‘What are you doing? Where are we going?’ Bied demanded.
Louve only clasped her wrist tighter. It was more than the difference of their size in the strides he took that hurried them along. It was his urgent pace, the insistent pull on her arm. It should have hurt, it should have been a warning to her, but he ensured she was too engaged in keeping up with him to notice the desperation in his actions.
He was certain she could hear it, though, in his uneven breath from biting back all the words he struggled to contain. Until they slammed into the linen closet, the shelves replenished, the space somehow smaller.
‘Louve—’
Louve caged her against the back wall, until everything about her was pressed against him and the wall and there was nowhere for her to go. He wanted her...needed her like this.
‘Quiet,’ he whispered against the top of her head, breathing her scent in, snagging her fine hair through the stubble along his chin.
Louve couldn’t get his heart, his breath, his body under control. He half wanted to spin this woman around and laugh with her just from the sheer relief they were alive. His other half wanted to shake her, yell curses before he kissed her because she took risks.
Instead he held her, not to contain her, but to contain himself. They were safe for now, but it wouldn’t last. ‘Reckless, foolish, what were you thinking? What were you doing?’
She squirmed, but he followed her along, kept her trapped. He leaned even more, the feel of her against him, the warmth, the heat. ‘You knew what I was doing.’
‘I told you I would help,’ he said. ‘I told you.’
‘Then you—then we talked and—’
‘And what? Because you wouldn’t be with me, so therefore I’d abandon my vow, abandon you?’
He couldn’t do it. He wanted a home, a wife. In the past, just the thought of both got him through the worst of times. Now that he’d met Bied, he wanted no wife but her, one who was courageous and trouble. With much work to be done with the Jewell of Kings, it’d be years until they could settle, though...
Would she accept him in return? She said she didn’t want a husband, but maybe she just needed more time to trust him. He cupped her head between his palms, kept her pressed against him. ‘Bied, I will never aba—’
Quick jagged pain to his chest, his body spasmed, and she shoved him away before he realised that she’d bitten him.
With a murderous expression, she pushed past him, but he stood before the door.
‘Let me out of here,’ she said.
If she’d had a goblet in her hand, she would have used it on him. Instead, he had her ire. He deserved her hatred for not telling her everything, but that didn’t stop him wanting her, especially now, in this brief moment. In this room.
Full breasts, flushed cheeks accentuating plump red lips. Her hands were on those hips he’d dreamt about since the kitchens when she’d gained balance from the floor to the chair. Just that image shot anticipation through him, tightening everything inside him, pooling any thoughts towards only one direction: her.
Something of his thoughts must have registered for her eyes flared, one hand slipped off her hip. But she didn’t say anything and he was suddenly incapable of it.
Their eyes locked, his fear facing her hot anger. Anger morphing to something else. Something just as feral, wild...just as uncontained as the insistence in him. To take. To give. To claim.
‘I can’t let you leave here,’ he said. ‘It’s dangerous, they’d kill you as soon as greet you.’ Louve’s entire body shuddered. ‘Back down, Bied.’
Eyes narrowing, she snatched a linen and chucked it at his face. It hit him. The next one she threw, he batted away.
‘What do you think that will do?’ he scoffed.
‘Move you!’ she shouted.
He shoved her body against the wall. Now he felt the heat of her breath, the pounding of her heartbeat. ‘This is the only direction I want to go.’
Her arms were trapped, but she still tried to shove him away. Did she know what that did to him? The snap of his hips against hers stopped her.
She gasped. He growled, ‘If you had gone up there alone, carrying that little tray, they would have made you taste the food to see if it was poisoned.’
‘It wasn’t!’
She gaped at him as though he was possessed, and he was right now. It was why he held her closer, his hips seemingly unable to release from the cradle of hers, reminding him that she was alive. They were alive and alone.
‘We know that, but they wouldn’t,’ Louve said. Her eyes were mesmerising with only a flared darkness he was fast losing himself in. ‘When they found that it wasn’t poisoned, they’d start questioning you.’
‘I wouldn’t tell them anything and there would be no need to. I am a servant here and am simply delivering food.’
