Chapter 1
Chapter One
At the age of twelve, to protect himself from his older brother’s ire, Sir Alexander Rathbone had told a lie.
After the death of their father, Hugh, who was ten years older than him and therefore already a man, had taken on the role of parent to his four orphaned siblings—and, unfortunately, he took that role very seriously.
He would not like being told that Alexander had missed the midday meal because he was busy training with Christopher Harrison, a neighbor a few years older than him, who had agreed to teach him swordplay every time the family visited Audley Castle.
Though he had not bestirred himself once to show his brothers how to handle a blade, Hugh would take exception to the idea that someone else was doing what he should have been doing himself, and he would make both boys pay.
Intent on not being punished and on protecting Christopher from retaliation, Alexander told his brother that he’d been locked in the weapon room in the barbican by accident when one of the guards had gone to find his replacement for the afternoon.
“And what were you doing in that room, I might ask?”
Damnation. He could not admit that he had gone to put back the sword he’d used to spar with Christopher that morning. Keeping their training sessions a secret was the whole reason for the lie.
“I wanted to see Father’s sword,” he improvised.
“You fool; do you really think I would keep such a precious heirloom with the guards’ weapons? The sword is in my own room.”
“Of course. I should have guessed.”
With a contemptuous snort, Hugh walked away, and Alexander allowed himself to relax. The story had worked.
He should have guessed that he would be punished for his daring in some way. A week later, unlikely as it was, the exact thing he’d described happened to him. It was so improbable that it seemed like a jest on fate’s part.
You think you can invent stories and not be held accountable? Let’s see how you really fare locked in a small, dark room for hours on end, it seemed to say.
Not well, was the answer.
The incident happened in the evening. As he was sneaking into the weapon room to return the sword he was never supposed to have borrowed, he was locked in by the guard going on watch duty for the night.
The man, who’d had no reason to suspect anyone was in there, closed the door without looking inside.
Calling out for help was not an option. Alexander had his dignity, but more importantly, he could not risk his brother finding out what had happened.
Hugh had swallowed the unlikely lie once; he would not do it twice.
Besides, this was not exactly a prison; the door would be opened again in the morning when the guards came to get their weapons. All he had to do was wait.
In a cold, unlit room, with rats for sole company. That night was undoubtedly the worst of his life.
In the morning, as he’d anticipated, he was released. Almost weeping with relief, Alexander slipped out of the room as soon as the guard had removed the chain and walked away.
Unfortunately, his long absence had been detected. His brother cornered him just as he rounded the stables with the intention of going to the river for a wash.
“Look at you!” Hugh sneered, taking in Alexander’s disheveled appearance. “You spent the night rutting away with one of the maids, didn’t you?”
Rutting away? Alexander stared at his brother in disbelief. He was only twelve; his voice had not broken yet. He had never even kissed anyone. In fact, he barely knew what this “rutting” involved.
“I was not with a maid,” he said, straightening himself up in his outrage.
“Well, where have you been then? You look as if you’ve been rolling on the floor and you weren’t in your room, that’s for sure. Colin told me you didn’t come to bed at all last night.”
Trust the little weasel to tell on him. Alexander clenched his jaw.
With each passing day, it became harder to share a bed with his two brothers.
Since their father’s death, Colin had become impossibly spoiled and entitled.
Perhaps he thought that, as the youngest of the family, he should be pampered.
Roger, two years younger than Hugh, had never been the warmest of men.
Since the tragedy, he had retreated further into himself, barely speaking to anyone.
On the rare occasions he did, he barked.
The only thing that seemed to stir his interest was finding mead. The stronger the better.
Hugh was the only one who had not been changed by their change in circumstances. As far back as Alexander remembered, his elder brother had always been obnoxious.
That left his only sister, Mary. The two of them barely ever exchanged a word, so she was of no help. Aged seventeen, she was desperate to find a husband to escape the stifling, unhappy atmosphere of the family home.
