by Barb Hendee
Céline looked beyond Maddox into a small room behind him with a table that sported a glowing candle lantern. Rochelle stood by the table with her hand at her throat.
Maddox roared and rushed Anton. He was the larger man by far, but Anton stepped aside at the last second, and Maddox stumbled past where he’d been standing.
However, as Maddox brought his sword down at the same time, he almost hit Céline. She felt the air moving past her when the blade swung.
“Maddox, stop!” Anton shouted.
Rochelle ran out from the small room where they had been hiding, looking from Céline to Anton.
“The women are in close quarters here!” Anton rushed on. “Do you want us both swinging swords?”
Despite the desperation in his eyes, Maddox froze, glancing at Céline, and she knew Anton had made the correct appeal.
“Rochelle!”
Céline half whirled to see Heath standing about twenty paces down the row of stalls. Amelie and the Väränj guards were just behind him . . . and Damek and the Kimovesk guards were behind them.
“Heath!” Rochelle cried. “I knew you would find me.”
* * *
Amelie had been taken aback when she and Heath approached the stable . . . only to find Damek and his men waiting. Without asking why they were here, Heath explained they had reason to believe that Maddox had hidden Rochelle in a room at the back.
Heath led the way, and upon entering the front section of the stable, they had all heard Anton shouting for Maddox to “stop.”
Breaking into a jog, Heath hurried toward the back with Amelie right behind him . . . and there, they found Anton and Maddox squared off with their swords drawn. Céline stood near a stall close to Anton.
Rochelle was just outside a small doorway in the back wall. “Heath!” she cried. “I knew you would find me.”
A few breaths of silence followed. Maddox’s expression was tortured and confused at the same time.
“Put down that blade!” Heath spat at him.
Rochelle was looking beyond Heath . . . behind Amelie to someone farther behind. Slowly, Damek came forward, moving down the right side of the stalls, slipping past the Väränj guards. His face expressed nothing. His eyes shifted from Maddox to Rochelle, but he offered no emotion at all.
“My lord!” Rochelle said, with a hint of fear. “He stole me from the castle. He forced me!”
“And how did he force you to charm one of my guards into opening the portcullis?” Damek asked.
Her breaths came fast. “He threatened me.”
“With what?”
As those words left Damek’s mouth, Heath whirled toward him in a rage. “How dare you treat her like this . . . after what she’s endured?” He pointed to Maddox. “I’ll execute him myself! He’s the one who has been trying to stop this wedding.”
“That’s not true,” Maddox said raggedly, lowering the point of his sword in defeat. “But I did force Rochelle to come with me. I tried to save her.”
Damek ignored Heath and continued to study Rochelle. Amelie had a bad feeling that Damek was most dangerous when he was calm like this.
“My lord,” Céline said, slipping past Anton and moving to Damek. “My sister can tell you without a doubt exactly what happened.”
Thankfully, Céline sounded like herself again. Something had woken her up.
“Please allow Amelie to read one of them, and then you’ll know the truth,” Céline went on.
Finally, Damek turned his eyes to her, letting them rest briefly on her face. He looked back first to Rochelle and then Maddox. “Have her read . . . him.”
He still sounded dangerous, but Céline had accomplished what the sisters had come here for. As of yet, no one had killed Maddox on the spot, and now Amelie had the chance to find out what had really happened. The tricky part here was that she and Céline had been charged with the task of making certain Damek’s marriage was completed. If Maddox turned out to be innocent . . . and Rochelle had run off with him, how in the world would Amelie be able to save him and the marriage?
Still, she had to learn the truth. She didn’t know Maddox well, but anyone deserved that much.
Walking forward through the small group of people ahead, she went straight to him. His eyes were filled with despair, and a trickle of sweat ran down his face.
“How did you find us?” he whispered in disbelief.
“Heath seemed to know what you would do,” she answered. “We followed him for the most part.”
“Heath?”