She didn’t understand and he was loath to tell her. He’d been that innocent of the Warstone malevolence once as well. ‘You were not assigned to that room. They would have questioned you with cuts from their daggers, with broken fingers, with whatever means they were given.’
She shook her head. ‘But Ian isn’t up there, it was just her. There would be no need for such measures.’
‘It’s his private chambers and he’ll invoke whatever protective measures he wants. This is ours.’
‘Ours? What are you—’
His hands slipped down, his fingers dug into the side of her hips, her flesh gave way under his rough touch. He groaned. ‘Ours. In this fortress, I claim this storage room for us.’
‘I’m angry at you. You’re angry at me and you...jest?’
He was, he did, but that wasn’t what he thought of now. ‘The softness of your skin. The way your body yields to mine. It drives me mad. You drive me to madness. I almost lost you, after the night we spent on that unforgiving kitchen floor. Without a chance to rectify what we could be.’
‘Now you’re protective? I don’t understand. There’s nothing we can be. You say you want—oh! I am not talking of this here. Move, I need to get to my—’
He leaned in, suckled the skin along her neck, revelled in her gasp. ‘They’ve returned, are spreading around the courtyard and soon will be in this fortress. If we leave right now, you’ll put your sister in more danger.’
She jolted. ‘Damn you.’
He stilled at the sound of anguish in her tone. He wanted this room, this moment, but if it brought her pain...he’d stop.
‘We shouldn’t leave just yet, but I’ll move if you need me to.’ He pulled up, reverently cupped her cheeks, took her mouth, once, twice. ‘You can leave if it’s what you want.’
‘I want answers,’ she said against his lips.
She stayed and he was incapable of withdrawing from her. He pulled in her lower lip and nipped it gently between his teeth. ‘Answers. Those are what you want?’ Just a bit longer, if she’d allow it. Just a... His kiss deepened as he lashed his tongue against hers, pressed a little more into her before pulling away.
‘Tell me.’
‘Yes!’
Could he give words to her now? His body rejecting the answer before it could be formed, he clamped his hands on the shelf far above their heads, pushing away until nothing between them touched except their breaths. Hers were short pants. His had gone ragged. It might kill him, but she deserved answers. If she wanted them now, he’d try.
Her eyes widened, but her shock was all he dared register. If he contemplated her lips glistening from their kisses, to the flush of her cheeks that was part anger, part need, he’d never make it through. He’d stutter, become that madman she thought he was.
Her brows drew in, her eyes roaming his features, already looking for answers, and he knew he’d choose the right path for them. He kept his expression open, allowing her to see everything he couldn’t say just yet. What he would tell her later, when his body caught up to the fact they’d survived. She was alive and he needed to kiss her and never stop. Ever. For years.
She fisted her fingers into his tunic and yanked him to her. ‘Who are you, truly?’ she said, the words battering against the most vulnerable part of his throat.
His arms were shuddering. ‘Louve. I am, truly. Am simply...’
She kissed the arc of his neck, right where he was silently begging for her to touch. Over and over, soothing caresses of her tongue, feverish nips of her teeth until he was shaking with his lust.
‘Bied,’ he said, attempting to keep some reasoning, just for this moment, nothing else. But it was lost before it began. Right now, Bied was his. If nothing else, they could have this time, in this room. He had to make certain that was what she wanted because...because... ‘Do you want this?’
She stroked her long fingers up his chest and sank her nails into his shoulders. Words gone, his lips latched on to hers.
Louve’s kisses were heady sips of wine. His low growl deep in his chest was her surrender.
Inside beat the questions she needed to ask—what they were doing, where were they going?—but Bied needed more of this man who had gained her trust the moment he pushed himself away from her. His ravenous gaze was fierce because he was fighting against himself and he allowed her to be witness to it all.
The battle was there in the flush across his cheekbones, the wet seam of his lips, in the bulging of his forearms as he clenched the shelf above her. It was there in the pulse throbbing at the centre of his throat, its uneven pace telling her more than any words he might have said.
He held himself away, so she’d trust him. And she answered that frantic pulse by pressing her kiss, her own need, against the battle he fought.
