Marriage Deal With the Outlaw & the Warrior's Damsel in Distress & the Knight's Scarred Maiden : Harlequin Historical August 2017 (9781488021640)
Page 70
‘But I held my sister’s hand, held her eyes as long as she held mine. Even when hers had closed, I held her hand. When I realized I’d broken my promise, when I realized my entire family was gone, I laid down with her. That’s when the blackness overtook me, too.’
Utter silence then, and she still didn’t raise her eyes to his. Didn’t want to see what she knew was there.
‘You may be more a fool than me, Helissent from a village of no name.’
She swallowed, clenched her eyes, then looked up. ‘No doubt a fool and overflowing with shame from broken promises and weakness.’
His eyes… Warmth, incredulousness…compassion. ‘Not weakness. My God, I thought you brave before for rushing into the fire. But there is no word for what you did. You stayed in the fire. You didn’t abandon your sister. She knew you were there for her until the end.’
‘And then I stayed because I was a coward. Because I wanted to die so I didn’t have to face my failures or my shame.’
He shook his head wildly. ‘Not shame. Grief. Your entire family died. Your sister right before you; you were feeling devastation and loss.’
She tried to catch her breath, tried to tamp down familiar feelings of being broken. It was easier now. After all he’d shown her, he’d made it easier now.
‘I see that now. I didn’t see that then or most of my life. All I felt was shame and regret.’
His brow furrowed, his eyes going beyond hers like he was seeing something else that troubled him more than her shame. ‘You have regret that can never be changed,’ he said.
‘It doesn’t have to be,’ she said. ‘I’m seeing it differently now. I’m no longer scalded by regrets because I have been reminded of something far more substantial. Far more hearty and sweet.’
‘Your cakes?’
Mockery again. She knew why he did it and wanted to soothe the chaotic thoughts behind his amber eyes. ‘Didn’t you love your mother?’
‘You think a fool has no feelings?’ He turned and traced the design on the back of the chair, his fine fingers usually elegant, now restless. ‘Yes, I loved her. Even in the end when she tried to kill my brother. It’s one of the reasons why I left.’
So many similarities between them that they shared, but he couldn’t see all that yet. She had to make him see. ‘Did she love you?’
He silently drummed his fingers against the scrollwork. ‘I may have been the only one she loved.’
‘So she went mad, was ill, but still someone loved her…and she loved in return.’
‘It was not enough,’ he said, his voice warning her.
His eyes were full of remorse, almost like he hadn’t rescued her from Reynold and she had died. But she felt very much alive because love was enough.
‘You think I don’t know the power of love when it’s been shown all my life? I failed my little sister. I didn’t get her out of the burning house. She screamed. Like a coward, I tried to die so I wouldn’t feel the pain of failure. When I was rescued, I believed I deserved to live with the agony of shame. But being with you taught me something else. I might have failed my sister and broke my promise to my mother, but I never failed at loving them.
‘We’re alive and I’m not failing now. I want you. I want all of you, Devil’s blood or not. And I want your smiles that you feel you shouldn’t give. So I’m staying by your side and making you cakes and ignoring your mockery and banishing your shadows.’
‘Keep me there, Helissent,’ he choked.
‘No, there’s too much light in you.’
‘There’s not. Stop looking or all will be dark.’
‘Then why did you take me from the village; why did you kiss me?’
He looked down at the chair, at his hands clenched there. ‘Though I pretended otherwise, it was never for the cakes or the parchment or my curiosity. It was for you. Your bravery, your sweetness.’ A curve to his lips, ‘Those legs.’ He looked back up, his eyes holding hers. ‘And so I am to be plagued with your demands even now?’
‘You shouldn’t be surprised.’
He came around from the chair to stand in front of her. ‘No, you’re a woman who went through fire for her family, and travelled with unsavory men to find a better home. A woman who insisted I take her to York even if it threatened her life, and faced my enemy to save me. I’m not surprised by your demands.
‘But even so, even so, I can never give you what you need. I can never be what you want. What I want to be for you.’
She smiled then, because she knew she had him. He hadn’t said the words. But she knew it. It was all in the ingredients. She simply had to measure her words carefully now and balance the scales.
‘You want to be with me,’ she said.
‘How can you not know?’
‘I know because you make me believe I’m beautiful and brave. I want to make you believe that you’re beautiful and brave, too.’
‘I thought my beauty and bravery were already established.’
His mockery again. ‘No, I’m trying to make you understand. You’ve shown me nothing but love and it’s because you’ve been loved. Your mother loved you.’
