by Nicole Locke
‘Not sleeping.’ Evrart shoved open his door so Ian could see his undisturbed bed. ‘Changing clothes.’
‘Ah...’ Ian nodded slowly. ‘You may need to pack some more. You’re leaving.’
‘Leaving? You have just returned. Where do we go?’
‘We do not go anywhere. You do.’
Ian pulled a scroll out of his tunic and handed it over.
Evrart knew what the scroll was. A message to be sent via messenger. The messenger to meet another at a designated spot and if no one arrived within three days to travel to the next and the next. Five in total. If no one arrived after that, the messenger was to return to the fortress via a circuitous route.
He knew this because there were other men here whom Ian had ordered to do such things. Other men. Evrart had never been ordered to do it himself. He was here to protect Ian, to train new men.
‘I’ll inform the men of my departure and be gone on the morrow,’ he said.
‘Now,’ Ian said succinctly. ‘Go into your room and pack. You will do nothing else. Take the provisions I have returned with and leave immediately.’
His first instinct was to fight. Like this, he could kill Ian—but there was no certainty in what the rest of the guards would do, and there were too many between here and the outer gates to risk it.
Ian’s grin slashed across his face. ‘Do you think I’m displeased with you because you disobeyed my exacting orders to keep that woman in her room? Rest assured that I’m well aware this is your first offense against me.’
Evrart’s body turned to ice. He’d risked his family and Margery. ‘My lord?’
‘Come my friend, I wanted you to have—’ Ian’s eyes grew distant before he blinked, and he returned his pale gaze to Evrart again. ‘You’re the only one to do this. If the...item is obtained the game will continue, if not, it will go on as I know it must. But there’s matters afoot, and you will be gone.’
Ian wanted him gone. For what purpose, and to get what? He feared it was about the game and legends and the lost dagger. About families at war with countries. And he couldn’t ask because he wasn’t supposed to know anything of it.
He simply feared. But if Ian wanted his family dead, it would have been done.
What plans did Ian want to make that he couldn’t be a part of? Because that must be what he was doing. Ian wanted him, his personal guard, gone from Warstone fortress... So he could harm Margery?
If Evrart brought Ian’s attention to her and it wasn’t his intention, it could be worse. He wanted to call out to Margery. To warn her. To hold her once more and kiss her sweetly on the lips because he feared it would be for the last time.
But whatever it would take, whatever Ian forced him to do, he’d come back to her.
Trapped, heart thundering, he risked another question. ‘What is it you want me to do?’
‘The same.’ Smiling almost gently, Ian pushed off the wall and went to his chamber door. His hand on the latch, about to enter the room, he continued, ‘Serve me as you always have done. As you just were.’
Chapter Twelve
Another day of pacing the length of Ian’s rooms. Margery was half out of her mind with fear, with worry.
Ian’s private chambers were a large enough space to house four families if they were back in her village. Each room was decorated differently for comfort, but if Ian was out, she took advantage of the chamber with the reading table and chests, because the different windows allowed her some access to outside. At least she could see the activity in the surrounding courtyard, and look beyond the wall to the village, the orchards, the far forest.
Despite her daily fear, she was uninterested in everything around her. Not even searching Ian’s belongings again held any interest. And all because—No, she wouldn’t think his name.
Ian had returned for over a fortnight now, but was little company during the day, despite the fact he stayed in the chambers almost as much as she.
But he got to leave the rooms whilst she was trapped.
There were guards outside Ian’s chambers. They allowed her to go to the garderobe, but she didn’t dare look outside through the archways or lean against the wall to see the chapel’s garden.
Jeanne came every day, but when she greeted her or Ian she spoke with that same timidity she’d had when Margery first arrived. Her friend was afraid, and Margery wouldn’t do anything to risk her life—not even give a smile or a greeting.
To make everything worse, the fare was different, which meant she didn’t get her favourite foods. Did it also mean that Cook was better? There was no one to ask.
And Ian...
When he was there, she stayed in the other rooms. All the time aware he was there at this table with men coming and going. Always a threat. His quiet was disquieting.
Margery couldn’t help it. She cried.
It was Ian’s knowing gleam as he watched her—the fact he ignored her presence while mumbling to himself. The messages written at his table were more frequent, and he was hiding his activities less the longer he stayed. But when he left the room she had no access to what he’d done, for he cleared it thoroughly each day.
When she might be free, he wouldn’t say. From the smirk on his face, it seemed he enjoyed it when she asked. He’d captured her because he had caught her spying on him delivering one of his messages. One paltry message. Now he’d allowed her to witness so many more. Every one of them felt like an accusation.
And all the while she worried about her family. She agonised over whether her message had ever made it to her sister, Biedeluue. She hoped it had. She hoped she stayed away.
What of Mabile and the baby? Their last message had told of how ill her other sister had been. Was she better or worse? And when were their taxes due? How were her family faring without the coin she used to send home when she’d lived with Josse, and with Roul, and hadn’t sent since Ian had captured her?
