Never Love a Lord (Foxe Sisters) Read online

  “Mmm,” Julian said with a smile and drew her near once more. “That sounds promising.” Lucy obviously took the lady’s proximity to mean that she was being transferred, and threw herself happily at Sybilla, who laughed and awkwardly caught the baby before drawing her head against her cheek.

  Then she did give Julian a smile. She opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by one of the gate guards entering the hall and striding toward them. Sybilla slid from his embrace and stepped a respectable distance away.

  “Milady,” the man said, stopping before the dais with a bow. “Lord Griffin’s men have returned.”

  Sybilla’s head turned swiftly toward him, and Julian did not bother with trying to hide his shock.

  “Erik, you mean?”

  “Sir Erik, yes, but also the soldiers. All of them,” the man clarified stiffly, glancing at Sybilla. “They said you were expecting them.”

  Julian could feel Sybilla’s wariness from where she stood. “No, I told him I would send word in a month, not to come before then.” He looked to Sybilla. “I wasn’t expecting them,” he said in a low voice, knowing how this must look to her. “I can’t deny them, though—it would greatly arouse suspicion, and we aren’t ready.”

  Sybilla regarded the soldier with tense resignation. “Open the gates, give the soldiers entry. Bring Lord Griffin’s general to him.”

  “At once, milady.” The soldier bowed and then was away again.

  Julian turned to her, ready to receive the storm of her accusations, but she was grim, determined, even as she rubbed Lucy’s back in comforting circles. “If all the men are inside the walls, perhaps there will be fewer to see us leave.” She jiggled the baby on her hip and looked into her face. “Isn’t that right, Lady Lucy? They shall never see us.”

  “Nah-nah-nah!”

  Julian stared at Sybilla for a moment, speechless. “Thank you for believing me.”

  She stared back, then shrugged as if it were nothing. “I keep my promises. They were coming in, any matter. Better at my request than not.”

  The men must have been waiting just beyond the doors, or else they came running at being granted entrance, for in the next moment, Erik and one other man Julian was only vaguely familiar with entered the hall, a pair of Sybilla’s guards following them closely.

  Erik did not look happy, and so Julian called out to him. “Ho, Erik, what brings you here without my summons? And who is this in your company?”

  Erik’s jaw was set, his words spoken between clenched teeth. “This is not my doing, Julian.”

  The stranger stepped forward. “Lord Julian Griffin and Lady Sybilla Foxe?” he demanded.

  “Yes,” Julian said, his patience wearing thin. “And just who the bloody hell are you?”

  The man pulled a rolled parchment from his vest and unfurled it, clearing his throat before reading aloud. “It is hereby proclaimed that Lord Julian Griffin is wanted by the Crown, Our Sovereign Lord, King Edward, under charges of aiding and abetting a traitor to the Crown, and conspiring to commit treason.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Julian shouted.

  The man turned to Sybilla, who was now holding Lucy close to her face, breathing in the simple scent of the child while her heart pounded in her chest.

  “Lady Sybilla Foxe, upon grounds of treason, espionage, and insubordination to the Crown, you are both hereby placed under arrest. It is my duty to accompany you to the king for your immediate trial.” The man rolled up the parchment and looked at them both. “How do you answer?”

  “How do I answer?” Julian demanded. “Fuck off, is how I answer! Erik, what is the meaning of this?”

  “ ’Twas Murrin,” Erik answered stiffly, his eyes only flicking to Sybilla. “She was only pretending at being ill, Julian. She thought she was protecting you and Lucy. Perhaps she is.”

  “Murrin?” Julian repeated incredulously, and then his brows lowered further as he caught Erik’s insinuation. “You don’t know anything about it, Erik.”

  Then the nagging sensation that something was missing, which Sybilla had felt since last night in Julian’s bed, found its answer. The miniature portrait of Amicia and Sybil de Lairne. She’d had it in her hand the first night she’d come to Julian’s bed, but she’d never seen it again and thought she had simply misplaced it. But the next day had been when Murrin came upon Sybilla and Julian and Lucy in the solar, when Julian had suggested marriage to her.

