Harlequin Historical September 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Annie Burrows

  He still held the braies to his waist, the excess linen fluttering to the ground. Under that frustrating fabric was a shaft that no amount of fabric could disguise. She wanted to feel him, to taste what his skin would be like.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he said.

  There was the man she knew. The one whose hand she had clasped to gather quince. The hand that had twitched when she’d placed the shard of ice in it.

  Here was a man who looked as if he was in pain. The flush around his neck, that pulse beating hard in the cords of his neck...

  ‘You can’t hurt me,’ she said, and realised how true it was. No matter what he did, Evrart couldn’t hurt her. Everything in him already balked at merely touching her. She was more concerned about that.

  ‘I ache already,’ she said.

  His hand gripped hard around himself, as if stopping himself from spilling like that fabric. That wouldn’t do. That was not what she wanted—what they both wanted.

  Pushing up, she grabbed a corner of his braies.

  ‘Margery...’ he said.

  ‘Evrart,’ she said back.

  She tugged a bit. He held, giving her a warning look, so she tugged harder and he released his hand, but kept it at his side as he rolled his shoulders.

  She’d never seen him restless before. He was always aware of his body, so he probably knew those little movements would seem overt in someone like him. Was he nervous? She glanced at his face. His expression had turned resigned. No, this wasn’t modesty. This was something altogether.

  ‘Still waiting for me to run away?’ she said.

  ‘You should.’

  He was simply...in proportion. That was all. He was large, his bones thick. It was reasonable for any man like him—

  There were no men like him.

  She looked at his shaft, the veins thick, the head a rich plum colour. He didn’t look as if he was in pain—he was in pain.

  Lying down again, she raised her knees and parted her legs.

  His eyes, which had darkened until there was no more blue, lowered to see what she freely offered. Her sex plump with need, wet with desire. That she needed him as much as he needed her.

  Because that was what she saw when she gazed at him.

  Need.

  And if he was simply going to stand there...

  Rising to her knees, she laid one hand along his hipbone, thumbed the vulnerable soft skin there, where sunshine and men who fought in the lists never saw. Her other hand hovered just underneath him.

  He looked anguished. ‘We won’t fit.’

  They would. In the most blissful way they would fit. Didn’t he know that they already did in all the ways that truly mattered? She had known him for so little time, but the time they’d had...it counted. In her heart, and in her soul, it counted. She wouldn’t be here with him otherwise.

  Grabbing his hand, she tugged and shuffled back on the bed. His eyes glanced from their joined hands to the hand still at his hip. It was urging him forward until he placed one knee on the bed, and then the other. She felt her heart soar.

  ‘Lie back,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I want to control this a little longer. And besides...’ His eyes were knowing, and he bowed his head.

  She liked it. His kisses and caresses were different this time...meaningful. Before he explored he seemed intent on torturing her, pleasuring her, and he did. Until her hands grappled against his back and her legs clung and slid along his sides. Until she reached up and kissed him as much as she could and he didn’t tell her not to. Until he hovered above her again, his hair a tangled mess from her fingers, his lips swollen from her kisses.

  Until she tilted her hips and arched towards him so he’d know her want.

  And in this he did not hesitate, but took his hand and notched himself to her core, slid forward until he breached. Then he paused, and she wanted to clamour for him to continue.

  How could she feel this way? Only anticipation...only need...

  She clutched and tugged and writhed.

  He pushed forward again and bowed his head.

  She felt the hot exhalation of his breath against her chest, her belly. Felt the slight burn and stretch to her core. Felt the need for more.

  ‘No more control,’ she begged. ‘No more holding back—please, Evrart.’

  ‘It’s too much,’ he said.

  It was...it was. Her body was throbbing at the intrusion and vibrating for more. His own massive body was flushed with colour, with a sheen of sweat as he fought for control. As if, he too, had been slammed with only instinct.

  ‘No more gentle,’ she said.

  She dug her heels into his thighs and pounded them against him, but he didn’t move. She wasn’t a virgin; she knew the ways of men. The first time she had been taken hadn’t been brutal or cruel. She’d had that moment for comparison all the time since then. But she didn’t know this man, and it had never been like this.

  He huffed out a laugh, part in humour part in anguish laced with surprise, and she saw some sort of spark to his eyes that felt like a revelation.

  ‘Margery, are you touching me and pushing me around again?’

  ‘I want you.’

  ‘I can see that; I can feel that.’

  His eyes shut, and a shiver rippled up his spine that she scrambled to follow with her hands.

  ‘I can feel...you,’ he said.

  This man! Her core was clenching...everything in her was begging for faster, harder, now. This man! When he talked, when he said those words...

  Laying a hand against his cheek, she kissed him softly, tenderly, letting him know that what he was saying, how he was being...she felt it too, not just in her body but in her soul.

  In her heart.

  Wrapping her arms and legs around him, clutching him as close as she could, she moaned when he lowered himself as he answered her request to give her everything.

  He held still. Time stilled. And then that building restlessness, that need, consumed them both. There was more here than the joining of their bodies. There was something more that was tangible. Felt.

