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  Then there was the crippling speculation that Vindan might be angry enough to annul the Joining. Since the marriage had yet to be consummated, it was a real fear that poked at him like a porcupine’s quills.

  “Have you seen my lady-wife today?” he asked, holding his breath for the answer.

  “She had not come down when last I was in the Great Hall but I had to see to the men. We’ll be leaving after the noon meal.” Gilbert scratched his cheek. “And we’ll be taking Joseph and Ernst with us.”

  A cold finger of disquiet scraped down his backbone. “Why?

  “I assume it is because His Grace believes they are incapable of keeping you in line,” Gilbert said. “He will no doubt assign men he believes he can trust to leave behind as your protectors.”

  “My jailers,” Seyzon grumbled.

  “That too,” Gilbert agreed with a grin. “Also, there will be a troop of men bivouacked close by should the Selwyns decide to overrun Riverglade and take you captive. They will be your escort back to Wicklow when you are no longer a jailbird.”

  “Ha, ha,” Seyzon said.

  “Just saying,” Gilbert told him.

  “Do you think he’d allow me to see my wife?”

  “Nope.”

  “Her brother?”

  “Doubtful,” Gilbert said.

  “We was told you weren’t to get no visitors,” the old man said as he relocked the cell door. “That’s the way it’s gonna be.”

  “Would you take word to my lady-wife at least?”

  Gilbert pursed his lips and thought about it for a moment. “Depends on what you want me to tell her, I guess.”

  “That I love her and…” He stopped because Gilbert was shaking his head. “Why not?”

  “Too mushy,” Gilbert said. “I’ll tell her you send your regards.”

  “How romantic of you,” Seyzon snapped.

  “Best I can do, milord.” Gilbert’s eyebrows rose. “Anything else you need done?”

  “No,” Seyzon replied ungraciously.

  “Then enjoy your meal. I heard the prince himself ordered it for you last eve on his way up to his room.”

  “Figures,” Seyzon groused.

  “Hey, at least he was thinking about you,” Gilbert reminded him.

  “Aye, I’m sure he was,” Seyzon stated. “Bastard.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Seyzon plucked the tray from the mattress and set it in his lap. The sight of the eggs made his stomach lurch but he was hungry. He lifted the fork from the tray as Gilbert and the other men left him to the dripping water, squeaking rats and stinking mold.

  * * * * *

  “Is he still here?” Jana asked the maid servant who had come to make the bed.

  “The prince?” the woman queried. “Aye, milady. He is in with Lord Alden.” She eyed the mound of linen that lay in the corner of the room and frowned but said nothing. She walked over to it, bent down and scooped them up. Her frown deepened when she realized the fitted sheet was missing. Her eyes went to the fireplace.

  A heavy knock at the door made Jana jump. She was curled into the corner of the settee with her bare feet under her and the unexpected sound—nothing like the light tap the maid had applied—brought her heart into her throat. Her eyes widened when the knock came again.

  “Want me to get that, milady?” the maid asked.

  “Please,” Jana said. “I really don’t want to see anyone.”

  She wasn’t given a choice. The door opened before the maid ever reached it and Jana’s world tilted precariously to one side when she saw Prince Vindan standing in the doorway.

  “We need to speak, Lady Montyne,” the prince said formally. He turned his stony stare to the maid who scrambled out of the room as though the hounds of hell were nipping at her skirt tails.

  The moment the door closed, Jana began to tremble.

  “Calm yourself, milady. I’m not here for a repeat of last eve,” he told her. He went over to the hearth and stared down at the ashes lying there. He glanced around at her. “I assume you burned the sheets.”

  She swallowed. “The bottom one, aye,” she said in a small voice.

  “Good. There is no need for the servants to know what transpired here.” He braced his arm on the mantle as he faced her. “I said nothing of it to your brother. I do not want you to discuss it with him or anyone else. That is not a request, madame. That is an order. Are we clear?”

  “Aye, Your Grace,” she acknowledged.

  “Then that’s settled,” he stated.

