The Loyal Heart Read online

  “Are you all mad?” Ethan barked. Aubrey couldn’t decide if he was exceptionally brave or if the desert heat had cooked his brain. “No king will tolerate rebellion, and make no mistake, that is what this is. If you throw your lot in with a cowering knave like Prince John you will all be punished.”

  Buxton’s face flickered into an hollow grin. He arched an eyebrow at Crispin. “Give a man enough rope….” He sneered before rounding on Ethan. “I’m sorry, but did you just call the Prince a cowering knave?” Aubrey’s hands and feet went numb and her instinct took over as she searched for an escape route. “You, Ethan of Windale, so-called champion of England. Correct me if I’m wrong, but did you just call a member of the royal family, son of our great, departed King Henry, a coward? Who’s committing treason now, eh?” His voice hardened and Aubrey reached for the sword she didn’t wear. “We don’t tolerate treason here!” Buxton declared. “Guards! Arrest him!”

  Two guards stepped forward from their posts against the wall and seized Ethan before he could react. They yanked him towards the small side door that the servants used as the crowd of nobles parted. “You can’t do this, Buxton!” Ethan kicked and fought every step.

  “Mmm, actually I can.” Buxton smiled at him as they passed under the gallery. “Bye-bye!”

  Aubrey tried to step forward as Ethan was dragged towards the door, but the pandemonium of the nobles jostled her to the side. Ethan shouted a protest until one of the guards pounded him hard in the stomach, doubling him over. She shouted with wordless anger and tried to push her way through the crowd after him as he was dragged from the room. She got as far as the stairs before turning in time to see Crispin descending. Sucking in a hopeful breath she changed tactics and flew up the stairs to meet him.

  “Aubrey,” he blinked as she rushed him.

  “Crispin.” She managed his name only before having to clutch a hand to her chest and catch her breath.

  “I’m sorry you had to witness that unfortunate display.” Crispin reached for her arm and ushered her back to the floor of the hall.

  She swallowed her incredulity and turned imploring eyes to him. Guilt over what she was about to do tightened her chest. She stepped in closer to him, tilting her head up and pressing herself against his side. She felt the warmth of his body lean towards her. “Crispin, I need your help.” She batted her eyelashes. “Can you take me to the dungeon?”

  She could see instantly she’d said the wrong thing. He stepped away and refused to meet her eyes. “Why would you want to go there?”

  Aubrey let out a breath. Damn him for making her feel like a heel. “They can’t just take Ethan like that and lock him up. He’s a nobleman.”

  “A dispossessed nobleman has few rights.” Crispin’s eyes snapped to meet hers. “Believe me. I know. Windale has spoken treason.”

  She bit her lip and grasped his arm with both hands. “But Ethan is not a traitor. He is loyal to the king. That’s all.”

  Sharp color splashed his pale face. “You may not want to hear this, Aubrey, but being loyal to an absent king is not a good thing.”

  The full emotion in her eyes shifted from fretful to irritated at his words. She dropped his arm and her charade. “Loyalty to the true king is always a good thing, Sir Crispin,” she scolded. “A fact you seem to have forgotten.”

  She could see the stinging impact of her words as his head whipped away. “I am loyal, Aubrey.”

  “Oh? To what? To Buxton? I know he pays you well for your loyalty.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth she knew she had gone too far. Crispin’s shoulders hardened as if she had slapped his face. She let out a sharp breath. Why did he have to provoke her like this and fill her with such frustration and pity and dig up old wounds. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t fair.” She squeezed her eyes shut and balled her fists at her side. “Look, I just want to go home.” He still wouldn’t look at her. She was furious with herself for wanting him to look at her.

  “I’ll escort you to the stables,” he offered, voice hoarse.

  “No.” She shook her head. “Don’t bother.”

  She turned and stormed off, hoping that he wouldn’t follow. She glanced over her shoulder at him anyhow. He had started back up to the gallery where Buxton was accepting congratulations from the nobles. She sighed in frustration. Instead of trying to muscle her way across the room to the door Ethan had been dragged out of she marched towards the main entrance.

