Harlequin Historical May 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Sarah Mallory

  Since then anything he did in any sense was ugly. He couldn’t tie the laces of his own boots. He didn’t have an impairment, he was impaired. And this woman, who had haunted the last remnants of his young adulthood, whom he compared to all other woman simply from the way she smiled, knew.

  If he could rage away that pain of shame, he would. All his achievements had been reduced to this woman, and how he’d glimpsed what happiness looked like. His brother, his impairment, ensured she could never be his.

  He didn’t want to be here. His hand...or lack thereof...ached. It always made him lose his bearings. It was the reason Henry, a servant, was on the other side of the door behind Séverine to guard it in case she escaped. There was no mistaking Henry for any mercenary or trained guard, but he was built like a boulder. If she ran, Henry would catch her.

  A pinched look marred her forehead as she eyed his movements. ‘Where are my children?’

  ‘Wherever you left them.’

  Eyes flashing to his, hands clenching the sticks, she demanded, ‘Tell me!’

  All too simple finding her, all too easy if he simply blurted the truth. He’d come to Séverine’s family’s estate expecting to find clues to her whereabouts, not the maiden herself. Did she think her disguise sufficient? Though she stank and did well to smear some sort of dirt through her red tresses, no matter what, nothing could hide the green of her eyes or the bump on the bridge of her nose.

  ‘Does your family know you are here? Are they poor of coin and need you to be a servant?’

  She clenched her lips. ‘You have no right to know my family.’

  ‘Given that you wed my brother, I’d say I was family,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not my family. I want nothing to do with any of you, and I made that clear by my leaving.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m here now, and—’

  ‘Tell me what you want and be done with whatever else you need.’

  ‘What are you expecting, Séverine? Of course we’d want to find you. You have the Warstone grandchildren, after all.’

  ‘Don’t pretend you care. As if your family has any concept of children, and what it means to be a parent. You and yours only want abominations without conscience. Killers without morals, controllers without care. Why are you here?’

  ‘I suppose the logical answer would be I’m here to capture you and the boys, and—’ Her stricken eyes! He couldn’t finish that sentence. ‘I should be hurt by such an expression. Currently, your boys are as safe as you have made them without the protection of my brother.’

  ‘Typical cryptic response. Can your family ever speak plainly?’ she scoffed. ‘I assume that you already have them secured and you’re baiting me. Stop your games, Warstone, and tell me what is expected. What is it you want?’

  That was a question he would answer only when he obtained the parchment she’d taken when she’d fled from her husband. As far as he could see, this hut contained nothing but piles of wood, spiders and debris. Dressed as she was, there was also the possibility she’d sold the decorated parchment for coin in the years since she’d fled.

  ‘I am not here in jest, but in earnest, and as to what I am doing here?’ he said. ‘That seems like an odd question, given the circumstances. It’s been terribly long since we’ve conversed as family, and I have yet to be introduced to your youngest.’

  ‘We’ve never sat down for conversation.’ Her eyes shifted. ‘You think I want you to speak to my boys when I have done everything I can to keep them away from you?’

  Oddly, he did want to meet them. She might have covered her own tresses to darken them, but the boys had unmistakable red shining through their Warstone black strands. It had been easy to spot them with two village men, out in the fields, as if they’d no royal blood in them at all. Here, Séverine was dressed in rough brown wool, and fetching kindling.

  He hadn’t expected to find her on her family’s estate. Not this close to Provence, and certainly not pretending she was a mere servant. It was believed she wasn’t in her own country, let alone France, since she’d evaded his brother’s efforts to find her all these years. Instead, she had been unexpectedly close. Clever Séverine. Which meant he had to be clever, as well.

  Telling her that her boys were unharmed, unaware of his presence, and out of his reach meant the likelihood of her using that door behind her.

