A Kingdom of Dreams

Chapter Sixteen

Nearly every foot of floor space, from the great hall to the kitchens, was covered with sleeping guests and exhausted servants, lying upon whatever they had, or could find, to cushion the hard stones. A chorus of snores rose and fell discordantly throughout the castle, clashing and ebbing like confused, tumultuous waves.

Unaccustomed to the peculiar sounds that disrupted the dark, moonless night, Jenny stirred fitfully in her sleep, then turned her face on the pillow and opened her eyes, startled into a somnambulant wakefulness by some unknown noise or movement in the room.

Her heart racing in confused fright, she blinked, trying to calm her rapid pulse and peer through the inky darkness of her bedchamber. On the low pallet beside Jenny's narrow bed, her aunt turned over. Aunt Elinor, Jenny realized with relief-no doubt Aunt Elinor's movements had awakened her. The poor thing suffered quite often from a stiffness in her joints that made sleeping on a hard pallet preferable to a soft bed, and even then she tossed and turned seeking comfort. Jenny's pulse returned to normal, she rolled onto her back, shivering from a sudden cold blast of air… A scream tore from her chest at the same instant a large hand clamped over her mouth, throttling it. While Jenny stared in paralyzed terror at the dark face only inches above her own, Royce Westmoreland whispered, "If you cry out, I'll knock you senseless." He paused, waiting for Jennifer to recover her wits. "Do you understand me?" he snapped.

Jenny hesitated, swallowed, then nodded jerkily.

"In that case," he began, loosening his grip very slightly. The moment he did, Jennifer sank her teeth into the fleshy part of his palm and flung herself to the left, trying to gain the window and shout to the guards in the bailey below. He grabbed her before her feet left the bed and threw her onto her back, his wounded hand clamping down on her nose and mouth so tightly that she couldn't breath. "That's the second time you've drawn my blood," he bit out between his teeth, his eyes alive with fury. "And 'twill be the last"

He's going to suffocate me! Jenny thought wildly. She shook her head frantically, her eyes wide, her chest straining, heaving for air.

"That's better," he jeered, softly. " 'Tis wise for you to learn to fear me. Now listen to me very carefully, Countess," he continued, ignoring her terrified struggles. "One way or another, I'm going to lower you out that window over there. If you give me one more instant of trouble, you'll be unconscious when I do it, which greatly reduces your chances of reaching the ground alive, since you won't be able to hang on."

He lightened the pressure of his hand just enough for her to drag air into her lungs, but even when she'd gulped down several heaving breaths, Jenny could not stop trembling. "The window!" she mumbled against his muffling hand. "Are you mad? It's more than eighty feet above the moat."

Ignoring that, he fired his most deadly weapon, the threat guaranteed to demolish her resistance. "Arik is holding your sister prisoner, not to be released until I give the signal. If you do anything to prevent me signaling him, I wouldn't like to think what he might do to her."

What little fight Jenny had left within her drained away. This was like reliving a nightmare, and trying to escape it was pointless. Tomorrow she'd have been wed to the devil anyway, so what difference was one more night in what was bound to be years of misery and confusion.

"Take your hand away," she said wearily. "I won't cry out. You can trust-"

The last sentence was a mistake; she knew it the instant the words escaped her lips and she saw his face tighten with furious contempt. "Get up!" he snapped, jerking her out of bed. Reaching out into the darkness, he snatched up the velvet wedding gown lying across a trunk at the foot of her bed and thrust it into her arms. Clutching the gown to her bosom, Jenny said shakily, "Turn your back."

"Shall I fetch you a dagger to use as well?" he jeered icily, and before she could reply, he snapped, "Get dressed!"

When she'd donned gown, slippers, and a dark blue mantle, he pulled her toward him, and before she realized what he meant to do, he was wrapping a black cloth around her mouth, gagging her. Finished, he spun her around and pushed her toward the window.

Jenny stared down in terror at the long smooth wall that dropped straight into a deep dark moat. It was like looking at her own death. Wildly she shook her head, but Royce shoved her forward, snatching the stout rope he'd left dangling over the window ledge and tying it tightly around her midriff.

"Hold onto the rope with your hands," he ordered mercilessly as he Wrapped the other end of the rope around his wrist, "and use your feet to hold your body away from the wall." Without hesitation he lifted her off her feet and onto the sill.

