by C. L. Wilson
“You’d probably be eating the cheese,” she muttered.
“You know what? I think you’re grumpy because you’re hungry. It’s your birthday and you didn’t get any cake. Luckily, Sancho hooked us up with the perfect remedy.” Lance unzipped one of his cargo pockets and pulled out the Snickers bar. “Here. Eat this. I’ll even sing, if you want.”
Marigold didn’t reply. She was looking at the candy bar as if she had no idea what to do with it. Belatedly, he realized she probably didn’t. He picked it back up, tore open the end, and bit off one corner with an exaggerated mmm. He held the bar back out to her.
She hesitated, then accepted it. She lifted it to her nose and gave a cautious sniff before touching her tongue to the chocolate. She took a tiny nibble and froze. Her jaw stopped moving. Her eyes widened. Her throat convulsed.
Lance’s heart kicked into overdrive. Crap. She wasn’t allergic to peanuts, was she? He vaulted out of his chair, intent on tossing the candy away from her and giving her the Heimlich maneuver and anything else it took to keep her alive. Terrified, he reached out to save her.
She blocked him with an elbow to the solar plexus.
By the time he could breathe again, half the Snickers was history. No sign of anaphylaxis. He hobbled back to his stool and sat back down to watch her eat. Probably it was okay if he didn’t sing her the birthday song. The candy would be long gone before he could finish. He half expected her to lick the wrapper. Or eat it, too.
When the last of the candy had disappeared, she stared at the empty wrapper with a dreamy-eyed smile, then lifted her gaze to him. “Minerva! That was most splendid.”
He grinned back at her. He wished he had an entire quiver full of Snickers bars.
“Have you any other foodstuffs?”
“I wish. I had some Slim Jims, but I already ate them.” He glanced around the room. “Do you have any other multi-person games you’ve been dying to play?”
“I haven’t any other games at all.” Her eyes lit up. “Can you not teach me the Candy Crush?”
“Oh, now you think everything with candy in it has to be good.” He pulled his smartphone from his pocket and swung his stool next to hers. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. This game is addictive, and level sixty-two is impossible.”
He switched into airship mode to conserve battery life, then opened the application. She leaned closer for a better view. He explained the concept of match-three puzzles and demonstrated the basic strategy for swapping candy positions and avoiding obstacles, then let her try her hand. He had five “lives” built up, which meant she had plenty of room to play before it would need to reset.
She burned through the first of the lives faster than he’d ever imagined possible. He was actually kind of impressed by how terrible she was. It was almost as if she’d ignored all of his instructions and was determined to play the game by rules she invented herself.
It obviously didn’t work.
She surprised him again during the second life by not only following all of his initial instructions to the letter, but also implementing strategies and avoiding pitfalls he hadn’t mentioned during his abridged introduction to the game, out of a desire for her to spend less time listening, more time playing. As he watched her connect four colors to collect a special candy—a trick she’d discovered on her own during her disastrous first round—he suspected she’d actually failed on purpose, as an experiment to learn everything she should not do all at once, in order to play smarter thereafter.
Now he was definitely impressed.
The third round was better than the second, the fourth even better than the third, and just when he was certain her fifth and final life was on its last gasp, the familiar Wizard Up chime came from the speaker and she passed to the next level.
Un. Freaking. Believable. He stared at her in speechless amazement. He’d been on that level for weeks.
She handed back the phone. “Can it do anything else?”
“Uh, yeah. It can . . .” What could his phone possibly do that would impress her? If there were cell service in Castle Cavanaugh, he could show off the Internet and Google Street View, but the only things that worked without wifi were—Ah. Perfect. He closed the game and swiped to the next screen. In seconds, he had another app open. “Can you guess what these are?”
Her eyes lit in delight. “Miniature paintings?”
“Nope.” He savored the moment. “They’re book covers.”
“Book . . . covers?” She frowned in confusion.
He tapped one at random and words filled the screen.
She squinted at what, to her, was probably an illegible typeface. After a moment, her forehead cleared and she read the words aloud. “‘Blood Sport . . . Rain of stones reported.’”
“It’s Carrie,” he explained. “By Stephen King. That chick’s definitely got it worse than you.” He closed that book and opened another. “This is the latest Patterson. Except not really. I think whoever’s name is in the tiniest font is the main writer. And here, this one’s Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte. Boring as crap if you ask me, but I went on a public domain binge when I first got the phone. And this one is . . . Huh. I have no idea. I download a lot of freebies while I’m waiting for the metro. That’s why the title is in Comic Sans. Oh, and look! I got this one from the library just last week. Sandman Slim, by Richard Kadrey. It’s epic. The hero’s a hit man from Hell who wakes up in a pile of garbage after he—”
“These are books?” Marigold gripped his arm hard enough to draw blood. “Entire manuscripts? A whole library, stored on one little device?”
He grinned. “Yep. Wanna read one?”
She snatched the phone from his hand and shot him a look that promised a trip to the gallows for having wasted her time with Candy Crush: Warlock Edition.
