Bound for the Forest
(Original uncut version)
Kay Berrisford
Bound for the Forest
By Kay Berrisford
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.
Edited by Serena Stokes.
Cover designed by Phill Simpson
This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.
Third Edition August 2019
First edition originally published by Loose Id LLC
Second edition published by Less Than Three Press LLC
Copyright © 2019 by Kay Berrisford
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
For Lynn, Halo, Diana, Serena, and Chris, with love and thanks.
Chapter One
England, 1817
Melmoth Brien was starting to wonder if the forest had swallowed up his ancestral home for good.
He’d been riding into the Greenwood for what seemed like an age before Carseald Hall finally emerged from between the time-blackened oaks. Even then, he could not detect more than a trace of crumbling stonework beneath a shroud of ivy. And was that really a holly bush waving at him blithely from the window of his late mother’s parlor?
Dismounting, Brien allowed himself a rueful smirk. “Poor old soul would have hated that,” he muttered to himself. “Mother always did loathe being so close to nature, unlike my devil of a father.”
And quite the opposite of Brien’s sister, Jemima.
Swallowing back an angry tightness in his throat, Brien opted not to dwell upon the unsettling memories that his old home offered up to him. Like his mother, he’d never believed in Holgaerst, the so-called Spirits of the Greenwood, or in the binding obligations to protect them, which were supposedly passed down through his father’s bloodline. Magic, so his mother had taught him, should have been left in the Dark Ages that spawned it, when the blood of pagan sacrifice ran thick through the mud and mulch.
Brien strode up to the entrance, cast a disdainful glance at the rusty padlock, and hammered the door down with the sole of his boot. In all honesty, that he’d made it this far at all was a bit of a shock, particularly with the Guinea Stakes running at Newmarket that very day. That reminded him. He’d got a twenty guinea wager on Yorkshire Duchess to pursue—another reason to get in, grab the goods, and leave again before the new owner arrived. A single shove with one of his broad shoulders had him bursting into the entrance hall. Fresh, spring air swirled in through the cobwebs, and Brien closed the door gently behind him.
Slowly the interior of Carseald Hall seeped into focus. A floor thick with straw and animal droppings, a once-sweeping staircase with broken banisters, and wood-paneled walls that rattled and moaned, setting nerves on edge even in the lightest of winds. No. It was not good to be home. Brien braced himself, inhaling sharply. Not a hint of any homely ambience remained. Just the damp rot and a heady whiff of…smoke.
His breath hitched on a cough. What the devil? A flicker of yellow light from an open doorway beyond the staircase grabbed his attention, and in three long strides, Brien burst into what had once been the dining room.
A slender figure crouched above a pile of broken banisters, brandishing a flaming torch. The would-be arsonist jumped up, delicately sculpted features glimmering like gold, and Melmoth Brien was transfixed by the creature not immediately settled in his mind as either man, woman, or child. But this was no spirit.
“Get out!” A light tenor voice underlined Brien’s dominant suspicion. Yes, this was a young man, a matter confirmed as his focus swept down a lean physique clad in snugly fitting breeches and expensive-looking fabrics. The would-be arsonist jabbed the torch in his direction, blue eyes stretching wide. “Get out,” he yelled again. “I got here first, robber!”
“Robber?” With an amused snort, Brien dodged the inexpertly brandished torch and lunged forward. “Give me that, you lunatic, before you have us both alight.”
Flapping wildly, the young man dropped the torch just before Brien seized him from behind. His tightly clenched buttocks rammed backward against Brien’s muscular thighs, and the flaming stick flew wide of the pile of furniture onto the stone-flagged floor. Shoving the lad toward the empty hearth, Brien stamped out the flames before the wattle and daub flared up like tinder. Then, in a single, fluid movement, he grabbed the intruder and slammed him against the wall.
“Why the devil are you trying to burn down my house?”
