Harlequin Historical May 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Sarah Mallory

  The pit provided no distractions except for him. As one day turned to the next, she only became more aware.

  It was the heat of him, the sheer size next to her. She wasn’t small, and he was supine and pegged to the floor, and yet to care for him she had to press her knees into his side. Feel his body expand with each breath, the heat, despite the weather, seeping up her legs and to the core of her.

  It was the warmth of his masculine scent, the dark stubble against his jaw, and those eyes that watched her now with a deep hatred that made her hands tremble. She did everything she could not to touch his bare skin on any other part than his arm as she unwrapped the linen, but it was impossible, and her trembling made it worse. So the backs of her fingers brushed against his upper arm as she lifted the tucked end of linen to unwrap his arm.

  It was only his arm, only her fingers, but it was his sun-darkened skin, the soft hairs that intrigued her. The tips of her fingers continually touching down an arm she knew was sensitive from the trauma, but the only indication that these brushes occurred were changes in his breathing or a fluttering of his lashes.

  Whereas her...it affected her in ways it never should have. When she’d helped the healer, the injured party hadn’t made her heart skitter in her chest or her body heat.

  It was all the worse now because of what she had to do—to wipe yesterday’s poultice away, to apply more with honey, and wrap it again. All while he couldn’t wrench his arm away and prevent their skin touching.

  Tossing the linen away, taking a small square of cloth, she cradled his upper arm to support it if any pressure she applied caused him pain. Despite his words and the defiant look in his eye, he never fought her. She wasn’t fooled. Though he was tied up, the hardness in his gaze and his carefully stilled body let her know he was allowing her to touch him this way.

  The short strokes of the cloth to take the old poultice away were efficient and light, yet she knew he was there underneath the thin bit of linen.

  Scooping the honey to warm it in her hand, she pressed it to one part of his wound, then the other. Careful only to apply, not to rub. Everything should have been easy, but she felt awkward. Her hand dripping more of the honey through her fingers, down her own wrist, there were times she was clumsy and cupped too much so it drizzled languorously from her hand to his healing wrist, and as much as she willed it to hurry, it didn’t. So the moment between them stretched like that sweet strand.

  Sarah’s poultice stank, but the viscosity was liquid and required her to take both her hands and wash it over the thick honey in long gentle strokes.

  The first few days she asked him if anything she did hurt him further, but he’d kept his silence, his eyes riveted on the rhythm. Once, twice, his nostrils had flared, and he’d looked away. When that occurred, she’d lifted her hands, waited. Again he’d said nothing, so she’d finished what needed to be done: guardedly wrapped the linen around his damaged linen. Again, careful not to touch his skin with her fingers. Again, impossible. Until, breathlessly, the task was done.

  Like here. Now.

  She clutched her hands in her lap. ‘It’s healing. The stitches are holding. They’ll need to come out, but there’s something else I need to—’

  He’d looked away while she’d been wrapping, but at her words his head snapped back. ‘We’re done today? You’ll leave?’

  If he could have killed her right then, he would have. She saw it in his burning gaze, the tenseness of his body, his fisted hand.

  ‘You can’t keep me here forever, and even so they’ll come for you,’ he said. ‘My servant knows what direction I went. He may take one look at this village, notice the walls you’re building, and gather mercenaries. None of your preparations will mean anything. If anything, they’ll make it worse.’

  ‘How do you know—?’

  ‘That there are walls being built, that they are preparing for my family to attack? Because I can hear everything.’

  ‘We wouldn’t be under attack unless you followed me here.’

  ‘Oh, no.’ His smile was not kind. ‘I wouldn’t be here but for you.’

  The consequences of her actions were with her always...as was protecting her sons. Refusing to show him how much his words pained her, she snatched the linen that bound his damaged arm to his chest and the floor and wrenched it free from the spike.

  His shocked expression was only matched by the pain she caused. As a person trying to heal someone, it was foolish. As a woman who had been plagued by this arrogant family most of her life, it was satisfying.

  When she leaned over him to free his good arm, he said, ‘What are you doing?’

  It wasn’t his tone that was the warning, it was the fact she felt his breath against the side of her throat, the vibration of his words in her chest that stopped her immediately.

  Gone was the feud, this village, her fleeing. Gone was this pit and its reasons for being built—everything in her narrowed down until it was just this man beneath her.

  Her belly over his torso, her breasts pressed into his side, her arm stretched to the other rope, giving his eyes, his mouth, access to whatever he wanted. And he felt...solid, warm. Her thoughts telling her to flee, her body wanting to sink, to simply rest on him. She flushed, hated herself, and wrenched the other rope free, as well.

  He held still, his eyes roving from her shoulder, to her hand pressed to the floor, to her ear to her hip, before his eyes found hers, and he slowly lengthened his arms along the floor above his head.

  What had she been thinking? Only wanting to prove a point, to rip off the ropes binding the other arm, she failed to heed the danger of her awareness of this man.

  She shoved herself away and pushed back. Still kneeling, but waiting to see what he would do.

  His eyes, the mistrust, almost broke her silence until she remembered who he was. How could she have any feelings other than hatred for this man? For his family and where he came from?