  “Have you told Seyzon?” she asked, surprising herself with her temerity. Her audacity at questioning her Overlord.

  “Not yet but I will. It’s part of his punishment.”

  “May I ask what other part there will be?”

  “He’ll be stuck in that cell for a while then he’ll be escorted to Wicklow where he will be under house arrest until I am no longer angry at him for defying me.”

  “May I see him?”

  “No, you may not.”

  She looked down at her tightly clenched hands. “Will I be allowed to accompanying him to Wicklow?”

  “No.”

  Jana slowly closed her eyes, afraid to ask the next question but needing to. “Will you annul our Joining?”

  “I haven’t decided as yet,” he answered, and when she looked up at him with tears in her eyes, he seemed to wilt. “Most likely not, though.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace,” she told him, lips quivering.

  “Don’t thank me, yet,” he snapped. “What I do depends on Seyzon’s reaction to what I will say to him.”

  “But you won’t have him flogged,” she said hopefully.

  “No, milady. As I told you last eve, I’ve no desire to spill Seyzon’s blood. I have known him since we were in diapers. He is like kin to me.”

  “Then you forgive him?” she asked.

  “Mayhap one day, but no time soon,” he replied.

  “He meant you no disrespect, Your Grace. He—”

  “You don’t know him as well as I do,” he interrupted. “Seyzon is a reckless, brash, hotheaded, stubborn and altogether infuriating bastard at times, milady. In his arrogance he didn’t think I’d react to his ignoring my edict. He gave me no choice but to prove to him he is not above the law and just as accountable for the breaking of it.”

  “You know this will hurt him deeply.” She reached up to bat away a tear falling down her cheek.

  “Aye, I do. It will drop him to his knees, but better his heart be broken than his body.”

  She looked away from the coldness in his blue eyes. “I am grateful you did not hurt me last eve, Your Grace. I thank you for that.”

  “I tried to be as gentle as I could given the circumstances,” he replied. “I am not a brute, milady.” He narrowed his eyes. “Nor am I a rapist. I had the legal right—albeit it an ancient and seldom used legal right—to have you. I exercised that right.” A smirk touched his mouth. “And it was your choice to allow me the execution of that right.”

  Jana wanted to scream at him that there had never been a true choice and had to bite her tongue to keep from doing so.

  “Seyzon is a lucky man,” she heard him say. She had to blink away her tears to see his face.

  “How so, Your Grace?” she asked, unable to keep the bitterness from her tone.

  Prince Vindan gave her a steady look. “He has you.” He dropped his gaze. “I envy him.”

  Nothing he could have said would have stunned her more. She stared at him, watched him walk to the door without another word and leave.

  * * * * *

  The food he’d consumed had been as bad as he knew it would be and it sat like a rock in the pit of his stomach. Stretched out on the cot, he rubbed his stomach to help alleviate the bloated feeling then ran his fingertips to the incision. He winced for the wound ached. Most likely the bandage needed changing and salve applied.

  Somewhere in the dungeon a door squealed open and he turned his he
ad toward the sound. There was a faint glow coming from the stairwell. He was about to have a visitor and he was fairly sure he knew who it would be. Sitting up, he swung his legs to the floor, jumping as something large ran over the instep of his boot. Instinctively he jerked his feet up. A squeak of protest told him he’d scared the rat as badly as it had scared him.

  “Fucking asstwit,” he grumbled as he got to his feet.

  Vindan had come alone. As he came into view, Seyzon realized the prince wanted no witnesses to what was going to be said.

  “Come to gloat, Your Grace?” he asked.

  “I don’t recall giving you leave to speak, Montyne,” Vindan snapped.

  “You didn’t but you know what, Vin? I don’t give a fuck,” Seyzon said. “Let’s change places for a night and see if you give a fuck either.”

  “You are right where you need to be.” Vindan stood well out of reach of the bars and cocked his head to one side. “Probably somewhere you should have been long ago.”

  “And don’t it make you happy?” Seyzon queried.