And he answered. Slick slides of his tongue before they broke apart and he latched his lips on to her throat, down her collarbone to her gown that loosened enough to allow a few of his kisses there, too. She wanted more.
Thrusting her hands through his hair, the scent, the coarse feel of it through her fingers as heady as the weight of him against her. She couldn’t stop there and slid her hands down his sides. Traced just under his tunic and above his breeches, feeling the shiver of sinew under his heated skin.
He clutched her hand against his stomach. ‘Bied.’
A warning that had her eyes raising to his. ‘You’re always grabbing my hands.’
‘Because they undo me.’
She smiled. ‘I was trying to undo you.’
His eyes lit up, a curve to his lips. He released his other hand from the shelf, ripped off the ties on his breeches and shoved down his braies enough to free him. He still clutched her hand, but her other was free.
His eyes widened when he guessed her intent. ‘No, you don’t.’
Wrapping his arm around her waist, he fisted her gown and chemise up to her waist. The voluminous folds barred her sight, but she felt his hair-roughened thighs between hers, his hand cupping under her knee. The gentle pressure to lift her up.
Her hands went to his shoulders for balance. His thumb caressed the tender crease on the back of her knee, as he lowered his head to capture her lips.
More rasping kisses, more welcoming weight, but he was holding back. ‘Louve, please.’
When he didn’t move she grasped his hips, yanking herself towards him, and she felt the smooth slide between her thighs, but not where she needed it.
‘Now you decide not to hunch,’ she huffed. ‘You’re too tall.’
His smile was smug. ‘Maybe I wanted to feel you climbing on me. Do you know what your curves do to me?’
Now it was her turn to give him a knowing look. ‘Yes.’
‘Tilt your hips,’ he ordered, his gaze promising to meet her challenge. She did.
He lifted her leg that bit more. ‘Do you want me, Bied? Is this what you want? You know—’
‘You’re repeating. You do that, you know, and I, yes—’ She couldn’t finish that sentence. ‘And I—’
He chuckled, groaned and slid his palm up the back of her thigh and, with a strength she didn’t want to ever end, he shunted forward.
Pleasure. Desire. Her hands grasping one point of him, then another. Never finding purchase, her thoughts lost to reason, to anything but Louve and what was happening between them. Her entire body trembling.
His harsh breath against her neck, he pulled away, his head going back, his eyes clenching. ‘Maddening,’ he whispered as he moved. ‘Wild. Reckless. Brave. Cour—’
She pressed her lips, her body, her very heart against any part of him she could reach, until they surrendered to the place where words were unnecessary. Until it was only them.
It was moments with both their heartbeats easing before she realised where they were again.
‘Are you...?’ he said. She felt him swallow. ‘Are you well?’
More than she could say. ‘I need answers.’
Chuckling, he kissed her temple. ‘You do.’
Straightening, he arranged her clothing, folding and binding the poorly woven cloth as if it was the finest of linens. When he raised his eyes to hers, he caught her bewildered gaze.
He brushed his thumb against her chin. ‘Later. I want to spend time with you that doesn’t involve walls or floors. When there’s time I could properly undress and explore all of you.’
‘There’s a lot of me to explore.’
He clenched his eyes. ‘Don’t tempt me, I’m barely restraining myself now.’
‘That was restraint?’ she teased.
‘If I have a chance to kiss and touch all the parts of you I desire, what lies after that will show you that, yes, what we just shared was restrained.’
More humour from this man, more smiles. Did he know what those dimples of his—a dull thump, and the sound of footsteps outside the door, made her jump.
Louve whispered in her ear, ‘Do they not know this is our room?’
She wanted to laugh, but there was a sadness in his eyes that stopped her. It was just there along the edges of the humour and she wanted to soothe it. It was easy to believe in this man even before she should have, but she needed to know what they faced outside their room. Their room.
Ridiculous man. She wanted his teasing, his jokes, she wanted to share whatever burden he bore because she could see it was a heavy one.
Which was frightening given her own mistrust, her own experience with men, with families. But her concern was lessened by the warmth of his touch along her arms, by the joy of what they shared. That would be enough to get them through whatever it was outside this room.