  The solar with the door that had been open at the time.

  Murrin had left Fallstowe that day.

  “How do you answer, Lady Foxe?” the man demanded of her.

  “I’ll answer you naught, you lowly hoof-scraping,” she said, pleased when the man’s frown turned threatening. He began to reach for his side. “If you take one step toward me whilst I hold this child, I will cut you from your tiny little cock to your Adam’s apple, wherefore shortly thereafter you will have the unique experience of holding your own guts in your hands. I will give my answer to Edward and to him alone. If he wants me so badly, then he shall have me.”

  “You’d better watch your tongue, lady,” the man growled, although his face had paled.

  “And you’d better watch your back,” she informed him coolly.

  It must have been at that moment that the man felt the sword point between his shoulder blades, for his eyebrows rose and he held his hands out to his sides in a gesture of surrender. Erik stepped away, drawing his weapon.

  Graves leaned to the side slightly so as to address Sybilla from around the king’s man. “Spot of trouble, Madam?”

  “Unexpected guests, Graves,” Sybilla said, jostling Lucy, who had begun to cry.

  The threatened soldier spoke loudly, his fear evident in his words. “If you kill me, all the lives in this hall are forfeit!”

  At her side Julian spoke low. “Run?”

  Sybilla considered it. But she knew they were surrounded by soldiers who were no longer under Julian’s command. They were inside the gates, the keep surrounded. If they ran, and if they were caught, they would both be killed on sight.

  Sybilla felt Lucy’s weight most heavily in her arms.

  There will come a time when you will see that what I say is true. When you love someone so much that it does not matter what happens to yourself or anyone else. You will lie or steal or kill to see them safe.

  There will come a time, and you will see.

  “I will go willingly,” Sybilla answered.

  “Sybilla, no!” Julian hissed.

  “But,” she said, ignoring Julian’s protests, “the child will not. There will be none to care for her. She shall stay with her nursemaid.”

  “I will not leave Lucy,” Julian growled. He stepped toward Sybilla, pulling his daughter from her arms.

  The guard still at the mercy of Graves’s sword argued. “This is some ploy. The child goes, as well.”

  “What do you think her to do, you cheese-headed oaf? Incite a rebellion? She’s an infant. And as none of your proclamations place her under arrest, she is in no better hands than here at Fallstowe.”

  “No, Sybilla,” Julian said. “I can’t—”

  “Julian,” she said in a low, cool, calm voice. “I have trusted you. Would that you show me the same courtesy.”

  “She’s my child,” Julian pleaded in a cracking voice.

  She looked at him then, clutching the baby in his arms, his face a mask of fury and fear.

  “She was to be my child, too,” she breathed. “You will see your daughter again.”

  She saw Julian swallow. Then he hesitantly nodded.

  Sybilla looked back to the guard. “If you agree that the child shall remain at Fallstowe to be cared for, I will go willingly to London, and none of your men will be attacked. If you refuse, I will send up the battle cry.” She paused. “You may have a bloodless victory, or fantastic carnage. Your choice.”

  The man frowned furiously at her, but then nodded. “Very well. I give you my word. Call off your man and send f
or the child’s nurse.”

  Sybilla nodded toward her steward, and Graves lowered his sword and took a step away from the man.

  “Nurse?” she said pleasantly, pointedly.

  Graves stepped forward, both hands clasped over the hilt of the sword still hanging in front of him. “You called, Madam?”

  “What kind of nonsense is this?” the soldier demanded. “You expect me to believe that this old corpse is a baby’s nurse?”

  Sybilla raised her eyebrows at the man. “Would you agree, sir, that it is a fact that Lady Lucy’s original nurse, a girl named Murrin, is no longer at Fallstowe?”

  The man frowned. “Yes, that is true, I suppose, but still—an old man?”

  “Graves is the most trusted servant Fallstowe has ever known.” She looked to Graves and hoped that the love she felt for him was evident in her eyes. “There is no one better to protect Lord Griffin’s child in his absence.” She nodded toward Julian. “Go on, Graves,” she ordered softly.