  ‘I want to converse with you as well. So much has occurred since we last saw each other. Let’s call a truce, shall we?’ he said. ‘It’s cold here. Certainly, no matter your dress and obvious labour, your family isn’t letting their grandsons catch frostbite. I could use a warmed wine, couldn’t you?’

  Hurling two sticks at him, she shrieked, and ran out the other door.

  ‘Séverine!’ Balthus reeled in the agony she’d inflicted on his arm and staggered to a wall to brace himself against falling. She couldn’t get away, he had to chase after her, he had to—

  A cry, sharp and quick. Forcing his body to move, Balthus rushed outside. Henry lay crumpled on the ground, and Séverine and the boys in the field were gone.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Two weeks later

  ‘I don’t want to play hide-and-seek again,’ Clovis said.

  Séverine bit back her impatience at her eldest child. Clovis was only eight, and this journey, which had taken over a fortnight if she counted the days they’d hidden in the tunnel under the fields, had been especially arduous.

  The last few days reminded her of when she had first run, always looking over her shoulder, sleeping in short bursts, waiting for the shadows to reveal an enraged husband. She’d been that way for the first two years, while she’d implemented her plan to stay hidden from Ian and his entire family as long as possible.

  Which was difficult when everyone wanted to be noticed by such a respected family. The Warstones had the ear of not one king but England and France. They’d gained so much wealth that both kingdoms taxed them heavily, but it was a well-known secret they hid their coin. It was also known, and hardly a secret, that both kings wouldn’t press too hard for anything more.

  What wouldn’t a family do to gain their notice, let alone marry into one? No father with any daughter would deny it, yet she wished with all her being that her father had.

  Perhaps the marriage would have been different with her sister Beatrice, but on that betrothal day Ian had announced her as his chosen bride. To save her family from embarrassment and certain ruin, she’d agreed.

  She’d thought the insult to her sister and her sister’s hatred towards her was the worst of it, but she’d been wrong. In public, the Warstones showed a united front. Never a curt or unkind word to each other, and they displayed a camaraderie that appeared like familial love and respect.

  However, she had been allowed behind those doors into their private world. After all her studies and imaginings of Hell, she’d never come close to the horror, to the cruelty, the family evoked when they thought no one was looking. She’d thought she’d be sealed forever in the tomb of her marriage until that fateful day when Ian had taken her and the two boys to the aptly named keep, Forgotten. A place she’d never heard of, and hardly a keep at that, but a crumbling tower under repair surrounded by splintered wood that once was walls. She could ask no questions of him, though, for he left them that very day. She’d waited one, two weeks for messages or his return, all the while formulating a way out of it all for her sons’ very souls.

  She’d had to. After years of attempting to understand her husband and failing, she had concluded he wasn’t understandable. He had been gone more than at home, and even when he’d been there, he’d sequestered himself in his private chambers. When he had conversed with her, it had been with odd sentences and expressions that had seemed open but would quickly turn bitter...she’d had no guidance when it came to him! There had been rare times when they’d shared a bed, even rarer yet if he’d fallen asleep. Th
en in the dark of night Ian would mutter and sometimes he would talk favourably of her and the boys. But it wasn’t enough.

  Ian frightened her, and all the more when he’d prepared that caravan and woken her and the boys in the early morning and rushed them away.

  When he left them at Forgotten Keep, she’d made a vow she’d rip out her own heart rather than have her children follow in their father’s footsteps. She’d waited for him to return or send a message, and when he hadn’t, she’d approached two servants who’d helped her sequester as much of his coin, jewellery, enamelled boxes and any other trinket or book she could find. When they’d procured several more servants loyal to her to help, she’d left that home in the middle of the night. That had been six years ago.

  Over the years, those stolen artefacts and the servants were left behind in various villages. For extra measure, she commissioned traps beside or near their homes if anyone got too close. The servants assured her that Pepin and Clovis would have some place safe, hidden, and secure for their future.

  In all those years of travel, the children had been easy to carry and care for. They’d never questioned anything because that was all they knew.

