Chapter 9
Lily could barely keep her eyes open. Her stomach cramped with hunger. Fear and exhaustion muddled her head. She wanted to weep but couldn’t.
She felt…abandoned.
Hours passed, and with each loathsome minute she became just a little sadder and more alone.
John wasn’t going to come. Something had gone wrong. It must have. In that dark hour, Lily concluded that he no longer cared for her.
She felt stupid, ungainly as if she’d grown an unattractive carapace.
How could she have mistaken his intentions so badly?
She thought about the red rose, the little notes they had exchanged.
She had risked much in meeting with him.
Once here at this very spot, where he had read her his favorite poem.
They had not had much time together, but when they had, he had behaved with the utmost decorum.
She had fully believed he was a fitting knight of Camelot.
Now…?
Had she thought they might elope? How ill-advised of her! How stupid. Clearly, she must be a bad judge of character.
Lily rested her chin on her knees and wrapped her arms around them. She was more miserable than she ever thought possible. She could not think of tomorrow. She must somehow get through this night.
She might have dozed; she couldn’t be sure, but at some point, she became aware of a prick of yellow light. She rubbed her eyes. But it remained there, bobbing up and down way off deeper into the forest. Slowly, though, it grew a little bigger and then bigger still.
Yes, someone approached. Lily crawled out of the cave and stood up, straining to see if she could identify the light and who carried it, and if it was canny or some evil spirit.
She couldn’t see anything but the yellowish gleam of it. Lamplight, most likely, not rushlight.
She kept very still. Uncertainty told her to run, but at that moment a harsh whisper called out, “Ho, then… are you out here?”
The voice sounded warped, dulled by the heavy branches, and distorted by the night air, but Lily had no doubts. It was John’s dear voice. She gave a glad cry, her heart pounding, and plunged down the incline, throwing herself into his arms.
“Oh, John, oh, thanks be to heaven,” she wept as tears released at last coursed down her cheeks.
“Steady up, girl,” he said, fending her off and cupping a hand about the lantern flame. “Steady. Have a care for my lantern, now.” Carefully, he set the glowing lamp down at his feet. Unfamiliar shadows leapt out across the forest floor and painted glowing snarls on the surrounding trunks.
John stepped away from her, a strained look upon his face, half of expectation and half of a suppressed excitement.
Lily, oblivious, felt a strange mixture of relief and lingering distress. The lantern light fell upon her and revealed her grimy face and wide, haunted eyes. “Where were you? Did you not get my note? Did you get lost? Where is your horse?”
“What ho! Am I a prisoner? Questions, questions. You sound like a fishwife. Calm yourself, mistress,” he chided.
Lily was taken aback. “But John—”
“Calm, I say,” said John. “Of course, I got your note. But first, I have a question of my own. What is this game of yours?” he said and pointed at her shabby cloak and the rough peasant clogs. “Are you play-acting? You look absurd.”
Lily stood up, hurt. It was impossible not to be. She’d thought herself most enterprising. “It’s my disguise,” she said.
“Disguise?” he sneered, “you think no one would know your face, my girl? That’s daft, that is. What a disgrace, should anyone discover you. Your disguise would serve only to shame your brothers.”
“Well, it worked,” Lily said a little defensively.
She did not wish to talk of disgrace and family right now.
She wanted comfort and could not fathom his mood.
“I got through the gate without any trouble at all. No one hindered me. But never mind that, you are so late, John, I thought you were not coming.”
“Couldn’t help it. Your affianced husband has the entire county in an uproar. He has provoked such a hue and cry as has not been known in the district since the king’s father stole the throne. I had to lie low. I dared not move ‘til he finished searching Farley Chase.”
“I see,” she said, but she didn’t. Not quite. Her stomach growled with hunger. “Perhaps you should have thought of a disguise?”
He spun about, glowering, his hands on his hips. “Do you think to be clever with me? Let me tell you, your man is dangerous. Care is needed.”
“He’s not—” Lily began, but her stomach growled, and she could hardly concentrate for exhaustion. “I don’t suppose you’ve anything to eat?” she asked plaintively.
He ignored her, determined that she should hear about his complaints.
“He is rampaging through the estates along the forest, questioning everyone. Me included, but I managed to slip his nets. Hah! Thinks to treat me like a peasant, does he? He’ll pay for that, and soon, it is to be hoped.
