Chapter One
St. Agnes Caves
Off the Coast of Wales
1317
Lady Rosamond de Warenne woke to the sound of voices and footsteps. A scratchy cloth covered her head, blinding her to her surroundings. Her panic was immediate and intense. Heart skipped a beat, belly knotted, throat closed.
What the devil was happening?
For many years she’d believed her father was sinking slowly into madness, and now she knew his journey was complete.
She lay on a cold, earthen floor. Tight ropes cut into her wrists and ankles. Sweat beaded on her brow, her spine, and every part of her, truly. This was fear-sweat.
Fear of the unknown.
Fear of her father.
Fear from the rumors she was certain had gotten her into this current predicament.
Predicament. How understated that word seemed now. Quandary. Pickle. Mess.
None of those terms adequately described her current state.
Night terror. Torment. Living hell. Those descriptors were much more accurate.
Perhaps a sennight had passed since her father barged into her chamber at the king’s court, startling her from where she’d been quietly reading.
John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, had stared down at her with fury in his dark brown eyes. Assessing cruel eyes. Orbs that had judged her since her earliest memories. A deep, soulless cavern that had blamed her for the death of her mother. But not because he loved her mother, only because he was now stuck with two babes and no wife to care for them. Not that he’d done much to see them raised, besides. Nay, he’d quickly married, but to a cruel woman who wanted nothing to do with the two daughters she’d inherited without a choice.
When Rosamond and her twin sister, Loretta, had been called to court to serve their queen as lady’s maids, they were more than eager to get out from beneath the cruel thumb of their stepmother.
Voices mingled with the footsteps, tugging her back to the darkness that held her. The dank mustiness of the room seeped through the scratchy, wool sack covering. Waves crashed loudly against what sounded like a shore or cliff’s side. Where were they? Where had her father taken her? The far reaches of the world?
They’d been on the ship for the last five or six days and nights. She’d lost count. Meager servings of bread and ale had been all she’d received. And she was weak. Tired. Confused. Sick with fear.
A booted foot nudged her. “Wake up,” Surrey demanded.
Rosamond struggled to sit up, but it was hard being tied and blind, so she gave up. “I am awake, father.”
The hood was wrenched from her head, and with it several strands of her hair. She winced at the pain and stared up warily into the same dark brown eyes that had gazed on her with so much hatred these past twenty years.
Blinking away the sudden light, she let her eyes focus. ’Twas not so bright after all. Light cut through the large mouth of a cave to its center, leaving the outskirts in shadows. She was indeed lying upon an earthen floor—that of the cave. It was rocky, covered in dust and dampness that seeped into her skirts.
Along the wall, her father’s men had laid a few crates.
“What…?” she started to ask, but trailed off. Why was she in a cave? Oh dear God, what did her father have planned for her?
“I am due in Kinsale and cannot have you travel with me. You will stay here.”
Ireland. He was going to Ireland. And leaving her here? “In a cave?” Edging her hands behind her hips she managed to push herself up to a seated position.
“Aye.” He gestured to the crates. “We’ve left you some supplies. You will survive on your own.”
Rosamond shook her head. “But, father, I—”
Surrey cut her off with a roar. He raised his hand back as though he would strike her. Rather than flinch as she might have the day before, she sat up straighter, the realization of what was happening, the subsequent anger she felt fueled her indignation.
Scoffing, her father said, “You’ve disgraced yourself. Dishonored your family. You are no daughter of mine.”
“You cannot in good conscience leave me here, father.” Rosamond dropped to her knees in the dank, cold cave, staring up at him and finding it hard to appear meek, but working her best to do so else he deem her petulant on top of the many other accusations he’d flung her way.
Her sire, sneered down at her. Was this his own plan, or was her stepmother a part of it, too? For certes, the woman was just as wrathful as her father.
“I will surely die here.” Panic rising, she tried to make eye contact with some of her father’s men. They could not all be as mad as he. Surely, one of them would take the lord aside and talk some sense into him.
But none looked her way. Instead, one by one, they climbed down the ladder they’d placed there, leaving her alone with the Earl of Surrey, her own irrational father.
“There is food and drink in the crates,” he continued, ignoring her pleas. “Blankets. If you do not survive then it is because God has chosen not to forgive you for your sins.”
Her sins. Offenses that were not her own.
Rosamond was innocent of the charges her father had lobbied against her. Charges he’d let quickly spread like wildfire throughout all of court, to bolster his punishment.
“How can you be so cruel? Was not the retaliation you took against Lancaster enough? I am innocent in all of this!” Her voice broke on a sob, and she sat back on her heels, trembling hands coming to wipe the tears cascading down her chilled cheeks. Rumors had erupted in court declaring Rosamond had given her innocence to the Earl of Lancaster, that he’d taken her to bed time and again right under her father’s nose. That she’d become with child and planned to birth the babe at a nearby abbey. In retribution, her father had stolen Lancaster’s wife. And he now saw fit to punish Rosamond, too.
Truth was, it had been Rosamond’s twin sister, Loretta, who’d shamed their family. Loretta had become with child, and begged Rosamond’s help. What was a sister to do? Theirs was a secret she’d never confess to her father. To her grave she’d take it, because if her father was willing to banish her here, what would he do to Loretta when he found out the truth? And what would he do with the babe?
