A loud expletive escaped Gareth’s mouth as he rose in such haste that he knocked the high-backed chair to the floor. He pointed at his captain of the guard, Edgar. “Secure this keep. Now. Permit no one else in or out.”
After his captain and half of the men promptly left to do his bidding, he turned back toward Sir Hector. “It seems there is a problem.”
The man’s eyes grew large as he wrung his hands together. “M-milord?”
Sword clanging at his side, Gareth headed toward the exit. “Since the walls and gates are unguarded, there are ten missing men.” Hector gasped, then followed as fast as his obviously now sobering frame would allow. He was nearly trampled by Faucon’s remaining men rushing to catch up with their lord.
Gareth paused at the entryway and yelled, “David!” Regardless of what he found outside, he wanted the lad and that black-haired she-devil secured in a chamber above.
It took several breaths before David arrived in the hall holding a rag to his bleeding head with one hand and pulling a woman along with the other. Unfortunately, the woman was not the Lady Rhian.
The pain started in Gareth’s temples and quickly rushed to settle directly above his nose. He squeezed his eyes closed and wondered if this was what the moment before death would feel like. A sudden pain and visions of his life running through his mind.
He opened his eyes and waited for David to explain, praying silently that the explanation would not be what he feared.
“Milord Faucon.” The squire stopped just out of arm’s reach. “She hit me.” His high-pitched voice gave hint to his lingering surprise. “With a kettle pot. She hit me.” He pulled the woman before him. “And this…this one here tripped me so I couldn’t catch the lady.”
“Lady?” The older woman shook her wrist out of David’s grasp. “Why, she be no lady. Just another kitchen wench.” Her laughter sounded more like a cackling hen. The sound grated on Gareth’s already throbbing head.
She finally ceased the irritating noise and looked at him. “Your boy here will make a fine soldier.” The woman’s sarcastic tone was lost on no one. “He was so busy eyeing the other girls that he failed to see the pot coming.”
David sought to hide his flaming face by staring at his toes. However, tipping his head down did nothing to hide his reddening ears.
Gareth spared David a well-deserved tongue-lashing. In truth, the fault was his own. He should not have sent a lad to do a man’s job. What made him think that David would actually use his sword on Lady Rhian? While the lad was tried in battle, he had not the experience to handle a headstrong woman. A lesson his squire was learning the hard way.
For now, he glared first at David, then at the older woman. “That kitchen maid is Lady Rhian of Gervaise.” When the woman’s expression didn’t register surprise, Gareth narrowed his eyes further. “As well you were aware…ah, forgive me, but your name seems to have escaped me.”
“Hawise.” Sir Hector provided the answer. “She is in charge of the kitchen help.”
“I didn’t know for certain she were a lady.” Hawise’s whine intensified as she twisted the skirt of her gown between her fingers. “I only guessed.”
Gareth pointed at Hawise. “If you would like to retain your position in this keep, you will take David here and the two of you will find Lady Rhian and escort her to my chamber.”
“Chamber, milord?” Hector croaked.
Gareth spared only a brief glance for the man. “Aye. You heard me correctly. A chamber. One with a door that can be barred.”
David shuffled his feet. “Milord Faucon, how…”
Gareth raised his hand, cutting off the squire’s question. “Two of the other men will assist you.” He couldn’t believe he’d said that. The idea that it would take four people to retrieve one woman was unthinkable—unless of course that woman was the Lady Rhian.
A maid cleaning up broken earthenware from the floor caught his attention. Against all common sense he revised his order. “Four of the other men will assist you.”
He turned and left his men to argue over the honor of helping David and Hawise. He was certain the losers would demand their weight in drink or gold by the morrow.
A matter he’d concern himself with later. At this moment there were other matters to attend—like discovering how ten men disappeared.
The crisp night wind buffeted him as he crossed the foot planks and stepped onto the wallwalk. Colder than normal, it sent a foreboding shiver down his spine.
Gareth shook off the unfamiliar feeling and surveyed the yard below. Torchlight glinted off the forms of those already searching for the missing guards. Not a single nook or corner would be left undisturbed.
A figure too small to pass for one of the men darted across the yard. When the semiconcealed form disappeared into the shadow of the stable, Gareth took chase. She’d not escape that easily.
Rhian pulled the hood of her mantle more tightly around her face and ducked into a narrow crevice between the stable and the wall. She knew from the shouts of the men that they were on a mission to find something. She just hadn’t determined what that something was as yet. Nor did she truly care. She had her own mission—to escape Faucon.
Not only Faucon, but the King and any who would seek to deliver her into the hands of her kinsmen. For ten and nine years her mother’s beloved family had not so much as acknowledged her existence.
Rhian knew little about them. Only what had been whispered behind her back. It was rumored that they were spawned from the devil. Now, after her father’s death, they sought her return to their fold. They sought to marry her to one of their kind.
She’d sooner die.
Her father had raised her alone and they’d managed quite well without her mother’s family all these years. Somehow, Rhian knew she’d find a way to manage without them now.
After taking a deep breath she hazarded a quick glance around the corner of the stable. Rhian swallowed her curse. Of all the bad luck.
She ducked back into the crevice. Pressing her back against the wall she prayed that Faucon had not seen her. With the direction her luck had taken of late, she’d sooner count on cunning.
If she could not cross in front of the stable to reach the gate, she’d slip behind the building. She inched along the stable, away from the bailey, farther into the darkness. Her foot hit something solid, stopping her escape.
Rhian pushed against the object to no avail. Unwilling to give up the building’s protection, she reached down to shove the blockage out of the way. Her fingertips met stiffening flesh.
She squatted. Gingerly patting the object, she identified the form as a body—a lifeless body. Her father’s love of battle had made her well familiar with dead bodies. Continued exploration revealed chain mail covered in a sticky substance she guessed would prove to be blood.
She scraped her hand across the dirt, seeking to remove the blood before wiping her palm and fingers with the edge of her mantle.
Short of saying a quick prayer, there was nothing she could do for the man. So she rose and stepped over him. Only to trod on what she knew would prove to be another body.
Fear slithered through her limbs. Not of the dead, for they could bring her no harm, but of the killer. What if he, or they, was still about? Rhian’s stomach twisted. Suddenly, the idea of slipping into the total darkness behind the stable held little appeal.
“Nay,” she whispered to calm her racing imagination. The corpses were cold and nearly stiff, surely they were murdered some time ago. Perhaps while everyone else drank and made merry in the hall.
She