  “No, Zonny, it doesn’t. But you gave me few alternatives. It was either this or a hundred lashes.”

  Seyzon blinked. “A hundred?”

  “I know you ignore most of what I say to you but I would have thought you would have at least read some of the edicts I put into place when my father—your king, by the way—handed Wicklow into my care.”

  “Aye, well, mayhap if you provide me with copies of them, I’ll bide my time here reading them.” He smiled nastily. “What else do I have to do?”

  “There was a reason for each of those edicts,” Vindan stated. “The edict regarding proposals was to protect my men from being hoodwinked into marrying some chit who would make their lives miserable and then take them for all they had.”

  “That was not the case with Jana,” Seyzon said through clenched teeth.

  “Mayhap not, but the edict also states no exceptions. The woman in each individual case must be investigated thoroughly before I will give the warrior my blessings. Her motives—as well as the motives of her family—need to be examined carefully. The warrior doesn’t always think with the right head when dealing with a conniving, ambitious woman. He doesn’t see the pitfalls someone unbiased in the matter might discover. As I said, I want my men protected.”

  “I told you decades ago interfering with other men’s lives is playing with fire, Vin. I warned you that sooner or later one of them was going to call you on it.”

  “And is that what you did?” Vindan asked.

  “I took control of my own destiny. There was a reason I did not waste time in seeking your permission.”

  “Oh, so you thought just because it was you I’d grant that permission without thought?” the prince demanded. He stepped up to the bars and wrapped his hands around them. “Any woman who showed interest in you was bound to set off alarm bells in my head, Zonny. You above all my other men I would see protected.”

  Seyzon waved a dismissive hand. “I don’t need your protection. I’m full grown, Vindan, and perfectly capable of taking care of myself and making my own gods-be-damned decisions!”

  “A decision that affected not only you but the woman you dragged into the crime with you. Lucky for her she did not know about the edict or I would have been forced to punish her as I did deVille’s woman who did know.”

  The thought of Jana being subjected to what Lady Emily Donovan had gone through set Seyzon’s teeth on edge. The woman’s long red hair had been shorn down to the scalp and she’d been denied the right to wear any form of head covering so her shame would be apparent to all who saw her. Having to sit on a wooden bench in the center of the courtyard for as many days as she’d been engaged to Raymond had been a humiliation for the proud woman.”

  “So instead you imprisoned her groom then took away my lady’s wedding night.”

  “I did not take away her wedding night.” Vindan stepped back, once more out of reach.

  “How they hell do you figure that, Vindan? I wasn’t there with her!” Seyzon snarled.

  “No, you weren’t. But I was.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Ceart an chéad oíche.”

  Seyzon’s eyes flared. “What?” he whispered.

  “It is an ancient feudal right given to—”

  “I know what it is,” Seyzon said, nausea rushing up his throat. “By the gods, Vindan, please tell me you are joking.”

  “You needed to be punished,” the prince said. “I punished you.”

  Tears filled Seyzon’s eyes and he clutched at his chest as though it was paining him. “By raping my woman?”

  “I was gentle with her. I took great care to—”

  “You raped her,” Seyzon accused. He was fighting the tears that threatened to fall. He balled his hands into fists. His eyes were blazing hot.

  Vindan shook his head. “What I did was perfectly legal and well within my rights as her Overlord. She agreed to submit.”

  “She agreed to submit,” Seyzon repeated with a sneer. “Did you give her a choice?”

  “It was either submit or I take the whip to you myself. Your lady decided to sacrifice herself for you.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Seyzon said, breathing hard.

  “Before you say anything else, Montyne, I will give you one warning and one warning only. I have not and don’t intend to do so unless you give me cause, but keep in mind I can—and will—annul your marriage. Should I be forced to do that, I will send your lady where you will never see her again.”

  The rage that had been festering in his soul, the urge to strangle a man who had been his friend for over thirty-five years vanished in the blink of an eye. He knew Vindan did not make idle threats. What he pledged, he saw to fruition. He would, indeed, set aside the Joining and send Jana away without a second thought.

