Lady Thief Read online

  She ignored his sarcasm. “When we are wed, you are to forget that these men were ever here. None are to be harmed for what has taken place today.” She raised her arm and pointed her hand to where they were scattered about the church so that there would be no mistaking her.

  He shrugged, but before he could respond he felt the blade at his throat shake.

  The man behind him was frightened. No doubt the other men were equally in fear of their lives. As they should be.

  The only way to prevent the cold metal of that blade from taking a fatal bite out of him was to remain calm and in control. He needed to believe that he did not mind the situation he was in if it were to ring true in his voice.

  “I can hardly put a man of God to death for performing the sacred union between a man and a woman, but what of the others? They admitted to being here of their free will. For God’s sake, if you lift your chin any higher you will be staring at Him in the heavens.”

  The men behind him laughed.

  William smirked. Better to have them at ease and laughing than contemplating their own deaths, and therefore, murdering him to avoid that fate.

  Marianne glared at all of them and lowered her nose, though that did not hide the flush that flooded her skin and flowed up her neck.

  Her next words silenced the laughter. “They are family men,”

  William sputtered. “Family men?”

  He turned to look at them. They were no longer laughing or grinning as they had been before when they brought him here, but staring at him with concern for themselves. Concern for their lives.

  He no longer saw them as foolish thieves, but as desperate tricksters who stunk thickly of something other than pigs and dirt. They reeked of fear.

  William became very aware that the blade held at his throat stung his flesh as it shook.

  He was being cut. The man behind him was in such a fear for himself that William was having his throat slowly cut.

  William dared not move. Dared not to speak or even acknowledge the drop of blood that trickled down his neck. So much as startling the man could be the end of him.

  “Archer,” Marianne said, her eyes traveling down to the blade. The sting of metal disappeared from his throat.

  William would not allow himself to show his relief.

  He stared into her eyes and she chewed her bottom lip. Even on his knees he made her uneasy. William enjoyed that he had some control over the situation.

  He cleared his throat. His decision was made. “Very well, in this worn house of God I swear on my honor to forget the faces of each of these men, and should I not forget them, I will pretend to have no knowledge of them.” He held his hand out to her, waiting for her to take the risk this time. “Does that promise suit you?”

  ***

  Marianne waited for a few seconds just to not seem so eager, and when she finally took his hand there was a collective sigh in the church. Gray smirked and rolled his eyes, as though he had seen them behaving quite differently at one time.

  Friar Mitchell shifted his aging feet. “Are ye prepared?”

  Marianne gasped when Gray rose to his feet without waiting for Archer’s permission or for him to remove the blade that was so close to his skin. Was the man insane or simply without fear?

  Marianne looked up at him and forgot about fear entirely. She had been right. He was not so wretchedly tall that she had to put her head entirely back in order to see his face. He stood pleasantly above her, the top of her head only reaching his nose, another small thing that worked in his favor.

  “I am ready. How convenient for you to plan my abduction on a Sunday morning after mass so we will have no need to make our confession.”

  Marianne’s face heated again, but she refused to tell him that she hadn’t considered such a thing until he mentioned it just now. She had chosen today because he carried the fewest servants with him on his Sunday morning ride, making the abduction that much easier.

  Perhaps she should have put more planning into this.

  He took both of her hands into his and looked at Friar Mitchell. “Will she not need a wedding ring?”

  “A wedding band can be acquired at a later time should you wish to obtain it, my lord.” The friar’s demeanor and voice held every respect entitled to a lord.

  Marianne held her breath when her soon-to-be-husband turned his eyes back to her with one brow raised in thought.

  “Nay, I do not think she shall need one.”

  Her breath came out in a gasp at the insult but she refused to allow herself to be hurt.

  She came here expecting insults and temper, she would not spare any hurt feelings just because her expectations had been met. Though to exact a bit of revenge she dug her nails into his skin and relished his wince. “Rings tend to make my fingers itch anyway, my lord,” she said, her nose in the air again.

  A frown touched his brow. “I see, and, before we wed, will you not tell your husband—to—be why you have chosen him?”

  Marianne tensed and dug her fingernails deeper into his hand. His eye twitched but he did naught else.

  “You know precisely why it has come to this, my lord.

  She watched the irritation flicker across his face and was pleased. The twitch of confusion that came with it prompted her to dig her nails deeper into him.

  He knew exactly why they were in this position.

  With steel-like control, he closed his free hand over hers and pried her claws from his flesh.

  The service began.

  Marianne lost all thoughts of anger and felt overwhelmed with giddy excitement and happiness.

  She did it! She avoided her marriage to Sir Ferdinand and was about to become Lady Gray, the future Countess of Graystone.

  Her father would finally see that he was wrong to try and force her into a marriage with a man she did not choose herself. A man who caused prickles of unease to present themselves along her flesh whenever he smiled at her in that crooked, promising way.

  She was so excited about the intelligence of planning the abduction, the courage required to carry it out and actually succeeding that she barely noted a slight err in Friar Mitchell’s service.