While she read, he wandered back to the kitchen for more bread and stew. There was no way they were even going to put a dent into all this food. Not that he was complaining. He’d much rather be trapped with too much food than imprisoned without any at all. And he’d much rather be trapped with Marigold than without. She was amazing. Everything about her earned his respect. It would take a lot of guts and inner fortitude to survive a curse like this. He probably wouldn’t have lasted a month. He was already going a little stir-crazy.
When he went back to check on her, she didn’t even register his presence, so he slipped back out in search of the medieval equivalent of a shower.
And searched.
And searched.
Turned out to be basins of water in artful containers. He was less artful about the actual act of bathing via basin, but he managed to get the job done. Marigold was going to lose her mind when she got to experience modern plumbing for the first time. Hosing off after a weekend of camping was heavenly enough. Multi-jets and proper water pressure would be mind-blowing after six centuries of bathing out of a bucket.
He took one of the chamber torches with him as he headed back to the feast room to check on Marigold. The smartphone screen lit well enough to read comfortably in any lighting, but night was falling outside, which meant the interior ambient lighting was waning proportionately.
When he arrived, she was just setting down the phone with a blissful little sigh.
“Which one did you read?” he asked. “Wuthering Heights? I’m pretty sure there’s some Jane Austen on there, too. I downloaded all the classics.”
“I read the one with the hit man. He keeps a disembodied head in his wardrobe.”
“You read Sandman Slim? And did the happy sigh? Then it’s official. I can’t wait to tell Sancho how I met my soul mate.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. He offered her his arm and led her back to the main corridor. The room next to hers had been a sitting room of some kind. More importantly, it boasted a fireplace. They were much better off hanging out in front of the warm orange glow than in the dark, cavernous feast room.
Before they set off, he opened the music app on his smartphone and q
ueued his classical music playlist. It was usually his emergency zen music for whenever he was caught in a tide of people flooding the concrete streets like locusts. Fugue in C Minor was a little after Marigold’s time, but he figured it was probably the closest thing he owned to music she might actually recognize.
He handed back the phone.
When the opening notes began to play, she gasped and squeezed his arm even tighter. Tears glistened in her eyes as she clasped the smartphone to her ear. She didn’t speak a single word between the feast room and the sitting room.
He placed the torch into its nook on the wall, then settled next to her on a cushioned dais before the fire. Something about her relaxed him. When was the last time he’d done nothing? Just enjoyed the moment? It had been much too long. The moment was finally right. He settled his good arm around her shoulders as she snuggled into his embrace to listen to the music.
“These are the minstrels of your time?” she asked in awe, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Not quite. Bach’s primarily the early-to-mid 1700s. I’ve got plenty of newer artists on there, though, if you want me to spin you a sampler platter.”
“What about dancing?” she asked. “Is there a carol round or a court dance that goes with this melody?”
He blinked. “Is a ‘carol round’ the dancing of your time?”
“You carry about all these books and music, yet you haven’t any familiarity with carol rounds?” she asked in surprise.
“None at all,” he agreed cheerfully. “But I am fairly competent in the dance crazes of the most recent two hundred years. I can waltz, tango, moonwalk . . . Anything but twerk.”
Her eyes widened. “What is twerk?”
He grinned and shook his head. “It’s better for everyone if I refrain from demonstrating hip-hop booty dances.”
Bach ended and Brahms began. She set down the smartphone and nestled even closer.
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Happy holidays, princess. Cheer up. It’s almost Christmas.”
“It’s always almost Christmas,” she murmured back, her tone wistful.
“Tomorrow,” he promised. “Tomorrow we’re getting out of here. It’ll be the best Christmas of our lives.”
She stared at the fire without answering.
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. The heat of the fire and the soft warmth of her body were even more comfortable than the royal cushions upon which they reclined. Everything was peaceful.
He was a deep breath or two away from drifting off into sleep when he felt her lips brush his neck, at the pulse point just beneath his earlobe. He might have assumed it to be an accident of changing positions, had she not touched the tip of her tongue to the very same spot and then kissed it again.
Suddenly, sleep was the furthest thing from his mind.
He reached for her and she climbed into his lap. With her back to the fire, her face was bathed in shadow. The flames lit her golden hair like a halo. Fitting, since she was an innocent. As much as he enjoyed her company—and as arousing as he found her body—he would not push for more.
She lowered her mouth to his. For several long minutes, he lost himself to the sweetness of her kisses and the warm pressure of her thighs atop his. She cradled his face with her hands as if afraid he might turn away, but right then he could think of no better way to spend Christmas Eve than kissing Marigold before a fire.
He couldn’t think of a better way to spend any evening.
She slid her hands into his hair. He did the same, spilling her golden curls down her back and over his shoulders. Each curl was feather-soft and scented with rosewater, intoxicating his sense of smell just as much as her tongue bewitched his. Her touch was more confident now, more sure of him and of herself and her effect on him. Her legs tightened around him in rhythm with her open-mouth kisses, teasing him with the promise of untold desires.
He had to stop her. Had to stop himself, before they went too far. But her hands . . . her hips . . . her mouth . . .
“Make love to me,” she whispered against his lips.
