Marriage Deal With the Outlaw & the Warrior's Damsel in Distress & the Knight's Scarred Maiden : Harlequin Historical August 2017 (9781488021640)

by St. Harper George; Fuller, Meriel; Locke, Nicole

  Breath snared in her chest. She hesitated, poised in the door frame. Frustration pulsed through her; Lord Gilbert obviously believed that Katherine and her children would try to slip away in the middle of the night. He was taking no chances, placing this guard across their door. The man was definitely asleep; she could hear his deep, steady breathing. Could she step over him without waking him up? She had no wish to be seen in her nightgown, hair uncovered and in braids, but Alice’s temperature worried her. To dress appropriately would waste more time; she needed to fetch water for the child now.

  Lifting her bare foot, she stepped over the sleeping body, careful, hesitant, her nightgown filming over the man’s tunic, gauzy hem rustling across the expanse of red wool. With both feet on the other side of him, she paused, glancing down to check that he still slept.

  Eyes of granite watched her, twinkling in the candle flame.

  Lord Bruin, the knight who had brought her out from the forest. Eva recognised him instantly. ‘Not you again!’ she blurted out, exasperated. Anger pulsed through her, blazing, irresponsible; lifting her skirts, she kicked out towards his stomach with her good foot, a childish gesture, instinctive and wilful. She never reached her target. A lean hand snaked out, grabbing her ankle, powerful fingers grinding into her delicate bones.

  ‘You’ve quite a temper on you, maid,’ Bruin said softly, pressing her foot back to the ground, releasing her. He sat up, running his fingers through his vigorous bronze curls, hitching one shoulder against the door frame. He had shaved; the lines of his square-cut jaw were revealed, the raw slanting contours of his cheekbones. His sculptured features held a sensual beauty which drew her gaze; her heart jolted treacherously. Bruin folded thick, muscled arms across his chest. ‘You would do well to keep it in check or it will bring you trouble.’

  ‘It’s the way you are treating us that’s making me annoyed,’ she said, bridling at his words. The memory of his thumb on her ankle taunted her: a heated imprint, tantalising. She clutched at the blanket across her chest, a self-conscious gesture, heart bumping erratically. Hot wax dripped from the candle across her knuckles. The pain bit into her skin, then subsided, the wax cooling swiftly. ‘Can’t you leave us alone for one moment?’

  ‘And let you run away with your mistress? No doubt she has told you the news?’ Again, that strange lilt to his voice that tickled along her veins, entrancing them. Excitement stranded through her; she stamped hard on the feeling with grim determination. Who was this stranger with dangerous, flinty eyes who had intruded so brutally on her quiet hidden life? A man who reminded her constantly of her previous tormentor. She wanted him out, away. Gone.

  ‘Aye, she has.’ Eva rolled her feet against the chill wooden floorboards; she had forgotten her slippers. A draught whistling along the corridor chased beneath the hem of her nightgown. Beneath the new bandage, her wound throbbed, pain radiating across her shin. ‘But there was no need to post a guard across our door. She has no intention of going anywhere.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t she after what she’s just been told?’ Drawing one leg up, Bruin rested his hand on his knee. Moonlight streamed through the bedchamber door, the limpid rays highlighting his ridged and calloused palm, the corded sinew winding across the top of his fingers.

  She glared at him archly. Was he trying to trap her into saying something she shouldn’t? His words surprised her; it seemed inconceivable that a man such as this, a man that spoke of war and battles, should understand Katherine’s predicament.

  ‘Because it’s impossible,’ Eva replied, her voice subdued. Her velvet lashes fluttered down, masking her eyes. She shook her head, glossy plaits rippling like wide satin ribbons. ‘Lady Katherine knows she has no choice; the King is her uncle and she must do his bidding.’ She chanted out the words, the correct answer for the circumstances.

  ‘But you would run in her position, wouldn’t you? You would take that chance.’

  Jerking her head up, Eva frowned. His speech sounded too personal, as if he were prising apart the thoughts in her head. She wanted to rebuke him for his intimacy, but she held her tongue, repressing the words she wanted to say, scared of saying too much. She watched a gob of wax trail down the candle, the guttering flame. ‘What does it matter what I think, what I would do? It’s different for me, I’m only the servant.’ She threw him a false, brittle smile.

