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“It is,” Payne said. “Ye can tell Lord Exmoor that my mother dinna come tae Blackchurch tae cause trouble. She came tae give me news.”

“What news?” Creston asked.

Payne sighed faintly, not particularly keen to repeat what he’d been told, but there was no way to avoid it. “That my father died,” he said quietly. “That was what she came tae tell me. I’m now the Earl of Lismore.”

Creston and Cruz seemed to stand up straighter at the news. “Truly?” Creston said, amazed. “You’re an earl?”

“That’s what she tells me.”

He didn’t seem thrilled about it. Both Creston and Cruz could sense it. “I am sorry about your father,” Creston said. “Of course that was not easy news to hear.”

Payne shook his head. “Nay, it was not,” he said. “I loved my father. He let me do what I needed tae do in life. He never made me feel guilty that it took me away from him even though I was his heir. He was a good man.”

“You have my sympathy,” Cruz said, grasping Payne’s arm in a show of support. “We’ll relay the news to Exmoor.”

Payne simply nodded and the pair turned away, preparing to head back to Blackchurch, but Payne stopped them.

“There is more,” he said, thinking about everything he’d been told or see over the past few hours. He finally shook his head. “Maudie brought me a bride.”

Cruz and Creston looked at him in shock. “A bride?” Creston repeated. Then he looked even more surprised, as if a thought had just occurred to him. “The woman that hit you in the face! Was it her?”

Payne looked at him. “Ye saw that?”

“We all saw it,” Creston said. “You know that Cruz and I were not the only ones hiding in the trees. Our Blackchurch brethren would not stay behind and joined us in our vigil. We were all watching when the woman hit you in the face.”

Payne put a hand to his left eye, which was starting to bruise a little. “As my da would say, she crowned me with a glorious fist,” he said, fighting off a grin. “Aye, that was the woman. Ye’ll not believe who she is.”

“Who?”

“Princess Maria Astria Julia, daughter of Sancho of Portugal,” Payne said with some irony.

“A genuine princess, lads. Maudie captured the ships she was traveling in, and at first she thought tae ransom her back tae her father, but when my da died, she thought she’d be a better wife for the new earl. A royal bride for the Earl of Lismore.”

Creston and Cruz were sincerely shocked. “God’s Bones,” Creston said. “A princess? Here?”

Payne nodded. “That will bring an entirely new host of problems tae Blackchurch,” he said.

“Ye know we remain neutral in all things, and we canna let the King of Portugal think we’ve sided with pirates or are holding a political prisoner.

But I dunna want ye tae tell Exmoor this. It should come from me.”

Creston held up his hands in surrender. That was a bit of information he would gladly keep to himself and let someone else take the responsibility for.

“We’ll simply tell him that Bloody Maude came to tell you about your father,” he said. “We’ll tell him that Medusa’s Disciples are no threat.”

Payne nodded. “Tell him that, but I canna vouch for the pirates who have set up camp in the woods behind the Black Cock,” he said. “Ye may want tae keep Blackchurch locked up while they’re here tae avoid any… misunderstandings.”

“Agreed,” Creston said. He knew what the man meant—pirates would always be pirates, on land or at sea, and they didn’t want any of them wandering into the Blackchurch compound uninvited. “We’ll go now.”

“Tell him not tae worry.”

Creston wasn’t so sure that was the truth, but he didn’t contradict Payne. He simply nodded. “Shall we return on the morrow?” he asked.

Payne shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “I’ll come back as soon as I can, but for now, I want tae spend a little time with my mother and brothers. I’ve not seen them in years.”

It was completely understandable. Creston and Cruz waved a farewell as they turned for their horses, tethered behind the livery across the street. Payne watched them go, thinking that he really didn’t want to return to the alcove where Declan was. At least, not at the moment.

There was someone even more combative than his brother that he wanted to see.

He only hoped he would survive their second encounter.

*

Maybe fighting back really was futile.

Astria was no better off than she had been when Bloody Maude first captured her.