  “Wait.” She said, as it was now her turn to speak her affirmative of the marriage. All eyes turned to her as she halted the proceedings.

  Gray threw his head back and closed his eyes. “Now what?”

  She ignored him. “Friar, did you say, Lord William Gray?”

  “I did.”

  Everything inside of her froze. “Not … Blaise Gray?”

  Her original intended and the man who sent her such insulting letters. If this meant what she thought it meant then it could only be that the man standing next to her was—

  “You think I am my son?”

  Her hands flew to her mouth. Lord Gray. Lord William Gray, was now staring at her with something akin to a predator’s gleam in his eyes.

  “Oh, good Lord.” She turned and attempted to flee but Lord Gray’s hands shot out, snatching her arms and pulling her back with a painful grip that made her cringe.

  The look on his face was hardly pleased.

  “Forgive me, my lord. I knew not who you truly were.”

  There was no forgiveness in his eyes. “So your plan was to force this onto Blaise, was it not? My son?” He gave her a little shake. “I remember now. He was to marry, but he did not approve of the match.”

  “My lord,” her men would not dare attempt to help her, not now when they too knew that he was the true earl and not merely the future one. Everyone in the church was at his mercy. “Please.”

  “No.” The word was sharp and cruel on his tongue. “You wanted revenge, and regardless of Blaise, I am still ultimately responsible as I agreed to let him call off your marriage to him. So let us be wed instead if that is your wish.” He yanked her back to his side.

  “Continue with the ceremony.” He barked.

  Marianne sent a pleading look to Friar Mitchell. His returning look was apologetic. �
��Will ye take the honorable Lord William Gray of Graystone as yer husband?”

  She could not answer. She could not.

  “My lady,” the tone was a warning as his grip on her arm increased, his blunt fingertips pressing and digging into her through her sleeve.

  Marianne winced. The press of his fingers diminished, but barely.

  “I will not leave here empty handed after ye have humiliated me thus. Say yes.”

  She thought of the men behind her and the situation she put them in. They had handled a lord so disrespectfully on her orders, and no doubt they would suffer all the worse for it if she did not speak. Marianne forced the word out of her. It would come no other way. “Yes.”

  Everything else became a blur of blessings, and her hand being pressed down to sign a document that binded them in every possible way. She could hardly move. Hardly think.

  It would have continued on if not for the strong hand that tangled itself in her hair, pulling her forward until her lips clashed against the mouth of her new husband.

  Marianne’s fists pounded his shoulders and her feet scrambled for escape, but his arm around her body and tangled in her hair prevented any movement.

  She sucked air into her lungs until they felt ready to explode. Her eyes wide open as she stared into his blue orbs while he caressed her tongue with his own. Her eyes grew wider when the hand that held her waist in place slid down and clenched her bottom.

  Helplessly, her cheeks heated, and she suddenly knew what he desired from her. The same thing Ferdinand had wanted. What she no longer wished to give.

  When he released her Marianne could not stand in the spinning room, and she blindly reached her hands out to the priest to keep from falling to her knees. He caught her and dutifully allowed her to lean against him to catch her escaping breath.

  “Congratulations, my lord.” Friar Mitchell said carefully. “May you be blessed with many more children and long life.”

  Children. Marianne would be expected to give him children. She would be sick. Everything felt hot.

  She ran from the altar, passed Archer and her men and burst through the doors of the church. The sharp chill in the air only made her situation more real, more crisp, and she knew she had to escape it.

  She could vaguely hear Archer calling after her but she refused to stop. She ran for the horses, mounted, and kicked off.

  Miserable tears stung her eyes but were dried by the whipping wind, and her race to safety was filled with self belittlement.

  How could she be so stupid? Archer and his men kidnapped the wrong man. She’d married the wrong man!

  Chapter Three

  William peered out of the arrow loop in his tallest tower. A caravan resembling a stream of ants approached his castle on a brown ribbon of road.

  One of those ants was his new bride. From his position she would not see him watching as she came closer. He didn’t want her knowing, yet, of his eagerness to have her.

  At last. The thought brought a vicious smile to his lips and made his hand clench into a fist. Now that she had come she would know the humiliation he suffered at her hands.

  His footman knocked and entered the bare, drafty room. This tower room was only useful when enemies approached and he needed to survey every available space around his castle and lands. But the last attack had been when he was barely able to ride his first horse, and now he used it to think quietly, and watch for his wife.

  Adam, a young man with hair and eyes matching the mud on the road outside was one of the few still loyally willing to jump and run at William’s commands. “Milord, they are arriving.”

  William kept his eyes on the road, his hand scratching his neck where the scratch from the blade recently healed. “Aye, I see them.”

  “Shall I prepare the servants to greet her?”

  William half turned his head to tell him not to, but thought better of it. Her father would be escorting her, and he would not want to give reason to insult the man, even though he had raised an impudent daughter.

  “Yes, do that. I will be down shortly, and Adam?”

