Wildly Romantic: A Multi-Genre Collection

by Lana Williams

  Brant’s hand shook as he curled it into a fist. His older brother had believed a vast treasure lay hidden in the earth, riches of an ancient king named Arthur whose feats were immortalized in legend.

  The quest to find the hoard had consumed Royce’s every waking moment. It had forged into a passion that had outshone his duties as the first born son who would one day become lord of his father’s lands. He’d skipped mornings in the tiltyard to talk to villagers with tales of long ago, had sprawled in the long grass and daydreamed of the find, while keeping detailed notes in a leather-bound journal.

  If she’d found the riches Royce had sought . . .

  If Royce’s dream, lost with his last dying breath, could still come true . . .

  “What else did you find?” Brant demanded.

  “Naught.” As though sensing that she’d trapped him with her golden lure, she gave a sly smile. “That does not mean there is no more.”

  Reaching out his hand, he said, “Give me the cup.”

  She shook her head. “I am no fool. You will ride away with it.”

  “I wish only to see it.” He couldn’t keep the excitement from his voice.

  Pressing the vessel against her rain-soaked mantle, she said, “Come down from your horse. Then you may inspect it.”

  An admiring chuckle welled in his throat. She was cunning, this Lady Rivellaux. Dismounting put him at her eye level, at a disadvantage to his current position. Yet, he’d already determined she had come alone, and a willowy young woman posed him no threat.

  “Very well.” Swinging his leg over, he dropped to the ground.

  Standing a hand’s span away from her, he caught her faint, floral scent. A combination of lavender, rose, and . . . woman. Memories of Elayne, curled in his arms in a flower-strewn meadow, her golden hair shimmering in the sunlight, teased their way into his thoughts.

  He hardened his heart to the echo of Elayne’s coy laughter and reached for the vessel.

  With a hint of reluctance, Lady Rivellaux slipped it into his hands. The gold was warm where her fingers had touched. He traced the dent in the smooth metal with his thumb. Raising the cup to his mouth, he pressed it to his teeth.

  Gold, indeed.

  In his hand lay proof of Royce’s dream.

  Ah, God. This cup was salvation indeed.

  “I will trade you this vessel for Angeline.”

  Brant’s gaze met hers. This close, the lady’s heavily-lashed eyes looked even greener, her mouth more enticing. There were dark smudges under her eyes, though, suggesting she hadn’t slept in days. There was a strained harshness to her delicate features.

  Worry, no doubt, for her friend, Angeline.

  Guilt ate at Brant’s conscience, even as he squared his shoulders. The rain was falling in a steady stream now, and he raised his voice to be heard. “This gold pleases me. However, the decision to release her is not mine.”

  “What?”

  The shock in the lady’s eyes struck him like a slap. Yet, he wouldn’t admit he was unprepared for this situation. Neither would he confess that she, a mere woman, had bested him.

  Her surprised gaze sharpened with fury. Rain beat on her cloak, plastering her sodden hood to her head, but she made no move to brush away the water running down her face.

  Brant held her furious stare. He’d surveyed the meeting site before she had arrived, and after he’d watched her ride down to the lakeshore. While he hadn’t seen anyone else, ’twas possible Torr had sent one of his men-at-arms to ensure Brant followed through with his part of the arrangement. If this lackey had seen her with the gold, her life could be in grave danger.

  No way in blazing hellfire would he have another death on his conscience.

  Forcing the words through his teeth, Brant said, “I will take the gold. You will be informed of the decision.” He turned to drop the vessel into his saddlebag.

  Her white-knuckled hand clamped on his arm. “Nay!”

  “’Tis the only way.”

  “Thief! You will ride off with the cup. I will never see it—or you—again!”

  What a wretchedly tempting thought. However, he couldn’t break his vow to Torr. To do so would obliterate the last tattered threads of knightly honor by which he lived his life.

  With a gentle but firm shove, Brant broke free of her hold. The leather ties of his saddlebag were soaked, the knot tight beneath his rain-wet fingers. Drops splashed on the gold, making it slippery in his grasp.

  “The agreement demanded silver. I brought gold!” she shrieked over a wailing gust of wind. “I did as you asked.”

