The roaring fire warmed the vast room, casting large dancing shadows on the stone walls. Bryce, sitting with his men near the hearth, watched Ryen speak with the fat maid. She was wearing maroon today; the velvet conformed to her curvy hips, hiding her long legs. Her hair spilled over her shoulders in waves, forming the rebellious curls Bryce longed to touch.
As he watched, Ryen’s brow creased with concern and she glanced at Bryce before quickly looking away. He had seen her friendship with the maid bloom over the last few days. He hadn’t been concerned, but that changed when he saw a different maid, a younger maid, laugh with the Angel of Death. Then, he even saw old Ben, the stableman, speaking earnestly with her. Suspicion charged Bryce’s thoughts. What was she up to? he had asked himself time and again. And now he wondered anew.
It had been days since he had returned to find Ryen drenched, strung up to be whipped. And every time he saw her, the intensity of his desire shocked him. Now, staring at her, even with suspicion brewing, he felt the passion burning in him again. God, how he wanted her! Yearning flared in every fiber of his body, racing through him as if it were his very lifeblood.
He watched as the chubby maid waddled away and Ryen turned to him. A scowl creased her usually smooth forehead and her full lips curved down in a pout. Bryce watched her straighten her shoulders and approach. He noted, with appreciation and something close to pride, the swing of her hips. He kept her standing before him for some time before he raised his eyes from her lithe body to her face. That rebellious little chin was raised, her blue eyes ablaze with cold flames. Some of the men near him chuckled.
Ryen scorched one of them with a murderous glare before Bryce drew her anger back to its source. “Do you want something, Angel?”
When she spoke, her words were clipped with fury. “I would speak with you.” She shot hot glances at the rest of his men. “Alone.”
“What you have to say can be said before my men. I have no secrets,” Bryce replied, raising his goblet to his lips.
Surprise, followed quickly by anger, flashed over her face. Then, a strange calm settled over her body and she raised a sly eyebrow. “Why, Bryce, then I must assume you’ve told them of all your conquests. How you skewered your helpless victims with your mighty sword.”
Talbot almost choked on the ale he was in the process of downing.
Bryce’s head came up slowly to meet her taunting eyes. “Some are not ‘helpless’, Angel.”
Some of the men elbowed each other as they snickered.
“Only the virgins!” Talbot called out.
As guffaws met his statement, Bryce watched Ryen’s cheeks turn a deep red. He realized she had intended her comment to be degrading and insulting. When she realized how his men had twisted her statement, she lowered her eyes, her back straightening, her chest jutting slightly. She nervously ran her hands over her hips, smoothing the garment over her waist, brushing imaginary lint from her flat stomach.
One by one, the men ceased their laughter until all eyes were riveted on her.
Bryce found his body responding to her subtle seduction. Did she know what she was doing? He tore his gaze from her hands to look at her face. She gently bit her lower lip. He thought he would explode at the innocence of the gesture. Blood pounded through his veins like a drumbeat, blocking out all sound and all rational thought.
Suddenly, he was on his feet and approaching her. He saw the fear in her eyes, saw how she turned to flee, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him.
“Do not flaunt yourself to me, Angel,” he whispered in her ear.
She struggled in his grasp. His chest pressed tightly against her own as he drew her closer to him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she gasped, breathlessly. She looked up at him.
Suddenly, her fighting ceased and she stared at him with liquid eyes. Her luscious lips were but inches from his. Bryce could feel her soft breath against his mouth, the press of her breasts against his chest.
I am going to kiss her, he realized, as he closed his eyes in anticipation of the taste of her delicate lips.
“Bryce!”
Bryce spun to find Talbot standing behind him, a slight frown revealing his concern. Slowly, reality crashed down upon him. Not a sound echoed in the Great Hall. His men sat where they had been, but their eyes were locked on him. Bryce’s eyes swept the room, noting that every gaze was upon him as he held Ryen.
