Her Honorable Mercenary--A dramatic Medieval romance

by Nicole Locke

  ‘Because you don’t want to see me?’ she said.

  ‘No.’

  The tenor of his denial seemed different, deeper...more raspy...and he had hesitated. She’d jested with him, but maybe there was a story here...

  ‘Is it because you’re not that good a guard?’ She glanced over, trying gauge his response. ‘I can understand that. You wouldn’t want me reporting your poor skills to Lord Warstone.’

  ‘No...’ he said slowly.

  ‘But he did leave you behind,’ she prodded.

  He clamped his mouth shut. So much for that conversation. They continued up the small hill. It wasn’t far to the orchards, but far enough. It was also late in the morning, and there wasn’t anyone else on the winding path. This might be another dull day unless her companion—

  ‘You keep looking at me,’ he said.

  ‘You are walking next to me.’ She switched her bucket to the other hand. ‘Of course, that’s all you’re doing.’

  ‘You’re not doing it.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Looking around.’

  What a peculiar topic—but it was conversation from her recalcitrant guard. ‘Because it’s easier not to walk into walls if I’m looking ahead.’

  He shook his head once. ‘You look forward rarely. To the sides often, and every twenty steps you look behind you. But right now you’re looking at me.’

  Margery stopped. That was very specific. Had she stopped doing the most basic thing to protect herself?

  ‘You won’t talk of picking fruit in an orchard, but you want to talk about me looking around.’ Did he know why she always observed her surroundings? She needed to be more careful. Any sign of weakness and her previous two lovers had taken advantage of her. Did she feel safe around Evrart? Yes, she did. But when Ian of Warstone returned...

  ‘Maybe I’m not used to my surroundings, and I am curious,’ she said.

  ‘But you came to the fortress this way.’

  ‘I came this way?’

  Her legs wobbled and she grabbed his forearm. He didn’t acknowledge her forwardness, but a muscle in his arm flexed and her own fingers gripped tighter before she let go. It was almost as if she didn’t want to let go... No, she knew she didn’t want to let go. She wanted to touch him.

  What she didn’t want was this conversation.

  ‘Did you change the subject because you didn’t want to discuss how terrible a swordsman you are?’ She hoped he wouldn’t notice her voice breaking.

  He stared until his eyes narrowed, until whatever it was he was determining eased. ‘Yes.’

  He was lying, but he said it anyway. A jest? Or a way to make her more comfortable? She didn’t care. What it was, was kindness, and she was grateful. This giant of a man had observed her, seen she was wary, and been considerate enough to let her change the subject.

  She patted his arm, gave him a smile, and decided to forget everything else as they continued their walk.

  ‘It isn’t far, is it? I thought the quince trees would be near the other gardens.’

  He grunted. ‘There are servants for what you want to do.’

  ‘There are servants for everything at this fortress,’ Margery replied. ‘If I let the servants do it all, then there’d be nothing for me.’

  He kept his steps small and even with hers, so she didn’t miss the side-glance he gave her.

  ‘I know that’s what Lord Warstone wanted of me,’ she said. ‘But we’ve already been through this, so that argument is finished.’

  ‘Finished?’ Evrart said. ‘Not when he returns.’

  ‘Are you intending to tell him?’

  ‘Won’t have to with you roaming about—someone else will.’

  She stopped swinging her basket. ‘You told me you weren’t at risk.’

  He didn’t say anything.

  She should have known better! ‘Let’s go back.’

  ‘Too late,’ he said. ‘You’ve been roaming for days. This is just one of many.’

  ‘What will he do?’ she asked.

  If she was to be the cause of his punishment, she needed to know what it was so she could mitigate Ian’s response. And if she couldn’t, she needed to suffer the same, or at least be brave enough to face it. Ian was a Warstone—they were meant to be bloodhungry.

  ‘He will do what he has always done,’ Evrart said.

  His deep, pleasing voice was not softening his words at all for her.

  ‘That sounds...dire.’

  ‘It is nothing but truth,’ he said.

  ‘That’s worse,’ she said. ‘That has to be worse. You are talking as if he’s done this many times in the past.’

  ‘He has to others, and I expect no less for myself,’ he said. ‘I made a vow to him, and I am breaking it.’

  ‘What argument, then, to defend yourself?’ she said.

  ‘I won’t.’

  She stopped. They couldn’t possibly have much farther to walk, and she didn’t want others to hear. She wasn’t reserved so much because of the words she was about to say, but because of their meaning.

  Evrart was right when he said she looked around all the time. She did so because there was danger everywhere for her. If she did not pay attention while walking down a corridor a sudden hand might appear and drag her into a dark room. If she did not look behind her a reckless horseman might run her over before he ever impressed her with his skills.

  She looked around her because all her life she had been stolen. Her sister had told her of the times when she was an infant, when she’d disappear from her basket, only to be found at a neighbour’s home, being passed around.

  She was always trying to protect herself, and now this man told her he would simply take his punishment. Not while she breathed. Did he do it because he was large, because he felt unworthy?

  Something changed within her.