“What are you talking about?” The lad put up a struggle, although his efforts to paw away Brien’s iron grip from his inexpertly tied neck cloth proved futile. Brien stood an impressive six feet two with the bulk to match it, the slighter man at least half a foot shorter in height.
“I’m talking about you, you little shit, and the fact that you were about to reduce a thousand years of my family’s history to ashes.”
Those blue eyes stretched wide again. “Wait a moment. You’re Captain Melmoth Brien. The d-drunkard, the madman. As mad as the sister, so they say!”
Brien flashed his best grin, deliberately predatory. He was no longer a captain, strictly speaking, but it was hardly the moment to argue. “Welcome to the madhouse, boy.”
The lad shook his head, causing a lock of his chin-length, honey-blond hair to flop over one eye. “If only it bloody was, traitor. No, worse, faederswica! As of this morning, this house belongs to George Hastings, wood merchant of Southampton.”
Brien tried not to dwell on the lad’s use of the primitive term, faederswica, and quite why it irritated him so. He knew what it meant: traitor to the father, the bloodline, and worst of all, to confounded Holgaerst. But that nonsense did not concern him now. “How do you know this?”
“They…they came here at first light, men on horseback. They were talking about the auction, and that’s when I knew today was my last chance to get rid of this place forever. They were saying…saying they’d be back soon. On the morrow, I believe.”
So his ancestral home had become the property of a common wood merchant. The news washed over Brien, leaving an awkward emotional residue—just enough of a distraction for him to briefly drop his guard.
The lad’s knee impacted Brien’s upper thigh with a bruising crunch, jolting him back to the present. Then his assailant rammed his forehead against his chin, and Brien bit back the pain, along with a mouthful of lavender-scented hair. The would-be arsonist thrashed and kicked, the slip of fragile bones against wiry sinew and of hot, hard muscle striving against his own not at all unpleasant. The attempt at escape was pitiful, really, but Brien couldn’t say he minded.
Damn it. He had never been a great admirer of pretty boys, but he did enjoy a decent scrap. And this was turning out to be much more fun than he had expected.
Focus, man, focus. You’re not in Drury Lane, or even roaming the backstreets of Southwark now.
No such luck. His superior skill and strength allowing him to quickly snatch back control, Brien tightened his grip around the boy’s neck. With the foppish muslin neck cloth now ripped out of the way, his gaze lowered to the lad’s lifeblood that quivered under creamy flesh. He smoothed his thumb over it, exerting a deliberate, pleasing pressure.
“Look, chum,” he drawled. “Who are they going to hang first? The sad old bugger having a final look around his ancestral home, or the cove he caught waving the flaming torch over the pile of broken banisters? You might as well tell me what you’re up to, or get used to this choking feeling.”
He loosened his grip, and the lad r
olled his eyes resignedly. “Hastings is a villain. His men have felled fifty sacred oaks in the last year, and he would bring his rottenness to the heart of the Greenwood. B-better that this place burns.”
Brien sneered, repressing any pleasure he derived from the boy’s lilting country brogue. He’d almost forgotten this sort of folk still existed deep in the guts of the forest: woodsmen who lived by the rhythms of the seasons and elements, and who imagined spirits dwelled in every river, rock, or tree. And who thought a mere fire might drive off a hungry merchant who was no doubt already pricing up the best timber that would come with the sale.
Oh yes, he’d found himself a right little forest pixie here. Although a simple woodsman’s poverty did not explain the absurd clothes and the luscious-smelling hair.
Only one thing explained that.
“And before you burned the place, you thought you’d help yourself to anything of value that was left, eh?”
Renewed alarm flared across the lad’s countenance, but it was Brien’s mind that started racing. There was likely nothing of value left, was there? Well, nothing that wasn’t hidden beneath unmarked stones and sliding panels, each a better and more secret guard than any lock or key. His mother’s jewels—and the family papers. Brien’s father, whom he had never known to leave the forest for more than a day, let alone to trust a bank, had stowed away everything in the house, including valuable deeds to some lands in the Americas, which had been bequeathed by a distant cousin.