  “I will be leaving Riverglade within the hour. I will be taking the Lady Jana with me.”

  “No!” Seyzon shouted and leapt at the bars. He thrust one arm through, his hand out in pleading. “Don’t do that!”

  “I will have your wife safe while you are unable to protect her. I do not trust her brother to do so, and frankly, I do not trust his motives. He could just as easily turn to the Selwyns as not if it was to his advantage. For that reason, I cannot leave you here locked in his dungeon. Gilbert will be taking you to Lavenfeld where you will be placed under house arrest until further notice. When I have decided you have been punished sufficiently, I will return the Lady Jana into your keeping.”

  “If you touch her again—”

  “You want me to annul the marriage, Montyne?”

  Fear ripped through Seyzon’s soul and he shook his head. “Vin, no…”

  “Then mind your tongue and don’t give me reason to hurt you any more than I already have.”

  They stared at each other for a long time. Both of them knew the tight bond of friendship they had known since childhood had cracked—if not broken—and things would never be the same between them again.

  Chapter Three

  Lady Millicent Montyne put up a hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the afternoon sun. There was a column of men riding slowly toward Lavenfeld and the alarm had gone out. She climbed to the battlements to see for herself what was coming. Her Master-at-Arms had a spyglass to his eye as she joined him.

  “Do you recognize them?”

  “They carry the prince’s banner, milady, and seem to be in no hurry to reach us. There are no wagons or artillery with them,” Frederick Arbra replied. “I believe it to be Captain Gilbert Tohre and his men.”

  “Is the prince with them?” she asked.

  “I think not but I believe Lord Seyzon is.”

  Millicent put a hand to Frederick’s arm. “Injured?”

  “No, but his arms are behind his back. I think he’s Gil’s prisoner, milady.”

  “What?” Millicent’s eyebrows jumped toward the thick brown hair that was parted precise
ly, the dark waves falling to either side of her startled green eyes.

  “Wonder what the brat has done now,” Frederick said with a sigh.

  “Nothing good, that’s for sure,” Millicent snapped. She picked up her skirt and headed for the stairwell. “Come along, Freddie.”

  “Aye, milady.”

  The portcullis was raised, the drawbridge lowered as Gilbert led his men toward Lavenfeld. It had been a long, grueling three-day ride from Riverglade and twice they had encountered Selwyn soldiers with whom they’d engaged in quick skirmishes. Hot and tired, hungry, the men rode listlessly into Lavenfeld.

  Seyzon caught sight of his mother standing on the steps that led into the main hall. Her arms were clasped over her chest and at her side was her ever-present watchdog, Arbra. He could tell by the way she was glaring at him that she was one very unhappy woman.

  “What did he do?” she asked as Gilbert halted his men and swung down from his mount.

  “Milady.” Gilbert bowed deeply. He glanced at his cousin Frederick and nodded.

  “Gilbert,” Millicent said. “What did he do?”

  “I can speak for myself, Mother,” Seyzon said but she ignored him.

  “Gilbert?”

  “He got married,” Gilbert said in a low voice. “Without the prince’s permission.”

  Millicent’s eyes widened then jumped to her son. He was sitting slumped in the saddle with his shoulders pulled down by the weight of the manacles locked to them. There was something dark, anguished in his eyes she did not like. Neither did her Master-at-Arms.

  “Was he whipped?” Frederick asked.

  “No, but he’s under house arrest,” Gilbert told him. “Indefinitely.”

  “And his lady-wife?” Millicent demanded. “Where is she?”

  “Taken to Wicklow.”

  “Oh, for the love of Alel, Seyzon!” his mother barked. “What manner of harlot did you—”

  “She is no harlot,” Seyzon interrupted, eyes flashing. “She is the daughter of the late Baron Reynaud of Riverglade and I love her.”

  Millicent blew out an irritated breath. “Aye, I imagine you do. Get down from that horse, young man!”