Seeing the terror in her enormous eyes as she clutched mindlessly at both sides of the window casing, Royce said curtly, "Don't look down. The rope is stout, and I've lowered far heavier burdens than you."

A moan rose in Jenny's throat as his hands grasped her waist, relentlessly forcing her outward. "Grab the rope," he snapped, and Jenny obeyed at the same moment he lifted her clear of the sill, holding her dangling in a moment of breathless terror high above the murky water below.

"Push away from the wall with your feet," he ordered sharply. Jennifer, who was already out the window, twisting and turning helplessly as a leaf in the wind, groped frantically for the wall with her feet and finally managed to stop herself from revolving. Bracing her feet against the rough stones with only her head and neck above the window opening, she stared at him, her breath coming in shallow, terrified gasps.

And in that most unlikely-and least desirable-of moments, hanging eighty feet above a deep moat with only a strong pair of hands and a stout rope to keep her from plunging to her death, Jenny was granted the rare opportunity to see the Black Wolf's face register total, blank shock as Aunt Elinor rose up from beside Jenny's bed like a ghostly apparition in white bedgown and demanded imperiously, "What do you think you are doing?"

Royce's head jerked toward her, his face a mask of almost comical disbelief as he realized the utter helplessness of his plight, for he could neither reach for his dagger to threaten her, nor dash across the room to silence her.

At any other time, Jenny would have relished seeing him at such a complete loss, but not now, not when he literally held her life in his hands. Her last view of him was of his profile staring at Aunt Elinor, and then the rope began to play out and she was lowered joltingly down the endless wall, left to dangle and to pray and to wonder what in God's holy name was happening in her bedchamber and why Aunt Elinor had revealed herself at all, let alone at that moment.

Royce was wondering the same thing as he stared through the darkness at the elderly woman who had, for some incomprehensible reason of her own, deliberately waited until this impossible moment to present herself. He glanced at the rope biting into his wrists, automatically testing the tension, and then he finally answered her question. "I'm abducting your niece."

"Just as I thought."

Royce peered at her closely, uncertain whether Jennifer's aunt was simple-minded or devious. "What do you intend to do about it?"

"I could open the door behind me and call for help," she said, "but since you have Brenna captive, I probably oughtn't do that."

"No," Royce agreed with hesitation. "Probably not."

For an endless moment their gazes locked as they assessed one another, and then she said, "Of course, you could be lying, which I cannot know."

"I could be," Royce agreed cautiously.

"Then again, you might not. How did you manage to scale the wall?"

"How do you think I did?" Royce replied, shifting his gaze to the rope and stalling for time. His shoulders straining, his lower body braced against the wall, he continued slowly letting out the rope, hand over hand.

"Perhaps one of your men came up here during supper, pretending he wished to use the garderobe, since there was a crowd outside the one in the hall. Then he slipped in here, anchored the rope to that chest beneath the window, and tossed the other end out the window."

Royce confirmed her completely accurate conclusion with a slight, mocking inclination of his head. Her next words brought him another jolt-this time of alarm. "On further reflection, I do not think you're holding Brenna captive, after all"

Royce, who had deliberately misled Jennifer into believing he did, now had urgent need of the old woman's silence. "What makes you think not?" he asked, bargaining for precious time as he continued to let out the rope.

"For one thing, my nephew was posting guards in the hall at the foot of the stairs when I retired this eve-undoubtedly to prevent something such as this. And so, in order to take Brenna, you'd have had to scale this wall once already this eve, which would be a great deal of needless trouble since your only need for Brenna was to ensure that Jennifer left quietly with you."

That summary was so concise and so correct that Royce's opinion of the old woman climbed another notch. "On the other hand," he drawled calmly, watching her closely, trying to judge Jennifer's distance from the moat below, "you can't be certain I'm not a very cautious man."

"That's quite true," she agreed.

Royce breathed an inward sigh of relief that turned into alarm as she added, "But I do not believe you have Brenna. Therefore, I shall strike a bargain with you."

His brows snapped together. "What sort of bargain?"

"In return for my not summoning the guards now, you will lower me out of that window and take me with you tonight."

If she'd invited him to join her in bed, Royce would not have been more stunned. Recovering his composure with an effort, he assessed her thin, frail body and the danger of having to carry her with him down the rope. "It's out of the question," he snapped.

