The Pleasures of Sin. Jessica TrappЧитать онлайн книгу.
his retched breath into the chamber.
Leaning heavily on her cane, Adele wended through the scattered maze of painted boards as heedless of her artwork as Gwyneth had been. “Montgomery has reached the castle! Father is tied and being dragged across the courtyard on his knees. Make haste! You must stand in Gwyneth’s stead for the marriage ceremony and kill Montgomery tonight.”
Brenna looked from one of her sisters to the other. How could they ask this of her, after all she’d gone through without asking help from either of them? She glanced around at the paintings of saints and angels that had been her companions these past months during her confinement.
“I am not going to kill anyone.”
“You must,” Gwyneth insisted. “You are the only one who stands a chance.”
The mastiff barked, and Adele held her hand out to calm him. Her oval face looked pensive. “Victory starts with Montgomery’s death. We will inform Father Peter of the bride change. You must slay The Enforcer in the bridal chamber when you see the snuffing of the candle in the chamber across the bailey. That will be the signal that the men are in place and ready to retake the castle and free our father.”
And then your father would love you, a dark voice whispered inside her mind. You would be a heroine instead of a burden.
“This is lunacy.” Out of habit, Brenna reached for the fat, wooden cross that usually hung around her neck. When she realized it wasn’t there, she picked up a paintbrush and turned it over and over in her fingers. “I am to be a bride of Christ. I cannot harm anyone.”
Gwyneth rolled her eyes. “As Father says, you are ill suited for a nunnery.”
“Ne’ertheless, I intend to give my life to God.” She indicated the myriad of religious paintings strewn about the chamber, hoping to further her claim. She would be damned if she was going to end up like her mother, waiting hand and foot on an inattentive man with a passel of brats to care for until she collapsed from sheer exhaustion. Better to live in a convent.
The fact that Bishop Humphrey refused to consider hanging her art even in one of the cathedral’s privies was one more proof why she needed to leave England and head to Italy where she could join a nunnery and become powerful in her own right.
“I have seen your targets. You wield a dagger and paintbrush with equal aplomb,” Adele insisted. “You can do this deed.”
“A few months of practice hardly equals master—”
“You can do it!” Gwyneth swirled toward her, ermine trim flying. “You defended me against Lord Brice. And set Sir Edward’s breeches on fire. And shot Thomas in the arse with an arr—”
“Zwounds, sister, hush your babble.” Brenna clapped her hands over her ears, not wanting to hear any more of her supposed sins listed. Her father railed at her enough. “Those men deserved it. And”—she glanced around at her prison of a bedchamber—“I’m still paying penance.”
Gwyneth slid next to her, touching her on the arm. “I know of your plans to go to Italy. That you have been exchanging letters with the abbess of La Signora del Lago.”
Brenna winced at the discovery. But of course, Gwyneth would know. Adored by the servants and brightly sociable, her sister knew all the workings of the castle. She’d probably crafted some damn needlework to mark the event.
“Just do this one last deed, and we will help you on your journey. For certes, Father would grant you permission to enter the convent.”
Permission. The one thing she needed to be accepted into the holy order.
Adele rapped her cane on the planks, causing her raven hair to bounce. Duncan barked and scurried atop a trunk. “We will have men ready to whisk you away as soon as Montgomery is dead. They will be outside this door when we give the signal, and Panthos will lead you out the back tunnel to a safe cottage by the river.”
“Panthos?” The mastiff. “I’m to commit murder, then be led by a dog to escape the wrath of The Enforcer’s men?” Both of her sisters had turned lunatic.
“Aye,” Adele said calmly. Her intense, dark eyes shone with intelligence, not fever. St. Paul stretched languidly in her arms and let out a loud purr. “I have told Panthos of your danger, and he has agreed to protect you. Duncan will go with you as well; he is good at catching rabbits.”
Brenna perused her dark-haired sister who was composed and serene, floating as always in her secret ethereal haze above the pain of her deformed leg and the chaos of the earth. Of a truth, she had uncanny kindred with the beasts of nature, but—to be led by one dog and fed by the other?
“You are both daft.”
Panthos sat on his haunches and cocked his head at her.
“You too,” she told him.
“Prithee, Brenna.” Gwyneth shuddered, and the stiff silvery-blue houpelande rustled with the motion.
Gwyneth’s silky skirt contrasted with Brenna’s own shabby, faded wool one. More proof of their father’s love toward his favored daughter. She tamped down the ache in her chest. If only she could have won even half as much of his love. Her father had taken all of her beautiful clothing away years ago. As a nun, she would have to give them up anyway, but her chest still ached from the memory.
Gwyneth plucked the falling headdress and veil from her blond hair and set it on Brenna’s head. The veil was a thick material sewed with tiny pearls. The heavy frame that fashioned the hat into a butterfly shape felt awkward and foreign.
“We are nigh the same height, and if we cover your red hair, he will not suspect,” Gwyneth said.
Brenna snorted. The elaborate hat looked bizarre against her simple clothing. Save for the height, she and Gwyneth looked naught alike. Especially not since she’d hacked off her thigh length curls. Gwyneth’s hair, when loose, was a mass of shimmering gold that hung past her hips; her own was a close cropped mess.
Reaching up, Brenna touched the scar on her cheek that ran from her ear to the bridge of her nose and lifted a strand of her copper hair. ’Twas shorter than l’occhio del diavolo and not nearly as symmetrical.
“Surely Montgomery has heard you are the fairest lady in all of England,” Brenna said to Gwyneth.
Gwyneth shot her a sympathetic look, but did not deny the charge. Both of them knew Gwyneth’s beauty was a possession most prized by their father—’twas the thing that would catch the eye of a wealthy man so he would have more gold to pump into his cause of ridding England’s throne of its king.
“I am sorry about your hair,” Gwyneth said gently. “I truly appreciate your sacrifice to save me from Lord Brice. It was so brave of you to shear it and pretend you were me so I could be rid of him.”
Brave? Bloody hell. All she’d had to do was introduce herself as Gwyneth. Without her long beauteous locks to soften her features, her face had frightened him into running like the very devil chased him. As if she was plagued. No man wanted a scarred, ugly, shorn woman as wife. Another reason her father should have allowed her to enter the convent. Silently, she cursed his stubbornness. Why did he have to be so obstinate?
“What’s done is done,” Brenna said, refusing to allow herself to dwell on her missing locks. What need did an artist and a nun have for vanity?
Gwyneth reached up and patted Brenna’s short curls. “But I know you miss your hair. I’ve seen you tug at the strands.”
Adele rapped her cane again, causing the terrier to run around in tight circles. “There is no time to talk of hair! Get dressed, Brenna. Use the veil to cover your scar—there is enough fabric to obscure your face. I swear, I’d kill Montgomery myself, but for this lame foot of mine. I do not look enough like Gwyneth to pass, and only a bride will be able to get close enough to slay him.”
Before Brenna could open her mouth to insist that she did not look like the beauteous Gwyneth either,