by Nicole Locke
* * *
It was the bemusement on Evrart’s face Margery couldn’t let go of. After all the words they’d said to each other, all the dark memories they’d shared, his confused delight eased every dark corner of her heart.
When she’d stumbled across the field she had expected rejection. And yet he’d accepted her. He always had accepted her because of his own life. He hadn’t wanted to talk of her past because he hadn’t wanted to tell her about his. They still didn’t know everything, but it was enough for now.
This was a good village, with kind people, but he had been stolen away from it, like her, and it had formed the way they were. Except despite their darkness Evrart was almost smiling—which was a sight she loved. He had a secret he wanted to tell her, and yet he was nervous.
‘Tell me,’ she said.
‘He saved you for me,’ he said. ‘He brought you into the courtyard and said it would be “interesting”. He meant you.’
Evrart looked behind her and smiled again before he returned his warm gaze to hers.
‘I could never tell if Ian was good or bad. My instinct feared him, but he did odd things. Like marrying Séverine and having those boys. I thought he took them away for cruelty, but I wonder if he did it to save them. And I think he saved you for me.’
Her heart was breaking, and building, and breaking again.
She placed a hand there, just to hold it in. ‘Evrart...’
What were the ways of a man who loved and hated? Who was cunning and beyond all reason? Except hadn’t Ian said words to her that were almost the same—that he had other purposes for her, but he was running out of time. Could this be? Yes, if they let it.
‘I think it’s true,’ she said. ‘You are for me.’
‘How could he have known it?’
‘Do I look like other women you have liked?’
‘How would I know?’ He shook his head. ‘I like it that you forget...that you don’t think I’m flawed.’ He frowned. ‘Do you think we can let go of Warstones and their intrigues? That we can talk of it, but not be in the middle of it all. For now, whilst we can?’
For them, it wasn’t about all that she had been told, it was about how much she trusted—and for once she did, and fully. She trusted Evrart with everything.
‘For now,’ she said. ‘But if some defending has to be done...’
‘We’ll do it,’ he answered. ‘Now, turn around.’
She didn’t want to. Because he kept looking behind her, and that meant there were people there. When she’d started telling him of her life, she’d thought he’d be so disgusted he’d let her leave, and she wouldn’t have to face others.
‘For someone who doesn’t like to talk, you certainly are demanding,’ she said.
‘You’ll want to see this.’
No, she wouldn’t. But if she wanted to stay that meant facing a lot of truths.
Forcing herself, she looked over her shoulder. The field was thankfully empty, except for two people standing shoulder to shoulder, almost within touching distance.
Blanche and Peronelle. How much had they heard?
‘So this is it?’ Peronelle said.
‘It is.’ Evrart laid his hand on her shoulder.
Margery liked having his strength and presence at her back again. She wanted to pat his hand in return, but hers were covered with mud.
‘You don’t even love her,’ Peronelle said.
Evrart exhaled and ruffled her hair. ‘Not love her? I would die for her. I almost did.’
‘You didn’t marry her. How come you didn’t marry her if you love her?’ Peronelle said.
Margery cringed. It was true—and something the village no doubt talked about.
‘I haven’t married her because I didn’t want it to be in the Warstone chapel. Not with that chaplain...not with those funerals just done.’
He said it so simply. So easily.
She looked up at him. ‘You want to marry me?’
His eyes swung to hers, and he stared at her as if she’d grown two heads.
‘Peronelle, Mama, could you give us a moment?’
‘Again!’ Peronelle flounced away, but she was smiling as if she’d won something. ‘I don’t know what you intend to do with her.’
‘What I intend is none of your concern. Now, go.’
‘Welcome to the family, Margery,’ Peronelle said with a wink. ‘When you get new shoes, I want some too.’
Blanche held up the muddy ones that she must have pulled from the field, smiled, and then grabbed Peronelle’s arm to propel her off the ruined field.
Now that she’d turned around, Margery could see some of the other villagers hiding behind walls and corners. Could they see how stunned she was?
Evrart turned her around. ‘What is it?’
‘Your mother...she smiled at me.’
‘She likes you.’
‘Likes me? She did pick up my shoes, but there’s no indication that she’ll give them back—and how will I know when she says nothing to me?’
Evrart shook his head, as if she was woefully wrong. ‘How many words do you think my mother has ever said to me? My mother smiles, pats, but hardly says a word. That’s just her way. That was my way until you forced me to be a man who chatters.’
‘“A man who chatters”?’ Margery giggled.
‘I remember being quiet with you until I realised I couldn’t just give an order and you’d follow it. That being near you required words.’
He said it as if it had been some arduous task.
‘So when she said I was small...?’
‘You are small,’ he said.
‘And when we arrived and she ordered me to rest?’
‘Didn’t I mention you were tired?’
Perhaps. ‘So your mother...?’
‘Is full of joy that you’re here.’
‘Your sister, however... Although she winked at me.’
‘Full of mischief—as are all children at fourteen years.’
Margery gaped. She had known Peronelle was young, but she towered...
