*
After what had not happened in the baths, Talon had decided to take his leave of Nettlewood and return to his own holdings at Ironguard.
“I have been away too long,” he explained.
Spur knew the explanation for an excuse. The truth was, during their conversation about Lambkin, they had finally come to an understanding, an honest meeting of the minds. Each dropping their defenses, they pledged their undying allegiance to one another, a loyalty that would no longer hinge on their sharing of partners.
Though forever bonded by the irrefutability of their familial blood and freely linked through their mutual respect for one another, they remained each their own man. As such, here on out, they would fuck their own women.
Since Lambkin had prompted the discussion, Spur had her to thank for this turnabout. His rivalry with his brother done, finished, he owed her a treasure trove of gratitude.
As well as an apology. For his irreverent treatment of her, for using the elixir, for not admitting sooner that he loved her.
And for telling his brother first, which he had done at the end of their lengthy discourse.
Naturally Talon claimed to have known all along.
They were brothers. Some of their competitive rivalry remained despite their heartfelt verbal exchange.
That was neither here nor there now. The point was, Talon had known Spur had some groveling to do, and so his brother had left for his own fortress on the moors.
After bidding him farewell, Spur rushed upstairs to his solar.
And found the chamber empty.
A search of his keep produced neither hide nor hair of his beloved.
Where was she? Where had Lambkin gone?
He had not given her leave to depart his holdings nor had she said the words required to sever their agreement. Most trying of all, she had taken naught with her, save her male fighting garb.
Unable to do naught, Spur went next to the barracks to question his men-at-arms. A guard informed him he had sighted Spur’s consort entering the gardens. Thinking naught of this, as she’d had free roam of his holdings, he had not reported her actions.
Spur took off after her on horseback. Without a coin to her name and carrying no provisions, she could not have gotten far. He would find her, of that he was sure.
Three months later, he was no longer sure of anything, especially himself.
Beaten, discouraged, almost all hope gone, Spur walked the streets of London. As Lambkin had mentioned working as a chandler, he visited the only candle maker in town.
The wizened old man glanced up from his wax dipping at Spur’s entry. “What can I do for you, my lord?”
“I am on the search for a chandler. Have you hired one of late?” He started the description. “Tall and slender, brown hair and eyes—”
“That be Mit. A good solid worker and mightily skilled at his trade too. What business have you with him?”
No wonder she seemed to have disappeared into thin air! Lambkin had disguised herself as a lad!
“The…er…lad is an escaped serf.”
“A slave to you?”
Spur swallowed his bile. “Aye. A slave. And I must have…er…his return.”
“I have no want of an argument with one so powerful as you, my lord. Though Mit is of value to me, take him, by all means. You will find your property in the back, toiling away.”
In a cramped chamber scented of clover, Spur found his beloved up to her shapely elbows in beeswax. By the set of her stubborn shoulders, he knew ’twas her even from the back, even though she was wearing a lad’s hooded tunic and braies.
“Here for an erotic candle?” she asked without turning.
“Nay,” he gruffly replied. “I am here for you.”
She spun round to face him. “You found me.”
“If it took a lifetime, I would have found you.”
“Because I am your property.” She threw up her hands. “This is so unfair. My lord, I took naught of yours—”
He pointed a finger at her nose. “Wrong. You took my heart.”
“Why are you saying this to me?”
“Because I cannot live without you.”
“Worthless words, cruelly spoken. ’Tis lies, all lies.”
“I believe you think so…”
“Ha! You believe naught about me, and you trust me less.” She threw back her head and laughed. “I overheard you in the pool with your brother.”
She had overheard him?
In the pool to his brother, he had professed his undying love for her.
And she had left him anyway.
All was lost. He was forever doomed to an empty existence, a life lived alone. For he would never say those three little words again:
I love you.
He told his brother he would tell her so, confess his undying love for his sweet Lambkin, but he had not had the chance. She was gone, disappeared without a trace, by the time he returned to his solar.
“Say the words then,” he grumbled.
“What words, pray?”
I love you.
As he loved her still—despite that she had thrown those words back in his face by leaving the way that she had, without even a farewell.
He could not bear to repeat those same words again now. He had not the strength. Not the courage. Not the wherewithal to stand up to another rejection.
Instead he said, “Say the phrase that will cast our agreement asunder. Only three small words. Say them. Say ‘set me free.’”
Though her lips trembled, no sound escaped.
He took hold of her arm. “Until you say those three small words, I am your master and you belong to me, as any and all my other property belongs to me.” He started dragging her away. “Come along with me now, slave.”
“But I have candles to make, orders to fill…”
“Take your supplies with you.”
“You would allow me to continue my occupation at your keep?”
