Bluebeard and the Outlaw by Tara Grayce
Chapter 3
We were, of course, welcomed into the duke’s castle. He even threw a grand dinner for us, as if fattening a pig before the slaughter. It didn’t take much to have him demanding my hand right there over dinner, all while he shared dark, meaningful looks with his sheriff.
But I won’t bore you with the details. Time is too short to waste for everyone but the fae.
* * *
Iclasped Duke Guy’s hands and faced him at the front of his grand hall. This was the closest I’d ever been to him, and this close I could see the line in his beard where the hair didn’t lay quite right, giving credence to the rumor that there was a scar hidden underneath.
His eyes were a dark gray-brown, set deep above his large nose, a lump showing where it had once been broken.
But most impressive of all, I could meet his gaze without tipping my head down. If I hadn’t been hunching to make myself appear shorter, he and I might have been the same height. He might even be a few inches taller.
It was a novel experience, looking a man in the eye so levelly. Besides my brothers, few men matched my height, much less surpassed me. Too bad he was a cruel, murderous duke. My heart might have been stirred otherwise.
The officiant took a deep breath and opened his mouth to launch into his speech.
Duke Guy gave a sigh, his fingers flexing on mine as if he was torn between gripping my hands tighter and letting them go. “Just skip to the end.”
The officiant glanced at me, as if wondering what my thoughts were on that.
I shrugged, an action that rustled the pink velvet dress that was the fanciest of the ones Marion managed to lengthen on short notice. “Fine by me.”
The officiant blinked at me for a moment before he cleared his throat and skipped ahead to the vows as instructed. It would be a shamefully quick wedding. But I was after a rather long con.
My heart was beating harder, and all I could think as I went through the marriage ceremony when prompted was Say man and wife. Say man and wife. Until the officiant said those words, Duke Guy would have a chance to realize something was wrong and back out.
I said I do at the right time, and so did he. When prompted, I simply stated my name as Robin. As much as it felt dangerous to use my real name, I couldn’t risk this wedding being declared invalid because I had claimed anything else. If the duke found anything strange in me dropping my supposed title during our vows, his dark look never wavered.
In short order, the officiant stated in a deep voice, “I declare you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
Right. I hadn’t let myself think too much about that part. It felt wrong, to have my first kiss at the ripe old age of twenty-nine with this duke whom I more than likely would kill before the month was out.
Duke Guy released one of my hands to cup my chin. His callouses were rough against my skin, his fingers warm and large against my face. His eyes studied me for a moment before he leaned closer, whispering into my ear, “I know you hate me. I can see it in your eyes.”
My mouth fell open as I sucked in a breath at his words. How much did he know? What did he suspect? And why had he married me anyway?
Before I had a chance to recover my wits, he planted a kiss on my mouth. Just the faintest peck that was so quick that I didn’t even register the brush of his lips until his kiss was already over.
But as Duke Guy started to take a step back, turning away, my surprise morphed to anger. I wasn’t the type to shrink under something as unsurprising as a kiss at a wedding.
No, this was the time to be bold.
I grabbed the front of the duke’s shirt and pulled him close, my grip tight as if I intended to strangle him with a twist of his shirt’s collar. As his eyes widened, I pressed my mouth to his. It wasn’t much more of a kiss than he had given me. As I pulled back, I finally let my smirk break through my mask as I whispered, “You don’t even know how much you hate me.”
His eyes flicked over my face. I wasn’t sure what he was searching for. Whatever it was, I didn’t flinch under the scrutiny.
Perhaps I shouldn’t antagonize him. But the danger of this banter was far more fun than keeping up the pretense of being a demure noble lady. Besides, he planned to kill me whether I was simpering or bold.
The officiant had said man and wife. At this point, it was either him or me. My life and his death, if I had my way.
After one last searing look, Duke Guy turned his cold gaze to the officiant. “You may go.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.” The officiant hustled out of there, casting glances back over his shoulder at me. Perhaps he was taking in one last sight of me, believing the next time he saw me would be when he was called to conduct my funeral.
Still holding my hand, Duke Guy turned us to face the few people who had witnessed our wedding. Sheriff Reinhault sat on a bench near the front while the duke’s servants and guards had filled the benches behind him. Odd that they would be invited to something as prestigious as the duke’s wedding.
Or, perhaps, not so odd. With this short notice, the duke had no one else to invite. Nor was his fourth marriage to a wife he planned to kill the kind of event to be marked with parties and feasting.
My brothers filled a single bench on one side. Will had his arms crossed as he scowled. Alan was regarding me with raised, bushy white eyebrows that completed his elderly disguise. Munch was openly gaping while Marion slouched in his bench with his legs sprawled apart in a very unladylike fashion, his mop-cap slightly askew. Even as I glanced at him, he adjusted the stuffings filling out the front of his dress.
I met his gaze and shook my head, and he dropped his hand. He made for a very unconvincing woman. If I didn’t give myself away with my boldness, Marion’s lack of acting skills would.
Duke Guy dropped my hand as if it was as clammy as dead fish, his eyes rather cold for a man who had just gotten married. “Say goodbye to your father. He will be leaving within the hour.”