  The energy of the Great Hall spilled out into the hallway where one or two groups of gossips tried to engage her in their buzzing. She shrugged her way through them and glared at the cold stone floor as she headed towards a quieter hallway. Once well away from any prying eyes she turned a corner into a narrow stairway and pummeled the wall with her clenched fist.

  “Men!” She sat hard on the dim, chilly stairs and planted her head in her hands, elbows on her knees. The last place Ethan needed to be was the dungeon. The last place Geoffrey needed to be was sulking at home. And the last place Crispin needed to be was tied to Buxton’s hip. Her back itched to pry them all out of the tangles they’d gotten themselves into. But the thought of being the only one to take decisive action made her ache with exhaustion.

  “Lady Aubrey? Oh thank heavens! There you are!” Aubrey was jolted out of her thoughts as Toby rushed around the corner. “I’ve been searching everywhere for you. Huntingdon said you went home but your horse is still in the stable.” He paused and hunched over a stitch in his side as she dragged herself to stand. “My master is in the dungeon?” His question turned into an exclamation and he couldn’t stand still as he waited for her to answer.

  “Yes.” Aubrey pressed her hands to her eyes. “He couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”

  “He never could,” Toby exhaled and winced. “Never. At the pub, in the camp. Any time someone says something he doesn’t agree with he has to make himself heard. If I’ve told him once I’ve told him every day, ‘My lord, sometimes you just need to hold your tongue’. But does he listen to me? No.”

  As Toby babbled Aubrey smiled in spite of herself. “You do a good job, Toby.”

  “I do not!” he argued with her. Her eyebrows shot up. “I let him be wounded in the Holy Land. I let him run off in the first place! I never should have let him do that. And now I leave him alone in Derby Castle for five minutes and he’s gone and gotten himself thrown in the dungeon.” He shook his head and paced in front of her, rubbing his forehead. “I can’t believe I let this happen.”

  “It’s not your fault, Toby!” Aubrey didn’t know whether to laugh at him or shake sense into him. “Ethan has always been….”

  “I know!” Toby puffed out a sigh. “And now look!”

  “Well, there’s nothing for it. We’ll just have to spring him.”

  “Right, we’ll just have to – what?”

  She grinned at her snap plan, energy renewed. “We’ll have to get him out of the dungeon. Right now.”

  Chapter Three

  Ethan ground his teeth as he was dragged from the Great Hall and along dingy passages to the dungeon. The fist in his gut had proven to him that it was pointless to resist. For now. He would go quietly, but if they expected him to stay quiet they had another thing coming.

  The guards shoved him around a corner and into a low-ceilinged alcove carved into the bedrock of the castle’s foundation. Flickering torches provided the only light and two sentries stood looking bored and menacing.

  As one of his guards stepped ahead to the last cell, unlocking it and swinging open the heavy door, an energetic voice with a common accent echoed, “Oy! It can’t be sundown already! We just ate lunch, mate!”

  “Shut up!” the guard growled and shoved the ginger-haired man who had spoken, knocking him on his backside before tossing Ethan into the cell with him. He slammed the door shut, turned the lock with an ominous click, and laughed, “Enjoy your new accommodations, Sir Ethan.”

  Ethan lunged at the door and slammed his first against the splintering wood i
n time to see the guards disappear around the corner.

  “Sir Ethan?” The ginger-haired man rose to his feet and brushed off his filthy shirt. “Oy, did that guard call you a sir, mate?”

  Ethan turned to the man and glared. “Yes,” he snapped. “You have a problem with that?”

  “Nope.” The man’s gray eyes twinkled. “I’m just glad they weren’t coming to drag us out to the gallows, you know?” He nodded to the cell’s other inhabitant, a dark-haired man sitting against the far wall with his arms clutching his knees and his head down. “Not ‘til sundown.”

  Ethan sized up the man. The last thing he needed distracting him was a peasant who didn’t know his place. The man’s moustache and pointed goatee were growing wild and his clothes stank, but he stood as though he smelled of roses and had all the time in the world to enjoy it. Ethan’s gaze traveled past him to the man on the floor. He bore a distinct resemblance to the cocky peasant but with darker hair and long, slender hands. “What happens at sundown?”

