"Darien!"
"'Lise!" His elbow stopped just short of her face. "My God, I could have killed you."
"There is no time. Rogier agreed to let me see you for five minutes. Here." She pulled the key ring from her pocket. "Hurry, see if one of these fits."
Without wasting time, he tried each of the half dozen assorted keys until one unlocked the padlock securing the chair to his feet. He released the padlock but did not remove it from the chains.
"Please hurry. Come, on, let's go --"
Darien forestalled her, gripping both her arms.
"No. We must do this right. With the number of guards outside, I will have to go carefully. Now is not the time. He is outside waiting, no doubt relishing the idea of breaking us apart when your time is up." A glint appeared in her husband's eye. "I think we should play into his hands for the moment."
Elise shook her head no.
"Listen and trust me. When the guards change after night-fall, I will be ready. Under cover of darkness we can make our escape. Wait for me by the back gate."
He pressed the keys back into her palm, then pulled her close, his lips lightly roving across her mouth. In the next instant he roughly thrust her away.
"Darien!" she exclaimed.
"Do not come again!" he snarled. "You are not welcome."
Recoiling, she jerked her head up.
"Time is up," drawled Rogier behind her.
She looked at him. Yanking her wrists free from Darien, she turned and fled the cell.
#
"Perhaps I misjudged you, Remington," Rogier said with a speculative gleam. He closed the door and advanced into the room.
Darien watched him with an amused smile, ice in his eyes.
"You can smirk but I am the one who is free, while you are in chains. If you are really done with my daughter, then perhaps it could be to your advantage to make her see how well I can provide for her. I grow weary of her fits and fighting."
"You waste my time."
Rogier spread his hands, indicating their surroundings. "I believe you have all the time in the world to waste. Come Remington, you are about to be found guilty of murder. The charges on your head revolve around my word and the word of my men. Admit you are the Hellhound, sign a confession, and I can --"
"What? Intercede for me?"
"Dammit, man." Rogier no longer appeared cool, but took a step forward, hands upraised as if he would grab the younger man, but then stopped, thinking better of getting too close. "Your circumstances are dire."
"I understand very well, and you are right to be afraid of me and what I know. We both know the truth of what goes on in these parts at night. We will always be on opposites sides of the fence."
"I have committed no crime."
Darien smiled, crossing his arms over his chest.
"For your own good, sign the confession."
"You must excuse me, Lancaster, I was up all night and I really must get some rest."
Ignoring the older man, Darien lay back on the pallet and closed his eyes.
If he hadn't been so infuriated, Rogier would have been amused at the game Remington played so well.
The heavy door reverberated throughout the tower as he kicked it closed.
#
Elise threw a quick glance across the courtyard, thrusting her fingers into her pocket to pull out the loop of keys. The young guard was several yards away, speaking with another man. Her fingers tightened on the keys. Elise leaned down toward the three legged stool where the guard had been sitting. She placed the keys on the edge, just managing to balance them and stepped away.
She had taken two steps when the man turned and saw her. With a hurried word, he left the other guard and returned to his post. Elise smiled at him and walked toward the house, then changed direction and ran instead into the smokehouse shack against the outer wall. Her change in direction gave her an opportunity to observe the sentry as he sat down on his stool.
She heard the distinctive clink of the keys hitting the cobbles. In the shadow of the smokehouse, she observed the sentry as he ducked with a muttered curse and retrieved the keys. He looked around quickly, then pocketed them.
Elise opened her hand, staring at the lone key in her hand. Bending to place the key in her boot, she watched the tower door. Rogier had not yet exited the tower. She hoped he didn't notice the padlock was unlatched. If he did, they were done.
In an apparently aimless fashion, she left the smokehouse, then circled around and entered the house from the kitchen door in case anyone was watching.
She encountered no one inside and quickly walked into the back hallway and up the stairs to the first level. She drew off her cloak and put it over her arm.
"Deception has its own reward," Rogier said snidely. She did not turn to face him, but a pulse began to beat rapidly in her throat.
"I practice no deception."
"That worthless mongrel has cast you aside."
"What do you care? It's what you wanted."
Rogier pulled her around to face her, his hands tight on her shoulders. "Face me when you speak to me." He gripped her chin. "Women are fond of deception. With them, it is an art they hone to perfection, until a man is helplessly ensnared."