And so the game had begun. The duke had gotten what he wanted—a new, young bride to kill off at his leisure—so now he was moving to swiftly isolate me from my family.
This was his first move, but I had already made mine in marrying him. I had captured the castle and its duke. Now I just had to survive long enough to claim its treasure.
But there was something in his tone that grated on my instincts. I crossed my arms and faced my new husband. “Will his entire party be leaving?”
Duke Guy waved me off, already turning away from me toward his sheriff. “I am perfectly capable of providing a maid and a guard for my new wife.”
As I suspected. He was systematically isolating from me everything and everyone. Apparently he had not just murdered his wives. He had killed them emotionally long before their physical death.
But he was going to find I was rather hard to kill.
I swaggered down the steps, my long strides hampered by the thick velvet catching around my ankles in a way that was unfamiliar after going around for so long in men’s breeches instead of women’s skirts. It seemed I was not convincingly womanly either.
I halted in front of my brothers. “Well, so far so good.”
“Not so good.” Will crossed his arms and glowered at me. “What was that? You kissed him.”
Of course that was the part Will would get all steamed about. I smirked, crossing my arms right back. “Just keeping the game interesting.”
“You didn’t have to make it that interesting.” Will muttered, his scowl deepening.
Will was such a stick-in-the-mud.
“It’s about to get even more interesting.” Alan shifted, thumping his cane as if he were still in character even as he spoke in his normal voice. “A guard just gave the order for us to leave. All of us. Even Munch and Marion.”
“I know. Duke Bluebeard told me.” I shrugged. “It doesn’t change anything. It isn’t like Marion was going to pass for a maid much longer.” Even as I spoke, I swatted Marion’s hand as he was reaching to adjust his fake bosom yet again. He was decidedly lopsided now, but poking at it was just making it worse.
“Of course it does.” Will faced me, not backing down. “It’s not too late. We can still make a break for it. You shouldn’t stay here alone.”
No way was I leaving now. Not when this scheme was turning out to be even more of a heady challenge than I had imagined. “I’ll be fine. The plan doesn’t change. We already have all the signals worked out. If anything, I’ll feel better having even more of you on the outside in case I do need help, rather than have Munch and Marion caught in the same trouble with me.”
“I still don’t like it.” Will grimaced, his fists clenched.
“This is my call.” I held his gaze until, finally, he was the one who looked away. I drew myself straight, my back popping after I had been hunching so long to try to appear shorter. “You have your orders.”
Will’s jaw worked, but he nodded. Munch and Marion shifted, looking away uncomfortably. Alan gave me a nod and lifted his cane in a salute. “We have your back.”
“I know.” I would have reached out and clapped my brothers on the back but that wasn’t the action of a daughter to my elderly father, guards, or handmaid.
Will’s gaze focused on something past me, and his shoulders stiffened.
I turned to find Duke Guy striding across the room toward us at a brisk pace, his lackey Sheriff Reinhault dogging his heels. When the duke reached my side, he held out his arm, his expression impassive. “I will show you to your room, my lady.”
I eyed his arm for a moment. As far as I remembered, the duke’s previous wives weren’t murdered on their wedding night. And he had said that he was bringing me to my room, not to our room. Maybe I was reading too much into his wording. Or, perhaps, he was wary enough not to want a woman who hated him too close to where he slept.
He had reason for wariness. I was no pawn in this game to be killed off on a whim.
As I took his arm, Duke Guy gestured from the sheriff to my brothers. “My sheriff will show you to the stables and provide an escort from the boundaries of Gysborn.”
My poor brothers would have to spend the better part of a day circling back to the Greenwood after being escorted so far in the wrong direction. But they wouldn’t dare break their cover with the sheriff’s men.
It meant I would be essentially on my own, except for Tuck and John still waiting in the Greenwood.
That probably shouldn’t give me a delicious thrill.
Duke Guy spun on his heel and headed for the door, taking me with him. I glanced over my shoulder at my brothers one last time. Even Alan’s gaze remained solemn. Will still scowled. Munch and Marion gaped, as if they couldn’t believe I was actually going through with this.
So many sober faces. As if this wasn’t a grand adventure the likes of which I would never find again.
Just before Duke Guy pulled me from the room, I gave my brothers one slow, cocky wink.
As the large double doors slammed shut behind me, I faced forward again.
The long, dark corridor stretched before me, lit only by the rare, flickering candle in a sconce. A deep red carpet ran down the center, as if placed there to hide the blood that would likely be spilled in this place.
Beside me, Duke Guy remained silent and brooding, his gaze fixed ahead. He strode at a long, quick pace that someone shorter than I would have been trotting to match. As it was, I reveled in the pace. It was rare that I didn’t have to shorten my stride for others.
He led me through the twisting hallways until we arrived outside of the room in the south tower that I had been given upon my arrival the night before.
With a lightning move, Duke Guy twisted from underneath my hand and planted his hands against the wall on either side of me, trapping me without ever touching me. He leaned closer, as if trying to intimidate me by looming over me.