He wrenched her away by the upper arms and stared at her in shock. “What did you say?”
“Make love to me,” she repeated, her voice trembling. “I pray thee.”
He could hear the blush in her words even if he could not discern it on her face. Yet her gaze held firm. He would have to be stronger.
“Absolutely not.” He realized he was gripping her shoulders far too tightly and forced his fingers to loosen. There was no chance of the rest of him relaxing. He took a deep breath and looked her dead in the eyes, so she would see the sincerity in his next words. “You’ve been alone for six hundred years. We’ve known each other for one day. I refuse to take advantage of you or your loneliness. I am no hero, but I will not be the villain.”
She bit her lower lip. “Might I take advantage of you instead?”
CHAPTER SIX
Marigold held her breath as she awaited Lance’s reply. Never had she been so bold with a man. Never had she wished to. ’Twas not for lack of strapping young men, for the castle had once brimmed with the valiant, battle-proven knights who served her father’s kingdom.
Nor was she the sort of maiden whose sights were set so high that no man could e’er achieve them. Sultans, sheikhs, and grand dukes had regularly begged for the privilege of her hand, virtually from the moment of her conception.
And whatever Lance might think, ’twas not mere lonesomeness driving her to surrender the virginity she’d guarded for over six hundred years, simply because he’d strode through the bailey door with a broadsword and a swagger. He was not the first adventure-seeker to entangle himself in the castle’s cursed web, nor would he be the last.
He was the first to treat her as a person in her own right. Not some temporary object of lustful desire, nor some royal pawn to wed in order to fuel a political agenda. Few of the dignitaries seeking matrimony had even set eyes on her. For ’twas her bloodline, not her person, which they found attractive. During the long centuries of occasional wayward travelers, few had bothered to sit for so much as a conversation, for nothing between her ears had been of any interest. Either they sought to take advantage of a maiden alone—the secret chamber had been her solace in more ways than one—or they ignored her completely in their panic-fueled quest for escape.
Lance, on the other hand, had switched from “I” to “we” from the moment he’d recognized their shared plight. Not only did all his plans for escape involve the two of them, his artless words revealed his intention to play a role in her future as well. We’ll take the playing cards with us, he had said, without expectation of anything more than continued friendship.
No one had ever done that before. In her entire life. Not her many suitors, or even the army of princesses that made up her circle of friends. They liked her, of course, but she was first and foremost a stepping-stone.
Perhaps that was why she’d been so attached to her childhood home. It was the only thing in her life that didn’t expect her to bend to its will. She’d been terrified of leaving it to wed a stranger, with no assurance of being treated with kindness or respect. Even more laughable was the idea of ever finding love.
Yet, today she’d had fun. She had met a man who could easily ensnare a woman’s heart. He’d made her laugh, given her a new perspective. And his kisses . . . Marigold swallowed. Come midnight, she was going to be heartbroken when the castle took him. Few hours yet remained.
She’d be damned if she wasted a single minute.
She twined her arms about his neck and lowered her mouth to the line of his jaw. She dragged her lips along the slight stubble. When he did not stop her, she curved her row of kisses slowly upward until she reached his mouth. His lips parted. She swept her tongue inside, reveling in the shared heat of their open mouths, the coiled strength of his body, the sensation of her thighs spread atop his hard muscles.
Her entire body wanted him. Craved him. Contrary to what he might think,
she knew precisely what she was asking. She might be a virgin, but she was no innocent. She’d spent centuries devouring a library in which many of the illuminated manuscripts were very illuminating. And she could think of no better man with whom to bring those fantasies to life than the one whose kisses stoked a fire all the way down to her soul.
Without lifting her mouth from his, she widened her legs and wriggled tighter against him. Her garters kept her hose snug to her lower thighs, but the only barrier separating her body from his was the sturdy material comprising his trousers. Though the fabric was fine and strong, it could not mask the evidence of his arousal. She wriggled again, this time moving her hips more slowly, deliberately, ensuring friction against every inch of that hard, promising ridge.
Before she could even gasp, he flipped her onto her back, pinning her against the cushions. His mouth was hot against hers, his powerful body deliciously heavy. She slid her fingers between them to fumble at her bosom. He lifted his chest as if he feared he were crushing her. She tugged loose the ribbons crisscrossing her bodice and the halves fell free. The thin, wide material of her petticoat and tunic gapped without the harnessing support of her bodice, exposing her naked breasts to the night air. Her nipples hardened further beneath the heat of his gaze.
He trapped her wrists to the cushion above her head. She arched her back, pushing her nipples dangerously close to his mouth. He lowered his lips to just above her breast. What was he waiting for? She strained against his grip on her wrists, the weight of his thighs atop hers, desperately trying to force her spine high enough to close the distance between them. He met her gaze and a slow, wicked smile curved his lips.
Her nipples tightened. He knew he was driving her mad, damn him. It made her want him all the more. Without breaking eye contact, he dipped his head until her left nipple caught against his lower lip. A shiver unlike any other raced along her skin and a moist heat began to spread between her legs. She could barely breathe. Just that slight sensation had been magic. She wanted—she wanted—