  It took the old man a moment to walk to the dais steps and gain the platform. Then he laid his sword down carefully upon the lord’s table and turned to Julian, his wrinkled and knobby fingers outstretched.

  “Would you come with me, please, Lady Lucy?”

  The baby stared wide-eyed at the old man and shrank back against Julian for a moment.

  “Graves . . .” Julian said in a choked voice, and then halted as if unable to speak further.

  Sybilla barely heard the old man’s query to Julian.

  “Think you this is the first precious daughter placed in my care, Lord Julian?”

  Julian kissed Lucy’s head firmly three, four times and then handed the baby to the old steward.

  Graves turned away, the baby still regarding him with wide eyes. “Let us go find a nipple, shall we?” he said soothingly, and his eyes met Sybilla’s when he passed her.

  Sybilla hoped he would hear her. Send him after me tonight.

  He nodded once at her, the motion so slight that no one save Sybilla would ever have noticed.

  And then he was gone.

  Julian turned to face the hall aggressively as the king’s man stepped forward with chains. Erik refused the pair offered to him, obviously intended for Julian.

  “Never,” Erik said, his chin lifted. “Not under the threat of death.”

  Sybilla did not look at Julian again as her dagger was removed from her side, the cold bite of chain fastened around her ankles and wrists.

  There will come a time, and you will see.

  The time had come. And Sybilla saw.

  Within moments, the men who followed Erik had laid hands to Julian’s trunks and his thick leather portfolio, filled with the history he’d collected about the Foxe family. He and Sybilla had waited in the hall, both shackled in a primitive manner on opposite sides of the room. She would not meet his eyes. And she spoke not another word to anyone.

  Outside the hall, though, the bailey was in pure chaos.

  Word had spread quickly from the household that Madam was being taken from them, although Fallstowe’s soldiers made no move to attack the tight ring of the king’s men who made a living corridor for the prisoners to walk through.

  The servants and villagers felt no fealty to the king’s men, however, and they pushed against them in a mighty, furious wave, shouting obscenities, hurling eggs and dung at the royal soldiers. Sybilla did not acknowledge them with the slightest glance, only walked calmly between her personal guards—one to each side and one to the fore and aft. Julian noticed that none of the men dared touch her.

  Likely very wise.

  Julian followed, an officer to either side of him. At the end of the avenue of soldiers, a strange, fortified conveyance waited, with a soldier posted on each side of the open door. It was a wooden carriage of sorts, but the planked sides had been bolted over with close strips of thick iron, the windows barred. A team of six sturdy horses had been harnessed together tightly to pull the monstrosity. Julian had to laugh out loud when he saw the crucifixes fastened to each face of the imposing-looking rolling dungeon.

  Then Sybilla did glance over her shoulder at him. “Flattering,” she said with a smirk.

  “No talking,” the man to her left shouted, and made the mistake of shoving Sybilla’s shoulder roughly.

  She did nothing more than pivot her head quickly toward him, but in the next instant the man was lying on his back in the dirt. Fallstowe’s citizenry went mad, pelting the man with rocks and manure until he cried out in a panic and was helped to his feet by his fellow soldiers.

  Sybilla ignored it all, stepping up into the carriage awkwardly, no man daring to give her assistance after what had just happened to their comrade.

  The soldiers quickly moved to shut the door, even as her skirts slid inside, and Julian watched as a series of three locks along the seam of the doorjamb—all as big and thick as his own fist—were latched with loud clicks. Then a chain was dragged through two loops across the width of the door itself and secured.

  Julian was afforded his own mount, although he would have much preferred accompanying Sybilla in the ridiculous wheeled prison. The chains around his ankles were removed, but his wrists were left bound. It was more than he expected, especially since Erik had already departed for London, ahead of the massive wave of soldiers, leaving Julian without his friend.

  They rolled through Fallstowe’s gate and over the drawbridge in a sea of soldiers that seemed to be a mile long; one small woman the remote island in the very middle of it all.

  Julian saw two men astride some distance away, watching the passing mob of boots and swords and banners. He looked closely.