"I don't know what you're talking about." He was unpredictable in this kind of reflective mood. "I never deceived Darien. But it's none of your concern. You talk of deception. My entire childhood was based on such. There was no warmth, no caring from you. I never realized what I missed growing up until I had my own child. Why would you think I'd ever want to stay here with you?"
"I understand you are distraught. You thought Remington loved you."
"The only one who played cat and mouse with me my entire childhood was you. I was never allowed a separate thought of my own. It was always your way. Even as I grew into my teens, you still treated me like a child."
"I knew what was best."
"That is something you never knew." She lifted her head, so tired of his deceptions. "Why did you come after me that night with murder in your heart?"
He stepped back from her. "That is a lie."
"Mandine told me otherwise."
"You are my daughter. Mandine was not your mother -- merely a hired nursemaid. She was always trying to turn you against me."
"That is not true. All my life, she never once said a word against you, but I wish that she had."
"Even after she is dead, I am not rid of her," he muttered. "It is all because of your mother. She brought that one into our home. I was happy to indulge her until I saw the hold she had over my Aleanna. She died right after you were born," he mused, "giving birth to you."
Elise paused, one foot on the stairs.
"It was fitting she should be taken after deceiving me."
Elise felt an all consuming rage. She lifted a heavy vase from a small table at her side and threw it at him. The porcelain missed his head by inches and shattered against the wall behind him.
He began to laugh, the dust of the pottery in his hair and on his clothes.
"Your mother was weak and easily persuaded. She was engaged to another and he -- died. I wooed her with my wealth, promised her the world. When she gave birth to you, I was the happiest man alive, but in the next days she suffered from childbed fever. She tossed in her delirium while I stood helplessly in the shadows, wondering how I could help my beloved Aleanna. Even that witch could not help her in the end. In her delirium, she spoke feverishly of her bastard's father, the red-headed Scot."
Elise was stunned.
The diamond brightness of his eyes turned to her. "Aleanna betrayed me. Elise, with your red hair. Even as a day-old infant, you had that cap of bright red hair."
"You just said she had childbed fever. Is that what killed her?"
"It was the will of God," he declared. "I was ready to give her the world and all she thought of was that bastard."
"Who?"
"The bastard who sired you before I met my Aleanna."
"She didn't betray you."
"Yes, in thought she did. He was always in her head." He paced away from her, and back. "That witch is the cause of all this trouble. She had to tamper and interfere, stir people up, make them want more than was their due. She raised my own daughter against me. Her magic she held over me like a potent threat. I am well rid of them both."
Elise ran toward him with a wrenching sob, swinging her arm, managing to deliver a glancing blow before she was pulled away from behind.
She felt a measure of satisfaction to see her nails had scored his cheekbone with a jagged, half-moon welt. Already the blood began to bead in droplets.
"Here now." The arms gripped her tightened even more painfully until black and white dots danced before her eyes.
"Beldar, I am afraid you arrived in the midst of a domestic squabble. You may release her."
Elise barely managed to catch herself before her knees hit the hard floor.
"I can teach her manners," Beldar muttered, "given time."
"You are right, and I have been remiss in my duty as a parent. When this troublesome incident is resolved with Remington, I shall remedy the situation myself."
Elise walked as best she could up the stairs, ignoring both men.
"Do not try to leave the grounds," Rogier called up to her. "I cannot guarantee your safety if my men have to bring you back. It will not be pleasant."
She tensed. "Then I too am a prisoner?"
"No. It is for your own good I keep you safe within these walls. I fear in your present state of mind you may harm yourself."
She had to find a way to leave this place and never return. Elise turned the corner in the hallway. As she crept into her mother's sewing room, Elise rejoiced that she was not the daughter of a murderer.
The sewing room afforded a good view of the courtyard below. She felt incredibly tense, waiting for Darien to make his escape.
"Elise!" The voice was clear, as if Mandine stood beside her.
"Mandine?" She turned from the window and cobwebs caught in her hair. Coughing, she swiped the web from her hair. The room was empty save for herself.
Everything in the room was as she recalled from the last time she had seen it so long ago. It was as if her mother died and the door had been closed. The strangeness of it struck her. When people left Rogier, he did nothing to extinguish the memory. Everything was left intact as if he willed them to return.
Elise lit a candle beside the door. She opened her mother's sewing chest, touched a thimble, various spools of thread. Needles and pins were lined up neatly in a row, scissors in their small leather case, tarnished black with time.