The shocked manner in which he repeated Heath’s name bothered Amelie. Was it so unthinkable that Heath should have a brain in his head? She looked past Maddox into the room. “Are there chairs in there? We should sit, but drop your sword out here.”
A flash of rebellion passed across his features. It was gone just as quickly as he looked over at Rochelle. In defeat, he dropped his sword and walked through the doorway. Amelie followed, finding herself in a narrow but fairly comfortable looking room with a bed, a table, chairs, and even a porcelain washbasin. Not bad for the back of a stable.
“Sit down,” she instructed. “I only need to touch your hand.”
“I know.”
Damek now stood in the doorway, watching them, and Amelie tried to shut him out. She grasped two of Maddox’s fingers and closed her eyes.
She felt for the spark of his spirit.
Although it was a terrible invasion, she knew she couldn’t go back as only an observer this time. She needed to see and feel the past as Maddox had felt it. Merely watching events as they had played out would not be enough.
The first jolt hit. Amelie fought to latch on to Maddox’s spirit, and when she had it, she forced it to mesh with her own. She could feel anxiety flooding his mind, but she didn’t let go. She struggled to see through Maddox’s eyes and feel what he had felt . . .
Until she was Maddox.
The second jolt hit.
The room around them vanished, and they were swept backward together through the gray and white mists.
Chapter Ten
Quillette Manor near Enêmûsk
One month in the past
Maddox had never known such joy.
Rochelle lay beneath him. Her slender, perfect body was naked, and her arms were around his neck. They were in the same small guest room they sometimes availed themselves of when they both could arrange an excuse to sneak away. Today, they’d made good use of the past hour, and he was nearly spent.
These stolen moments had become the center of his life. He’d had women over the years, and he’d cared deeply for some of them, but he’d never been in love.
He hadn’t even known what the word meant until now.
She ran her nose along his cheek, and he breathed in pleasure while moving his hand from her hip up her side to cup one of her small, rounded breasts.
“Rochelle,” he murmured.
Even after three weeks of this, he sometimes still couldn’t believe it. Every unmarried nobleman who walked into the manor made an offer for Rochelle, and yet she’d given herself to him, to a soldier with no title and no fortune . . . and twelve years older than her.
How could he be so lucky?
“We have to tell your parents soon,” he said. “This is beginning to feel dishonorable.”
“Does this feel dishonorable?” she asked playfully, brushing her fingers from his neck all the way down his back.
His whole body tingled, but he pulled away and rolled onto his side. “I mean it. We need to tell them and arrange for our marriage.”
Daylight came in through the window, glinting off her beautiful red-gold hair.
She sat up in bed, letting the covers fall so he could look at her. The sight never ceased to astonish him. His eyes moved from her narrow, rounded hips up to her fragile shoulders. H
er white skin was flawless.
“Not yet, Maddox. I haven’t thought of a way to tell them yet . . . to explain. I fear if we choose the wrong time, I could be locked in my room, and you could be dismissed from service.”
“Your mother wouldn’t dismiss me.”
His place among the family was somewhat ambiguous. He’d basically been a “gift” from Prince Rodêk three years ago: a captain of the Äntes guard to oversee their manor. Although Maddox was in service to Lady Helena, and her brother, Lord Hamish, they treated him as a near equal in their daily lives, and he often ate in the dining room with them. He only played the part of bodyguard, standing at attention by the wall, when they had guests.
“She would dismiss you if we don’t choose our moment and our words correctly,” Rochelle said, “and I couldn’t bear that. Please, wait a little longer, and we’ll think of something. I cannot be the cause of anything that injures you.”
“But soon?” he pressed, picturing their wedding day in his mind.
“Soon.” She smiled and lay down, stretching her slender body. “Put your hands on me again.”
* * *
A week passed and they were able to meet two more times. Rochelle was only eighteen, and she knew nothing of the world. Maddox marveled that so young and innocent a girl could be so insatiable in bed. She could not seem to get enough of him.
