The Agents of William Marshal Volume II: A Medieval Romance Bundle

by Kathryn Le Veque

  “Feeling what?”

  Caius lifted his big shoulders. “I wish I knew,” he said. “All I know is that when I look at her…”

  “So you feel something for her?”

  Caius threw up his hands and moved away from the hearth as he began to pace. “I do not know,” he said. “That is what I am trying to determine. I’ve known the woman a mere day and, already, I want to save her. I want to protect her from that bastard de Wrenville.”

  “I know.”

  Caius stopped pacing. “What do you mean ‘you know’?”

  Maxton had a hint of a smile on his face. “Because the moment you wrapped your hand around de Wrenville’s neck back at Winterhold, I knew something was happening with you. I assumed you would tell me when you were ready.”

  Caius deflated a little, realizing that whatever he was feeling was something he had not been able to keep to himself.

  “Did anybody else notice?” he asked.

  Maxton shook his head. “I do not believe so,” he said. “Mayhap Kevin did; you know he idolizes you, Cai. He hasn’t known you as long as the rest of us, but because of your relationship with his brother, he thinks the world of you. He watches everything you do, closely.”

  Caius smiled weakly, thinking of the pious, powerful knight, the younger brother of Sean de Lara. “It wasn’t always like that,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that the first time I met Kevin was a few years ago when he came to Richmond,” he said. “I realized he was Sean’s brother and when I saw how Kevin reacted to mention of Sean’s name, I could see that there was a good deal of hurt and animosity. For what Sean had become, I mean. I told Kevin that when the opportunity arose to position a man close to King John, The Marshal spoke to Sean and me in private. He presented the situation and asked which one of us wanted to assume the duty. Sean knew the sins of my past and because he knew of the terrible things I had done, he spared me more sins and volunteered. Were it not for Sean, The Britannia Viper would now be the bodyguard and advisor to the king. Kevin told me that he could never forgive me for doing that to his brother and, in a sense, he was right. I bear Sean’s sins as if they were my own.”

  Maxton knew that. Caius and Sean had been very close for years, and still were in many aspects, but Kevin had never been able to agree with the mission his brother undertook. He had spent years hating his brother for what he’d done, but they’d been able to reconcile as of late.

  “It is of little matter now,” he said. “Sean and Kevin have repaired their relationship. Kevin understands why his brother did what he did, and I know he does not hate you. Don’t you see the way he jumps to attention when you are around? Whatever animosity he felt for you is gone. He is very attuned to your will, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  Caius shrugged. “I suppose I have not,” he said. “I still thought he hated me.”

  “He doesn’t,” Maxton said. “But back to what you were saying; I think I’m the only one who realized you were more involved in this situation that you wanted to let on.”

  Caius nodded as they turned away from the brief subject of Kevin de Lara. His frustration returned.

  “Emelisse is an unusually strong woman,” he said. “I saw that from the first. But she has been through a great deal since de Wrenville started his campaign of harassment, all of it culminating in the death of her father and brother yesterday. When I told her that de Wrenville planned to marry her to his son, she tried to throw herself from the window. I spent the evening with her until she calmed sufficiently and I found myself speaking with an intelligent woman, kind and compassionate, who has been brutally abused by de Wrenville. That is when I realized I could not be neutral about this. Max, I want to protect her.”

  “To what end?”

  “I do not know what you mean.”

  “There is one way to solve this. Marry her.”

  Caius looked at him as if dumbfounded by the suggestion. “After only knowing her a day?”

  Maxton grinned. “Take it from a man who married a postulate,” he said. “I cannot remember when I have not loved my wife. It could have been the first moment I saw her or mayhap it developed later, but I do know that I knew within a week that I wanted to marry her. Sometimes you just… know.”

  His answer seemed to dumbfound Caius even more. He wasn’t exactly appalled by the suggestion, which appalled him even more. He was appalled at himself for not being appalled. He was not a man to make life-changing decisions on a whim.

  “Maxton, I do not want to marry her,” he finally said.

  Maxton clearly wasn’t convinced. He began to rub his gloved hands together because the hall seemed to be colder than the air outside.

  “Then ask yourself this,” he said. “What if you were to leave tomorrow? What if you were to go back to Richmond? Would you still think about her and wonder how she was? Worse still, what if The Marshal tells you to use his army and purge Lady Emelisse and her thirty-one soldiers from that keep? What would you do, Cai? Be honest because that is a very real possibility.”

  Caius almost told him that he would follow The Marshal’s directive to the letter, but even as he opened his mouth to say it, he knew it wasn’t the truth. As he reminded himself… he wasn’t in the habit of lying to his close friends.

  Therefore, he thought hard. Really hard on the subject of commanding The Marshal’s army into destroying the last vestiges of Emelisse’s life. Everything she held dear. Could he take The Marshal’s army and destroy Hawkstone’s keep? He had told Emelisse that he would not let her die in the keep, and he wouldn’t. She felt so strongly about taking up arms in her brother’s stead, and he respected her passion on the matter, but the truth was that he would not be able to destroy the keep, even if he was ordered to.

  It was her keep now.