"In that case," she said, turning and extending her hand to the door, "you leave me no choice, young man-"

Stifling an oath at his current helplessness, Royce continued letting the rope play out. "Why should you want to go with us?"

Her voice lost its imperious confidence and her shoulders drooped a little. "Because my nephew means to send me back into seclusion on the morrow, and I truly cannot bear the thought of it. However," she added with a trace of slyness, " 'twould also be in your best interest to take me with you."

"Why?"

"Because," Aunt Elinor replied, "my niece, as you well know, can be a troublesome woman; however, she will do as I tell her."

A faint gleam of interest entered Royce's eyes as he considered the long journey ahead and the need for speed. A "cooperative" Jennifer could mean the difference between success and failure of his plan. However, as he considered Jennifer's rebelliousness, obstinacy, and cunning, he found it difficult to believe the red-haired she-devil would meekly acquiesce to her aunt. Even now he felt the imprint of her teeth in his bloodied palm. "Frankly, I find that difficult to believe."

The woman lifted her white-crowned head and looked at him down the length of her nose. " 'Tis our way, Englishman. 'Tis why her father sent for me and meant to send me with her when she left with you on the morrow."

Royce recalculated the benefits of taking the old woman with him against the difficulties she'd create by slowing their pace. He had just decided against taking her, when her next words changed his mind. "If you leave me behind," she said piteously, "my nephew will surely kill me for letting you take her. His hatred for you surpasses his love for me-even for poor Jennifer. He'll never believe you could silence both of us. He'll think I put the rope there for you."

Mentally cursing all Scotswomen to perdition, Royce hesitated and then jerked his head in a reluctant nod. "Get dressed," he gritted.

The rope biting painfully into her ribs, her arms and legs smarting from wide scrapes on her skin where it slid against the stone wall, Jenny swallowed and glanced downward. In the murky darkness of the moat she could just discern the figures of two men who appeared to be standing eerily on the surface of the water. Firmly stifling that hysterical notion, she squinted her eyes and saw the outline of a flat raft beneath them. A scant few moments later, hands that were huge and rough snatched her out of the air, grasping her at the waist, indifferently brushing her breasts, as Arik untied the rope that held her, then lowered her onto the rocking insecurity of the makeshift raft.

Reaching behind her head, Jenny started to untie the black cloth that gagged her, but Arik jerked her hands down and bound them roughly behind her, then he shoved her none too gently toward the other man standing on the rocking raft, who caught her. Still trembling from her ordeal, Jenny found herself staring at the expressionless face of Stefan Westmoreland, who coldly turned away from her and stared up into the darkness at the window high above.

Awkwardly, Jenny lowered herself to a sitting position on the raft, grateful for what little security it provided in a world that no longer made any sense to her.

A few minutes later the silence of the two men on the raft was broken by a low, startled whisper from Stefan Westmoreland. "What the hell-!" he breathed, staring up in disbelief at the castle wall Jennifer had just descended.

Her head lurched up, following the direction of their gazes, half in hopes of seeing Royce Westmoreland plunging helplessly toward the water. What she saw was the unmistakable figure of a man with a body thrown over his shoulder like a sack of wheat and tied to him at the waist.

Shock sent Jenny halfway to her feet when she realized it was poor Aunt Elinor he carried, but the raft pitched and Arik's head jerked toward her, his sharp gaze warning her to be still. In breathless tension, Jenny waited, watching the cumbersome outline moving with painful slowness down the ropes. Not until Arik and Stefan Westmoreland were reaching up and grasping their accomplice, helping lower him onto the raft, did Jenny draw a normal breath.

Royce was still disentangling himself from his "prisoner," when the raft began to move with effortless stealth to the far shore. Simultaneously Jenny noticed two things: Unlike herself, Aunt Elinor was not gagged to prevent her from screaming, and the raft was being guided to the opposite shore with ropes that were being hauled in by men stationed in the woods on the opposite bank.

Two bright flashes of lightning rent the sky with jagged blue light and Jenny glanced over her shoulder, praying a guard on the castle wall might turn this way and see the raft illuminated by the angry sky. On second thought, she decided wearily, there was no reason to pray they'd be seen, nor any reason for her to be gagged. One way or another, she'd have been leaving Merrick with Royce Westmoreland. She preferred leaving this way, she decided as her fear began to subside, rather than leaving as his wife.