bitterly.
“Jamie and I never dealt well together. I did not enjoy being the brunt of his sharp tongue,” Giles said on a hunch.
Hugh snapped up the bait, his manner softening as he nodded. “I suffered the same fate till he went to Lancaster’s.”
“It cannot have been easy being Jamie’s brother.”
“You are a master of understatement. He was always first in everything, swordplay, wrestling, running, swimming and, of course, women.” A muscle worked in Hugh’s jaw, and his eyes burned with the fire of past grudges. “The victories came so easily to him, yet they meant naught. Even Harte Court, an estate any man would give his soul to possess…Jamie turned his back on it and went off adventuring.”
Giles smiled inwardly. He was the son of a simple knight, but he’d risen to the right hand of a powerful earl by exploiting others’ weaknesses. Each man had his price, and Hugh had just declared his. Harte Court. Now he saw how he might fan Hugh’s resentment into the fires of Jamie’s destruction. “You should have been the firstborn…not him.”
“Aye.” Hugh shifted his weight off his left leg and grimaced. “Jamie does not appreciate what he has.”
Giles looked around the crowded garden, then drew Hugh onto one of the shadowy paths. Lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, he said, “Oxford agrees with you. Your brother is not only unworthy of the high station he holds, he is a danger to England. We think…” Giles cast about for a suitably nefarious crime. “We think he is plotting against the crown.”
Hugh’s lips thinned. “I knew he’d go too far one day. It’s the Lancasters, is it not?”
Oh, this was too good to be true. “Has he said something?”
Hugh shook his head. “I told you he’d not confide in me.
“Quite so. Then what makes you mention Lancaster?”
“Jamie’s thick with them, and the duke has been vocal in his criticism of the king. If Lancaster decided he’d make a better king than Richard, Jamie would be certain to support him.”
Giles nearly wept with joy. Though he doubted Lancaster was plotting to usurp his nephew’s throne, he did agree with Oxford’s suspicions that the duke, Bolingbroke and Jamie were working secretly to thwart Oxford’s peace treaty with the French. ‘Twas Giles’s job to uncover their scheme before they ruined the agreement that would make Oxford the most powerful man in England…and fill Giles’s own pocket with gold.
Carefully he began to reel in the fish he’d unexpectedly netted. “We must have proof. Do you know where Jamie has gone?”
“Well…” Hugh looked uneasy. “He said he was patrolling the Cornish coast to keep watch for French ships.”
Cornwall. They’d not looked so far afield. He’d dispatch men there at once. “That area is ripe with smugglers.”
“Smuggling. I’d not thought of that,” Hugh murmured. “But ‘tis far more likely he’d be trading in stolen goods and evading the king’s tax collectors than that he’d actually try to overthrow the crown.”
Pity, Giles thought. The penalty for treason was much stiffer. “Well, I must return to London. If you hear anything you think the king should know, please contact me at once. His Majesty is lavish with his gifts to those who aid him. Who knows, you might be rewarded with an estate as fine as your brother’s.”
The grinding of Hugh’s teeth was audible. “I shall see what I can discover.”
I am certain you will.
Jamie awoke to shadows and a wretched pounding in his head. The rest of his body was so stiff and sore he wondered if he’d been beaten. Where was he? The last thing he remembered was tripping over a rope. Giles! Giles had captured him?
Terror drove out the pain. Had he talked? Then he remembered Emma, and an agonized moan clawed its way out of his chest.
“Ye’re awake,” said a coarse feminine voice. A cup pressed against his lips. But when he tried to lift his head, hot pain tore through it. “Easy, don’t try to move. Just open yer mouth.”
He obeyed, sighing as something cool slid down to ease the wool from his parched throat. Sweet wine laced with herbs. No dungeon fare this. Opening his eye, he focused on his nursemaid, an older woman in clean homespun. She offered him the cup again, and he drank, a dozen questions whirling dizzily in his mind. When she took the cup away, he asked the uppermost one. “Emma?”
“If ye’re meaning Mistress Emmeline, she’s sleeping.”
“Safe?” At her nod, he took heart. “Where am I? How long have I been here?”
“Two days.”
“Can’t stay.” Jamie tried to sit up. There was a loud clanking noise, and something caught at his wrists and ankles. That was nothing to the agony in his head. Fighting to stay conscious, he lay still. When the worst of the pain had passed, he rolled his good eye toward the maid. “Have I bedded down in the scullery with the pots and pans?” He smiled faintly.
“Nay…” She frowned.
The pounding in his head disoriented him. “Then where am I?”
“Tis not for me to say.”
“Is he giving you a hard time?” asked a familiar voice. Emma’s face appeared above him in the gloom.
“Emma.” The relief at seeing her was almost as dizzying as his headache. “How is your ankle?”
“Fine. Go up and break your fast, Molly. I’ll sit with him.”
Jamie smiled as he watched Emma primly tuck her skirts about her and take the stool Molly had vacated. “I fear I failed miserably at rescuing you and am now in your debt What happened? My limbs feel like they’re made of lead.”
“I expect that’s the chains,” she said flatly.
Chains? Teeth clenched against the pain, Jamie lifted his head just far enough to survey his body. His bare feet stuck out of the end of a coarse blanket, shackled at the ankles. “What the hell?” His wrists were chained, too. Belatedly his dazed brain fit the pieces together, the thin pallet on the floor, the meanness of the stone walls, the dank smell of earth and straw. “Giles Cadwell’s dungeon?” he croaked.
“My storeroom,” she countered. “You are my prisoner.”
“Yours, but why? Did Giles put you up to this?”
“No one employed me to imprison you. I have my own—”
“How much to release me. That is what this is about, is it not? Ransom,” he added when she still didn’t catch his meaning.
“Certainly not” She seemed affronted. “I want justice.”
“Because I tried to seduce you?”
“Not for myself, for my sister. Celia is…was my sister.”
