by Nicole Locke
Another dollop and the child suckled, its incoming teeth gently scraping across her finger. Another, and another, until she sat her up and filled the small spoon.
Her dark, telling, grey-coloured eyes were distinct and explained much. Dark hair, dark grey eyes. Her captor said he wasn’t the father, but the way he watched them, and the way he’d pulled the blade, told a different story...but maybe she was wrong. She trusted her instincts, but she didn’t trust this man or anyone. Lies were too easily told.
Another shift and he strode to the chair nearest them, his dark presence and intent cloaking him. He reminded her of a raven, perched, watching, waiting.
She watched right back. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the way his thick lashes fanned his cheeks, the sardonic bowing of his top lip. The way his fine, almost beautiful hands folded in front of him as he rested his elbows on his knees. One hand perfect, the other marred by a large circular burn scar.
A growing tension threaded its way between them, but she ignored it. The child’s eyes were wide and anxious, its body curving and contorting in her arms. A franticness to reach the food she was slowly and carefully feeding her.
She knew this feeling. When she was young, and days went by between any scraps, the hunger was a living, breathing animal that clawed and scraped. If she was fortunate enough to snatch something edible, she’d consumed it between blinks. But the feeling would make her nauseous. Her body rejected what it most needed.
She didn’t want this child rejecting nourishment so she kept to the slow steady feeding, but not the entire bowl.
Standing, she adjusted the child over her shoulder. She was around a year old, but so thin and fragile. Walking, talking, comforting, she traversed the room until the child calmed in her arms and fell asleep.
The man in the chair didn’t move, didn’t speak.
She didn’t care. She’d feed this child. Feed her again in another hour, then be on her way. She wouldn’t risk more time here.
He hadn’t taken the blade to her or made any threats. He had no reason to keep her here, so, logically, he must let her go. If that didn’t work, the room was filled with enough precious items. Surely a threat to damage such beauty would warrant her release.
The child she wouldn’t threaten. She could never go through with it and the man, who watched her care, wouldn’t believe she could harm an innocent.
‘She sleeps,’ her captor said.
Aliette nodded.
‘Yet you do not ask to go.’
It was a question that didn’t need an answer. He’d let her go or he wouldn’t, either way she intended to stay a bit longer for a second feeding. She shrugged.
‘You also fed the child without feeding yourself. Two trays and you chose to feed her first.’ With a huff, he pushed himself back in the chair. His relaxed position did not make him seem less threatening.
‘This is all so...uncomplicated,’ he said.
That warranted her looking at him. She heard the mercenaries outside the door shift their positions. Trained killers positioned to threaten her or protect him. Which begged the question—what did she have that he wanted?
For what was easy for this man would never be easy for her. Over the years she’d been caught, which always revealed three options for her: fight, pretend stupidity, or plead for mercy.
None of those would work in this situation; talking of the child was her only safe choice until he exposed his purpose for kidnapping her.
‘She is a child and needs shelter, food, and gentle words. There is nothing difficult about it. It would do her well to be bathed, to have a change of clothing. She is soiled and, with the food, she will soil her clothing far worse.’
‘I have ordered her clothing and a bath. They will be available in another room.’
Aliette was surprised at his forethought and yearned to go there now. But if her stay went beyond this room she feared it would change his expectations of her. She had no intention to stay here.
‘In her condition and over the next sennight,’ Aliette continued, ‘she’ll need to be fed and cared for as I have done. Anything less and her condition will worsen. It may seem simple, but there are concerns here.’
‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘The child is a concern, but not what I meant.’
‘Then what is uncomplicated?’ she said without thought, without thinking, her mind on the supplies the child needed and Gabriel’s worry.
‘You.’
She stopped moving and looked directly at him. No, nothing of his relaxed stance changed her impression that he was shadows and dark. He was Darkness, swirling around the light in a dance that didn’t make it any less threatening. She only had to misstep and a blade would be in her belly.
He quirked a brow at her, his mouth curving at the corners. ‘Interesting.’
She didn’t care what was interesting, she cared for his deeds, his words.
‘You’re not talking.’
He was playing with her. Making her wait. She couldn’t remain idle the whole day. ‘It’s your turn,’ she said. ‘I asked questions that you have yet to answer. Further, you’re the one who dragged me here. It would be appreciated if you would be courteous and convey the reasons why.’
‘Haste again.’
‘With good cause.’
Another brow, enquiring, looking for elaboration on her statement. She wouldn’t give him more. It was none of his concern that she needed to return to her family. When it came to time, hers was important as anyone’s. Rich or poor.
Another huff of air as if she amused or frustrated him. ‘I want you to care for the babe.’
‘I already am and I intend to wake her in a bit and feed her more. Then she should bathe and sleep.’
‘It is good you let me know your intentions—what will you do when she sleeps?’
‘Leave.’
