Halloween Knight. Tori Phillips

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СКАЧАТЬ of bread crusts?”

      Against her will, Belle’s mouth watered. She knotted her hand into a fist behind her back. “I prefer to dine on toadstools and bat wings than to touch anything your cook might prepare,” she answered as tartly as she could.

      Anger flashed across Mortimer’s face before he concealed it behind another false smile. “Take care what you wish for, mistress. Inside of a week you will beg me for exactly that loathsome nourishment.”

      He set the candle on the floor, then lifted the cloth. Belle saw not only half a juicy capon glistening in a red-currant sauce, but a small loaf of fine-milled white bread and a dish of apples stewed in precious cinnamon—cinnamon from her spice chest no doubt! The sight of the tempting supper made her feel fainter. Biting her lower lip, she turned away.

      Mortimer drew a little closer to her, but she noticed that he did not make the mistake of swaggering within the range of her fingernails as he had done on the first day he had locked her in this windy eyrie. As if she still had the strength to scratch out his eyes! He must not realize how weak I am.

      “Come, sister, let us be friends again,” he coaxed in a syrupy voice that sickened her soul.

      “I am not your sister, thank the good Lord!” she retorted as she backed away from him. The moldy straw of her bedding rustled underfoot.

      Mortimer clicked his tongue against his teeth. “This conceit of yours does you no good, Belle. Indeed, you are pale and wan.” He snickered at his own little jest. “You know Cuthbert was the dearest brother to me.”

      Belle knotted her fist tighter to keep from screaming. “Is that why you danced so high upon his fresh-turned grave! Ha! He often told me how his siblings plagued him during his childhood—you especially.”

      “Twas all in good sport, I assure you,” Mortimer replied in an oily manner. “But soft, your food grows cold.”

      She glared at him in the gathering twilight. “My heart grows even colder at the sight of you—and your food. I know how you expect me to pay for my supper.”

      His black brows drew together in an angry knot. He set down the trencher near the open door and lifted a pot of ink from behind the bread. He pulled a folded paper from his doublet. “A mere dip of the pen. A few lines to scribble and all shall be joy between us as before,” he said in a sing-song voice. He ventured to take a step closer to her.

      Belle leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. “You don’t even know the meaning of those words, dull worm,” she whispered under her breath. “You were born on a dunghill.”

      Mortimer cocked his head. “How now? I did not hear that.”

      She sighed. “Methinks you should bathe more often, Mortimer, for your ears are full of wax. Go away! I am not in a writing mood today or tomorrow or ever.” She unleashed a torrent of her pent-up anger upon him. “I will not now, nor ever sign away Bodiam Castle to you. Come rack or ruin to us both. I will see you in hell first!”

      Mortimer backed up. His hand shook as he made a sign against a witch’s evil eye. “Hold your tongue, woman! Think whose dreadful name you invoke. They say the devil has his eyes and ears everywhere.” He glanced over his shoulder at the black stairwell behind him as if he half-expected a satanic visitor to ascend the worn steps. “Spit on your palm and say a prayer lest you be damned.”

      A small laugh crackled from Belle’s dry throat. “Look who calls the kettle black! Scuttle away to your beetle hole, Mortimer. Your presence offends my nostrils.”

      The thin man drew himself up. “I have bathed today, mistress. You, alas, have not done so in a fortnight. Tis you, not I, who offends.”

      Belle turned away from him. “Then begone and take your foul paper with you.”

      “You are a fool,” he sneered. He turned on his heel and bent to pick up the trencher and candle. “God shield me!” he bleated.

      Belle stared at him in the dim light and wondered if he had been bitten by a mouse. He touched the trencher with the toe of his suede slipper.

      “What’s amiss?” she asked.

      “Bewitched!” he gibbered. “The capon has disappeared!” He pointed at the empty place on the trencher.

      Belle rejoiced inwardly. Oh, sweet, cunning Dexter! Aloud, she remarked. “Mayhap the rats bore it away for a feast. The Bodiam rodents grow quite large, you know. Or…” She allowed a small pause while Mortimer twitched like a fish on a hook. “Mayhap twas the ghost that haunts this tower.”

      Mortimer turned as white as Belle’s fictional specter. “What spirit? Where?”

      She savored her only effective weapon against her brother-in-law. Like her late husband, both Mortimer and his puling sister were deeply superstitious.

      “They say tis the ghost of the ancient knight who built this castle on the blood of innocents. Now he walks its galleries as a penance for his sins.”

      Mortimer shuddered.

      Belle hid her smile of triumph. “And they say he guards the family who abides here in peace but woe to those strangers who break Bodiam’s good cheer.”

      Mortimer snatched up the trencher and candle, then backed out of the chamber. “Tis you who have angered this unhappy spirit, not I!” He slammed the door behind him and rattled the key in the rusted lock. “Look to yourself, mistress!”

      With another wail, he clattered down the stairs.

      Belle sank to the floor. In the darkness, she listened intently for some tell-tale sound. “Dexter!” she whispered. “Dex-ter!”

      A large round form filled the tiny window. Then it jumped and landed squarely on Belle’s lap. She stroked the creature’s sleek fur as it pawed and kneaded a bed to its liking among the folds of her bedraggled skirt.

      “Have you something for me, you artful thief?” she asked, tickling its pointed ears.

      In answer, Dexter dropped the capon in her open hand. He rubbed his cheek against her arm as she greedily devoured his sticky offering.

      “Oh, you are a love!” she sighed afterward while Dexter industriously licked her fingers clean of the drippings. “How well you were named, for you are my only friend in this reeky place. You are truly my right-hand cat!”

      Chapter Two

      Jobe slowed his horse to a walk. Puzzled, Mark reined in beside the huge African. “How now, friend? We will burn precious daylight if we tarry. The road is still dry. We can make another five miles if we press on.”

      Jobe stared straight ahead. “We are followed, meu amigo.”

      Mark did not glance over his shoulder but the hairs on the back of his neck stiffened. Ruffians made travel more dangerous these days, ever since King Henry had closed the monasteries and returned the beggars to England’s highways. He fingered his dagger in its sheath. “Where away?” he asked under his breath.

      Jobe СКАЧАТЬ