  All of this belonged to her, the entire crumbling wreckage of a life she’d once known.

  “Christ,” he finally groaned. “If that order comes down from The Marshal, I cannot follow it. I will have to get her out of the keep somehow while you lead the army to destroy it. I cannot do it, Max, and I feel as if I have just lost my ability to follow an order without question. I would question this one. Not only that, I would do what I felt necessary to save Emelisse. When did I turn into a knight that questions an order?”

  Maxton could see how distressed he was and he put his hand on Caius’ shoulder. “You are a man who sees something more in the situation than the rest of us do,” he said. “You see a woman in distress and you want to help her. I was in the same position myself, once. And I married her.”

  Caius hung his head. “I told you that I do not want to marry her.”

  “Then you would rather have Marius marry her?”

  Caius’ head snapped up, the dark eyes narrowing. “He’ll not have her.”

  Maxton snorted bitterly. “You will have little say in the matter,” he said. “You are nothing to Lady Emelisse; not her brother, father, cousin, family member. You have no say in what happens to her, but the fact that she is de Wrenville’s prisoner – he has every say. And he will marry her to his son and when he does, Hawkstone becomes his property. There will be nothing you could do about it.”

  He was being rather harsh about it, but nothing he said was untrue. Maybe Caius didn’t want to marry a woman after only knowing her for a day, but he knew one thing for certain – he couldn’t stand by while Marius de Wrenville married her.

  “If I married her, Hawkstone would become mine,” he said. “All of this glorious ruin would belong to me and I would most definitely bring my army here and beat Winterhold into the ground if he thinks to challenge me. I would destroy him.”

  Maxton nodded at the mere thought. “De Wrenville would be running for his life, to be sure.”

  That thought gave Caius great pleasure. “In fact, I might lay siege to Winterhold just for the fun of it,” he said, growing more arrogant about it. “I would remove Hallam and Lady de Wrenville, of course,
but then I would bombard Winterhold day and night until her walls crumbled and her floors burned, and then I would toss Covington and Marius into that horrific moat and call it justice. Although I did not know Rupert de Thorington or his son personally, Edward did. He said they were good men. They did not deserve what de Wrenville did to them.”

  “They did not,” Maxton agreed quietly. “But the reality is this; you have no time to make any decisions, Cai. Mayhap you truly feel something for the lady, or mayhap you are only sympathetic to her plight. But there is no time at all for you to decide if you are going to involve yourself in this situation more deeply than you should on the lady’s behalf, for we can only feed de Wrenville false information for so long. He does not know Caspian is dead, so we can delay the inevitable only so long. Sooner or later, de Wrenville will know the truth.”

  “I was saying that exact thing to Emelisse,” Caius said. “Mayhap we can delay it enough to receive a decision from The Marshal.”

  “That decision may be to side with de Wrenville and destroy Hawkstone once and for all.”

  Caius grunted softly, closing his eyes to that very possibility. “I know,” he said. “I know he is afraid for Alice and he should be. I do not like seeing her in danger and Chadlington is a good man. De Wrenville does not deserve either of them.”

  Maxton watched him as he wrestled with the situation. “What will you do?”

  Before Caius could answer, Hallam entered the hall. The knight entered from the corner of the hall that had been torn up and burned, through a gap in the wall that had been knocked out. He picked his way through the debris, heading for Caius and Maxton.

  “Your young squire said that he saw you two come in here,” he said, tripping over a piece of charred wood. “I just received a missive from Lady de Wrenville. It seems that Marius arrived home this afternoon.”

  Maxton looked straight at Caius, who visibly stiffened in surprise. “I see,” he said slowly. “I must say, it is not a surprise. We knew he would arrive home at some point. But his arrival ought to throw this situation into more chaos. He’s probably demanding to use Pembroke troops right now.”

  Hallam shrugged. “My guess is that he more than likely is,” he said. “But Lady de Wrenville was more concerned about Lady Emelisse.”

  “What about her?”

  “Marius plans to ride to Hawkstone tomorrow with a priest,” he said. “He is going to marry her without delay.”

  Caius stared at him. Maxton’s words came tumbling down on him. There is no time at all for you to decide if you are going to involve yourself in this situation. Truer words were never spoken. With the shocking news that Marius was due on the morrow, there was no time left. Caius had to make a decision.

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to marry her.

  But he knew he didn’t want to see her go to another, and especially not Marius de Wrenville.

  Without another word, he ran for the keep.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It was Emelisse who prepared her brother’s body for burial.

  With the help of some of the soldiers who had been bottled up in the keep, she bathed her brother in watered wine, seeing the gaping wound that had taken his life. It had been a sorrowful duty and she’d tried to maintain her bravery throughout because of the soldiers around her. She didn’t want them to see her falter. Somehow, she had to maintain the illusion that she was strong and in control, with everything.

  But it was a hard-fought battle.

  But even as her thoughts were on her brother, they were peppered by thoughts of Caius. When she had first met him, he had seemed professional and genuinely interested in the situation and her perspective of it. Now, however, he was exhibiting distinct signs of someone who had more than a passing interest in the situation. Almost as if he were becoming emotionally involved in it.