  ‘Are you?’

  A hollowness besieged her heart, belly plummeting. During her whole time living with Katherine, not one person in the castle had guessed her true identity. She kept a close guard on herself, careful and measured at all times, moving through her days at the castle like a ghost, a wraith of her former self, unnoticed. A half-life. But this man, with his silver glance that seemed to see her thoughts, forced himself beneath her well-constructed defences, made her forget who she was supposed to be.

  ‘Of course I am!’ she ground out, snapping the blanket more securely around her shoulders. Fear skittered through her veins.

  ‘Then where are you going?’

  ‘Lady Katherine’s youngest child has a fever; I must fetch water for her. Her temperature is too high. And you are holding me up.’

  Bruin sprang to his feet, the swiftness of the movement shocking her, his shoulders filling the doorway. ‘I’ll come with you.’ The black and red lions emblazoned upon his tunic gleamed out like a threat, intimidating.

  ‘There’s no need,’ Eva responded haughtily, tipping her head back to stare into the angular lines of his face. Without a beard, he seemed more dangerous somehow, the honed angles of his face exposed. He towered over her in the moon-soaked shadows. Eva considered herself to be quite tall for a woman, but annoyingly, her head scarcely topped his shoulder. ‘Besides, Lady Katherine and her children might slip away if you come with me, so you’d better stay here.’

  Bruin heard the note of sarcasm in her voice, and chuckled. ‘What, and have you slip away instead?’

  Her eyes widened, long, curving lashes kicking up towards the perfect arch of her brows. ‘I would never leave Lady Katherine! Why do you think I would do such a thing?’

  Bruin inclined his head fractionally. His eyes sparkled over her like diamonds. ‘Let’s just say that I don’t trust you.’

  ‘But I’m nothing to you, or anyone else for that matter. I’m not important,’ Eva protested, knuckles white and rigid around the candle. ‘Why not go and pester the maidservants downstairs? Why do you persist in plaguing me?’

  Because there is something about you that doesn’t add up, Bruin thought. You protest too much about your insignificance. He remembered the way Katherine had supported her, helping Eva to her seat in the hall; how they had murmured to each other, heads together, not like servant and mistress, but more like friends. Everything about the chit made him suspect she was not a servant: her behaviour, her voice—the refined elegance of her beauty, the translucent quality of her skin. Her hair, like ebony silk, bound into two neat braids on either side of her head.

  His chest seized. One of Eva’s plaits fell forward, snaking across her shoulder, her chest, the curling end tied with a thin leather lace, swinging down across her nightgown. And through that fine, gauzy fabric, revealed by the treacherous moon spilling through a distant window, he could see the perfect delineation of her shapely legs, her thighs, before they disappeared up beneath the blanket. His stomach muscles tightened, taut, aware.

  Jaw hardening, he whipped his gaze away, signalling to another knight further down the corridor. ‘Hey, you there! Guard this door!’ A huskiness curled through his voice, lowering the timbre.

  ‘But I told you—’ Eva began to speak. He hadn’t answered her question.

  ‘Come on.’ Bruin ignored her, plucking the candle from her fingers. He clasped her elbow to guide her along the corridor.

  At his commanding touch, Eva dragged her arm down to detach herself from his grip, a deliberate action,
forceful. ‘No, I can walk unaided, thank you.’ The pulse at her throat beat in rapid momentum, her pale skin sheened in moonlight.

  ‘Can you? You had to ask that boy for help when you left the great hall.’ Bruin dug his thumb into his sword belt, eyeing her sceptically. The gemstones in his sword hilt winked and glittered, vaguely menacing.

  So he had watched her leave then. Those fearsome eyes had followed her, observing her every move while she, unaware of his scrutiny, had stumbled awkwardly towards the stairs. The thought filled her with dismay, worry threading her veins. She must be more careful if this man watched her so closely.

  ‘The wound’s not deep; it feels much better now,’ she answered him tersely. ‘It was good of you to tend to it.’ But she looked away from him as she said the words and started walking off down the corridor, unable to meet his iron-hard gaze.