He had to have those deeds. He had long since sold out his commission in the Guards to go on a negligible half pay, and the entire proceeds from the auction of the house would be swallowed by his creditors. The value of the deeds had been his last hope to keep him out of debtors’ jail—if that stake at Newmarket didn’t come good. Surely this simple woodsman hadn’t uncovered all his treasures?
No. It wasn’t possible. Letting the boy drop, Brien wheeled toward the corner of the room to see that the first secret compartment, once concealed in the linen-fold paneling, had already been ripped asunder.
Disbelief overwhelming any real anger, he turned back. He was too late. The vicious right hook to his jaw had Brien reeling backward, nearly tumbling into the pile of broken banisters.
You drunken fool! Brien berated himself out of habit as, mildly bewildered, he made chase. The irony was that, for the first time in months, Melmoth Brien was entirely sober.
The woodsman tore into the hall, forcing Brien to make a dive for his legs as he sprinted toward the open front door. Hell, had the latch broken?
Brien caught the lad, and they smashed down onto the creaking floor as one. He clambered quickly on top of his prey, wincing as the boy’s bony elbow jabbed back between his ribs. The little thief bucked and writhed, thrashing out with all he had. With a sudden surge forward, Brien slammed his whole weight down on top of him, crushing the much smaller man against the floor.
He found himself breathing fast and furiously against the nape of the lad’s neck, sweet-smelling hair tickling against the coarse stubble of his chin. An inexplicable chuckle bubbled up, deep in Brien’s chest. The more the other man struggled, the more exhilarating he found it. And damn it, if the blighter kept scrubbing his well-rounded arse against Brien’s groin like that, any moment now he was going to be ragingly hard.
Focus, man, focus.
“The game’s up,” growled Brien, pressing a shoulder down against the boy’s back, giving himself leverage to grab his jaw and twist his face sideways. “You are going to tell me what you’ve found and what you’ve done with it, or I’ll rip you limb from limb.”
But he’d rather rip off those pretty clothes. And not just in order to sell them and get his money back. He could feel every contour of the lad’s slim frame and was catching far too many glimpses of creamy flesh between stretched and torn fabrics to not want to explore, oh, so much more.
Clenching his teeth, Brien struggled to keep his mind on the matter in hand and away from these untimely urges. He gave his captive’s chin a harsh squeeze.
“Did you hear me?”
“Y-yes. But I…I can’t hardly breathe…let alone…talk…”
The fear iridescent in those blue eyes served Brien with an unexpected pang of guilt. He put his hands on the floor and lifted himself—only to have the other man scramble out from under him, kicking back with a tatty leather boot to clip his chin. The battle started all over again.
Grabbing him, Brien finally got his opponent, struggling and wriggling, over one of his broad shoulders, and a sharp slap to the lad’s shapely backside seemed to subdue him. He dumped the woodsman down onto a large, thronelike chair, hewn of such heavy oak that it had been rooted to the same spot for three hundred years. Imprisoning the boy with thick arms braced at either side of him, Brien glowered down.
He tasted blood on his tongue, and he ought to be livid. Yet he found it difficult to imbue his voice with any real thread of malice.
“This is your last chance. How did you find that compartment?”
“I saw a fairy. She…she let me see.”
“Don’t give me a bag of moonshine. Tell me the fucking truth.”
“It is the truth! She came here seven nights past, going to each secret place in turn. And…and…” The woodsman hesitated, his tongue skimming nervously across his bottom lip. Brien noted it was a little more prominent than his upper lip, which was neatly bow-shaped, while retaining a masculine narrowness.
Focus, man, focus!
“…and I can’t quite be sure she meant me to see her,” the woodsman continued. “But when I followed her, she didn’t stop me. And surely, being a fairy, she would have known I was there? So she must have meant me to see, and wanted me to take the things…don’t you think?”
