her daughter had lived, and few of them joyful. Would she remember the happier times, before Titus’s lust and greed had driven him to arrange William’s murder?
Time grew short and precious. “Darianne and Cyrus,” Isolde murmured, “I give you my child to protect as your own.” She fingered the soft straight hair and mumbled on. “Heaven has cursed her with my beauty. Spare her the ravishment my looks brought upon me. Do not let Titus destroy her.”
The couple intertwined their hands. “With our last breaths, we will protect her,” they vowed together. Tears streamed down Cyrus’s weathered face. Darianne kissed Gwendolyn’s temple.
A knife of pain sliced thorough Isolde. Her eyes opened wide in shock at the intense agony. Then she felt a disattachment from her body. A brilliant white light blinded her, and within it stood a tall, familiar figure, beckoning. William!
Light and young again, she rushed to her husband’s arms, but stopped just before being engulfed in their welcome embrace.
“William, what of our child?” How could she leave her daughter alone in the world?
“Come, my love, your time of suffering is over. Darianne and Cyrus will look after her.” William’s rich voice soothed her fears. “And we shall watch over her from above.”
Isolde closed the distance and embraced her husband.
Darianne gently closed her lady’s eyes and drew the moth-eaten blanket over her face. In death, the serene beauty of Isolde’s face reappeared from the ravages of pain.
Cyrus wiped his tears on the back of his sleeve. “I should kill that bastard now and be done with it.”
Darianne batted him with her arm and motioned for him to help her rise. Still holding Gwendolyn, she tottered to her feet. “Nay, his death is not so important as this child’s life. The next years will be hard. We must have our wits about us or we’ll all end up supping at death’s table.”
Cyrus looked at the sleeping child’s face. Marred with dark bruises, it still foretold a beauty to come that might even surpass her mother’s. “Our lady spoke true. Titus will want Gwendolyn as he desired Isolde. He’ll not care that the child is his niece. What can we do?”
Darianne clutched the girl closer to her bosom. What could she and her husband do against Titus’s evil? They were both past their prime, with only their wits as weapons. Titus kept her alive only because of her knowledge of healing herbs. Herbs! Aye, there was a chance, though a small one, that they could save the child from Titus’s evil touch.
She gave Gwendolyn to Cyrus and began to gather up some small twigs and leaves into bags. “Take the child to our rooms and then inform a servant to bring a pot of boiling water.”
“What are you about, woman?” Cyrus readjusted the child’s limp form in his arms.
“I mean to erase the gifts heaven sent this child.” Darianne pushed her husband out the door. Before she left, she turned back to the body of her lady, wrapped in a makeshift death shroud. “From this day on, Gwendolyn will cease to resemble you, my lady. I pray you will forgive me for what I’m about to do to your child.” She closed the door and whispered a prayer for the dead woman, the child, and for herself. The last few years had been torture; the years ahead would be worse.
Chapter One
England, 1154
“Hurry up, lass. He’s sure to wake soon.” Cyrus cast a baleful gaze toward the snoring drunk sprawled across the straw pallet on the floor. “Besotted before the midday meal.” He shook his head in despair. “’Twould not be so in your father’s time.”
“Almost done.” Gwendolyn dipped her quill into the inkwell and scrutinized the list in front of her. “I can change this one to a four. This three to an eight.” Tallying up the numbers in her head, she smiled. “The total’s the same. I’ve just rearranged the assets.”
The man on the floor muttered in his sleep and scratched his groin. He chomped his teeth and yawned. The smell of sour wine drifted toward her.
“Let us be gone from here.” Cyrus tugged at her sleeve. “’Twould not go well should the steward find us.”
“He’s not found us these many years, and at the rate he drinks, ’tis not likely he ever will.” Disgust and resignation echoed in her voice. The conditions at Cravenmoor never changed, never would until she could find a way to remove her uncle as lord.
She hopped down from the tall stool and wiped the ink from the tip of her quill. “I gave Sir Demark enough potion to ensure sleep long into the night. None will know of our involvement.”
Opening the door just enough to poke her head through, she scanned the corridor. No sign of guard or servant. Not that she expected one. Cravenmoor had settled into disrepair and ruin since her uncle had taken control. ’Twas all she could do not to fall into the same state. She had to hold on to a shred of hope, if not for herself, then for her people.
As much as she suffered from her uncle’s hand, they fared even worse. Worked from dawn to dusk, and barely allowed enough food to fill their children’s stomachs, her villeins lived a dismal existence. With Cyrus’s help, she managed to sneak food from Titus’s storehouse to feed the village, but credit for the gifts were given to Isolde’s ghost. Gwendolyn did not mind. To starving people, loyalty was a luxury. One word to her uncle about her pilfering, and a serf would have a full belly and she a far more brutal life than she now endured.
“’Tis clear.” She motioned for Cyrus to follow her. Merging with the gloom of the castle’s dark areas, Gwendolyn slipped out the door and raced to the stairs. The elderly knight joined her, the creak of his knees cutting the quiet of the upper tower.
“I’ll boil you some lineament for your legs,” she whispered. A small reward for Cyrus’s years of devotion and love. Gwendolyn prayed she could someday repay the knight and his wife for their selfless loyalty to her and her secret.
The old man shrugged his shoulders and nodded. “’Tis too old I am for this duplicity.”
“Nonsense, you get around well for a man of more than half a century,” she chided, but a meddlesome doubt tickled her conscience. Ten years was a long time to keep up a charade. The mental anxiety wore her thin at times; Darianne and Cyrus must be exhausted. She and her adopted family walked a tightrope. One false step, and all three would be brought down.
Noise from the noon meal drifted from the great hall to the landing. Everyone should be downstairs by now. The busy servants would present the joints of meat and fowl, while the nobility of Cravenmoor consumed the food in front of the near-starving staff.
With light steps, Gwendolyn scampered down the stairs and jumped the last three steps to the gallery. The rotting wood complained. Again she waited and listened. The curses and unsavory jests from the tables below became clearer. Her uncle’s jeering laughter made the hair along her neck tingle.
Cyrus reached her side, his breath coming in loud puffs. “Sooner or later, Titus is bound to discover you’ve been altering the books. And when he does…” His aged palms came together as in prayer.
Gwendolyn knew her plight, but was at a loss to end it. She sought the one sight in Cravenmoor that gave her solace: the effigy of her mother.