  She had.

  Curse Torr. She didn’t deserve such torment.

  Unable to shield the bitterness from his tone, Brant said, “If you wish to see Angeline again, you will obey.” At last, the saddlebag’s ties slipped loose. He dropped the vessel inside and cinched the bag shut.

  He swung back to face her. She stood with her arms folded across her stomach, despair etched into her ashen face. A violent tremor racked her. She moaned, a sound that seemed dragged from her very soul. The hair on his nape prickled.

  He couldn’t stop himself reaching for her.

  She recoiled as though he’d handed her a hissing adder. Her voice painfully thin, she said, “The missive was a trick, wasn’t it? Why? To get the gold? How did you learn of it? ’Twas our sworn secret. No one else knew.”

  Her anxiety gouged like jagged steel. “Milady—”

  As though the last of her resolve snapped, she lunged at him, sobbing, her desperate hands clawing at his cloak. “Where is Angeline? Please, where is she?”

  The lady careened into him. The force of the impact knocked him backward two steps.

  His arms closed instinctively around her, but his left boot connected with a slick stone. His horse, the rocky lakeshore, the sky suddenly blurred.

  With a startled grunt, he shifted sideways and managed to break his fall.

  Still struggling, the lady slid from his arms.

  Swiping rainwater from his jaw and chin, Brant straightened.

  Stones clattered.

  A shrill scream echoed.

  The sound abruptly stopped, as though snatched in midair.

  Brant spun on his heel. The lady sprawled facedown amongst the rocks, the fingers of both hands splayed as though she’d tried to keep from hitting the ground.

  “Lady Rivellaux?”

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t stir. Water pooled in the folds of her mantle.

  Brant dropped to one knee, then pushed her wet hood from her face. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. She had fallen against a rock. He pressed his shaking hand against her mouth. Thank God, she still breathed.

  Through the soaked wool of her mantle, he felt along her arms and legs. On crusade, he’d learned much about broken bones and how to splint them. When his fingers slipped down to her right ankle, relief coursed through him. No limbs broken. But he couldn’t say for her ribs or pelvis.

  He carefully lifted her, turned her over, and rested her head back against the stone. With awkward fingers, he nudged aside the hair stuck to her face. Blood oozing from a gash on her cheekbone smeared her right cheek and ran into a thin line, as stark as his own scar, across her delicate skin. His mouth twisted on an oath.

  Under his breath, he prayed her loveliness wouldn’t be permanently disfigured. He deserved the ugly mark on his right cheek, a reminder of his sin he must live with for the rest of his life. She didn’t deserve such a blemish.

  Pressing his hands to her belly, he searched for obvious injuries. Her mantle, of fine quality but obviously much worn, hindered his efforts.

  He well knew all the enticing dips and swells of a woman’s physique, but, as his fingers crept lower in a thorough yet impartial examination, a strange tension plagued him. For one unsettling moment, he felt like a clumsy, green youth, venturing into forbidden territory.

  Forbidden indeed. If the lady woke to find his hands upon her, she would no doubt scream to
raise the dead in the graveyard four leagues away.

  His gaze flicked up to her face. Her mouth remained slack, her eyelids closed and still above the sweep of her lashes.

  By now, she should have stirred.

  Concern kindled the unease burning in his gut like red-hot embers. Focusing again on his task, tilting his head down to better see past the nasal guard, he moved his hands over the curve of her hips, the slim expanse of her waist, up to the base of her ribcage.

  A scowl knitted his brow. Even through the added layer of her gown beneath, his fingertips traced the bump of her ribs. Too slender by far, this lady.

  His hands edged higher, toward her breasts. Before his thumbs grazed their rounded softness, he drew away.

  Shaking rainwater from his hands, he sat back on his haunches. No broken bones that he could tell, but only by taking her to a warm, dry place and stripping off her garments could he examine her body properly and know for certain—a liberty he had no desire to take.

  He did not want the burden of a wounded woman. Not when by morn, with the gold cup safely in his bag, he aimed to be hunting for the rest of the treasure. Anticipation of the quest whispered inside him with wondrous enticement.

