The Knight's Scarred Maiden

by Nicole Locke

  ‘We’re alive and I’m not failing now. I want you. I want all of you, Devil’s blood or not. And I want your smiles that you feel you shouldn’t give. So I’m staying by your side and making you cakes and ignoring your mockery and banishing your shadows.’

  ‘Keep me there, Helissent,’ he choked.

  ‘No, there’s too much light in you.’

  ‘There’s not. Stop looking or all will be dark.’

  ‘Then why did you take me from the village; why did you kiss me?’

  He looked down at the chair, at his hands clenched there. ‘Though I pretended otherwise, it was never for the cakes or the parchment or my curiosity. It was for you. Your bravery, your sweetness.’ A curve to his lips, ‘Those legs.’ He looked back up, his eyes holding hers. ‘And so I am to be plagued with your demands even now?’

  ‘You shouldn’t be surprised.’

  He came around from the chair to stand in front of her. ‘No, you’re a woman who went through fire for her family, and travelled with unsavory men to find a better home. A woman who insisted I take her to York even if it threatened her life, and faced my enemy to save me. I’m not surprised by your demands.

  ‘But even so, even so, I can never give you what you need. I can never be what you want. What I want to be for you.’

  She smiled then, because she knew she had him. He hadn’t said the words. But she knew it. It was all in the ingredients. She simply had to measure her words carefully now and balance the scales.

  ‘You want to be with me,’ she said.

  ‘How can you not know?’

  ‘I know because you make me believe I’m beautiful and brave. I want to make you believe that you’re beautiful and brave, too.’

  ‘I thought my beauty and bravery were already established.’

  His mockery again. ‘No, I’m trying to make you understand. You’ve shown me nothing but love and it’s because you’ve been loved. Your mother loved you.’

  ‘She tried to kill my brother...my cousin.’

  ‘She was ill, but it doesn’t mean that there wasn’t love there. You talked of her sharing the gardens with you.’

  ‘She was younger then.’

  ‘Was it possible her illness caused her madness?’

  ‘That is what Teague argued. It’s why she’s buried in sacred ground.’

  ‘He did that for you.’

  ‘There was always affection between us.’

  ‘Despite that you were a handful and far too arrogant with far too many women after you?’ She could use mockery as well when it suited her.

  His mouth curved. ‘Despite all that.’

  ‘You have affection for me despite my scars and my shame?’

  ‘Never despite your scars or your actions. You have no shame and I have more than affection for you. I love you.’

  He might still be warring against love, but she was winning; he was coming into the light. She just needed a pinch more words.

  ‘That’s because love has nothing to do with perfection or beauty. It has to do with acceptance.’

  He closed his eyes on that. ‘Is that how you did it...is that how you went from the dark caves to the fires to bake?’

  ‘Agnes, the healer, was blunt, brisk and very efficient. I was more of a challenge to her than a person. But John and Anne, they gave me so much. I carried my failure to save my sister, but they showed me that there was still love. However, I didn’t learn acceptance until you.

  ‘You and the men treated me differently,’ she continued. ‘As if my scars didn’t matter. The pain I was used to, by being stared at with horror, disappeared. Then, in the cellar, I listened to your words of deserving. It’s how I’ve been letting go of the past. It’s why when I learned that the parchment contained only numbers, it didn’t hurt as much. I was being accepted, being loved, for who I am. It’s why I was able to tell you how I laid in the fire next to my sister. I could never do that before. But I’m letting the past go and you are, too.’

  He opened his eyes. ‘No. The past is in my blood. It’s here now.’

  ‘It is, but how you look at it can be different. I accept your Devil’s blood and your perfection. And despite your words, you are letting go of the past. You let go of your mother’s necklace, as I let go of the hope in that parchment.’

  He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe her words and she pushed into the hold of his arms, felt them go around her, but not near as tight as she wanted.

  ‘I will only hurt you,’ he said. ‘There could be rumors. If we married, if we are together, our children may suffer.’

  ‘Will you love them any less? Will you not give them the chance to find what we have?’ She leaned her head against his chest, reveled in the smell and warmth of him and braced herself for the words she had to say next. ‘Then you’re not only a fool like I was, but a coward, too. You’re laying down in the fire while it consumes you. Denying yourself a future because you carry shame and regrets.’

  He stiffened and she dug her fingers into his tunic so he wouldn’t pull away.

  ‘If you do this,’ she said, ‘you deny not only yourself a future, but the future of our children. The future that I want to see. Not perfect, but good. Truly good and full of light.’

  Beneath her hold, his chest stilled as if he held his breath. Beneath her ear, his heart increased. He was listening. His heart was listening. She just needed to yank a bit further and he’d be out of the fires he’d put himself in. Then they’d both be in the bright light they deserved.

  ‘You say you love me, despite everything,’ she said. ‘You cannot expect me to honor your love for me, without also understanding and honoring my love for you. I love you, Rhain of Gwalchdu.’