He loved it.
He’d found the perfect woman.
Still, though, he had pressed her again to let him speak to her mother and uncle, but she so feared the prospect of his dismissal that she’d begged him to wait.
He knew he couldn’t wait much longer. He was trusted in this house, and the thought of some of the things he and Rochelle had done in back corners of the manor filled him with heat and guilt at the same time.
Evening had fallen, and he was dressed for dinner, but when he walked into the dining room, he wondered if he’d forgotten a special occasion. There were elaborately arranged roses on the table, along with the good silver candelabras that Lady Helena used for company.
Yet only the family was present, already seated. Of course his gaze first went to Rochelle, who was resplendent, wearing a muslin dress of pale yellow. Her hair was loose and fell around her shoulders.
Sitting next to her was the eldest daughter in the family . . . Carlotta. She was as different from Rochelle as snow from fire. Physically, she took after her father’s side of the family, large-boned with sinewy hands. Though she was only in her mid-twenties, her coarse dark hair had begun going gray, and she wore it in a severe knot. Her nose was sharp, and her mouth was perpetually turned down at the corners. She wore dark gowns with high necks and long sleeves. Maddox had never heard a kind word come from her mouth.
Across the table from her sat Lizbeth, and his heart went out to the girl in a different way from how it beat for Rochelle. Poor Lizbeth. In the three years he’d lived here, he’d watched her grow from an awkward twelve-year-old to an awkward fifteen-year-old. She lacked any sort of grace. There were often red spots on her cheeks and forehead, and her hair forever seemed to be falling out of whatever attempt she’d made to pin it up or pull it back. Her dresses never quite fit her properly, and she was always fidgeting and pulling at her sleeves. But it was impossible for him not to feel a fondness for her. She was open and honest and had a good heart. She was kind to horses, and she loved to run and climb trees. Unfortunately, Lady Helena never failed to point out the girl’s faults, and Lizbeth had become self-conscious.
Maddox pitied her now, but he had a feeling that with time, she might grow into her own brand of beauty and perhaps take the world by storm.
Heath sat to the left of Lizbeth, and at the sight of him, Maddox’s pity increased. At eighteen, Heath was more like a child than a man, and he rarely spoke. He looked like a male copy of Rochelle, but on him, the effect was . . . unsettling.
Maddox had tried to do what he could for the young man, including arranging private lessons so he might learn to use a dagger, but Maddox had never been comfortable around Heath. The situation had been better when Baron Alexis was still alive—for both Heath and Lizbeth. Their father had exuded a warmth their mother lacked, and he’d balanced out the family. But when Heath and Rochelle were sixteen, their father had died after a short illness. Heath had been named baron, but this had only caused him to vanish further inside himself. Lord Hamish openly despised his nephew and disparaged him at every opportunity.
“Am I late?” Maddox asked as he walked in, still wondering about the roses and the silver candelabras.
“Not at all, Captain,” Lady Helena answered smoothly.
She wore red silk tonight with jewels in her ears.
“Come and have some wine,” Lord Hamish said, gesturing to Maddox’s usual spot at the table.
Maddox sat. He’d never cared much for Lord Hamish. This manor had belonged to his brother-in-law, and now Hamish treated it as his own, even though it technically belonged to Heath—along with the wine business.
Heath was allowed no say in the running of either the house or the business, but he didn’t seem to mind. He expressed no other interest than being left to spend time with Rochelle or Lizbeth. Maddox supposed it was because the girls accepted him as he was.
“Pour some wine for Captain Maddox,” Lord Hamish called to a servant.
Lady Helena leaned forward. “Lizbeth, do not slurp your wine like that. Set it down and sit up straight. Your uncle has an announcement.”
Lizbeth set down her goblet.