  He couldn’t leave her here, however, alone and unconscious. Ruffians might prey upon her. She could die of a chill. Torr would blame him for her murder, and her death would mire Brant into even deeper servitude to the manipulative bastard.

  Nudging her shoulder, he made one last attempt to rouse her. “Lady Rivellaux.”

  Her head lolled from side to side like a cloth doll’s. Her eyelids fluttered before her face contorted on a whimper.

  She was waking. “Milady, can you—?”

  Her body tensed, then went slack.

  “—hear me.”

  Bowing his head, he stared at his hands.

  The wind shrieked, sounding like a frightened old crone. Rain slammed against him. As he wiped water from his eyes, a flash of lightning preceded the distant, terrified whinny of the lady’s horse that had become untethered. Tossing her head, reins dangling, the mare disappeared into the deluge.

  There was only one choice left to him.

  Brant slid one arm under the lady’s torso, the other under her legs. He lifted her into his arms. The mass of her wet hair tumbled back over his arm, while her head listed back to expose the creamy smoothness of her throat. Her scent rose to him, sweet against the storm’s earthy tang.

  “Damnation,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

  Drawing her closer against his chest, his mouth a grim line, he strode toward his horse.

  Chapter Two

  Through a dark fog of pain, Faye became aware of a rocking motion. The shadows in her mind shifted, swirled, and she struggled to surface from the blackness pulling at her consciousness with ghostly hands.

  She vaguely felt rain on her face, heard the gritty clop of hooves plodding through mud, and realized she was being supported by strong arms. Then, distorted fingers of memory tugged her back down toward the darkness that tempted her with an oblivion free of anguish and nightmares.

  Recollections of that stifling hell of emptiness and torment cried out inside her, as shrill as a lost child. She tried to block the shadows. Fie, but they stole in through every patched seam of her resistance. They battered down every fragile wall protecting her resolve.

  Naaayyy!

  She wanted to fight, to break free, but the hands caught her consciousness and wouldn’t let go.

  A moan echoed inside her as she was sucked down, down, down, and the familiar images crowded her mind . . .

  She lay on her back in the river’s shallows, propped up on her elbows. Swift, vicious, the agony had knocked the strength out of her limbs while she’d waded in the sun-sparkled water, waiting for her servants to finish their meal before they all continued on to the village.

  Gasping, she had crumpled into the river. Her body trembled in a surge of pain.

  “Lady Rivellaux!” her lady-in-waiting cried from behind her, her hand smoothing Faye’s sweat-streaked hair. Stones rattled on the shore as a man-at-arms paced. On a strangled breath, Faye prayed that the other man-at-arms would return soon with Greya, the healer from the village.

  Greya would know what to do.

  The cold water lapped against Faye’s legs and waist, gently rocking her, even as her terrified gaze shot to the bloodied gown twisted up between her thighs. Through cresting anguish, she recalled the sharp cramps from earlier that morn which had rippled through her rounded belly as well as her lower back. Shame, that she had paid them no heed.

  “A bit of discomfort is common for a woman who is with child, milady,” a servant at the castle had assured her sennights ago. “Do not worry. You will make Lord Rivellaux very proud. You will bear him the strong, healthy heir he has wanted for so many years.”

  Tears burned Faye’s eyes, and her fingers dug into the mud and stones beneath her hands. How foolish that she had not postponed her journey to have her chatelaine’s chain repaired.

  Oh, God, how—

  Twisting pain again lashed at Faye’s innards. She cried out. Her shaking hand clawed at her belly, fisting into the wet, muddied fabric as the agony came again. Warm blood gushed between her legs.

  “Nay,” she moaned.

  A terrible weight crushed Faye’s abdomen. Pain ripped from the inside out, so intense it seared the very core of her soul. Darkness exploded around her; from it came the echoes of splashing water, the sensation of being half lifted, half pulled to the shore.

  A sob racked Faye, even as her lady-in-waiting crouched beside her, murmuring comforting words.

  Footfalls intruded on her waning consciousness. Greya’s voice.

  Urgent hands pushed up Faye’s bloodied gown, then pressed on her bare belly. Cool air brushed between her legs.