‘Now tell me,’ she demanded. ‘What were those questions you asked my sister? Why did we truly leave her there?’
Louve rubbed the outside of her arms, waiting. There were no other sounds, no other moments he could comfort and hold this remarkable woman.
After he told her what she needed to hear, she might not even allow this touch. Maybe the Warstone conflicts would keep them apart. Those guards. He’d seen that look before. If anything had been just a bit different than what Ian had allowed, both he and Bied would be dead.
He didn’t want to give her up. Didn’t know how he could. But...she didn’t want a husband, might never want one. Might not even want a man by her side. He’d told her he was a mercenary, but did she know what that truly meant? Probably not and he was no simple hired sword.
And that came all the more crashing down when he walked into Ian’s private chambers and realised he’d been manipulated. Warstones and their games which might never end. Ian talked about how he liked the games, but the truth was...he simply understood them. That’s all; he could give them up. If she wanted him to, he would.
After eyeing those guards, knowing that more flanked them, he knew he couldn’t risk her like that again. He didn’t want to give her up, but the realisation was he might have to. Everyone was back from the hunt and, once they left this room, nothing would be the same. Still, he’d try to get the sisters to safety if she’d let him.
Giving her the truth at least gave her a choice. He released her arms and stepped back. Was grateful she remained and that her expression was only curious. No, there was more there, it was in the sheen of her pale skin, her reddened cheeks and lips because of the roughness of his jaw, the pressure of their kisses. What they had just shared.
In the past it was easier to avoid such questions of who he was, what he did. He’d flash a grin, make some sort of comment to distract. Perhaps he would ask questions instead, anything to avoid talking about himself.
Except this was Biedeluue and, for him, she was the distraction. And one he wanted to keep.
‘You wouldn’t have made it up those stairs and to her room.’ The thought of what would have happened if she’d gone up there alone shook through him again. How close he came to losing her before they’d had this stolen moment. He wanted more of them.
‘What are you doing?’ she said.
‘Reaching for your hand.’
‘Every time you hold my hand...something happens.’
He lowered his chin. ‘I promise you it will be only answers this time.’
‘Answers are good, but I want my sister,’ she said.
‘I know you do, but we can’t get her now. We couldn’t be up there one more moment.’
If she was frightened, he’d let her out of here and forget the consequences of getting caught. But she hadn’t been frightened, not so far, and her determination he could negotiate with.
He just needed to make her understand something that he was only beginning to. That he needed her more than this mission, but now might be all they had. Even if the sisters escaped and he did, too, he couldn’t go after them without jeopardising their safety. All this before they could get through their own desires in life.
‘What’s going on?’ she said.
‘You were there. She won’t leave without Evrart.’
‘Margery loves her family. I am her family and she asked for me.’
‘She asked for a sword arm.’
Bied looked away.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said immediately. ‘I’m going about this wrong.’
Her eyes wandered from the crown of his head to the tips of his fingers and back again. He’d have to explain. He enclosed her hand between both of his. Feeling the warmth, the tiny slide of her fingers against his. She was alive, she was alive and he could tell her.
‘I was an usher at one point in my life,’ Louve said.
‘You already spoke of this, then you became a mercenary. Now you’re here playing some game with Ian of Warstone,’ Bied said. ‘I don’t want to talk about what happened between us or my demanding to know you, I need to understand why you dragged me away from my sister, why we can’t get to her!’
He couldn’t help but feel lightened by her impatience. It was her. ‘This is important, though. After I left that life as an usher, I became a mercenary...for Reynold, one of the four brothers of Warstone.’
‘No.’ She snatched her hand and he let it go. ‘No. We just escaped—’
‘I’m still me,’ Louve said, knowing what she meant. They had just touched, shared themselves, and he was friends with a Warstone. ‘I haven’t changed.’
‘Only you have been paid by these monsters.’
‘He’s good, Bied. Out of all of them, he’s good. And the youngest, Balthus, might be as well. Ian...is complicated.’
‘Ian needs to be killed.’