  When no word from her husband reached her, and no mercenary aimed a knife at her throat, she’d eased her restrictions. They stayed longer in the many villages in France, made connections, friends, they began to place roots, which she now realised had been a mistake. She should never have stopped looking over her shoulder.

  Every day since Balthus had taken her by surprise, she’d thought of him. Not only of him but she now searched her surroundings more, but also...

  How guarded his gaze had been when he’d greeted her. He’d had all the control and power when he’d surprised her in that hut, and yet...instead of caustic words or threats he’d offered to help her with the kindling.

  She’d married and lived with Warstones, and they were never helpful, yet something about his mannerisms was different. Did he pose more of a danger to her and her children? She couldn’t take the chance either way.

  Though it was earlier than she wanted in her planning for their future, and though she wasn’t certain it would be enough to stop any Warstone, they now travelled to her former servants at one of her hidden locations. One with a trap...just in case.

  ‘One more day of our game, and we’ll arrive to our new home and you can play with the other children,’ she said. ‘But today it’s hide-and-seek.’

  ‘It’s not fun, no one ever finds us,’ Clovis replied.

  That was the point, but already Balthus of Warstone had found them, and she’d curse his name if she hadn’t already voiced a thousand curses on the entire family. How soon would it be before Balthus notified Ian of her whereabouts? Now that they had a point of reference for her location, the parameters of where she and her children were had been narrowed. A few Warstones and their mercenaries could circle the countryside and catch them all too neatly.

  She shouldn’t have been weak, shouldn’t have given in to her to longing for her parents. She prayed her family, who’d harboured them, wouldn’t now be the subject of any Warstone wrath.

  She’d known better. In all the years of running she’d never returned to her home once she’d disappeared. During that time, she’d sent three letters via messengers. The first to let them know what she had done, the others to let them know she still lived. She’d never given her location and had moved the moment she’d sent them. She’d taken every precaution...except she wanted her parents to know her children. So she’d come to them as a servant, they treated her like a servant, and the children never knew. Except now they had been discovered by the very people she’d sworn to protect her family from. She couldn’t let it happen again.

  ‘They never find us because you’re so good at it.’ She rubbed Clovis’s head, loving the way his hair stuck out. When he quickly ran his hands over to smooth it, she smiled. She often teased him that he’d straightened his baby gowns every time he’d crawled, and yet she worried over that trait of his. It was so endearingly him, but would he ever allow himself to make mistakes?

  ‘No one can find us in tunnels and hay carts, can they, Mama?’ Pepin skipped in a circle, kicking up the dirt around him, making his clothes, if at all possible, dirtier than they’d been moments before.

  ‘Quieter, you,’ she said, though she had no hope that he would be and neither would she demand it. He was silent when it counted the most. After she’d struck that man, she’d run to the fields and grabbed her two boys, a few more steps and they’d dropped into a hidden hatch to a tunnel below. A field worker had stood on top so no one else would accidentally find it. Pepin, nearly seven years old, had stayed quiet as muffled voices above them had indicated how easily they could be found.

  A day later, and supplies had been dropped to them, however, they’d waited a week more though it was reported that Balthus and the other man had left after two days.

  When they did finally emerge from that damp cavern supported by thick but cold beams, it was night, and they were quickly assisted into a hay cart to be whisked away for three more days. Now they walked the rest of the way to their destination. It was cold and the sun was quickly disappearing. They’d need to find shelter soon.

  ‘Do you like hide-and-seek, Mama, because you don’t like to hurt them?’ Clovis said.

  Séverine stopped while Pepin skipped ahead unawares, and her heart dropped a few steps behind them.

  ‘Clovis, what are you saying?’ she choked out.

  ‘That man found us,’ Clovis said. ‘Then you hit him, and we hid.’

  Pepin spun around and shoved his brother. ‘Mama doesn’t hit anyone.’