‘She tried to kill my brother…my cousin.’
‘She was ill, but it doesn’t mean that there wasn’t love there. You talked of her sharing the gardens with you.’
‘She was younger then.’
‘Was it possible her illness caused her madness?’
‘That is what Teague argued. It’s why she’s buried in sacred ground.’
‘He did that for you.’
‘There was always affection between us.’
‘Despite that you were a handful and far too arrogant with far too many women after you?’ She could use mockery as well when it suited her.
His mouth curved. ‘Despite all that.’
‘You have affection for me despite my scars and my shame?’
‘Never despite your scars or your actions. You have no shame and I have more than affection for you. I love you.’
He might still be warring against love, but she was winning; he was coming into the light. She just needed a pinch more words.
‘That’s because love has nothing to do with perfection or beauty. It has to do with acceptance.’
He closed his eyes on that. ‘Is that how you did it…is that how you went from the dark caves to the fires to bake?’
‘Agnes, the healer, was blunt, brisk and very efficient. I was more of a challenge to her than a person. But John and Anne, they gave me so much. I carried my failure to save my sister, but they showed me that there was still love. However, I didn’t learn acceptance until you.
‘You and the men treated me differently,’ she continued. ‘As if my scars didn’t matter. The pain I was used to, by being stared at with horror, disappeared. Then, in the cellar, I listened to your words of deserving. It’s how I’ve been letting go of the past. It’s why when I learned that the parchment contained only numbers, it didn’t hurt as much. I was being accepted, being loved, for who I am. It’s why I was able to tell you how I laid in the fire next to my sister. I could never do that before. But I’m letting the past go and you are, too.’
He opened his eyes. ‘No. The past is in my blood. It’s here now.’
‘It is, but how you look at it can be different. I accept your Devil’s blood and your perfection. And despite your words, you are letting go of the past. You let go of your mother’s necklace, as I let go of the hope in that parchment.’
He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe her words and she pushed into the hold of his arms, felt them go around her, but not near as tight as she wanted.
‘I will only hurt you,’ he said. ‘There could be rumors. If we married, if we are together, our children may suffer.’
‘Will you love them any
less? Will you not give them the chance to find what we have?’ She leaned her head against his chest, reveled in the smell and warmth of him and braced herself for the words she had to say next. ‘Then you’re not only a fool like I was, but a coward, too. You’re laying down in the fire while it consumes you. Denying yourself a future because you carry shame and regrets.’
He stiffened and she dug her fingers into his tunic so he wouldn’t pull away.
‘If you do this,’ she said, ‘you deny not only yourself a future, but the future of our children. The future that I want to see. Not perfect, but good. Truly good and full of light.’
Beneath her hold, his chest stilled as if he held his breath. Beneath her ear, his heart increased. He was listening. His heart was listening. She just needed to yank a bit further and he’d be out of the fires he’d put himself in. Then they’d both be in the bright light they deserved.
‘You say you love me, despite everything,’ she said. ‘You cannot expect me to honor your love for me, without also understanding and honoring my love for you. I love you, Rhain of Gwalchdu.’
He pulled her tightly to him then. Gripped the back of her gown and just held on. Tears poured from her eyes as she rubbed her cheeks against his chest. His heart true, his grip strong. She felt in that moment as if he was yanking her out of the fire. That somehow they had saved themselves.
He brushed his cheek against her hair as if he, too, had tears. ‘I may need a few more cakes to understand this kind of love you’re showing me.’
Pulling away, she looked up to see the tracks on his cheeks. He was beautiful, perfect. No more shadows, or almost-smiles.
She smiled just as wildly back at him. Freely, no longer covering her mouth, and watched his eyes brighten before they drifted to her lips, then back up. His mesmerizing eyes now bringing a welcome heat with them.
‘How many more cakes?’ she asked, wanting to see and feel that promised heat.
‘Thousands,’ he said, taking her hands and leading her to the bed behind him.
‘Only that few?’
‘That many. That many and for ever.’
She laid on the bed and watched his amber eyes darken to honey and fire. ‘We may be here for a while, then,’ she said against his lips.
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781488021619
The Knight’s Scarred Maiden
Copyright © 2017 by Nicole Locke
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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ISBN-13: 9781488021640
Copyright © 2017 Harlequin Books S.A.
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:
A Marriage Deal with the Outlaw
Copyright © 2017 by Harper St. George
The Warrior’s Damsel in Distress
Copyright © 2017 by Meriel Fuller
The Knight’s Scarred Maiden
Copyright © 2017 by Nicole Locke
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
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