Lord Hamish stood, and to Maddox’s puzzlement, the man beamed at Rochelle. “My dear niece,” he said, raising his own goblet. “Your mother and I have such news for you . . . news for the entire family. We’ve been in quiet talks with the house of Pählen. Your sister Carlotta received a letter this morning from Castle Kimovesk, and we have now entered formal marriage negotiations between you and Prince Damek . . . who we all know will be the next grand prince of Droevinka.” He held his goblet toward Rochelle. “My dearest girl . . . you will be the grand princess of our nation.”
Maddox sat frozen, thinking he hadn’t heard correctly.
Rochelle stared at her uncle and then looked down at her plate.
“Are you not happy, my sweet?” Lady Helena asked. “Is this not the best news?”
“Yes, Mother,” Rochelle answered. “I am overwhelmed.”
Then it hit Maddox that this was really happening. Surely, Rochelle would speak up now. She’d have to. She couldn’t allow such negotiations to continue. Then he saw her glance at Lizbeth and Heath.
Of course she would not wish to speak of her love for Maddox . . . of her relationship to Maddox in this mixed company. She would request a private counsel with her mother and uncle . . . and Maddox himself.
He understood this, and he relaxed in his chair.
“You cannot be serious?” Heath’s voice carried down the table. The young man had risen to his feet and looked to his mother. “Damek? Prince Damek? You know his reputation.”
Maddox had never seen Heath show anything close to this kind of spirit.
“Sit down,” Lady Helena ordered, “and conduct yourself as is proper at this table. We have great cause for celebration, and you will drink to your sister’s impending marriage.”
With his eyes downcast, Heath sat. He took a sip from his goblet. Still, Maddox wished he could ease the young man’s mind. This talk of Prince Damek would soon be over.
* * *
The rest of dinner was a quiet affair, broken only by Lord Hamish’s occasional question to Carlotta about Damek’s initial dowry request. Maddox didn’t listen to the answers, but he realized that Carlotta had been put entirely in charge of negotiations.
As the meal ended, Maddox grew more anxious to speak with Rochelle alone so they could make a plan for speaking with Lord Hamish and Lady Helena. He was well aware of the disrupt
ion and disappointment they were about to cause, but it had to be done tonight.
“Rochelle, did you still wish me to look at your mare’s hoof?” he asked. “You mentioned earlier that she was limping.”
For the first time since dinner began, she looked at him. “Yes . . . yes, that would be kind.”
“I apologize for not seeing to her sooner. Will you walk out with me?”
He could not read her face.
“Must you go now?” Lady Helena asked her daughter. “I wanted to discuss the wedding feast.”
“I should have the captain see to Mira’s foot, Mother, and I’d like to hear his thoughts on treatment. We won’t be long.”
Everyone knew she was fond of her horse.
“Can I come?” Lizbeth asked.
“No, you’d best stay here,” Maddox answered. “It’s a cool night.”
Rochelle fell into step beside him as they walked through the manor, but the instant they were out the front doors and alone in the courtyard, he drew her to one side.
“We must speak to your mother and uncle tonight,” he said. “We should have spoken up weeks ago, and now Carlotta will be caught in an unpleasant situation with Prince Damek as she breaks things off.”
“We can’t speak to anyone,” she whispered, keeping her eyes downcast so he couldn’t see them.
“What?”
“Don’t you see?” she went on quietly, regretfully. “My family is on the verge of royalty. A great deal of work has already gone into this. I cannot destroy it for my mother. I will not.”
He stepped back. “But surely you don’t mean to marry Prince Damek? You and I . . . we belong to each other. We must marry.” Anger began rising inside him. “And what if I go to your mother and your uncle myself and I tell them everything?”
“If you do that, one of two things will happen. Either my uncle will do anything necessary to hush it up and he’ll have you quietly killed as soon as possible, or . . . he will explode in a rage, call me out as a whore, and send you back to Prince Rodêk while calling you out as a seducer of young daughters. I will be ruined, and you will never hold a position in a great house again.” She sobbed once, and tears streamed down her face. “Which of those outcomes would you prefer?”