  Staring at his chest where his brother had marred his tunic, Clovis brushed the fabric straight before he slugged his brother, who skidded to the frozen ground. Séverine knelt to cradle her younger son. She brushed his face with the hems of her sleeves. There was a little blood leaking from his nose, his grey eyes wide, stunned. When the pain hit him, the all-too-familiar mutinous look mottled his expression, and he tried to shove her away...so he could then shove his brother in the dirt. She’d been here too many times before, and they didn’t have time for it.

  Holding him tighter, she said, ‘None of that.’ She looked up and pinned her elder son with a warning glare. ‘From both of you. Agreed?’

  Once they acknowledged her, she released her younger son. Clovis held out his hand to help her up, which did more to ease her frustration at both of them than anything. Her elder child made the courtly gestures every so often. More so now. Placing her hand in his, she pretended that he pulled her up, and she brushed her own skirts.

  ‘Mama doesn’t hit,’ Pepin repeated.

  ‘She didn’t hit, she was punishing. You know...like when she gets cross at the foxes?’

  Séverine’s knees gave out, and if she hadn’t locked them, she would have fallen over.

  Pepin turned to her. ‘That man was trying to steal hens?’

  Clovis huffed. ‘For breaking the rules of hide-and-seek, isn’t that true, Mama? You weren’t happy about that because we had to start all over again.’

  She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t. How could her children have guessed this already? She was meant to protect them from the games of the Warstones and try to escape them.

  Pepin shoved his brother again. ‘Now you’ve upset Mama.’

  ‘Did not! You did!’

  How had she come to this? Her children. Her sons, physically similar, but their personalities different. No sooner did she learn one way of talking with Clovis than she had to learn another with Pepin.

  Travelling with them had been easier when Pepin was an infant, and they didn’t argue amongst themselves. Now they fought all too often. Now they had eyes and thoughts separate from her own.

  Which she loved, but Clovis’s domineering ways and Pepin’s keen observations were
n’t like those of other children, or were they? She didn’t know if all boys were like this and, worse, there was a terrible deep part of her that constantly questioned.

  Was this how a boy behaved, or did Pepin shove because he had cruel tendencies like his father? Did Clovis observe because he was curious, or did he watch for weaknesses like his uncle Reynold? Was Clovis kind to help his mother up, or did he do it to control her emotions to escape punishment?

  Were they Warstones or her children? Was she fighting a battle she could win, or against Fate? These thoughts meant nothing unless she got them to safety.

  ‘I’m not upset, and no shoving or hitting. I can’t mend you in the middle of a forest.’

  Clovis kicked the snow under his feet, a reminder that they were leaving a trail. Taking Pepin’s hand, she dragged them deeper into the woods so their footprints would be partially obscured by the underbrush.

  ‘It’s cold, walking,’ Pepin said, his body leaning outward so he almost dangled by her hand. ‘I liked the hay cart.’

  ‘Can’t they find us like this?’ Clovis said.

  ‘I can’t find foxes.’ Pepin twisted around to look behind them.

  ‘Paul said the point of hide-and-seek is to make someone “it”,’ Clovis said. ‘Why is your game different?’

  ‘Mama’s game is the true game,’ Pepin said. ‘Paul lies!’

  Paul was correct, but Séverine couldn’t have him thinking she was wrong. Then... Oh! She needed to stop. Clovis was older, and she’d known this day would come. Their time with hide-and-seek was coming to an end.

  ‘Paul’s twelve. The other boys said it was so.’ Clovis’s eyes shifted to her, and Séverine had a horrible thought: Could he know they were hiding from his father? She’d left when he’d been very young, but since then he’d experienced families with homes. He must wonder about his own and yet he’d only asked once when he was much younger. The answer then had been easier. She’d said he had a father, and they’d see him soon. When she’d said that, she’d believed it. She’d thought she’d be caught. Pepin didn’t remember his father and never asked.