“But of course. I can see your candle making means a great deal to you. Only a selfish fool would forbid the doing of that which makes another happy.”
And he could tell by her eyes that a selfish fool is what she thought him to be.
He answered to both. From the very beginning, he had treated her without the respect her humanity warranted. And why?
Owing to her peasant blood.
Only now he understood she was far more noble than himself, than all the titled dignitaries in the kingdom. Lambkin had that rare quality that all heroic figures shared—courage in the face of fear.
But how to make amends? He still could make amends, could he not?
Whilst he waited for her to bundle her equipment into a sack and toss the sack over her shoulder, he pondered that question. And he came up with no solution, no answer. His heart bled for the want of a way to make up to her for what he had done, but all he could think to do was show her the man he was inside, the uncertain man he kept hidden. Nay, he might be twice her size, but he was not as brave as she.
On the way out, he told the chandler, “You will have your candles. I will see to it. Here on out, send the orders to me, Lord Spur, at Nettlewood.”
“I know who you be, my lord. The lad has done naught since his arrival but speak your name.”
“In glowing terms, I hope,” Spur said amenably now that he had her back.
“Nay, my lord. He spoke your name as though he detested you. Best watch your back.”
And with that onerous warning ringing in his ears, he pulled his beloved out into the street to begin their long trip home to his keep.
Chapter Twenty-one
Two days after her return to Nettlewood, a messenger arrived at the small storage chamber that served as her bedchamber, work space, and prison cell, all in one. The herald told her Lord Spur requested her presence.
Request. What a jest! As if the devil had given her any choice in the matter. A well-armed guard arrived on the messenger’s heels and dragged her to her au
dience with the overlord. If she fought, there was no doubt but that she would have been slain.
The solar was empty when her escorts pushed her within the chamber. Her head bowed but not at all penitent, Mitri awaited her master to arrive to learn the terms of her punishment.
Slaves who escaped their captivity usually received a whipping, the sentence carried out in public to discourage others from doing the same. Evidently Lord Spur was granting her leniency there. In his mercy, he would administer her punishment in private.
His preferential treatment surprised her. An inflexible man like him bend the rules? For her?
Her master finally made an appearance. This was her first glimpse of him since he had brought her back from London.
“Step forward, slave,” he said.
She did, with meekly lowered eyes.
Why struggle?
She was here at the keep of her own volition. In the chandler’s shop, it had been her choice to remain silent when she could have saved herself by uttering three words.
She could still say them now. Say set me free and she could leave. He would keep his word, in that she trusted.
But she could not say those three words, for those three words would sever her only connection to the man she loved. She would not ask for that release, even if her life depended upon it.
And indeed, it might.
For all she knew, the punishment for her escape was death.
The guard, waiting in the wings, came forward. There was protocol to be followed. As was customary, the big brute of a man-at-arms stripped her naked.
Her master gasped at her shorn head. She had kept her hood raised until then.
She was bared and shamed. Her small breasts ached so. They hurt from missing the hard-hearted nobleman who owned her. Her nipples lengthened and hardened, then painfully jutted. All for love of an overlord who would not, could not love her. And between her legs, a trickle of honey flowed. Her secret for now. But not for long.
“Guard,” the overlord said, “proceed with the restraints.”
The man-at-arms tied each of her hands to the posts of the bed she so admired. He performed the same service to her feet. The posts were a goodly distance apart, and the leather ties splayed her, opened her, humiliated her. She cared not about the guard; only the opinion of one man counted.
And that one man, the only man whose opinion mattered to her, had walked around to the side of the bed where he had a clear view of her front. Would he note the moisture of her excitement as it dripped from the slit between her legs?
How could he not?
Her arousal had always been abundantly obvious to him.
After dismissing the guard, her heartless disciplinarian came to stand behind her. “Hear this: you are my enslaved whore. You are so by your own making.”
He stroked her bared breasts, and she purred.
“And you enjoy your work,” said the man she could not bring herself not to love.
She groaned, full-out, when her master applied the same stroke between her splayed thighs.
Then she pulled against the leather cords. Not to get away. Nay, not her. She pulled to thrust her pelvis outward. Better to receive her master’s uncaring, unfeeling touch.
“Your punishment is a flogging,” the Devil of Nettlewood pronounced. “Five stripes across your buttocks.”
Only five?
She thought him more generous than that.
“Make haste,” she cried. “I have missed you.”
“How much?”
“Desperately. I missed you desperately. My loins cried out for you each night. Since we parted, I have had no carnal relief.”
“Do you mean to say, you did not ply your new trade in London to make your way?”
She tossed her head. “You saw how I made my way.”
“You did not prostitute yourself in a stew?”
“Nay! I was an apprentice to a chandler who knew of my work. I told you I would not take another after you, and I have not, nor will I. My body belongs to you.”
