Page 40 of The Knight's Pledge
The clattering of brushes falling into buckets drew Lucan’s attention and he turned to see the two children linking hands before scurrying up the narrow corridor after Effie Annesley’s lover. The girl dared glance over her shoulder at Lucan with narrowed, suspicious eyes as the boy pulled her along by her hand. The thumb of her other hand was in her mouth.
They weren’t wary of him—theywere terrified.
Lucan stood for a long time staring up the black passageway where only the sound of cold trickling water could be heard beneath the peaceful and tired sighsof the animals.
A picture was forming. And Lucan didn’t like the outline of it at all.
Chapter 10
They rode northwest out of Northumberland. By unspoken agreement, they avoided the section of road that ran before the ruins of Darlyrede House—or perhaps Gorman had predetermined it away from her hearing. Either way, Effie was thankful—she had no desire to gaze upon that place of nightmare and suffering while en route to retrieve Thomas Annesley.
The firstknown survivor…
Effie shook herself and rode on through the lightening gray mist of the wood.
They should cross over into Scotland before sunset, and pass the night at the safest place in the world outside of the Warren. There they would gather whatever supplies were lacking, and wait forword from Rolf.
The White Swan hadn’t yet existed when Tommy escaped Darlyrede, she mused to herself. It had been naught but borderland scrub, dark and cold, the same time of year that the party of the Warren now set off. Thomas Annesley had been alone, wounded—so young. And no one had believed he hadn’t committed the terrible crime that chased him.
No one had believed him.
Effie glanced at Gorman on her left as the party slowed and bottle-necked at a stream crossing.
There had been no one to help Tommy, unlike the others who’d come after him. And even now, Effie would not help him. She would lead him at last tothe slaughter.
Effie turned her attention back to the road and led the way over the bridge, thundering up the looming hill of pale green winter grass.
Only George mattered now. And nothing nor no one would change her mind—not Thomas Annesley, not the king, and certainly notLucan Montague.
* * * *
The White Swan looked no different to Lucan than the occasion of his only other visit, at least a pair of years ago. He’d only stayed for a single night, but he remembered the smiling couple that had welcomed him and the clean, bright interior. It was an inn, true, but one oddly unsoiled and cheerful as a setting for ale and food and socializing and travelers seeking other climes. It had been…wholesome, in a strange way that wasn’t typically attributed to inns.
There wasn’t even a woman to be bought.
The wide windows were not shuttered even in the depths of winter, only covered over with thicknesses of pale skins to keep out the chill and wet, so that the whitewashed interior gave the illusion of perpetual spring inside the thick, daubed walls. Two hearths on opposite ends of the common room blazed, and the air was scented with the perfume of hops and dried lavender and rosemary. Lucan couldn’t help but sigh in pleasure as the group entered the common room, the setting sun turning the white window squares as rosy as the stained-glass panesof a cathedral.
The wifely half of the owners called out to them at once, and Lucan remembered her cheerful disposition right away. “Good evenin’ to ye.” Her eyes were wide as they swept the group, ending at Lucan, and then went at once to Effie. Her red hair was piled high beneath her kerchief, and her matronly bosom swung as she wiped at the wooden surface. “Have ye come for ameal?”
Effie’s mouth curved in a smile, showing Lucan a glimpse of those creases at the corners of her eyes again, which he found oddly fascinating. “It is well, Mari—he’s with us.”
The woman tossed the rag to the countertop at once and came around the bar, calling behind her as she went, “Gale!Gale!‘Tis the family!” She reached Effie and embraced her, kissing her cheek loudly, and then proceeded to do the same with each member of the party, locking into an extra-long embrace with the Asian-looking Kit Katey. “My little snow drop,” Lucan thought he heard the proprietress whisper.
At last she came to Lucan. “Yer new,” she said with narrowed eyes that were glistening, perhaps with unshed tears. “And yet, I’ve seen ye here before, have I nae?”
“Madam,” he said with an awkward bow. “I can indeed claim the pleasure of staying in your fineestablishment.”
“Aye, I remember you. It’s been a bit, though,” Mari said, working through her memory. “’Twas nearly summer—the strawberries were in. But not last. You stayed one night, and had a great, black beast with you.”
Lucan was surprised. “Indeed.”
She eyed him up and down. “A little thicker then, were ye nae? Have ye been ill?”
Effie laughed. “Mari, this is Sir Lucan Montague, a knight of King Henry. He’s accompanying us on ajourney north.”
“A knight, are ye?” the woman said with widened eyes. She gave a flinch of a curtsey. “How do?” She looked over her shoulder then and bellowed, “Gale!” so that Lucan fancied hishair fluttered.
“Come in, come in,” Mari continued in more dulcet tones, gathering the group toward the cluster of tables in the floor as a mother hen gathers chicks under her wings. “I’ll bring out the ale and—och! There you are, your buggery old goat.”