What a sad state of affairs… Alexander had sworn that he would focus on himself when he grew up and finally fled this hell.
Family life had offered him nothing but trouble, and the last thing he wanted was to risk leaving children to fend for themselves, like his parents had done, if any ill befell him.
When he turned eighteen, he would ask Hugh to send him to Audley, his favorite of all their father’s domains.
The place needed to be managed, and he would see to it.
But he would never marry, having nothing to offer a wife and no wish for a family.
“I did not go to bed last night, ’tis true,” Alexander told Hugh, whose face made it clear he had better say something.
He would simply have to try the barbican story a second time as, after the frightful night he’d had, he was too tired to think of a plausible excuse.
“But I swear I didn’t rut with a maid. As I said, I—”
“Was it one of the stable boys then?”
Alexander was so stunned that he did not immediately respond. “A b-boy?” he finally stammered, which Hugh chose to take as confirmation of his guilt.
“I see.” No longer angry, he now appeared amused.
It was not exactly an improvement, but at least it meant that Alexander would not be punished for lying.
“Well, as long as they don’t get too distracted, I don’t mind.
Besides, that way, I can keep the maids to myself.
Speaking of which, I think I saw Maggie heading toward the herb garden.
If she’s going to drop to her knees anyway, I might as well make the most of it. ”
It had all been a disaster. As he watched his brother strut to the garden, Alexander swore another oath to himself. He would never tell a lie again. Not ever. It would only land himself—and others—in trouble.
Ten years later, however, he had been forced to break that promise by none other than Christopher. His friend had spent the night at Audley Castle with Sian Hunter, the woman who would then become his wife, after she’d been attacked by his stepbrother.
The problem was that he was supposed to be somewhere else at the time—and that she was married to someone else. Alexander had no idea what had happened exactly, but he was certain that his friend and the love of his life had slept in the same bed.
In order to explain her disappearance and the bruises on her face without mentioning either Christopher or the attack she had been a victim of, Alexander and Sian had agreed that she should tell her family he had rescued her from an assault in the woods.
He had reasoned that this was not exactly his lie, and anyway, what choice did he have?
He could not allow her reputation to be tarnished or her family to worry.
For almost a decade, that small lie had had no consequence. But he should have known that fate would not forget to collect her due.
Here he was today, galloping in the direction of a woman crying for help, and this time it was all too real.
The assault he and Sian had imagined all those years ago had involved two ruffians.
He hoped today’s attack did not involve more, as he was on his own and unarmed, having only gone to the river for a bath.
“Help! No!”
The lady’s cries were getting frantic. The sound was horrific, piercing a hole through the base of Alexander’s spine.
But the silence that followed the last scream was even worse.
Because it meant that she had been rendered senseless by her attackers—and that he could not use her voice to point him in the right direction.
Fortunately, there was no need, as at that moment, he happened on the scene of the assault.
He burst into a meadow filled with flowers, an incongruous place for the sinister deed the men were plotting.
To his relief, he saw that there were only two aggressors.
Fate was playing fair at least. Each time, she was recreating the lie scrupulously, so that he knew what to expect.
Thankfully, he and Sian had not tried to exaggerate his bravery by claiming there had been three or four assailants that day.
The two bastards whipped their heads toward him when he bounded from the undergrowth. The woman didn’t react, she was on the ground, immobile, just as he’d feared.
“Shit!” one of the men said—the one who was on his knees and had already taken his hard member in hand.
Alexander saw red. He jumped down from the saddle, picked a branch he’d spotted on the ground and ran at them with a cry of pure rage. How dare they attack an innocent thus, and on his lands!
The men saw his fury and didn’t even try to fight him off.
They ran in the opposite direction, to a gray horse that presumably belonged to the woman.
They scrambled onto the poor beast’s back and were gone before Alexander could do more than throw the branch at the one closest to him.
It made contact with his head, but unfortunately was not enough to stop the men’s retreat.