  “We hang,” the ginger-haired man shrugged.

  Ethan sighed and turned to grip the bars on the door, shaking them to test their solidity. “You seem uncommonly at ease for a man about to hang.”

  “Can’t do nothin’ ‘bout it.” He pushed himself away from the wall and took a step towards Ethan, hand outstretched. “Jack Tanner,” he introduced himself, “Condemned man.” He nodded over his shoulder to the corner. “My brother Tom.”

  Ethan turned and stared at Jack’s hand before taking it. Jack had a confident grip. He nodded to Tom, who had glanced up when his name was mentioned. “Ethan of Windale.” He hesitated as the conversation with Aubrey and Huntingdon came back to him. “So you’re the horse thieves from Shropshire?”

  “One in the same,” Jack tilted his head in acknowledgement. The humor in his eyes was mingled with sharp offence. “Though if you ask me it hardly counts as thievin’ when you’re takin’ back what’s yours to begin with.”

  Ethan reassessed the peasant. He carried an air of casual indifference but underneath the façade was solid, serious bitterness. “So if you’re not a horse thief what are you?”

  “Jack Tanner, mate.” He shook his head at Ethan and sniffed. “Tanner. What do you think we do? Gah!” He turned and strode to the far wall, leaning against it and drawling to his brother, “Oy, he may have land ‘n all but he’s never very clever.”

  Ethan bristled and opened his mouth to put Jack in his place but was stopped when Tom lunged to his feet. “I’m sorry, sir.” His voice was deeper than his brother’s and his manner more respectful. “He didn’t mean it.”

  “’Course I meant it,” Jack muttered, but his stance relaxed when his brother sprang to life. He shot a quick look to Ethan.

  Ethan caught the concern in the hot-tempered man’s eyes. He hesitated, then said, “No offense taken, Tom,” meeting Jack’s eyes again to show he was clever enough to understand what he was up to. Jack wasn’t impressed.

  Tom worked up the courage to continue. “We’re from Wellington, sir. Our father was the village tanner. We were apprenticed to him. Until he died. Times got hard and when we couldn’t pay the taxes they took our horse.”

  “Yeah,” Jack added. “And we took her back.”

  “Tried to take her back,” Tom mumbled.

  “Until someone tripped and we got caught.” Jack raised a pointed eyebrow at his brother.

  Ethan shook his head. “One horse? Huntingdon told us it was six.”

  Jack snorted. “Six! Oy, that’s rich. The legend grows.” He laughed and lounged against the wall. “No, mate, it was one natty old nag with a lame leg that we couldn’t even ride.”

  Ethan scowled and clenched his jaw. So much for the theory that Buxton only executed hardened criminals for enjoyment. The two men that stood in front of him were no more criminals than … than Aubrey when she put on her disguise and took to the forest. “This is intolerable,” he muttered up to the ceiling.

  “Oy, you’re tellin’ me!” Jack agreed.

  Ethan began pacing a circle around the tiny room. “This isn’t the shire I left behind.”

  “Yeah, well it’s the shire you got now, mate,” Jack told him.

  “Where did you go?” Tom asked, gaze following Ethan’s every move.

  “To fight with King Richard in the Holy Land.”

  “You’ve been to the Holy Land?”

  “Yes,” Ethan replied, much good that it did him now.

  Tom’s eyes were wide. “Have you seen the king?”

  “Oh here we go.” Jack threw up his hands.

  “I have.” Ethan glared at Jack. “I even spoke with him once.” He could have told Tom that he flew up to the sun and brought back a sack of magic for all the glitter in the young man’s eyes. It made him writhe with frustration. “If only he were here now,” he growled, beginning to pace again. “He would right this injustice. He would give me my land back.”

  Jack barked out a short laugh. “You gonna send him a letter asking for our immediate release?” he drawled. “Oy, think it’ll get an answer before sundown? ‘Cuz I hate to break it to you, mate, but we don’t got time to sit around and wait for a war to end.”

  “I know.” Ethan frowned. He turned to face the door. The alcove was dark and quiet but he knew the sentries at the entrance were still at their posts. He could just make out the outlines of their shoulders. There were only two guards and three of them. Those were good odds if they could just get the door open. He grabbed the bars with both hands and shook them, hoping they would come lose.