He nodded. ‘You are correct in thinking it is my time to talk, for I intend for you to stay.’
‘Stay?’
‘For the remainder of the day, tomorrow and the conceivable future.’
‘You said—’
‘I do not want your body or your death, nor by extension will my men. I intend for you to care for the babe, as you’ve been doing.’
No one snatched a stranger off the streets and ordered them to care for a child. Especially when that child was obviously theirs. He’d drawn a blade guarding the child, now he was giving her into her care?’
‘You want me to care for your child,’ she said.
‘Not my child.’
‘The mother, wouldn’t she—?’
‘You’re her mother.’
She jerked, momentarily waking the child in her arms, and she walked around the room again until it was soothed. A year old. She should have been plump with dimples and too heavy to carry this long. She weighed no more than the swaddling wrapped around her.
‘We both know I’m not her mother.’
‘You look alike.’
It was true.
‘You look alike,’ she pointed out, certain he’d confess to the relationship.
He only smiled. ‘Anything could be a deception.’
She’d play along if she must to understand this. ‘If you are not the father and I am not the mother, won’t the parents have some say in this matter?’
‘She has no parents.’
‘You’re certain.’
‘She has no one.’
Not true. She knew what it meant to have no one. ‘She has you. She was in this room and you were holding her.’
‘Now you are.’
An abandoned baby. This man took a trebuchet to her defence against her argument to leave.
‘Everyone saw you with the child first.’
‘You mean by the men who are in my pay?’
This man wasn’t like anyone
she’d met before. She’d always been able to bargain her way out of a situation. But every argument she could think of, he’d already anticipated.
Panicked, she blurted, ‘I can’t stay.’
‘You’re a thief, homeless, on the streets. Before I snatched you from that predicament you were to be sent to gaol to suffer for your crimes. Wouldn’t staying here in this home, taking care of that child, be preferable?’
Darkness was a madman. ‘No one snatches a complete stranger off the streets to care for a child. No one takes a thief and brings them into their home. You do not know me.’
‘True, but you do not know me.’
Oh, but she did. Her instincts never lied. He was far more dangerous than his act of bringing in a thief. And she let him know she knew him. ‘I saw your blade.’
‘Yes...you did.’
Threats. If he set her free, she’d go to gaol. He’d insist; Ido, the arrogant baker, would as well. There her sentence would be an ear, a hand, her life.
That is, if he set her free. After all, there were other means to dispose of her. For all she knew, she was the second woman he’d offered to care for the child. Maybe another kidnapped woman declined his offer and it was her blood on his clothes.
‘If I refuse?’ she asked.
‘You can’t.’
He didn’t say any more, but he didn’t need to. It was the truth. She couldn’t refuse though she had a compelling reason to beg. Pleading did no good with the mercenaries, but pleading was all she had left. She’d tried reasoning and that failed.
But what could she plead? He wouldn’t believe the little bits of work she did or her scavenging were important.
She couldn’t tell him she had others in her care. That would give him an advantage and put her family in jeopardy. All he would need to do was find them and threaten them and she’d comply with his demands.
Her only recourse was to agree, then escape. Gabriel wouldn’t stay at home, might already be in the streets looking for her. Maybe he’d listen to Helewise and Vernon. They’d talked of a situation like this. That if she was caught to give her time to return.
She prayed he’d give her time.
Striding to the bench, she plopped herself and the child down. It was enough to wake and feed her again, which is what Aliette did.
‘That is your answer.’ He indicated to the food, to the child.
‘I can’t refuse you and this child needs care. If you are so insistent that I’m the one to do it, who am I to argue?’
‘The house and food for your belly doesn’t hurt.’
That is what he thought compelled her. Shelter and food? Once it might have been enough, but her dingy room with her family was worth so much more than that. With them she laughed and told stories.
Darkness never smiled.
She smiled at him. ‘If I’m to be treated as well, I’d be a fool not to accept.’
Narrowing his eyes, he stood. It forced her to raise her chin as Darkness loomed over her.
‘I do not mean you or the child harm. I intend to give you a roof over your head and all the food you could want. A bath and clothes have been ordered for you as well and they are to be prepared for you in the room next to this one. You could have all this daily.’
‘Until the child is well?’
He slowly shook his head. ‘Food and shelter for years. Something you’ve never had.’
She hated that he guessed the truth.
‘All this as long as you never cross me.’
‘I assumed that,’ she said, pointedly looking at his belt where the dagger was sheathed.
‘And you must be the mother.’
‘You want me to pretend to be her mother.’
‘Not pretend. Simply make it truth. She will sleep with you and you will feed her. I will confer with the staff and find a place of employment for you in this household. But you must claim the child as yours.’
The threats were clear. Everything else was not. What was he not telling her? So much, but what could she infer from what he did reveal to her?
That he had a scratch on his cheek, blood on his clothes. That he meant every threat. That he couldn’t be trusted with her life or the child’s.