  Bruin laughed, following her limping gait, the awkward lift of her hip as she countered the soreness in her leg. ‘Are you thanking me?’ Her swinging plaits tormented him; he wanted to grab them, haul her back against his body, savour those pliant curves against his own. The urge swept through him, wild and traitorous. What would it be like, to pull that lithe, slim body against his? To wrap his limbs around her, kiss her? But he knew. His groin pulsed treacherously, tightening, his breath punching out in surprise. Her beauty drew him, entranced him, chipping away at his self-control, his sadness—like sunlight burning through fog, a magical heat against the frozen lump of his heart.

  Acknowledging his question with the briefest of nods, Eva continued to walk forward, eyes fixed on the end of the corridor, her nose stuck in the air. Annoyed at her impudence, Bruin shot his hand out, closing around her shoulder to halt her, spinning her around. She gasped at the swift, unexpected movement. The blanket gathered in gentle folds around her neck, emphasising her sweet face, the plushness of her mouth. Above the point where her fingers gripped the blanket, the white-lace edging on her nightgown peeked out, the neckline dipping down to reveal the top swell of one breast. For one insane moment, he wanted to touch his fingertip against the delicate hollow of her throat, to feel the satiny push of her breast against his palm.

  Eva glared at him, then saw the latent heat gathered in his eyes, the flash of desire, of intent. Her stomach muscles puddled to a giddy whirlpool, looping dangerously. She had never lain with a man, yet she recognised the savage promise in his eyes, those dark sparkling orbs that whispered of places unexplored. Places she had never been. Every nerve in her body thrummed, strung with anticipation, an expectancy of—of what?

  Bruin’s head dipped fractionally, the etched curve of his mouth looming down to hers. The air between them thickened suddenly, solidifying, adopting a soporific, dreamlike quality. Blood hammered in her veins. The rope of her resistance, once tightly bound, now creaked and strained. She was unable to move, feet bolted to the floor, captured by his sparkling gaze.

  Then, as if from a distance far away, a child cried, a frantic series of sobs, high-pitched, frightened.

  Eva cursed, shoving petulantly at his chest. What in God’s name had she been thinking? Loitering beside him, beside this—this oaf, mesmerised like some foolish dimwit! ‘Can’t you hear?’ she hissed at him. ‘Alice needs me! Stop holding me up like this! What are you doing?’

  What was he doing? A fiery insanity had gripped him, turning his loins to pulp. He had been about to kiss her, to run his mouth across those plush, rosebud lips. To delight in the velvety patina of her skin. This wasn’t him; he didn’t behave like this. Why, he hadn’t even touched Sophie during their brief betrothal—if he had, things might have turned out so differently. Bruin’s heart turned over at the memory, a tide of cloying sadness flooding through him. Disgusted with himself, he released Eva’s shoulder. His fingers shook. With a curt nod he indicated that she should go ahead, his arm dropping to his side.

  * * *

  The kitchens were warm, the fire in the cooking range smouldering gently, banked up for the night with great squares of peat. Flickers of glowing light shone out through the cracks in the turf, reflecting against the pots and pans hung by their handles inside the huge fireplace. An oak table, the boards well-scrubbed to a bleached lightness, dominated the room, earthenware and pewter dishes stacked upon it in piles, ready for the morning. Next to them, Bruin secured the candle in a pool of wax. The flame cast his substantial figure into a huge black shadow on the wall behind.

  The well was in the corner: a circular hole covered with a wooden lid, a rope handle in its centre. A wooden pulley sat alongside, secured to the floor, used to pull the bucket up. Favouring her injured leg, Eva walked over to it, bending down to drag the lid to one side. The stone flagstones froze the soles of her feet, numbing the skin. Annoyance shimmered through her at Bruin’s continued presence, at her own foolish behaviour towards him. As if a man should affect her thus! She was tired, that was all, tired and upset by what was happening to Katherine, and he wasn’t helping matters by following her about. But she must behave in a manner appropriate to a servant; much as she disliked it, she must follow his orders. Taking a deep breath, Eva straightened to work the handle on the pulley that would lower the leather bucket down to the water level, a black shining disc far below. She jumped as Bruin moved beside her, his arm jostling her shoulder.

