Page 52 of A Second Chance for Carys
“I’m not.”
As if to prove it, she knelt in front of him and extracted a small key from her bodice. He recoiled when she made to insert it into the lock holding his shackles.
“No!”
There was such anguish in that one word that Carys paused. Setting James free would have to wait. Right now, he needed reassurance more than he needed his freedom. He seemed to think she had bought a pardon with her body, a reasonable assumption given the circumstances, she had to admit. That had not been her intention, but deep down she knew she would have done whatever the earl requested to save the man she loved, including sleeping with him. Because she simply could not let James die now.
No price would have been too high to pay.
But James did not seem to share this opinion. Before anything else, before she attempted to free him, he needed to hear she had not been raped. So she looked at him straight in the eye and said what he wanted to hear.
“The vile man didn’t touch me, I swear. I didn’t use my body to free you.” She infused all the conviction she was capable of in her words. He needed to be left in no doubt about it; they could not have this hanging over them for the rest of their lives. “You can accept your freedom without guilt. I was not hurt in any way.”
Everything within him seemed to relax and after a moment, he held out his hands to her, finally allowing her to use the key to unlock the shackles.
“What happened then?”
As she went to work, Carys began to relay what had happened in the earl’s bedchamber earlier that night.
When she had entered, she’d found the man sound asleep, as she’d hoped, lying flat on his stomach. Even better, his clothes were heaped haphazardly on a chair next to the bed. Moved by instinct, she snatched the undershirt from the top of the pile and hid it under her cloak. It could only aid her in her plan to be in possession of such an incriminating item.
Then she cleared her throat and, heart thumping hard in her chest, waited for him to wake up. It didn’t take long. When he saw her standing at the foot of the bed, the earl opened wide, incredulous eyes. A quick look around the room told him she had come alone and his lips curved into a slow smile.
“Come for a fuck with a member of the royal family, have you, wench?” He scoffed and she realized he had not even recognized her for the woman who had been in the hall with Branwen that morning. It was hardly surprising, as he had barely spared her a glance. This might work to her advantage, so she didn’t rectify the mistake. “You wouldn’t be the first one, believe me, but you’re wasting your time. Be gone with you. I don’t bed women who are old enough to be my mother.”
“I may be old enough to have birthed you but I count myself lucky that I did not,” Carys answered calmly. Let him insult herall he liked, she cared not. “It is not hard to guess your poor mother must be ashamed of the man you have become.”
For a moment he just stared, as if stunned by her declaration. In that moment, with his hair ruffled and his naked, slightly hollow chest, he appeared little more than a youth. By her estimation, he could not be much older than twenty summers. How could someone so young be so evil, she wondered? Anger boiled anew. Because he was English, and high born, he felt he could use people the way it suited him. Well, it was time he learned actions had consequences.
“How dare you speak to me thus?” he demanded, his body tensing. He was not used to being questioned and he didn’t like it one little bit.
“I dare becauseyoudared attack my daughter and have condemned the man I love to death. And now I have no other choice but to avenge the one and save the other.”
“Save?” Another scoff. “You think you can save the miserable man’s hide by offering yourself to me in reward for my generosity? I’m sorry but I am not tempted, as you can see. Your dubious charms fail to rouse my blood.”
In a flamboyant gesture he threw aside the covers and stood next to the bed. Carys saw that he was stark naked and, just as he’d said, limp as a worm. She could not repress a sigh of relief at the sight. There had always been the danger of him pouncing on her, not through real desire, of course, but just to show her her place. It was clear, however, that he had no intention of tumbling her into bed.
“I’m relieved to see you feel no desire for me, because I certainly feel none for you,” was her answer. “I am not here to offer my ‘dubious charms’, whatever you may think.”
“How do you suppose to force me to release the steward then? My mind is quite made up. He tried to kill me. He will pay for it.”
This was it. The moment of truth. All day, while Matthew had done his best to talk his way out of the situation, Carys had agonized about the best way to pressure the earl into releasing James. Finally, after much deliberation, she thought she might have come up with the solution. The man’s weakness needed to be used against him, and she had a fair idea of what that might be.
She took in a deep inhale, praying she was right.
“Tell me, what do you think the king will think when he is told tomorrow that his nephew boasts about his superiority over him to anyone who cares to listen? When he hears the Earl of Lancaster thinks himself a better lover than his liege and is not above ridiculing his uncle for his exploits in bed?”
The man’s eyes widened. “When have I ever done that, pray?”
“Just before you pounced on my daughter Branwen this morning,” Carys hissed, her wrath igniting a fire within her. In that moment she felt invincible. “You said you would show her what a real man can do, as opposed to a cripple in his late fifties. I recall every word, as does she.”
“I never said?—”
“Branwen will swear that you raped her, her husband will attest to it as well. I will tell the king I saw and heard it all, Master Mortimer and everyone at the castle will confirm the story. Faced with such overwhelming evidence, he will not be able to doubt the veracity of the claim.”
She knew she was putting herself at risk by provoking the earl, but thoughts of James rotting in his cell gave her the courage she needed. As horrid as it was to imagine him in the dank place, all alone and dreading the arrival of dawn, it was nothing compared to the fate awaiting him. She had no illusion about what the English king would do. A man capable of subduing the Welsh and the Scots would not hesitate inpunishing someone who had attacked a member of his family and almost killed him. Edward would be merciless.
But she would too.