His glance finally returned to the source of his troubles. She was limp against him, her eyes slightly closed. But what he could see of them were dreamy and anticipating. He stepped away and yanked her by the arm toward the doorway. Ryen’s skirt tangled about her ankles and Bryce felt her weight in his arm as she stumbled and he pulled her upright. She struggled to keep up with him, taking two steps to every one of his while lifting her skirt with her free hand so she wouldn’t trip again. They rounded a corner and proceeded toward Bryce’s room.
“Bryce!” Talbot shouted from behind them. But Bryce did not slow his step. His grip was brutal and relentless as he tugged her up the stairs. He kicked open the wooden door and propelled her into the room. Ryen’s back smacked against the frame of the four-poster bed and she dropped straight to the floor. She sat there, her dress splayed out on the stone ground, her wide eyes staring at him as he kicked the door shut.
He approached her. “Next time you choose to seduce me, Angel, pick your location carefully.”
Her jaw dropped and her mouth hung open.
His hand fell to his belt and he unhooked it. There’d been days of yearning for her, fitful nights of wanting, seeing only those eyes, her body. Now he fully intended to have her. Any woman who dared to taunt him would feel the hardness of his lust. Especially if that woman was Ryen De Bouriez.
“Please…” she whispered.
Bryce froze. She had not moved. Yet the word rang like a bell through his mind, slowly working its way through his body. Had that been desire in her voice, or fear? He searched her face. What am I doing? he demanded of himself. The scene of their first intimate encounter in her tent rose before his mind’s eye. Are you going to take her to satisfy your need? a voice inside him mocked, or will you wait until she is ready, until you can show her what it is like to make love? His hand froze on his belt.
Sitting at the bottom of the bed, her dress spread out around her like the petals of a delicate flower, she drove him to the brink of madness. His body and his mind battled for control.
She is a prisoner! he reasoned with his growing need. A prisoner I am awaiting ransom for!
Curse etiquette, he thought. I want her. He took another step toward her, then stopped. Even the Wolf Pack honored the unspoken law – never take what belonged to another man. When her king refuses the ransom, then she will be mine. With a low growl, he rebuckled his belt and turned away from her. “You wanted to speak to me alone.”
Silence.
Bryce walked to the window and stared out on the afternoon. At the sound of shouts he looked to his left. Beyond the wall, just before the trees, was the training yard. Some of his men were practicing their sword skills, others jousting.
What would they think if they knew my only weakness was their greatest enemy, if they knew a small glance from her sapphire eyes could bring their lord to his knees? Bryce wondered. He clenched his fist and gently pounded the ledge. Damn, I must have looked like a fool in the Great Hall. If it hadn’t been for the warning in Talbot’s voice, I might have succumbed to her spell and fell to my knees pledging my devotion.
“I – I want to know why your peasants are hungry,” Ryen’s soft voice came from behind him.
“They are weak,” Bryce stated simply, not daring to turn to regard her.
“They work all day! Bryce, please, let me into the kitchens,” Ryen stated.
Bryce paused for a long moment. Then, he asked, “Why?”
“I can supervise the making of corn meal.”
“Why would you want to feed me, your enemy?” Bryce wondered, never taking his gaze from the field, trying hard to ignore the pounding of his passion.
“The children,” Ryen replied, anguished.
Bryce turned to her. She was standing near the bed, her hands folded before her stomach. Children. Yes, like Runt. But he had been strong.
“They’re starving,” she added.
Could she be trying to help the children because she felt guilty about Runt? No. Bryce stepped away from the window, moving closer to her. “Do not fool yourself. They are my people. They would not hesitate to stab you in the back if they thought it would please me.”
“Would it?”
No, Bryce’s mind answered, as he looked into her deep blue eyes. She was perfect. Oh, so perfect. He wanted to touch her so badly that he felt his hands shaking. He turned his back on her and clenched his fists. “You are needed for the ransom.”
There was no sound, no movement.
After a moment, he glanced over his shoulder. Her head was bowed; long wavy hair draped over her shoulder like a curtain as her slender finger traced the outline of a wolf carved in the bedpost.