Still she had to ask. ‘Surely there is someone else in this large house that would have taken this position.’
‘There are only men. Although now that you are here, I will need to remedy that. You will be too noticeable otherwise.’
‘What is her name?’
He took a few steps away from her. ‘Grace.’
‘And yours?’
Another few steps and he stopped at the door. Looking over his shoulder, he answered, ‘You will call me what everyone else calls me: Sir.’
It wasn’t until the door was closed, Grace was fed and Aliette fed herself, did she realise not only did she not know his name, he didn’t know hers.
Chapter Eight
The thief and child, despite their influence on his life, represented only a slight adjustment to his day since most of the activity acquiring Grace had been at night. Still, there were matters to attend to. Dispatching men to the neighbourhood where he’d killed the servant, ensuring there were no witnesses to his act, and if there were, to kill them immediately. He sent another group to walk the market and report if there was any gossip on his taking a thief.
Which left only a few men to guard. Not enough given his newfound vulnerability. So after he’d washed in the kitchens and changed, he stuck close to Grace. Did what he could around the bottom of the stairs leading up to his private rooms. From sound and a brief glimpse, he knew when the thief left his study and entered his bathing chamber. She was holding Grace and talking to her, then the door shut and all was quiet again.
A child. His child whom he didn’t want to part with for a moment, yet it was necessary to in order to keep her safe.
Was she safe with a thief? With this one...perhaps. She’d demanded food for Grace and fed her before she fed herself. Maybe it was possible he’d found an honourable thief. But he would need to ascertain over the next day whether she was appropriate for his daughter. At that thought, the tightness in his chest eased. Another anomaly and a sign that his feelings for this child went too deep and too fast.
Was it simply because he longed for a family...because he remembered his younger brother’s birth, remembered Balthus’s first smile and the heavy precious weight when he held him? Was it because he’d wished so fervently that his brother’s life, that his own, was with any family other than the great Warstones?
Mere hours in his arms and Grace already ruled his emotions and deeds. At first he could not kill the servant, then, when she threatened his daughter, he reacted before thought. He shouldn’t be reacting at all.
Not enough time for this uneasiness inside him because he wasn’t holding her. Illogical when Grace was in his care, and he’d done the best under the circumstances to protect her fate.
On finding and securing the thief, he’d surpassed all expectations. True, she was filthy and had no skills to aid his household, but both could be remedied with little effort.
There was, however, something about her that was different, that pricked his curiosity. Nothing about her appearance, though her eyes were riveting when she demanded he fetch her food. Maybe it was the way she argued. She was wary, but within a few breaths in his presence she’d fought him.
Or perhaps it was the way she cradled and sang to Grace. Affection wasn’t something he was privy to. Perhaps her act of caring was what intrigued him. The thief had a lovely voice and sang like a—He stopped, craned his neck for a view up the stairs.
It was quiet. Reynold bounded up the stairs and stood outside the door. Still no sound. Asleep or gone?
Every instinct demanded he barge in. Every knowledge he’d gained against that impulse knew better. Prepared for an
ything, slowly, silently, he opened the door.
He wasn’t prepared for what was before him. The steam from the hot water cast its mist, warming his hand and face with the scent of sage soap and softening the details before him. But the mist didn’t hide a room blazing with light.
Not from the smallest of windows encrusted in years of weather, but by the four sconces and two candelabras. Every flickering taper enveloped the woman emerging from the tub in a raiment of light.
Her back was to him and her dark unbound hair cascaded down. The wet tendrils clung to her shoulder, to her arm. One, unerringly curled along her spine as if beckoning him to look further.
He did.
Her skin was unlike anything he had seen. With her bathing, no longer were the years of living on the streets marring the absolute utter perfection.
In his life, he’d travelled far and to many countries. He’d witnessed and touched such statues to make ordinary men weep. But if there was marble more beautifully shaped or coloured than she was, he’d never been privy to it.
Her skin was pearlescent like that precious stone, shining and reflecting in the flickering flames that lit the room and emblazoned her. But the warm tone of her skin enticed and beckoned as no hard, cold stone could ever do.
And beckon it did. He was Icarus, standing on the ground, staring at the sun and longing to touch it. She was as slender as she appeared in her clothing. But it wasn’t starvation’s slenderness that made her so.
No, every fine angle of her was created as certain works of art are created. The firm straight line of her shoulders, the subtle arch of her spine, the exquisite curves of her waist pronounced everything about her feminine.
All of it highlighted by the flames, by the water that fell in rivulets along every natural curve of her before sliding headily down her legs and back to where it begun.
Not even a moment to glimpse before she bent for the linen on the side of the tub and wrapped it around her body, veiling everything from him.
That infinitesimal moment was all he had. It was enough to make him feel as if he had donned those fateful waxed wings. Enough to have flown too close to the sun and already fallen.