  He pulled her tightly to him then. Gripped the back of her gown and just held on. Tears poured from her eyes as she rubbed her cheeks against his chest. His heart true, his grip strong. She felt in that moment as if he was yanking her out of the fire. That somehow they had saved themselves.

  He brushed his cheek against her hair as if he, too, had tears. ‘I may need a few more cakes to understand this kind of love you’re showing me.’

  Pulling away, she looked up to see the tracks on his cheeks. He was beautiful, perfect. No more shadows, or almost-smiles.

  She smiled just as wildly back at him. Freely, no longer covering her mouth, and watched his eyes brighten before they drifted to her lips, then back up. His mesmerizing eyes now bringing a welcome heat with them.

  ‘How many more cakes?’ she asked, wanting to see and feel that promised heat.

  ‘Thousands,’ he said, taking her hands and leading her to the bed behind him.

  ‘Only that few?’

  ‘That many. That many and for ever.’

  She laid on the bed and watched his amber eyes darken to honey and fire. ‘We may be here for a while, then,’ she said against his lips.

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed this story, you won’t want to miss these other great reads from Nicole Locke

  THE KNIGHT’S BROKEN PROMISE

  HER ENEMY HIGHLANDER

  THE HIGHLAND LAIRD’S BRIDE

  IN DEBT TO THE ENEMY LORD

  Keep reading for an excerpt from THE GOVERNESS HEIRESS by Elizabeth Beacon.

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  The Governess Heiress

  by Elizabeth Beacon

  Chapter One

  ‘I would rather be outside, too, Lavinia, but you said it was too cold to learn as we walked this morning. Now we’re inside you still won’t listen,’ Eleanor Hancourt said sternly. ‘Remind us how many rods make a furlong.’

  Nell’s eldest pupil went on staring out of the high schoolroom window and it took Caroline’s nudge to jolt her cousin out of a daydream. ‘Archbishop of Canterbury, Miss Court,’ Lavinia said triumphantly.

  ‘We have moved on from Plantagenet kings and troublesome priests, Lavinia Selford. British history was this morning.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Lavinia listlessly. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter, does it?’

  ‘Kindly explain how the fate of Kings and measuring God’s creation are unimportant, Lavinia,’ Nell said softly, although she wanted to let her temper rip.

  ‘Because I don’t care. Knowing such rubbishy stuff won’t get me a husband and a fine house in London,’ Lavinia replied defiantly.

  ‘Being a well-bred mother to his children will be enough for you, then?’

  ‘No, he will adore me and when I make my debut I’ll dance and have fun while you sew for the poor and read improving books out loud of an evening.’

  Nell mentally conceded the girl could be right about the dullness of their current lives, even if everything else she had to say showed how immature Lavinia was. It was dull in this half-closed-up house at the back of beyond. Even she, the girls’ governess, was only three and twenty and sometimes longed for more and now it was temptingly within reach. Except nobody else really cared if they were happy or miserable, so long as they didn’t cause trouble. So she would have to stay until the Earl of Barberry came to take responsibility for his wards and the estate, but that seemed about as likely as pigs learning to fly.

  Her authority felt fragile even after two years teaching the man’s orphaned wards, but at least he wasn’t here to challenge it. He had never been here to see if she was doing her job properly. He hadn’t even bothered to meet his young cousins during the decade he’d been head of the Selford family. The Earl left the country as soon as he heard his grandfather was dead and had stayed away ever since. Even two years on from being brought in to try and drive knowledge and ladylike behaviour into the Misses Selford, Nell was too young for such a role. Now she was an heiress to add to her puzzles, but she could think about that when Lavinia wasn’t as slyly confident she was going to win their latest battle.

  ‘I am well born and pretty and I have a good figure and a fine dowry,’ the girl listed smugly, the difference between them sharp in her light blue eyes.

  ‘A true gentleman requires more than looks and a large collection of vanities in a wife,’ Nell replied coolly, pushing the unworthy argument she was well born and a lot wealthier than her eldest charge to the back of her mind. ‘A talent for flirting and dancing won’t fascinate the fine young man you dream of marrying when every second debutante has that as well. Wit and charm, a sincere interest in those around her, a well-informed mind and a compassionate heart make a true lady, Lavinia. Youthful prettiness fades; do you want to end up lonely and avoided since you have no conversation or common interest to keep your husband at your side when you are no longer as young as you were?’

  ‘Oh, no, Vinnie, imagine how awful it would be to end up like that lady who stayed at the manor last year. The one who bored on and on about imaginary illnesses and how hard her life was until her husband went out of his way to avoid her,’ Caroline exclaimed with genuine horror.

  ‘What sane gentleman would marry an empty-headed creature for aught but her money?’ Caroline’s elder sister Georgiana added with a sideways look at her least favourite cousin.

  ‘That’s enough, Georgiana,’ Nell said firmly.