He moved toward her until they stood shoulder to shoulder, his long black hair brushing the velvet of her gown. He could smell lilacs in the air about her. As she looked up at him, he could see the slight scowl that creased her forehead. He had a sudden desire to kiss her frown away. And it angered him. He stiffened, every muscle in his body fighting the impulse. He looked away from her into the room. Yet, his eyes did not see anything as he proclaimed, “You cannot enter the kitchens.”
He took two steps toward the door before anger washed over her. “Don’t take out your hate for me on those children.”
But Bryce did not stop. He quit the room, shutting the door firmly behind him. He was relieved to be alone, away from those haunting eyes, away from that seductive body.
Bryce grit his teeth. The ransom reply would come within a week. He could wait. After all, it was only seven days. He had spent more than seven days in the agonizing boredom of the court. He had spent more than seven days marching with his army in a torrential downpour. He had spent more than seven days in full armor laying siege to Castle Moore. Bryce sighed.
It would be the longest week of his life…
The firelight cast flickering shadows about the room. Polly sat in a chair before the small fire, her short, plump legs stretched out before her. She held her wool skirt up so her pudgy toes were bared to the warmth.
“Gaw!” Kit planted herself in the vacant chair beside Polly. “I’m colder than a rat’s arse.” She tugged up her skirt and placed her feet near the fire. “I’d love ta put a curse on that Lotte. She’s the bloody one who keeps us poor folks out o’ the main room and away from the fireplace. Why, the bloody dogs are warmer!”
“Keep your voice down. If we’re discovered ‘ere, we’d have a fit trying to explain why,” Polly hushed.
Finally, Kit sat back in her chair, staring contentedly into the flames. “Now, I bet if the Angel were lady of the castle things would be different.”
“Aye,” Polly nodded. “She has a good heart.”
“Who’da thought we’d be talkin’ this way? I s’pected ta hate ‘er. Then she goes an’ does nice things. Did ya hear? She gave Jimmy her meat.”
Polly nodded, a sluggish smile spreading over her face.
“Thing would be different,” Kit continued. “Even his lordship would be sportin’ a smile.”
“We’d be fed well,” Polly supplied.
“An’ we’d have a warm place ta sleep. We would not have ta sneak ta the kitchen. Ah. That witch, Lotte.”
“Yer right,” Polly said. “But until Prince can see the good Lady Ryen would do, we’re stuck with snotty Lotte.”
Kit groaned. “Da ya ever think he’ll come ta his bloody senses?”
Polly shrugged.
“And ta think we believed all them bad things about her.” Kit shook her head, her dirty brown locks swaying with the movement. “I still can’t believe Talbot was goin’ ta have her whipped.”
Polly’s face whitened.
Kit continued, staring into the flames. “Why, ifn I every find out who gave ‘er that bloody dagger, I’ll –”
“It was me,” Polly mumbled. Her heavy form sat absolutely still, shoulders slumping.
Kit turned her head to Polly. “What’d ya say?”
“It was me. That’s why I tried ta stop them.” Polly’s eyes became teary with the memory. “Why, that lass would have let them lash her before she revealed me name.”
“Oh, Polly. Why’d ya do it?”
“I meant no harm. But, ya know, the bread is so hard. And she was so thin.” Polly turned to her with haunted eyes. “Do you know what they’d do to me if they ever found out?”
Kit’s eyes grew round. “The dungeon!”
Polly nodded. “Ya mustn’t tell!”
“I won’t,” Kit replied earnestly.
“Swear,” Polly said, leaning forward to study her face.
“I swear it on me mother’s grave, God rest ‘er soul.”
Polly sat back heavily, putting a hand to her chest. “Oh, but telling someone is a weight off me chest. I thought fer sure I would burst with the secret. But now I have you ta talk to.”
They watched the flames dance before their eyes, content and warm.
“Lord have mercy,” Polly whispered into the silence. “But I owe the Angel ‘o Death me life.”
A glimmer flashed in the shadows behind them, and a dark shape receded, taking with it the white of a smile.