  Men weren’t like this. They took and demanded. She’d never known, hadn’t known a man could be like him. Evrart was strong, invulnerable, and yet...

  ‘Evrart, you listen to me,’ she said. ‘You must defend yourself.’

  ‘I am Lord Warstone’s guard,’ he said. ‘If I have gone against his rules, he is within his rights—’

  ‘No!’ She slashed her arm in front of her.

  This she had heard all her life. She had lavender eyes, therefore the neighbours were within their rights to take her. They couldn’t help themselves. Her hair was like the stars, therefore she had no right to protest when another child pulled on it.

  She had made one decision in her life. It hadn’t been a good one in hindsight, but it was the one she’d taken. When Josse had come through and wanted her for himself, she’d accepted. He hadn’t snatched her or stolen her. She’d gone with him in order not to be burden on her family anymore. And she wasn’t. She was a burden on herself—but that was beside the matter.

  ‘No?’ Evrart repeated slowly, with heavy measure, as if the word couldn’t be the one he’d heard.

  ‘It doesn’t matter about anything. You defend yourself. You defend yourself because your worth isn’t that he’s your lord, or that he pays you, or that you’re in his debt, or that you’re this—’ she waved her hand around him, indicating his breadth ‘—or that you’re a terrible swordsman. Your worth is something far beyond any of those or anything else we can think up.’

  Was he understanding what she was trying to say? He was simply staring at her. She’d have to take some faith from that.

  She pointed at him, then pointed again. Just to get her thoughts across physically. ‘You’re worth defending—and if no one else does it, it’s up to you to do it.’

  His mouth tightened, as if he held back some words. Had no one ever told him these things before? Maybe that was why they’d been put together. So she could straighten him up.

  She pat
ted him on the arm and tugged him forward. ‘We’re almost there, aren’t we? Let’s get going.’

  He kept still a bit longer, so she looked behind her.

  ‘Aren’t you coming?’

  * * *

  Evrart wanted to say no, simply because there was a feral need inside him that wanted to say yes. He wanted to say yes to everything when it came to Margery. He had been agreeing to everything she wanted, and he wondered if he had any discipline or restraint left in him. Was he to be domesticated like a horse or dog? Was he some great task of hers?

  What she intended with him he couldn’t fathom.

  The fact he even asked himself what a woman intended to do with him was alarming. He was three times as large as her, and one hundred percent more scarred. She might be a mistress, but he was a man who killed, who did tasks that no man should at the request of Lord Warstone.

  The fact he did it to keep his family safe was no excuse. If his mother knew it came down to him committing murder or herself killed, she would beg him to protect his own soul. Except, he argued with himself, wouldn’t her death also be on his soul if he couldn’t prevent it?

  So here he was—a man who did deeds because he must.

  Everything had been as it should and would be until his death. Then Ian had left him in this woman’s clutches and he didn’t know himself any more.

  She was tiny...insignificant. If he told her to close the door, she should close the door. If he said no to picking fruit, she should cower in her corner and not pick fruit—not carry her baskets as if they were on a pleasure trip.

  They finally crested the hill and could observe the orchard below. Tree after tree, all in bountiful lines, with loads of people chatting and picking.

  ‘Oh, look at the colours—this will be great fun!’ Margery exclaimed.

  The orchard was full of people. It would be a nightmare. It wasn’t as if they were trying to escape notice, but this would be openly defying his lord’s orders. He would be punished. All he could hope was that she wouldn’t be.

  What would he do if... What had Margery’s word been? Defend. What if he defended himself against Lord Warstone? No...he made the choice and knew the consequences when he did so.

  What would she think of the choices he had made?

  For her there was beauty, and she could freely demand he admire the colours in the valley. For him, nothing was free. Simply this...merely walking to an orchard beside a woman he wanted...wrenched him from the maw of his duties.

  Even if he deserved them there were no colours for him. There never would be, despite how much she pointed them out. He didn’t see the world like others—he knew that. What would happen when she discovered his flaw?

  Deeper and deeper into the orchard they walked. Most of the people ignored them, but just as many stared. He was grateful she didn’t stop to greet them all but kept walking further through the trees, where there were fewer people, but also fewer quince to pick.

  Margery seemed to have come to that conclusion too, because she was now frowning accusingly at the trees as if it were their fault all the easier fruit on the bottom branches was already plucked, and it was only those on the top available.

  Oh, she was fierce. Entranced by the sight of her hands on her hips, the bucket angled outward from her arm, he sensed the trap too late.

  ‘I’ll need your help to pick these.’ She pointed.

  She’d needed loads of help—and he was envisaging all of it...

  Spanning her tiny waist with his hands, hoisting her above his head, catching sight of the curve of her ankle or placing her in such a way that her rear would be directly in his line of vision.

  For days now, he had stolen awkward glances, but their height difference, and the fact they often walked close, something he’d purposely done, had precluded him from truly appreciating those rounded curves.

  There was a good chance she wouldn’t mind him lifting her. She’d asked for help and she kept touching him.

  She wasn’t afraid of him, and she also didn’t approach him as if he was some oddity or a conquest to boast to her friends about. She just ordered him about, which should be insulting. It was insulting. But he also like it. He imagined ordering her about and he liked that better.