Fierce. Courageous. What other woman would have charged into this Warstone fortress to help break a sister free? ‘Most likely true, but Reynold sent Balthus and me—’
‘Stop,’ she interrupted. Bied’s expression was one of confusion, of doubt and then understanding. None of it took her long, he didn’t expect it to. ‘You’re here for that parchment. One brother sent you here to steal from the other. How does this affect my sister and why is this dangerous?’
‘For what that parchment represents—even I don’t completely understand it. Do you believe in legends?’
‘Stories, if they’re true.’
‘This one is,’ he said. ‘It’s not a French story. It’s not entirely an English one, but this one is told there frequently. There’s this gem. It’s ugly, but through the ages a story was attached to it. That whoever holds it holds power. The story has changed over the centuries. Most recently because of the conflict in Scotland, it has changed to whoever holds the gem holds the power of Scotland.
‘You can imagine why the King of England or any driven family like the Warstones would want it.’
Her brows drew in. ‘This sounds familiar. It’s a jewel, isn’t it? The Jewell of Kings.’
Feeling as though Fate hurried their parting, he nodded. ‘The Jewell of Kings, like Excalibur, is a legend, but it’s based in some truth. It’s been hidden inside a dagger’s handle for years and has recently resurfaced. Reynold...’ he shook his head ‘...Reynold loves to read—you wouldn’t believe how he lugs books around from one place to the other. He’s left daggers and swords behind in his haste to travel from one location to another, but his books, those always were wrapped first.’
‘What has this to do with the parchment?’
Impatient. Demanding. Still staying with him though he had befriended a Warstone.
‘The legend might also contain a treasure, but all the bits of information are spread about,’ Louve said. ‘One part is on the dagger’s hilt, the others are words written on parchment. It could have been an entire book, but I don’t know. All Reynold knows is that Ian has a complete piece and he wants that.’
‘Thus, he can rule over others. Have power and wealth and—’
‘No, so he can hide the whole lot and be done with it. He wants nothing else than to settle down with his wife in their home and have peace.’
Something flitted behind her eyes, something which made him uneasy, but it was quickly gone. ‘But the parchment’s not here,’ she said.
‘It appears not,’ he said.
‘Ian knows who you are, doesn’t he?’ At his nod, she continued, ‘What of Balthus? How can he be good if he’s hunting with his family, if he’s a Warstone?’
How to explain Balthus when he’d spent so little time with him as well? ‘I pretended I was an usher. Here, he’s also pretending to be someone he’s not.’
She snorted. ‘With any hope, he’s better at it than you are.’
‘He is, or else he’d already be dead. I’m here to protect him.’
‘From his brother or his parents?’
‘Most would not guess Balthus needed protection from his parents.’
She frowned. ‘I’ve known adults, parents and otherwise, who are dishonourable...who don’t deserve to be in the presence of children. Tess also told me they were never here under the same roof, which is a hint that their relations are torn. That stuck with me because if my family could be safe, fed, I’d give anything to be with them under one roof.’
Louve wanted to ask questions. Biedeluue’s expression when she talked of children and parents—there was something there...something personal. ‘I can’t rule out that they wouldn’t kill him.’
‘That’s what you meant when you said Balthus was alive. You thought his own parents would kill him on the hunt?’ She gasped. ‘Could they have poisoned the ale?’
He couldn’t see how that was possible, but anything was probable when it came to them. That wasn’t what concerned him, however. ‘You’re taking this too... You’re understanding too readily and now you’re helping me solve one of the mysteries?’
‘I have siblings whom I have had to protect from numerous situations.’ She flapped her hand. ‘Margery the most of all. At some point, I’m going to grab every last goblet in this house and smash it against a wall, after I drink wine from every cup first. But right now, I need to get my sister free of this.’
He waited, fascinated by the numerous thoughts behind her troubled eyes. He had thought it would be difficult to tell her. He had thought she’d lean away from him when she fully understood not only that he was a hired sword, but who he worked for. He had thought—
She poked him in the chest. ‘If I understand correctly, we’ve got a murdering family who want to kill each other, all to get some gem that the King of England is after.’
Unfortunately, Bied understood all too completely. ‘It’s not just them. Everywhere they spread their poison, they spread danger. They could not have got this far without allies and support. Without others undermining other families and countries.’