Evrart just nodded, as if he knew her thoughts. ‘It’s because we’re tall. Everyone believes we’re older than we are.’
He wasn’t! ‘How old are you?’
His eyes crinkled. ‘Old enough.’
And now he had a sense of humour... ‘We have just argued. Terribly.’
He smiled. ‘We have, and I was hoping for it. You haven’t been yourself and I should have seen that. Can you forgive me?’
‘Forgive you?’
‘I shouldn’t have brought you here; you probably hate villages like this.’
‘Mine wasn’t anything like yours. I didn’t know people and neighbours could be so kind.’
‘Or so curious?’
‘They are trying to hide,’ she said. Her neighbours would have taken advantage of the argument. Interjected and made it worse. ‘There might be more arguments.’
‘I have no doubt,’ he said. ‘We spent days together under the worst kind of strain, with Ian of Warstone, your being held captive, your sister out to rescue you, the poisoned ale... We needed to have words. And then there’s you...’
Evrart’s tone was still light, but was he implying...? ‘Are you saying I’m the cause of our argument?’
‘You’re not the silent type.’
If she could put her face in her hands, she would. If she could hide for years, she would. ‘I can’t believe I did that!’
‘Can’t believe you told the entire village you love me?’
She thought back on that treacherous walk. ‘That’s not what I said.’
‘Margery, if you had seen your face, and the fact you were so determined to get to me... Let me assure you—you told them you love me. I was so stunned I couldn’t feel my legs or move t
hem. I’m thankful my friends departed and let us get on with the declaring.’
He had been stunned. That was the reason he hadn’t met her halfway when she had been ranting across the field.
‘You told Peronelle you loved me,’ she said.
‘I told you as well.’ His brows drew in as he took in her confusion. ‘You asked me if I had feelings for you, and I told you I did.’
She blinked. ‘You said—’
His brows rose and he huffed. ‘When I said I felt every feeling for you, how could that not mean love?’
Evrart had declared to her back at the Warstone Fortress he loved her. All this time she had been a coward, full of doubt and worry, and all she’d had to do was ask him what he meant.
It appeared she had some lessons to learn on talking as well. Maybe they’d learn together.
‘So this is it? We’ll live here, where you spent your childhood, and I’ll help you in the fields?’
‘If you want,’ he said. ‘But we’ll be needing a bigger, separate home.’
‘Peronelle will like that.’
‘I’ll like it just to stop her asking when we’re leaving.’
‘Have you talked to her about leaving?’
Evrart shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’
Margery wanted to laugh. She’d thought when Peronelle had said she would be leaving soon it would be only her. And his mother was simply quiet like her son. Oh, so much she didn’t know!
‘I like your mother,’ Margery said. ‘I do. If some woman dressed like me, with ties to Warstone, had come into my home to snatch my son I’d have done worse than give her smiles and quiet. I’d have been there with a hot cast iron pot at the ready.’
He frowned. ‘Don’t—’
‘I’m not.’
She went to brush her face, looked at her hands and dropped them again. They wouldn’t feel shame or remorse over their pasts, which could not be changed. Their pasts had brought them together. That she could never regret—not once, not ever.
She could only hope their children would find this kind of happiness, too.
‘After dealing with your sister, I think I can just about handle anything. Maybe in a few years we can have her visit Warstone Fortress.’
Evrart threw back his head and laughed. ‘To have Biedeluue straighten her out?’
She’d been thinking of something more permanent. ‘Aren’t there unmarried guards there...?’
Evrart’s brows rose. ‘A sound idea...or maybe she’ll get stolen along the way.’
‘Stolen?’
‘As you and I were from our homes,’ he said. ‘It turned out well for us.’
All those years of suffering, of worry and fear, for both of them. And yet...
‘It turned out very well for me,’ she said.
‘You?’
‘Because of you, I’ll be the one having no problem leaving this field when you carry me out.’
In flash she was in his arms. Grinning, she rubbed her mud-laden hands against his chest.
He growled and buried his nose in her neck. ‘You’ll pay for that.’
She could think of a few ways and hoped his mother and sister had somewhere else to go for the afternoon.
Laughing under her words, she continued, ‘But you don’t know the greatest reason why I have fared so well. If we ever go picking fruit, I shall never need a ladder again!’
‘I’ll show you a ladder...’
She arched her brow. ‘Oh? You’ll show me?’
Flipping her over his shoulder, Evrart ran across the field; mud splattered everywhere. He cursed.
Shrieking and sliding, Margery laughed. ‘What is it?’
‘There’s only a pond nearby, and we can’t bathe in peace!’
* * *
If you enjoyed this story, be sure to read
the previous books in Nicole Locke’s
Lovers and Legends miniseries
The Knight’s Broken Promise
Her Enemy Highlander
The Highland Laird’s Bride
In Debt to the Enemy Lord
The Knight’s Scarred Maiden
Her Christmas Knight
Reclaimed by the Knight
Her Dark Knight’s Redemption
Captured by Her Enemy Knight
The Maiden and the Mercenary
The Knight’s Runaway Maiden
Keep reading for an excerpt from A Blues Singer to Redeem Him by Elle Jackson.