  ‘Are there ladders or stools nearby?’ she said.

  She was already forging ahead before he could answer. To help, and to hide his smile, he turned in the opposite direction.

  Margery was a force unto herself, and apparently beautiful in ways that others could tell. How had she fallen prey to men like Roul?

  Roul... Just the thought of that man anywhere near her curled his hands into fists. And Ian? To Ian it was the game his parents had begun for wealth and power that was sacrosanct. It required messages in the night and information exchanged. It required absolute secrecy.

  Why had he held his hand and not killed her? Both of them had killed for far less reasons. The fact Ian deviated from this and allowed Margery, an outsider, to know anything, was odd. As was Ian’s behaviour lately. He’d used to never to leave him behind—now he did it almost constantly.

  There was the reason he kept bringing new men who needed to be trained. Ian had argued he only trusted Evrart with them, and Evrart had left it at that, but it was a poor excuse.

  There were times when he wondered if Ian was good, and trying to be as his parents wanted, or truly evil and playing at kindness.

  He would have sworn Ian had loved his wife and children, but he’d taken them away. Evrart had feared he had them killed, but then those rumours had begun that they’d run, and Ian searched for them.

  Why rid himself of his family, only to search for them?

  Then there were the rages...the slashing of cushions. The fact his brother Reynold had played against Ian and befriended the men who’d killed their second-eldest brother, Guy.

  No one had mourned Guy’s death—not even Ian’s parents. But to befriend the men who killed him... To openly scheme with them against his own family...

  The Warstones were usually more united than that.

  Ian’s mind seemed to be unravelling, but so was the Warstone loyalty and power.

  Where did that leave him or Margery? He didn’t know, and he didn’t know why he thought of her name along with his. It wasn’t as if—

  ‘Never mind! Here’s one!’ she called out.

  What had she found? Oh, yes, a ladder.

  Never once in all his years had he a bit of fortune. Those brave enough spoke of their envy for his size, but he had to fight constant challenges, women eschewed him, and those men not brave enough to fight him disdained him. Ian, Lord of Warstone, used him as a prop. He was no more than a sword in a sheath.

  Finding no opportunity to stride away from this woman and gain a reprieve was simply another in a line of grievances. Not because he wanted to be away from her, but because he should. There was more here than the risk of his family, there was more risk to hers the longer she stayed.

  Striding over, he grabbed the ladder she was righting and secured it under some laden branches.

  ‘Can you hold the basket, so I don’t bruise the fruit?’ she asked.

  The trees were hardly tall. The fact this woman needed a ladder was testament to how tiny she was. Even so, the distance between the ground and the top of the tree wasn’t significant enough to harm the fruit. He should argue these facts, since none of the other pickers were holding up baskets.

  He picked up a basket.

  She beamed at him, and he quickly looked up through the tree branches into the sky beyond. Trying to think of anything other than how her smile affected him, he felt the drop of fruit into the basket he held. Each one represented a personal chastisement.

  One, two, three...

  Last year, he’d chopped two fingers off one of Ian’s hired mercenaries who had already lost one finger to fr
ostbite. Ian had ordered the other two to be cut off because he had been a fool not to wear coverings.

  Four, five six...

  What would he lose when Ian discovered he stood under a tree like some fool? What finger? What limb? He never took risks. There were reasons he didn’t—

  ‘Do you think it’s forbidden fruit?’

  He shouldn’t have looked, but he did. She’d asked a question and he was standing right next to her. So he did look, and was rewarded by the play of light through the curls haloing her head, the inquisitive expression in eyes framed by thick lashes, and her mouth pursed in amusement because he hadn’t answered her.

  ‘Do I what?’ he asked.

  Margery held a quince. ‘They say that in the Garden of Eden a quince was the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.’

  He’d never thought about what the fruit was. Over the years he’d seen paintings and tapestries, but he’d never paid attention. Art didn’t attack or swing a sword. Thread and paint wouldn’t save his family or fulfil his debt and his duty to Lord Warstone.

  She dropped the quince into the basket. It felt more substantial than the rest.

  ‘I don’t mind if it is,’ she said. ‘It’s terribly tart raw, but sweet and succulent when cooked. If I was a fruit that was forbidden, that’s what I’d be.’

  His view shifted, and it wasn’t because he’d stopped looking at the tree and at her. He held the basket up for another of the fruits, but it felt almost as if he was the one on offer. As if he was holding himself up and doing a poor job of it.

  His arms...shook.

  It wasn’t anything to do with the weight as she tossed more quince in, and everything to do with her words of ‘forbidden’, and ‘fruit’, and ‘succulent’ and ‘sweet’. It was the fact she kept touching him and asking him questions that didn’t have to do with killing and protecting and guarding and the loss of digits for a good man.

  This woman was forbidden, and he wanted her.

  If they were to talk of temptation whilst he held the basket, he wouldn’t last for a day, a heartbeat, a held breath.

  On a growl, he placed her basket on the ground, grabbed an empty one, and strode away.