‘All this is happening in this fortress while my sister is trapped in that room,’ she said, pointing in the general direction of the private chambers.
Margery had a strength that had surprised him. The night of the feast, she’d appeared as though a cruel word could fell her, but the Margery he’d questioned was nothing like Bied had described her. Bied seemed equally bewildered and impressed by her younger sister.
‘I think we can safely say Margery’s being trapped in that room isn’t entirely Ian’s doing,’ Louve said. ‘You might have a lot more in common with her. You’re both stubborn, both fierce.’
‘Fierce!’ Bied said, then stopped. ‘Was it this place that changed her or—’
‘She would not have survived long in Ian’s presence if she didn’t have the strength already.’
‘Battles over legends and kingdoms,’ she breathed. ‘It’s almost incomprehensible.’
‘All of that is happening while we were in our own private storage room.’
‘Now you jest. I cannot honestly tell if there is humour in you, or tragedy.’
Both. ‘I’d jest more. I’d tell you more of the Warstone intrigues if you’d trust me some.’
‘Trust you? There’s no point to that now. I’m leaving.’
Her words! Once they left this room all of it would change. Ian would know he’d failed to bring anything out of his room. Balthus, no doubt, would have done something to tip his hand, and there was no parchment for Reynold. This was all before the elder Lord and Lady Warstone played their part.
‘There’s a point because you need to know the truth,’ he said. ‘I wanted this time with you, to tell you, show you my feelings.’
She snorted. ‘You haven’t shown me your feelings. You’ve been telling me, repeating to me, of danger, danger, danger, which doesn’t seem as though it will ever end. I already knew about your concerns here because I can see it with my own eyes. That guard outside my sister’s door, he would have harmed us, wouldn’t he?
Louve nodded. That guard would have killed her. How could he be contemplating trying to keep her? He couldn’t. It was...simply the time they had, the way she felt in his arms. He needed her and he needed her safe. Some trust was necessary for that.
‘Knowing the details,’ she said, ‘explains what is happening, but doesn’t earn my confidence.’
‘Bied, I—’ He stopped himself. ‘Can we have a bit of understanding between us? Maybe let me...borrow that as well.’
‘You can’t.’ She shook her head, sighed. ‘You have a little of it—how can you not after this room?—but what you told me is too much danger for my sister, my family! Moreover, I’m not certain it’s my trust you need to earn, but your own. You say you want peace, but when has your life not been like this? I think...this is the life you want.’ She brushed her gown. ‘There’s no time for this now. I hear everyone and so can you.’
This was the life he wanted? The danger, the plots, and subterfuge? He knew how to play the games, but he wanted what his friend Nicholas had, what Reynold was just now building. A family. Something, someone of his own.
The voices in the hall were getting louder and he needed to warn her.
‘I’ll do what I can to get you and your sister out of here. When we leave here, it will be different. I might need to do some acts, but know—’
She placed her hand on his mouth. ‘I know. You need to keep Balthus safe, might be cruel or order me about as an usher would. Or something else that you’re not telling me that I can almost guess at in those blue eyes of yours. But know that I need to protect Evrart.’
Tragedy. Humour. One of them won.
The merest thought of Biedeluue protecting Evrart burst a situation far too unfathomable through his heart which ached. The warrior was larger than an oak and weighed twice as much as all the guards put together. ‘Protect... Evrart.’
She nodded in earnest, her expression brooking no argument. ‘Because if something happens to him my sister won’t forgive me. That’s what she wanted me to promise if you hadn’t yanked me out of there. So move.’
She was serious. Louve looked at her. Looked again, but he couldn’t stop his eyes from watering, or ease the instant tightness in his chest. The ache. He wanted to laugh and mourn. This woman! He imagined her as he saw her that first day. Shuffling from side to side, her arms outstretched. But instead of shouting to protect the children, she’d shout—
‘We’ll need to stop,’ he choked. ‘By the kitchens.’
‘Why?’
‘To get some goblets.’ Louve laughed.
Her eyes crinkling at the corners, Bied threw a dozen linens at him, before she marched out of the room ahead of him.
She didn’t see him take one last look at their room.