  How could her body, even for one instant, want to...rest against him as if he was safe?

  She may heal him of his affliction, and possibly it might soften him towards them to leave her time to escape, or it might not. But in the end she would escape. She and her sons would be free of the Warstones and this man who made her feel she had no right or a desire to escape, waited.

  His eyes never leaving hers, he slowly sat up. When she didn’t move, he looked above them, craning his neck.

  ‘There’s no one there,’ she said. ‘I expect them soon, but I don’t know what’s holding them up.’

  ‘You’ve harmed me, and then freed me. Now you have no one to protect you?’

  She was impatient to see whether if what she’d done had been successful. She wanted it all done so she could leave. Or he could.

  ‘Move your hand,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not moving a cursed thing for you.’

  Back to the words, and the anger. Back to his hatred of her. The first few days after his fever had broken, she’d tried to explain what she had done and why, but he had been feral with rage and mistrust. Further confirming that this man, though he seemed different, was flawed like all Warstones were flawed. Sarah was right that she couldn’t trust him.

  Though, in truth, she deserved his anger, and she’d never expected his full trust. This was about healing a man in pain. He’d be grateful, and she could persuade him to leave them alone. Perhaps he could tell her what he wanted with her and it would be over.

  ‘Balthus, move it in a circular motion.’ She laid her hand on his bound leg. His eyes narrowed at that touch. Flustered at his response, she returned it to her lap. But her palm still felt the heat, and she curled her fingers. This was ridiculous. She needed this over before she fell on the poor man. ‘Please.’

  His eyes on her, he rolled his good shoulder and then down his arm, circled his wrist and flexed his fingers.

  Sh
e swallowed. ‘Now do the same with your other hand.’

  He jerked as if she’d slapped him. ‘You’re mad. That’s what’s happened.’ Wariness gone, he yanked at the cords around one of his ankles, but she couldn’t have that. Not yet. He didn’t understand. She had to make him understand. She was a fool for untying him before that.

  She laid her hand on his leg again. Again, it had the same effect. He stilled. This time his gaze stayed with her palm resting against his thigh, his brows drawn in, and he took in one uneven breath.

  Taking in his closed expression, the width of his shoulders, the arrowing of his torso, and then where her hand lay. On his bound leg. On his thigh, her fingers almost brushing what was, most distinctly in the casing of his breaches, the outline of a man who—

  She gasped, pulled her hand away.

  His nostrils flared with something darker and more primitive than anger, and he flung himself away.

  She was losing him! Séverine slammed her palm on his wound.

  He roared, shoved her, and furiously unlaced one of his leg straps.

  ‘Did that hurt?’ she said.

  ‘You’re the devil,’ he bit out. ‘I don’t know if it was before or after you married my brother, but your soul is bound to Satan’s. Of course it hurt—you just struck a wound you made!’

  He wrenched on the other rope, freed himself and stood.

  ‘But did it hurt...really hurt?’ She grabbed his leg.

  His gaze snapped back to hers.

  ‘Is it still hurting, like in a circle, never stopping?’ She rushed the words out.

  His eyes struck her, and he shook off her feeble attempt to hold him back, grabbed the ladder and hoisted himself up on the first rung.

  Then stopped.

  * * *

  Pain lessening. Receding. Becoming nothing more than an ache, then diminishing even from that. Balthus pulled himself up to the second rung, his legs unsteady, his body trembling. Fighting what his body was telling him, what he didn’t dare hope to realise. Aware that behind him Séverine waited, watched. Asked him again.

  What was it she wanted? To know if the pain circled. He grabbed the next rung up. His mind begged him to run. To flee.

  His body shook. Stopped him again, forced him to feel...not agony.

  He fell to his knees on the floor.

  Séverine cried out, but he felt nothing, more or less. No reverberations, though the impact stung the wound. It was still open, there was some blood at the end of his bandage. But there was no blackness around the edges of his sight, no sudden weakness. All gone.

  ‘What did you do?’ he whispered.

  When he looked up, her green eyes were steadily on his, but the emotion behind them wasn’t. She looked as wrecked as he felt. Tears shimmered, a frantic sort of worry, of something else he didn’t want to name, but it was like...light.

  ‘I tried to help you,’ she said. She closed the distance between them. Her eyes on his, she raised his arm.

  He let her. Her hands were gentle but firm. Secure. ‘I may need to unwrap this again.’

  Feel nothing, show nothing. Words of his parents, words of his brothers, words that he lived by, all torn to bits since she’d given him a tincture that made him sleep, and then sliced his wound, his weakness and shame.

  When his fever had broken, he couldn’t remember what he had been before he’d met Séverine. Rage, hatred, retribution had seethed. Lust, desire and something so carnal it had scared even him. He’d borne it all. Now this new emotion created by revelation, by disbelief and hope, felt like it would take down him, her, his entire world.

  ‘You...’ he swallowed, hard ‘...healed me.’

  ‘I’ve been telling you.’

  ‘But I didn’t trust you.’