  ‘Here, let me,’ he said, pushing her away from the wooden handle and lowering the bucket rapidly. The bucket hit the water with a violent splash.

  Eva moved back, folding her arms tightly across her bosom, her whole manner bristling and defensive. She bit her lip, holding back the words she had been about to say. That she could have done it; that, as the servant, she should have done it.

  He turned his head, as if he read her mind. ‘I know you could have done this. But as I am here, you may as well let me help you.’

  Let me help you. His words flowed around her like a balm, as if he’d wrapped her flesh in a coat of downy feathers. When was the last time anyone had said something like that to her? Since the deaths of her father and brother, she had been alone, used to fighting her own battles, used to standing on her own two feet. Her mother had died when she was a small child, drowned on the return from the island shrine of St Agnes. Eva scarcely remembered her. The oddness of the situation struck her: to have someone step in and offer to perform a task for her. She just wished it wasn’t him, this man, with his striking hair of reddish-gold, who towered over her and drove her knees to pulp.

  ‘When do you and Lord Gilbert plan to leave?’ she asked.

  Bruin turned the handle. The rope coiled slowly, creaking, wrapping around the horizontal spindle set across the well. The full bucket, water slopping down its sides, emerged from the dark hole, moving slowly to the top. ‘Gilbert plans to leave in a couple of days. That should give you and your mistress time to pack. But I am travelling on further, into Wales.’ At the back of his neck, his chainmail hood lay in rippling, metallic gathers against his surcoat.

  ‘Why, where are you going?’ she blurted out, then ducked her head quickly, staring at the floor. Curse her own outspokenness!

  Bruin laughed. ‘Nosy little thing, aren’t you?’ Unhooking the bucket, he hefted it into his right hand. ‘I’m looking for someone. Did Lady Katherine not mention the name to you?’

  Eva shook her head, her heart pounding. She knew what he was about to say, to ask. The less interested she appeared in the whole matter, the better.

  ‘The Lady of Striguil. Do you know her?’ His eyes swept over her, sparkling, intense.

  Eva stared at the water trickling down the bucket sides, strings of bright water, like silver thread. His words reverberated through her consciousness: her real name, tangled in his lilting accent. Air scoured her lungs; she willed herself to keep her features schooled, neutral. She must not give herself away. Perspiration gathered in her armpits. ‘No, I’m sorry.’ Her voice was calm, steady. ‘Why are you lookin
g for her?’

  ‘My brother said he thought she lived around here—this area, anyway.’ Bruin’s wide, generous mouth was set in a straight, grim line. ‘He wants to see her before…’ he stopped for a moment ‘…before he dies.’

  His brother? For a moment her mind was numb; then her thoughts skittered, shifted, scampering to slot the blocks of information into place. Bruin’s bright hair, honed features, those granite eyes. Oh, God, no. No! Please don’t let it be… ‘Who—who is your brother?’ The question staggered out of her.

  ‘Lord Steffen. Steffen of Wyncheate. He has a castle there and several holdings in the area. Have you heard of him?’

  Her knees buckled in terror and she lunged for the table, masking her stumble. Seizing a couple of linen cloths to take up to the chamber, she held them against her belly like a shield. No wonder she had mistaken this man for her persecutor; their looks were similar because they were related: they were brothers! But even as her legs failed her, her heart flared with treacherous hope, fledgling, unsteady. If Bruin’s brother was the man who had terrified her days and nights, then it sounded as if he was about to leave this earth. About to die. And if he died, then, she would be free of him for ever.

  ‘No.’ Eva twisted anxiously at the bundle of clothes, nerves shredding. ‘No.’ Her response was monotone. The effort of keeping her voice steady made her head throb.

  ‘I could have sworn you did,’ Bruin said, swinging the bucket as if it were a bag of feathers as he walked towards her. His silver eyes gleamed like knife blades. ‘Back in the forest, you were frightened of me. You said that I reminded you of someone else and I think that someone else was my brother. You see, we do look very alike. Steffen is my twin.’

  ‘I had no idea who you were!’ she flashed back at him immediately, instinct guiding her words. ‘A knight armed to the teeth, dressed in chainmail, chasing me up the hill! I thought you were going to kill me!’