“I believe you.”
“My, my, my. And without an elixir too,” she spat. “Too bad, ’tis too little too late.”
“I had no choice but to give you the tongue loosener. We are at war here, Lambkin. How was I to know you would not turn traitor on me and give all my military secrets away?”
“Trust. You could have trusted me.”
“You are naive. We are all here alive due to my lack of trust.”
So saying, he stepped behind her and applied the flogger to her backside. On the fourth stripe, she screeched out a climax and sagged against the ties. On the fifth, he cut her down.
“Your beautiful hair,” her owner, her lover, her master, her disciplinarian whispered as he combed his fingers through the ragged ends. “Why did you do such a cruel thing to me?”
“Cruel! Talk about the kettle calling the pot black. Why must everything be about you?”
“Because everything is about me. Without my cruelty, this fortress crumbles. A terrible responsibility.”
That terrible responsibility etched his tired face. Owing her safety to that terrible responsibility, she smoothed her fingers over the grim set of his features.
Like magic, his countenance relaxed, and he laid her on his bed.
On her belly.
Curses! Time to put her foot down. “Nay to sodomy done on my arse.”
“How am I to come into you?”
She sighed. “The usual channel.”
“Lambkin, I warn you—”
“Stuff your warning. Here on out, you will get naught from me unless we see eye to eye on this. And please to take my warning and meaning literally. We see eye to eye whilst we couple.” She rolled to her back and grimaced.
“See?” He clucked his tongue. “I was only thinking of your comfort.”
“You were not thinking past your prick. A good thing I like a little pain with my rutting.” She held up her arms to him.
And still he hesitated. “But a babe might come of this.”
“Love might come of this too.”
He moved over her. “Love already has come of this.”
She hoisted her chin. “Pardon?”
“I love you. I told Talon so that night in the pool.” He narrowed his gaze on her. “If you were listening, as you said you were listening, you would have heard my fervent declaration.”
“I departed early,” she said uneasily. “After hearing you gave me that elixir.”
“Then you missed me tell Talon how I worship and adore you, how you hold my heart in your hand, how I love you beyond all reason. Had you more faith in me, you would have stayed. Then you would have heard my impassioned speech, the one in which I expressed my yearning to make you my wife. ’Twas magnificent, that speech, quite romantic, even profound, filled with cupids and flowers and rainbows. You would have enjoyed it.”
She could not resist a barb to puncture his bladder of hot air. “Me, a lowly peasant, your wife?”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “In all seriousness, I wronged you greatly. My treatment of you was reprehensible. Shall I beg on bended knee for your forgiveness?”
“Sure. Torture me more. Your cock is poised at my opening, and you expect me to give that up for an apology?” She wiggled her hips. “Mark you my words, you will pay for each of your transgressions. Later. Much later. On this you may trust me.”
“I do,” he said soulfully. “In everything.”
She chuckled and rubbed her hard-pointed breasts against the wall of his chest.
“Evil seductress. And I am a devil. ’Tis a match made in—”
“Heaven. No less than heaven on earth.”
“Lambkin, one more thing—about your sister—please know this, I intend to do everything in my power to reunite you with her. I have already begun the search. I vow to continue to look for her until she is found.”
She believed him. Without question, without pause, she took his promise as truth. Moved a
s only those words could move her, she took the Devil of Nettlewood into her body and held him tight, not minding his prickles and thorns at all.
Loose Id Titles by Louisa Trent
Bittersweet
Bring It
Captive
Courtesan
Icon
Islet Abandoned
On Moorstead
Sex Stings
Some Rough-Edge Smoothin’
Tempest
The Acquisition
The Pick Up Line
Touch Me
*
The BLOOMING Stories
Lilac
Rose
Thyme
Veronica
*
THE ANARCHY TALES Stories
The Devil of Nettlewood
*
The TAINTED LOVE Stories
Bad Love
Bleeding Love
Tainted Love
*
EROTIC INTERLUDES
(featuring characters from the Tainted Love stories)
A Christmas Coming
Three on the Fourth
Louisa Trent
I am a writer raised in a family of storytellers. My earliest and fondest memory is of my Irish Nana relating a mystical story of a man looking in a window upon a beautiful lady whose long silvery hair swept the floor as she walked. With a simple telling, my grandmother drew me into her tale. A man. A woman. A forbidden love that wouldn’t die. From opening word to shivery conclusion, I lived that story with her. Many years later, I’m still awed by the spell of the fantasy world she created with only the dip and swell of her voice.
There’s power in words. Hope in love stories. Joy in a happy ending. I’m proud to carry on my family’s storytelling tradition.
Table of Contents
Title page
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
The Devil of Nettlewood (The Anarchy Tales) Page 19