He did not expect an answer. He had come upon the scene as she was being struck, and as the memory of that intruded on his surprise, his fist knocked back one of the three still crowded ’round her head. Then her stepbrother was lifting her up and holding her so tightly to his chest she could barely breathe.
“How came you to be here?”
The question broke through her thoughts, which were a jumble of fear mixed with annoyance. If someone had to find her,whydid it have to be Gilbert? And she knew not what to tell him, except naught of what had truly happened to her in the month since she had last seen him.
But she could tell him one truth, and did. “I was held prisoner at Fulkhurst Castle, but was finally able to escape—”
“Hehad you? I have been mad with grief, when all this timehehad you?” He had shoved her back as he questioned her, but now he crushed her again to say with a trace of the genuine regret he had felt, “I thought you dead. There was no one at Kirkburough to tell me what Fulkhurst had done with you.”
That he was serious in his concern made Rowena feel strange considering how much she hated him. “I am not surprised,” she answered carefully. “He had sent me straightaway to his dungeon ere the servants at Kirkburough came out of hiding to witness it.”
“Hisdungeon!” Gilbert roared in his amazement. His men hissed at him to be less vocal, but he merely glared at them, then brought that glare down to Rowena. “The man must be mad. Did you not tell him who you were?”
She glared back at him for his stupidity. “You would have had me confess all when you know he means to destroy you and all you hold? He had already taken properties of mine becauseyouheld them. Think you he would not have murdered me to take the rest from you in so easy a way? So I told him naught other than what he assumed, that I was Lady of Kirkburough.” Then she lied to support his original assumption that Warrick had come to Kirkburough for him. “He sent me to his dungeon because he was so furious thatyouwere not there for him to kill.”
Gilbert actually looked guilty, then confirmed it by saying, “I am sorry, Rowena. I did not think he would harm you, or I would not have left you there, but I was not thinking clearly that day.”
When did he ever think clearly, or without greed uppermost in his mind? she wanted to ask, but he was leading her back the way she had come, and so she asked instead, “What do you here, Gilbert? You cannot think to lay siege to his strongest castle.”
“Nay, not that, yet will I have control of it by nightfall.”
She stopped, only to be dragged along again when he did not. “How?”
“I sent him a challenge. If he is not stupid, he will have suspected a trap and so taken most of his men with him.” Now he stopped to demand excitedly, “Can you confirm this? Know you how many men he took with him?”
“I did not see him leave,” she replied crossly, “nor did I have time to count how many were left behind when I was leaving myself.”
He was disappointed, and so continued on, dragging her behind him again. “No matter,” he finally said. “Hewouldtake most of his men. Why would he leave them behind when, as you pointed out, Fulkhurst is his strongest castle, capable of holding an army at bay with just a handful of men?”
“Then how do you think to take it?”
He turned his head to grin at her. “With a handful of men.”
“Ah, of course. So stupid of me to ask.”
He jerked on her arm to show he did not like her sarcastic tone. “I had planned to approach at dusk for shelter.”
“They have a village they will direct you to,” she predicted.
“Nay, not when I am on Stephen’s business, with a message bearing his seal to prove it.”
“Are you?”
“What?”
“On the king’s business?”
“Of course not,” he replied impatiently. “But the message is genuine. I had the good fortune to find it, since ’twas a message going nowhere with the bearer dead.”
“Didyoukill him?”
He stopped once again to snarl at her. “Why must you put every black deed at my door?”
“Nay, only what you are capable of,” she shot back.
He scowled at her. “What matters how I came by it? ’Twill gain me entrance to Fulkhurst. Or mayhap I will return an escaped prisoner instead,” he added nastily.
She wished he would. She would give warning to those inside the castle no matter what it cost her, as long as it thwarted Gilbert’s plans.