  Shocked whispers.

  “Greya?” Faye whimpered.

  “Hush, now,” the old woman soothed, her hands probing again. Then she gasped. “Mercy!”

  Faye struggled to form words past the blackness clouding her mind. “Please. My babe—”

  A ripping sound, then a long silence. The gurgle of the slow-moving river, the drone of bumblebees in the sunlit meadow, the trill of birdsong seemed to fade into that awful moment which said so much, without a single spoken word.

  “A girl,” Greya finally said.

  Faye forced her watery eyes open. Greya’s lined face softened with tenderness. She cradled a little bundle wrapped in a length of cloth she’d torn from her own woolen gown.

  Her moist gaze locked with Faye’s. Then she laid the motionless bundle against Faye’s breast.

  A perfect little girl with the face of a cherub. Plump cheeks. Dark eyelashes sweeping against fair skin. A rounded nose above perfect . . . blue . . . lips.

  Anguish squeezed Faye’s heart as she caught one of the baby’s tiny hands. “Please—”

  “I am sorry, milady,” Greya whispered. “She was too small.”

  “Naaayyy!” The scream burst from deep inside Faye. Shrill, desperate, it flowed from the raw, gaping hole in her soul—the part of her that had communed with, nurtured, and cherished the new life growing inside her.

  Now gone.

  Faye’s throat hurt from screaming. The emptiness inside her devoured like a massive, distorted beast.

  Suffocating blackness crept into her mind. She welcomed it. Let it overshadow her body’s pain and her last, fading glimmers of consciousness.

  Closing her mind to the concerned voices around her, the gentle rocking of hands trying to nudge her awake, Faye prayed that the darkness dragged her down into an oblivion from which she would never awake.

  Bowing his head against the driving rain, Brant splashed through the muddy water swirling across the dirt path between the run-down stable and the door of The Spitting Hen Tavern. Rowdy laughter and off-key singing came from the building’s lower level, while water dripped down from the thatched, second story roof with a steady ti
ck, tick.

  As he strode to the doorway, guided by the light streaming out into the darkness, he tilted the unconscious lady in his arms so that her face remained concealed by her mantle’s hood. Best to keep her identity hidden from any curious onlookers inside. Water ran off his helm and trailed down the back of his neck, sticking his wet garments to his chilled skin. Clenching his teeth against his discomfort, he kicked open the rough-hewn door.

  The wooden panel flew in on its hinges. It smacked into the arse of a drunken sot leaning over to shout in a friend’s ear.

  “Oof!” The drunkard pitched forward. He landed belly-first on a table, sending ale mugs crashing onto the dirt floor. The earthy smell of spilled drink carried on the breeze that howled into the smoky room.

  Brant slammed the door shut with his heel.

  All laughter and singing stopped.

  The men at the disrupted table rose to glare at Brant. He glared back at them. The scruffy farmers and travelers grumbled amongst themselves, then slumped back down in their chairs.

  A low buzz of conversation resumed.

  Brant’s boots creaked as he strode to the tavern’s wooden counter. A heavy-set man with oily skin—the tavern owner whom Brant had met earlier that day when he’d arranged for a night’s lodging—stood there, holding a burning tallow candle to another one that had been extinguished by the blast of wind. His mouth at a faintly apprehensive slant, the owner watched Brant approach.

  “I need a hot meal sent up to my room,” Brant said, adjusting the lady’s weight in his arms. “Also, boiled water and drying cloths.”

  The man’s gaze traveled over the lady’s motionless form before he touched the flickering taper to another unlit candle. “I will see to it, milord.”

  “Be quick about it, and I will pay you twice the silver.”

  The innkeeper’s eyes brightened. With a brisk dip of his head, he pushed aside the candles and hurried through a crooked door off the main room.

  Shrugging to ease the growing strain of the woman’s weight, Brant strode toward the planked staircase that led up to the second floor. His boots sounded a hollow thud on the scarred wood. The strumpets reclining on the bottom stairs preened as he passed by. “Oy,” cooed a brunette with painted red lips. “Can I join ye in a bit o’ fun?”