  In truth, she didn’t want him to become emotionally involved in the situation because it was not his fight. She did not want to make it seem as if she were playing on his pity, as if she were trying to entice him to side with her. That was something she would never do, not to him, not to anyone. This was her battle, her family’s battle, and it always had been.

  She didn’t want to appear as if she were taking advantage of the situation.

  But his kiss to her hand had done something to her. The only man who had ever kissed her had been her father, as a father kisses a daughter, and she’d never experienced anything remotely passionate or romantic. Therefore, Caius’ kiss to her hand had been her very first experience with something that could be considered romantic.

  She wasn’t hard pressed to admit she had liked it.

  Over the years, she’d had a few suitors who had professed their interest in her. None of them had been serious, however, and her father had seen that right away. Perhaps they had been taken with her beauty, or perhaps they had been taken with the idea of marrying an heiress to Hawkstone. Whatever the case, she had never been interested in any of them. In fact, she had always been somewhat shy of men.

  Until now.

  Other than a sympathetic character, she had no idea what Caius would have seen in her. He had met her at her lowest point, dressed in another woman’s clothing and emotionally wrecked. As she had told him, she had not been herself. So, why should he even be attracted to her?

  Truly, she was baffled by it all.

  But there was no question as to why she should be attracted to him. From the moment they had met, he had been kind, understanding and considerate. He had been interested in her plight and he had shown great regard for her. Coupled with the fact that the man was incredibly handsome, it was apparent why she should be attracted to him. He had given her every good reason to be.

  But she could not give in to those feelings.

  Emelisse was terrified that her attraction to Caius would somehow interfere with her determination to stay in Hawkstone’s keep to the last man. He had already tried to sway her, but she had remained strong. She didn’t know how much longer she could remain strong if he continued his bombardment of pleas and gentle pity. It wasn’t an act. She could see that he meant it. But she was afraid that, eventually, she would give in to his wishes.

  That was something she did not want to do.

  And that meant no more contact with a man.

  She knew what she had to do, as heartbreaking as it was.

  Emelisse sent a few soldiers down to the keep entry where they retracted the ladder and resealed the door. If she was going to keep firm to her decision to remain boarded up with the remaining Hawkstone soldiers as her brother had been, then she would have to keep Caius from entering and trying to talk her out of it.

  When he had kissed her hand, Emelisse realized that she would do almost anything for the man. That kiss had made her heart race and her palms sweat, and it was the most wonderful feeling she had ever known. Under any other circumstances, she would have given anything to experience those feelings from him, again and again.

  But these were not ordinary circumstances.

  Therefore, she had to keep Caius away from her.

  The man had the ability to melt her.

  His return to the keep wasn’t long in coming. No sooner had they raised the ladder and closed the door than he appeared, calling up to those in the keep and asking them to open the door again. Emelisse listened to his pleas go from polite to those of great concern very quickly when he realized she meant to deny him, and anyone else, entrance to the keep. Knowing she could not ignore him, she finally went down to the keep entry and had the soldiers open the door.

  But they did not lower the ladder.

  The Hawkstone soldiers moved away from the entry as she knelt down at the entrance, gazing down at Caius, who was looking up at her with genuine confusion.

  “Forgive me, Caius, but you cannot enter,” she said with regret. “It is better if you do not.”

  That didn’t clear up any of his confusion. “Why not?” he asked. “What have I done?”

  She shook her h
ead. “Nothing,” she said. “I simply… it is simply better this way.”

  “Better for whom?”

  “Me.”

  He regarded her for a moment. “I was not going to force you to leave, you know,” he said. “I did not plan to pick you up and carry you out. I would not do that to you, in any case.”

  She was coming to appear more regretful. “I know,” she said. “This is not because I do not trust you.”

  “Then what?”

  Emelisse couldn’t tell him that it was because she didn’t trust herself. This whole situation was becoming very confusing, very quickly, and she was having a difficult time resolving it all in her own mind. A man she was so attracted to seemed to have increasing power over her, by her own fault.

  “Please,” she begged softly. “It does not matter, but this is, in no way, a reflection on you. It is simply better this way. Now, did you require something?”

  Caius stood there and looked up at her, fists on his narrow hips, wondering why on earth she should deny him entry to the keep. Their last interaction had been sweet and somewhat titillating. He’d kissed her hand and she’d looked at him as if she wanted more of it. The look on her face had spoken volumes to him.

  And maybe that was the problem.

  She was attracted to him, too.

  That realization changed everything.

  “I do,” he said frankly. “I require a moment of your time because I must speak with you. Something important has come up.”

  “What is it?”

  “I will not shout it for all to hear,” he said. “This is private business.”

  She sighed, appearing indecisive. “There is no one about,” she said. “No one will hear you.”

  He cocked a dark eyebrow. “You can come down here to speak to me, or let me into the keep to speak to you,” he said. “Or you can tell Marius when he arrives tomorrow and breaks the door down to get at you. What is your choice?”

  Her eyes widened. “Marius is coming?”

  “Put the ladder down and I will tell you everything.”