  Lavinia was the daughter of the last Earl’s eldest son and senior in status and years, but what did that matter when all four of the old Earl’s granddaughters were stuck here in the middle of nowhere? None of them could inherit the earldom and Nell counted herself lucky that she could only imagine the last Earl’s fury when his youngest son made a runaway marriage to Kitty Graham, still whispered of as the loveliest actress of her generation. Hastily doing some mental arithmetic, Nell supposed Kitty and the Honourable Aidan’s son hadn’t mattered to his paternal grandfather for over a decade. The fifth Earl’s eldest son had a robust heir and never mind if his wife refused to share his bed after the boy was born and she declared her duty done. Since the lady was the daughter of a duke the old Earl didn’t challenge her until the boy was killed in some reckless exploit at Oxford. Then he’d ordered his heir to mend his marriage and even the Duke agreed, so Lady Selford gave birth to Lavinia a year after she lost her son and was declared too fragile for further duty by the doctors. According to local gossip, the lady turned her back on her baby daughter and returned to her family. Nell marvelled at her indifference, but Lady Selford died when Lavinia was seven and Nell doubted the child had set eyes on the woman above once or twice.

  At least Georgiana and Caroline seemed to have been loved by their parents, but a sweating fever killed Captain Selford and his wife and Nell imagined the girls had had a stony welcome from their grandfather, since the servants still gossiped about how bitterly he resented his granddaughters for daring to be born female. Only Penelope had escaped the fury of that bitter old man by being born three months after the Earl died, but as a posthumous child of his third son she had been his last hope of keeping the offspring of an actress out of the succession. The latest Earl of Barberry had carried off the family honours in the teeth of his grandfather’s opposition then, but the sixth Earl had done precious little with them. Nell supposed it was better for the girls to grow up without another angry lord glowering at them when he recalled their existence. Lavinia’s old nurse once told her how the old Earl cursed whenever Lavinia crossed his path, so little wonder if she grew up imagining a rosier future for herself. Nell hoped the girl would make a good marriage, but misery awaited her if she wed the first young man who asked her to so she could escape her lonely life.

  ‘Forty, Miss Court,’ Lavinia said casually at last.

  Nell wondered what she was talking about, then remembered the rods and furlongs. ‘Very good, Lavinia. So, Georgiana; how many feet in a fathom?’

  ‘Even a land sailor knows there are six and we were at sea until Papa died.’

  ‘You and your stupid sister insist on telling us about him all the time. As if we care,’ Lavinia said, quite spoiling the novelty of joining in a lesson for once.

  ‘Then why don’t you go and count your rubbishy ribbons, or gaze at your own ugly face in the mirror for hours on end, since you love it so much? At least then we won’t have to look at your frog face or listen to you rattle on about who you’re going to marry this week, Lavinia Lackwit,’ Georgiana scorned as tears flooded Caroline’s wide blue eyes a
t the thought of what the two sisters had lost when their parents died.

  Nell felt sorry for Lavinia when even little Penny glared at her for upsetting the most vulnerable of the cousins and all three looked as if they’d be glad if Lavinia disappeared in a puff of smoke.

  ‘Georgiana, that’s an inexcusable thing to say. You will stand in the corner until I say you can come out. Lavinia; apologise to your cousin, then copy out the One Hundredth Psalm twice in a fair hand. Maybe that will make you humbler about your own shortcomings and a little kinder to others, but your guardian will be displeased to hear you refuse to make any effort at your lessons and fall out with your cousins.’

  ‘He doesn’t give a snap of his fingers for any of us and I hate this place and all of you as well. You’re always such good little girls for your darling Miss Court and she’s only a servant when all’s said and done. You make me sick. I hate you all, but I hate Cousin Barberry most. Why should I care what he thinks? I doubt he remembers we exist,’ Lavinia railed at the top of her voice, stamped her feet as if words couldn’t express her anger, then ran out of the room on a furious sob. Nell listened to the sound of her charge thundering downstairs and the garden door slamming with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that her day was about to get even worse.

  ‘I hope she took a shawl,’ Caroline said with a sympathetic shiver.

  ‘And I hope she didn’t,’ nine-year-old Penny argued vengefully.

  Georgiana flounced to the corner she’d been ordered into with a sniff and a contemptuous glower and Nell tried to do what came next instead of feeling defeated.

  ‘Georgiana, stay there for ten minutes without saying a word or pulling faces at Caroline and Penelope. I shall ask Crombie to sit with you. Caroline and Penelope, you can read quietly, but you will not tease Georgiana or speculate about Lavinia. As soon as the ten minutes are up you may read as well, Georgiana,’ she told her charges as calmly as she could.

  Seeing how impatient Penny’s one-time nurse was about being fetched away from her comfortable coze with the housekeeper, Nell knew they wouldn’t be allowed to riot in her absence. Now she only had to worry about organising a search for Lavinia with the daylight already fading. She gave orders for all the available staff to comb the gardens and parkland, then went outside to search her own section of the shadowy gardens.