  “Right. That’s gonna work,” Jack commented from the back of the cell as one of the guards hollered, “Shut up, you!”

  Ethan exhaled and turned to him. “Well you could help.”

  “I’m sorry, mate, but we’ve tried everythin’. I mean everythin’. We’ve been in here for a week and that door ain’t movin’, the guards are heavily armed, and the food is rubbish.”

  Ethan blinked at the streak of humor. “Probably literally,” he added, his boyish grin coming out of nowhere. Jack smiled. Tom looked to Ethan with utmost confidence. “I don’t suppose either of you has anything sharp? A knife?”

  Tom shook his head. Jack pushed away from the wall and took a few steps to stand in front of Ethan. “They shoved food through the bars but they don’t open the door. If they open the door, between the three of us we could overpower them.”

  Ethan nodded, surprised that a peasant could be having the same thoughts as him. “We need to come up with a way to convince them to open the door. Maybe if one of us was hurt.”

  “They wouldn’t care about us,” Tom said and lowered his head. “We’re beneath notice.”

  “Oy! Speak for yourself, mate.” Jack shook his head at his brother. “Now, if we was fightin’, that would be a different story.”

  “Fighting?” Ethan repeated, shifting his weight and staring at the man.

  “Yeah,” Jack grinned. “Two horse thieves beatin’ on one ill-fated noble. That’d get them to open up right quick.”

  Ethan wasn’t sure. “I don’t know if they would see it the same way.”

  “But you’re a noble, sir,” Tom protested. “It’s their duty to protect you.”

  Ethan tried to grin at the show of support from Tom. “Alright,” he nodded. “We’ll give it a try. But we have to wait until they think we’ve settled in to our fate.”

  “Well don’t wait too long,” Jack spoke up. “Some of us haven’t got the time that others have.”

  Ethan nodded. He didn’t have the time either.

  Aubrey strolled through the lower halls of the castle like nothing was out of the ordinary, Toby on her heels. She received a few curious stares from the servants, but as long as she acted natural they wouldn’t see anything amiss in one disheveled lady picking through the halls with a bedraggled servant on her heels. They’d made a quick trip to the castle’s armory, an outbuilding beside the stable, to secure weapons. The door had been locked, necess
itating climbing in through the window. She’d managed to rip her kirtle, smear the skirt with dirt, and tangle her loose hair, but she now had one dagger in each boot and a small stiletto up her sleeve. Toby had succeeded in not passing out at her antics. Barely. She considered it an accomplishment on his part.

  He followed her down an eerie spiral staircase that let them out at the end of a dark hallway. Two steps into the hallway he trod on the hem of her dusty dress, ripping it further. “Sorry, my lady.”

  “Ssh!” she hushed him as they started around a corner. She jumped back and Toby nearly plowed into her as she bent to retrieve the daggers from her boots. He tried to crane his neck to see what had her so excited but she held him back. “Toby,” she charged him, smacking one of the daggers into his trembling hand. “Stay quiet. Do as I say. Get in, get out, get home.”

  Cool as the early Spring, Aubrey rounded the corner, swinging her hips and smiling at the two guards sitting at a table beside a low archway. “Good evening, friends,” she used the same coaxing tone she’d tried on Crispin. This time she didn’t feel an ounce of guilt. And this time it worked.

  “Who are you?” The guards shuffled to their feet. One knocked his chair over in his haste to get up. He glanced at her and licked his lips.

  Aubrey sashayed closer. She could feel Toby skittering close behind her. The dagger was heavy in her hands. She closed her fist around it. The guard stepped forward to meet her. “I was just wondering if you might-”

  Before she could finish her sentence she pounded him hard across the jaw, grabbed his shoulders and smashed her knee into his groin. He dropped to the floor like a rock as the other guard blinked in shock. “You-” She didn’t give the second guard time to react before lunging at him and hammering the butt of the dagger against his head. The man collapsed to the floor beside his mate.

  Aubrey took a step back and snorted, shaking her sore hand.