  One of them had the blocky silhouette of Piers Mallory, Lord of Gillwick; the other, Julian could only assume, must be Oliver Bellecote.

  Julian did not signal to them in any way, only turned his head forward and rocked in the saddle. He trusted Sybilla, and so he would trust these men that she had deemed worthy of her sisters. They would be completely loyal to her—Sybilla would accept nothing less, and she gave nothing less to those whom she loved.

  For some reason, that realization stirred an uneasy feeling in Julian’s stomach.

  Chapter 22

  Sybilla’s conveyance was abysmally loud and uncomfortable, but that suited her. The jarring motion of the racing carriage made it impossible for any of the guards riding alongside to keep a clear watch over her through the tiny, obstructed windows, and the outrageous clamor masked the sounds of her exploration of the carriage’s interior construction.

  Even the floor was sheeted over with hammered metal, bolted to the frame and impervious to any tool she might have been able to procure; which, of course, she hadn’t. The window frames were solid, reinforced. The door didn’t so much as shudder as the carriage careened over the rutted road. The roof, she had seen upon entering the vehicle, held no hatch.

  The benches to the front and rear of the carriage were upholstered, though, and so Sybilla began prying at the tacked edge under the front cushion, a lip of perhaps two inches, using her fingernails to pick at the material until she had pulled a small strip of it loose. She poked a finger into the hole and felt through the scratchy straw and woolen batting until she found the bench frame beneath. Wood, with a small gap where the seat and front facing met.

  Sybilla smiled and rose to her knees on the hard metal floor. She hooked the fingertips of both hands under the lip of the bench and pulled with all her strength. The seat did not budge, and as the carriage hit a particularly deep hole, Sybilla was thrown onto her shoulder.

  She grimaced and pulled herself aright again, this time sitting on her bottom. She turned her right hand palm up, and laid it under the bottom edge of the lip, and then curled her back to fit the cusp of her right shoulder against the back of her palm. She braced her feet against the opposite bench and threw herself upward against the seat. It creaked, almost imperceptibly on her first try, and so she did it again. And again. The three smallest fingers of her right
hand felt as though they would shatter.

  Perhaps it was after her tenth go at it that the seat bench lifted; sturdy, square iron nails pulling halfway from their moorings. Sybilla gave a huff of relief and quickly gained her knees. She peered through the gap created and was shocked to see the carriage’s front axle turning beneath her. Wasting no time, she once more grabbed the lip of the bench with her fingertips and pulled.

  The seat pulled free easily this time, like opening the lid of a trunk, and Sybilla was rewarded with the sight of the brown dirt road spinning away beneath the carriage, dust and rocks tumbling furiously. One such rock chose that moment to hurl itself through the bench opening, whizzing past Sybilla’s face and missing her eye by a breath. It clattered around inside the carriage for a moment like a wild arrow, then fell to the floor near her left calf. Sybilla lowered the bench seat most of the way with one hand and picked up the rock with the other.

  It was a wonder it hadn’t killed her. Oblong, the length of her palm, the rock could have been a rough-hewn end for a primitive spear, its edges thinned and chipped by years and years of hooves and wheels. She turned it over in her palm and looked at it for a moment, then slid it behind the rear upholstered edge of the opposite bench, between the seat and the back wall.

  Then Sybilla lowered the seat bench back to its usual placement and climbed upon it.

  Now she would wait. Wait, and try not to think about anything at all.

  The whole of Edward’s army departed Fallstowe. Oliver was surprised they hadn’t left at least some soldiers behind to secure the castle for the king, but Piers had suggested otherwise.

  “Fallstowe folk would have seen them all dead before the last man crested yon hills.”

  Alys’s husband was right, of course. With Sybilla gone, it would be no great task to return the king’s army to Fallstowe and overthrow any of the men who—now leaderless—thought to resist. Sybilla was Fallstowe. Without her, there was nothing to fight for.

  And Oliver wanted to fight.

  He and Piers gained entrance to the gates without incident, the fighting men and villagers obviously relieved to see them. Oliver and Piers put them off, though, making their way straight to the hall, seeking the one who would know what Sybilla wanted them to do.