  ‘I couldn’t explain properly before. I still can’t. There was a healer I knew, and a man had a missing foot and constant pain, and the healer cut it again and let it heal differently. The bandages were tighter, and she rubbed it often. Made certain there was movement every day...and then it healed. I know it was wrong, but I thought I would try it with you.’

  ‘I wasn’t listening.’

  ‘There was no certainty. I don’t blame you.’

  ‘I—I don’t hurt.’

  ‘At all?’ She ran her thumbs down his arm. ‘I don’t have the means to stitch it again or I’d take this off.’

  ‘The ache is different.’

  ‘You were cut before—’ she said.

  He shook his head. ‘Before there was throbbing pain and something sharp in the background I didn’t understand until it healed. But that sharpness intensified the more it scarred and then never stopped. Now...that’s not there.’

  ‘May I?’ She raised her palm, and he braced himself.

  If this was only a few moments of reprieve, he didn’t want it to end. He didn’t want her to aggravate it, but she looked so eager, and he was half-delirious with need. Could it be true? He nodded, giving her permission.

  She rubbed her palm over the end, gently, so carefully. The blood seeped a bit more, and she made a small pitiful sound.

  He waited. He knew the agony was coming back at any moment.

  ‘And now?’ she said, licking her lower lip. His eyes went to that, and to the other signs that he wasn’t dreaming this. He wasn’t alone in his relief. Séverine felt this same wild freedom. Was that what had caused the flush to her cheeks, the rapid pulse in her long slender throat? That tentative curl to her lips that was almost a smile.

  ‘It’s... I’m wary,’ he started. What was wrong with him? He was talking about his arm, not himself, but those emotions that seethed, rolled, were overtaking him. ‘There’s no...reason to this.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. Her expression was open, that hope he still fought beaming. ‘You, your arm, suffered twice. The swelling is greatly down, there’s no fever today, and now this. It’ll take another full moon before you’re truly well, and I should have waited longer to test it, but I think you’re better.’

  He blinked, swallowed. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She shone so brightly it was painful to look at her.

  Balthus’s words... His grey eyes clear, glistening. One tear was trapped in those eyelashes of his. Fascinated, choked with something she couldn’t name, she laid her hand on his cheek and caught it on her thumb, pulled it away and they both looked at that infinitesimal sign of vulnerability. Him with perplexity, her...with certainty.

  Balthus was different. He felt. She clenched her fist around the teardrop to absorb it.

  ‘I thought you had betrayed me,’ Balthus whispered. ‘I thought—’

  She shook her head, frantic, suddenly wanting whatever it was he was thinking to disappear. ‘No!’

  He grasped the back of her neck, lowered his head, and laid his forehead against hers until their breaths were wedded.

  ‘I thought everything I’d believed was wrong,’ he said. ‘I thought what sustained me was wrong. The promises you made all those years ago. I thought you’d lied.’

  The same frantic pulse thumped in his neck that she felt in her chest. He wasn’t making sense. These were similar to the words he’d said when the fever had overtaken him before. She’d never made him promises before. And what about sunshine?

  She didn’t make him any promises now, but she wanted to. If only to give him something he needed. She laid her hand on his cheek. His breath hitched and he came closer, his lips almost touching hers. The joy he was expressing staggered her.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘Séverine, forgive me. I should never have—’ He pulled away, eyes searching hers, fluttering down to her lips and back again. He was going to kiss her. Did she want him to kiss her? Her hand on his cheek slid to his shoulder.

  ‘Balthus?’

  His fingers on the back of her neck trembled, he groaned, her fingers bit i
nto his tunic, tugging him towards her. But he held back and a tortured sound escaped her. It was a plea, and his eyes flashed with fevered longing before his mouth crashed down on hers. His lips firm, demanding. Utterly stunning.

  She had to have more. To feel more. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders at the same time he laid his feet flat on the ground, using his legs to prop her up and lean her against him.

  His bound arm was a deterrent between them, but he used his body, as she did hers, to get closer. She straddled him now. Feeling the weight of her gown, the firmness beneath her that told her he was a man. One who had almost kissed her before. Wanting more, she shifted and slid her hips once and again, and Balthus wrenched away on a groan.

  His breaths heated her lips. His eyes bounced across her every feature before resting on one curl, which he trapped between his fingers. She felt the sharp tug in her scalp before he released it.

  Trailing his fingers across her cheek, rubbing a thumb on her bottom lip to pull it down. His expression pained, awestruck. Was he looking for permission? To acknowledge what was between them? Desire had been building between them since the woodcutter’s hut. Lust fraying every time she’d unwound the linen. Permission. He didn’t need words for that. It was the heat she felt between her legs, the swelling in her breasts.

  The fact his eyes were so dark that she couldn’t see his irises, when his nostrils flared, she’d had enough of waiting and tightened her arms to pull him in again. A quirk to his lips as if he was pleased before his hand gripped her hip hard and he yanked her against him to slam his mouth on hers again.

  This time there was only him, the steady support of his legs behind her, the way his hand gripped and released her hip, her waist. A caress along her side, against her breast, which spilled over.

  She knew he wanted to touch more, and her nipples ached for the scrape and pluck of his fingers, but she was loath to let him go. He knew it too and bit her lower lip, ran his tongue along the swollen seam—