Well, what could he do? Loretta had run away to a convent. Safely tucked into the Lord’s house, her bastard child would be adopted by the church, her reputation safe from those at court, and her sins absolved. Her secrets forever held by Rosamond.
“Cruel? Cruel? You should be so lucky. Adultery is a sin, and a woman’s wicked intent at the heart of every lustful encounter. King Edward could and should have your head for it.” Surrey let out a disgusted sound and turned his back on her. “Lucky, I say, that I’ve decided to mete out your penance. You’ll remain here. Alone. Banished from society. Disowned.”
She winced at the harsh words he lobbed her way. The backward way he thought of women. That a woman should be blamed for a man’s lusty and unjust behavior. The notion was heartbreaking and outrageous. Unfortunately, ’twas all too real in every day life, no matter the class or blood line. And her king… that he should have wanted to see her dead…
Edward II, King of England, was just as cruel as his father, Longshanks—aptly named by the Scots for his overlong arms and legs. Apparently, her father had learned much from his monarchs. His cruelty knew no bounds, but this—this was extreme. Oh, how she wished she’d known her mother. She and Loretta were nothing like their father and Rosamond could only assume they must have gotten some of their sweetness from the woman who birthed them.
The twins’ mother had been Scottish, although she’d died following the labor of her twin daughters, and Surrey never spoke of her.
This was madness. Resolved to her current fate, Rosamond said meekly, “How long until you return, my lord?”
“Long enough for my heart to heal this blow you have dealt me. Long enough for court to be cleansed of your sin. Long enough for them to forget you’re a harlot.”
Harlot.
A label that would be an unjustified life sentence. Never would a man want to wed her. Forever she’d be left to languish under the cruel thumb of her father. And still she was innocent of all those labels he so heartlessly tossed at her.
Rosamond ducked her head, unable to look at him. Disappointment ran deep, and with it frustration that she would even believe he could think differently. She would die here. For her father had left her only a few crates of supplies. She didn’t even know what they contained. Whatever it was would rot before he decided to return—if he returned. His trip to Ireland could take months.
When he left, perhaps she’d throw herself from the cliff, allow the sea to take her away. To drift on the water until she reached the edge of the horizon. Perhaps even be consumed by a sea king.
Though her father said he would come back, what would make him keep his word? None of his men. They’d all turned their back on her just now. Half of them were already rowing out to the anchored ship.
The other half she could hear murmuring at the base of the cave’s cliff, waiting in the skiff moored to the edge of the high wall, for their lord to traverse the ladder so they could row back to the main galley. Without her.
Were all of them so afraid of her father they would not help her? Rosamond’s throat tightened as she knew the answer to that question. Of course they were. Her father levied high taxes, evictions, lashings, and all sorts of other punishments to keep his people in line. More than once he’d had a village raided, the people terrorized, in order to establish supreme dominance.
None of them would be willing to put their families, or their lives, on the line for her. That was a measure they saved only for their much-feared Lord Surrey.
With a menacing glower, her father pulled a short, sharp knife from his boot. Her eyes widened on the weapon. Had he decided to end her life now instead of prolonging her misery?
Stalking closer, he circled to her back, wrenched up her arms until fresh tears stung her eyes and cut through the bindings at her wrists. He moved next to her feet, working in short saws and grunts until she was free.
Rosamond rubbed her aching joints and raw skin, all the while wondering how it was a father could treat his daughter so ill. And then wondering why she wondered at all.
“I am your daughter,” Rosamond said softly, some of her despair filling her voice, hoping to remind him of their blood tie, of his duty as a father to care for her, protect her. “Whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. I am yours.”
Lord Surrey grunted, then called down for his men to hold the ladder steady. When he looked back at her, his eyes were still hardened with ire and animosity. “Pray for your soul, Rosamond, for no one else will. To walk an eternity in Purgatory is likely your lot.”
And then he was stepping over the ledge, hands holding tight to the sides of the ladder, as he shifted his steps down the rungs.
Panic welled, and she leaped to her feet, rushing toward the edge. “Wait!”
But he didn’t wait. He continued downward, not even bothering to look up. His men at the bottom held the ladder steady as he’d requested. She put a foot to the top rung, either she could climb down or shove hard hoping to topple her father. But the men at the bottom shook their heads briskly, warning in the set of their mouths. If she were to do either, they would kill her. And for some reason, she listened.
Backing into the cave, so the ladder was no longer in view, she stared out the gaping mouth into the wide ocean and sky beyond. The creamy sails of her father’s ship flapped. The flag, the Surrey crest, waved gently back at her. A mocking sway of the white fabric covered with blue and gold checks.
Was this truly happening? Or a night terror she would soon wake from?
Knees buckling from shock, she sank to the floor, her skirts tangling with her legs. All of her limbs felt suddenly so heavy. Her eyelids, too. They slipped closed as she fell backwards onto the floor, pain ricocheting from the back of her skull as her head hit hard on a bit of rock.
Why couldn’t she just sink into oblivion? She sought the darkness of a faint. The sweet relief of unconsciousness. But her mind whirled, refusing to shut off, denying her relief.
She was not going to wait for her father’s return. She was not going to wait until her supplies were gone or rotted. Come what may, Rosamond was going to get out of this cave—alive.