  It was tearing her up inside and building anew. Ripping her at the seams. Her body shivered. There were small trembles in her hands and along her legs. He was undoing her.

  ‘Evrart...?’ His name was a question, a demand, a plea.

  A muscle popped in his jaw as he jerked a nod in response. And then he moved. There was no hesitation, no control. Words were said like prayers of intent. He whispered in that low, gravelly tone she adored how sweet she was, while all she could repeat was how much she wanted, wanted, wanted. And his hands lifted her up as she pulled him down. And—

  ‘Evrart, I’m going to—’

  Her entire body sang her release and her joy. A hard thrust, then another, jolted her higher, until she felt his own heated pleasure, until it was only them somewhere else, not on this bed, not in this room, not subjects trapped by duties and locked doors.

  It was only them.

  * * *

  Evrart collapsed at the side of the diminutive woman who had felled him, his body lax, his breath evening out.

  His heart, however, trembled and shuddered. All the more when she turned towards him, her breasts pressed to his side, her leg sliding along his, one palm gliding across his damp stomach until she was curled against him.

  He kissed her forehead, scenting once again that delicate white-petalled flower—the one he still couldn’t recall the name of. All he knew was that if someone told him the true name it wouldn’t matter. The scent was Margery’s. The flower couldn’t compare.

  ‘Evrart...your legs,’ she said.

  Ah... He thought she’d noticed his scars before, had been gladdened when she didn’t react. Although if she had noticed perhaps she would have seen him as she should
have. As ugly on the inside as he was on the outside.

  Her delicate hands traced along one long slash, then another. Cuts that were flat and thin. Made by many swords. His torso was unmarked, but his legs looked as if he’d slashed a year of months into them.

  ‘Lord Warstone tells them to go for my legs.’

  ‘Your legs? They’d have to...’ Her eyes roamed around him to see that no sword had touched him elsewhere. They should never have touched him anywhere. His training and his sword reach should have precluded such weakness.

  ‘Why didn’t you move?’ she asked.

  He stayed silent. She was clever enough to come to the right answer. He never wanted to repeat it. The act of standing still to appease an irate lord was not an act easily given.

  Her palm lay flat against a particularly bad one, her expression turning dark, threatening. He wanted to laugh, to squeeze her in gratefulness that she felt anger at Warstone and not pity towards him. He wanted to—

  There—there was that sound.

  ‘What is it?’ she whispered.

  Pushing himself up, he heard it again. Something that made ice fly through his veins. The sound that the gates made when they were being closed and the portcullis was being lowered. The sound made only after someone had entered the courtyard.

  He shoved himself off the bed, grabbed his tunic. ‘Get dressed.’

  She sat up. ‘What do you hear?’

  ‘Ian’s returned.’

  Eyes wide with fear, she crawled to the end of the bed.

  There was another sound from inside the great hall.

  Already that close?

  She pulled on her chemise as he tightened his braies and grabbed his breeches.

  He looked around the room. ‘There’s no time.’

  The mattress of wool was a lump, gone askew—something only his large body could have done with great force and movement. It would have to be shaken, the wool redistributed.

  No time!

  ‘Get under the covers. Pretend to be rising if you can’t feign sleeping.’

  He grabbed everything else and flew to his private door, held the latch, feeling a spike of fear up the back of his neck as he heard another sound. A door. Was someone coming in, or leaving?

  No time for anything!

  There would be guards outside Lord Warstone’s door in the corridor even now.

  He rushed into his room, his heart only slowing when he realised it was empty. Although... He looked more closely at his belongings. Nothing was disturbed, but that sound still clanged in his head, and he swore there was a scent in the room, as if someone had entered and left.

  Quickly dressing in new clothes, he bound his hair and stormed out.

  ‘Ah, there you are,’ said Ian of Warstone.

  Evrart froze. Ian was leaning against the opposite wall, directly between his rooms and Evrart’s. As if he was...waiting for him. He kept his gaze away from Ian’s door. Had Ian already opened that door and seen Margery in the bed he’d left her in?

  ‘An odd time of day to be sleeping,’ Lord Warstone said.

  ‘Not sleeping.’ Evrart shoved open his door so Ian could see his undisturbed bed. ‘Changing clothes.’

  ‘Ah...’ Ian nodded slowly. ‘You may need to pack some more. You’re leaving.’

  ‘Leaving? You have just returned. Where do we go?’

  ‘We do not go anywhere. You do.’

  Ian pulled a scroll out of his tunic and handed it over.

  Evrart knew what the scroll was. A message to be sent via messenger. The messenger to meet another at a designated spot and if no one arrived within three days to travel to the next and the next. Five in total. If no one arrived after that, the messenger was to return to the fortress via a circuitous route.

  He knew this because there were other men here whom Ian had ordered to do such things. Other men. Evrart had never been ordered to do it himself. He was here to protect Ian, to train new men.

  ‘I’ll inform the men of my departure and be gone on the morrow,’ he said.

  ‘Now,’ Ian said succinctly. ‘Go into your room and pack. You will do nothing else. Take the provisions I have returned with and leave immediately.’