As a child Mandine had forbidden her to enter this room. She had never known the reason. When she was five, she'd evaded even Mandine, who always seemed to know where she was, and come into this room. Even at that tender an age, she has realized the room was a special place, a sanctuary. Brightly decorated, the lovely rugs on the floor had diminished the effect of cold stone.
Elise had moved about the room, gently touching with her baby fingers all the pretty objects. With a child's awareness she had sensed she was no longer alone, ducking her head guiltily as she found Mandine in the doorway.
Mandine did not scold, but closed the door behind her and beckoned to Elise.
Holding her tenderly, Mandine whispered, "Do you see this room, the beauty of it? It is all delicacy and refinement."
Curious to know the secret of the closed room, Elise nodded.
"This room is your mother Aleanna's, and all that she brought to this place for you. Her dowry is here. Some day you, my little Elise, will have it."
Elise had not understood, all she perceived was a pretty room with an atmosphere she found comforting.
Now, thirty-four years later, Elise understood what Mandine had been telling her. Her mother had been delicate and refined, and Rogier had killed all that in her. Elise knew her mother had not been meant for Rogier Lancaster, but he had taken her somehow and brought her to this place.
She wondered about her real father, the man her mother had loved and lost. Perhaps she would never know. At least her mother had remarried. By the time she entered their lives, her mother and adoptive father Declan had been married ten years.
"Mandine?"
Elise moved to the fireplace mantle, lightly touched a small sachet. She could still smell its fragrance after the passage of time. Lifting the small lace bundle, she held it to her breast and knew that Mandine had made it. The scent of lily of the valley was heavy in the air.
Elise placed the dusty sachet back on the mantle, surprised when it made a clunking noise. Picking it up again, she rubbed it between her palms. Once again lily of the valley rose strongly in the still air.
With shaking hands, she turned the sachet over. The ribbon binding the lace fell apart. She gently pushed the dried, withered herbs aside, her fingers finding a hard object, then another.
Gently, she blew into the herbs, scattering them like thistle across the smooth marble surface. What remained was yellowed lace and two diamonds the size of her thumbnail. She stared at them in awe, and suddenly they flashed a spear of light.
"Diamonds," she murmured, "but how?"
"Aleanna's dowry." Mandine's whisper sighed across the room. Declan's wealth.
Declan? Elise's heart beat faster but there was no time to question the voice she heard. Footsteps approached along the halls. Hurriedly she snatched the stones from the mantle as the doorknob turned, the hinges creaking as the door opened inward.
She pushed the stones into the tops of her cotton stockings at her knees, smoothed the skirt and turned to face the door.
"I can't have peace even in here?" she demanded.
Rogier smirked. "I wanted to reassure myself you had not tried to leave."
"Why worry? You've warned me again and again. You're the one with the guards at your bidding."
She looked out the window to the courtyard below, imagining his heavy breath on her neck.
"You are high strung, just as your mother was."
"Don't speak of my mother," she hissed, her fists clenched on the window sill.
"Despite what you think Elise, I did love her." His hand came to rest on her shoulder. Revolted, she spun away from him.
"I can lock you back in your room."
"I am no longer a child. You can't keep me here."
"I cannot let you leave. You must realize that. Your place is here," he added softly, challengingly. "You are quite a challenge, you always have been. Far better than cowering young virgins."
Incredulously, she stared at him from across the room.
"Think on what I can give you. I have unlimited wealth and the means to enjoy it. We could travel to exotic places --" he dared to smile.
"What would I have to do in return?" she pushed back the bile.
"We could go to my chambers and discuss what your duties would entail."
She could not answer.
"Think on this before you give me your answer, my dear. Remington's life may depend upon your cooperation."
She spun to face him.
"Yes, I know you still care for him, even after the way he dismissed you."
She saw the satisfied twist of his thin lips. This was his style. Lull someone and then go for the jugular. She felt as if the years were rolling back. He had promised he loved her and then wielded a leather strap.
"If it pleases you, I will allow you this room. It needs cleaning of course, and first thing you should do is get rid of all those dreadful lace trappings that Mandine made."
"Mandine?"
"She was a madwoman after Aleanna died. She spent hours and hours in here sewing the blasted things. I gathered them once and put them in the fire, but the things made my hands bleed. It took all day to staunch the flow. No one would come into this room after that."