  Adam turned when he called.

  William’s eyes were sharp. “Be sure that my son is not among the greeters.”

  Adam cast him a curious glance before he scurried back down the spiral stone stairway to do as he was bid.

  William turned back to the scenery of grey skies, wet landscape and fresh winds, a sharp change from the cheerful weather outside the withering church on his wedding day.

  His palms were flat on the damp stone window as he leaned forward to watch the ants turn into small men, horses, and pack mules.

  For a split second in that church he felt a swell of respect for the woman. The moment he discovered she had erred, did not even know his true identity before marrying him, it disappeared like the sun in those miserable grey clouds outside.

  She throttled his head with the club of stupidity.

  He should have known better, really. Perhaps boredom could be blamed for his own faulty judgment that day.

  William’s fingers twitched. He wanted to go down there and teach his new wife a few lessons about her brash personality, something he craved since their wedding a fortnight ago.

  That thought in mind, William descended the stairs to greet his bride.

  ***

  ‘Twas finally happening. Now was the time to reap what she had sewn and face her victim. Face her punishment.

  Her husband.

  The entire ride Marianne twitched, itched, and waited for the journey to end so she could put herself at ease.

  Her father was no comfort to her apprehension as he remained silent the whole way. Hardly sparing her a glance but to tell her with his eyes what a disappointment he thought of her.

  Marianne clutched her father’s hand as he helped her descend from her mare, and when her feet were safely on the squishing ground, she did not let him go.

  Regardless of her bundled nerves, her eyes were not on him, they were on the line of servants at the front doors waiting to greet her.

  Maids with their hands clasped together in front of their worn gowns and men with their hands behind their backs, all with their heads respectively bent, and none with the air of delight at her arrival.

  They were just recently brought from whatever task they had been doing. She could tell because some of the boys had dirt smudges on their faces and bits of straw poking out of their clothes.

  Occasionally they snuck their heads up, enough so they might inspect their new mistress.

  Marianne could not see him anywhere. Though which him would displease her more, Blaise or William Gray—her husband—Marianne was not sure.

  She lifted her head to stare at the tall, gray stone towers, matching the sky so well that for a moment she thought they stretched into each other and became one. Would her new husband lock her into one of those stone towers? She shivered.

  Her home had never been a truly merry place since the death of her final living brother, but ‘twas familiar and held memories dear to her. This place, this castle that towered above her like a prison, was hardly calling for Marianne to enter its doors with a smile.

  She turned her eyes back to the servants and saw them moving apart to give Lord Gray space to descend the steps.

  He was the same man she had met and married in that church, she knew, but his eyes were different, holding the triumphant air of a man who had just been given what he wanted most, but dark with anticipation for when he could play with it, or break it.

  Marianne quickly lowered her face before he could lock eyes with her, and her cheeks heated. Her shame too great to challenge him just now.

  Her eyes pointing down, Marianne saw there was something amiss about his step, a happy spring that had not been in his eyes.

  The heat in Marianne’s face left her and she was instantly alert. Something was not right. Happiness did not exist in him at this moment.

  He had something planned.

  Her husband called o
ut, but not to her. “Sir Guy Holton,”

  Her father opened his arms to him. “Lord William Gray.”

  Marianne watched with her mouth dropped as the two men bowed to each other quite formally before embracing like brothers, and much back slapping ensued.

  Marianne tried to mask her disgust with her father’s behavior. ‘Twas difficult, however, so instead she pretended that if she refused look at them, they would not see her. Her attempt was unsuccessful.

  Her father put an arm about her shoulders and forcefully pushed her forth, even as she resisted by digging her heals into the rocks. “But of course you already know my lovely daughter.”

  The warm, confident grin with which Lord Gray greeted her unsettled her deeply. She had to avert her eyes and giving him a proper curtsy, one much more deep and polite than the rude thing she’d performed back at the church. Back when she thought he was Blaise.

  The humiliation was nearly unbearable.

  Then it occurred to her. After weeks of brooding over her foolish choices and the day when she would come here she had not once thought of Blaise, and the color drained from her cheeks.

  Blaise would be here. She would have to greet him and behave as a lady towards the one responsible for her current state.

  She wanted to blame him for everything, all her misfortunes since she first heard his name and even the ones before then, even though the fault was entirely hers.

  Because of her, she was married to a lord and put everyone she involved in her plot in danger. She did not even know what Blaise looked like so she could not make a point of ignoring him. What if Lord Gray had regular guests to his castle? She could not snub everyone in proper dress just because there would be a possibility that it was Blaise.

  Turning her head ever so slightly, she caught sight of Archer, struggling to help the other servants remove the luggage and other things she was to keep at Graystone. She wondered if his wife had time to put any salve on his back, and her face softened apologetically. He was too occupied with his task of lifting heavy trunks to pay her any mind.

  The look did not go unnoticed by Gray, whose eyes shot towards Archer and noticed him for the first time. Another dark eagerness flashed in their blue depths.