  His first instinct was to fight. Like this, he could kill Ian—but there was no certainty in what the rest of the guards would do, and there were too many between here and the outer gates to risk it.

  Ian’s grin slashed across his face. ‘Do you think I’m displeased with you because you disobeyed my exacting orders to keep that woman in her room? Rest assured that I’m well aware this is your first offense against me.’

  Evrart’s body turned to ice. He’d risked his family and Margery. ‘My lord?’

  ‘Come my friend, I wanted you to have—’ Ian’s eyes grew distant before he blinked, and he returned his pale gaze to Evrart again. ‘You’re the only one to do this. If the...item is obtained the game will continue, if not, it will go on as I know it must. But there’s matters afoot, and you will be gone.’

  Ian wanted him gone. For what purpose, and to get what? He feared it was about the game and legends and the lost dagger. About families at war with countries. And he couldn’t ask because he wasn’t supposed to know anything of it.

  He simply feared. But if Ian wanted his family dead, it would have been done.

  What plans did Ian want to make that he couldn’t be a part of? Because that must be what he was doing. Ian wanted him, his personal guard, gone from Warstone fortress... So he could harm Margery?

  If Evrart brought Ian’s attention to her and it wasn’t his intention, it could be worse. He wanted to call out to Margery. To warn her. To hold her once more and kiss her sweetly on the lips because he feared it would be for the last time.

  But whatever it would take, whatever Ian forced him to do, he’d come back to her.

  Trapped, heart thundering, he risked another question. ‘What is it you want me to do?’

  ‘The same.’ Smiling almost gently, Ian pushed off the wall and went to his chamber door. His hand on the latch, about to enter the room, he continued, ‘Serve me as you always have done. As you just were.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Another day of pacing the length of Ian’s rooms. Margery was half out of her mind with fear, with worry.

  Ian’s private chambers were a large enough space to house four families if they were back in her village. Each room was decorated differently for comfort, but if Ian was out, she took advantage of the chamber with the reading table and chests, because the different windows allowed her some access to outside. At least she could see the activity in the surrounding courtyard, and look beyond the wall to the village, the orchards, the far forest.

  Despite her daily fear, she was uninterested in everything around her. Not even searching Ian’s belongings again held any interest. And all because—No, she wouldn’t think his name.

  Ian had returned for over a fortnight now, but was little company during the day, despite the fact he stayed in the chambers almost as much as she.

  But he got to leave the rooms whilst she was trapped.

  There were guards outside Ian’s chambers. They allowed her to go to the garderobe, but she didn’t dare look outside through the archways or lean against the wall to see the chapel’s garden.

  Jeanne came every day, but when she greeted her or Ian she spoke with that same timidity she’d had when Margery first arrived. Her friend was afraid, and Margery wouldn’t do anything to risk her life—not even give a smile or a greeting.

  To make everything worse, the fare was different, which meant she didn’t get her favourite foods. Did it also mean that Cook was better? There was no one to ask.

  And Ian...

  When he was there, she stayed in the other rooms. All the time aware he was there at this table with men coming and going. Always a threat.
His quiet was disquieting.

  Margery couldn’t help it. She cried.

  It was Ian’s knowing gleam as he watched her—the fact he ignored her presence while mumbling to himself. The messages written at his table were more frequent, and he was hiding his activities less the longer he stayed. But when he left the room she had no access to what he’d done, for he cleared it thoroughly each day.

  When she might be free, he wouldn’t say. From the smirk on his face, it seemed he enjoyed it when she asked. He’d captured her because he had caught her spying on him delivering one of his messages. One paltry message. Now he’d allowed her to witness so many more. Every one of them felt like an accusation.

  And all the while she worried about her family. She agonised over whether her message had ever made it to her sister, Biedeluue. She hoped it had. She hoped she stayed away.

  What of Mabile and the baby? Their last message had told of how ill her other sister had been. Was she better or worse? And when were their taxes due? How were her family faring without the coin she used to send home when she’d lived with Josse, and with Roul, and hadn’t sent since Ian had captured her?

  And her brothers! She should never have sent the message telling them she was in danger. At the time, she’d wanted her family to know, perhaps to try to help her. She’d falsely believed Ian was like Roul and would have days of forgetting her or trips away when she wouldn’t be watched. Thus they’d have an opportunity of helping her escape.

  She needed to get out of here!

  At least Ian wasn’t in the room now and she could pace in peace.

  Peace!

  There was no peace for her. It had been weeks and she’d had no word, nor any sight of Evrart. She tried not to think of him and failed. In the days after he’d left, her body had still felt an ache in the places he’d touched, where they’d joined. There had been surprising bruises because he’d kissed and touched her so fiercely. Those pains had grounded her. He was gone, but they were proof he existed and would come back. Would somehow keep her safe.

  But those early days were fading like the imprints of his fingertips at her hips.

  Now she was left with only memories and dreams and thoughts of the sun’s warmth in the quince orchard, of the way he’d closed his eyes as she had placed the ice in his hand. His weight and his kisses. Her boldness. The sheer wonder of wanting him. Of still wanting him, of knowing the joy in being held, being cared for.