Brien felt his tensed muscles sag wearily. None of this surprised him, even the talk of fairies, although he had a sneaking suspicion that this lad was far from a simpleton and could well be trying to lead him on a merry dance. But a woman who knew of all the secret compartments?
It had to be his damned sister. A devout worshipper of Holgaerst, Jemima had always been prey to silly tales about the magic of the Greenwood. After their mother passed a few years ago, he’d received word that falsehood and witchery had engulfed his little sister completely. She’d let the house she was supposed to be keeping for him fall into wrack and ruin, and then, it seemed, the forest had simply spirited her away. No wonder he’d postponed coming back to this damned place time and time again. Better to live with the disgrace of his debauchery than return to the wrecked domain of his hysterical sibling.
But his main excuse for never rushing back, beside the pleasing diversions of London, was that Jemima had always claimed she rejected worldly wealth, and thus the treasures would wait. This new interest in fortune on her part made little sense—unless, as the boy had surmised, she had been taken by some whim to give it away?
Brien silently cursed himself. That sounded like the sort of thing a madwoman might do.
“Can…can I go now, please?” The lad’s quiet voice cut across his deepening quandary, an unexpected relief.
“Not bloody likely. Caught me a thieving pixie, and I’m not going to let him go until I’ve taken back every last thing he’s stolen.”
“I’m not a pixie.” The fierce curl of the boy’s lip bordered on feral.
“You’re not denying the thief part, then? Do you have a name?”
“Scarlet.” The woodsman jutted his chin proudly in the air.
“That’s a name? Christian or family name?”
“Neither. My mother gave it to me. It was the color of the leaves when I was born.”
“And how old are you?”
Scarlet thought about it for a moment. “This coming summer will be my twenty-third.”
Brien laughed softly. He’d assumed from Scarlet’s slender build that he was a little younger than that, but his face had an ageless quality—and who would know for sure? He doubted the woodsman’s birth had ever been
registered, let alone his soul christened. Even in this nineteenth century, civilization had not pierced the depths of the Greenwood. Despite his loathing for all Scarlet stood for, he couldn’t help but find that thought strangely comforting.
“You really are a bloody pixie,” he murmured, reaching down to pinch the silk of the boy’s waistcoat between his forefinger and thumb—just as Scarlet’s resentful, full-bodied gaze snatched his attention and, very nearly, the last of his breath.
Brien pulled back a little, his insides blistering with a heavy, distracting guilt. It was no good. How could he threaten to hurt this lad when he found himself so desperate to touch him, to possess him, even? What the hell was wrong with him? In a minute, he’d be asking what spell the boy had cast over him and wondering how he’d been so easily enchanted by Holgaerst.
But he was not his sister. He knew it was all utter sham.
“I might not yet have found all your secret places,” said Scarlet softly. Brien’s eyes snapped back to him, hope rekindled. “So why don’t you go and have a look for yourself?”
Brien mentally slapped himself. This was actually a sensible suggestion, but he couldn’t risk Scarlet escaping and trying to torch the place again before he’d retrieved what he’d come all this way for. He would have to find some way of securing him here, but how?
Running his tongue slowly over that sensuous lower lip, Scarlet stared toward where long stems of ivy seeped between the broken diamond panes of a window. The species of creeper that flourished deep in the forest were as thick and strong as rope, Brien knew that well. He’d used the ivy to make swings and build animal traps as a child, and, so legend told, a man had once been found hanging from the branches of a tree with his neck in a noose of ivy. Folk whispered that he’d been killed by the spirit of an elm he had angered. Although, much more likely, it was the doings of a neighbour from whom he’d stolen a sweetheart or a hog.
Brien pushed the detritus of legend from his mind. Ivy would do the trick very nicely today. And binding this pretty young woodsman might just be a task he could savor.
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