She’d been kept in ropes or in locked chambers the entire time, her freedom stripped along with her dignity.

Upon meeting the man she was to marry, she’d turned him against her as well by throwing her fist into his eye.

He’d tried to be kind at first. His words were chivalrous and his intentions seemed honorable.

But she was so frightened, so angry, that she immediately tried to fight him.

Even when she charged at him after he’d spanked her, all he’d done was push her to the ground.

He never hurt her or struck her. Other than the spanking, which she had to admit she rightfully deserved, he’d not lifted a hand against her.

She’d gotten a good look at him. He was a very big man, tall and muscular, with a crown of light brown hair with a hint of red to it, and perhaps the most handsome face she’d ever seen.

Shockingly so. He also had enormous hands, which she had gotten a taste of when he had spanked her.

But Maude had called him off, as the woman had strangely been both her captor and her protector for the past several months, and Astria’s bindings had been returned before the escort resumed their forward momentum.

And now she found herself in a quaint little village.

She still didn’t know where she was, but the collection of cottages and businesses she found herself in seemed rather bucolic and quiet.

It was surrounded by dense forests and the roads seemed to be perpetually muddy, but she got quite a sense of peace from it.

Peace that was so rare in her life. The sense of it was almost like a shout in the dark, startling and eye-opening.

There was great tranquility here, far from stormy seas.

Someone had taken her to an outbuilding behind a tavern with the name Black Cock carved above the door.

The outbuilding contained foodstuffs—cheese, butter, and earthenware containers with things like pickled onions and fruit.

She could smell it. It was an outbuilding made of stone, and very cold, as it was meant to preserve things.

Astria ended up on the floor, leaning against a cold wall and pondering what had happened since the day she’d been captured.

Dirty, hungry, and scared, she was at the bottom.

This was what her life had come to.

Astria had spent months being tied up, tossed around, confined, and laughed at.

Oddly enough, she’d never been starved or beaten, except when she’d initiated violence, so in that sense, her captivity hadn’t been horrific.

But it had been wearing. Everything about it was wearing on her—spiritually, mentally, and physically.

She refused to eat half of the time and could see how bony her wrists had become.

She hadn’t seen her reflection, truly seen it, since she was captured, so she could only imagine what she looked like.

An animal.

The reality of that was heartbreaking to her.

Astria had always been someone who took pride in her appearance.

Her hair had always been neatly styled, and, against the physic’s wishes, she liked to bathe frequently because she didn’t like the smell of body odor.

Everyone had it, of course, and it was considered quite normal, but she’d never been fond of the smell, most especially on her.

She couldn’t remember when she last took a bath.

It was difficult not to feel sorry for herself.

Five months of captivity meant five months of struggling to survive.

Everything in her world now was a struggle simply to breathe, but she knew that she would continue to live like this if she didn’t stop behaving like a wildcat.

If she wanted a bath and food and at least a comb, then it was probably time that she stop her wild battles and realize the gravity of her situation.

An uncooperative prisoner might eventually find herself dropped over the side of the ship, hands bound, so she could sink to a watery grave.

She’d heard someone threaten her with that once.

But a cooperative prisoner would live to fight another day.

The problem was that surrender was so contrary to her nature.

As she sat there, shivering, it occurred to her that there was food just a few feet away and she was starving.

Literally starving. She couldn’t remember when she’d eaten last. They had her arms bound with rope, but it wasn’t particularly tight because Bloody Maude didn’t like it when it was cutting off her circulation, so the result was rope that was barely binding her.

It was rope that was easy to get off.

She had become good at that, too, over the months.

There had been a few opportunities for her to shrug off her bindings, but Maude and her men had never been the wiser about it.

Therefore, she shifted on her bottom and bent her legs up against her chest, trying to get her arms underneath her bottom so they were in front of her and not behind her.

She had to work at it a few times before she was able to bring her arms forward.

Once they were in front of her, it was simply a matter of sliding out of the ropes.