A madman. Tearing into everyone regardless of their station.
Highborn or low, it matters not to him. He knows no propriety, this affianced husband of yours. ”
“He’s no longer my affianced husband,” said Lily in a low voice.
John froze in mid-stride. His furious expression made her step back a pace.
“What did you say?” he asked in a terrible voice.
“There was no betrothal.”
“What?” he bellowed.
The change in him was nothing short of terrifying. She watched as her gallant swain transformed into an ominous stranger.
He had been pacing up and down; now he advanced to where she stood. There was menace in his eyes, and his mouth had shrunk to an unpleasant slash. “What did you say?” he hissed, grabbing her arm.
Lily’s heart slammed into her chest. “W-what is it, John? Why do you glare at me so?”
“Say it again.”
“Say what—? I am no longer betrothed to Ravensworth?”
He shoved her back, almost toppling her to the ground. “Speak those words again, and you’ll regret it,” he said, his voice as cold as frost in February.
“I can’t help it. They are true. The betrothal was to take place this afternoon, and as you can see, I am not there to sign the contracts. It is too late now, in any case.”
For fully a score of breaths, noisy and ugly as they were, John Percy stood there snorting, white hot with fury. “Fool, you must go back and see it done. What are you, a dimwit? You lack-brained fool. You will sign those contracts. You have to. We… I require it of you.”
She shook her head, bewildered and frightened. Everything seemed to be falling apart around her. “I thought you, like my family, did not wish me to wed the earl? You certainly led me to believe that.”
“We don’t want you to wed him. Only ruin him. For that, you need to be betrothed to him,” he shouted at her, shaking her by the shoulders. “You will return to him this very night and set things to rights.”
“I cannot,” she said, her voice thin and sad. “The earl would not wish to be betrothed to me any longer. I lied to him,” she added in a small voice.
“And I told you not to repeat that,” he said, and he raised his arm.
In that second Lily realized that he intended to hit her.
The shock undid her legs, and she crumpled to the ground even as he swung his fisted hand.
The force of it caused him to rock on his heels, tottering like a drunk on unsteady legs.
Was he drunk? Clearly, some passion had seized him, for he seemed to have gone mad.
“All that courting drivel… and for what? Ruined… plans ruined by a fool.”
Lily did not think. Instinct told her to roll away, and this she did, even as she heard him stumble over his own feet. Down he went, yelling and cursing in the sudden dark.
He’d knocked over the lantern, she realized, and it had gone out. She could hear him stumbling about, first this way and then that, blindly trying to find it and light it once again. He was getting more furious by the second because he could not find it. And he could not find her.
Lily, terrified, shrank into a ball while his disembodied voice rang out a series of commands to unseen collaborators. He spoke of plots and stratagems as he searched with blind fingers, shouting with the incoherence of a lunatic. He denounced her as a fool. None of what he said made sense.
Lily did not care but could only be thankful that he no longer seemed concerned with her. She listened, crouching amid piles of brittle leaves. She had no idea what was happening. A nightmare world had swept her up. Tears burned her eyes. She was too shocked and terrified to move.
She hurt inside her heart. Waves of shame overwhelmed her. Shame over her thoughtless defiance, shame too for trusting someone like John Percy.
Still, she lay. The night grew old.
Slowly, her terror subsided. She could hear John stumbling about in the woods as he plotted his next moves. Now he talked of Wales and Glendower, of roads and strong places, reputations and estates. Lily stopped listening. She had to get away, she realized. He was not in his right mind.
Slowly, she raised herself on one elbow, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t pay her any attention.
Then, very carefully, she began to scoot back away from his voice. Inch by painful inch. Slowly back and back she went until she came up against a tree. She could feel the rough scales scraping her shoulder blades through the cloak.
Before she could feel her way around the thick trunk, she felt the brush of a hand on her neck. At the same instant, a hand clamped over her mouth. Before she could react, a soft voice spoke in her ear, and she knew him. “You’re safe,” said the Black Raven. “Be easy.”
After that, things happened very quickly.
Lily felt herself lifted in granite-strong arms. At the same instant, there came a cacophony of male voices shouting and swearing.
Sudden light ripped away the dark. She heard John’s blood chilling howl, and the clash of steel that broke open the forest night.