Bronwyn waited until she heard a footstep and hoped the man was walking away. She opened her eyes only slightly and saw him lingering by the door. She turned quickly and saw a pitcher on a table by the bed. She rolled toward it, grabbed it, and slung it across the room. The pewter clattered noisily against the wall.
She lay still again, her eyes open only a slit, as the man rushed toward the noise. Bronwyn was off the bed in seconds and running toward the door. Her ankle gave way under her once but she kept going, never looking at the man. She grabbed the handle on the heavy door and slammed it shut, then slipped th
e bolt into place. Already she could hear the man pounding, but the sound was muffled and weak through the heavy oak.
She heard footsteps and just had time to slip into a dark window alcove before Roger Chatworth came into sight. He stopped before the door, listening to the man’s pounding and the indistinct voice for a moment. Bronwyn held her breath. Roger smiled in satisfaction, then passed her as he went toward the stairs.
Bronwyn allowed herself only seconds to calm her racing heart, and for the first time rub her aching wrists and ankles. She flexed her bruised jaw repeatedly as she slipped silently from the shadows and followed Roger down the stairs.
He turned left at the bottom of the stairs and entered a room. Bronwyn slipped into a shadow just beside the half-open door. She could see inside the small room quite well. There was a table and four chairs, a single fat candle in the center of the table.
A beautiful woman sat with her profile to Bronwyn. She wore a brilliant, flashing gown of purple-and-green striped satin. The delicate features of her face were perfect, from her little mouth to her blue, almond-shaped eyes.
“Why did you have to bring her here? I thought you could have her any time you wanted,” the woman said angrily in a sneering voice, so unlike her lovely face.
Roger had his back to Bronwyn as he sat in a chair facing the woman. “There was nothing else I could do. She wouldn’t listen to what I meant to tell her about Stephen.”
“Wouldn’t listen to you?” the woman taunted. “Damn the Montgomery men! What was Stephen doing at King Henry’s court anyway?”
Roger waved his hand. “Something about petitioning the king to stop the raids in Scotland. You should have seen him! He practically had the whole court weeping with his tales of the noble Scots and what was being done to them.”
Bronwyn closed her eyes for a moment and smiled. Stephen! she thought. Her dear, sweet Stephen. She came back to the present and realized she was wasting time listening to these two. She must escape!
But Roger’s next words halted her. “How the hell was I to know you’d choose this time to kidnap Mary Montgomery?”
Bronwyn stopped dead still, her whole body listening.
The woman kept her face turned as she smiled broadly, showing crooked teeth. “I meant to have his wife,” she said dreamily.
“By that I take it you mean Gavin’s wife, Judith.”
“Aye! that whore who stole my Gavin!”
“I’m not sure he was ever yours, and if he was, you were the one who discarded him when you agreed to marry my dear, departed older brother.”
The woman ignored him.
“Why did you take Mary instead?” Roger continued. They may have been discussing the weather for all the interest he showed.
“She was returning to that convent where she lives, and she was conveniently at hand. I’d like to kill all the Montgomerys one by one. It doesn’t matter which I begin with. Now! tell me of this one you captured. She is Stephen’s wife?” Still the woman did not turn. She kept her profile to both Roger and Bronwyn.
“The woman has changed. In England, before she married, she was easy to manipulate. I told her an outrageous story about some cousins in Scotland.” He paused to give a derisive laugh. “How could she believe that I am related to a filthy Scot?”
“You got her to ask for a fight between you,” the beautiful woman said.
“It was easy enough to put ideas in her empty head,” Roger said. “And Montgomery was willing enough to fight for her. He was so hot for her his eyes were burning out of his head.”
“I’ve heard she’s beautiful,” the woman said with great bitterness.
“No woman is more beautiful than all that land she owns. Had she married me, I would have sent English farmers in there and gotten some good out of the land. Those Scots think they should share the land with the serfs.”
“But you lost her and the fight,” the woman said quietly.
Roger stood, nearly upsetting the heavy chair. “The bastard!” he cursed. “He ridiculed me. He laughed at me—and he’s made all of England laugh at me.”
“Would you rather he killed you?” she demanded.
Roger stood in front of her. “Wouldn’t you rather have been killed?” he asked quietly.