Elise held her breath, staring around the room. Yes, there were sachets everywhere she looked.
#
"I will take my leave." Rogier left, smiling as he closed the door. Let her think she had a choice in these matters. He knew differently.
No matter her choice, Remington would die while he, Rogier Lancaster, would have the daughter of the only woman he had ever loved.
#
Twenty minutes later, Elise quietly exited her mother's sewing room and made her way downstairs, a plan forming in her mind. She adjusted her stockings once more and the waistband of her skirt, the diamonds pinching her skin.
Entering the heat of the kitchen, she found the woman who had earlier been in the banquet hall. The woman was bent over a wooden counter top, her hair disheveled and falling onto splotchy, tear streaked cheeks. A pretty, young girl sat beside her, peeling potatoes.
Elise stopped beside the woman, who looked up with a start, her eyes darting fearfully between Elise and the doorway.
"Come with me," Elise said softly, pointing to the pantry door.
She held the door open and the woman walked hesitantly past her and into the shelf-lined storage room, her expression wary as Elise closed the door.
"Do you have friends -- somewhere you can go?"
"I don't understand," mumbled the woman.
"Leave this place. Save yourself and your daughter."
The woman looked as if she suspected a trap.
"Trust me," Elise entreated. "I am not in league with him."
"You are his daughter. How can I --"
"You must leave," she repeated. "Have you anywhere to go?"
"There's my sister, but she lives a way down the river, halfway to the city. I have not the means --"
Elise bent and lifted her skirt to retrieve one of the diamonds. She pressed it into the woman's palm. With a start, the woman stepped back.
Elise held her hand tightly. "Listen to me. We haven't much time. Take this, you can sell it, you must know someone reputable. Take it down the mountain, travel directly to Catskill and sell it. Get you and your daughter -- and you have a son? Get all of them to safety."
The woman looked at what Elise placed in her hand. "Lord, Miss," she exclaimed, eyes wide. "Do you know what you are about?"
"Is there a way you can leave without arousing suspicion?"
The woman wiped her tears, a glimmer of hope beginning to brighten her eyes. "I do need to buy fresh vegetables for tonight's stew. I thought to send one of the girls but needs be I could go myself, me and my Bridie."
"Then do it." Elise paused, then said, "But first I need a favor."
"Anything, Miss."
"Rogier is holding my husband, Darien Remington, in the tower. He is an innocent man. I need you to stop in town and deliver this to Rufus LaTour, his brother." She pressed a folded paper into the woman's palm. "You must hand it to Rufus, no one else."
"I can do that, Miss." The woman closed her hand on the paper and rolled the paper and stone up in a small square of cloth, then placed it down the front of her blouse.
"You must leave immediately."
"Thank you, Miss, thank you. I prayed and now --"
"Go now, while you can."
The woman and the young girl left some twenty minutes later. The woman played her part well, Elise thought. Their small wagon was laden with baskets, supposedly to bring back fresh vegetables and meats.
Elise prayed that Rufus had returned from his trip, otherwise they may well be doomed on this mountain top with Rogier and his men.
Elise drew back from the window as the wagon rolled out of sight. She had not even learned the woman's name.
#
Elise walked down the stairs, pausing as the wood creaked beneath her feet. Clutching the wood rail, she took another step, then stopped and listened, not trusting the silence.
The guards would be changing in about a half an hour. She had to get to the back gate by then if she were to meet Darien.
Silently she made her way back to the kitchen as the light faded. The lamps had not been lit but she knew the house by heart. As a child she had often wandered the halls at night.
Not for the first time Elise thought how very strange her upbringing had been. She had raised her own daughter in an entirely different manner. She had made sure Isabeau's life was full of laughter, security, and life challenges. The result was that her and Darien's daughter was a balanced, independent young woman.
Exiting the house through the back door, Elise looked out at the courtyard, which appeared deserted. She stayed close to the house, knowing if she moved away from its shadow she would be spotted.
Two of the guards were standing by the outer wall, speaking to one another, one of them with his back to her. She crouched down, waiting. Time seemed to go on and on, but the guards did not change. With sudden dread, she wondered if Rogier had changed the schedule.
Elise knew her only chance was to rely on the darkness while the moon hid behind clouds. She watched the sky, waiting and waiting. When the clouds covered the moon's brightness, she would run for the gate. If fortune was on her side, she could be through it without them knowing she had even passed by.
