed at her midsection, so intense that she could feel it in the muscles of her back.
Breathe. In. Out.
She closed her eyes against the seemingly cavernous dark. And when she felt the hot tears streak down her cheeks, she realized that all was not yet lost. She was breathing. She was crying. She was still alive. And thatwas just enough to calm her to where she could begin to think.
She had initially thought that Judith Angwedd and Bevan had both quit the chamber. But after perhaps a half hour, she could hear disgusting, muffled grunts from beyond the thick wardrobe doors. Bevan. After only a few minutes, the noises stopped on a hoarse exhalation of choking breath. The pain in Alys’s stomach sharpened and swelled. Thank God, Judith Angwedd had said she was taking the key to the wardrobe with her when she’d left.
It wasn’t long afterward when Alys heard the redheaded woman enter the chamber once more. She strained to hear the conversation, but only caught fading and swelling pieces.
“—she sleep—”
Mumbling, and then, “—‘s’here … quested audience. Shh!”
Alys heard the key scraping in the lock again, and she forced her face to relax into some parody of sleep. She felt a release of pressure in the close air around her face, a slight puff of breeze, and then the lock was clicking once more.
“Asleep or dead,” she heard Judith Angwedd say in a fading voice. “Saw him … keep watch … John Hart.”
