1
Lady Rhiannon Dacre jiggled the cold iron handle of her bedchamber for what had to have been the one-hundredth time, with the same result as the previous tries. The door was locked.
“This is ridiculous,” she growled at the unbudging door, giving it a mighty slap that reverberated through her arm and tingled uncomfortably in her elbow.
Locked away, a prisoner in her own home. This was her brother Adam’s doing, a new tactic to show his control over her. The idiot could exert as much power as he wanted, but he’d never see her cower. And he’d also never see her relent to his demands, especially when she barely knew him. The idea that he believed he could march into her life and decide her fate was ludicrous.
Besides, she’d now been able to sneak a third letter out of the castle via the servants who were sympathetic to her plight. She was certain at least one of them would reach her cousin, Douglass Sinclair, Lady Caithness, in the Highlands of Scotland, where she lived with her husband, the Earl of Caithness. If her brother wasn’t going to let her out until she agreed to do his bidding, then she needed to escape on her own.
All three letters had been approximately the same:
Dearest Cousin,
I hope this message finds you well. And I wish it were with good tidings that I sent it. But alas, I must implore you for help. While you were away, my brother retrieved me from Appleby and locked me away in his dank, depressing castle. How I long for your company. I know you must be very busy with your new life and your husband, but I do not know who else to turn to. My brother plans to marry me off come spring to one of his vile comrades who has been traveling abroad and will return then. It is not a marriage befitting of my station, which wouldn’t bother me if it were for love, but instead, it is to repay a debt he owes this man. I pray this missive reaches you before my fate is sealed. And I pray that there is some way you may be able to help me.
I wrote to your father, but his message was returned as he is on campaign for the king and was unable to receive it.
I do not know how you could help me, but even a letter back would brighten my day.
Your loving cousin,
Rhiannon
Perhaps if she’d grown up under lock and key or even in the same household as her brother, she might have been more afraid of what he was capable of. But she’d been lucky to grow up with Douglass in her uncle’s household at Appleby Castle, not too far from where she was now at Dacre Castle. It had almost been as if she had a real family she could count on, not this insanity her brother was subjecting her to.
After all, since when did brothers lock their sisters in their rooms? Well, perhaps that was a silly question as she was certain not to be the first. All the same, Adam was locking the wrong door, and she would make him pay for it.
After she escaped.
Rhiannon grabbed the handle of the door and jiggled it violently, groaning in frustration when it still refused to budge. “You cannot keep me locked in here,” she shouted with a voice that was growing weaker and a throat sorer than it had been the day before.
Their parents, God rest their souls, had died when she was a little girl. At the time of their passing, she’d been too young to be of interest to her brother for anything; he’d found her a nuisance, which was why she’d been sent to Appleby in the first place. He’d taken over Dacre, and she’d thought he had been happy to do so. But as soon as Douglass had been whisked off to Scotland to be married, Rhiannon had found herself alone, and her brother had come pounding at the Appleby Castle door late one night.
Goosie, her cat, had leapt up from where she’d been asleep in the crook of Rhiannon’s bent knees as the entire castle had reverberated from the sound. The guards at the gate had apparently let her brother in, but no one had been awake to unbar Appleby’s doors. She rather liked that he’d had to wait, even if it only made matters worse when she finally saw him.
She’d been so groggy when the servants had alerted her to a visitor that it had been hard to figure out exactly what was happening, and she supposed that was what Adam had wanted. To create confusion and chaos by showing up in the dead of night.
He’d swept into the castle and demanded she return with him. The servants and guards of Appleby had no chance of helping her as her brother was theoretically her guardian, though he’d shirked his duties long enough she had thought there was some loophole that would nullify his orders concerning her.
The problem was that she only had a few guards, and her brother had arrived with an army.
All the seneschal could say to her was that when her uncle returned, he would be sure to fetch her. The seneschal would relay her messages, and she would be back with her uncle before any time had passed. Not exactly the most comforting statement, but the only thing she could rely on. There was no other choice.
But that had been months ago. Months of being held inside this castle. And now, because she’d threatened to run, she’d been locked inside this chamber, only allowed to walk about outside under guard—and only if her brother deemed it worthy enough to remember her existence.
Which, sadly, he seemed to feel her existence most of the time was optional.
And how she wished she had Goosie with her now. Poor cat, alone somewhere in the castle or even locked outside. With another frustrated growl, she grabbed the small dagger she kept on the table at her bedside—something her uncle had encouraged her and her cousin to do, the last line of defense should their walls be breached—and whirled around to face the door that kept her from escaping. She hurled the dagger toward the planks with a mighty heave, retrieved it, and threw it again. And again. And again.
With every inch, the dagger drew closer to the mark she’d made in her mind—the precise location of her brother’s head should he finally deign to open the door. She willed the door to open before the blade struck, her brother on the other side where it lodged instead.
But the door didn’t open, and the blade stuck in the center of the door with a loud thunk, mocking her desire for revenge and a good escape.
Rhiannon prided herself on being skilled with daggers. Her uncle had seen to it that she and her cousin Douglass were well trained in self-defense, especially with a dagger, which he seemed to think would surprise any wolves in sheep’s clothing who dared attack them. Savage beasties, he’d called them when she and Douglass really got going, looking at them with pride in his eyes.
Of course, if she wasn’t afraid of being hanged, burned, or beheaded, she might murder the man who dared call himself her brother. Adam was a fool and a stranger to her. Yet as much as she dreamed of her dagger making its mark, the truth was she wasn’t a murderer, and these thoughts of bloodshed were relatively new in her life.
But who could blame her? Being kept a prisoner would make anyone want to do away with their jailer. Estranged brother or not.