I was too tall for any looming, and his action just brought his eyes level with mine, inches apart. We were well matched, he and I. And, oh, how that made this battle so much sweeter.
“What is your game, Lady Robin?” He spoke the words in a low growl. We were alone in this hall, his body large as he crowded me against the wall. This close, the candlelight played blue shadows across his hair and beard.
Bluebeard, indeed.
I tipped my head, letting a hint of my teasing grin play across my mouth. “And what game do you think I play?”
“It is said I killed my three previous wives, and yet here you stand quite willingly married to a monster.” He was so close now that his hot breath mingled with mine in the space between us. “If you were smart, you would have run while you had the chance.”
“Perhaps my game is as simple as power.” I knew how to be daring as an outlaw, but now was the time to be daring as a woman. I walked my fingers up Duke Guy’s chest, gratified when his dark gaze swung away from me for a moment in something almost like a flinch. “I am the youngest of my father’s children. My brother and his wife will inherit my father’s estate. My sister-in-law is the lady of the household. She has the power of producing and raising its heirs. If I want to claim that power for my own, I had to look elsewhere for an estate in need of a wife and an heir. Perhaps I think I can tame a monster.”
I was treading dangerous territory, taunting him with the prospect of an heir that I had no intention of giving him.
But it was the only lie that would fit with both my brashness and my cover story.
“If that is the case, then you should kill me now and save both of us further heartache.” His gaze swung back to mine, the muscle at the corner of his jaw twitching beneath his beard.
I smoothed my hand over his chest at the collar of his shirt. The knife I wore secured to my side and accessible through a pocket of my dress taunted me. It would be so easy to draw it now and plunge it into his stomach. I could end all of this right here and now.
I hesitated. I told myself that it was because I needed his death to appear to be self-defense, and it would appear suspicious to everyone if he died of a stabbing only minutes after the wedding. Sure, no one was around. No one could counter my statement if I claimed I stabbed him to defend myself.
But even as I lied to myself, I couldn’t fully ignore that I didn’t want this game to end so quickly. There was no thrill in stabbing him now. There had been no chase. No hard-fought battle. No close brush with death. No sting of fear on my tongue and wild beat of action in my veins.
It would be a wholly unsatisfactory victory for him to die before our game had truly begun.
So, instead, I traced my finger up his neck along the artery that ran there, vulnerable beneath such a thin layer of skin. “It doesn’t suit my purposes to kill you just yet.”
For a moment, he stared down at me, his mouth pressed into a tight, grim line. His jaw remained hidden under that thick, blue-black beard. When he finally spoke, his tone cracked hard in his deep voice. “Then, when this is done, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
With that, he pushed away from the wall and stalked off down the corridor until his descent down the curving staircase hid him from view.
When he was out of sight, I entered my set of rooms. A lavish red carpet covered the floor from one dark-paneled wall to the other in both the front sitting room and the rear bedchamber. Cushioned chairs and a couch sat by the fireplace in the sitting room, providing a cozy place to retreat.
Inside the bedchamber, a massive four-poster bed filled the room. Light filled the space from the three narrow windows set next to each other with a window seat beneath. The thick, velvet curtains were also blood red and edged with gold tassels and trimmings.
My new husband certainly had a thing for that deep red color.
I crossed the room to where my trunk remained at the foot of the bed. I had expected to have Marion as my “maid,” but now my new husband Duke Bluebeard would assign me a maid loyal to him. I would have to find a better hiding spot for my sword, bow, and quiver, which were currently hidden at the bottom of my trunk.
I took in the room, trying to figure out where a maid was unlikely to stumble across something I stashed. The wardrobe was obviously out. The cleaning maids would change the bed coverings frequently, so under the bed or the mattress was also out.
After another scan of the room, I strode to the window seat. It was built into the ledge formed by the thickness of the castle wall. But the cushions were placed on a wooden box built over the stone.
After setting the cushions on the floor, I inspected the top of the window seat. Only a few nails held it down, and it sounded slightly hollow beneath, as if there might just be a few inches of space between the wood and the stone of the castle’s wall.
It took a bit of effort, but I managed to pound and pry the wide oak board off, using my dagger. As I had hoped, a hollow space had been left underneath, boxed in by wooden boards along the edges to hold up the top. The space had most likely been left to prevent the board from rotting, as it would have if it had been laid directly over the damp, chill stones.
With the hilt of my dagger, I pounded the nails free from the top board where they wouldn’t get in the way when I placed the board back over my new hiding place. I stashed the nails, my sword, bow, quiver, and Hood outfit in the hollow. It was a tight squeeze, but the board fitted over the space snugly enough that I doubted it would be found.
After that was done, I piled the cushions back in place. Returning to my trunk, I pulled out a long strip of white silk I had taken from one of the dresses we had cut up to add length to the dresses that fit me. Crawling on the window seat, I cranked the window open, its leaded glass panes heavy and solid. Once a crack opened at the top, I stood and tucked one end of the white cloth into the space. When I cranked the window closed again, it pinned the cloth into place.
That done, I sat on the window seat, stared out at the forest sprawling away from the castle, and plotted my next move.