Page 66 of Hers To Command
Toft, in charge of this party, regarded Lady Mathilde with understandable surprise and curiosity. Her face so pale and drawn, she looked like a ghost, except that her snapping, determined eyes were very much alive.
Not quite sure what he ought to do, Toft scratched his head, then his grizzled chin. This didn’t seem right at all. Where would she be going? Shouldn’t she be doing whatever it was a lady did while her castle was besieged?
“Please open the gate,” Lady Mathilde repeated, this time more forcefully.
Toft shifted his feet and glanced at his men, who were now all wide-awake and equally baffled.
“Did you not hear me?” the lady asked with a sharp impatience Toft knew well. “I said, open the gate.”
“You can’t mean it, my lady,” he protested, wishing Cerdic or Sir Henry were here instead of him. “It ain’t safe outside the castle.”
And Sir Henry or Cerdic would have his head on a platter if she got hurt or killed because he opened the gate and let her go.
Her expression softened, and she stepped closer, speaking to him confidentially and as if he were her equal. “Have no fear. I go with Sir Henry’s knowledge and permission. His brother and some men from Dunkeathe are coming up the river from the sea and I go to meet them. I will be safe because Lord Nicholas has sent an escort for me.”
That still didn’t sound right, Toft thought. Who was this brother to be trusted with the safety of their lady, anyway? “You should have a guard from Ecclesford, too,” he said. “How be some of these lads—”
The lady’s eyes flashed a warning that she was losing her patience. “You would have me insult Lord Nicholas by implying that I didn’t think he or his men could protect me?”
Toft didn’t particularly care what some unknown nobleman thought. He was far more concerned about what Sir Henry or Cerdic would say if he let her walk into danger. “How be I send for Cerdic, eh, my lady?”
“I don’t think Cerdic will be pleased to be summoned for nothing. He has quite enough to concern him now. I will be perfectly safe,” she assured Toft. “Lord Nicholas’s men will meet me not ten feet from the postern gate.”
Toft felt powerless beneath her steadfast gaze. She was his lady, and if he disobeyed and Lord Nicholas was indeed waiting…
“Open it up,” he ordered the grizzled soldier closest to the lock.
“Thank you,” the lady said with a regal nod of her head as Erick eased the gate open. She glided out into the darkness and down the steps leading to the river, the small wharf, and the path along the riverbank.
When the gate closed behind her, Erick looked at Toft, frowning.
“Aye, I don’t like it neither,” Toft muttered in response to Erick’s silent query, and that of the other men around him.
He nodded at the youngest of the guards. “Herbert, go find Cerdic and tell him what just happened. Wake him up if you have to.”
Herbert nodded and did as he was told.
AS HERBERTwas seeking Cerdic, Mathilde was running as fast as she could toward the village, and Roald. She was well aware that Toft hadn’t believed her explanation, but hadn’t felt confident enough to deny her. She suspected he would try to find out if he’d erred by letting her go, perhaps even going to Cerdic himself. If he did that, she didn’t have much time. Fortunately, the half-moon was bright enough to light this familiar way. She and Cerdic had gone along the path beside the riverbank many times, sneaking away from the castle by day or at night, full of mischief and unheeding of Giselle’s gentle pleas that they stay behind with her. How cruel she’d been to Giselle in those days, how unthinking and selfish.
The stars above twinkled in the darkness, looking as they always did. As they had after that horrid night with Roald, when she marveled that the heavens could look just the same, as if nothing at all had happened.
A bush rustled nearby. She turned—and in the next instant, and with a hand over her mouth, she was dragged into the shadows, kicking and struggling with all her might.
Panic and terror coursed through her like the swash of the sea. Fear and desperation, too—but this time, she’d been tensely expectant, not caught off guard, anticipating only gentle kisses and caresses.
She bit down hard on the hand covering her mouth and when the man let go—for it was a man’s rough, calloused hand—she shoved him back and ran.
Her attacker, dressed in a Scot’s belted plaid, threw himself at her, catching her around the waist and bringing her down hard onto the soft verge of the path.
She twisted and squirmed, struggled and scratched. But she couldn’t get away. The young man was too big, too strong. He grabbed her by her cloak and hauled her to her feet. He had long hair like Henry and was handsome, too, and for one wonderful, wild moment, she hoped her lie was no lie—that this was his brother from Scotland come to help her. “Are you from Dunkeathe?” she gasped.
Still holding her tightly, the man frowned, and she realized he was too young to be Henry’s older brother. “No, I’m no’ from Dunkeathe,” he said sternly. “Where do ye think ye’re goin’? Can you no’ see the fires o’ that camp, woman? Ye’re walking right toward men who’ll do ye harm.” He ran his gaze over her garments as he let her go. “Unless ye’re a whore, get out o’ here.”
“I’m not a whore!”
“Didna think so. Ye’d best go back to yon castle while ye can.”
With a terrible sinking feeling, and in spite of his apparent concern for her safety, she realized this could only be one of Roald’s mercenaries. She steeled herself and faced him squarely, as she was determined to face Roald. “I am the Lady Mathilde of Ecclesford,” she announced, trusting that her rank and relationship with her detested cousin would prevent this man from doing her any harm. “Take me to Roald de Sayres.”