And her brothers! She should never have sent the message telling them she was in danger. At the time, she’d wanted her family to know, perhaps to try to help her. She’d falsely believed Ian was like Roul and would have days of forgetting her or trips away when she wouldn’t be watched. Thus they’d have an opportunity of helping her escape.
She needed to get out of here!
At least Ian wasn’t in the room now and she could pace in peace.
Peace!
There was no peace for her. It had been weeks and she’d had no word, nor any sight of Evrart. She tried not to think of him and failed. In the days after he’d left, her body had still felt an ache in the places he’d touched, where they’d joined. There had been surprising bruises because he’d kissed and touched her so fiercely. Those pains had grounded her. He was gone, but they were proof he existed and would come back. Would somehow keep her safe.
But those early days were fading like the imprints of his fingertips at her hips.
Now she was left with only memories and dreams and thoughts of the sun’s warmth in the quince orchard, of the way he’d closed his eyes as she had placed the ice in his hand. His weight and his kisses. Her boldness. The sheer wonder of wanting him. Of still wanting him, of knowing the joy in being held, being cared for.
Had he cared for her? He hadn’t said so, but she swore she had felt it in his touch, in the way his eyes had darkened and softened when he’d looked at her, in the fierce way he’d clenched her skin and then tried to soothe it. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, and it was the pain of him that had made it all the more precious.
Despite her past—despite what she knew of men—she’d been different with him. Now that he was gone she feared she should have protected herself, but she hadn’t. Not her heart, not her body.
He had to be different from the others.
He’d looked at her differently...he’d touched her as if he wanted to give, not take. But where was he?
She missed him.
All those moments shared had been ripped away by the cold terror of Ian’s return.
Evrart had rushed out of the room whilst she had burrowed under the quilt, kept her back to the door, and willed her heart to stop pounding.
She’d heard men’s voices in the corridor, but they’d been muffled, the door’s latch had rattled as if to be opened, but then stilled. No one had burst through the door. No guard had come in to slice her throat or make threats.
Hours later and Jeanne had entered. Without looking at Margery, she’d stripped the bed and made it new. From Jeanne’s averted gaze, Margery had been certain Ian had guessed what had occurred in his bed, but Ian hadn’t entered the room until the next morning.
When he had, he’d acted as if nothing was amiss. As if he hadn’t been gone for weeks...as if Evrart hadn’t disappeared.
Evrart.
After what they’d shared, she hadn’t dared ask Ian what had happened to her guard, and her fear hadn’t been eased when Ian had announced she was to have a change of guard.
Her pacing sped up but she willed her feet to slow. If this was all the space she was to be left with, she needed to savour it. Make it last.
Was this her life now? All that it would be for years and decades? Would her family forget her or go to Josse? To Roul? Did Roul even live?
Oh, my... What if Mabile wrote another letter to Roul’s home to tell her of her health and their mother’s? Who would open it? And if he was alive, would Roul have it delivered here, or read it himself?
What if Biedeluue travelled to Roul’s, only to discover she wasn’t there? Why was she only thinking of this now? Biedeluue, who travelled for work, had often gone to Josse’s, and once she had gone to Roul’s. That hadn’t gone well, but still it was a possibility...
At least her protective sister didn’t know to look at the Warstone fortress. She wouldn’t want her to come here, no matter what. And maybe there was time for her to escape before her family looked for her. Perhaps—
There was a stamping of feet outside, the slam of a door nearby. Servants cleaning? Or maybe a tryst in the corridor or the storage room?
But the next sound was closer. Much closer.
A click, and Margery gazed at Evrart’s private door, which had swung open. Two steps backwards and she saw a figure standing in the doorway. Stunned, it took her moment to understand who it was.
‘Evrart!’ Margery stumbled closer.
She’d forgotten how large he was. Not only in stature, but in the way he filled her heart, her head. Her thoughts never strayed far from the moments they shared, his taciturn words and those he’d whispered with his body shuddering above hers. How was she to forget those tender moments?
But it seemed it had been easy for him to forget her.
Weeks with nary a sight of him. He hadn’t even slipped Jeanne a piece of paper. Any message at all. With Ian in residence she hadn’t expected them to have the freedom they’d enjoyed for the last weeks, but nothing...?
And now he stood here, staring at her as if he belonged. She’d have a few words to say about that.
* * *
Margery was here, right where Evrart had last seen her, held her. For weeks—night after day after night—Evart had kept seeing her everywhere. In the shadows of a tree ahead of him, at the end of long corridors, underneath him. He would have sworn he could still taste her and hear her cries as she came. The images of which he’d repeat in his mind until he’d practically mauled the bed he lay in. All beds, any beds. Because they hadn’t been her.
Now she stood before him, serene. Gone was the abandon of their last time together. Every lace of her shiny light dress was tied, but there were echoes of those moments when he’d held her: in the unbound hair tumbling over her shoulders, the slight parting of her lips. They were there in the tightening of his own body as he tracked her appearance now and recounted her passion as he’d driven into her until he had come undone.
Like he was doing now.