The two men patrolled closer to her hiding spot, then they separated. One followed the perimeter of the wall, the other moved toward her.
If he came too close, she wouldn't be able to slip by him. Still, the man drew nearer, his step slow and measured, as if he had all the time in the world.
An enormous cloud was beginning to pass in front of the moon, but the man was still getting closer.
Elise pressed her hand to her chest as an owl hooted nearby. The man turned and walked back the way he had come, looking up into the trees as if in search of that owl. The face of the moon was obscured by the large cloud and the night was once more inky dark.
Lifting her skirts she ran lightly toward the place where she knew there was a half-hidden door in the wall. She dipped her head as she slipped through the aperture, then gently pushed the door closed.
She backed from the wall, then turned and ran into the woods. The moon reappeared as she skirted the woods and ran towards the old sap house. As she ran around the structure, she was suddenly grabbed and pulled back against the wall, a large hand covering her mouth. Terrified and in total pitch black, she tried to kick the man holding her.
"'Lise," Darien whispered. She sagged, then nodded.
"Darien." Her fright was still in her voice.
"I could not alert you, it was too dangerous. Come, let's go." Taking her hand Darien led her deeper into the woods.
"What if he follows?"
"We will stay off the road."
Elise ducked under bramble as he held the branches from her face.
"There is only one route left for us to take," he muttered.
She swallowed her fear. "The escarpment?"
"Yes. It is the only way."
Elise followed her husband without hesitation, but her trepidation grew. The escarpment trail was a shale and clay path which meandered down the mountain side. It was the quickest route down, but a careless misstep could cause one to fall several hundred feet among ledge and rock. In daytime it was treacherous; in the dark, it was lunacy.
Darien led the way, picking slowly, not letting go of her hand. As they crept along in the dark, sometimes with the aid of the moon, Elise wondered if they would make it out alive.
Her knees shook badly, for the way down was a steep, sliding walk. She was grateful when he stopped a moment. The moon shone again, and now Elise could see the steep sloping terrain they had yet to traverse.
"Rest a moment." He pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. "I watched you get by the guards. I was afraid, Elise, I can tell you that now."
"They did not change as I expected. Rogier changed something. An owl distracted the one guard," she said with relief.
Fleetingly she saw his grin, then he imitated the sound. "Like that?"
"It was you? But it sounded further away, in the tree tops."
"Yes, and the guards changed two hours before."
"What? Have you been waiting for me all that time? You should have escaped."
"Do you think I would leave without you? Just as you would not leave without me."
He was correct.
"I sent word to Rufus."
"Who would you dare to trust?"
"It was one of the women my fa -- Rogier bought at auction. I helped her and her daughter get away. I hope they managed to do so."
"Perhaps we can intercept my brother. If I know Roof, he will show up at an unexpected hour. He always said it pays to surprise your adversary in his bed."
"I don't think Rogier sleeps," she said.
"Let us move on. I dare not waste time. Will you be all right?"
Elise nodded with determination. There was no going back. Her knees felt as if she had been walking all night, and she stumbled on something, probably an exposed root. She fell against Darien and he steadied her, his arm pressing into her side reassuringly.
Unaccountably, Elise felt tears start to her eyes. She had lost him and been allowed to come back and reclaim that lost love. A second chance for both of them. Even if they died before the morning came, she had done what she had set out to do.
They crossed a small creek and Darien stopped, lifting his head and looking around them.
"We are close," Elise said.
"Yes, we are almost near the base of the mountain. The village of Eastkill should lie to the east."
"Why are we stopping?"
"I want to be sure before we come out into a clearing. A miscalculation could bring us right back into Lancaster's arms."
"Why would he be so lucky as to be in the exact spot we come out?" she asked. "He's not omnipotent."
"I hope you are right."
"Do you think this was another trap?"
"He may be hunting us," Darien said grimly.
"Why should you think he knows anything?"
"Our escape was too easy."
Chilled, Elise tried to reason away his words. "You have to be wrong. He can't know everything."
"We cannot chance going to my house. That is the first place they will look."
"You're right. So where do we go?"
"Perhaps I can help you on that score." Rogier stepped from the edge of the woods, confirming Elise's worst fears. He held a pistol and it was pointed in their direction.