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A Blues Singer to Redeem Him
by Elle Jackson
Prologue
May 31, 1921, Greenwood, Oklahoma
Evelyn
Evelyn Laroque had never smelled human flesh burn. The metallic stench hung heavy in the air as she and her family packed to flee Greenwood. Her father and mother, Mr. and Dr. Laroque, had heard from one of their friends in the Tulsa Police Department about the mob headed for Greenwood.
Evelyn’s fearless mother trembled with terror. Watching as her mother’s hands shook, Evelyn blinked back warm tears. Her mother dropped several garments to the floor before they actually made it into the bag she was packing. The smoke from the fires seeped into their two-story home like the smells from a barbeque.
Evelyn followed her mother from the kitchen to the living room, stepping over large bags filled with her mother’s medical books, her dad’s collection of pocket watches, the jewelry her grandmother had handed down to her mother, that Evelyn had used to play dress-up as a child. The black bags stood out against the gray couch, the light oak floors, and paisley-patterned red-and-beige carpet.
“Why do we have to leave?”
Evelyn stood under the arched opening separating the dining room from the living room, intentionally blocking her mother’s way. She tried desperately not to yell, but she could no longer feign indifference to her mother’s resolve to flee. Her mother had been flitting about since she’d gotten the phone call. As soon as the first gunshots rang out, her mother’s demeanor had completely changed.
“Evelyn Anne Laroque, go to your room and pack. We don’t have much time, so only take the things you need.” Her mother’s voice quivered.
“No, Momma. I’m not going. If the police know about what’s happening, why aren’t they stopping it?”
Evelyn couldn’t understand what her mother was doing. Her mother hadn’t backed down from a fight ever. Now Evelyn couldn’t reconcile the woman she saw, hands shaking, packing only the essentials, with the woman who’d fought to become a doctor when the entire world had said she wasn’t smart enough, wasn’t good enough.
How could her mother leave Greenwood so willingly? Their custom-made artistic white house with navy shutters was their dream home, a home that contained some of their best memories—Evelyn’s seveneenth birthday, the first time she’d told her parents about her dream to become a singer and the first date she’d been allowed to go on with Jimmy Martin, a future dentist.
In her mother’s study, Evelyn could see the destruction from the window. Their house sat high on a hill that overlooked Greenwood. Tulsa was flat, but her parents had bought the only lot that offered a view of the city.
Black clouds of suffocating smoke billowed up from the raging fire that ate through the entire town. The mob led by the Ku Klux Klan had opened the gates of hell and were burning everything the residents of Greenwood had. Hate had clawed its way into Tulsa and erupted on the affluent Black section known as Black Wall Street.
Evelyn’s father had been silent throughout Evelyn’s protest. He quietly pulled pictures that couldn’t be replaced from the walls and stuffe
d them unceremoniously into a bag. Evelyn looked at him for a moment. What had he and her mother been like when they were Evelyn’s age? Was she the crazy one for wanting to stay and fight?
Evelyn’s mother went upstairs. Evelyn followed her. Her normally charismatic mother pulled clothes frantically from the drawers and took Evelyn’s favorite paintings from the walls. Beads of sweat dripped down her forehead. Her mother even packed Evelyn’s favorite gramophone records. She had many, but her mother knew Evelyn’s favorites were always on top.
Looking around one last time, Evelyn’s mother grabbed Evelyn’s arm and pulled her back down the stairs and out of the house. Her father threw as many bags as he could carry into their Nash Touring before returning to their home to get the rest. The smoke smothered Evelyn. She coughed, choking on the particles in the air that might be the remains of burned bodies—her friends and neighbors’ burned bodies. The thought made her retch.
Her mother opened the passenger door of their brand-new car and got in, pulling Evelyn after her. The future, no longer certain, clenched scorching hands around Evelyn’s throat and she coughed uncontrollably. She could barely breathe, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that her family owed it to the rest of Greenwood to stay and help.
“I’m not leaving without my friends, Momma. I can’t. What about the rest of our family? We have to help them.”
Dr. Laroque always had a stern expression. It was her normal everyday look. But today she had been more than stern throughout Evelyn’s objection to their abrupt retreat. By the time news had spread about the Black boy who’d been accused of attacking a White girl in an elevator Downtown, Evelyn’s mother had already had them packing.
“We told everyone we could, baby. Our family and friends are doing exactly what we’re doing right now—the only thing we can do. We have to get out of here before they kill us all.” Tears slid down Evelyn’s mother’s face, cresting over high cheekbones. Her dad used his thumb to wipe them away.
They’d only been in Greenwood a short time. Leaving Louisiana had seemed like the right thing to do. Evelyn and her older brother, Carmichael, her dad and her mother, had only come a year ago. They’d traveled a long way so her mother could practice medicine in a town where Black people could be successful.