Her eyes were wide, surprised. Was she pleased he was here? ‘You look tired,’ he said.
‘I look...?’ She trailed off.
‘There are dark circles under your eyes.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘You look filthy.’
He hadn’t changed from his travelling attire. His only thought since returning three hours ago to the Warstone Fortress had been getting to her. If he’d taken a bath, and that had been the moment when Ian left his private rooms, he’d never have forgiven himself. His torture had gone on for too long. He was a man obsessed.
Wishing to bathe, but not wanting to waste the time, he’d washed his hands and face in the courtyard when the stable boy had lifted the bucket of water for the horse, gone to his chambers, and waited. Listened until the heavy latch of the door had clanged shut. And then he’d burst through the private door that led into Ian’s room.
If it had been Ian, he’d have the excuse of protecting him—but it wasn’t. It was her, her, her.
‘How long will he be gone?’ he said, his words barely audible.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. He mentioned something about the watch guards and the porter.’
That meant Ian would be gone at least enough for him to...to what? He was barely controlling his baser instincts and he merely stood in the same room as her. She wasn’t his. She belonged to the man he had vowed before his family and God to protect.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.
Where else would he be? Mere heartbeats after entering under the portcullis, he’d wanted to be here.
She, however, had her arms crossed and her foot looked ready to tap. Was she unhappy he was here? He had risked much getting here, taking paths he would most likely be caught on to cut away the hours, to return to her sooner.
And here she was...stunning, beautiful. Everything he wished for.
Perhaps he should have had a bath in the cold lake before standing like some beast before her. This had been a terrible plan. But he had left without telling her. Not one word exchanged between them. One moment he had been crushing her beneath him, the next he had been gone for weeks. He didn’t even know if she wanted him still.
‘Evrart, why aren’t you saying anything?’
Her words were filled with umbrage, a little wariness. Was she cross with him or concerned? Neither was what she should be feeling. She had no idea of the primal maelstrom of need he fought against. His body was pumping blood through his veins, his heart was thundering. He needed to charge into battle with a war cry—not stand before a petite female with his muscles engaged to attack.
‘I have a few words to say to you.’ She frowned, placed her hands on her hips, then dropped them again. ‘No, just one. Why? Why did you go? Why did you leave me?’
Why was too much. There was no why to his travelling during darkness, or freezing in the night because he couldn’t light a fire. Constantly checking over his shoulder as he stood behind trees with his hood raised. No cloak could hide him if someone wanted him dead.
There was never anyone there—no messenger to pass the scroll to, no item to retrieve. They had all been killed or had never arrived. Or it had been a fool’s errand to get him away from here.
There was no ‘why’ to anything the Warstone did. No reason Evrart cared about. There was only her.
Her lips parted, as if she too found breathing hard, and her eyes darkened as they moved from his to the tightness in his shoulders, then down to where he was trying to release his curled fingers. It was a tell-tale sign that he wanted to rip the gown off her.
‘Do you know? Can you guess?’ he said. Not telling her what she asked, but how he felt.
‘Do I know what? What are you telling me?’
Margery took two steps towards him and his body reacted.
‘This.’
P
inning her arms against her sides, he spun and pressed her up against the wall. She gasped, but didn’t try to writhe out of his hardened grip. He almost wanted her to fight against him, so he could fight back. Release some of his strength elsewhere and not against her plump lips or between her narrow hips.
But her eyes darkened, her arms broke his hold and she buried her hands in his hair. He dropped his own hold, supported her weight with his knee thrust between her legs and his hand on her hips. His other hand trembled as it hovered around her wild tumbling tresses, where her hands cradled his face as if she wanted to make certain he wasn’t going anywhere.
As if he could be anywhere else.
‘Evrart...’ she said, half in wonder, half in desire.
‘Ian sent me on an errand. I had to go right then. I don’t know why, and it’s not safe to tell you where.’ His breath bellowed through his lungs. ‘Should I stop?’
Her brows rose; her lips parted. Her eyes were studying him as if she wanted an answer, as if she needed to ask a question.
‘Margery, do you want me to stop?’ It was all he had.
Her eyes lit, her breath brushed against his, and she whispered, ‘You haven’t started yet.’
Hands gripping her hips, he pressed his mouth to hers and he eased her lips open to sweep his tongue inside. To taste her once again was heady, intoxicating, and he wrapped his arms around her, arched her breasts against his chest, and exposed her neck to his feasting mouth.
‘I missed you,’ he said. ‘I longed for you.’
Every word was punctuated by his lips, his teeth, the suction of his mouth. She answered him in the dig of her fingers into his shoulders, the clasping of her legs around his hips. In the breathless whimpers escaping from her lips and moving across his cheeks as she peppered him with her own kisses.
‘I wanted you every single night. Tell me it was the same for you. Tell me—’
He couldn’t get enough. Tighter he squeezed her. He was starving to roll his hips against hers, to feel her forehead slam against his shoulder as she met his thrusts. They were nothing but panting breaths, ferocious need. He wanted their clothes off, all barriers gone. He wanted her to be his.